#considered posting to main but like... this is my niche obviously i had to
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Never would've guessed this blog would get a 2023 revival
#considered posting to main but like... this is my niche obviously i had to#5sos#5 seconds of summer#ashton irwin#calum hood#cashton#kindahoping4forever#video
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I just wanna thank you so much for your completely earned deconstruction of the writer/reader relationship. I have 2 separate writing blogs, and one, my main in fact, I've all but completely given up on until I want to write again. The other is being transferred to be my new main, and I'm not sure if I'll take requests. I've been debating just taking commissions that I'm comfortable with, and posting my own writing when the mood strikes. You've really made me think, and I appreciate that so much! ❤️
I'm not sure if you've had a similar experience, but basically one of my works exploded somewhat and another did to a lesser extent. I was working on other things and all anyone cared about was those two fics.
When I tell you I pored hours upon hours into this super high fantasy rewrite crossover of my favorite game with the same characters, I mean it. My first chapter was over 8k and I made sure I did a bunch of research to nail both the combat, and dialouge.
I posted it, initially meant to be posted between that and one of the fics- only for it to be ignored and instead all I got was update asks. No-one cared when it was right in my rules that it gave me anxiety and made me not want to write.
It got so bad, I literally dropped the blog. I haven't updated my most popular work since 2019 and I've only the past 6 months got inspired for the secondary popular fic. I got so in my head- desperate to do what my readers wanted and not upset anyone. To this day the next chapter sits half written, with me still torn to rewrite it entirely, or just finish it the way I want to and go from there. Yet it's so soured for me. I still love my concept. I still kind of want to repurpose it and flesh it out but I just get such a bitter taste in my mouth and I freeze and get anxiety even now when I re-read it.
Ironically the lack of reception to my passion project was my wake up call. I was genuinely devastated. I had one thankfully amazing commenter(of course on Archive of Our Own), who didn't know my niche little fantasy video game save its very opening hours(It's Final Fantasy 4, in case you're curious), but clicked anyway and gushed about my execution. A whole 4-5 paragraphs. I cried when I read it, beaming ear to ear grin.
If it wasn't for her? I very well may have quit posting my writing altogether and you know what? I still post that fic. Slowly, granted. My 2nd chapter was 9k+ and the 3rd is looking to be over 10k and has taken over 2 years thanks to a lot going on. She posted again on that 2nd chapter though! And I go back and read it when I need inspiration. I'm basically solely posting it for her.
Just...thanks. For sharing how you feel on this. I've always really struggled with feeling selfish, or like I have no right to ask for a comment. I still can put myself down and feel incredibly guilty, especially about that constantly asked about fic. Feel like I should take the likes and update asks with a smile because "that means they like it, obviously, they're asking for more, right?" I don't think people not actively creating and posting get it, and you truly put it into words in a way I've struggled with for years.
I'm new here, and still playing through the game and all, but please know at least I see you. I appreciate all the hard work you do and put in. You don't owe any of anything, and I'm so grateful for anything you choose to share with us. I think a lot of people underestimate how intimate sharing our writing is.
Also appreciate you mentioning the difference in respect between fanartists and fanwriters. SO many people think "Anyone can write." and we get belittled so much faster for offering commissions too. It takes just as much skill, whether people believe that or not.
Just...thanks. For real. You've given me a lot to consider as I work on transferring my new blog over and I appreciate it more than you know. ❤️ -S
That genuinely means a lot, it's an honour to have even meant something to anyone at all.
Especially someone struggling with the same thing I am. Thank you for taking the time to write and tell me this, i never thought anyone would bother to read my rant or take it seriously.
I relate to a lot of the things you've just described, it's really horrible how the world can twist something we love and are passionate for into something that hurts us instead. I'm never forgiving anyone who made me feel anxious about writing a story I was excited about or for posting something knowing instead of feedback I'd be met with asks about updating the more popular story.
And I'm happy to hear that you take commissions, just to make it clear I'm totally against the whole "mixing money with art makes it lose meaning" fiasco. I think it's stupid and people who claim that they don't understand that you can never put art in a box or steal its meaning away, that artists are people who need to eat and pay their bills too.
Your writing more than deserves money, it's something intimate that we pour our heart into, that we take parts of our life experience and memories and put it in the story to give it its own life.
Fuck anyone who thinks writing is below art, just because it's written words. They never consider the planning, creativity, writing style and experience, the research, plot and energy it takes.
If anything at least you can draw and paint while listening to music or watching youtube, you can let your hand go on autopilot every now and then. With writing it's one of those jobs you can't distract your mind from, you have to be present and you have to focus on every word and line, consider every dialogue option and every descriptive word, it's draining mentally and takes so much focus.
Both art and writing are important, all artists deserve respect and compensation for their work. People are getting too comfortable demanding work that takes literal hours from your life for free or a low price, a work they'll consume so quickly and never give a second thought to.
I hope things get better for both you and me, I hope we find readers who appreciate us for who we are, who actually respect and value our work instead of consuming it mindlessly, who understand what it takes to create and the amount of time we're giving out for free.
Who realise that taking 10 or 5 minutes to write a comment under a fic and phrase it politely isn't that hard, how it's literally all we ask for because it means the world to see someone appreciate our effort.
Good luck on your new blog <3 Close the requests whenever you want and open them whenever you want. Write how you want to, and please don't let anyone steal the joy of writing away from you.
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Hi! I love your comic Lore Rekindled, it's pretty entertaining! (definetely planning on reading Time Gate when I finally have some time lol). I'm currently very early in the process of making a comic myself, and while I have the main idea down, and the planning sorta done (I'm busy with uni, so I've been working on it bit by bit), I can't seem to figure out how to grow an audience. I was wondering how you did it and how long it took?
oh god oh no y'all are asking me how to grow an audience UH-
so like, here's the thing, I can try and give you pointers, but I also like... don't consider myself as someone with an audience ?? Like obviously there's an audience for Lore Rekindled but up until that point, Time Gate's been running for like 10+ years and I think it only has 5-10 regular readers nowadays, it peaked in its audience numbers years ago when it was still on Tapas before their platform went downhill and I bailed and since then the industry has only become more and more saturated making it even harder to get seen. Rekindled, on the other hand, has been super refreshing to work on because of how much people have flocked to it (which was surprising af but I couldn't be happier about it ngl it's been great ;o; <3) but that's really because Rekindled had the advantage of a pre-existing audience to tap into (specifically the communities of ULO/antiLO/etc. who were looking for something to rejuvenate their love for what once was in LO). So that made it a bit easier to build an audience, but that's something that goes for a lot of fandoms.
Original stuff is definitely a bit of a harder sell because you have to go out and find the people who might like your stuff and then convince them to give it a try. Building an audience in an original market is just not something I've ever been good at, I can't stand social media, I don't like "playing the algorithm", I just want to tell a story with my own characters and because of that, it often feels like I'm posting to the void with only a couple cheerleaders rooting me on. Which like, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the readers I DO have, but it can make creating comics feel like an uphill slog when you're not seeing any growth at all every time you update and try your best to advertise. Original projects are my own personal boulder if y'know what I'm saying (￣y▽,￣)╭
At the very least, working on Rekindled has definitely helped open up the doors for Time Gate a couple more inches, because a lot of stuff in Rekindled is also in Time Gate so when people enjoy Rekindled, I can point them towards Time Gate and go "Oh, you like Persephone's hot and cold characterization? You like Charon's aloofness? You like the banter between Hades and Persephone? Go read Time Gate." (｡･∀･)ﾉﾞ
That said, I think the best experience I've had with marketing Time Gate so far actually happened this year - when I went to the Island Entertainment Expo, a gaming and media convention (similar to Comic Con but on a waaaaay smaller scale lmao). There I was actually able to talk to people face to face and draw them in with physical proof of my work, it was less posting and hoping and more connecting with others and showing them my work and giving them an elevator pitch. And considering it was a convention full of like-minded people cosplaying as video game and anime characters, Time Gate fit right in because that's the niche it was written for. I'm due to go to another convention in June and possibly one in October (if I get in) and I'm hoping they're just as successful as IEX was because it was so refreshing to actually get to market my comic on a playing ground catered to my work; rather than one that would bury it after 30 seconds just for not posting at the right time of day or using the exact right combination of hashtags or not using reels.
Of course, doing tables and stuff is something that you're likely not going to jump right into especially when you're starting out. So considering you're just starting, focus less on growing an audience and more on just making your comic. It's a lot better of a sell to an audience when you have proof of your work existing and your biggest struggle in the beginning isn't going to be building an audience, but building good habits. A lot of webcomics don't even make it past a year of regular publication because of how difficult it is in practice to maintain a regular schedule. Often times the people who don't make it past that year either get bored, overwhelmed, or burnt out from the work it requires, especially when they're drawing the same characters over and over and over again - and even more so when they're doing it by themselves, with next to no audience, and no return investment. No exaggeration, drawing comics is hard, but like going to the gym, it gets easier as you get into your groove and learn what works and doesn't work for you as a creator.
Most of all, while I do hope that anyone going into webcomics can build themselves an audience they can be proud of having, please please please don't go into making webcomics purely for building an audience, because it's hard and not guaranteed. As I had said above, I still don't even consider myself as someone with an audience in the traditional sense because when it comes to Time Gate, it's still a VERY small thing, and with Rekindled, I consider the people who read it less of "my audience" and more just the community that I came into who engages with my work because it's made specifically for the community. So please, for the love of god, do it for yourself first and foremost, don't get trapped in the grind of chasing an audience when you're still just getting your work off the ground <3
I hope that helps a little, sorry I don't have a more direct "do xyz and that'll do the trick!" answer (and it turned into another essay post) but to be perfectly honest, that straightforward answer just sorta doesn't exist in this industry. Sometimes you get an audience from catering to a niche, sometimes you get one from going viral on IG, sometimes you get one from climbing the ladder within the industry, it all depends. But the good news is, there's no surefire 100% way that you have to be obligated to stick to. It's okay if you try some things and they don't work, just as it's okay if you don't feel like doing things the way everyone else is telling you to. Just have fun, learn lots, and be open to putting yourself out there and trying new things! \(￣︶￣*\))
#lore rekindled#lore rekindled comic#lore rekindled ama#comic writing advice#comic advice#comic creator#ama#ask me anything#anon ask me anything#anon ama
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Okay so question:
As I'm posting more and more about War Bots, I wonder if that would warrant getting its own side blog, while this remains as my general personal blog and the hub for smaller projects like Role Requeue.
The main pro to this is organization: War Bots posts are almost always super long, often have big images, and are for a pretty niche audience at the moment, so for people scrolling through my blog backlog I can imagine they're a bit of a nuisance. While you can easily find every War Bots post just by searching for the tag on my blog, it'd be easier to find stuff on its own separate blog where the Overwatch takes and twitch links and random cute dog videos I find aren't clogging things.
I'd also be more willing to tag more specific things, like individual characters, different types of posts, and so on, which could be useful for later organization.
There's also the more subconscious benefit that if I have a dedicated War Bots blog, I'd be more encouraged to post to it regularly. I'd feel awkward if I had the second blog and never used it, so... motivation by avoiding mild embarrassment?
The cons are... a little more numerous.
The main issue is that I'm lazy and have never had a side blog before. While I'm aware Tumblr makes having a side blog relatively easy, it's still more of a hassle than I'm used to.
A more serious issue is that it's less convenient for other people too. If anyone who wants to follow the project wants to keep seeing posts for it, they have to go follow the other blog, which I'd have to advertise here and also would probably cross-promote posts. It also hurts how many people in the future could get their eyes on it, since just by virtue of being a variety blog (granted with a heavy Overwatch lean) more people follow this blog than a new blog dedicated entirely to a project with its own specialized tags that wouldn't get seen by anyone not already aware of it. If I want more people to know about War Bots (which, to be transparent, I do), then it'd be more probable for people to see it on the blog that uses established popular tags like Overwatch.
The last big thing that discourages me from going ahead and making a War Bots sideblog is a little more silly, but is still a concern in my head.
So like. If I make a separate blog for War Bots... why don't I make a separate blog for, say... Role Requeue? That's another project with a dedicated sub-audience that might prefer a dedicated blog for it. What about one for my Splatoon OCs? That one definitely could benefit from both urging me to post more about them and also better organization, and I don't think anybody follows this blog currently for the sake of Splatoon content, so it would warrant getting a separate audience there. And those are just the things I actually post about on here, there's way more original projects like War Bots that I have in mind and wanna talk about some day. Obviously those don't warrant blogs now, but what about later? It's kind of just opening pandora's box for someone with so many random projects like me.
I dunno, just things to consider. Right now my current stance is to not make a separate War Bots blog yet, but I want to hear specifically what people think. I'd make it a direct "yes or no" poll but that feels to harsh, so I'd appreciate feedback in the replies or reblogs on this post. I'll make a separate poll in a moment, but that'll be more for fun and vibe checking than any serious decision making.
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Sync Pair Retrospective - Sygna Suit Kris
SS Kris remains one of my favorite sync pairs in the game. Like, even just from a design perspective, it's wonderful. The combo with Suicune was ideal, the role she plays is divine, there's just no flaw to Kris. She's the best unit ever. Post over. *pink intensifies* No, stay back!
When I consider what makes a truly elite support pair, I think it comes down to a few factors. Obviously there's the severity and efficiency angle, but what makes someone truly worth scouting for is having a specific niche in which they excel, and a broad role which lets them grow beyond one gimmick.
