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#(i hope we are adults... prayer emoji)
caughdeighy · 2 years
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okay, no, because i saw someone defending joly poly's right to ~write about her trauma~ in re: online harassment and while i agree on principle that yes, online harassment is traumatic and people have crossed the line in threatening violence against her etc etc... what? way to entirely miss the FUCKING point.
the criticism i've seen levied against the book was NOT on the basis of "don't write about online harassment, wah wah, who cares about people threatening you on the internet?!" it was on the basis of like. the horrible ableist caricature of the story's "SJW villain". calling out SPECIFIC DIAGNOSES and pinning them to this ableist caricature, implying that anyone with those illnesses is an attention-seeker?!?!?? trying to make a sympathetic victim out of an artist who is "accused" of being racist, ableist, and transphobic - and isn't that exactly how JK paints herself as well? a sympathetic victim who's only been "accused", never actually done anything wrong, and doubled and tripled down and not apologized or taken accountability even once?
this isn't a criticism of writing about online harassment or about trauma, and if JK wanted to write about either of those things in a way that wasn't so blatantly two-faced, and STILL BIGOTED, i'd support her in that! but the book itself is STILL problematic in all the ways she's been called out on already. this book is just another way of trying to absolve herself, and/or take cheap shots at the victims of HER bigotry, while the #IStandWithJKR squad laughs along and pats her on the shoulders reassuringly. so, no, i don't feel bad making fun of her for writing this thing. it's pathetic and it's too long for a mystery novel and its intention is as clear as a goddamn blue sky.
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mikami · 2 years
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Hello! I am a long-time DN fan, but first time visitor to your tumblr - I'm working my way through everything (which, A++ blog, 10/10, all that), and I apologize if you've answered this and I just haven't gotten to it yet, but - as a Mikami fan, what are your least favorite mischaracterizations of him that appear in fanfic? what canon elements do you wish would appear more often? thank you for your time and your blog [prayer hands emoji]
Hey there, thank you so much!! Working your way through it all is a tall order with how long I've been at it, but I hope you find some stuff you like when you go digging <3
My least favourite thing in fic is when writers make Mikami constantly talk as if he's in warehouse breakdown mode. In so many fics he constantly acts like a maniac who can barely string two coherent sentences together and it drives me absolutely up the wall... Guys, the guy is a successful lawyer, he is composed and well-spoken in daily life... We see a lot of that, too....
The other and way more benign thing is that every fic that doesn't do the inane speech introduces him with "he smiled", which... Mikami doesn't smile a lot. I am always grateful when he is depicted as an actual real adult human being, but ah... it is always a first sign that the fic is still going to miss the mark by some.
And I guess that also answers what canon elements I'd like to see more often, huh? His seriousness, his distanced nature... I also would like to see more of his utter arrogance explored. Mikami's devotion to Kira is extremely selfish in nature - he only follows Kira because Kira validates believes he already had anyway. Mikami always puts his own opinion first, but he won't frame it as such. That's the kind of thing that would be really nice to read in a character study for once.
(I haven't actually gone looking for Mikami fics in a good while though so if someone wrote this in the last two years, I might have missed it.... I should check his tag again!)
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qpjianghu · 3 years
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PRODIGAL SON APPRECIATION WEEK, DAY 2: Favorite Female Character - DANI POWELL
My adoration for Dani Powell began with something simple and selfish: Her hair. 
Representation of Black women on TV is important, and Dani embracing her natural hair is a huge part of that, full stop. But Dani’s appearance is important to me, personally, as well. I have almost the exact same curly hair as Dani does (definitely my Jewish roots, heh), and I have never, in all the shows and movies I’ve watched, seen someone with her look – with my look – presented as the awesome, badass, beautiful (MALCOLM SAID IT) main female character. The quirky best friend? Sure. The funny, nerdy sidekick? Definitely. Never the strong, capable, complex detective. Never the romantic co-lead.
I have only recently come to embrace my dark curls. I grew up wanting to look like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera (it was the early ‘00s, okay?). Even freakin’ Taylor Swift forsook her “juvenile” curly look for the blonde waves she has today. If you wanted to be taken seriously as an adult woman, if you wanted to be viewed as cool, competent, sexy – you had to tame those wild curls. At least, that was the message projected at 10-year-old me.
And yet...LOOK. AT. HER.
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She is GLORIOUS. She is FIERCE. And when Malcolm casually called her “beautiful,” my heart grew seventeen sizes, not just for the rabid Brightwell shipper in me, but for the 10-year-old girl in me who always thought her curls were ugly.
Of course, all of this wouldn’t mean much if Aurora Perrineau didn’t imbue Dani Powell with gentle kindness as well, with an emotional vulnerability hidden right underneath her tougher-than-nails exterior. She is not your typical Strong Female Character, and she is all the stronger because of it. I love that Dani doesn’t love easily, but when she does, she loves fiercely. I love the scene where Dani side-eyes the idea of “women being with broken men in order to fix them,” because Malcolm is much more than just a “broken man,” and Dani is much more complex as well. I love that Dani can single-handedly take down a suspect in one scene, and tenderly hold Malcolm’s hand in the next.
If season 3 ever gets greenlit (PRAYER HANDS EMOJI), the first thing I would hope for is more backstory for Dani. She has so much potential as a character, and all we really know about her so far is that...one time she was a narc. There is so much more to explore with her, separate from her relationship with Malcolm (and separate from her relationship with Gil, tbh).
Dani Powell will always hold a very special place in my heart. Thank you to Aurora and the entire PSon writers room for bringing this incredible character to life!
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alexiaugustin · 4 years
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Okay here's why Eliott will definitely not cheat on Lucas with Lola in s6 and this stupid debate can die
Lola is 15/16 and Eliott is 19/20. And yes this is a huge age difference, Eliott is already going to university and Lola is in 10th grade goddamn!! And yes it also does make a difference that Eliott and Lucas met at school and started dating when they were both still going to school because this is how a normal relationship between teenagers works.
Also Flavie is 17 and Maxence is 26. She is still a minor!! and Maxence is an adult!! They wouldn't make their characters a thing or they would have had to cast someone who's way older than Flavie for the role of Lola
David and Niels have said several times that Eliott and Lucas won't break up. I'm sorry but if s6 really would be about another love triangle why the hell should they have "spoilered" that?? That wouldn't make any kind of sense. Imagine they would have said "no matter what will happen, Arthur is gonna end up alone by the end of s5" before s5 started streaming?? That would have made as much sense as them now being like "Lucas and Eliott are endgame" when they are actually setting up a love triangle. Right, it's nonsense
Also can we please not forget about the "prayer circle for lebian lola" tweet which David retweeted and added a candle emoji to?? I hope y'all do realize that if Lola is not actually lebian or at least w|w this was peak queerbaiting and I'm gonna be the first to call David out for it. But actually it means or at least it really should mean that lola is w|w and that would make my heart so so happy
Eliott and Lola friendship would be the most powerful friendship the world has ever seen and their big brother/little sister dynamic would be *chefs kiss*. That's it. That's the argument
And yes I know that I've also joked about elula (akkskskakak) drama but I can't believe that some of y'all are actually serious about this and I really don't want y'all to be like "oh my gosh lola and eliott are gonna be a thing" whenever they just say hello and start being cute besties because damn that would be such a mood killer.
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[6]
OH IS THIS THE INFINITY ARC THEN? I’ve heard of this. I don’t know anything about it, but I’ve heard the name whispered in the corners and then immediately hidden from view because of spoilers. Sounds like we might be here for a while?
Either way they’ve been here for three months. And my immediate thought is that it’s probably too much to expect that Kurogane and Fai have had a single adult conversation about their feelings in that time, so they’re probably still divorced for the moment. 
I’d like to think that SOMEONE sat Lava Lamp down and was like “hey, so, can you just. Like. Tell us everything you know. Right now.” Because he knows THINGS. At the very least he should know more about Evil Wolverine, and that should interest Kurogane, but I’m hoping if they talked about anything important we would have seen it. I feel like Fai would have been smart enough to needle these answers out of him as soon as possible and yet I dont think he actually did, because I think Fai knows a lot about Evil Wolverine too, and so wouldn’t need to know anything extra at this point. So, I’m stuck at the expectation that they’ve been here for three months and no-one has asked Lava Lamp any questions about his past at all. Which, you know, also fits how these nerds usually function, so. I guess we’ll go with that until proven otherwise. 
Can we also just appreciate how incredible and fierce Sakura looks on her throne of death right there. [prayer hands emoji] [one hundred percent emoji] [ok emoji]
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Coming from you, that’s rather rich. 
Also ARE YOU THOSE NERDS FROM MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH? YOU ARE AREN’T YOU. 
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gonnagetyoubaby · 6 years
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Anonymous - Taehyung/ Part 9
In which you decide to text a number scrawled on the walls of your lecture hall.
Genre: Fluff
Chapters: {1} {2} {3} {4} {5} {6} {7} {8} {9} To Be Continued…
Tagged readers: @rainbow-pandacorn
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Your thumbs tapped across the glass, sending a quick “done” followed by a series of thumbs-up emojis—just enough to reciprocate the number you’d received from Jimin.
The music continued to play from your phone speaker as you placed it on the dresser, returning your attention to the curler beside it. With quick twirls, you steamed away the frizz and shapelessness of the last layer of hair tied to your crown. Rubbing serum into your palms, you ran your fingers through your hair, heading to the en-suite bathroom to wash the excess from your hands before giving yourself one last once-over.
This wasn’t Broadway, sure, but you weren’t really dressed for Broadway, were you?
The onslaught of athleisure culture on campus made your chiffon blouse and skirt ensemble look painfully formal, and the last thing you would want anyone—especially Jimin—to think is that you put any genuine thought into this outfit (even if that was the case).
Your phone vibrated from the bedroom. Striding over, you read the notification from your lockscreen.
Jimin: Almost there. Make sure you wear something nice love 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕
There was no way you were reciprocating those emojis. With a sidelong glance at your closet, you let yourself think about maybe, potentially changing real quick. Leggings and a sweater were never the wrong decision. The chiffon blouse might be a bit much, no? It seemed a little try-hard. And you certainly were not a try-hard. Not for Jimin. And definitely not for what’s-his-name. But, as luck would have it, the phone in your palm lit up with another message.
Jimin: Here.
The outfit only says as much as the attitude you adopt when you wear it anyways. Glancing in the dresser mirror one last time, you nodded in satisfaction. Blessed be the Gods who granted you a face so naturally apathetic, even the nicest outfit couldn’t make you appear approachable. Grabbing your bag, you headed downstairs, shutting the door behind you.
The fact that Jimin drove a coupe should have come as no surprise to you. He leaned over the steering wheel waving at you through the passenger window. You skipped over the foliage by the dorm gate and slipped into the car. He flashed a hundred watt smile.
“You look nice.” He almost giggled, the words dripping with innuendo.
“Let’s just go.” You mumbled back, sinking into the chair.
The smile never faltering on his lips, he shifted gears, zooming away, ever the speed demon.
“You know we’re still technically in a school zone.”
“It’s a college campus, love. We’re all adults here.” He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road, switching lanes as he found himself behind one of the school shuttle buses strolling at a leisurely 30 miles per hour. “Besides, you wanna get good seats, don’t you?”
"This isn't a reserved seating type of thing?"
He arched a brow, lip twitching. "Have you been to a theater performance before?"
You turned to stare out the window, "I mean, once or twice... when I was in middle school..."
Although you didn't see his face, the scoff was enough to let you gauge his reaction.
