#got burned out in January after all those projects

[deathridezero]

Behold! My collection… anyone else have a crazy collection… plz. 🥲

Bonus

[darlingillustrations]

I feel like I should be panicking more. My rent is due in one week, my landlord isn't friendly, and I have no one to ask for help. And yet? I have an eerie sense of calm about it.

I know the calm that happens when you are not actually calm but panicking and your body is helping you survive. This isn't that kind of fake calm. I am sleeping at night. I'm not snaping at my kids. I am *at peace.*

(Read more for musings about the economy, my spiritual mindset in the midst of it all, and some Mary Oliver poetry.)

Five years ago? I would be panicking and staying up late working long hours and burning myself out. But now? These days I'm working full days, then stepping back and cooking meals or working on projects for my kids. It feels more stable this time. I feel like I've matured.

I got a report in my email yesterday which showed that retail sales in January plunged 0.8% from December, far worse than the consensus forecast for a decline of just 0.2%, and the largest monthly loss since March 2023. On the one hand, it made me feel better that it's not just me. On the other hand, it sucks that lots of other people are struggling, as well.

Still, I make the time to meditate every morning. Still, I pull out my poetry books and take my life advice from Mary Oliver. In the poem One or Two Things she wrote:

One or two things are all you need to travel over the blue pond, over the deep roughage of trees and through the stiff flowers of lightning--some deep memory of pleasure, some cutting knowledge of pain.

You don't need to have all the answers. You just need to put one step in front of the other.

Last year when I launched my wholesale business, I drummed up over 1000 leads. I'd pick a city and use google maps or yelp to search for gift shops, stationary stores, coffee shops... anywhere that I thought might want my work... and I took the time to write a personal note to each and every one of these businesses. This month I decided to check back in with them again, and so many of the businesses are now closed or their email addresses no longer work.

Having exhausted these leads, I sat at my computer yesterday with the knowledge that I needed to wait on people to get back to me, that the wholesale leads were out of my hands. And that I still did not have money to pay my landlord. Not once did I fear I would join the list of closed businesses. I did not despair.

Instead, I turned to my first joy. I went back to the sales history on my website and found my very first customers from back in 2016 when I launched my web shop. I emailed them, each of those first customers, sending personal emails. I did not ask them to buy anything. That wasn't what I needed. I asked how they were, what they have been up to, where their lives have taken them.

I was searching for that deep memory of pleasure, that cutting knowledge of pain. One or two things is all we need, after all.

And I got one email back.

This woman was the first person to ever buy an art print in my online shop--a honeybee boy painting--and it is still hanging in her stepson's room, nearly 8 years later. She shared pictures of her new baby, and I shared the pictures with my kids. This woman had sent me many emails over the years, asking for life advice or encouraging me on a hard day. She shared that she didn't realize her emails had made such an impact on me.

Funny how none of us truly sees how impactful we are to those around us. Funny how life keeps going on, whether we worry about it or not.

In One or Two Things, Mary Oliver also wrote:

For years and years I struggled just to love my life. And then the butterfly rose, weightless, in the wind. "Don't love your life too much," it said, and vanished into the world.

I want my character to be defined not by what I do when things are easy but by how I carry myself when things are hard. And I do believe things happen for a reason. Maybe the line between delusion and faith is very thin, but the universe has shown me time and again that it's had my back. I've been in worse scrapes and still came out ok.

If you've read this far and you want to help me get through the next week, you can buy something from my shop or support me on Patreon.

And if you've read this far but you are in a similar boat, don't fret. We will find our way through the fires. one. step. at. a. time.

[professorspork]

director's commentary sdau emerald scene

You know, I really should have seen this coming but I didn't.

Let's put it under a cut bc moderate spice and considerable length:

This scene went through more iterations and re-writes than the vast majority of its brethren.

I dug around in our chat history to find the exact moment we generated the idea, because this one wouldn't have happened without you. and you know what I learned?

it dates to mid-January 2023, which is literally before I started posting newsbees. this idea is OLD. it is some of the EARLIEST MATERIAL of sdau.

I told you I was reading this for fic research in the middle of an unrelated discussion about Emerald; you then joked that all you could think about was Emerald at the sex club giving vytal fic vibes, just bored out of her skull while people throw themselves at her, and I said I hadn't come up with a role for her yet.

you: emerald would try to go to the sex club after getting out of a toxic relationship the way blake did and then she'd be there for 15 minutes and nope the fuck out and run away me: which, actually-- she could be one of blake's one-off partners where after about 5 minutes blake's like "you are allowed to leave we really don't have to do this" and em's like OHTHANKGOD

I briefly considered a much crueler idea in which Blake witnessed Emerald and Cinder doing a scene together, but we quickly agreed that the original idea was the better one.

I haven't been able to find chat history about it, so I'm moderately certain that I didn't tell you about the fact that I'd decided to read poor Emerald for filth and give her the Mommy kink until I started showing you the scene in its original incarnation, in mid-July of 2023 (which has the benefit of showing just how long this project has taken me, lmao).

me: emerald. sweetheart. when you say mommy kink most people assume that means you wanna be coddled and not that you want to be negged. just. just saying me: emerald do you know what mothers are me: emerald

That first version of the scene differed in several keys ways from the final product, but the most crucial of those was that in the first go-around, Blake actually agreed to give Emerald her number. Em asked for it, and Blake said "Sure, I'd like that," and then the scene ended.

I sat on that for *checks time stamps* approximately 29 hours before I broke the news to you that, upon reflection, I didn't buy it; I just couldn't believe that Blake would be in a healthy enough place mentally to do that. the better and more accurate thing for the story would be for Blake to chicken out and then regret it, because she couldn't be for Em what Sun had been for her.

you: oh no why are you doing that it makes me sad me: because if blake is in a cool enough place to do that with em her actually exchanging numbers with yang doesn't hit as hard you: but now I'm so sad me: i mean it's still ME i'm sure i'll find a way for her to encounter em again before the end

(hmmm. Did I do that in the end? I SUPPOSE WE'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND FIND OUT, DEAR READERS.)

from there, once I'd figured out what the scene was truly for, it was still a lot of effort and tweaking before I got it to read how I wanted to: threading the simultaneous needles of being lowkey arousing but also inarguably unsettling from the jump, so that you're seeing those red flags but maybe, like Blake, thinking they can be overcome until it's very obvious they Can't. I struggled with how to frame it so that it came through that Blake was being... mmm, let's say reckless without crossing the line into Blake being irresponsible, and I wasn't happy with my first stabs at it. in the very first draft, after Em says says she doesn't want to discuss her burn scar and adds "There, that's a boundary, since you wanted one so bad," the prose goes 'There is absolutely no way they are fucking at this point, given Emerald's attitude, and… Blake doesn't know why she stays.'

Which: why would I tell the reader that? It's way too on the nose, and drains the scene of all tension! it also made the spanking moment read as overtly didactic in a way that I didn't like and hadn't intended, so. I tried to drill down into what I thought it was about.

adding the flashback moments to Blake's encounter with Trifa helped considerably; that wasn't in the first draft at all, though the fact that she'd had that encounter was already canon. taking a look at it again, I realized weaving those two together was an opportunity to show why Blake "lets" Emerald make this mistake and indulges her, because it's the same thing Blake went through and she understands it. massaging the tempo and timbre of my vocab took some doing so Blake wasn't in full-on panic attack mode and thus making it all seem WORSE than it already was.

and the final thing I changed was just... twisting that knife more and adding to their rapport. the original draft was brief; it went right from Emerald giving the Cinder backstory to Blake being like "congrats on past tense" and then it was the phone number ask. it was important to me to elaborate on why these two had chemistry, on how they were parallel, and on just how much they liked each other and vibed-- on just how much of an opportunity Blake was missing out on. so Blake laughing more at Em's jokes, and getting the Mercury context, that all came later.

in total, I think this scene had like five or six discrete iterations before reaching its final form.

[xthelastknownsurvivorx]

2023 Writing Roundup

Thanks @inexplicablymine for the tag! This was a lot of fun to do

January

Satisfied (Never Have Been, Never Will Be) — RWRB, T, 833

Or, a rewrite of the lyrics of "Satisfied" from Hamilton set at the beginning of Philip and Martha's wedding, except Alex is a little flirtier and a little less repressed, told from Henry's pov.