Kris' specific is Rain Dance. Following Ingo and SS Morty, this trait alone speaks volumes. Role compression in the form of buffing and field effect is divine, and Rain had value for the same reason as Sun: there are a ton of options that had Rain-based multipliers, but weren't Water-type and wanted Zone. Now they had both. And because Kris emphasized buffing offensive stats, specifically special offense? She enabled options that couldn't buff, like Clair and NY!Lance, who were otherwise in an atrocious position.
Her broad function is a bit unusual, and I think it's because of this that she never really solidified any specific team composition like Morty did with SS Lyra/SS Erika. See, as a special attack/crit buffer, there are other options. SC Jasmine has special defense debuffing and Safety Net, SC Lillie had a ton of healing and a high flinch rate and much faster buffs, and later you'd even get SS Brendan who had tremendous debuffing potential that rivaled a field effect for broad application. These things offered competition to Kris, who some felt wasn't up to the task. Because they didn't realize her true benefit was in Moves Up Next.
Team Limited Special Boost on her grid is the best skill she has. Her trainer move naturally gives +1 special moves up next under Rain, but this skill could make it +2. And every other MP move, like setting rain or healing? That can also give +1. Kris was, and is, the fastest-acting special moves up next buffer in the game. The reason she never had a specific team comp she excelled at was because she covered a whole damn field. SS Kris + Anni Raihan covered three types of field effects, and stacked special moves up next to the moon. There are numerous showcasings of how insane this gets, but my favorite remains Zinfogel showing off Ethan's Eruption. It's so funny. So while the others had their own unique niches to bring to the table, Kris stomps them all with how hard she pushes offense.
That's not to say Kris didn't have flaws. Like most of these, the main one was speed and gauge control. Kris is fairly slow, and only got Team Swift Reaction 4 on grid, probably as a limitation to her greatness. So unfortunately, heavy, gauge-hungry monsters like Archie could have some serious issues with Kris.
Just kidding! Eevee Day Variety scouts introduced Lyra and Vaporeon, a sync pair that provided Rain on every sync, blocked crits for the team under rain, and gave +2 speed to the team for each use of trainer move. You thought Kris had a flaw? Uh-uh, Kris has no flaws. In fact, she has no flaws so hard that her best partner also matches a ton of her theme skills, and she could drop Vigilance lucky skill for Head Start 1 with literally no drawbacks. It was cute how you all tried, though.
The thing is, Kris is so good that, unlike Ethan who is largely top dog because no one tried, Kris has faced competition twice. The first was C!Calem, another Master Fair Support who packed not only Rain, but Dark Zone. Moreover, Calem didn't have Kris' central weakness: being kinda slow. Calem had gauge acceleration and really good speed and recharging strike, which fixed the issue she had. However, Calem wound up being frail, while Kris had bulk for days. Calem had a Buddy condition to meet that was particularly rough on Gauntlet, with a max limit of 2MP, while Kris did whatever she wanted and a minimum of 3. And despite having a better buffing kit for physical, leading you to think he's a good supplement to Kris in Rain, his decision to give special moves with Rain instead of physical meant he was actively trying to pick a fight that he could not win. Calem remains in the Rain meta solely because Kris cannot help physical Water types and keeps him around for their sake, because she is a benevolent empress. But he sure as hell didn’t scare her.
Even now, we get SS Mina, who is coming in with Rain and Fairy Zone. And just like Calem, Mina is immediately slapped out of Rain. Because how can you possibly compete? Mina doesn't even cap crit rate, it's just +6 special attack. Who's gonna use that, Barry? Mina doesn't offer anything to Rain that Kris doesn't do better, and thus she is relegated to Fairy, or a secondary Rain setter if you're going for Gauntlet streaks or some cute off-type thing in CS. Two challengers rose, but no one can take the Rain Throne from Kris. Though man, can we talk about how we have THREE Supports that set Rain, and none of them are perfectly physical aligned? I think DeNA hates SS Grimsley.
Now. There is one who has challenged Kris, and can be said to have won. Champion Bede is the only time I feel like Kris flinched first.
Bede is the most absurd general support in the game, and I don't feel like it's close. +2 to both offenses and crit and +1 to both physical and special moves up next on trainer move, Buddy move gives Free Moves Next and defensive stats, every sync from anyone replenishes 1MP. Bede is wildly aggressive, consistent, and persistent. Kris' flaw is that Team Limited Special Boost is only a 30% chance. While she has a high ceiling, she has a low floor, and she's sadly closer to the floor. Bede may not directly compete, but because he never runs out of MP, he's a much more consistent option in Gauntlet, while his Free Moves Next makes CS a breeze. He even has the audacity to get SEUN on sync for the entire team, just blowing past Kris' damage. And because he offers physical boosting too, he's not even as specific as Kris. Bede is unquestionably the best support, and for the first time, I am forced to admit that maybe, just maybe, Kris has a flaw.
But man, if you're going through an entire year slapping aside competition, including another Master Fair support, you're doing well. Honestly, even in the contest against Bede, Kris does still retain a niche, by having that higher threshold for Special Moves Up Next. She can pump higher damage than Bede for a single shot, with some decent support. And of course, the Rain. Bede can claim conquest wherever he wants, but he won't be breaking into the domain of Rain any time soon.
So to bring this back around. Kris has faced direct competition from two separate competitors to her Rain Support role, and unlike Morty, she beat both and sent them packing, but lets Calem visit on weekends for Grimsley's sake. Even faced against the best support in the game, Kris retains a niche in the same offensive playstyle of move next boosting, and has complete dominion over Rain. If your only competition is the best support in the game, and you didn't even lose? You are top tier. You are top tier all day.
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Alright peeps, listen up. I have very niche and random thoughts abt the TV show Galavant rn and I am going to scream into the tumblr void (Toid, if you will) about them.
So, a while back I saw a post that suggested Roberta from S2 of Galavant as trans. I looked and went, “huh, that’s cool” but my subconscious latched onto the idea and now I’m finally ready to properly fangirl over it.
I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCH. SO SO MUCH! because there is so much young Richard & young Roberta & young Gareth potential here. I can picture one main plot bunny really clearly so here:
-Richard and closeted Roberta and Gareth are hanging out, and someone mentions that there is a magical item somewhere that can change your physical appearance. For obvious reasons, Roberta is like (:o and suggests to Richard that they go on an adventure to find it (maybe with the pretext of helping Richard grow a really beautiful beard because he’s tried everything else, maybe they’re just bored)
-Either way, Richard is like “sign me up! :D” and they’re off
-Gareth comes along to because, hey, he’s not going to let the king he swore to protect wander off with some rando he’s only known for like. 2 years. she could be an assassin! Besides, Richard clearly cares about Roberta for some reason so he might as well try to help her. definitely not because she’s also his friend. Not at all.
-so they’re all going to find this magic macguffin thingy and let’s say it’s kind of a long journey. There’s a lot of danger, maybe a subplot about Gareth finding out or having always known why Roberta really wants to go and trying to hint at her that he and Richard are both very okay with it or something. (I just really love the idea of Gareth stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that he considers Roberta a friend, can you tell?)
-it’s also an exceptionally frustrating journey, and Richard keeps ending up in a lot of life-threatening situations bc he’s an oblivious cinnamon roll. Gareth is getting more and more stressed out because he’s so worried that Richard is going to die and he feels like Roberta isn’t acknowledging the danger Richard is in/just doesn’t care [Hey don’t do Roberta like that ):( ]
-eventually Richard/Roberta loses a map they were using to locate the macguffin and Gareth just blows up at both of them. He says that if Richard won’t take his own safety seriously then Gareth might as well just leave now, and storms off.
-So now Richard and Roberta are left alone and they are well and truly lost, and Roberta feels awful because she had a way to really transition and now she can’t, the dysphoria is really hitting her hard, she’s lost and tired and hungry, and feeling guilty because she thinks it’s her fault Richard keeps almost getting killed (queen it’s not, he’s just. a dumbass. a wonderful dumbass but still) and she just breaks down. Richard asks what’s wrong, she lies and says it’s bc they’re in danger and Richard is like. Bullshit. There’s something else and I can tell and it’s really bothering you so what’s up. Cause my boy got *emotional intelligence*. And Roberta tells him because she’s wanted to for awhile.
-She is also terrified because there is not a lot of trans acceptance around but obviously Richard is just like. “Ohhh. That’s why you want to get to the face changer thing? duh that makes so much sense. Well then, let’s get going! I bet we can still find it”
-And Roberta is very confused by this sudden burst of optimism and she goes “dude we need to get back to the castle”. Now that he finally knows why they are trying to get to the magic macguffin Richard really doesn’t want to give up, but Roberta convinces him that they can come back to find it later but they can’t go back to the castle if they die here.
-So they are going back, and they try to take a shortcut through a really thick bunch of trees, fall down a hill, and find themselves in the clearing with *le gasp* the magic macguffin!! turns out they walked right past the clearing and started going in circles and that’s how they got lost. So the 2 of them touch the macguffin, which I have now decided is a big cool glowing crystal. It works, Roberta transitions and Richard gets a beard in a huge explosion of light just in time for Gareth, who has doubled back out of loyalty, to run in on both of them and try to attack the crystal bc y’know. he’s Gareth
-and then they go back and have more fun adventures together
anyways TRANS ROBERTA TRANS ROBERTA TRANS ROBERTA
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If You Love Art, Astrology, or Just Need a New Platform, Check this Out
If there's one thing I learned during my Saturn Return, it's I'll never fit in, and that's absolutely okay, because neither do a lot of people. A lot of voices aren't counted in the world of social media and even beyond it, and what does Nina Simone say? "You've got to learn to leave the table when love is no longer being served." But to put her idea further, you have to build your own table, and make sure that the people sitting there genuinely are meant to be there. And that's what I'm doing with my brand new social media space. I'm building a table especially for those who don't have a seat at the others. And I'm not doing this to be rebellious or make a statement, I'm really doing this to prove that social media can be done properly, with feeling. What started as an idea for a space for artists and astrology lovers, became more.
One thing that’s always stood out to me when it comes to social media is its aesthetic. Haven’t you noticed? Everything is blue, and grey. This concept of neutrality was designed to attract as many people as possible, which is great at first, until you consider what it really means: it erases diversity. There’s this idea that we mustn’t address our differences to avoid rocking the boat, because that’s dangerous. It disrupts the harmony of posting, sharing and liking, and pushes us to think critically on the content we consume and create.
Well I’ve never been the neutral type. I’ve ended friendships and even connections to family members over a silent agreement to being neutral. Yes, to some extent, we need to give people grace, but in situations where there’s an elephant in the room and people try to decorate that elephant with shiny objects, this creates a culture of conflict avoidance, which then leads to either of two things: passive-aggressiveness or censorship.
For example, on social media, you might notice people typ|ng c@pt|ons l|ke th|s. This is one way to avoid being flagged or banned with certain words, and the irony is often these words aren't actually offensive, it's what they represent. Usually people have to do this when making posts about subjects like abuse, trauma, or social issues. You know, anything that reminds the algorithm that we don’t have a perfect world where everyone is a flawless and tanned influencer. And no hate to people who work as influencers, it's just that I like my feed filled with people I actually follow already.
Social media as an introvert and artist used to be my happy place, because it’s the easiest way to connect and express myself. Till it wasn’t, and I had to carefully curate each post based on what would be the most tolerable, most "like"-able and least likely to get muted. It’s easy to say we shouldn’t take the internet seriously, but whether we want this or not, it’s a huge part of our lives, so we have no choice to make it better.
One thing that’s been lacking on social media is how we go about people who don’t fit into a specific box. I get it, it’s hard to market or share if you’re someone who’s passionate about a million and one things, but it’s even harder to put your work out there if you’re an artist since obviously, most artists enjoy more than one skill. It’s also hard sometimes for those who love spiritual topics like astrology because to an extent, there’s still a certain taboo. You could imagine how much harder this gets on platforms that thrive on stereotypes and niches. As someone who’s both an artist and an astrologer, of course I thought of you, but let’s not gatekeep either. We know what that feels like.
This is where that new platform comes in. It’s called Persephone’s Forum, and while initially it was going to be just a forum added onto my main website, I decided to take it a step further, by making it into its own social media website. You can add friends, chat, and post as expected, but... values are key here. You can even get verified, as long as you show that your account name is what you typically use online. More importantly, you don’t have to walk on eggshells anytime you post. As long as you aren’t making remarks that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or show any type of discrimination, and you don’t bully people, you’ll be welcome. Sounds like the obvious, right?
Actually that’s another thing I felt was lacking in mainstream social media, the inability or even refusal, to draw a difference between self-expression and talking down to others. It just shows the privileged position of the people who run these spaces, when they’ll ignore blatant discrimination, but will gladly ban someone just for saying something about Black Lives Matter or women’s issues, or even for mild swearing. And I get it, sometimes kids are online, but there’s only so much pleasing everyone. At some point, we need every adult to take accountability. If it’s more important to make extra profit with certain business partners than to do the right thing, is your business actually that social? If companies like Ben and Jerry’s can go about raising awareness on social causes and still make money, then the issue isn’t reputation, it’s about priorities, and those like Zuckerberg seem to be picking the wrong ones.
Going back to the point of encouraging neutrality, I think it’s just another way of saying who has a voice and who doesn’t. Because who decides what that looks like? Beyond the obvious like religion, sex, and politics, are we supposed to avoid every topic that brings up some emotion? There’s something very patriarchal in telling us that we have to swallow our emotions and just buy whatever products come up in suggested pages or late night scrolls, or to do another little dance vid. The idea that emotional posts and videos aren’t likely to get pushed for views, says a lot about where we stand as a people.