"Since middle school?" his voice went up an octave, "How do you expect to date- uh- my friend---"
"Damn, you'll slip his name one of these days---"
"--If you don't even like theater?"
You rolled your eyes, turning to him again, "First of all, I don't wanna date him--"
"Mmmmmmmmmmhmm--"
"-- And second, I don't not like it, I just... never got around to going."
The car inched forward, still behind the shuttle, stopping yet again. Jimin mumbled a curse as the rear lights flashed and the shuttle slowed. He sighed, glancing at you, "Well, you'll like this one. It's a good one to break your musical virginity with."
"I'm not a---"
"Middle school doesn't count, love."
"Whatever." you half-laughed, leaning an elbow on the sill of the window, resting your head in your palm, "It better be good."
"Are you doubting our talents?" he smirked.
"If Mystery Man acts anything like he texts, then..."
Jimin burst into a peal of laughter, turning back to the road, "He's pretty great, actually. You'll enjoy his performance."
Even as his laugh faded, the secret smile lingered on his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed your glare, chuckling softly, "I'm not telling you, okay? You're lucky I even told you this much."
"Well, what's the point of going if I don't even know who I'm looking for?" you whined, arms flailing in front of you.
The shuttle continued forward and Jimin pressed on the accelerate, your body jutting forward as the car hummed to life. The smirk on his lips told you it wasn't an accident.
"And why aren't you performing?" you frowned, pushing your hair back from where it'd fallen over your eyes, "I thought you were both in the production."
He shook his head, the car speeding up and swerving around the shuttle via the left lane. Your hand clutched at the armrest, a sharp "Jesus!" falling from your lips.
"We have to do at least one backstage production for a major requirement-- you know, to get some experience behind the scenes-- and I volunteered for this one."
He faced you, grinning from ear to ear, "I did the choreography."
You gave him a tight smile, clutching the dashboard as he took a sharp turn.
"Do you wanna slow down a little?" you mumbled, voice shaking slightly.
Unfazed, Jimin zoomed down the street, one hand off the wheel to point at the time, "We're gonna be late. Just hold on, love."
You muttered a short prayer-- apparently not quiet enough, as Jimin giggled and, for no other reason than sadistic pleasure, you were sure, sped up.
The congestion of the parking lot might have suggested Jimin was right to speed up. Although the time on the dashboard indicated you still had a good twenty minutes before the show started, the lot was almost entirely packed, forcing (or at least that was how he phrased it) Jimin to park on the grass. The car fizzled off as he glided out, heading over to help you out, arm naturally coming around your shoulders as he guided you towards the repertory theater. Through your classes and study sessions together, you’d come to learn Jimin was an innately touchy person, which also meant you could easily brush him off without inspiring offense, so you weren’t surprised when he barely noticed you sidestepping his arm.
“You didn’t even tell me what the production is.”
Jimin stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, shrugging with a sly smile. “No point in ruining the surprise now. You’ll see when we get inside.”
He skipped ahead, compelling you to half-run to keep up.
The congestion of the parking lot should have warned you of the state of the main hall, yet, even so, you weren’t prepared for the sheer number of bodies crowded together waiting to get in. The ushers, clad in staff shirts, manned the double doors, eyeing the clock by the entrance.
“The show starts in fifteen.” Jimin yelled into your ear over the cacophony of voices, “They’ll start letting people in soon.”
You nodded, eyes scanning over the crowd, the posters on the wall too obstructed by the bodies to properly read. Sure enough, in a matter of minutes, the double doors opened and the ushers began collecting tickets in exchange for programs. The crowd slowly formed a makeshift double line, shuffling forward.
When you’d finally reached the doors, Jimin pulled out two tickets, handing them to the usher. She returned a thick program, which he handed off to you. As he guided you to your seats, arm around your shoulders again, you read the front of the packet.
“The Great Gatsby?” your eyes widened, “I didn’t know there was a play for this.”
“Musical.” He corrected, moving you in front of him to enter the aisle, “Sit there, A6.”
He sat beside you, taking the program, “And you’re right, it’s been transcribed.”
“From the book?”
“From the movie.” He flipped through the pages, showing you a list of scenes, “The new one, you know? They used the songs and assigned some of them to characters. So, like, Daisy does a number for Young and Beautiful, Jordan Baker’s gonna perform at the party, and so on. It’s cool right?”
You nodded, looking over the group photo beside the list of scenes. Jimin squatted in the front row, holding up a peace sign and flashing a hundred watt smile like the rest of the cast and crew. You smiled to yourself, looking over their faces. There were a number of boys, none of whom stood very close to Jimin.
“Are you looking for your Mystery Man?” he teased from beside you.
You glanced up, hoping the blush on your cheeks wasn’t visible in the dim auditorium lighting, “No. Just looking.”
“Which one do you think he is?”
You pressed your lips together, “If I guess right, would you tell me?”
He thought for a moment before grinning, “No.”
“Then what’s the point of guessing?” you folded your arms, leaning back in your chair. He laughed lightly to himself, handing you the program.
“You’ll see him on stage. I told you he was one of the major characters, didn’t I?”
“There’s several major male characters in this. He could be Tom Buchanan for all I know. ” You sighed, before remembering his texts. You flipped through the program to the last page, listing the cast and crew, the short instance of excitement shriveling up at the sight. The first page alone has at least 10 names.
“I thought only the relevant characters get bios,” you whined, “The whole goddamn cast is on here.”
Jimin bit back a laugh, perhaps deciding no response was the best response. Nonetheless, you skimmed over the names. Kim Brian, Woo Jiyeon, Im Kaerim, Kim Taehyung. The short bios gave little away other than their theater credentials, and that wasn’t going to help you either. With a sigh, you closed the program, just as the lights dimmed.
“How about this?” Jimin whispered, leaning into your ear, “By the end of the play, if you can guess who your mystery man is, I’ll tell you.”
“Why not now?” you leaned in as well, holding up the program, “I have the picture.”
The orchestra began to play, the strings lilting with Jimin’s laugh, “What’s the fun in that? Then you’ll know before it’s even started.”
A  husky voice began to narrate over the speakers, “In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice.”
“Or you know I won’t be able to guess when he’s in costume.”
“"Always try to see the best in people," he would say.” The voice continued.
“You don’t even know what he looks like without costume.”
“As a consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments.”
You bit your lip. The stage lights faded in, and, for reasons beyond your comprehension, your mind wandered to the last conversation you’d had with the man behind those anonymous texts; to the abrupt way he’d ended your conversation. And to the realization, he hadn’t reached out to you since. You turned to Jimin, wringing the program in your hands.
“Fine.”
He grinned and nodded towards the stage. You turned.
Illuminated at the center of the stage, situated at a desk, was Nick Carraway. A dusty brown mop of hair hunched over the table, writing rapidly in a notebook, the sound of his fountain pen scratching the parchment sounding through the speakers. The orchestra matched the sound with screeching violins, building to a crescendo until it ceased altogether. The man sighed, slowly sitting back and looking out at the audience. For a moment, he said nothing, and you didn’t realize you were holding in your breath, until his gaze reached your side of the audience—or was it only you? The stage was close enough that you could make out the flicker of a frown across his face. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jimin smile. Nick Carraway’s lips parted, eyes lingering on yours before he stared into the abyss of the audience.  
“But even I have a limit.”
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kiradurbin · 5 years
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Super Short Reviews:  Spring TV part two:
Siempre Bruja (Netflix) – Spain.  The story’s not bad...  the acting’s not good... but oh that world!   The Caribbean coast of Cartegna with some scenes in the present and some scenes in the past.   And the heroine, Angely Gaviria sure is plucky!!  
Miracle Workers (TBS) – When I saw the cast list for this I was super stoked.  If Steve Buscemi was God and Karan Soni (Deadpool) was his angel executive assistant and Daniel Radcliffe’s angel ran the prayer department it would make for a pretty funny workplace comedy right?!?  Someone forgot to tell the writers.  Sad face emoji.
Workin Moms (Netflix) – Canada. There are 2 basic kinds of comedies... 1. You root for the likable people and laugh with them when trouble comes a calling... or 2. You watch messy not particularly likable people trying to wade through the trouble they bring on themselves by doing stupid things. This show is the second kind.
The Fix (ABC) – I like me some Robin Tunney.  And Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje is awesome.  And I was so excited to see Merrin Dungey!!  BUT... created by Marcia Clark with a story line not even trying to be subtle about asking ‘what if OJ did it again?’ … a little too self-indulgent for me.  Which sucks cuz there are so many interesting actors here.  
The Village (NBC) – NBC tries valiantly to keep its THIS IS US viewers with another tear-jerker ensemble drama.  This one’s based in NYC where “Family’s where you find it, kid,” and since they’re in NYC the ensemble is far more diverse.   Lorraine Toussaint rules !!
After Life (Netflix) – UK.  It’s Ricky Gervais.  Soooooooo  If you like Ricky Gervais you’ll be disappointed as this isnt nearly as funny as his other projects … and if you don’t like Ricky Gervais you’ll be pleasantly surprised because he’s actually really enjoyable when he’s not trying super hard to be funny.  
Abby’s (NBC) – Only Boston would allow a Bar in someone’s backyard!!  Not very practical to say the least.  But really this fails because the the lead (Abby) is not likable or funny at all.   Not sure how this got green lit with her as the lead.  The excellent supporting cast cannot save this show.  
Tacoma FD (TruTv) – Kinda like The Office if it were about firefighters.   Great silliness and fun. What a treat to watch a comedy that’s FUNNY.  
Pen15 (Hulu) – Two adult (?) women play junior high characters, surrounded by young people playing junior high characters.  Feels like they (the creators) wanted to blow up all the bad stuff that happened to them in junior high so they could laugh about it now ...   I mostly felt like:  seriously its junior high, get over it, what else is on.
What We Do in the Shadows (FX) – Kinda like The Office if it were about Vampires.   Perfect for the late night tokers.  Harvey Guillén is as priceless as he was on The Magicians.  
In the Dark (CW) – Now here’s a leading lady.  Perry Mattfeld plays her drama as well as her smart ass comments.  And even when she makes bad choices, its a CW show so you know she’s gonna grow and become a better person.  Or is she?   Maybe she will stay bitchy... Im hoping so.  Anyway i’m still watching to find out.  Its hard to put this into a genre or even say why it works.  Its too old for the tweenies and too young for Gen X... but there it is.  
A Discovery of Witches (AMC / BBCA) – I read all these books so I was super skeptical.  And I was right. The story is told way too quickly and lots of things are left out… but you probably didnt read the books so just enjoy it for what it is –- witches and vampires and daemons, and genetics and history.  Its superficial at times but its still British.  Thumbs up.