February

Some Element of Mystery — RWRB, M, 4k

Or, five times that Alex thought Henry was a stripper, plus one time Henry corrected him. Written for the informal stripper!Henry fest.

March

Was working on finishing my master's thesis instead of fic for the most part, though I did write a few drabbles and make progress on my reincarnation au (see November)

April

Burn (They're Watching Us/I Hope That They) — RWRB, T, 295

Or, a rewrite of the lyrics of "Burn" from Hamilton, set immediately after the email leak, told from Alex's pov.

May

Graduated/finished my master's 🎉🎉 while also writing more of my reincarnation au (see November), including some major revisions

June

Got sick for part of the month, then spent the rest of it furiously working on my brownstone anniversary exchange fic (see July) doing tons of (probably unnecessary) research about Saturday Night Live and royal weddings.

July

SNL | Season 45 Episode 2 | HRH Prince Henry & FSOTUS Alex Claremont-Diaz — RWRB, M, 9k

Or, the fic in which I said bet and sent firstprince onto Saturday Night Live instead of having Alex go to London for a weekend. Written for the Brownstone Anniversary Fic Exchange.

August

Spent the month trying to make a lot of progress on reincarnation au (see November) and finally got some betas

September

Had a bad case of writer's block for most of the month, then went insane and wrote something for firstprince week (see October) despite promising myself I wasn't going to participate

October

Not a Day I Don't Miss (Those Rude Interruptions) — RWRB, T, 2k

Or, a Henry character study set during the week following Henry running from the lake house, loosely inspired by Taylor Swift's "Last Kiss". Written for firstprince week.

November

Red, White, and Royal Switcheroo — RWRB, T, 6k

Or, a body swap au set during Alex's "make nice" trip to England in which Alex and Henry have to play at being each other, and Alex discovers Henry's role is, in fact, very much not much easier to play. Written for Halloween, Huh?

Every Time My Heart Swings Back to You — RWRB, M, ~90k (ongoing)

Or, a reincarnation au set mostly in the modern era with college students Alex and Henry trying to piece together the story of their past lives as a knight and a prince through a series of non-linear flashbacks.

December

Trying my best to finish reincarnation au while also plotting out a very ambitious fic for a new fandom (mysterious lotus casebook) that I'll be trying to tackle in 2024. Also the month I got super into cdramas/c-ent.

--

Wow, compiling all this made me realize I wrote a whole lot more than I thought: posting 9 stories and writing around 50k new words! I also participated in a lot more fan events than ever before and finally begin sharing the story that's been living in my brain and docs only for almost three years. All in all, a very satisfying year for me while also looking forward to new projects in 2024~

I'm probably one of the last wants to get to this but tagging a few others who I don't think have done this (let me know though if you have) @14carrotghoul @formorewishes @affectionatelyrs @anincompletelist @celaestis1 @celeritas2997 @cricketnationrise, plus open tag because I'd love to see anyone else's writing year in review~

[writingdotcoffee]

#252: Don't Raise the Stakes

Raising the stakes is a familiar technique writers use when building up their stories towards the climax. If it doesn't work out, things will be much worse than we thought.

It makes for pretty good reading, but it's a lot less fun when it happens in a story where you're the protagonist.

I distinctly remember this short story I wrote years ago that disintegrated because I raised the stakes for myself.

I used to live near a massive cemetery. The cemetery had an equally large park next to it with a small population of green parakeets. They moved around from tree to tree in groups. Their screech was impossible to miss, and they were a lot of fun to watch, too.

One January, I went for a walk in the park, and I got an idea for a story which included the park, the cemetery and most importantly, the parakeets.

It was supposed to be a quick story. No more than two or three scenes. A sort of descent into misery and twist at the end. I was particularly proud of the twist.

I started writing the story as soon as I got home. A few hundred words in, my mind started wondering which magazines I should submit the piece once it was done. I did some research and was super excited about that — a huge mistake.

What followed was an excruciating battle for every sentence that lasted for weeks. I couldn't finish the story. Nothing I wrote was good enough. I kept going back to edit the most irrelevant details until I hated everything about the project.

What could've been an enjoyable couple of afternoons working on a short story for fun became an absolute nightmare only because of some imaginary result.

Thinking about submitting the story to magazines raised the stakes. It made it seem that I had something to lose. No longer was I writing a silly short story for fun. I was composing high art that would have to make its way out of the slush pile and withstand the uncompromising eye of the editors at those particular publications. It was absolutely essential to avoid adverbs at all costs.

After weeks of agonising, I finished the draft and shelved it. What a waste. However, I've learned my lesson. I never think about publication when I'm working on a story. I want to write something that I like. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't.

These days, I'm a fan of just winging the first draft. I know that I tend to overthink and over-research everything. Then I get stuck on ideas that perhaps weren't that great in the first place.

Don't Raise the Stakes

The best work often comes from experimenting and taking risks. By getting too attached to an imaginary outcome that's out of your control, you'll experiment less and take fewer risks. Ultimately, this will bog you down and prevent you from achieving it in the first place.

Write so that you enjoy it. What's the point of doing it any other way?

About the Author

Hi, I’m Radek 👋. I’m a writer, software engineer and the founder of Writing Analytics — an editor and writing tracker designed to help you beat writer’s block and create a sustainable writing routine.

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Past Editions

#251: Rebuilding My Writing Habit, October 2022

#250: I Burned Out, October 2022

#249: Finish More Things, July 2022

#248: Serious Procrastination, June 2022

#247: Learning How to Fail, June 2022

#246: Your Art Is Like a Journal Entry, May 2022

[claudiajcregg]

i'd love to hear any behind the scenes you have on 'say it's here where our pieces fall in place' bc i read it and loved it and i want to know about it 💜

Welp, I've been thinking about this since you sent it and I feel I won't do it justice! I feel like I could say a lot if I went chapter by chapter, but many tabs of unread fics stare back at me. I'll skim and try to say something, though.

Some commentary on say it's here where our pieces fall in place under the cut! I am sick and rambly. And lbr I can never shut up anyway, but this might be too incoherent even for me. (Original ask post here)

It was sort of an unofficial NaNoWriMo project, in that I set myself a goal to tackle “longer fics” or ideas I wanted to cover but hadn't. From my notes, I had this idea to write a ficlet per year because I always enjoy this kind of story, and I know I'd tried to approach different ones in the past. I started writing in late October/finished in Nov 2021. (The other fic I started was never finished, even if dammit, it hits.) I posted it in January, so it wasn't that bad, considering I'll often take months.

It's maybe important to note that I had only finished writing “The Monster (affectionate)” (aka the 148k-ish word IM AU) in early September and I felt a bit burned out after spending five months writing that (would’ve been less but the struggle was real for the last third of the story. Oddly reminiscing of you-know-what story these days). This arbitrary deadline helped me get back into writing. Granted, I wrote a couple of fics in those five months, but I wanted to try another multichapter.

Anyway. I picked some random, perhaps not obvious choices for the vignettes. It was partly to avoid writing something I might have potentially covered at one point, and also a challenge. Some are also strange (the dream!), but I kinda loved it? (Fun fact: the fic references the Sherry-Netherland, whose exterior is the establishing shot in Internal Displacement. I swear there is some thought put into my writing.) And as the A/N I wrote to myself, I definitely wrote and rewrote bits and pieces of this on my way to and from therapy, haha.

Let me find a fun fact about each of the chapters, if I can think of any.

1998: actually repurposed some campaign fic idea I distinctly remember writing in spring 2018, while I was still in uni. It also has GLOVES. I live for that.

1999: I like the idea of exploring Danny and Abbey's relationship! They presumably have a good one and yet, I don't think we ever see them interact. (And god. Danny's recent, pre-campaign breakup is a recurring theme in my campaign stories too, loool.)

2000: Danny and Josh are an underrated friendship, and I like the references to Rosslyn. There was so much in those months in Midterms that we didn't see, and I like thinking Danny visited his friend.

We also got two back-to-back chapters focused on Danny - I remember trying to make it even, so that the focus was more or less evenly split.

2001: the Manchester fuckup! And it's one of the dream chapters! There were two of them? (We're 3 out of 4 in which I was surprised by the focus, but now I kinda want to re-read it all properly?) I'll say that I can see some vague, unconscious inspo from Freefall by KadeeFalls in this chapter (esp since I was just talking to you about it)... But I'm mostly obsessed with the magical realism (there's another term that my foggy brain cannot think of rn) of dreams, and how it can help us clear our heads.