Never in my life did I even imagine creating my own platform, but in hindsight, it was bound to happen. I’ve been on almost every version of social media since 2006, and in university, my friends were a group of guys from the engineering department, so most of our conversations revolved around computers and software. Despite all this, I was studying in film but didn’t fit into that department any more than the engineering department. And if there’s one person in tech I admire for being a misfit too, it’s Steve Jobs, despite having no interest in Apple products.
Persephone’s Forum is born in a time when a lot of world events are happening, and people need a safe space. It’s here at a time where creators have to avoid posting certain pictures to prevent being shadowbanned for nudity, when there’s no actual nudity there. It’s born at a time where Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook/Meta, announced that he would start charging for the blue checkmark, which let’s be real, was initially a symbol of privilege anyway since only famous people seem to get it. It also comes at a time where Elon Musk bought Twitter, only to destroy it slowly from the inside. It also comes at a time where more than ever people are looking for ways to just be heard.
At one point, social media was the place where you could reconnect with an old friend or even just learn HOW to connect. In 2023, it’s become a place where the rich flaunt their Gucci purses and latest vacations in front of millions of followers who most likely are struggling to feed their families. It’s become a place where class is what gets you up there, unless you’re lucky, or patient enough to post incessantly every day. Not to mention scrolling feels like you’re mindlessly absorbing content, when the whole point is to be social. Now it’s just... media. I’d like to change that in some way.
Just over ten years ago, owning a social media platform was revolutionary, but these days, it’s a part of our everyday lives, which means it’s no longer enough to wow people with new emojis or life-like filters, or talks of virtual reality. These days, you have to have values and integrity. You have to show others that their voices are heard, and one thing I learned is that to the people who’ve run the show till now, we aren’t heard. That’s why I did something.
In all honesty, how can you expect diversity from mainstream platforms anyway, when they’re predominantly founded and owned by white men? Aside from Zhang Yiming, the founder of Tiktok, and Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Meta, and of course if you want to count Whitney Wolfe Heard, the founder of dating app Bumble, there’s not much more representation. Black-owned apps TrueSo and MelaninPeople are gaining traction, but have yet to really be put in the spotlight.
Even when it comes to the aesthetic for Persephone’s Forum, there’s no blue or grey. It’s classic and elegant, but also practical, just like the Greek Goddess. It reflects what’s possible when a person takes something into their own hands. And like Persephone leaving the Underworld, it reflects a bit of hope.
The idea for Persephone’s Forum started out as really being intended for people who are artists, or who just love the arts, for people who are astrologers or who just love astrology, but I don’t like fences, I like bridges. Think of it as more of a space where you can be... yourself, whatever that means. Without any algorithm. Without any influencers (sorry not sorry). And especially without darn crummy eggshells. Also, hopefully without bots either, because those can be a pain in the #ss, and the work will be put in to keep it that way longterm.
And if I’m being honest, I don’t expect Persephone’s Forum to change the whole world. If ever it does change something, that would be amazing, but my priority is to simply keep it true to who I am, and to who a lot of other people are. It isn’t reinventing the wheel, it’s just showing off the parts that truly matter. And what we’ve been seeing lately, ain’t it. Maybe for some, but for the rest of us, we’ll be over here. Where we can be who we are, not who they want us to be.
Register for Persephone’s Forum at persephonesforum.com. The Queen of the Underworld welcomes you.
To check out my books, social media and more, visit persephoneandco.org.
https://www.tumblr.com/media/3f98dfc1c8338445c5379e82d0e791d5
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Oh I wish you wouldn't withhold your thoughts on this disaster - yours is one of the voices I trust most on these issues because you are generally quite balanced and positive in your opinions, and because you also have actual professional experience in this field. As a casual observer this leaves such a bad taste in my mouth for both Florence and H and I can't believe how easily so many people are participating in this narrative.
that story is making me feel spicy so here ya go!
things i "know" (aka have been told by people who are close to it that i trust)
jason and o were fine and her breaking it off with him came out of nowhere. he was blindsided
she broke it off with jason because of the stunt (i dont know WHEN that officially happened aka how long before we saw it)
it's well known industry-wide that their relationship is fake
it's well known industry-wide that harry is LGBTQ (and less well known, but still well known, that harry has a long term partner)
it’s very common for movie campaigns to try to make it seem like your main two actors are a thing. i was on a campaign once where they tried to do it (i refused to help on it, as much as i had a say at the time). it was not successful anyways lol no one cared
things i assume:
i firmly believe o is a textbook narcissist
o received a ton of press after booksmart, which did really well. but a lot of the angle was that she is a great indie and niche director and i can easily see this pissing her off if she wanted to be considered a mainstream director
which led to the deal she made when she sold the movie (i know this was confirmed but i dont remember the source) - once the movie hit a certain level of profit, she (and the creative team) would then directly start receiving profits. which means that nothing about the movie or how it’s received or awards or anything matters - the only thing she is focused on is box office success
florence signing on after o’s success with booksmart makes sense to me. it’s the niche of movies florence thrives in for her non-mainstream picks. i think she had no idea what was going to happen.
and this shows in how she’s protecting and respecting harry - no on set posts, not a lot of chatter about it on her socials compared to other movies, etc
harry was a move to get the mainstream success. obviously i think he’s wildly talented and completely qualified, but it’s known he’ll bring the big money
i think o knew how much press a fake relationship in the cast brings in. and her wanting the spotlight on her always makes sense why she picked herself (and why she has a role in the movie too)
i go back and forth about if it was supposed to last this long, and my thought usually steers to not. i think o got press hungry once she saw how much pickup it could get
i have from the start thought that o and her team control the stunt, as opposed to h. there are certain textbook pattern things i think they suggest or say h will do, because he’s familiar with the pattern and it’s safer. it worked out that it covers for his long term lovey dovey songs, but i do not think that was originally the plan
there is usually a Lot of press around any of h’s fake relationships, but not to the level of “sources” that there are this time - which points me even more to thinking it’s o’s team
the fake harry was a plant from h’s team so he didn’t have to do shit, and any fan pics or sightings that you cant clearly see his face are the plant.
o has no idea how grammar works why the fuck doesnt the title have a comma
this is all i can think of right now because my mind is REELING from that story
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FFA MUSINGS
I was 17 when I learned the terms "feeder" "feedee" and "feederism" from stumbling across one of those trash documentaries about the kink. Apparently, my sexuality revolved around extremes and predators: creepy straight men coercing naive women into transforming their bodies and their lives - the women didn't particularly seem to be getting off on it or even have much agency in the whole thing. The men were awful. (Sometimes, these days, I look back and wonder how much all the negatives of what I saw were exaggerated by the editing…)
That was my lightbulb moment, where I discovered the label for something very personal and private that I'd had all my life but always felt confused and ashamed about. I now also had the pleasure of feeling extra disgusting and very alone, having been shown what horrible company I was in, and that I now knew I was a feeder, but apparently all feeders were men.
Any furtive investigations online (in the reasonably early days of the internet) seem to confirm this suspicion: female feeders were not A Thing, there might possibly be one or two others out there at best. Male gainers only seemed to exist in their own niche in gay subculture, and although I was happy they were out there somewhere living their best lives, they were obviously Not For Me.
I was 34 when after years of pushing it all to the back of my mind, I finally gave in. I've been with the same (non-feedist) partner since my early 20s, so I just assumed that I'd never be able to explore it irl anyway, and that was that. I can't remember what happened or why I decided that I had to try to find some others to connect with, even just to chat with, but in the end (with my partner's blessing) I found and joined Feabie (of which I have many opinions but I'll leave those for another time…) and interacted with other feedists online for the first time in my life.
Guess what: straight male feedees exist. They exist, and there's fucking loads of them!! Tons of the buggers in my inbox all day every day for weeks. Pretty heady experience going from outcast freak to Much Sought After Item - apparently female feeders really are quite rare, or we don't have much of an online presence (or most of us are lurking in a secret lair somewhere that the others haven't invited me to, rude….) or they're also out there somewhere thinking they're the only one.
The unbridled glee of feeling popular and desirable for being something I'd always felt ashamed of did wear off a teensy bit after the endless onslaught of "hey" "hi" "how u" "ayy babygurl" "I'm looking for a feeder please accommodate all my kinks even though I'm a total stranger and I clearly don't give a shit about you as a human being" "You're a woman on the internet I'm entitled to your attention don't be difficult what's your problem" and my current favourite, the bizarrely ominous "Can I ask ur opinion?" (The answer is no my friend, if I wanted to be spammed with anonymous torso pics that I'm meant to manufacture comments about that you can get off to I'd have asked YOU.)
But. I'm still completely overjoyed that male feedees exist, that I've spoken to so many cool and interesting and lovely guys, that I've had experiences I'd always assumed I wouldn't, that I FINALLY MET OTHER FFAs and they are awesome and now I'm close friends with one and it's freaking GREAT. All of this has also lead my partner and I to discover polyamory and now I'm in love with two people who love me back NOBODY EVER SAID YOU WERE ALLOWED TO DO THAT WHY THE FUCK DID NO ONE TELL ME
There are so many nuances and preferences I'd never considered. I knew what I liked and that's what I sought out in terms of porn and that was that. Actually talking to feedees and learning about the whole spectrum of things they each did or didn't enjoy or want to participate in was a revelation, and also helped me clarify my own preferences myself.
There are still things I've yet to come to terms with or decide how to feel about. The main things I'd always felt guilty or ashamed of were less to do with fat or fat guys, it was the feeding itself.
Where being an FFA is concerned - I like to think that if I'd ever been lucky enough to have a fat boyfriend when I was younger, I wouldn't have been shallow enough to care what anyone else thought. It's possible I'm giving my younger self too much credit; I know for certain that some people in my life would have made nasty comments, I was also hugely insecure myself, and I have no idea what it really would have been like. I have no doubt that living all my life in a fatphobic society has affected me in more ways than I'm even aware of (same as everyone else in some way, I'm guessing....). I think any uneasiness I felt there was less worrying about shallow friends or family members, and more how to find potential fat partners without offending them. I have always been conscious of the fact that the majority of fat people would very likely be horrified to be thought of and objectified through the lens of this fetish. You never know what someone's relationship to their own body is, but it's safe to bet that it's a more complex one than it seems, and also, unless you're expressly invited into that relationship by that person, it's none of your fucking business.
But anyway, the main reason I never had many hangups about it was that I don't think I even *was* attracted to fat people when I was young - sometimes I'm not sure I was even attracted to anyone. I had crushes on boys all the time, but I never thought of anyone sexually. My teenage fantasies were pure belly kink: stuffing, chugging, bloating, inflation, any kind of ridiculous fantasy belly expansion - the actual fattening aspect of feeding was less a part of it, and fancying fat dudes was never connected to it. By the time I'd begun to join the dots and wonder if I liked fat boys, I'd started to happen across media that portrays the worst of Feedism, and since I liked sadistic fucked up stuff and already felt ashamed of it, all of that just confirmed to me that I was right to hate myself. Even now, when I'm exposed to much more conversation about this kink than I ever used to be, I notice a lot of love for soft feedism, wholesome fatness appreciation, body positivity, romance (all of which I absolutely love, don't get me wrong) and I still sometimes feel Iike I'm being left out of the party. Keeping my fingers crossed for more consensual femdom-feedism love (and content, ugh…)
But… what would have happened if I hadn't gotten the fuck over myself and put myself out there, tried to find others? How many other young people see themselves portrayed horribly in the media and hide parts of themselves FROM THEMSELVES forever? What happens next? I've apparently found the one person who likes all the same twisted things I do, but actually getting to see him irl ever or do any of the things we want to do seems impossible, and not just because of Covid.
This fetish is lonely for most of us I think, in some way or another. There aren't many feedists, there don't seem to be as many female feeders or male feedees, there probably aren't many people who will share the same preferences within the fetish that you do, and frankly when you filter out the people who aren't crazy or creepy or don't know how to hold a conversation, the pool shrinks even further. I've seen plenty of posts bemoaning how hard it is to find someone, but seriously, having spent most of my life in a vacuum where this stuff is concerned, I'm still buzzing from having engaged with the small handful of people I've engaged with, even just to chat to.
What I want to say to my younger self is: you're a good person. You're just a kinky bitch, that's all.
I feel like this description probably applies to all the best people, I can live with that.
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Designing online conferences for building community: The case of #LingComm21
When I started trying to solve the problem of virtual conferences being so antisocial by designing a conference to be online-first from the ground up, I had three main inspirations: a tweet, a blog post, and a book.
In January 2020, there was a twitter meme that read: "You've been given $10,000 a set of conference rooms, and a weekend. You've been instructed that you must hold "your name"-Con. What do you do? What does the event look like? Are there games? panels? speakers?"
I posted a reply:
Gretchen Con is obviously just getting a bunch of people together to nerd out about linguistics, like the fun bits of an academic conference (lots of lightning talks and roundtable discussions and "everyone who wants to talk about x go to this room")
...and then, well, the pandemic happened. We were all pretty distracted.
But as conferences and events kept switching to virtual through 2020, I was noticing that most of them weren't replicating my favourite parts of conferences, the interactive parts, the parts that I'd wanted to replicate in my extremely hypothetical meme tweet.
I started experimenting with holding various demo events in proximity chat spaces like Gather.town and Spatial.chat, and ultimately wrote an article for Wired about designing better virtual parties. Researching the article led me to reading a lot about social psychology findings that human conversation size naturally maxes out in fluid, changing configurations of around 4 people, much smaller than a typical Zoom social, and publishing it led me to the excellent book The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker, a step-by-step guide to better gatherings primarily in physical space but which has many ideas that can be applied to virtual gatherings as well.