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freelanews-blog · 4 years
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New generation beggars
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The other day, I was on my way home from shopping when some random guy came into my line of vision. He beckoned to me and started to demand that I give him money. I did not respond; I did not stop walking. He, too, did not stop walking or quit talking. Somewhere along the few steps we took together, the content of his speech changed: he had started to curse at me, or more accurately, at my mother. My female companion, born and bred in Agege, cut him off with a look. She might have engaged him if I didn’t pull her away. As I think about this almost benign incident, it comes to me as a marker of a not-so-old Lagos metonym. Make no mistakes; we have always had beggars in Lagos. But they were often old and sincerely destitute – sometimes from up country and maybe neighbouring countries. But my assailant was young, not infirm, virile and Yoruba. Here is an arguable fact, Yoruba people do not beg. They may be area boys, touts, louts, cultists but they do not beg. When, then, did this new ethos take root? That we have a crop of young Nigerians, able-bodied, who parade every corner demanding money or other belongings with such a brazen sense of entitlement. When did it become a norm that one had to possess a certain level of braggadocio to walk around in broad daylight? Of organised things, Lagos has always been home to organisation. Organised government, organised religion outlets, organised crime and now, organised begging. On every major road on the mainland, you are likely to find somebody with some grotesque body part – maybe a swollen stomach or a disproportionate head or inflamed genitals, sitting in full few of work goers with a megaphone beside him playing Prospa Ochimana’s Ekweme, while somebody, holds a blue metal-rimmed offering bag and flex printed image of the infirm fellow. Better to see the problem in larger than life-size, if you refuse to look at it in 3d. The elaborate props – the megaphones, the flex banners, the handlers – give away the beggars’ sense of organisation. These people who hold these flex banners and offering bags, who are they? Is their choice of Ekweme – with its slow drawn out acoustics and appeal to immanence – a means of guilt-tripping passers-by to part with their money? Does it strike anyone as curious that these people with body deformities seem to be on a shift, rotating their stations? Perhaps, they get paid like the child-beggars who sang for Surdas in The Slumdog Millionaire! An interesting story broke on Twitter recently. A young man was trying to get to Surulere from Costain at 1pm on a weekday, and he kept hearing calls of Nigga wa, Nigga Duro – meaning Nigger come, Niger wait. It took him a while to realise it was a masquerade begging him for money. That tweet generated responses, and one particular response was from a woman who had had the same experience. While the original tweet had been inconclusive and ended with the word ‘Lagos,’ and a laughing emoji, her own story had ended with being forcibly dispossessed of her belongings by those masquerades – beings who traditional Yoruba culture believe have come from heaven. Different versions of this masquerade begging play out in all parts of Lagos. Sometimes, it is a young child dressed in masques, followed by adults going about begging for money. Sometimes, it is a baby, carried in the hands of adults. Sometimes, it is a full-grown man (they are always mostly men) who dons a masque and goes about begging people, sometimes bullying them out of their money. The gender dynamics of these young beggars is interesting to watch. The males often go about with the typical manly brash, square shouldered look, as if they had your choice in their pocket. The women often seem weak. They stop you on the corner and plead with you, telling you about their journey from some far-off place and how they are stranded. Some of them have children. And there is a variety who dress gorgeously, oozing sex appeal. Lagosians pay for everything: light, transport and even a hole one digs in the ground for his own hydration and sustenance. Now, Lagosians are being made to pay for the sicknesses, prayers and indolence of others. It is wrong that young people, virile as they are, are pushed to the point of beggary so much they lose hope and dignity. It is wrong that one needs a measure of braggadocio to just walk in broad daylight. It is sordid that the beggars of the daytime often become the pickpockets of the evening crowd and, if they get desperate enough, armed robbers at night. It is bad that people who genuinely need help are usually passed over because they are not discernible from the charlatans. It is interesting that between being a no man’s land and an everyman’s land, Lagos has now become the land of the strong. Perhaps, the government might do something about it, maybe open a functional facility for the truly destitute and take the mats from beneath the people who might be fleecing them. Perhaps the government would create more jobs and opportunity for the teeming population that constantly roam the state. Perhaps the government will ensure that there is better policing to safeguard well-meaning people. But while they are at it, you need to keep safe. You need to speak with a strong voice and defend yourself and your possession. You must remember that Fela said that on Monday morning, Lagos will take no foolishness. Read the full article
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mandimormon-blog · 7 years
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Seaweed and Dirty Filters
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Typically, as I type a blog, I have bullet points or a keyword list stored as a note, on my phone. Not because I forget everything, but I forget everything UNLESS someone offends me.  In the case, I remember the exact year, day, weather, time, location, minute, what clothing we both were wearing, and whether or not I was having a good hair day.
Last week, as I pecked away at the keyboard, I forgot a little gem.  It’s probably because my mind shifts focus dozens of times and when I remember where I was originally going with something, it’s too late.  It’s posted.
Picture this.  We go about the same weekly, school routine, day-by-day.  We arise and shine forth, extra early or most of the time not a minute before 7:00 a.m. expecting to be arriving at school sometime between 7:55-8:05.   A long time ago, (like last school year), I used to be up before the sun, getting five miles in and starting morning chores long before 7:00 a.m. rolled around.  This year, however, my son began all-day Kindergarten meaning, I have about seven hours a day to get household chores underway, a run in, weights in, and all of the errand running done (because let’s face it – it’s easier to fly solo when purchasing the weekly groceries).  I require my sleep.  I even get lots of stars on my FitBit for getting enough sleep per night.  Yep, that feels like a participation trophy but it’s a good feeling to get enough sleep not to mention healthy, so I’m not ashamed.
Back to rolling out of bed at 7:00, dragging my feet down the stairs, “inspiring” my children to get dressed in the clothing they laid out for school, the evening before.  Mamma-pedia’s Definitition of “inspiring” means bribing; repeating up to, but not more than 12 times; announcement of privileges; threats of privilege-removal; threats of calling the parent (in the restroom upstairs) into the conversation;  and shouting, as a final resort.  
Then a breakfast compromise, naturally, because no two children enjoy the same thing at the same time. Then hair.  Oh hair.  Have you met my middle child?  Undoubtedly, everywhere we go this little chicky receives a minimum of three compliments on her naturally curly loose locks.  Caring for these gorgeous locks isn’t a beautiful process.  This little girl is very independent and stubborn.  Every. Single. Day. Is a battle over the hair.  Every. Day.  If I choose to pull it into a ponytail or bun, she’ll remove it immediately because it wasn’t her choice.  After the effort to catch her running around the couch, bar, up the stairs, around the table, and spray detangling all over her, the floor, sometimes even my husband if she has to be lovingly restrained, hair styled and then it’s removed, in the blink of an eye, you can only imagine how frustrated I become.   Actually, not that frustrated anymore.  I can’t be fazed.  I just look like the Kermit memes or the emoji with its mouth closed straight across and eyes shut.
Hair, eventually check, usually minutes before 8:00.  Then it’s teeth brushing, book bag gathering, shoe placement or shouting about shoe placement, and running out the front door.  
As parental blood pressures return to stable, we call on someone to give a morning family prayer, (yes, on the way to school in the truck, the whole family), and discuss the children’s agenda for the day.  On this given day, it was Friday, and as we slowly inched our way closer and closer to the drop-off location.  I remembered it was Friday and Jude’s show-n-tell day.  I said to him, “Jude, is today show-n-tell?”  His response, “Oh yeah, I forgot.”  
I looked to my left and to my right.  “Well, maybe we can find something in dad’s truck you can take in.”  He held up a paint-stir stick, “I can take this!”  
I opened the glove box and pulled out the contents.  Without thinking and laughing a little, “Here’s a Book of Mormon, you could take that.” He began hopping in his seat, “Yes, Yes! I want to take that!”  
I looked at my husband, who tried convincing him it probably wasn’t a good idea to take that to show-n-tell. But Jude was insistent now.  He was so excited, so we couldn’t take it from him.  We just hoped for the best.  After dropping the children off, my husband and I conversed about how this was going to go down.  I laughed and said there would probably be a note sent home with him.  But, honestly, I wish I had the faith this kid has to be bold and absolutely satisfied with things I choose to do.  
The day went by, that was the day we went to the temple last week, so my mother picked up the kids from school.  She told us this story when we returned from our day-date.  Note, she usually waits in the carline.  Today, a few classes were out to recess while she waited.  
She said as she was sitting in the carline she was looking around at all of the children playing on the playground.  She noticed one little boy, but thought it couldn’t possibly be Jude because that child had no hat and no gloves on, this day was chilly.  But then she realized that little boy absolutely had to be Jude because he was running around the blacktop, carrying a Book of Mormon in his hands.
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at this.  I even pulled Jude into the conversation my mother, husband, and I had, to ask about taking his show-n-tell to recess.  Sure enough, he let us know he did have it, it took it outside for both recesses.
Jude seems to be on a roll and has been for a couple of years now.  I’ve always heard the baby of the family is the comedian.  
On Wednesday, I was terribly busy.  I know you’re probably thinking ‘Yeah right’.  Valid. Truly valid.  But I dabble in a lot of extracurricular activities.  For one, I run.  I like to 5-6x a week.  So maybe an hour, hour and a half a day.  Weightlifting.  That’s 20-40 minutes.  On this particular day, I had to run, weightlift, runner-bathe… ‘Mamma-pedia’s Definition of “runner-bathe” – wash face, blow-dry sweat into hair, wipe off body with a damp towel and a little bit of soap, air dry, dress for the day.’
Then my mother and I ran over to Crawfordsville and hit up Kroger.  Have I mentioned how much I love their organics and gluten-free selections? Wow, I do.  Then since Wednesdays are early release, I ran inside, make a salad, inhaled it, and went to the school for pick-up.  I hadn’t really been home all day.  I didn’t realize how much of an impact this would make on my children until we all walked through the front door and Reis, stopped dead in her tracks, “Mom, why is the house a mess?”
Job Security.  That’s what I wanted to say.  I clean, clean, clean, every day.  A normal day those three kiddies walk in and everything is put away, the counters are clean, all articles of clothing clean and put away, the house is fragrant of essential oils from mopping or the diffuser, and even sometimes dinner is in the crockpot or ready to be prepped.  This particular day, not so much… the cereal bowls were still on the counter from the morning, a hair brush on the table, detangler out, hair cream.  Sink with several dishes, the counters weren’t wiped down a couple of pairs of shoes appeared sporadically on the floor, the couch was looking crazy.  The zipper is broken, so sometimes the guts of the couch hang out, you know what I mean?  The white stuffing.  Toys on the living room floor.  A hamper full of clothing next to the washer and dryer.  Barstools disheveled.  
As she said this I didn’t take offense, past the job security tidbit, I was like, “You are right. I have to clean it now.”   I’m not OCD. Not even a little bit.  My sink had blue clay residue for a couple of days around the bowl and like I mentioned my couch is undressed half of the time. If I were OCD that brown couch would be curbside.  I just have a routine I go about day-by-day, thinking no one noticed, but now I know they do.  
So, here I am straightening things up, Jude’s following me around at this point, discussing something with me.  We usually have very adult conversations together.  I opened up the utility closet door to place the vacuum back.  While it was open I hung another bag up on its hook, the furnace filter caught my eye.  It was still dust-covered.  
To my son, I commented, “I want to text your dad and ask him to get a furnace filter, but I’m afraid to, since I’ve already asked him, nine times.”
Jude replied, “Maybe he’s getting it for your birthday.”
Backing it up, on Monday my girls (plural) had 4-H meetings.  Remi is now old enough for Mini 4-H.  Reis has done 4-H since 3rd grade, but not Mini.  I, however, did Mini 4-H in second grade.  In second grade when times were simpler.  For example, you could bake cookies or build a birdhouse.  
In 2017, you can pick from a slew of projects, similar to the bigger kiddos, and this year you can even get a mentor and show a smaller livestock animal.  No cows.  
Reis had her first meeting of the year, too.  It was very successful and she’s stoked a friend of hers is taking a project this year.
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Tuesday was Valentine’s Day. That day was crazier than the Wednesday, I’d described.  But only because I choose for it to be crazy and I was crazy-proud of that.  
I set my alarm a little bit earlier than normal.  It wasn’t 7 a.m. prying myself out of bed like a zombie.  I had a hop in my step, because I had big plans for the fam.  
While they were sleeping, I made gluten-free blueberry muffins, homemade gluten-free fresh strawberry and chocolate chip pancakes, and fresh strawberries cut into hearts, with “pink milk” (aka Strawberry Milk – we don’t even do regular milk in our home, we usually opt for almond everything but this was a special day).