2002: I remembered this was set after Simon! I know it's probably an odd, controversial choice but they both tried to move on (at least, we know CJ did), and it felt disingenuous not to include it. There are moments when she almost admits to her previous (?) feelings for Danny, but stops.

As with most thus far, there were fluffier and probably better choices for 2002 (Christmas!!), but... My brain wanted it to appear like CJ couldn't really bring herself to think about Danny.

2003: Aw, the specialty store is inspired by a franchise over here that had Goldfish (not many flavors) and I took a dramatic license and added it over there. I also added a small flashback because I love thinking Danny doesn't think they're all that but likes them. (But will tease CJ about it.) Plus, some more resolution to moving on!

2004: Yeah, the formatting is weird. (This is one I'd have to go back and do a blockquote or something.) Danny winning a Pulitzer for the Shareef stuff is a mostly accepted headcanon. CJ seeing his picture on the paper and having feels is just something I love, especially if he mentions someone else. (Look. I'm all for letting him pine, but he deserves to move on and fail too.) Plus Josh teasing her!

2005: The Sherry-Netherland! fwiw, I'm sure I had finally figured out this was the place and decided it would be so cheeky to add it here. I'm so sMaRt. Flowers when she gets promoted! And my spin (in this story) of CJ vaguely shunning him. This is the angst before the fluff.

2006: I remembered this one was a dream at some restaurant! (Again the formatting is not great, but I didn't want to tip my obvious hand.) The same way I think CJ's dream in 2001 was about her wondering how Danny would have reacted, this is about Danny realizing he needs to reach out to her... But with the added family ~tale~. Def inspired by that lyric in "Sad Beautiful Tragic."

2007: I feel like having it at some random dinner with Josh and Donna was an odd choice, but I loved the idea of a double date! The scarf scene is just so! And the chaos siblings energy is great. It was a reprieve from the angst.

Meeting at LAX was right there! I had written a story or two trying to do it justice, so I'm guessing that's why it's not. And fwiw the airport story I wrote shortly after that is the one being posted ~soon~. (A rewritten, slightly expanded version.)

2008: Pregnancy mood swings! It hurt to make them fight, but it's so fluffy otherwise. From what I remember, it has various references to things that happen in the story (particularly from the first two chapters) but it still manages to close it rather nicely, showing how strong their marriage is. I hope.

Okay. This has gotten way too long and it's probably useless.

I've always said I could have written another 11 chapters using different scenes, because there are just so many, even outside the obvious ones... Though I feel I wouldn't be able to recapture the magic.

I do definitely want to reread this for real. As with many fics, it's one of those I used to reread often before posting it (especially the last quarter/third) and then just ignored after. See some other recent examples, such as memoir fic, Portland fic.

Thank you for asking, Ally! God, I used to be a good writer. What happened?!??!

[milo-is-rambling]

I see my fathers corpse when I close my eyes. Words I never thought would leave my mouth are now exiting. I am begging to some higher power I do not believe in to make this all stop. I am holding the knife to my chest to my hips to my throat. I do not split the skin. I stare at old scars, I tug at my scalp. I pick my cuticles until I cannot move without breaking fresh skin. Days pass faster and slower than ever before. My mother is doing better with her husbands death than I am doing with my fathers. I didn’t even like him when he was alive. He is burning a hole into my chest. This large ache I cannot fill. I need to find another angry horrible man to fit into this space. I fear I am taking the role myself. I am bitter I am lost I am cursing the gods I am driving myself off the bridge I am screaming until my throat is raw I am smiling telling my mother what to wear on her date and when she leaves I collapse in on myself like a dying star. I am sucking everything into my darkness and calling it love, calling it rebirth, calling it redemption. I am struggling and wearing it as a badge of honor. After you have survived a suicide attempt you can see yourself as a god among men. I cannot hold a job or someone’s hand. But I am alive. I am still breathing and that in itself is my religion. I cannot get myself to cry even if I wanted to but the second I open my mouth and speak of him i feel an itch at the back of my throat my chin is wiggling I am holding back the tears as they threaten to pour over. I am all anger and sadness. We used to say my father only had one emotion and it was anger I am his little girl I am his disappointment I was nothing and he loved me despite despite despite. He never liked my brother after he went to college I feared that if I ever went away and came back he would hate me too. I never left. Dropped out of high school and spent most days talking to him. I saw through this emotional mask. I sat in the back of the car last January while my parents smoked and talked. My father talked about his father. My mother reminded him that we are no longer children. I sat in silence. I felt I could’ve been strapped into a car seat, pitifully small. My mother passed me the joint as my father tears up. She didn’t notice. He put all this effort into being likeable when we were young and once we formed our own personalities and weren’t parroting him he decided he didn’t care anymore.

Am I the same way? Am I growing away from my friends or are they no longer playing into my ego and I’m just as miserable as my father. I need to catch my breath. I need to remind myself what is real. I need to forget where we keep the knives. I need to forget where he kept the knives. I need to forget that he held the knife out to me and was proud when I took it in my hand. He wanted me to be angry. He trained me like a fucking dog. Every peer a competition every teacher a source of praise every stranger a friend every family member an enemy. His go to advice was “beat them up” I carried it with me through high school. I carried this violence in my chest that my parents did not know what to do with. My brother and I threatened each other like it was a sport. I always got the last word. Shocked silence at the dinner table. Storming away. Slamming doors. I was the violent presence in my house it was never my father he passed the torch when I was so young that I forgot if it even burned me. I still have the scars to prove that it did. All this violence. Getting scolded when I projected and so I put it all inside. I hacked away at my skin in the dark. Those were the quiet years. Family dinners. Long silences. Friends lost touch. Strangers calling me wonderful things. Strangers years older than me. Men with the same anger in their hearts as me. As my father. Men who talked about fights they got into and how sexy my voice was. I was twelve. I felt wanted for the first time in my whole life. My parents found the messages. Didn’t look me in the eye for two years. I knew what they thought of me. Dirty foul slut who was asking for it. And I was in a way. Asking for power asking for praise asking for anyone to be more broken than me. Is this the price of girlhood? Am I meant to be full of rage? I am still that child watching my mother read through my phone in horror. Listening to her cry through the walls. She asks what she did wrong she asks what she ever did to make me do something like this. The anger in me was something that spread like a disease. My first real girlfriend once got so mad that she smashed her phone with a brick. I had this sick joy in my chest knowing there was someone like me. Is it really sickness when there’s two of us? Partners in crime is still just two criminals. We tore each other apart and left no identifiable evidence. My mother tells me years later that my first girlfriend was crazy. I tell her about the way I treated her. The way I drove her to behave that way. The way I didn’t know what I was doing and so I tore her apart with my teeth. I still have scars on me from the guilt. I use it as an excuse to ignore the way I treated her. I hurt myself because she hurt me. Well who threatened who? Who said they were going to kill themselves because of the way you treated them? Because you were leaving them? I remember my shaky hands calling her mother and telling her to call out of work that night because I was afraid she would do something horrible. That guilt follows me everywhere. Being angry feels like getting in touch with who I was then. Who I hurt and how I hurt myself.