I began thinking, what if we designed a conference to be virtual from the ground up? What would be different if we conceived of a virtual conference not as a simple vehicle to port the typical conference programming online, but as the chance to take advantage of the core social strengths within the overlap of conference and internet, as I talked about in the previous post — to create a magic circle, where people who share a particular interest get to interact with each other over a defined period of time?
I came up with three principles of what makes an online conference different from an offline one:
1. An online-first conference can be more niche.
A physical conference needs to appeal to a sufficient number of people who are interested in a particular topic, who also live within a sufficient radius and/or have sufficient income/support/visas to make travel reasonable. Many physical conferences that pivoted to online for the pandemic found that their registration numbers increased by 1.5x to 2x, which points to how many people are excluded by physical conference travel. But this also means that an online-first conference can be about a topic that's so niche it wouldn't necessarily have been viable as a standalone physical conference at all, such as something that might have been a small meetup or workshop at a larger conference.
2. An online-first conference doesn't require as much upfront commitment.
Physical conferences need to reserve a venue of a particular size before they even know how many tickets will sell, as well as needing to consider issues like catering and staffing. An online conference can in theory be run much more cheaply and flexibly, and is thus easier for first-time conference-runners (like me) who have a niche idea to make happen. (Though cheaper to run doesn't mean entirely free; we'll see in a later post that livecaptioning, livestreaming, and proximity chat platforms all incur costs, even if one doesn't count the labour of conference organizers.)
3. An online-first conference can be more innovative.
Physical conferences that move online are beholden to the expectations of the attendees from previous years, expectations which may not map particularly well onto an online domain. A new online-first conference can set an entirely new pattern, potentially providing a model for useful features to be added onto other kinds of events as well.
One of Priya Parker's core ideas in the Art of Gathering is that every gathering needs a purpose. Since online gatherings can support topics that are more niche than physical events, and since I was missing the conversations about linguistics communication that I normally have around the margins of physical conferences (and suspected that other people would be too), I got together a small committee of people to run the first International Conference on Linguistics Communication, an online-first conference with the purpose of building a community of people who are doing linguistics communication.
My hypothesis, which I first tested by recruiting the fantastic organizing team of co-chair Lauren Gawne, committee members Jessi Grieser and Laura Bailey, and conference manager Liz McCullough (different spelling, no relation!), was that there were enough people interested in lingcomm to form a decent-sized small conference, maybe up to 100 people.
We formed this hypothesis based largely on personal connections: we've all had conversations with people about lingcomm at the larger academic linguistics conferences we've attended, covering various catchment areas as we're based in four different countries. As non-academics, Liz and I had also encountered people interested in lingcomm who didn't typically attend academic conferences, especially in conjunction with scicomm, and from running the LingComm Grants the previous year, Lauren and I knew that announcing things on Lingthusiasm and our own social media was a viable way of reaching budding lingcommers from around the world.
By building a community of lingcommers at a virtual conference, we hoped to demonstrate two things:
There is significant interest in lingcomm at a global level, helping lingcomm practitioners learn from each other and feel less isolated
Effective community-building through online conferences is possible, and this conference and surrounding materials (such as this series of blog posts!) can serve as resources for people with other interests who want to create online events for other communities
The way that we proposed to accomplish this purpose was inspired by both the Art of Gathering, as I've already mentioned, and an extremely good blog post by Em Lazer-Walker, Using game design to make virtual events more social, which contains a description of conferences as a magic circle, as well as this memorable application of the sociology of friendship to conference design:
friendships are formed through repeated spontaneous interactions over time.
This model reinforces some design decisions I've already explained: if you want spontaneous interactions, that seemingly requires a more spatial chat model than a giant Discord server where everybody is always in the same chat rooms at the same time.
From there, adding game-like and playful activities to the space can encourage these moments of spontaneous interaction to happen more frequently.
Similarly, The Art of Gathering described how Parker built community at a conference where attendees from different groups were encountering each other for the first time by seating audience members at small group tables and then encouraging them to get up and move to a different table after each talk. Regular mixing promoted not just befriending the few people that attendees happened to sit next to at the beginning, but a broader sense of community as a whole.
Accomplishing our community-building goal for LingComm21 thus required two key ingredients: first, a conference platform that let attendees participate in self-directed, small-group conversations with a variety of different people, and second, a conference schedule that encouraged people to actually have these small-group conversations (and bond about our topic of interest in particular).
Here's a preview of the end: judging from people's responses on social media and our exit survey, we succeeded at our goals of building community around lingcomm and creating a model conference.
in a way this is really obvious, but wow, virtual conferences are SO much better when they're organized and attended by people who believe that virtual conferences can be good
#LingComm21 was hands-down the best digital conference experience I’ve had; this thread does a great job explaining why
#LingComm21 has been an amazing conference so far, and while everyone has been sharing screenshots of the amazing digital space the organisation team has created for us, I also want to reflect on why this works so well for me and how our next online conferences can look like [thread]
In the following posts, collaboratively written with organizing committee members Liz McCullough and Lauren Gawne, we’ll walk through the design ingredients that we used to create this experience of community both on the scheduling side and on the platform side.
Part of a series called LingComm21: a case study in making online conferences more social. Stay tuned for the following posts during upcoming weeks, or subscribe to my newsletter to get the full list of posts sent to you once they’re all out.
Why virtual conferences are antisocial (but they don’t have to be)
Designing online conferences for building community
Scheduling online conferences for building community
Hosting online conferences for building community
Budgeting online conferences or events
Planning accessible online conferences
#lingcomm21#lingcomm21 case study#conferences#community#lingcomm#conference#priya parker#em lazer-walker#art of gathering#virtual conferences#meta#advice
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Let’s talk: The importance of curating your space and the cyclical life of ships
by Admin 1
From anon: Hi! I'm a new Army/vminie (4 months) and I have a (maybe dumb) question... When I joined, I saw so many j*/k*okers analysing every small moment between jk and jm and these ppl were everywhere and I couldn't avoid seeing j*/k*ok ship content. However, the past two weeks or so it seems to have shifted and suddenly I see t*e/k*ok ship content everywhere. I wonder, is this shifting a normal occurence? And how do I get rid of these ship contents in spaces that are supposed to be free of these 2 ships
Having been around for quite some time, I’ve come to think of the big ships as something very akin to extremely sensitive seismometers. Instead of detecting even the smallest movement or noise in relation to earthquakes or volcanic activity, these ship seismometers react to any and all activity (as in any kind of “moments” or what they perceive as such) in very “volatile” manners, for a lack of better words.
What do I mean by that?
Like you said, there was a long phase after Dynamite came out where the mood had shifted toward J*k*ok because we got more content in which we could see those two interact, even if later on we also got content from the same sets and time in which both members involved were seen interacting with other members, but that didn’t matter. So, obviously, shippers took this as grand sign, the seismometer drawing numbers like ones you’d get when you have an extreme earthquake, but in this case it was a positive thing. Every new “moment” or anything they perceived as such caused big reactions, loud enough to even reach far beyond their space and instead was heard also in general ARMY spaces or those of other shippers etc. But, there’s also the opposite effect, as in, volatile reactions, or big reactions, when there are several pieces of content one after the other where said ship doesn’t interact or doesn’t have any “moments”. In cases like that euphoria quickly shifts into “insecurity” (though they would never admit to that) and worry, occasionally also defensiveness and attacks.
Imagine a scenario like this: lets say we get five Bangtan B*mbs. The first one has main ship A interact, the next one doesn’t have either of the two ships, the third one was has main ship B interact, as well as in video four and five.
Those who were happy with the first video will be casual/neutral about the second one, but as they get the third, fourth and fifth, the seismometer for them inevitably turns from extremely positive to extremely negative. While for B it’s the exact opposite, going from negative to extremely positive with YT and sns exploding with announcements of “B ships is back” or “B are in love after all, BH has freed them” or anything along those lines.
What I’m trying to say is that yes, this is normal. The big ships and their shippers lead a very cyclical life, which also means they never quite “disappear” either. They are always there, waiting, and then jump on any piece of a moment they get with big reactions, and in the time where they have nothing, chances are the toxic part of their community will go into attack mode instead, like that will change anything at all. We’ve seen other ships come and go, nearly disappear just to have some kind of revival months or even years later, or “new” ships win the favor of the masses. There are also a few ships that have steadily existed for most of the past eight years without any volatile shifts or changes, but those are generally the quieter ones ignored or actively campaigned against/discredited ones by the big ships and their shippers.
Hyung line ships are generally seen as more “niche”/overlooked, or just some background extras for fanfics or something ML shippers enjoy since the aren’t an active “threat”, like Namjoon x Yoongi or Yoongi x Hobi which have been around forever and I don’t think I’ve ever really seen (or heard about) anyone have fights about them or even fights between those two camps, since most shippers have an almost laser like focus on the maknaes and especially JK.
The funny thing in all of this, if you can even call it that, is that none of it really depends on the members themselves. In all this time they haven’t changed their behavior much at all, their bonds haven’t drastically or dramatically changed, and certain members didn’t magically go from “hating” each other to suddenly becoming couples over night or vise versa. It’s all shipper interpretations, theories and conspiracies being layered on top of what people see on screen to make things more “interesting”, even if that means actively going against what the members have said themselves and who the members are, as in their personalities but also in relation to each other.
And this brings me to my next point, the importance of curating your own space.
Here it’s important to know what kind of a TL or ARMY sns experience do you want. Do you want to just focus on your bias with a side of OT7 with gifs and pictures and nothing else? Do you want to have more of an eye on how BTS is doing on the charts? Have more discourse and discussions on the TL you can follow or actively participate in? Or do you want a mix of it all?
Personally I’m very picky in who I follow and what kind of content I add to my TL by following an account. Generally I think it’s important to check every account you consider following to make sure they aren’t one of the following things: akgae, manti, solo stan, toxic shipper, or a victimizing sheep. While I do follow a number of ship centric accounts, because I like seeing vmin and namjin on my TL, I find it extremely important to follow several trustworthy ARMY translators as well as a number of non-ship centric ARMY accounts that just focus on Bangtan as a whole.
The block button is your friend. I know it might seem drastic or mean to just block random people, but in the long run you will be thankful for it since it will keep toxic content away from your space, regardless if toxic in a solo stan sense or a ship one. If you’re on twt you can also mute certain words and # so they don’t show up on your TL either, make use of that if you feel a need for it. Eventually though the algorithm learns what you gravitate toward, and if you follow a well curated number of accounts, the things you don’t want to see simply won’t appear where you can see them.
On YT, as far as I’m aware, in the recommended section you can mark videos you don’t like as not being interested in them and even mark whole channels as something you don’t want to have recommended to you. Since I don’t watch any ship related videos, I never get any recommended to me despite watching BTS videos (though I mostly stick to their official accounts and wherever else they performed).
It’s important to create a space in which you just see the content you want, but still pay attention to not just bury yourself in a ship bubble since that can be a slippers slope and you might end up accidentally turning yourself toxic on accident, too sure of your thoughts and end up growing resentful moments where a member of your ship interacts with someone else in the group. That’s when you know you’ve gone several steps to far, since above all else, we are ARMY before we are vminnies or namjinists or anything else. We can love our chosen duo, we can love our bias(es), but we should always listen to what the members have to say and trust them. After all Tae (and the other members) has asked us several times to love all seven, so that’s what I do. They are all incredibly lovable, and their bonds with each other all precious and wonderful in their own ways and worthy of appreciation, so I don’t understand those who feel hatred against any of them.
Curate your space but always keep a healthy mix of general ARMY and ship content, if you are someone who partakes in shiperverse activities, and stay as far away as possible from manipulative YT videos and accounts with toxic narratives and motives.
From anon: hey! read your new post re: curating your own space. don't know if you'll answer this, but is there any "must follow" accounts on twt (for translations, vmin, and bts in general) that you can recommend? I'm new to the site and made an account for bangtan only, but there's just so much going on there that it can get confusing. Also found out that there are many troll accs, fake 'nice' accs, too much drama accs etc that can give you a bad experience.
Here’s a large selection of translators and a smaller selection of other accounts that I think are worth following, especially BTSChartData. Also, whatever you do, don’t follow the BTS ARMY twt account with 4M+ followers or however many they might have at this point.
I’d also be very weary of member specific fanbases and chart accounts since they are known as perfect breeding grounds for solos, akgae and mantis, unfortunately, and some have been exposed for being akgae themselves.
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Homecoming
This is a story I’ve been planning for over a year and finally feel readyish to post it. This first chapter has been reread about ten times so it’s about time to release it. It introduces the main OC for the story, which will spend the next fifteen chapters exploring Jeff’s return to earth before Josie comes back into play.
Thank you @misssquidtracy for being my cheerleader, this would be no where near as far written if you hadn’t enjoyed it so.
I hope you enjoy chapter one, which is set between Series 2 and 3.
AO3 and FFN
First Impressions
Josie stood outside the hall and took a deep breath. You can do this, she thought, you already have the invite for the invite only event. They might be the big bosses, the people who matter, but you matter too. You just have to network. Don't sell yourself short.
She steeled herself again and swallowed. She really didn't belong here. London was a long way from the compassionate community she grew up with in Scotland. But the idea of getting stuck there and never fulfilling her dreams made her determined, despite the imposter syndrome that plagued her. She looked down at herself and tried to feel comfortable. They were her smartest clothes: a black pencil skirt, blouse with frilly collar and a fitted, thanks to Nancy's excellent seamstress skills, suit jacket. They were all high street brands which wouldn't compare to the designer suits and dresses she'd be mingling with. The only saving grace was the simple diamond chain around her neck. Worth more to Josie than anyone would know, and it gave her the courage she needed. Brushing down her jacket and holding her head high she strode forwards.