I gave my husband a box of one of his favorite kinds of a candy with a cheesy message on it and later in the day, I made him a loaf of gluten-free banana bread.  He said it was good.  But to me, the texture appeared very dry.   I couldn’t try it, AIP still going strong.  Speaking of AIP, I read the guide to reintroduction, a few days ago, and laughed out loud.  It said as you reintroduce a food group, you should take a small nibble of the food, wait 15 minutes, consume it and then don’t reintroduce anything else new for five days to note your reactions.  AIP Founders must not understand my life.  If I’m trying a food I’ve been forced to avoid for 30 days and my meals consist of vegetables with the exception of nightshades, no grains, no seeds, no nuts, no dairy, no soy, no processed foods – do you think I can just take a little nibble of something?  The answer is no.  No, I inhale that food and then eat more of it.  I did try an egg yolk a few days ago, so I’m going to venture to say it didn’t affect me in a bad way, and I should probably hard-boil more eggs.   Oh, the sacrifice!  
I ran, tossed around some weights, and got ready.  I went by the flower shop to send an arrangement to someone and noticed I was the only female, aside from the staff, all men on Valentine’s Day.  I was planning Miss Remi’s Valentine’s Party.  Of course, I had been for the past couple of weeks.  I delegated almost everything, but I still took in my insulated bag of backups, in case they were needed and a gluten-free party mix.  
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That morning, I decided to attend Jude’s party, too, since it was a half hour before Remi’s party. After his was over, I rushed to Remi’s, and feeling great about that one, because the moms did an exceptional job with their delegations.  Did I mention Remi and I both wore our matching Mommy and Me LuLaRoe Valentine Leggings?  We so did. She even wanted me to wear them to match her.  I had so many compliments because of how “festive” my leggings were.  
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I began to walk down the hallway, headed out of the building after her party, but noticed my oldest daughter in gym class.  I tried discreetly tapping on the window but it was probably super loud in there, so I just let myself in and yelled her name.  I’m sure she wasn’t embarrassed at all.
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She and her friend came quickly to me, probably hoping I didn’t yell her name, again.  I asked if she’d had her party and they told me it was in the next ten minutes.  I told them, I would probably come then.  
Classroom parties must be my weakness, because I know I described previously how proud I was at the beginning of the school year when I only signed up for one party per child so I wasn’t so stressed going to three parties and making three contributions or more for each holiday.  
I ran outside and moved my vehicle away from the bus lane, and went in for round three.   I unloaded a few things that wouldn’t be needed and reloaded my Mary Poppins insulated bag.  I was able to contribute a gluten-free party mix to this one, for my little Celiac Lady.
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After school, I rolled out gluten-free (do you wish you had a quarter for every time I said gluten-free?) pizza dough, I made from scratch.  I was crossing my fingers it would taste good to my children.  This variety, how about I say GF now?  GF anything carby – like breads, buns, donuts – are rarely yummy.  They usually have a funky texture and grainy taste.  I always speculate it’s because it’s crushed up almonds or some other kind of nut. It lacks fluff.
I made a huge heart shaped pizza for the children.  My husband isn’t a pizza fan.  (Which I’ve heard means Telestial Kingdom for him.)  So I made one of his favorite meals (that my children don’t like); Chicken Tetrazzini.  
Chorus for Reis, Kettlebell Tabata for me, and Ballet for Remi – by the end of the day, I was about to die from exhaustion.  The pep in my step had long gone away.  And I felt like that zombie I described I usually feel like when waking up of a morning.
On Friday night of this week (not to be confused with last week, since I did talk about that, too), we went on a double date to Fujiyama – the new hibachi restaurant in Danville. What a neat experience!  We were seated at a grill and the chef entertained us while cooking our table’s food.  Lots of fire and laughter, the food everyone got looked out of this world. My husband was particularly fond of the rice, which was surprising.  My GF food had to be prepped in the kitchen.  Boring, I know.  
My friends and husband even made fun of me because I got a seaweed salad and sashimi.  Even more funny, when I tried to tell the waitress I couldn’t have gluten, she asked me what I was saying 4x in a row.  Then finally she was like, “Oh, gluten-free?” I guess the “free” on the end clues people in.  
When I was asking about the details of the seaweed salad, she told me none of the people she’s ever waited on had ever gotten it.  Danville doesn’t eat seaweed, I guess.  
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I am really excited to take our children there to have this food experience!  After we finished up, we choose to bowl.  We also agreed Covington was a good idea.  Called, they said there was open bowling so we arrived. The parking lot seemed swamped. When we went in we were told it would be hours because the school was there.  Sure enough, high-schoolers, high-schoolers everywhere.  
Bummed because we were just in Danville, mind you ¾ of us are Mormon, we decided to go into the bar, where no one was, and play pool.  We drank gigantic ice waters and played pool.  The most stressed out I’d been all week, trying to figure out which pocket to aim for.  ;-)
Reis had a couple of friends spend the night, so they were quite busy being social butterflies.  On Saturday, Remi had another basketball game, where she made three baskets and had a few assists, too.  Jude was able to attend baseball camp, where he hit the ball multiple times and loved that.  Then Allen took him out for a Daddy-Son Date, Lazer Tag and lunch.
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Saturday was a busy, busy day, too, but it was gorgeous out.  Today, piggybacked the busy-ness.  We had a Youth Fireside after church.  I think I’ve said before, we have a three hour block for church. I have a meeting beforehand, unless my husband is out of the building, then I go on time.  Throughout the year, our youth ages 12-17, have Firesides or meetings they select the topic and speaker and we eat lunch together and listen before going home.  
Today, was the Standards Fireside.  Our Young Women had submitted questions and scenarios they’ve encountered and the panel (they choose) of ‘cool and trendy’ adults, answered them with life experience and the “why”.   The meal was my task.  So, I had to prep everything for ‘Walking Tacos’ or ‘Tacos in a Bag’.  I made a few up and they smelled awesome.  I’d heard from several people, too, they were awesome. I pretended my lettuce with mushrooms and cucumber in oil and vinegar and apple was actually a Walking Taco. You’re killin’ me, AIP.  Sundays are usually a binge eating day for me, since I’m gone for so many hours, I like my body reacts as if it’s important I refuel and tank up, just in case I’m gone away from the fridge for that period of time, again.  
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Here I sit, it’s now dark outside, and I need to go to my happy place.  My bed.
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sheminecrafts · 4 years
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Video app Marco Polo adds a subscription option amid coronavirus-led boost in usage
The coronavirus pandemic has sent record numbers of new users to video chat apps. Now, video messaging app Marco Polo aims to capitalize on the increases it’s also seeing to launch its new subscription business, Marco Polo Plus. The service delivers a handful of new features — including support for HD video, voice-only messaging options, custom emoji, expanded speed controls and more — for $5 per month with an annual subscription of $59.99.
On a monthly basis, the service costs $10 per month.
Marco Polo had already carved out its own space on the market before the coronavirus outbreak. Instead of focusing on live video calls or group video chats, Marco Polo focuses on asynchronous communication. That is, users leave a video message for friends and family, which the other party can watch at their convenience, then reply to.
This works particularly well for people who have different work schedules or those who are spread out among various timezones. It also works for adults who have less free time to chat than the teens who virtually “hang out” in group video chat apps, like Houseparty.
With the new Marco Polo Plus subscription, the company is offering an expanded feature set that will appeal to its most frequent users. However, it will remain an optional upgrade — free users will still be able to use Marco Polo as before.
Subscribers, meanwhile, will be able to message their friends and family in HD or have the option to respond using only their voice, for those times you’re not camera-ready.
The subscription will also expand its set of built-in reaction emoji, which today includes a smiley face, sad face, heart, prayer hands, and thumbs up — to now include support for adding any emoji from your keyboard.
In addition, subscribers will have more granular control over playback speed. While free users can choose to 2x their video messages, paying users will be able to access speed control options of anywhere between 1.5x and 3x speed.
They’ll also gain a time scrubber for more easily moving to different parts of the video and a scratchpad for personal notes. The latter is especially helpful for jotting down the different parts of the message you want to respond to — something that can be hard to remember after listening to a long video.
Subscribers will be able to share their $5 per month subscription in the form of “Plus Passes” you can dole out to friends and family, as well.
Like many apps in the space, Marco Polo has seen a sizable jump in usage due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it says.
In March 2020, Marco Polo saw a 16x increase in new sign-ups for its service and a 3x increase in activity versus the prior month. In one 24-hour period in April, Marco Polo even saw a record 20 million video messages shared in its app. And its social media campaign designed at reaching out to others, #PoloTogether, resulted in over 1 million check-ins.
According to data from Sensor Tower, Marco Polo has seen nearly 56 million lifetime installs across iOS and Android since January 2014. Publicly, Marco Polo says it has “millions” of users and 3 billion messages sent to date. Across its 1.7 million user reviews on both app stores, the app averages a 4.8 rating.
The new subscription program is only one way Marco Polo is working to gain traction for its app in the coronavirus era.
The company also recently launched a program called Channels by Marco Polo into beta testing, which allows creators to reach fans through the Marco Polo platform, but via a dedicated app.
The program is aimed at those with a following — like leaders, speakers, facilitators, creators, fitness instructors, and health and career coaches — who want to offer their content to a paid membership base.
While these creators could publish to social media platforms and then try to monetize in other ways, like through ads or brand deals, Marco Polo offers a way to facilitate more private one-to-many interactions.
The advantages of this program is that the content won’t be at the mercy of changing algorithms or interrupted with ads. However, as a paid membership program, it limits exposure. That means it would likely only supplement the efforts creators made across social media to raise awareness of their offerings and their personal brand, in order to gain new subscribers.
youtube
The program is not broadly available, but is being used by a handful of testers today.
The Channels program is also aimed at helping Marco Polo generate revenue, as the company takes a 10% cut of the monthly membership fees charged by the creators.
The new Marco Polo Plus subscription service replaces an older, less feature-rich service that never gained traction. Along with the new Channels program, the company hopes stay ad-free and turn a profit.
“From the time Marco Polo was founded, we’ve never shown ads in the app. We will never use social comparisons or manipulate algorithms, as so many social networking companies must do for their business model,” explains CEO and co-founder Vlada Bortnik. “We believe that Marco Polo Plus is the best version of our app to date, and subscription is an important part of our strategy to achieve profitability. Based on our early pilot of Channels by Marco Polo, we’re optimistic that it also has the potential to contribute significantly to our monetization goals,” she continued.
“I know we can become a sustainable business in a way that feels true to our brand values of authenticity and trust,” Bortnik added.
Marco Polo’s parent company Joya Communications has raised at least $25 million in funding from investors including Benchmark, Stanford’s StartX Fund, Matrix Partners, Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures, Evolve Ventures, and others, according to Crunchbase. The company declined to comment its total raise or investor lineup, however.
  from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2VNy6eU via IFTTT
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Link
The coronavirus pandemic has sent record numbers of new users to video chat apps. Now, video messaging app Marco Polo aims to capitalize on the increases it’s also seeing to launch its new subscription business, Marco Polo Plus. The service delivers a handful of new features — including support for HD video, voice-only messaging options, custom emoji, expanded speed controls and more — for $5 per month with an annual subscription of $59.99.
On a monthly basis, the service costs $10 per month.
Marco Polo had already carved out its own space on the market before the coronavirus outbreak. Instead of focusing on live video calls or group video chats, Marco Polo focuses on asynchronous communication. That is, users leave a video message for friends and family, which the other party can watch at their convenience, then reply to.