I grew up and lost more friends. Grew more and thought I finally had it figured out. Lost friends again. Each loss felt like a blow to the chest. I wanted so badly to be mad at them. Be mad at anyone but myself. I know I am to blame for the way others react to me. I do not hurt myself but I am constantly thinking about it. Some days I shower just a bit too hot and think about your touch. Some days it’s enough just to think of him. Some days I have to hold the knife in my hands and put it back down again to truly hurt myself. It hurts more to deny myself the blood than it ever did to create these scars. When I hold the knife I am brought back to when it all started. Scale in the bathroom with a notebook beneath it. Weight listings. Up then down then up and up and up again. Couldn’t get it to go back down. The word fat carved into my thigh. It’s mostly faded now but when I hear your knock on the door it all comes rushing back to me. Don’t notice don’t notice don’t notice. Ignore the blood. Ignore the tears. Ignore the way I am shivering under your touch. I deserve this. My mother sits me down at the dining room table. She washes my sliced up arm with alcohol and apologizes for the sting. She wraps me with a long bandage and tells me that just because I cut myself doesn’t mean that I don’t have to do my math homework. I had never wanted to die as badly as I did then. Thirteen and sobbing onto a placemat from dollar tree, better than my tears staining the wood table. My father never got mad at me for being depressed like my mother did. I know somewhere in him the same sadness resided. He may not have cut himself but he found other ways to hurt. He has tried every drug he could get his hands on. He’d pick every fight that wasn’t his to win and haggle until everyone in his life was miserable. It’s a wonder my mom never left him. It’s a wonder she hasn’t left me. When i close my eyes I see my fathers corpse. My greatest loss. My greatest disappointment. Forever wondering what could have been. I wonder if when my mother closes her eyes she sees me instead. Sees me as a young kid with bleeding wrists or as a disgusting slut calling men twenty years older than me Daddy online just for a chance at affection. I wonder what about me disappoints her the most. I still imagine myself dying before her. I do not know what I would do with myself if I had no parents left to disappoint. The knife so close at all times just begging to see the blood. The car full of gas and waiting to be at the bottom of the lake. Maybe I have a problem. Maybe I always have. Maybe it’s hereditary. Maybe it’s all me. Maybe it’s always been me. Maybe the knife is the only family heirloom I have left.

[balshumetsbaragouin]

Alright people! We have officially hit the point of finishing Act Two! Inside, Danny gets a little time to hang out with Ohm, and then confronts Valerie.

This last bit is going to catapult us into the Third Act with a bang!

Still aren't convinced? Have a sample of the latest chapter below:

Danny watched the citizens of Amity Park, all dressed in colorful festive sweaters and juggling freshly purchased packages, rush in and out of the Beverley Mall. The entire area glowed with a blanket of holiday cheer, taking on the colors of the strung lights twinkling in the darkness of the night. At the front of the Mall sat the baskets for various charity drives, bell-ringing volunteers wearing Santa hats, as shoppers tossed change or reached deeper into their wallets to fill the baskets to bursting. One of the baskets bore the name of the fund the city had created to aid people with recovery after the curse finished disrupting tech throughout the greater Amity area. That one saw more donations than others, the teens manning the table and ringing the bells doing their best to draw attention to the cause and spread the word of the organization’s purpose. Although it had been commissioned to handle the cleanup following the outbreak, because of the severity and length of the event, the town finally gave in to the need for a more permanent local relief fund. Donations would travel to needy families throughout Amity for the techpocalypse, all the cash earmarked until the end of the year to aid business owners and suburban families alike, before they reconvened in the new year to set up a budget to plan for common disasters. 

His friends planned to sunset the website, and its toxic forums, by the end of December and hand the domain over to the new charity. Good riddance in his opinion. If he had to read through one more of Dash’s Phantom rants to ban the asshole after January first, he’d blow up the other boy’s laptop. The Baxter’s were rich enough to buy him a new one the next day, but the catharsis would be worth its weight in gold. He’d told Sam and Tucker that Dash owned the GhostTeen account, and skipped over everything else to do with that night in terms of their conversation. He’d shown them the advertising packet, and shoved the fan mail into the bottom of his drawer. He’d burn it this weekend now that everything calmed down; he just hadn’t had a chance. 

They were going over it together on the phones as he did patrol. Unfortunately, Team Phantom agreed Dash did have some brains between the bones of his skull, because the designs for the line and the plans for launch were actually good. Once they’d started going through the papers in detail, he’d realized Dash oversold the input from Ms. Avery or anyone else. Everything carried the fingerprints of his direct involvement, with meticulous attention to even the tiniest bit of information he knew about Phantom. It still landed somewhere between creepy and awe-inspiring. Not the good kind like ‘awesome’, but the bad kind like ‘Biblical down-pouring of fire by the Old Testament God’. If the dude’s brains had enough wherewithal to come up with all of this, then he shouldn’t be flunking school. Once again, he wished he’d focus more of the fanaticism into passing Sophomore year and less into the basketball season as he tried to put the team on his back and carry them back to state. “I actually like the designs for the hoodie. I kinda want one, which is saying something, because I know Dash made it.”

“He’s got a mind for fashion and graphic design. It’s weird he doesn’t take more art classes.” Sam had a digital copy on her computer, Tucker too. He’d scanned them the previous weekend. 

“I bet he’d call it ‘gay’ if he did take them. You heard how much he complained about dance classes. Those things are just exercising to a beat. It’s more like athletics than performing art,” Tucker said.

“Dash thinks everything is gay. At least, everything he hates,” Sam pointed out. He tried not to wince at the topic of conversation, refocusing on the jaunty Christmas music and excited children dancing along below. 

[despair-to-future-arcs]

I presume the footage of the Student Council killing got distributed among the Reserve Course by Junko.

So... with the parade, how did that start...?

Well seems after the tragedy of Hope's Peak, she disrupted the video footage out to the reserve course...

NAGI: Junko Enoshima release the video out the Reserve Course, showing the tragedy of Hope's Peak as the school was likely going to cover up this whole incident as well and I think what made matters worse...

NAGI: Is learning that all their money was going to the Izuru Kamukura Project, I mean... if you found out that the money that you thought was being use for the school but instead some freak experiment, wouldn't you be furious and demanding answers...?

NAGI: The answer would be yes, they were beyond furious and angry that it began the parade, where it was seen as a revolutions; I even remember seeing petitions and posters to burn Hope's Peak and I heard rumors the Reserve Course students started a secret society, yet again don't know that one but I heard that they killed 2 of the Steering Committee members.... it seems many of them were angry and demanded answers.

Damn that is... I mean, yeah I can get being pissed at how the school was treating them but god damn...

Trust me, you would be surprise how pissed off they were, I even heard some them watch that video 5818 times and they kept continuing but yet again I'm not sure with that one...

And what was the school's response to it?

Well... it should be obvious with Hope's Peak of course; they ignore it and buff up security...

NAGI: They figure things will settle after a while so to make sure, they buff up security which they told students to ignore the parade and continue their talent which students were ask to stay at the dorms for their own protection which honestly, I didn't like how the school handle the whole situation when they could of just talk to the Reserve Course.

So Junko mostly just added fuel to the flame and let things play out it seems...

But still, what was Junko doing during all this time...?

Hmm, I wouldn't exactly know but I know during the first month of the parade is that there was an investigation and some students were looking into it.

A investigation? I guess some of you guys would find out, what happen with them?

I think those that were looking into it were the Madarai Brothers as they were hunting down Junko Enoshima, Kyoko Kirigiri who was looking for the rumor Izuru Kamukura and the last... was Yuto Kamishiro who was investigating for someone...

He was investigating as well?

Yeah, in fact it was Chihiro Fujisaki who was ask by Yuto to spy on the Academy Server and it's where he learn about Junko Enoshima's invovlement...

And I think Chihiro didn't want to get too involved which I can't blame him...

...

...

...

Date: January 20th, 2012

*is walking back to the dorms* Well... at least I was able to convince some of the Reserve Course to give up on the parade, thankfully...

But yet again, it's a lot of them at the door so I need to plan this out mor-.

???: Lo-Look, this is all I have on it and I rather not get invovled!

Huh...? (Wait... is that Chihiro...? Seems like he sounds upset...)

[thedivinelights]

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Pairings: Ebenezer Scrooge/Isabel Fezziwig

Summary:

Ebenezer Scrooge has spent these past two years fixing bonds he had destroyed, building bridges that he had burned. No more did people look upon him and fear. It was safe to say his future was averted.

Then the cracks began to appear, showing him the one he had carelessly thrown away years ago. He knew there was more to be done.

Perhaps happiness was not fully out of his reach just yet

The day had begun like any other for Isabel. She got up from her cold bed and opened the windows to let the cool winter breeze into the home. She went to her dressing table to prepare. She thought about what was going to be on the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She thought about what rooms still needed cleaning...

Isabel sighed, stopping midway from tying her hair up into her usual bun. She hadn't noticed before, but she seemed to care less and less about her appearance as the years grew on. The hours spent curling and combing were now down to mere minutes and the corsets she wore were hardly as fashionable. She was going through a dull routine with a marriage she wasn't even sure she wanted anymore.

She looked upon herself in the mirror, and wondered... how many years have gone by? How many years has it been since she said goodbye? She had become so incredibly numb to a life of tedium and petty trivialities that she had forgotten the woman she was before. To the days when she was but a young, carefree and stubborn woman who cared not whether she was wed to another.