She had been so fixated on herself that she almost bumped into a mature couple. Josie stumbled out an apology and let them in first. Flustered, and having lost any semblance of confidence, she entered the room.
****
Another networking event, this time forced on him by Lady Penelope. Scott scouted out the room as he sipped his Scotch. Many eyes were on the two Tracy brothers, all wanting but not yet daring, to approach. The power of his presence in a room of businessmen never ceased to amaze him.
"Found someone you like yet?" Gordon chimed cheerfully from beside him, though Scott knew him well enough to hear the bored undertone. Penelope had invited Gordon and of course he had said yes, his brother absolutely smitten with the lady. Scott shook his head. Events like this maintained Tracy Industries reputation, though they also gave Scott his player reputation. It was an easy place to pick up a girlfriend or let off some steam. Scott surveyed the room again. Within sight there were a few women who appealed to him.
"I don't always leave with someone."
Scott took a sip of his drink.
"Oh, so you're not the ever-successful ladies’ man we thought you were?" Gordon teased.
"Well, I didn't say that." Scott chuckled. "I just don't always want company."
Gordon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. I bet you've had many failed conquests. You just don't want to admit it."
Scott shook his head. "You believe what you want, Gordon."
"Bet you can't get a random woman to sleep with you," Gordon challenged.
Scott bit his lip, trying not to rise to Gordon's bait. Yes, Scott had been planning to find some company for the evening, but a bet? He shouldn't sink to that. Thankfully, the CEO of a small engineering company that had worked with Tracy Industries a year ago strolled over. Scott slipped into CEO mode and exchanged the required pleasantries and confirmed that they were considering working with their company again, before one last handshake.
"So, the Great Scott Tracy is backing down from a challenge?"
Scott rolled his eyes. Gordon was bored and just trying to find a way to entertain himself, but Scott did like a challenge. What's the worst that could happen? With a sigh, he gave in.
"What are the stakes?"
"If you can't seduce the woman I pick, then you give the swimming pool its biannual clean."
"And if I win, you are on deck lounger duty for a month."
“Deal.”
Gordon held out his hand and Scott shook it. He knew this was a bad idea, but it
would liven up the evening a little, and Scott was in the mood for a little fun. Something to help him relax after a tough week. His brother’s eyes scouted the room looking for the ideal candidate. The smirk that appeared on Gordon’s face worried him.
“The next woman to walk through the door.”
Scott raised his eyebrow. It was a gamble, but Scott understood why Gordon had
done it. He nodded and took a sip of his drink. Both men had their eyes on the door. A few people left, but no one entered. When the door finally opened, they both held their breath. An older couple entered, their outfits and demeanour radiating their importance. A quick sideward glance at Gordon confirmed he was holding back a laugh. Scott sighed before looking back toward the couple. Behind them the door opened again and in walked a lone woman.
“That one, the nervous blond.” Gordon announced.
A nod from Scott and he accepted the challenge. His eyes surveyed the woman. She was young, probably about Virgil’s age, and she definitely looked uncomfortable. Her clothing was smart and fitted her well, but he could tell they weren’t the high end fashion that many were wearing that evening. Her hair was loose, brushing down past her shoulders, and there was nothing wrong with her features. She had the kind of appearance most people would look over, including himself, for someone more striking. Scott started to formulate a strike plan. He knew he had to avoid overwhelming her, she probably wouldn’t be expecting to get the attention he was going to give her. He turned back to his brother; whose attention had turned to something else. Scott followed Gordon’s gaze to see Lady Penelope with a tall man, laughing away. The man was obviously flirting with the aristocrat. The clenched jaw and stiffened stance of the aquanaut gave in to jealousy he was feeling. Without a second thought, Gordon strolled over to the gathering and joined in, a fake smile plastered his face. Scott shook his head, before turning back to his target.
****
The glass was chilled in her hand, and Josie took a sip of the non-alcoholic mojito with the hopes it would help steady her nerves. Practicing her breathing techniques briefly, she turned around only to come face to chest with someone. She was flustered again and felt heat rise in her cheeks. Her eyes fell on the man in front of her and her heart jumped.
She froze. Her instincts put her on high alert. This man looked like trouble, and she had just made contact with his deep blue eyes. He smiled at her, dimples deepening in his cheeks when he did so. Mind over body, mind over body, she repeated in her head. It was the intensity he gave off, the way he held himself like he was in control. He hadn't been surprised by her almost bumping into him. He'd know she was there and hadn't moved. She'd seen this before at university, she'd learnt the signs from experience. But still, why did they always have to be attractive? Why did they always gravitate to her? Josie rolled her shoulders back and gave him a brief nod.
“Excuse me.” Josie smiled politely, ducking as gracefully as she could past him.
“I’ve not seen you here before.”
Josie paused. His deep voice demanded her attention. She was here to network, at least she could get him over and done with. She could keep her cool, watch out for his game. Josie was wiser now. She turned around and held out her hand.
“Josie McNelly, engineer for Taybrooke Aeronautics, Satellite division.”
He shook her hand firmly. The man looked familiar, though she couldn't place where from.
“Scott Tracy, CEO of Tracy Industries.”
That explained the familiarity. She smile grew as she thought of her brother’s prized
poster of Jeff Tracy which had hung above his bed. Josie could see the resemblance
to the astronaut. Same eyes for certain. She'd been shocked at the sudden loss of the great Jeff Tracy. Not that her brother had ever met him, but the astronaut had been such a big part of their childhood. Especially the fights over who was greater, her admiration for Neil Armstrong was still just as strong. The memories threw her, and suddenly she had no idea what to say next. How do you network again? What do you talk about with the CEO of Tracy Industries, one of the best engineering companies in the world? Facts about the company filled Josie's head and thankfully one stood out.
"Tracy Industries doesn't have a UK branch, so may I ask what brings you to London?"
Josie took a deep breath as the man paused; glad she could make an impression. She congratulated herself while remembering what she was here to do. She'd failed to get a job at Tracy Industries on multiple occasions, maybe this could be a way in. She almost laughed at herself. The CEO was unlikely to care for someone as low down the pecking order as she. Part of her wanted to try, just in case. If people less qualified could get experience and jobs over her by knowing the right people, maybe she could too. That was why she was here, to get the contacts so she could play their game.
"You've done your research. Tracy Industries works with some UK based companies that are represented here tonight, and the event is being hosted by a good friend of mine. I've not heard of Taybrooke Aeronautics before, care to give me some insight?"
His strikingly blue eyes gazed down at her with sincerity. It threw Josie to see it in someone she suspected of having ulterior motives, however she'd tried to keep her cool. Staying wary, she engaged with him.
"Taybrooke Aeronautics is a small Scottish company. It started with plane design and manufacturing then branched out into satellites and astronautical technology. It's well known for its niche and unique satellite designs. It's entirely based in Scotland and has various sites throughout the country."
"Have they done anything I might have heard of?"
"Have you heard of Global One?"
"The GDF's space station."
"Yes, the thrusters that keep it in orbit are a product of Taybrooke Aeronautics. They are actually my design."
"Your design? Aren't they normally developed by a team of engineers."
The surprise on Mr Tracy's face was priceless. It wasn't the first time people were shocked by what Josie could do, and she was planning to make sure it wasn't the last. If she wanted to become a big name rocket designer, she was going to have to blow a few minds.
"The initial design was mine, obviously other engineers had input over materials and the like, but the actual design hasn't changed much. Taybrooke owns the patent, but my name is on it, so you can check it if you don't believe me. They aren't the only thing I've designed that's currently on orbit. Two of my resistojet rockets were used in some private satellites that were launched late last year."
Josie refused to hide her pride. Her family was proud of her achievements even if they didn't understand them. It was why she was here, to continue making them proud of her. She and her brother had had a dream and she was going to fulfil it if she could.
"That's impressive. Have you considered applying for a role in the Tracy Industries aeronautical department? I'm sure we are always in need of people with your kind of skills."
Josie took a deep breath. She wanted to believe Mr Tracy. Every engineer wanted a job at Tracy Industries, it was considered one of the industry leads and had fantastic employee benefits. The company was known worldwide for taking care of its workforce, but she had never made the cut. Neither did she believe this man would remember her beyond today. It was time to end this conversation and see if anyone here might actually be interested in hiring an engineer. Josie met his gaze and prepared to say her piece.
"I have applied for various aeronautical and astronautical roles at Tracy Industries since graduating. I've been called to interview twice, one at the European branch in Germany and another at the Japanese branch. Both times I was turned away for lack of experience. The Japanese branch didn't believe I would fit in with the company's culture and the European job was given to the son of one of the employees. It appears that I’m currently not what Tracy Industries is seeking. It’s been interesting talking with you Mr Tracy, but I have just spotted someone that I would really like to speak with, so if you’d kindly excuse me. Have a pleasant rest of the evening.”
Josie turned and strode away from Mr Tracy. She headed into the crowd, not looking back, keeping her eyes open for the people she'd flagged on the short guest list she had managed to obtain. There were representatives here that might help get her into the industry. Not that she wouldn't stop applying to Tracy Industries jobs, a girl could dream, but she was realistic. Josie knew she had to work her way up and she needed to make the right contacts.
****
Scott watched Josie walk away. She weaved into the crowd and disappeared from his sight. Gordon had lucked out and this bet was going to be harder than he thought. Miss McNelly may be nervous, but there was something beneath her words and her guard was up. He would have to change his approach, and unfortunately, he couldn't use Tracy Industries as bait. Josie wanted a job and she seemed to believe Tracy Industries didn't want her. Even if he could promise her a job, he was sure she wouldn't believe him. Scott was so used to women warming to him, swooning over his smile, and in many cases excited by the prospect of spending the evening with someone from International Rescue. Josie hadn't even mentioned it or made an indication that she knew he was part of the elusive organisation. Scott headed to the bar and ordered another scotch. He lent against the polished wood, swirling the drink in thought. He had to get her to lower her guard, to open up. His eyes hit the crowd and he sighed. Scott knew he was going to have to take the plunge.
Almost an hour later and Scott hadn't been able to get close to Miss McNelly. He'd glimpsed her but being in the crowd meant he had to be polite to the other attendees, especially those who the company did business with. Duty called without the usual klaxon that echoed through the villa. Although Scott did want to be rescued from the current conversation; fisheries in the Atlantic were more Gordon's realm. He inspected the room, going from head to head in search of Miss McNelly. He easily spotted Gordon, standing next to Lady Penelope who was conversing with a young businessman. At least his brother wasn't having much luck either. Continuing, he spotted Mr Sandip with whom he'd had a pleasant conversation with at a previous gala. Excusing himself, Scott headed over to the man, but as he neared, Scott got a glimpse of whom he was talking to. Josie's hands were moving as she described something, and as he stepped up to the pair, he could hear the enthusiasm in her voice. There was a sparkle in her grey eyes that hadn't been there previously.
"Mr Tracy! How good to see you again? How have you been?"
Mitchell Sandip had spotted him out of the corner of his eye and had turned to offer him a hand, which Scott took with a smile.
"I'm very well, thank you, though I wasn't expecting to see you here."
"Yes, well, the representative from the engineering department that was meant to attend became unwell. With so few people free to come, I drew the short straw. Though, seeing you has greatly improved my night."
Scott laughed at the accountant, his friendly demeanour had charmed Scott last time they had met.
"Now, Mr Tracy, have you met Miss McNelly? She has quite the head for numbers. Unfortunately, she's not after an accounting job otherwise I'd snap her up before anyone else could!"
Scott turned to the woman in question, eyebrow raised. Head for numbers, well she was an engineer. He watched her straight up and nod politely at him.
"I'm rather good with calculations.”
Mitchell's hand landed on Scott's arm, drawing his attention away from Miss McNelly. The shorter man's hazel eyes peered up at him full of excitement.
"She's being incredibly modest, Mr Tracy. I was certain someone was pilfering funds, and after a week I managed to work out who and how, but I hadn't mentioned it to anyone yet. I’ve just finished collecting all the evidence and sent it to HR. Well, I was just discussing yearly finances with Mr Yang over there, and I was just throwing a lot of numbers about, as you do, trying to show off, when Miss McNelly pipes up saying my calculations are wrong. I told her they weren't, and she said they had to be unless someone was swindling money. I was shocked that she could work it out like that, then she rattled off her calculations faster than anything. Like I said, I hadn’t told anyone and Miss McNelly here was able to work it out in minutes. Obviously, I had to confirm this wasn’t just a one off, so Mr Yang and I rattled a few numbers off, and Josie performed the calculations there and then. All in her head and fast as can be. It was incredible!"
Scott turned with Mitchell back to Miss McNelly. There was a proud smile on her face, even if he could see that she was still nervous. Her fingers were playing gently with the hem of her jacket.
"I've always been fast with numbers."
"Are you certain you don't want to be an accountant?"
Miss McNelly laughed, a blush coming to her cheeks.
"As I told the Professor during my interview at Cambridge, when he asked why I was pursuing a career in engineering over mathematics; for me mathematics is easy. I don't want to be bored. I want to be challenged."
A cheeky grin graced Josie's lips, obviously warming to Mitchell's easy charm. It was hard not to smile around Mitchell, the man had a unique manner that just set people at ease.
"How about a drink then?"
“Fantastic idea, Mr Tracy. I’m sure Miss McNelly is in need of one too.”
Scott beckoned over a waiter, who swiftly moved around the other attendees to reach them.
"I'll have a sherry, if you don't mind."
"I'll have a Scotch please. What would you like, Miss McNelly, another mojito?"
Josie hesitated a moment and seemed to become uneasy, her fingers returning to her hem.