This works particularly well for people who have different work schedules or those who are spread out among various timezones. It also works for adults who have less free time to chat than the teens who virtually “hang out” in group video chat apps, like Houseparty.
With the new Marco Polo Plus subscription, the company is offering an expanded feature set that will appeal to its most frequent users. However, it will remain an optional upgrade — free users will still be able to use Marco Polo as before.
Subscribers, meanwhile, will be able to message their friends and family in HD or have the option to respond using only their voice, for those times you’re not camera-ready.
The subscription will also expand its set of built-in reaction emoji, which today includes a smiley face, sad face, heart, prayer hands, and thumbs up — to now include support for adding any emoji from your keyboard.
In addition, subscribers will have more granular control over playback speed. While free users can choose to 2x their video messages, paying users will be able to access speed control options of anywhere between 1.5x and 3x speed.
They’ll also gain a time scrubber for more easily moving to different parts of the video and a scratchpad for personal notes. The latter is especially helpful for jotting down the different parts of the message you want to respond to — something that can be hard to remember after listening to a long video.
Subscribers will be able to share their $5 per month subscription in the form of “Plus Passes” you can dole out to friends and family, as well.
Like many apps in the space, Marco Polo has seen a sizable jump in usage due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it says.
In March 2020, Marco Polo saw a 16x increase in new sign-ups for its service and a 3x increase in activity versus the prior month. In one 24-hour period in April, Marco Polo even saw a record 20 million video messages shared in its app. And its social media campaign designed at reaching out to others, #PoloTogether, resulted in over 1 million check-ins.
According to data from Sensor Tower, Marco Polo has seen nearly 56 million lifetime installs across iOS and Android since January 2014. Publicly, Marco Polo says it has “millions” of users and 3 billion messages sent to date. Across its 1.7 million user reviews on both app stores, the app averages a 4.8 rating.
The new subscription program is only one way Marco Polo is working to gain traction for its app in the coronavirus era.
The company also recently launched a program called Channels by Marco Polo into beta testing, which allows creators to reach fans through the Marco Polo platform, but via a dedicated app.
The program is aimed at those with a following — like leaders, speakers, facilitators, creators, fitness instructors, and health and career coaches — who want to offer their content to a paid membership base.
While these creators could publish to social media platforms and then try to monetize in other ways, like through ads or brand deals, Marco Polo offers a way to facilitate more private one-to-many interactions.
The advantages of this program is that the content won’t be at the mercy of changing algorithms or interrupted with ads. However, as a paid membership program, it limits exposure. That means it would likely only supplement the efforts creators made across social media to raise awareness of their offerings and their personal brand, in order to gain new subscribers.
The program is not broadly available, but is being used by a handful of testers today.
The Channels program is also aimed at helping Marco Polo generate revenue, as the company takes a 10% cut of the monthly membership fees charged by the creators.
The new Marco Polo Plus subscription service replaces an older, less feature-rich service that never gained traction. Along with the new Channels program, the company hopes stay ad-free and turn a profit.
“From the time Marco Polo was founded, we’ve never shown ads in the app. We will never use social comparisons or manipulate algorithms, as so many social networking companies must do for their business model,” explains CEO and co-founder Vlada Bortnik. “We believe that Marco Polo Plus is the best version of our app to date, and subscription is an important part of our strategy to achieve profitability. Based on our early pilot of Channels by Marco Polo, we’re optimistic that it also has the potential to contribute significantly to our monetization goals,” she continued.
“I know we can become a sustainable business in a way that feels true to our brand values of authenticity and trust,” Bortnik added.
Marco Polo’s parent company Joya Communications has raised at least $25 million in funding from investors including Benchmark, Stanford’s StartX Fund, Matrix Partners, Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures, Evolve Ventures, and others, according to Crunchbase. The company declined to comment its total raise or investor lineup, however.
  from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2VNy6eU Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com
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truthlives4ever · 6 years
Text
So You Know
I’m sure people probably wonder why I’m always posting what could be described as “preachy” monologues that address various sobering realities of life through the lens of biblical doctrine as if I’m some exceptionally enlightened spiritualist who has it all figured out.
Honestly, I really hope it doesn’t come off like that but I have received criticisms for “broadcasting” my faith too much via social media.
But what most people may not realize is that I have personal relationships with a lot of people who are hurting. Deeply. And have sought healing in all sorts of ways that at best have only led to managing their pain rather than treating it.
I have friends who’ve been mad at God for years because He didn’t answer their prayer when they asked Him not to let their sick loved one die.
I have MANY female friends who have been raped by men and have been silently suffering with the residual effects of that trauma since childhood and still struggle as adults with trusting men’s intentions.
I have friends with biblical orientations who struggle with trying to reconcile feeling like they were born homosexual while also understanding Gods holy nature doesn’t condone sin of any kind which makes them feel trapped between what they feel is their natural sexual identity and their moral guilt.
I have friends who are terrified of being too emotionally vulnerable and run from the kind of challenging growth that Holy matrimony would require of them.
I know many people who live in a perpetual state of anxiety and are regularly depressed but are very “successful” in the Capitalist sense of the word.
I have close friends who are constantly high or drunk because being sober for too long causes them to begin processing thoughts that are too much for them to bear with full mental clarity.
I have loved ones with abandonment issues that stem from parents who were only consistent in showing them what disappointment feels like.
I have friends who were so scarred by the dysfunction in the household they grew up in that one of their biggest fears is having a family of their own.
I have friends and family whose infidelity has devastated their marriages and hurt their children.
I have loved ones who deal with major insecurities due to their weight and/or overall body image.
And the list goes on. The point is, these are people I love dearly. These are people I bring before the Lord in prayer every morning before I start my day. These are people I have heart-to-heart conversations with when nobody else is around and we can blur the lines between laughter and tears.
So when it comes to me posting these messages and these verses, it’s not because I’m fishing for people to send me the handclap emoji and marvel at my spiritual depth or my writing ability (although I appreciate compliments). It’s really because I wanna see people allow God to work in their hearts, help them see their sin, repent, and overcome the sorrows of this world with His strength. It’s because I want people’s “best life” to be their NEXT life.
At the end of the day, all I have to offer worth anything is biblical truth and the love of Christ. Those are the only two things that have effectively pulled me out of my lowest points and helped me see God’s purposes in my pain. Anytime anyone has ever given me credit for any good quality they attribute to my personality, they were indirectly validating the source of the Scriptures that continue to shape me daily into the image of Christ.
That’s why I post what I post.
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lukesjpg · 6 years
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Mariana’s strumming her guitar, her delicate fingers still just starting to form calluses. It’s not that she’s new to guitar — she’s definitely not; she’s been playing since she was ten years old now. But she gave up her life of music for 5AM shifts at a coffee shop and seven hour study sessions at night. All in all, she’s just been too busy to pick up her guitar and strum her stress away. All that changed when she met Shawn though. Now, her life consists of 5AM shifts at a coffee shop, seven hour study sessions, and late night FaceTime calls with him.
When they first met, she didn’t think much of him. He was just another pop star who had another overplayed song on the radio. She was a fan, don’t get it twisted, but she knew that she was just another face in the crowd to him. Only… she wasn’t.
He didn’t notice her in the crowd. No, that would’ve been nearly impossible because unless the house lights were on, there was no way in hell Shawn could properly see anyone past the first few rows in the crowd. She didn’t spend more than $80 on her concert tickets, so she was somewhere much higher, somewhere where he couldn’t see.
It was actually a mutual friend who introduced them. Her friend, Rei, invited her to her wedding in LA, and Mariana packed up a weekend’s worth of clothes and drove her ass to Los Angeles. She was sat at the same table as him, and they hit it off instantly. Their conversation flowed easily, and while Mariana was thinking she was never going to see him ever again, Shawn couldn’t wait to ask her when they could meet for coffee. Except… Shawn got cold feet and left without even saying goodbye, much less her number.
They didn’t talk after that until two months later, Mari got a text from an unknown number one morning asking her if she was free for coffee. She texted back asking who it was, and Shawn didn’t hesitate on calling himself a dumbass and telling her it was Shawn from the wedding and that he had gotten her number from Rei and that he’d only be in LA for the weekend and he really wanted to get a cup of coffee with her.
You can only imagine how much his heart sank when she told him that she didn’t actually live in LA, sent with a broken heart emoji and a bunch of sad faces. She let him know that she was actually from around San Francisco, and his heart found new hope before he replied with ‘coffee next Thursday then? I’ll be in San Jose.’
It was love at first sip for Shawn when they finally met up for coffee. He wanted so badly to fall in love with someone, and when he thought all hope was lost, it was as if the universe finally answered his prayers and brought him Mariana. The only problem? She was all the way in California whilst his home was in Toronto. But he figured that’s a problem he’d think more thoroughly if they ever get far enough down that road.
So here they are now, five months later. Mariana’s strumming her guitar for the first time in maybe two years whilst he’s on FaceTime with her, tucked in his Toronto bed.
“How is it we’ve been together for four months and I never knew you actually sang — like for real? And that you play?” Shawn’s voice is groggy and croaky due to a mixture of sleepiness and a sore throat. Mariana shrugs, halting her strums and resting her chin on the base of her guitar. “Are there any other secrets you’re hiding from me?”
“I play the piano… kind of.” Shawn’s ears perk up a little at her answer. “I used to be in choir? I don’t know. I used to take music a lot more seriously.”
“Babe, what the fuck.”
Mariana laughs at his curse and places her guitar back on its wall stand across her room. “Sorry, sorry! S’not my fault that it never came up!”
“Fuck, Mar, I really thought you just had a nice voice! I didn’t think you actually were trained or anything. What the fuck, dude. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Calm down, dude,” Mariana snorts. “I haven’t touched my guitar in ages, and I haven’t sang properly since high school. And it’s not like you had any reason to ask me about it. You’ve never been to my house so you’ve never seen my choir pictures or any of my guitars — ”
“You have more than one?!”
“Or like my piano in the living room or anythin’.” She ignores his interruption and sighs. “D’you see what I’m getting at here?”
“No?”
Mariana rolls her eyes. She doesn’t know if he’s genuinely this clueless or if she’s just not being obvious enough or if he’s just really sleepy. “You’ve never been to my house. You’ve never met my family — only my cousin that one time and that was on accident, and like, babe, we’ve been dating for almost half a year. I know you’re busy as hell, like trust me, I know, but I just? Don’t you think it’s kind of weird that we’ve never met each other’s families?”
“You wanna fly out here to meet my family?”
“No, Shawn I — ”
“So you don’t wanna meet my family?”
“That’s not what I meant. I just mean that it’s — ”
“What do you mean then, Mar?” She’s annoyed by now. He keeps interrupting her, and it’s such a pet peeve of hers whenever she can’t finish her sentence, and he knows this.
“Jesus fucking Christ, if you would just let me finish.” Her Macbook is perched on the edge of her bed and she’s thankful for this because now she has two free hands to tangle into her hair due to frustration. “You’re such a fucking Leo.” Mariana spits out his zodiac sign like it’s a slur, but she knows damn well that she loves that he’s a Leo.
“Hey!”
“I’m just saying that, like, you’re in California pretty often and we see each other often enough.” She hears him trying to start a sentence but she glares at the webcam on her laptop before he even gets a chance to speak, as if saying try it, Mendes with her eyes. “I know it’s not often enough, but we talk everyday and you come to visit when you can, but whenever you visit, you don’t say hi to my family. And you know how important they are to me. They’re starting to think I’m lying about even having a boyfriend, and you know how hard it was for me to even convince them that I’m 20 and I’m allowed to be in relationships now, and just... ” She trails off before she starts rambling unnecessarily.