Isabel gave a bittersweet smile. She remembered when she left Ebenezer, her father comforting her in her time of need. He had been supportive of her every decision throughout her life, but the old man began to worry she would end up all alone in the end. Not long after that was when she was introduced to Solomon. They had met during one of her father's gatherings, with Solomon only a budding lawyer and an understudy to his father. She thought they hit it off rather well, Solomon being a charming, sweet, and charismatic young man at the time. Both of their fathers agreed that they would be perfect together.

And so, she was arranged to marry him the month after in January, with Ambrose arriving late in October. Her father had been rather insistent on getting the wedding all set as soon as possible, to avoid a similar outcome to before.

For a while, they had been happy. She had gifted Solomon a handsome son. She got the life she desired, the love she thought Ebenezer refused to give her.

Until the year when Elizabeth came into the world, where her father went bankrupt and the business had been forced to close down, leaving thousands without work. He had died shortly after, the stress clearly taking its toll on him.

She thought to do something for those poor employees, only for Solomon to sharply shut her down with a cold look she had not seen in him before. It was a gaze she saw continue to grow the more he moved up the ranks and became one of England's greatest attorneys. She realised then that the man she had married was not the same sweet and charming man she had fallen in love with. That the man she married was naught but a ruse that he cast aside the moment this arrangement grew sour.

He had not even been there when Beatrix — her youngest — was born, citing that work had been piling up and he could not just leave it unattended to oversee it, only showing up for a baby shower to keep up appearances. It felt like the final straw for her, but she could not take off her ring as she did before. She had been stuck with him for the long run, with Elizabeth and Beatrix being her only comfort.

Isabel shook her head, the sounds of shouting derailing her thoughts. She quickly tied her hair up and got dressed for the day, making her way down the steps only to find Ambrose yelling at one of the maids.

"I say, do you truly believe that this is clean?!" He yelled out, pointing at but a small speck of dust upon the marble floor. The servant had shrunken at his words, tears beginning to fill her eyes.

"Pray excuse me, sir, I assure you that this shall not occur again."

"Cease your nonsensical prattle!" Ambrose gave a vexed growl at the woman's stupidity, "You are most lucky that my father is not here. If it were within my power, I should be most inclined to dismiss you from your position!"

"Ambrose!" Isabel scolded, finally reaching the bottom of the steps, "What is the meaning of this?!"

Her son gave a scowl as she moved to the shaken maid, placing a hand upon her shoulder, "Are you alright, my dear? Go, make haste. I shall handle things from here."

The maid nodded her head vigorously before swiftly making her way out of the dinette, Ambrose keeping his gaze upon her until he shifted it to his mother with scorn etched upon his features.

"Mother, you should not be defending her. She is merely a servant and must be held to a higher standard of cleanliness," Ambrose said sternly, causing Isabel to shake her head, her hands clenching slightly.

"I could not fathom standing idly by while you scolded that unfortunate maidservant. She was merely fulfilling her duties!"

"If she was fulfilling her duties, there wouldn't be this speck of dirt now, would there?" He pointed to the speck in question, "I am merely trying to keep this household in order and maintain proper standards in Father's absence. It is your fault that I have to be the one to do it, Mother. You were too lenient with the staff and now I must clean up the mess."

Isabel was stung by Ambrose's words. She had done all she could to try and ease the burden of the staff, overseeing much of the chores herself. They didn't have many staff in the household anyway, but it appeared that he had loathed all of them.

"I understand that, Ambrose, and I am sorry. But that does not give you the right to belittle and yell at those who are serving under us. They are working hard and doing their best. We must treat them with kindness and respect, not with anger and contempt." Isabel said softly, trying to reason with her son.

"Kindness and respect? For the staff? That is absurd, mother. They are beneath us and must be treated as such." Ambrose spat out, his face contorted with disgust.

Isabel's heart broke at the sight of her son, so full of hatred and anger. She knew that it was her own fault, her own choices that had led to this. But she also knew that she had to try and fix it, for her own sake and for the sake of her children.

"Ambrose, please. I understand that you are trying to uphold the traditions of society, but we must remember that these people are human beings, just like us. They have feelings and emotions, and they deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion."

"Compassion for the lower classes? You are becoming more and more like that old miser every day, Mother," Ambrose sneered, "Do you not remember how he cast you aside for his own selfish gain? And yet you still defend him, still try to make excuses for his actions. You are a fool, Mother. A fool who cannot see the truth."

Isabel's heart twisted at the mention of Ebenezer, their conversations from before still ringing in her ears, "I am not defending him, Ambrose. I am only trying to remind you that we all make mistakes, and it is up to us to learn from them and try to be better. We must strive to treat others with kindness, no matter their social standing or circumstances."

"I shall do no such thing, Mother. I will not stoop myself to the level of the lower classes. I am a Rothschild, and I shall behave as such." Ambrose said haughtily, turning on his heel and storming out of the room, leaving Isabel alone with her thoughts and regrets.

"Mother?"

Isabel didn't turn around to face her, but she knew who the voice belonged to. She was barely in her early twenties, her blond hair in a neat bun with a pink fascinator. She looked on, her grey eyes betraying concern.

"Will you father be coming home, Beatrix?"

She shook her head, "More work, it seems. Elizabeth is out as well; she's currently on her way to the orphanage."

When her mother did not reply, Beatrix gingerly moved towards her, reaching her hand out before retracting it.

"Are you well, Mother?"

Isabel let out a heavy sigh, "I am fine, dear. Just a little overwhelmed."

"Is it Ambrose?"

"Yes, it is. I fear that he has become too wrapped up in these frivolous notions of social propriety."

She curled a strand of her hair, a motion she did whenever she felt stressed, "And... And regarding your father as well. I fear he has been spending far too much of his time ago work, losing sight of those that are truly important to him."

"Like us?"

Isabel tensed, but gave a slow, shaky nod in response, "Yes, like us. His family, his loved ones. It seems that he has forgotten about us in pursuit of his own ambitions."

Beatrix wrapped her arms around Isabel, giving her a comforting hug, "I am sorry, Mother. I know how hard it is for you. But please don't worry. I am sure that Father will come to his senses eventually and realize what he has been missing out on."

Isabel hugged her daughter back, tears welling up in her eyes, "I hope so, Beatrix. I really do. But sometimes, I fear that it may be too late."

They stayed like that for a few moments, before Isabel pulled away, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Beatrix, but I think I need a while to clear my head. Do you mind-"

"Not to worry, Mother." Beatrix gave a cheerful grin, "I shall take care of things from here."

She looked at the young woman before her, a reminder of who she was. She was proud she had someone she could still rely on in these times; it gave her the courage to do the same for others.

Quickly fixing up her hair, she made to grab her coat hanging near the main door leading out of the house, placing it upon herself before heading out into the streets. The fresh air and the bustling crowds of people did much to calm Isabel's nerves as she walked aimlessly through the city. Her mind was a jumbled mess, thoughts of Ambrose's stubbornness and Solomon's neglect swirling around in her head.

The streets were surprisingly quiet that morning, although that was probably due to the early hours. Many of the shops had just began to open, and she had been wandering through the city for a while until a bright and colourful shop caught her eye.

Jenkins' Toys & Games.

It was a store that Elizabeth had recommended for the children at the orphanage, and she was surprised to hear that her daughter had gained knowledge of this place from Ebenezer himself. He hardly seemed like the type to look at children's playthings, but then again, there was much she did not know about him now.

Perhaps I shall buy one for my butler's son. She had thought, finally making the decision to step inside. Her eyes had to adjust to the bright reds and purples of the lights but was immediately enthralled by all of the wondrous toys stocked upon the shelves. Teddy bears, toy trains, even nutcrackers for the holiday season. She looked around, mesmerised by everything until the shopkeeper himself moved towards her.

"First time here, eh?" Tom nudged, "What can I get ya for?"

Isabel explained her predicament to Tom, who was more than happy to help her pick out a toy the young boy would like. Eventually, they had decided upon a nutcracker with a green and red uniform with gold trimmings. After picking out the toy, Isabel pulled out a few coins from her reticule, a few more than she needed.

"Here is some extra for the trouble, Mr. Jenkins."

Tom waved his hands out in protest, "No need to do so, my lady! I'm afraid Mr. Scrooge gives me too much as it is, I don't wish to take more than I need."