"Another mojito would be lovely, thank you."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, thank you."
Scott dismissed the waiter, still intrigued by Miss McNelly. There was so much to uncover, and although he was starting to feel that he'd be cleaning the pool next week, he hadn't given up. Mitchell was just the person he needed to help break down those walls of hers.
"So, a Cambridge graduate then? I've a friend who did engineering at Cambridge university."
"Yes, it's a fantastic institution. It took me a year to find my feet, but I thrived once I did. Did you visit your friend while he was there?"
Scott chuckled slightly at the thought of visiting Brains at university. His father hadn't met the man yet and he would have been a kid himself.
"No, I never got the chance."
"That's a shame. It's like a world of its own. All the best equipment within old buildings and traditions which go back centuries. Although it was fun at the start, with all the formal dinners and dressing up in your gown, it does get a little mundane after the umpteenth time. Sure, it's a three course meal with wine from some excellent chefs, but you can't eat that rich food every day and it's expensive. I could keep myself fed and watered for a week for the price of two evening meals!"
"I must admit, I didn't make the best decisions when it came to food during my first years in the Air Force."
Scott thought back to the instant noodles and takeaways he'd indulged in on the weekends. The freedom that came with not having to eat Grandma's home cooking had been liberating. Though he did eventually learn to cook a few simple dishes during his time in the Air Force.
"Most of us make bad choices at university. It comes with being young and free."
There was a sadness in her tone and her face dimmed slightly. What mistakes had this woman made that she regretted? Did it have something to do with the guard she hid behind? She put on a forced smile, and he knew he had to keep her engaged. Unfortunately, Lady Penelope and Gordon decided to make their entrance to the group.
"Oh! Why hello Lady Penelope, and you are…."
Mitchell held out his hand to Gordon, who shook it with his usual amount of enthusiasm. Out of the corner of his eye, Scott caught the movement of Miss McNelly's hand. She was once again fiddling with her jacket.
"Gordon Tracy."
"Ahhh, Mr Tracy's brother. I see the resemblance now."
Scott hid his laugh behind a grin, though he caught Miss McNelly’s eyes darting between him and Gordon. He wondered if she was picking up on the same resemblance. Scott watched as Lady Penelope, and then Gordon, introduced themselves. The drinks they had ordered arrived, and Scott noted the way Miss McNelly took a tentative sip of the drink. The small talk started, though Scott caught the small sips she took frequently, as a way to keep herself busy. She was definitely out of her element, which might explain why her guard was up. He listened in, gaining snippets of information about the woman. Gordon was keen to keep her chatting, probably as a way of distracting her from him, thus improving the chances Scott was going to lose the bet. After a while, Miss McNelly politely excused herself. Scott watched as she headed in the direction of the bathrooms, he hoped that meant she’d be back.
“Miss McNelly is quite the interesting character, don’t you think Scott?”
Scott could see the small grin on his brother's face and the gleam in his eye that revealed to Scott the hidden meaning. Gordon thought the bet was his and he’d gotten out of his chore. Another business associate of Tracy Industries joined their group and stole Scott’s attention. Miss McNelly never returned.
****
Finally getting away from yet another business proposal, Scott headed to the bar where Gordon was perched. He lent against it and turned to survey the room with his brother.
"No success then?"
"As much as you've had with Lady Penelope."
Scott's eyes fell on Miss McNelly. She was chatting with Mitchell again. Maybe he still had a chance. Turning to the bartender he ordered a Scotch and mojito. Gordon raised his eyebrow at the order.
"One last chance. I'm not going to give in that easily."
Scott grabbed the drinks and headed toward Miss McNelly. She'd just shaken hands with Mitchell and the man had turned to chase down someone on the other side of the room. He took a breath and turned on the charm.
***
Josie watched Mr Sandip hurry after someone and smiled to herself. He'd promised to pass on her details to recruitment. She was feeling beat but was pretty pleased with her efforts. She'd sold her company and thrown out a few business cards. Hopefully she'd made her mark. The whole event hadn't been as bad as she'd expected, though that one alcoholic drink had eased her nerves a little. She was happy to have been able to keep it to one. Glancing at her watch, she confirmed it was late and she still had some travelling to do. It was time for her to leave.
"Miss McNelly, care to have a drink with me?"
Dread filled her as the familiar voice spoke from behind. Turning she immediately noticed Mr Tracy was standing between her and the exit. She took a deep breath. In the man's hands were two drinks: an amber spirit and a mojito. Her breath caught in her throat, the situation bringing her back to a night she wanted to forget.
"You got me a drink?"
She stared at the glass. She suspected it had alcohol in it, having ordered one in front of him, but what else did it contain? She couldn't confirm it wasn't spiked. Would he do that sort of thing? Save people one day, drug them the next? Rich people never made sense to her though. They defied logic.
"I thought we could chat a little more."
He held out the mojito, forcing Josie to make a choice. Did she trust the man? She looked up into his face. He had a warm smile that met his eyes and she wanted to trust him. She wanted so much to believe he was a good guy. But her fear was there, deep inside as it always was, and she couldn't. She smiled at him as she reached out her right hand and plucked the glass of what she hoped was scotch, from his grip. Josie kept her eyes locked on his as she raised the glass to her lips. The amber liquid was not one she'd tried before, probably a vintage out of her price range. She was thankful it wasn't peaty; she hates those. His mouth dropped in shock as he looked at the cocktail in his hand. Josie couldn’t help the smile as she fought not to laugh. She let the liquid roll over her tongue and down her throat.
"I'm Scottish and it's the end of the night. You never asked me what I wanted."
She locked eyes with him as the shock faded from his face. Mr Tracy glanced down at the cocktail briefly, indecision in his eyes. Josie was still on edge, ready to step back if she had to. She decided to test the water.
"Take a sip. The mojitos here are the best."
Josie challenged him. If he refused to drink it then it must be spiked. If it wasn't, there was no reason not to take a sip. His hand stayed where it was.
"I'd rather the scotch."
"This scotch is mine now, and you don't want to waste that drink now, do you?"
****
Miss McNelly's face was serious. Scott felt slightly uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze. It was a challenge. For some reason, she wanted him to drink the mojito. He hadn’t expected her to take his drink and she had sipped it without grimacing. Never before had he met someone who acted as she did. Most people wanted to know more about him, most pestered about International Rescue, but not Miss McNelly. It felt like she had never warmed to him, even if she had seemed better and more relaxed during their conversation with Mitchell. Scott didn't want to drink the mojito; it was his most despised cocktail. What was this woman's game?
"No, thank you."
"Fine."
Scott was shocked again when Miss McNelly took the cocktail from him. What happened next, happened both at lightning speed and in slow motion. There was nothing Scott could do to stop it.
"Thank you for the drink, but I don't appreciate the attention you've given me. I tried to make it clear I wasn't interested."
The cocktail glass was thrust in his direction, its contents flying out at him. Ice and mint hit his face as the sticky fluid started to soak into his shirt. As if that wasn't enough Miss McNelly stood on her toes, stretched up and poured the scotch into his hair. It trickled down his neck.
“I’m not interested.”
Miss McNelly stalked past him. Scott didn't know how to react. One part of him wanted to storm after her and demand an explanation, though that would probably make things worse. This is what he gets for accepting a silly bet. He turned on his heel and headed towards the exit. Gordon was sitting at the bar and the smirk on his face became laugher as Scott approached. His brother was struggling to stay in his stool.
"I'm calling it a night."
"Sure Scott….I look forward...to watching you...clean the pool." Gordon gasped between spasms of laughter.
****
Josie bolted. She started running once she had heard the door shut. She didn't stop, not looking back and running as fast as she could to the nearest light rail station. Fear was a great motivator, and she didn't slow until she was on the platform where she gasped for breath. Josie had never been a runner. She hated it. Her eyes never left the entrance until she was on the train. Only then could she start to relax. Once in the carriage the tears started to fall. She’d overreacted. She'd made a scene. Her body shook. How stupid could she be? Slipping her phone out of her jacket she swiped up her call history and tapped the first person on the list.
****
Josie lay back on the bench. It was around the corner from the hostel she’d booked for the night. The cheapest way to stay in London was to share a bunk bed with a stranger. There was no way she could have a private conversation in a room of sleeping people, and this random street bench was the easiest option. If there was ever someone she needed right now, it was her best friend Graham. His thick Scottish accent rang out from her phone.
“Seriously Josie, ye need to stop seeing every man as a potential threat. Cannae a man just be polite?”
“I don’t suspect all men, just the ones that make me feel uncomfortable.”
“Ye said this guy was Scott Tracy, right?”
“Yes.”
“Scott Tracy, the Commander of International Rescue and pilot of Thunderbird One?”
“Maybe, I can’t remember which one flies which.”
“Hold on, ye can list every damned fact available about the Thunderbirds, but ye cannae tell me who pilots them?”
“You sound like my brother! Why should I care who flies the Thunderbird? I want to know how they fly!”
Graham rolled his eyes, and Josie couldn’t help but laugh at him. She twisted onto her front, her arm aching from holding her phone in the air.
“Well, I’ve looked him up and I think ye would have been safe to drink that mojito. Although I’ll admit that he probably was hitting on ye. According to the gossip blogs he has picked up the odd girlfriend from events like that. Not that they last long, with him spending most of his time savin' people. If ye hadn’t been so aggressive ye could be heading back to Scotland with a great story! Imagine being able to say ye slept with the pilot of Thunderbird One!”
“A. I prefer Thunderbird Three. B. I’d rather spend the night with Thunderbird One herself. C. If I’d known, I would have given him your number.”
Josie stuck her tongue out, only to watch Graham contort his face in response. They both ended up in a fit of giggles.
“At least ye still have a good story for the next campfire. Many girls have slept with Mr Thunderbird One, but I doubt many can claim they threw a drink in his face.”
A groan left Josie as she placed her forehead against the wood, breathing in its damp musk. She was never going to forget this and once it’d been passed round the town, it would definitely make its way to work. They would never let her go to another event again.
“I’m an idiot. The whole night was pointless. No one is going to want to hire me now.”
“Definitely an idiot. They only let those into private schools.”
Josie scowled at her friend, though she was fighting a smile. It was an old joke, one that Graham used when she needed to see perspective. It reminded both of them how far they had come. Even if Josie was still stuck in Scotland. She yawned at the same time as the fifteen-minute warning was announced on Graham’s end.
“Looks like we’re both in bunks tonight.”
“Righty-ho. G'night Josie.”
"G’night Grey.”
Josie was just about to end the call when Graham decided to get the last word in.
“And Jo, FYI Gordon Tracy pilots Thunderbird Four.”
Josie glared at him. The last thing she heard was Graham’s laughter as the screen went black. Cradling her phone in her hand, she stared at it, before turning her head to the sky. She couldn't see the stars that she knew were there. Josie may not have her dream job, yet, but Graham always reminded her of how lucky she was.
#thunderbirds are go#thunderbirds fanfiction#Scott Tracy#original character#Gordon Tracy#Lady Penelope#gala#bet#homecoming#first impressions#there has to be a scottish character
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slightly burnt badger primary (bird model) + slightly burnt (?) badger secondary
I’m really confused by my primary. Secondary is, I think, burned Badger with a Bird model. I just keep going around in circles with my primary. I thought I was a Snake (with Bird model), then I realized I’m more like a Burned Badger than a Snake, and now I’m wondering if I’m actually wrong about that and really I’m a Badger-flavored Bird.
One of the SHC posts said that you can tell whether you’re an idealist or loyalist by asking yourself whether you can take people out of your morality. But I genuinely don’t understand how you can do that. I left my old religion and one of the reasons was that I saw how some of the rules were hurting my friends and my relationship and I kept thinking, “This can’t be right.”
This is the just… the MOST BADGER thing.
But there were also theological things I had serious issues with and feeling excluded from the community as an infertile woman didn’t help,
That would be especially tough on a Badger.
though it wasn’t the main reason I left.
I have zero doubt that you also had more abstract, theological issues… but it’s also not what you’re talking about here.
I am very religious, which points to Bird
I mean, it *can,* as the structured, philosophical framework of religion appeals to Birds… but there are a lot of reasons people can be very religious, and a lot of ways people can interact with their religion. Like they say in Ben Hur, there are many paths to god.
but I wouldn’t be content in a religious community where I didn’t fit in. I find that very lonely and uncomfortable. In fact, I kept going to services and groups even when I had an awful crisis of faith mostly because I couldn’t bring myself to leave my group of friends.
Why… haven’t you considered Badger for yourself? Because these are all really Badger examples.
I stopped going to services briefly in college, too, and I was heartbroken when all my friends ghosted me over it.
Just as a counterexample - if you were a Lion primary who stopped going to church for theological reasons and people ghosted you over it, you would feel like a baddass.
But I also wouldn’t feel comfortable in a community that I thought was theologically incorrect, though I would probably try to avoid thinking about that. I have kept going to this one social group (not for the last year though, obviously) even though I kind of hate the topics/leaders because I do have a few close friends there. I just go 👀 at my friend whenever someone says something ridiculous.
The members of the group are more important than any idealogical focus. Of course you want everything to add up, and it definitely sounds like you have a Bird primary model, but it’s not that that Badgers don’t care about theological issues. It’s just that they want the theological picture to support the community they already have.
We moved to our current city about 7 years ago and I was *miserable* until I found my niche. The pandemic has been awful. The past year has been awful, actually, with so much violence and so many acquaintances revealing their inner craziness and posting insane conspiracy stuff. It’s been very disillusioning.
BADGER.
I’ve found myself dehumanizing them and it upsets me but I can’t imagine having a relationship with them going forward. They’re gross.
Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a better word for this specific phenomenon. Because the same way that Burning can be an excellent survival mechanism for a Snake (just so long as they’re able to unBurn at the other end…) I think that dehumanization can be a good coping strategy for a Badger, in times of trauma or stress.
I obey the rules if I respect the person or institution who made the rules.
This sounds Birdy.
I virtually attended a convention with one of my favorite authors and I would never have broken the rules or pirated his book, etc. But this other author is a hateful jackass and I would totally pirate his stuff with no remorse (if I actually wanted to read it, which I do NOT. He’s an absolute ghoul).
… and there it is filtered through that Badger lens.
I’m also not a “live and let live” type, though I know people think that’s obnoxious. I get upset when people don’t follow the rules I care about. My best friend (some combo of Badger and Lion, I think) is always like “eh, it doesn’t matter, just break the rule” and internally I’m freaking out because I can’t but I don’t want to offend her. I’m super into proper etiquette, too.
Oh, this is a super Badger primary thing.
Except the whole Mrs. Husband’s Name thing. I have my own name, thank you!
Yeah… Emily Post lived a hundred years ago. We’re past this.
Oh, my old religion had this rule that you shouldn’t go to a wedding if it’s under certain circumstances. So I shouldn’t have gone to my sister’s wedding. I was kinda resigned to that rule in theory because I’m a rule follower and didn’t want to get in trouble but I felt horribly miserable about it when it was about my sister
I think there’s a little bit of burning somewhere. “I don’t want to get in trouble” / “I was afraid” is usually evidence of that. Could be your secondary, like you’ve identified. This could definitely be a Badger primary and a (burnt?) secondary fighting.
and didn’t actually end up following it or even bringing it up. Like who TF is going to start crazy family drama and ruin their relationships over this?
… and the Badger primary wins
So I guess if I had to put it into words, I think rules are important but ultimately people you care about are more important than rules. My current religion is more about loving people where they are, bending the rules is okay if that’s what people need, very community-oriented, etc. and I’m much happier with that.
Awww that’s fantastic. That sounds like a *perfect* place for a Badger to be.
Anyway, sorry for bothering you with such a long post and I hope none of the religion stuff made you uncomfortable. Reading this over again, I think I might actually be a Snake with a loud, very Badgery Bird model? Smh this is so complicated.
… I think it’s possible you’re overthinking this. Snakes will talk about individual people they’re close to, and you’ve mentioned your sister once? Apart from that, it’s “my friends” “my community” “my social group” “my niche.��
Because a lot of this stuff I didn’t care about until it affected me or a close friend.
That’s a Loyalist thing.
Like random people telling me about their experiences doesn’t have much of an effect (awful, I know) unless it’s a truly powerful story, but if someone I like and respect
ie a member of the community. There might be a little teensy bit of dehumanization coping going on with you. This is probably why you described yourself as a potential Burnt Badger. Last year was… a lot, and if didn’t feel safe to extend that Badger concern to everybody.
tells me something is hurting them, suddenly I’m all, “Oh no! This is wrong!“
#sortinghatchats#sortme#wisteria sorts#badger primary#burnt badger primary#badger secondary#burnt badger secondary#bird primary model#submission
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I had two people ask for some advice on starting up/running a blog, so I thought I’d make a little post for anyone else looking for advice! There’s no one right way to run a blog and I am by no means an expert. This is just a compilation of some of the things I’ve learned :)
Feel free to add advice to this!
- The first thing is something I cannot stress enough. Write for yourself first. You will be absolutely miserable if you’re only writing for attention. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s so incredibly important. If you don’t like a prompt, fandom, or scenario? You don’t have to write for it! A personal example: I’m a theatre kid and total musical nerd. I could probably write some compelling Dear Evan Hansen or Hamilton headcanons if I wanted to, but I don’t. That’s fine! I’m allowed to say I won’t write for it and deny prompts/requests for those fandoms.
- Set boundaries. This is a very mixed community with all sorts of creators and participants with hands in different baskets. Don’t want minors to interact? Put minors DNI in your bio. SFW only? Put it in the bio. No RP? Bio. This goes for private conversations/askbox/other interactions as well. If someone comes into your askbox/dms and says something that makes you uncomfy, shut it down.
- My advice is more geared towards writing than art or video, but I suppose you could apply this advice as well. Make what makes you happy! If you’re only in one fandom, feel free to stay there and make content for it. Multi-fandom? Excellent! Completely non-fandom? Epic! Make the content that you want to see and the content that makes you happy to create, especially if you’re in a more niche fandom/area.
- Organization. ...I’ll admit this one is more of a personal pet peeve than something urgent, but it is something that people positively respond to. If you have some sort of consistency/organization to your blog, it’ll make it easier and more enjoyable for people to navigate. Make a fandom list/indicate your fandoms somehow (mostly for prompt purposes. people can’t read your mind, so it’s important to tell them what you will write for and what you won’t, however you want to do that)!
Make a masterpost/link your fic tag! Use a fic tag of some kind. Give your fics summaries and leave a little bit of the fic above the ‘read more’ to intrigue folks (look at #my fics and my masterpost for basic examples of how I do this, if you need!). Use read mores. Please use read mores (if you can, idk if they’re on mobile. regardless no one wants to encounter a three thousand word block of text on their dash). (No seriously though, organize your blog, even if it’s super simple. literally just a ‘mine’ or ‘my fics’ or ‘[pseud] writes’ and a fandom tag. It’ll make it easier for people to find your stuff and support you)
- Practice general internetiquette. Please remember that the people in this community are real people with feelings, boundaries, and lives outside of the blog that they run. Be genuine and people will respond to you! Don’t manipulate people into likes/reblogs/attention. No one wants to be on the other end of that. Being in this community isn’t a transaction or a mosh pit, it’s an experience.
- Be ever-so-liberal with the block button. Someone’s user makes you uncomfortable? They give you bad vibes? They’re a minor/older than you and you don’t want them interacting with your content? You don’t wanna see their blog for some reason? Block em. This goes for anons too. That’s what the button is for. Don’t feel guilty for using it. Use it.
- How you write is 100% a personal choice and not really something that I can give advice on, but embrace your style! take prompts if you want, or don’t. Write oneshots, series, drabbles, or novels. Write romantic, or don’t. Etc. Change things up if you feel like it. Do what you want. Your blog, your style, your rules.
- Numbers matter. Don’t let them define you. This is a bit of a harder one to explain, but I will try. I often say that I don’t care about numbers, and I really don’t, but that’s not to say that I don’t see them and they have zero effect on me. I absolutely notice and am bummed if a fic doesn’t get notes, or at least the notes that I was expecting. That is entirely normal and okay to experience. What isn’t okay, though, is creating for the sake of getting notes/numbers/attention (re: write for yourself first, internetiquette). If you find yourself relying on tumblr for gratification and a reward, I implore you to take a break. I’m not your therapist or your parent, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but when you make things only for the sake of notes, people notice. Celebrate your milestones. Know that it’s okay to be bummed about low notes/celebrate getting plenty. Just make sure that you don’t depend on the numbers for your happiness, or you will be miserable.
- You’re (probably) doing this for free. You are providing people content: a service. Produce as much or as little as you’re comfy with, but always remember that. No one is entitled to what you make. If someone asks you for headcanons, sends a prompt when prompts are closed, etc, and you don’t feel like fulfilling it? You have no obligation to do that. Getting commissioned is another story entirely, but as long as you’re making free content, you have zero obligation to do anything for anyone and certainly no time constraints. It can take me months to finish prompts, and that’s okay. I do them when I do them and I fill them how I want to. If my prompts are closed, I deny new ones until I’m ready to accept them. Make yourself happy first.
- How you interact with others is up to you! It’s generally considered good practice to like/reblog your mutuals fics/art, but this is not necessarily a hard and fast rule. I veeeeeery rarely reblog fics for fandoms that I’m not in, even from my mutuals. What you can do to show your support (and you should try and show support somehow. No one is in competition. Everyone’s in your boat, whether they have no followers or 1k) is send an ask/reply to the post/leave tags to let the author know you liked it. Like the fic and don’t reblog it, if you don’t want to. Just make sure you show your mutuals (and others in general!) roughly the same support they show you, however you decide to do that. Treat others how you want to be treated, as cheesy as it sounds :)
- Don’t repost content that isn’t yours without express permission from the original creator, and credit them appropriately. If you see a cute piece of tickle art and the artist doesn’t want it reposted? Don’t repost it. Don’t post fics/videos/gifs that aren’t yours (obviously if it’s like a scene from a movie/a clip on youtube that’s different, but don’t take credit for things you didn’t make, including ideas). Can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have work stolen from you. Don’t be that person. ‘Credit to original artist’ and ‘credit unknown’ is total bullshit btw. Link/tag the creator in the original post and make it clear you don’t own the content. Best practice is to ask the original creator if they’re okay with reposting, work inspired by or connected to theirs, etc. This goes doubly for saving/downloading someone’s fics.
- It is not illegal for a minor to have normal, nonsexual, healthy friendships with people older than them. There’s a weird attitude that minors have nothing of value to offer adults besides a relationship/sex, which is...not true? Minors are thinking, living human beings with feelings, thoughts, and opinions. You can talk to them like normal people, because they are. Just obviously don’t talk about/introduce sex or endanger them. Minors don’t bring up sex/activities you’re underage for with an adult. IDK this isn’t a seminar just...don’t be weird. Adults can offer great life experience, support systems, and the basic joys and needs of human connection. Minors can too. Mind your business unless someone’s actually in danger. The next point is a caveat, though:
- If you’re a minor, don’t interact with NSFW blogs/blogs with ‘Minors DNI’, NSFW blogs don’t interact with minors, etc etc. Not your parent or whatever but this is pretty common sense and it’s for everyone’s safety, but especially the NSFW person. internettiquette!
- If you use your TK blog as a side blog (meaning you have another blog as your main blog, not two separate accounts) and don’t want your main exposed, that is up to you. I recommend not liking posts. Also, follow people that you trust. These actions route through your main blog and your main will show up in the notes. You can reblog from a sideblog. If you want to send an ask “as your tk blog”, send an anon and sign it somehow, like ‘hey :) // @/tickle-bugs’. It should tag you in the post so you get a notification when it’s answered!
- Find your people! As an anxious person this one has been hard for me, so I know it’s hard for a lot of people. Fandom is literally a community of shared interest. Peachy and I have an iron bond almost two years later and we met talking over shared interests. You can absolutely find your people here. If someone makes you happy, strike up a conversation! Send an ask! You never know what doors it might open or whose day you might improve :)
- If you were an anon/lurker on someone’s blog and they inspired you to write/submit/start your own, sign your messages!! the common form that I see is either an emoji or [noun/context of the ask]!anon (prodigal!anon (i miss u every day), butterfly!anon, etc.) Let us know how to find and support you!! Those messages produce good brain juice.
- The big finale: Have fun. If you’re not having fun here, maybe you could tweak something to make things enjoyable. Running a blog is like driving a car. Keep your hands on the wheel, respectfully indicate your intentions (flashing lights optional), and be safe. Poebody’s nerfect, y’know. If you make a mistake, course correct. I’m by no means perfect. Your favs aren’t either. Just do your best and have a good time :)
@rosytickles and the anon in my inbox, I hope this helps! Thank you for asking me, I’m very honored that you value my opinon/experience/advice. I apologize if I come off as preachy or aggressive, I envisioned grabbing my younger self by the lapels and shaking me vigorously while I wrote this. Probably a bad idea.
Anywho, hope it helps. Anyone with questions, additions, or comments, my askbox is open! Just be constructive, is all I ask.
#bug speaks#advice tag#sorry again if this sounds preachy or aggressive at any point i literally wrote it like i was grabbing younger me by the lapels#these are all things i learned through experience/observation i promise im not talking out of my ass here#the largest obstacle to maintaining a blog is how you view your happiness in relation to it. talked about it above but yeah.#also like i said: not a professional and not your parent. just giving friendly advice sine i was directly asked for it.#might add more to this if I think of more#my askbox and dms are open for questions/comments/additions just pls be respectful and constructive#other tfb community members feel free to add to this!
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Copywriting Pro Tips for More Conversions
Copywriting Pro Tips for More Conversions ..... or
Copywriting : A few Tips to help You Sell More Product
Tips to Sell more
Make your Conversions go through the roof
My Secret Zoom Method for Escalating Your Sales 1000X overnight
Write Copy like a Master and have a queue of Clients at your Door
I came up with these five different titles in just a few seconds, there are of course infinite numbers of ways to say the same thing…. but which one will actually SELL?
Copywriting
If ever there was a skill in demand, it is copywriting.
It is everywhere
Blog posts
Sales Pages
Landing Pages
Ads Online
Ads on TV
Ads on the Radio
Billboards
Emails
If you can learn the art of persuading a prospect to buy, you will have a great skill, even a career. Good copywriters cost a fortune to hire. Every Marketer needs good persuasive copy to get sales.
This article is a description of some of the more common methods of selling and some of the things to consider before you lay out your copy.
Good copywriting is however not something you can attain, by simply reading an article or two or by buying a course. It takes practice. Follow the main points in this introductory article and try writing your first Ad or post. Most people’s first attempts are rubbish so don’t worry too much. In later articles in this series, I will expand on some of the main components such as Headlines, USP and Hook and you will see how to improve your piece to make it work.
If you get to the point where your copy is working well and your sales are rocketing, you will have a marketable skill in huge demand.
There are big differences in the copy used in Blog Posts, Sales pages, Emails and all the others in the above list. The way you would word a blog post for example would be greatly different to an Ad.