“Yeah, I know that baby, and you know that it’s important to me especially since it’s important to you. Next time I’m there, I promise, I’ll meet them. We can have a cheesy dinner at the table, and then I’ll fly you out here and then you can meet my fa — ”
“Shawn, I don’t… have a valid passport anymore.”
“What?”
“My passport expired like four years ago.”
“Mariana, why haven’t you gotten a new one?”
“There was never a point before! I haven’t left the country since I was like 10! And, like, I’ve been meaning to get a new one because I wanted to visit Canada anyway before I met you, and visit Mexico too but, like, passport books are just so expensive and I figured — ”
“Babe, I’ll pay for your fucking passport, just — ”
“No, Shawn I can pay for it myself, I just wanted to let you know that it’ll take about two months or maybe longer before I can even think about leaving America, but also I don’t know if my parents will let me travel to a whole ass other country by myself to meet my ‘maybe real’ boyfriend’s family.” She puts quotes around ‘maybe real’, recalling the time her dad accused her of making up Shawn being her boyfriend.
She doesn’t have to look at the screen on her laptop to know that he’s rolling his eyes. “You’re 20 years old and you have to ask your parents for permission to travel. I know it’s not my place,” Shawn starts, and Mariana already gets irritated before he even continues, “but I think they have too much of a hold on you. You’re literally an adult.”
“Well, sorry, that I didn’t start travelling the world at like 12 years old,” Mariana rebuttals, crossing her arms.
“I wasn’t 12!”
“Whatever.”
And that was the end of that. Mariana lays down on her bed with her laptop beside her, eyebrows still furrowed, but her irritation dies down slowly. Shawn’s still on the screen, but his eyes are closed and his face is dimly lit by the light on his own laptop. She can tell he’s still awake, but by the slight movement of his shoulders and the soft snores that are leaving his mouth, she can also tell that he’s ready to fall asleep at any given moment.
“Goodnight baby,” she murmurs, and she thinks that he doesn’t hear her, but the subtle curve of his lips prove her otherwise and her lips mimic his as he responds with a mumbled out ‘night, love’. Her heart still skips a beat every time he calls her a pet name, and yeah she’s probably being dramatic, but she squeals a little inside her head and her cheeks blush a little, and it’s just her favourite thing to be called cute little pet names and it’s even better when it’s coming from her favourite person.
She’s happy and content as her own eyes close and she falls into a blissful sleep.
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It was a fairly normal day during Christmas break. I had gotten up at the normal 6:25 a.m. to my alarm, Johnny Cash's cover of "You Are My Sunshine". I grabbed my phone off of the pillow beside me. Then I disconnected it from the charger, turned the alarm off, and texted you good morning. As always, I tried to make it unique in comparison to the previous day's text, whether it be by changing the combination of emojis, or expressing how much I love you in a new set of words, or changing the order of things I try to tell you every day, or all of the above. I turned the volume down on my phone, trying not to wake Olivia, and played the song again so I could hear the rest of it. I turned over to my left side, facing the bedroom window, and pushed the translucent white drapes to the right. I peered out the frosty window for a long moment and noticed that it had snowed probably almost two feet the night before. I let go of the curtain, grabbed my glasses from under the pillow I charge my phone on, and got out of bed. I went and told my parents bye before they left for work and then I started getting ready for the day. I bathed, pulled my hair back, and got dressed. I knew I was just going to hang out with friends later that day, so it didn't have to be anything too spectacular. My darkest pair of blue jeans, grey hoodie with thumb holes, and blue tennis shoes would suffice I decided. I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. By the time I finished, it was about a quarter till nine, and Gavin and Olivia were still sleeping. Gavin usually didn't get up until noon or after on breaks and Olivia usually gets up after eleven. These moments were always the best part of waking up the earliest. It was an opportunity to be alone and do whatever I wanted without anyone else knowing about it, as long as I wasn't too loud. It was like having the whole house to myself, and I loved that. So what did I fill this alone time with? Song! I love singing, especially when I'm alone, even though I'm pretty terrible at it. There's just something about it that makes me feel good. I went into the office, which is about as far from the bedrooms as I could get, and sat down in a spinny chair. I opened the hymnal app on my phone and scrolled through the alphabetized list of songs. I sang a bunch of hymns on my own and then opened Spotify. I covered Johnny Cash's cover of several more hymns, and concluded my jam session by singing "You Are My Sunshine". I sat in silence for a moment, just smiling, embracing the good fuzzy feeling. I verbalized a prayer afterwards, also something I rarely do unless I'm alone. Then I heard Olivia's bed creak and knew that alone time was over. I walked back into our bedroom, told her good morning as she groggily walked out of the room to go make herself breakfast, and I crawled back in bed for a little nap. I tucked my glasses back under my pillow, put my phone back on the charger, and pulled my cyan-grey-and-white-zigzag-striped cover up until my cheeks and nose were hidden beneath it. I turned on my left side to face the window, and fell asleep. A little later, I woke up from my nap smiling. I grabbed my phone from beside me and checked the time. It was now noon. I had been out for an hour. I got a text from a group chat I was in with five of my friends. The six of us decided to meet at Lily's grandparents' house on Cliff Drive at two o'clock. Two hours came and went quickly. We all got there only to find out that her grandparents were on vacation for the week. I'm sure that detail would have prevented me from being allowed to go. We all sat down in the front room. The house smelled of vintage wall paper (dust), and old lady perfume, a smell better described as mostly baby powder, floral shop roses, and then whatever they could think of after that. I pulled out my phone and was going to let my parents know that there weren't adults home, but Lily stopped me. "We're just hanging out, its fine." I put my phone back in my pocket and sat back in the old, floral print couch. "So what all are we going to do today guys?" I asked the group. Tyler recommended watching a movie. Alex and Cassie wanted to play board games. Lexie wanted to play with the Ouija board we found behind the couch when we were looking for the remote. Alex volunteered his tarot cards in case she didn't want to mess with the board. Lily said we could do all of the things everyone wanted to do, though she had this look on her face that said she was up to no good. First we played Monopoly, then Scrabble, and then someone brought out Cards Against Humanity (the most awkward game in the world, even when you're among friends). Then we voted on a movie to watch from the sparse collection of movies, all children's movies, that her grandparents had. We all love Disney movies for the music if nothing else, and there weren't many good selections aside from them. It was a tie between Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. Tyler, Alex and I were for Beauty and the Beast, and Lexie, Lily, and Cassie were for The Little Mermaid. Hoping there wouldn't be any time left for Lily's unspoken mischief, or tarot cards or the Ouija board, I suggested that we could watch both. Alex agreed with me, Cassie didn't seem to care, and the others objected. So, we did what we always did when there were disagreements, we each picked a person from our group and then they played Rock Paper Scissors. It was Tyler against Lexie, and Lexie won three out of five games. So, The Little Mermaid it was. Lil ordered pizza while we watched the movie. We took an intermission for dinner when it arrived and then finished the movie, all lazing about the front room as though we were at home. Someone pulled up the playlist from the movie on their phone. We all got up and did the dance we did when we had to play "Under the Sea" for our marching show our freshman year. Alex fell over, just like he did on the football field, and we all laughed. Then Lexie and Alex started doing tarot readings with Tyler and Lily shortly after that. Cassie and I decided to listen to music and play cards until they were done. They never cracked the Ouija board, which I was surprised by, but it was a good thing. "What are we going to do now?" I asked. Cass suggested watching Beauty and the Beast again, though it was shot down. "There's a creepy old house four doors down. Nobody has lived there for years. Rumor has it that people died there. Who wants to go?" Lily asked. Immediately four hands went up, and Cass and I were the only ones whose hands weren't. Tyler asked if we were chicken and we both said "No" at the same time. "Come on you guys!" Lily whined. Hesitantly, I got off the couch and pulled Cassie up. The couch's dismal pink flowers looked as excited as we were to go nosing around in an old condemned mansion in the snow. Lily broke out in song and sang "Under the Sea" the whole way over to this house. Everyone joined in and then Tyler made the crack about it being a good thing that we aren't in choir. Everyone laughed, though it died abruptly once we all started scaling up with our eyes the deteriorating abode that had very obviously been left long ago. At one time it may have been an absolutely gorgeous estate. In everyone's silence, I enjoyed comparing what this place could have been in it's prime to the lavish living of Mr. Gatsby of The Great Gatsby, a book we had to read with our American Literature class last fall. But this place's time of splendor appeared to be long gone from what we could tell on the outside. Then it started creeping into my mind that "Oh, yeah, people probably died here. Great. Who knows what we're in for." I felt okay for a moment though, because I realized that we didn't have a way to get in. That meant my adventurous friends were probably going to raise Cain to get inside and get us all caught and sent to jail in the process, but you know, at least we might get to be roomies. We checked all of the doors and windows we could reach, and they all were locked. Lexie was observant enough to ask Alex what he'd packed in his backpack, but I knew him well enough to be able to tell you it was probably useless. And I was right, well, mostly. He had the Ouija board, tarot cards, a pad of paper, some pencils, his phone charger -he was the only one with a Samsung, again, useless- a bottle of water, and a flashlight without batteries. Nothing really useful for getting us in, which I was still fine with. Tyler decided that he was going to ram into the door until it opened. We all stood and watched, cringing a little each time we heard his body slam up against the door. It was black and had a large metal door knocker on it. I guess whoever used to visit here had enormous hands, because the knocker was just so excessively big. Anyways, Tyler grabbed it and continued to hang on it as he slammed himself into the big old door. The seventh and final time, he went head on instead of shoulder checking the door. He burst through the doorway and face planted. We all laughed, though he didn't find humor in it at the time. No one had any kind of first aid kit on them, so he was out of luck on getting cleaned up. It was just a few scrapes anyways. Lexie was the second person to go into the house. Lily followed her, and then Alex. Cassie and I stuck together, like always. She was more hesitant than I was, so I waited before going inside. Lily said to Cassie, " You're going to have to wait in the snow all alone! Who knows what's out here! Don't talk to any escaped patients!" (If you follow Cliff Drive long enough, after the railroad tracks keep going and then right after the highway overpass turn left and you're at the state hospital). Cassie stayed right behind me and came into the house. No one moved for a minute. We were all still right inside the door way. The door we broke into was to a tiny pantry. There were two bulky chests standing up -I later found out that they were freezers- and nice wooden cabinets lining the wall. We were all practically standing on top of each other, but we couldn't see enough to move. "Someone turn on the lights!" Lexie said. "This place is so old they probably don't work. Anyone have any matches? I've found a candle." Lil replied. Alex, the youngest of the six of us, a freshman, pulled out a zippo and lit the candle, pretending to be cool. He tripped and he dropped the lighter. He was just lucky it shut before it hit him in the foot. With the candle now lit, everyone could see that dropping the lighter scarred him, because he looked as though he nearly wet his pants. We giggled and Alex's face turned all red. The laughter faded and we all grew quiet again. I cleared my throat. "Alright guys, I think before we go exploring, we should set up some guidelines. 1.) No one is ever to be alone. We can do three sets of two, or two sets of three, or we could all stay together, which I would prefer. But, no one should be alone, and no one gets left behind. 2.) No illegal stuff. No stealing anything. No raiding alcohol or whatever other paraphernalia you come across. No weapons. We don't need to be packing-(Lexie and Alex break into "Pumped Up Kicks"). Anyways, use common sense. 3.) If anyone needs medical attention I say we should all reconvene. Also, try to preserve your phone battery for emergencies. 