This got her interest piqued, "He does? How so?"

Tom rubbed the back of his head, "He provides me with a small fund to keep the business going, you see. Just enough to pay for the house and all that."

"I never knew him to be so charitable."

"Neither did I!" He laughed, "I used to owe him money you know. Two years ago, I would've have gone under if I didn't manage to pay my dues in time. But then, out of nowhere, I get an invitation to a gathering at his house for Christmas! 'Course, I was skeptical, but I went anyway and he cancelled all of my debt, just like that!"

He snapped his fingers to emphasise his point, leaving Isabel stunned.

"Ebenezer did that for you?" She asked, her mind racing with the information.

"Yes, ma'am. And he's been helping me out ever since, even though I'm not sure I deserve it. But I'm grateful, truly. He's not the same man he used to be, I think the holiday season brings out the best in him."

Isabel couldn't believe what she was hearing. Ebenezer, helping others? It was hard to imagine, especially after how he had treated her all those years ago. She had always known he was a successful businessman and that he had changed a lot in these past years, but she had never thought he would be so generous to those in need.

"Well, I'm glad he's changed for the better." Isabel said, a hint of sadness in her voice.

Tom noticed the change in her demeanour and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, "Is everything alright, my lady?"

Isabel forced a smile and nodded, "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for the assistance, Mr. Jenkins. It has been a delight to speak with you."

"Anytime, my lady. You have a good day now, and if you need anything, don't hesitate to come back."

"I will, thank you." Isabel said with a small bow, turning to leave the store with her gift in hand. 

She decided that she would spend more time exploring the avenue, enjoying the last rays of the morning sun before she began to see more people crowd the streets. The small, quiet roads began to bustle with cheer and goodwill. Christmas shoppers were out in full force, and while Isabel would have usually found herself caught up in the excitement as well, she couldn't help but grow increasingly numb to the sounds.

She had barely spent a few minutes after leaving the store, however, when she spotted a small group of youths hanging up advertisements for Scrooge & Cratchit Savings and Loans. Isabel couldn't help but stop and watch, a small smile forming on her lips as she remembered how Ebenezer used to be so full of life and energy.

"Hey, miss!" A voice called out to her, breaking her out of her reverie. She turned to see a young girl, Beryl, approaching her with a friendly smile. "Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, no, I was just curious." Isabel replied, returning the smile. "I saw you hanging up those posters and I couldn't help but stop and watch."

"Oh, we're just getting paid by old Scrooge to advertise his business. He's a bit shorthanded, y'see." Beryl said with a laugh. "I can't believe we actually got invited to his Christmas party this year!"

"Really?" Isabel asked, surprised. "I never would have thought Ebenezer would have a Christmas party, let alone invite people. Usually, people would have to invite him to get him to do anything this time of year."

"Yeah, it's crazy! But he's been really nice to us lately, always paying us on time and even giving us extra for the holidays." Beryl explained.

"Us? You're the one hogging our hard-earned coin, Beryl!" Mickey yelled out, almost falling off of the crate that he had been standing on. Luckily, the other two boys were there to keep him from tumbling to the cobblestone below.

Beryl gave a glare, "Oh shush, Mickey!"

Isabel chuckled at the exchange, "Well, it's nice to see that Ebenezer is doing well and helping out others. I'm happy for him."

Beryl's face lit up, "Oh, you know Mr. Scrooge?"

"Yes, I do. We used to be... close a long time ago." Isabel said slowly and rather cryptically, a pang of sadness hitting her as memories of her times with Ebenezer flooded back.

"Oh, well... I'm sure he's sorry for whatever he did to hurt you." Beryl said, a look of understanding on her face, "He's sure sorry for everything he did in the past. Apologises more often than not." 

Isabel smiled, "Thank you... Beryl, was it? I appreciate your kind words. It's good to hear that Ebenezer is doing some good for himself."

Beryl looked back at her with a grin, before pointing her thumb back to her mess of a group, "Well, we best get back to work. It was great speaking with you, Miss...?"

"Isabel. Call me Isabel. And it was good to speak with you as well."

She gave the girl and her friends a small wave as she walked away, a newfound sense of hope swelling within her heart. She had been too quick to dismiss his changes before, even after saying that she forgave him. There was still that small part of resentment within her for what he did, and she wasn't sure if she would ever forget. But after hearing the generous acts he had given to those around him... the way people spoke fondly of him after years of scorn... it gave her peace. Optimism.

And if people could say that about Ebenezer Scrooge, the miserly, selfish, disgruntled man who once cared naught for others... maybe there was a chance for Solomon to receive the same.

She spent much of her time trapped in her own thoughts about Ebenezer and Solomon, not even noticing until it was too late when she felt herself bump into someone and stumbled back.

"Oh! I am so sorry!" She apologised profusely, the man she stumbled into turning around with a smile.

"Not to worry, ma'am! Happens to the best of us!" He laughed loudly, before taking a closer look upon her features, "I-I'm sorry, have we met before?"

Isabel's eyes widened, the realisation as to who this man was suddenly hit her as she gazed into his blue eyes. She debated upon whether or not to tell him who she was but decided that there would be no harm in doing so.

"You're Harry Huffam, are you not?" Isabel asked, turning to the woman next to him, "And you must be Hela. Ebenezer told me about you two."

Harry's eyes widened, "You know of my uncle?"

Isabel nodded, her smile widening, "My name is Isabel, and I knew you and your mother as well. You were only but a babe when we last saw each other, however. Jen and I... we were good friends, a long time ago."

She held a hand to her heart, the silence between them almost palpable. Harry remained stunned for a few moments, before a grin spread upon his face and he hugged her tightly, causing Isabel to yelp out in shock.

"Well then, a friend of my mother is a friend of mine! I should love to hear stories about her, if you'd be interested?"

Hela agreed with the sentiment, "Perhaps you may join us in the Christmas dinner that Uncle Ebenezer has planned in the coming days? You can bring your family as well!"

Isabel gently waved her hands out, feeling rather embarrassed at the whole situation, "No, no, I should hate to impose..."

"Nonsense!" Harry patted her on the back, "I'm quite sure my uncle wouldn't mind having a dear friend of his be part of such a wondrous occasion!"

A dear friend would be an understatement, to say the least. Isabel gave a small chuckle. Harry reminded her so much of Jen it almost made her heart ache. The memories of their friendship and the time they spent together causing her to form a bittersweet smile, almost one of pity.

"Perhaps it would be lovely to join you for Christmas dinner. Thank you for the invitation."

Harry beamed at her, clasping his hands together and bouncing up and down in excitement, "Excellent! I'll make sure to let Uncle Ebenezer know. It'll be a joy to have you there!"

As they said their goodbyes and parted ways, Isabel couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement at the thought of seeing Ebenezer again. It had been a bit of a while since they had last spoken, and she couldn't deny the butterflies in her stomach at the thought of seeing him again.

She took out a small, golden pocket watch from her person, noticing that she had been out for a while. It was already almost twelve, nearing the time when Solomon would have his luncheon. Her smile widened.

Maybe she could visit his office and gift him some of her homemade lunch. It was nearing Christmas, after all.