Also don’t mix up presentation with Copy. Strictly speaking, a copywriter deals only with words that sell, not the format of the presentation, although on occasions it might be prudent to point out obvious problems, for instance, if the webpage designer puts your copy onto a background which obscures or makes reading your copy difficult, then obviously the copy will not do its job.
Copywriting BasicsHere are a few major points which should be considered, before you publish.What you say in your copy depends on the prospects position in the buying cycle. If he is totally unaware of the problem or solution, your text needs to bring these to his attention, whereas if you have sent him several emails outlining the problem the solution and your product to solve the problem – then your text has a much more narrow focusWhat’s in it for ME : Your copy should focus on benefits for the client like time saving, cost saving, NOT the sellers features like dimensions, quality, tech, company history etc.Who is your Client: be sure to compose a customer Avatar, know who you are selling to, age sex, demographic, wants, needs, pain, or problem. Selling tech to a young tech savvy guy is going to be totally different to a computer phobic 60+ year old.
The Buying Cycle:
What level of product/service AWARENESS does your reader have? If the page you are composing is a landing page, you need to know the content or Ad that sent them here. The Headline and copy for someone Unaware of the product, is going to be vastly different from the copy aimed at those Fully Aware of the problem/pain/product
Levels of Awareness:
Unaware
Aware of Problem but Not Aware of your Product
Solution Aware
Product Aware
Unaware:
They don’t even know that they have the problem that you are selling the solution for. They need indoctrination. Introduce the problem. Diagnose the problem. The Ad that they clicked will have had a wide scope, they may have found your content on a blog post describing the problem or telling a story on Facebook.
Aware of Problem but Not Aware of your Product:
Empathise and concentrate on Pain, Solution and Benefits
Solution Aware:
Here you can use social proof, previous customer feedback or reviews. Also, introduce what is special and unique about YOUR solution
Product Aware:
They know all about your product (and its competitors) may also be on a list receiving your emails. All you need to do is re-present (if possible) a new improved offer OR maybe introduce some scarcity like “this month only” or “last 100”
What you say in your copy depends on the prospect's position in the buying cycle. If he is totally unaware of the problem or solution, your text needs to bring these to his attention, whereas if you have sent him several 'educational' emails outlining the problem or the solution and your product to solve the problem – then your text has a much more narrow focus
The Headline
This is such an important part of the Sales letter/blog post that I leave it until the post is complete before composing it. The Hook ( below ) will give you the main components of your headline. SEO is important for Blog posts – but not necessarily your job if you are just the copywriter.
The Headline is what readers see in search results so it must grab attention, but not appear spammy. If I had titled this post “How to 10X your Sales with my Secret Zoom Generator Method” you would suspect it to be a scam, so don’t go overboard
What is your USP
State it clearly, concisely and with brevity. Who are you helping. With What Problem to Achieve what benefit through which Unique Solution
Show the prospect that you understand their pain/problem. Create Trust, empathy. Speak to the person directly and use the appropriate language for that niche eg. For Doctors – their ‘customers’ are patients, For retail – ‘customers’, For legal businesses it would be ‘Client’
Tell a Story or Educate the reader
Introduce the solution, avoid hyperbole, tell a story, must be believable. Or try an educational method, set out the steps to take to solve the problem but – Leave out sufficient details to make them unable to succeed without YOUR proprietary method
Tell them WHAT to do, but not HOW to do it
Tell them the 5 things that this product is NOT
eg. Competitor products have fillers but ours is pure, Our product is not diluted, Ours protects against xyz, Ours has no abc which is filtered out
Describe some methods to do X, but not the best way
Tell them the mistakes that lead to problems or
What NOT to do when trying to do X
In each case you explain the details, establishing your credibility and expertise. What Benefits does your solution have over others?
List and expand on the benefits and list the features. The features create the logical reason to buy. The benefits will create the ALL IMPORTANT emotional reason to buy
Create a HOOK – an idea which grabs attention and persuades the reader to find out more
If testimonials or user feedback / reviews are available use them
How to Stop procrastination
The last bit of buyer resistance is Procrastination. You simply need a reason they should buy NOW, eg. you can use ‘scarcity’
Price Scarcity – the price will rise soon
Premium Scarcity – the bonuses only available for limited time
Quantity – only limited number left
Offer Scarcity – the cart will close soon
Note: Don’t always use scarcity it can look spammy. You can just get the prospect to imagine how it feels to have your product X completed, installed.OR you can show how NOT doing X is not an option because – market conditions are moving OR all your competitors are all doing X.CTA – Call to ACTION. Be clear, give precise instructions on how to go forward. Be sure there is only one possible action on the page – leave off the navigation menu and sidebar or any other distractions. You can however use two ( or more ) buy buttons – going to the same Check-Out page, it may be prudent to include one above the fold and one right at the bottom of the page ( where almost all readers expect it to be )
Simplify your text if possible Scan over your page when it is complete and if it is possible to remove anything that can be misunderstood. Remove anything that you can say in simpler terms, then do so. To be accepted by the widest audience, it should be written with quite a young reading age in mind.
Checkout my original article https://my-computer-tuition.co.uk/copywriting-pro-tips-for-more-conversions/ which will be updated with more on USPs , hooks and Choosing a title
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The Daydreamer (1966)
By the 1960s, Christmas television specials were in vogue in the United States. Yet this recent phenomenon had yet to yield a true cultural touchstone. On December 6, 1964, the first Christmas special mainstay aired on NBC. Produced by a fledgling animation studio, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer put Rankin/Bass, named after co-founders Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass, into the public consciousness. Rankin/Bass’ brand of stop-motion animation (“Animagic”) was mostly outsourced to Japanese studio MOM Productions in Tokyo, under the direction of Tadahito Mochinaga. With the windfall of Rudolph, Rankin/Bass and MOM Productions delved into the realm of feature theatrical films. This review concerns their second feature film, The Daydreamer – a stop motion animation/live-action hybrid based on Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. The Daydreamer has starpower in its cast that no Rankin/Bass production had yet matched. But as one might expect from a Rankin/Bass film, there are narrative flaws abound. The Daydreamer, episodic in nature and alternating between live-action and animation scenes, suffers due to the inconsistent quality of the handful of Hans Christian Andersen adaptations it has and the kitschy live-action acting.
The young Hans Christian Andersen (“Chris”; Paul O’Keefe) is the son of a cobbler (Jack Gilford). Papa Andersen often has to face the verbal tirades of frequent customer Mrs. Klopplebobbler (Margaret Hamilton; it is difficult not to think of Hamilton’s portrayal of the Wicked Witch here). His struggling business often means he cannot pay the gangling Pie Man (Ray Bolger; yet another Wizard of Oz star). To take him away from these troubles, Chris will let his imagine run wild while napping. If he can only just find the mythical Garden of Paradise, all these troubles might vanish. One evening, the Sandman (voiced by Cyril Ritchard) promises him to guide him there. Along the way, Chris is subject to dreams that may seem familiar to the viewer. These dreams shift away from live-action into the signature Rankin/Bass animation – adapting “The Little Mermaid”, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”*, “Thumbelina”, and “The Garden of Paradise”. Elements of “The Ugly Duckling” and “Little Claus and Big Claus” also appear.
Among the many voice actors during these animation sequences are Hayley Mills (The Little Mermaid); Burl Ives (Neptune – I have never heard Ives’ voice so devoid of jaunt before); Tallulah Bankhead (the sea witch); Terry-Thomas (the first tailor); Victor Borge (the second tailor); Ed Wynn (the Emperor); Patty Duke (Thumbelina); and Boris Karloff (the Rat).
The film’s adaptations of Andersen’s tales differ in that Andersen himself becomes a character in each of the stories. The Daydreamer approaches the stories as if the ideas are only just forming in the young Chris’ head, to be written and published when he is an adult. Within these dreams-someday-to-be-stories, Chris is largely a passive character. He takes instruction from the central figures of his future tales, never really asserting himself or asking basic questions about the misadventures he goes through. Chris acts as if lost in his own imagination – which fits the conceit of the film. So when he awakens into the real world, the film’s pacing slams the brakes. In the real world, everyone except Chris is a caricature, somehow less realistic than the individuals appearing in the daydreams. The transitions between animation and live-action will take the viewer out of the film because of the unceasing manic acting in the latter, as opposed to the charming puppetry of the former. As such, The Daydreamer’s weaknesses lie almost entirely with the live-action scenes – too consciously playing to the audience and over-the-top in their absurdity.
In an era of American animation defined by Disney on the screen and Hanna-Barbera on television, Rankin/Bass carves out its own niche in how it tells its stories. The meta humor and fourth wall breaking of Hanna-Barbera’s works (a legacy of the duo’s work at MGM) makes no appearances here. Disney’s clean-cut fairytale endings also do not apply. The Daydreamer’s adaptation of “The Little Mermaid” does not have the gruesome premise as Andersen’s original fairytale, but it retains the ending’s heartbreak. There appears to be no alterations to “The Emperor’s New Clothes” – which includes Chris, but he just feels superfluous to the plot and to the tale’s keen comedy. Each of the film’s segments bring Chris closer to the final animated sequence, “The Garden of Paradise”. The adaptation of that tale sanitizes its deathly overtures for a devil-like creature, but keeps the ambiguous, open-ended conclusion. By maintaining the original conclusion, “The Garden of Paradise” is a curious coda for The Daydreamer – a film that ends as abruptly as its several transitions, like a daydream.
The Daydreamer’s live-action sets benefit, however, due to the fact many of its scenes were shot at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The World’s Fair pavilions used in this film mimic a feel of small-town, nineteenth century Europe more realistically than a Hollywood soundstage might. The production design for the animated dream sequences, too, are mesmerizing. Perhaps this is best exemplified in “The Little Mermaid”. There, the special effects work make it appear as if the whole sequence was shot underwater, rather than a room that contained blue lights streaming into Neptune’s palace. Where are the strings and wires suspending the puppets in mid-air while they “swim”? To the animators’ credit, there are none to be found. Neptune’s palace is one of the grander sets constructed for a Rankin/Bass production; its imposing walls and generous empty spaces reflect a sense of regal grandeur. That royal otherworldliness does not extend to “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, but many of the same production design decisions carry over. Rankin/Bass and MOM Productions are obviously working with more money and manpower for these animated scenes than in the likes of Rudolph or their many holiday television specials. The sense of scale and grandiosity seen here in The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party? (1967) would rarely, if ever, be replicated for television. And it is also obvious that the filmmakers put the money into the animation and for paying headline-worthy actors, rather than for any writers able to string the animated and live-action halves together.
Seven songs comprise The Daydreamer’s musical soundtrack. Composed by Maury Laws and Jules Bass, most of the songs are forgettable once your viewing is done (including Robert Goulet singing the title song over the opening credits, despite the fact I admire Goulet’s voice). But there are notable exceptions. Sung by Hayley Mills at the end of “The Little Mermaid”, “Wishes and Teardrops” brings the segment to a worthy close. Her loved ignored, the Little Mermaid sings this lament – backed with percussion straight from a ‘60s love ballad and timeless swelling strings – for herself:
Wishes and teardrops
Won’t make him love me.
He’s gone and he’ll never return.
Does he know how teardrops can burn,
When they fall for a wish
That can never come true?
In the film’s final third, “Luck to Sell” injects a jolt of energy sorely missing from many of the other live-action scenes. The song itself is simple and the singing just avoids being flat, but when paired with the energetic choreography from Paul O’Keefe and company, it elevates itself from the rest of the soundtrack (save “Wishes and Teardrops”).
Not often will a viewer encounter a film with two sets of opening credits. I’m not writing about films that have an overture that transition to opening credits (an entirely different approach that modern filmmakers should utilize more), but two sets of opening credits that list the names of the actors involved. For the first set of credits, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld (uncredited) was hired to draw caricatures of the various actors and actresses appearing in, or lending their voices to, The Daydreamer. The Daydreamer is the second of three films that Hirschfeld was involved in. The first, appearing as himself uncredited, was in Main Street to Broadway (1953); his third and final film was as an artistic consultant on the “Rhapsody in Blue” segment (which was influenced by his caricatures) in Fantasia 2000.
Rankin/Bass’ ventures into feature film animation peaked several months later with Mad Monster Party? After that and the unfortunate production of The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967; a traditionally animated eyesore), Rankin/Bass almost completely dedicated itself to its animated television specials. The Daydreamer, distributed by the now-defunct Embassy Pictures and currently owned by Sony Pictures Television (the ownership of the rights to Rankin/Bass’ features are exasperatingly scattered), has not been widely seen when compared to Mad Monster Party?, let alone Rankin/Bass’ television specials. If one can find a serviceable print of The Daydreamer, the viewing experience will be a valuable glimpse into the studio’s collaboration with MOM Productions. A Rankin/Bass fan that has only known the studio through its television specials will see their work operating with higher production values; Rankin/Bass novices can experience a dimension of animated filmmaking too often considered an afterthought.
My rating: 6/10
^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).
For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.
* “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was adapted twice by Rankin/Bass. The second adaptation is the heart of the television special The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye (1972), starring Danny Kaye. That adaptation of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is distinct from the one that appears in The Daydreamer. The Danny Kaye special’s adaptation has a more developed storyline, completely different voice cast, and completely different soundtrack.
#The Daydreamer#Rankin Bass#Jules Bass#Arthur Rankin Jr.#Paul O'Keefe#Jack Gilford#Margaret Hamilton#Sessue Hayakawa#Patty Duke#Boris Karloff#Hayley Mills#Burl Ives#Tallulah Bankhead#Victor Borge#Ed Wynn#Ray Bolger#Maury Laws#stop motion#TCM#My Movie Odyssey
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