4.) No posting to social media. I feel like the six of us might have a tiny bit more common sense than our other friends. If you're going to do something illegal and obviously a bad idea...Well, if you post it you're asking for trouble. " Everyone agreed with everything that was said. We decided to split off, an idea I was not particularly fond of. "A sixth rule then, since we're splitting up. One person from each group texts someone from the other group every 20 minutes. Oh, and if anything scary or bizarre happens, let someone know." Again, everyone nodded in agreement. Cassie, Alex, and I were a group, and then Tyler, Lily, and Lexie were a group. We all walked through the pantry doorway and into a huge kitchen. I was amazed by the carpentry of everything I saw. The cupboards, the doors, the trim. Everything has intricate carved designs. Beautiful. There were a bunch of metal platters, dishes, and silverware strewn about. Alex found out that there were exploded cans of rotten fruit on the floor by stepping in a gloopy gush of the remnants. He slipped and fell in it and Cass asked him what it smelled like. He said mostly acrid rot, but decided that peaches were beneath it somewhere. Tyler led the first group through the kitchen doorway. I realized we really should have found a second candle before splitting off, but hindsight is 20/20. I asked Cassie and Alex where they wanted to go. Alex, now apparently in a snarky mood after being embarrassed, informed me that if we went through the kitchen door we were following the other group. So, I opened this huge, dark, heavy wooden door off to the side of the sinks. It opened up to what we later found to be the second staircase. "Up or down guys?" I asked, now shining my cellphone flashlight into the dark unknown. "Haven't you seen horror movies? The killer is always in the basement, or attic, or closet, and there are always bodies in the garage or basement or bathtub or strewn about the kitchen. " Cassie said looking ghostly pale, more so than normal. "That's the whole point of us being here." Alex said. "To explore! What if we solve the mystery as to the alleged deaths and what happened to those people?" Alex asked with stirring curiosity. "I don't know, Alex. I don't even know if people truly did die here, or if it's just Lil being Lil" I said. With no input from Cass or Alex on direction, I began descending the basement stairs. They groaned and creaked in complaint of our presence, each step a little sketchier than the last. The basement was huge. One room led into another room, and that one to another and so on. It wasn't a finished basement though. Just a dusty bunch of rooms that led into other rooms. It was an eerie place though, to say the least. There were old medical instruments strewn everywhere, some recognizable and others, well, I just hope the people that got treated with them survived their visit. I don't know what they were used for, and was glad not to have to know by experience, because I'm sure they hurt. In one of the rooms we found a vintage gurney. Not to discredit its former resident(s), but this was surely a quack-shop. I warned Alex and Cassie not to touch anything medical related, because who could tell if these odd instruments were cleaned after they were used last. All of the supplies in basement, the whole weird setup, was perfectly preserved in a thick layer of dust. It was like a weird time capsule with vintage medical relics of the past. In one of the rooms there were glass cupboards with jars of what appeared to be pickled organs. Some animal, most were human by the looks of them. They had canvas and twine for lids. They were in old mason jars and other containers all separated by what they were. We began looking through desk drawers, other cabinets, and every space in between to see if we could find anything that said what kind of medicine was practiced here. In the search, we found restraints, clamps, scissors, scalpels, other random things. We continued going through things and it came time for the first check in text. I texted Tyler. Five minutes passed and still no reply. I then texted Lexie and Lily. We continued scavenging through this museum of medicine as we waited for a reply. I could feel tension rising in the room. You could cut it with a knife. It didn't even sound like anyone was breathing anymore. Even our steps became suddenly silent. Then, we all jumped. I sat my phone on a metal tray after I texted the others. The vibration of Lexie's reply made us all scream. I grabbed my phone and looked at the text, hands trembling and heart racing. "U need 2 get up here rn!" I told Cassie and Alex that we had to go reconvene and they followed me hurriedly up the steps. I should have asked them where they were instead of searching. We went through every door we saw and didn't see anybody. I was freaking out in my mind. What happened to them? Where are they? Then, we came upon a door that looked as though it was left in the pouring rain for years. It was so much older than the rest. It was very out of place in this mansion of master carpentry, among other things. I looked at Alex and Cassie and saw fear in their eyes. I had that feeling, the feeling that we were those kids in all of the horror movies that everyone in the theater screamed, "DON'T GO IN THERE!", at as they opened the door. Except I didn't. Not at first anyways. I looked back again expecting Cassie and Alex to object to going in, or say something reassuring, but they were gone! I called their names and no reply. I called their phones and no one picked up. I texted and didn't get a response. Guilt automatically hit me like a brick wall. Hard, and all at once. This was a terrible idea from the start, and I went against what I thought was right. Here we are, six high school kids, breaking into an abandoned house that appears to be left abruptly, and was said to have death(S) occur here, which I could definitely believe after my findings in the basement up to that point. And we walked in expecting to what? Solve the mystery of who, what, when, where, why, how died? Disturb whatever or whoever is not at rest in this house? Why did we come? I knew better. I SO knew better! And now, what if I'm the only one left?! How do I explain all of this to...anyone? I become so self-conscious of even the littlest things, so there was no way that I could conceal the fate of five of my friends without it driving me insane. I needed help. I had to tell someone. I had to get help. I took a moment to just breathe. My anxiety stopped enough for me to think clearly for a moment. What if it's all some sick joke? What if everyone is hiding in this house somewhere and I have to solve the mystery AND find all of them. Worse yet, what if I have to solve the mystery in order to find them. And then moments of brainstorming what was happening was clouded out by just grief. What if I had just lost five of the closest friends I had that were my age. Thinking was putting me in a dark place very quickly. I needed to start figuring something out. I was pacing and it got to where I felt as though I wasn't allowed to breathe anymore. I felt like something awful was about to happen. I stopped and scanned the area without moving my head, using only my peripheral vision, which was pretty much inexistent since all I had was the phone light of my lock screen. I didn't bother with the flashlight anymore because I couldn't afford for my phone to die now that I was alone. For a moment it occurred to me that I could go back to Lily's grandparents' house and call for a ride home, but then what about the five? It was a selfish thought if nothing else. I don't know how I expected to walk back there anyway seeing as though I felt the way that I did. I don't even know what words you might put to that feeling. I felt like I was waiting to be shot I guess. Impending doom. Heart pumping out of my chest. I was alone. In the dark. Except I wasn't alone. The house had eyes from within. I may have been the only physical body around at the time, but someone....unsettled was there, and they didn't like me. Panic continued washing over me, crashing like waves of a roaring tempest against the once peaceful shore. I couldn't move. I couldn't talk to myself, because something was bound to happen. I couldn't walk into another area because what if it chased me. I was just panicking. That kid that everyone yelled at in the movie "Don't go in there!", that was me...everywhere in this house. But especially now that I was stuck. I was standing in the middle of this big foyer once I entered through the oddly aged door. There was a chandelier that hung from the ceiling, it was probably as long as I was tall, but the ceiling was incredibly high, so it wasn't in the way. There was a chair in one corner of the room, and several doors lining the walls. In the front of the room, there were big windows and a unique glass door. It didn't slide, but was hinged like the rest. Still it looked odd. It reminded me of the glass chess set we have at home. It was oddly textured and very opaque. I couldn't look at the front of the room anymore. What if whatever the cause of my impending doom was, was outside? What if I had to see it coming? Insane doesn't begin to describe how I felt. I couldn't get out of my own head. No matter what movement I made or what I did, there was no escape. The air became even more intense. I didn't know what to do. Overwhelmed, I took the risk of moving for a moment. I sat down on the floor, quietly. Head in my hands, I rubbed my face. I let go. I didn't care. It was the realization that whoever or whatever was coming, was going to come no matter where I was, or how ready I felt. I stayed and just listened for what felt like ten minutes, who knows how long I was really there for though. Someone once told me that it's important to take time to just listen, and to think as though whatever was needed had already appeared. Whether it be lifeless corpses, or dumb, cackling kids pulling a morbid joke, I was going to find them. So, I went back to where we broke in. I was going to start there and work my way through until I found them. The pantry was as we left it. The howling wind whistled through the crack in the door, torn from its hinges, unsure of how it was still standing up in its frame. I walked into the kitchen, looked through every space one of those dorks could fit into, and continued on. I went back down into the weird medical mystery that was the basement. Maybe they went back there, I thought. I looked through everything. Even the stuff I hadn't gotten to go through the first time I was down there. At this point I kept verbally telling myself that I was okay, a mantra that never really calmed me down, but I always said it when I was *really* alone. And I was. It also was something to hear besides the silence and all of the things that lurk somewhere in this overwhelming darkness. I looked in the direction of every noise I heard. I went into the very last room in the basement. There were no other doors, only odd looking cubbies lining the four walls of the room. In the middle was another gurney. On it was an old, old straight jacket, a worn, deteriorating leather belt with spikes on it, and a spit hood that would fit in well among the oddities of Long Cliff's museum. (The state hospital once had home for special needs kids called Long Cliff. People today, mostly among my great grandparent's generation, still refer to it as Long Cliff). Anyways, know the saying, "They have skeletons in their closet"? Well, I have never had a dream... or I guess a nightmare, about ever having to actually see one for myself. I had a terrible, ill feeling about opening any of the "cubbies". But again, going against my better judgement, I did. I don't understand how the smell didn't escape them or, how the smell didn't resonate through the entire house for that matter. Looking in them reminded me of learning about the slave trade, and the ships. In world history class my freshmen year, Mrs. Harmon told us about how all of these people were stacked on each other on wooden shelves and some of them were violently ill. Those people got the people they were surrounded by or stacked on sick and so on until many people were gravely ill. Some even died before they got to America, though their life here might not have been much better, since it wasn't really a way of living at all. But these cubbies....This was a morgue. A really twisted morgue. I don't know how long ago these people were alive. I still couldn't decide how old I thought the furnishings of the mansion to be. In the first cubby I opened, it was five little girls. I don't even know how they got all of them in there. It was all a nightmare I decided. I tried to shake myself awake, pinch myself, and nothing. This was real no matter how much I wished it wasn't. I've had to watch the process of someone dying. I've been to funerals of people who lived long lives. But nothing could ever prepare someone for this moment. I was just staring into a compartment of lifeless little girls. Nothing I could say or think or do could make this any better. Even so, part of me wanted hold those girls. I couldn't do it though. I couldn't. Not only because I would have to figure out how to put them back, but because of the fear of what the rest of their bodies looked like, considering what I saw in their faces. One girl's face wasn't as bad as the rest of them. I wondered why for a moment, and then I stopped. It suddenly struck me that the girl whose face was okay looked a lot like Olivia. The only significant differences I noticed were her age and her eyes. None of the children's eyes were closed. Her eyes were a really dark blue, a color that I've never seen in anyone's eyes before, They shone like a dark, rich sapphire. Olivia's eyes are light brown. This girl couldn't have been older than five or six years old though. I felt all of the hair on my arms stand up. A chill went down my spine. I was trembling a little bit, I noticed. Suddenly, tears stung my eyes. Holding them back as best I could, I stroked the hair of the girl who looked like Olivia. I realized then that the only way to make sure that none of my friends were down there was to look in all of the compartments. I opened a few more and realized that everyone in this room was too young. Everyone was a child. It's hard to reconcile the death of a person who has lived an entire life time. There is nothing that reconciles the death of a room full of children used as test subjects to some malevolent medical practice. They had their entire lives left to live. With all of this running through my mind, I slowly continued opening up the compartments in search of my friends or an answer or I don't even know what at this point. Holding back tears for that long was starting to give me a migraine. Finally, I just let go. Tears streamed down my cheeks steadily. I didn't wipe them away as they continued to silently fall. I just kept going. I went into the other room to grab the ladder I saw so I could check the top two or three rows that I could not reach, or see in, from standing on the floor. The