[omni-scient-pan-da]

Okay so story time

I'm writing this on January 6th, 2022, it's a Thursday and almost 11:30pm and I really should be asleep by now if I want any hope of being a functioning human being to get through the quizzes I have in two of my AP classes tommorow but instead I'm here

Six years ago, as of the day I'm writing this, I was absolutely terrified of change, I hated the thought of it and I hated that everything suddenly was going to change when I felt like I had just gotten the hang of things

Six years ago, as of the day this is getting posted, I felt like the side character in someone else's story

I was there for emotional support to help other people shine, but when I had issues of my own, I was overlooked and all I wanted was to be somebody important, so much so that I dove into world after world of fantastical things that happened to fantastical people because they were good people that fought for what was right and lived happily ever after

And I was convinced that my life was going to be horrible because I so badly and desparately wanted to be special in some way, I wanted super powers or to marry into a royal family or to be transported to some magical world where the only issues I had was figuring out how to do the thing that was hard but obviously right

I was already unique, just not the kind of unique that made everyone flock around them because they were so cool and special, I was the kind of unique that stood out but made bad choices and decided to surround myself with people that weren't the best for me and I felt so disheartened because of that

And then, a few months later, my whole world fell apart and so I thought maybe if I just dug myself deeper into these fantasy worlds, if I just wished a little bit harder, if I was just a little bit more pure of heart then maybe, just maybe I could find the magic of the world that lay hidden just beneath the surface and would allow me to be just like the people I read about in books

And somehow, overtime, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to find the kind of magic I was looking for, if it did exist at all, it was going to find me and spending all my time searching for it wasn't healthy

And I think by that point, that was around the time I discovered fanfiction and the internet, and I started staying up late to dive into fantasies of a different kind but now? Now they were of fantastical people that had gone on fantastical journeys getting a much needed break, living happily ever after with the one they loved most, doing normal, ordinary things in a way that was so breathtakingly beautiful it couldn't help but captivate my attention

And so I started to romantize those things instead

Going to college and falling in love with your painfully straight roommate only to realize you're both gay and crushing on each other

Train rides, road trips, comicons, found families, spending time with friends, spending the night together when there's only one bed, falling in love with someone's words and realizing you actually know who the person is, texting a number scribbled on a bathroom stall, finding your soulmate against all the odds

And I started to glorify all these things that suddenly seemed attainable, and it got me through the day

Sure it wasn't happening now, but one day in the future, here was something I could actually obtain one day and I just had to wait until I had the funds or the transportation or the friends to do it with me

And then along comes a day like any other

Just... A normal Saturday, a week before the project is due if you want to receive extra credit

The day we're all going ice skating

And it's crazy and chaotic but it's fun, and there's laughter and sure there's yelling and frustration, but it's all in good spirit and the wind was freezing but we were all suffering together and my hands burned when I put them in that warm water but ultimately, Mystic was just trying to stop me from getting frostbite

And then we're standing in line for an HOUR waiting to get skates after walking for an unnecessarily long time in the freezing cold and my feet hurt like hell because I'm wearing skates that are two sizes too small for me and I can't balance for shit

And then we're ferrying across to the restaurant for dinner and it's nice

I'm struck with the realization that even though I'm exhausted and my social battery is running really low I'm happy, so happier than I've been in a really long time, and I'm not even thinking about the Psychology work I have to do when I get back home the next day because I am in the moment, I'm sitting and stealing cheese curds from Mystic and eating melted ice cream and making stupid jokes with my friends and wandering around Target aimlessly with my sister before going back home and passing out from exhaustion and it was fun

I feel loved

So much so that I made a collage of the day's pictures and made it my home screen, so I could look back on it and remember what a day December 11th was

And now, as I sit here at 11:40pm on a random Thursday, knowing I should be asleep, I can't help but remind myself that while the idealized versions of day to day life you see in fanfiction tropes are great to think about

And they have a possibility of occuring, and they could totally happen

It's the days that are messy, the days that don't go as planned, the days when you come home and immediately fall asleep because you're so tired that you look back on the fondest

When you're running back and forth across the neighborhood because you can't find your folder and you're supposed to go get froyo before showing up to the concert and your stupid uniform dress won't cover your bra straps you're having fun, and you're feeling loved and you're having the moments you dreamed about having

They may be messy but they're chaotic and messy and loveable and real

So now, today, on another December 11th, I would like to take the time to remind myself and anyone that made it through my rambling to find beauty in the now

"Embrace the mess" as fictional famous podcast creator Cinda Canning once said

Find your love and your joy and your hopes and dreams and aspirations in these moments right now, when they take you by surprise and people remind you that they love you

Even when it's not the romantic love you've been reading about for forever, you're loved and you're whole and as long as you can keep making it through the day, as long as you can keep reminding yourself to breathe, you'll stumble upon the December 11ths of life when you're meant to, and those will be the moments worth going for, not the glorified versions of fanfiction tropes that are much less likely to happen

Happy December 11th everyone, and may you have a good a day as I did, a year ago

[generalwildcat]

Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire

Almost immediately after High School Musical’s January 2006 release, the network hastily cobbled together a massive press tour for the cast. There was no time to coach the kids or ease them into it after the film’s ratings and chart success. They needed to capitalize on the momentum ASAP.

Disney flew the cast to New York to perform on Today. They sat down with Life, Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Teen People, Bop, J-14, and dozens of other outlets. Monique Coleman joined Dancing with the Stars. Hollywood Records—which didn’t have the capacity to sign all of the main actors as solo singers—chose to forge record deals with Corbin Bleu and Vanessa Hudgens, while Ashley Tisdale signed a separate deal with Warner Brothers. (At the following year’s Radio Disney Music Awards, the Hollywood Records executives morosely observed the throngs of fans angling to catch a glimpse of Ashley. “Did we make a mistake?” Bob Cavallo asked Abbey Konowitch. Looking back, “I don’t think we made the wrong decision,” Konowitch said. “But, it was an awkward time.”)

While Ashley had been on a slow-burn rise to fame with Suite Life, the rest of the cast were thrown into the deep end without a life raft. Unlike the talent who appeared on Disney Channel Original Series, many of the movie actors didn’t receive robust media training—because few journalists had been interested in covering past DCOMs. “We didn’t get media training. Our media training was experience,” Corbin said. “It’s insane how much press we did. I mean, just weeks upon weeks of eight- hour days, ten-hour days, press junkets. It seemed like it never ended.”

(Former Disney Channel PR head Patti McTeague said the High School Musicalcast would have been “briefed” prior to doing any media interviews. “The briefings included message points,” she said, “but to encourage authentic interviews, we asked that interviewees provide their own anecdotes and point of view in interviews. It’s an acquired skill.”)

It was impossible for any of the High School Musical stars to leave their homes without being recognized. From the moment they were out in public, they were met with starstruck kids and pushy parents. Beyond just the excitement of meeting a celebrity, it seemed like everyone was eager to assess if they were actually “good kids” whom the children of America should be hoping to emulate. There was constant pressure to be polite, perky, and endlessly accommodating, no matter how rude or uncomfortable an encounter might be.

“I remember developing so much anxiety over it,” Corbin said. “We had become these role models, and especially ‘Disney role models.’ I felt this pressure to have this positive attitude, and I never wanted to create any sort of negativity whatsoever.”

Their High School Musical contracts, like those for many Disney Channel Original Movies, came with an explicit “morals” section, broadly stipulating that they couldn’t behave in a way that would “degrade” themselves in society, bring “public hatred, contempt, scorn, or ridicule,” or “shock, insult, or offend the community or ridicule public morals or decency.” And the baked-in expectation of what representing the Disney brand entailed was a hazy yet omnipresent force.

“It was definitely something that was just expected and not really ever explained,” Lucas Grabeel said. “One of the questions I’ve been asked the most in interviews is, ‘What advice would you give to kids?’ Or ‘What do you want to say to kids looking up to you right now?’ It’s like, how are we great role models from just making a movie? You do realize that we’re just actors who got a job dancing and singing and being super cheesy in this movie that totally blew up.”

From the network’s side, as with all Disney Channel projects, “At the end of the day, it’s a job,” former original programming head Adam Bonnett said. “These kids have a job to do, and part of that job is ensuring that they’re consistent with the values of The Walt Disney Company.”

The High School Musical kids were also making a significant amount of money. Yet there were no Disney financial advisors assigned to educate the talent and their families on how to navigate this influx of wealth, whether it was from the films themselves or the outside deals they were being offered because of their Disney success. There was no guidance on how to save and budget or how to assess what a good deal looked like versus a scam.

“All of a sudden, coming into good money as a sixteen-year-old, my family was definitely not equipped to know what to do with it,” Corbin said. “My parents did well, but the kind of money that I started making was not something that we had ever experienced before. So many actors, myself included, went to business managers and handed every- thing over—and it’s not the best thing to hand over that kind of control.”

With both the Cheetah Girls and High School Musical franchises in play, the Disney Music Group began to test the waters of doing concert tours with Disney Channel’s made-for-television acts. After the proven success of a 2005 Cheetah Girls Christmas tour, Disney’s Buena Vista Concerts and AEG Live plotted an extensive fifty-plus-date High School Musical: The Concert tour that would take the film’s cast across the United States and South America from the end of 2006 through the spring of 2007. Contracts were drawn up and sent to the six main High School Musical cast members to sign. Everyone agreed, with one exception: Zac Efron. “Zac made the decision not to do the concert tour. He was like, ‘I didn’t sing it, so I’m not doing it,’” Rich Ross said. “That was disappointing.”