last time I climbed up the ladder to clear the first wall, I began to fall backwards. Before I could fall off of the ladder, something suspended me in the air for a moment and slammed me into the wall of cubbies behind me. I mean I flew across the room backwards. I screamed some blood curdling shriek as I went back. I stayed down for a minute, and then I got up and walked back over to the ladder. I climbed up it and waited to see if it would happen again. It did not. I checked the last few that I hadn't opened on that wall, and it was clear of anyone I knew. One wall down, three to go. Tears were still streaming down my face, inaudibly crying. I grabbed the ladder and walked over to the far side of the second wall. I began opening more spaces. The more I looked, the younger these kids were getting. These children looked to be three or four years old. A minute later, I about had a heart attack. Lexie grabbed my foot. I screamed again. She screamed because I screamed. Then we both laughed. I got down off of the ladder. She wiped the tears off of my cheeks and asked what was going on. I explained that I lost the rest of my group and that no one responded to texts and I thought everyone was dead. She said she couldn't find anyone either and thought the same thing. I've never been so happy to see a friend in all of my life. We hugged, and then she helped me look through the rest of the compartments. She quickly understood the tears and began to shed many of her own. We got through the third wall, they were babies and two year olds. Still, none of our friends. We got to the fourth wall. These kids were anywhere from ten years old to close to our age. If we would have started at that wall and went around the children would have been in order by age. Lexie continued doing all of the ladder ones. She was lifted and also thrown across the room, slammed into the three and four year old children. It left her winded. I went over and made sure she was ok. Once she could breathe we just hugged for a really long time. Watching her cry made me cry more. We broke away and then started opening more compartments without saying anything. Lexie's legs gave out and she fell down the ladder, sobbing. She pointed up. I didn't want to go up there. One of us were up there. I just knew it. I ascended slowly. I felt really ill all of the sudden. I hadn't even got up there yet. I never thought that I would have to see one of my best friend's dead body, but I did. Alex was in the top space in the second to last row. It looked like someone took an enormous drill bit to his forehead. His eyes were closed, unlike anyone else's. It also looked as though he was punched in the eyes several times, both swollen and purple. I put my hand on my cheek, wetting it in the not yet dry trail of tears. Then, I tried washing his face with them, slowly. It was still warm. The blood on his face. His skin. Whatever happened to Alexander Knowles had just happened. I didn't understand. I couldn't leave him up there. It occurred to me that whatever injuries his body had sustained I was about to make worse by moving him. But he was not going to stay in this wooden cubby. I stuck my hands under his shoulders and drug him out, wobbling on the ladder, nearly falling back. He was taller than me, so trying to hold him was awkward. I yelled at Lexie to bring in a gurney from the other room, and she did. When she came back in, she grabbed Alex's legs and I still had his shoulders. We managed to get him on the stretcher, though he made a bit of a thud. I checked his pulse, of course there was none. But I was in denial. He was like my little brother and I just dragged him from some early 1900s morgue. It didn't stop me though. Lexie got back up on the ladder to open more compartments. I gave Alex compressions. There was blood on his moth so I didn't give breaths between sets. Nothing. Even if I did somehow get him back, there was no way that whatever went into his forehead did not cause brain damage because the frontal lobe was exposed, skin torn away, skull mangled and brain matter missing. I tried anyways. It was too late. He was gone. But now at least I could tell his family that I did everything within my means to save him. We left him on the gurney and wheeled him across the room out of the way as we continued fearfully searching for three more friends....three more bodies. Tyler, Cassie, and Lily. We both checked our phones, though we knew there would be no new messages. Suddenly, we heard gunfire above us somewhere. The shots echoed loudly, so I thought the gunman was in the foyer. The only time I have ever heard a gun was during 21 gun salutes and every round made me jump every time. Guns in general make feel really uneasy. Shots still ringing in my ears, I heard a thud and some things crashed to the floor. Someone was undoubtedly dead at that range. Lexie looked up at me "And then there were four." she said. "Maybe one of the others shot whoever killed Alex. Maybe it wasn't one of us." I tried to stay hopeful. Lexie and I both cowered under the gurney, obviously unhidden. We looked at each other as we both heard really heavy footfall above us. It sounded like someone was running toward the kitchen. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. They were getting closer. They were only a staircase away now. I crawled out from under the gurney and ran into one of the other rooms in the basement. I grabbed the spiky belt and the mallet I found while looking through medical tools. I took the mallet into the other room with the gurney in it. I beat the wooden gurney until the wooden board people laid on was separated from the legs and wheels of the stretcher. I laid the board back on the frame as a temporary table. I grabbed a few scalpels, the spiky belt, the spit hood, some long, rusted metal pins, and the mallet and put them onto the gurney. I wheeled it back into the morgue. I heard footfall descending the stairs. I put all of the other supplies into the spit hood and cleared the gurney. I put the board up against the door and started securing it with the metal pins and the mallet. I took a few extra metal pins and the metal belt next. I hammered one side of the belt to the left of the door frame, left some slack, and hammered the other side of the belt into the other side of the door frame, spikes facing the door. It was a shaky attempt at protecting ourselves, though by the sounds of it, they might still make it in. I took the mallet and broke apart the rest of the gurney frame. I handed Lexie a leg of it as well as the mallet and a scalpel. I took the other main leg and the second scalpel. There were a few other metal pins left and I put them between us as I crawled back under the gurney Alex was on, next to Lexie. They were definitely in the basement somewhere now. I couldn’t hear the stairs whining anymore. Then I heard glass shattering. They were probably smashing the jars of organs two rooms over I thought. I heard a few shuffling footsteps and then metal clattering around. They were in the room beside us pillaging through medical supplies. I got up and opened the rest of the compartments. I needed to know that no one else was down here. Lily was in one of them by herself, covered in blood. The space below her was empty. I had Lexie wheel Alex over and she helped me put him in the empty compartment. I shut Lily's compartment so she wouldn't scream. I think she knew though, because she started crying again. I realized that either Cassie or Tyler were still out there, hopefully alive. The six of us turned into three or four. Whoever was out there was at the door now. They started pounding on the door with their fists. Then they opened fire on the door. Lexie screamed and I jumped back. I motioned for Lexie to come out from under the gurney. I pushed it up against the wall and she came and stood next to me. I cupped my hands and she grabbed my neck while stepping into my hands and then up onto the gurney. Gunfire stopped and I quickly wheeled her over behind to door. I told her that when the door opens she needs to jump on whoever it is and start hitting them with one of the tools I gave her. I stood to the other side of the door, wood in hand, ready to bat down the gunman. He burst through the door. He was about six feet tall and very broad. I don't know how he could see though because he was completely covered in black drapes. He yelled in pain when he tried to remove the spike belt he ran into when he entered. When he was trying to pull it out of his torso, Lexie jumped on him. He reached for his gun, the handle reflected the light from my phone which was clipped to my pocket, and I swung at his head. I swung again, knocking him to the ground. Lexie pounced on him again. I dropped the wood and picked up a scalpel. I started cutting his garments with one hand and reached for the gun with the other. He had both of his hands on Lexie, so it wasn't a difficult grab. I froze for a second though. I've never seen a gun up close, let alone held one.... I've also never needed one. I slid the gun to Lexie and put my knee in the man's torso. She got off of him and I pinned him down. I could hear the stairs again. I was just hoping it was Tyler and Cassie and that maybe the four of us would escape. It wasn't though. Another man in black came barreling through the door. He yelled at us to get off of the man. Before she could move, the second man shot Lexie point blank. He grabbed the gun from beside Lexie and they both left and ran up the stairs. Lexie, the daintiest girl I know, probably only weighed a hundred pounds, barely. I picked her up and put her in my lap. They got her in the chest and there was just no way that I could save her. There was an exit wound in her back and there was blood pouring out of both gunshot wounds. I was soaked already. I felt her wrist. Her pulse was slowing down. I held her, and told her I love her. She couldn't say anything but I knew she would have said the same. I hugged her and just looked at her, crying again. I felt her pulse stop. She died in my arms. I was with her till the end. She saved my life. I don't know why they only shot her. I automatically felt guilty that it was her not me. If nothing else, at least she didn't die alone, and I'd venture to say it was quicker than what happened to Alex and Lily. That didn't make the evening's events okay though. Nothing would. Then I was left with a decision. Do I find Tyler and Cassie, or do I try to escape. Alex would have looked for me. So I decided to go look for them. If the men that were here were still upstairs, I might have met my end. I went through the kitchen. I went through a dinning hall. I found the grand foyer and went through it. Suddenly I realized that even though looking for them was the right choice, I should have called the police a long time ago. I pulled my phone off the clip and started to call. My calls wouldn't go through. I had no service. So I guess it didn't matter that I didn't think to call sooner. I kept searching for Tyler and Cassie. I opened a door that led into a huge bedroom. I searched through everything and found no one. Then I found a bathroom. I opened the door. I looked in the shower first. No one was in there. I moved the navy blue curtain to the side. There was a huge tub. All I saw was red. If there was any water in the tub at all, it was no longer clear. It was just like Alex said in the beginning. "Kitchen, attic, basement, bathroom, closets..." I stuck my hand in the tub, searching for a shirt. Even though it was soaked, I could tell by the texture that it was Tyler's shirt. I pulled him up and dragged his lifeless body out of the tub. I hugged him as I did Lexie. He was long gone though. It may have been staged I guess, but I was 99 percent sure he took his own life. When I pulled him out of the tub, he still had the scalpel in his hand. He bled out and drowned. That's how he died. It broke my heart. We were close friends. I knew a lot of things that no one else knew about Tyler. I knew that he tried to kill himself freshman year. I knew that he used to cut himself a lot. I remember we used to count the days he was clean of cutting. I knew that he went to counseling and was supposedly doing a lot better this year. But there we were. I was holding my lifeless second brother, soaked in his own blood, three inch long cuts all the way up his left arm and some really deep but less clean cuts in his right arm. That was something everyone that had ever tried to help someone recovering from self harm knew to look for. Always look at the non-dominant side first. He always used his right hand to cut because he was right handed. It's not that he couldn't with his left, in fact he proved it multiple times throughout high school. But there isn't a lot of control in those ones. I couldn't believe he did it. He killed himself. He was gone. Hopelessness, anger, and depression came in waves. If I still felt it meant I was still alive though. I got up from the bathroom floor which left a puddle of Tyler and Lexie's blood from my clothes. I started yelling for Cassie. I tried to text and call and still no service. I finished searching the first floor and didn't find her. That meant I was going upstairs. The staircase was at the end of the hall. It was a huge wooden spiral staircase. Then my phone died. The house was pitch black. I kept slowly walking forward. I got to the bottom of the stairs finally. I stumbled up a few of them and then I felt something hard graze against the side of my head. I put my hand up to feel it. It was a shoe. I slid my hand up and down it. I found Cassie. I could feel that they were her silver glittery Chucks she wore to school. Based on how she was attached to the stairs and ceiling, she was murdered, not suicidal, but I couldn't see well enough to know. I then walked back to Lily's grandparents' house. I called the police and then my parents. The police got to their house first. They said they would notify all of the families after the investigation. They found all of them and made the dreaded calls to their parents. Why was I still alive I kept wondering. There was a funeral every weekday the following week. Recurring hell over and over again. I had to face all of the families. I knew most of the answers. Each time someone had a question I pretty much had to retell the whole ordeal. I was the only one who survived, though there was no surviving or escaping the aftermath. Nothing was okay after that and that's what put me out at Long Cliff. The end.
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