Drew Seeley took Zac’s place to sing Troy’s parts on tour, and Kenny Ortega, who had ample experience choreographing and directing tours for Cher, Michael Jackson, and Gloria Estefan, returned to direct the live show. In addition to the songs from the film, Ortega worked to incorporate elements of the cast’s numerous side projects in the setlist: Vanessa and Corbin performed tracks from their Hollywood Records releases. Ashley was given permission to sing three songs off her solo album, even though it was a Warner Brothers project. Monique did a bit of ballroom dancing in a nod to her Dancing with the Stars run. And Lucas served as emcee.

The tour sold out arenas across the country, packing in audiences of screaming kids and their indulgent, or at least tolerant, parents. “I’ve driven Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin, and I’ve never seen fans go crazy like this,” one of the tour bus drivers told the cast. “You guys are like the fucking Beatles.”

In South America, the shows were bigger, often filling entire stadiums, and the crowds were rowdier. The performers were given military escorts to and from their hotels and the venues. At one airport, an official took their passports and refused to return them unless they took pictures and signed autographs for his children. “That time on the road was the best two months of my life. But it was also some of the darkest moments, as well,” Lucas said. “The scale of everything was just unimaginable. They worked us so hard. I mean, we didn’t really have days off. And you get to these moments of like, what am I doing? I am a monkey performing on a stage.”

They were just getting started.

Within two weeks of High School Musical’s January 2006 premiere, the network had ordered a sequel and approached the cast to sign new single-film contracts, just as they had done with the casts of Zenon, Halloweentown, and any past Disney Channel Original Movie deemed worthy of a sequel. The previous September, Gary Marsh had been promoted to a newly created position, president of entertainment for Disney Channel worldwide, overseeing the development and production of all original programming across the globe under network president Rich Ross. And Marsh took a heavy hand as the High School Musical sequel progressed

Peter Barsocchini returned to write the script, this time inspired by his youth working as a caddy at a country club. The sequel would follow the gang out of East High as they spent the summer at a country club owned by Ryan and Sharpay’s parents and learned a hard lesson in classism. While Ryan and Sharpay vacationed, the rest of the kids would toil away at summer jobs as cooks, lifeguards, and caddies. And since Sharpay had been a breakout character from the first film, she’d be given even more to do this time. The movie’s budget increased from $4.2 million to a previously unheard of $6 million, and the pressure manifested tenfold.

After the cast finished the US leg of the concert tour, they only had a week off before going back to the studio to record the soundtrack for High School Musical 2. Two weeks later, they were in dance rehearsals and then on location shooting for a month. When they returned to East High to shoot the sequel’s opening scenes in April, classes were in session for the school’s actual students. The local teens would lean out of their classroom doors and squeal when they caught a glimpse of the actors in the hallway. The cozy sanctuary of a set had become a fishbowl.

But production on High School Musical 2 primarily took place at the members-only Entrada resort in St. George, Utah, about four hours south near the Arizona and Nevada borders. The venue, with its red rocks, waterfall pool, and eighteen-hole golf course, made an excellent stand-in for a New Mexico country club. And the main cast members could unwind in their adjoining casitas, which they stayed in at the property’s The Inn at Entrada. In their downtime, they helped each other with laundry, ordered takeout, or occasionally coerced an obliging cast member to prepare a home-cooked meal for everyone. Once or twice, some made the ninety-minute journey south to Las Vegas to party.

But mostly, they worked. And worked. And worked.

The sequel doubled down on the musical campiness of the first film. There’s Sharpay’s glittering, Busby Berkeley-esque poolside ode to consumerism, “Fabulous.” And the subliminally flirty “I Don’t Dance” duet, where Ryan and Chad have a jazzy, tension-filled showdown on a baseball mound that culminates in them, without explanation, wearing each other’s clothes. “Clearly, when you go back and watch it there is so much sexual innuendo in there, and it’s amazing,” Corbin said. “I personally don’t think I was aware of it at the time.”

But no number more exemplified the agony and ecstasy of teendom than Troy’s literal spiral on a golf course, “Bet On It.” The solo song required Zac to run, twirl, and tumble across a setting-sun–dappled golf course, racing headfirst into the throes of an existential crisis. Because the sequence takes place at dusk, Ortega and the team only had a twenty- to thirty-minute window each evening to film it at golden hour, meaning the “Bet On It” shoot actually took place over two weeks. Every evening, Zac and the crew would stop whatever other scene they were shooting to rush to the golf course and capture a segment of the track before the sun set. Much of the choreography was crafted last minute, based on the environment and lighting they had to work with that day. “Okay, jump on these rocks now!” or “Let’s strut up this hill!” They’d decide on the spot.

“Zac was so trusting and so committed to any idea that Kenny and I would throw at him,” choreographer Chucky Klapow said. “We didn’t feel like it was silly or camp at the time. We felt like it was strong and powerful. It wasn’t until we saw all the chunks cut together at the end that we realized, oh, this is a lot.”

Also a lot: the level of attention being paid to the film throughout the shoot. Disney PR had now deployed a round-the-clock team to take on-set photographs and record behind-the-scenes footage for electronic press kits and interstitials. Reporters visited the set to observe the shoots and interview those involved. Whenever a scene wrapped, they’d grab a performer for interviews before releasing them to take a brief break. “Everyone was so famous so quickly,” dancer Bayli Baker Thompson said. “The set had gotten a lot tighter, people were a little bit more stressed, because now we had this thing to live up to.”

Lucas had torn his meniscus while working on a separate movie project and had pushed through the pain during the High School Musical concert tour. Although there’d been a massage therapist, chiropractor, and nutritionist on the road, the grueling schedule—and on-stage cartwheels—had exacerbated the injury. Now, on set for the sequel, he required a back brace and knee braces, and during one on-set interview he mentioned to a reporter that he was feeling better because he’d taken a Vicodin that day. He was swiftly reprimanded by the film’s producers. “I was like, what? It’s true. I’m in pain. I took a painkiller. I’m not abusing it. My body is fucking falling apart,” Lucas said. “They were like, ‘Publicity- wise, you can’t say that you’re taking Vicodin while you’re shooting a Disney movie.’ I was like, okay, cool, well, no one told me.”

Prop master Scott Arneman had worked on most Utah-shot Disney Channel productions since 2001’s The Luck of the Irish. The stress and chaos of High School Musical 2 made him stop working with the network for a decade. Because the attention on Disney Channel con- tent now mirrored that of the greater Disney brand, Arneman’s job had become less about choosing the best props for a scene and more about jumping through endless red tape on clearances and approvals. (One lesson learned the hard way: The High School Musical prop team had made a replica of Ashley Tisdale’s actual pink-jewel-encrusted cell phone for Sharpay’s device in the first film. When the company that had accessorized Ashley’s original phone saw the film, Arneman recalled, they sued Disney for using their design without permission.)

And Ortega’s expectations for the film had also reached near impossible heights. He pushed for perfection from everyone working on the sequel, and his flair for dreaming up creative changes on the fly had gone from requesting those changes to demanding they happen at a moment’s notice.

“Kenny was out of control. Now, he had all this authority to just say, ‘We need headsets for this dance number!’ It’s 9:30 at night in St. George, this tiny town, where am I going to get headsets for all these dancers?” Arneman said. “On the first film, he was totally reasonable and fun to work with. But by the second one, it was, ‘I want this! I want that! Make it happen.’ It went from fun to ‘Oh, God, I’m going to cry. I can’t wait till this night is over.’”

* * *

The internal dynamics of the cast were another roller coaster. Zac and Vanessa had been dating since their early declaration of love during the first film’s rehearsals. But there were occasional breakups and on-set fights. “He was the sun and moon to her,” Lucas said. “Poor girl.” Later, during the third film, Vanessa asked Barsocchini if she could use his office. He obliged. “I hear her dragging Zac into this office,” he said, “and then I just hear yelling.” He added, “Do you know how long relationships last at that age? That was a real blessing to hold it together for three movies.”

Ashley and Vanessa had developed a close friendship that was also fiercely competitive. Some days, they would be as tight as sisters. Other days, they didn’t speak. Lucas said he and Monique were “kind of together for a minute,” then went back to being just friends. And the tension that he and Ashley had harbored at the callback auditions basically continued throughout their entire HSM journey. “We were not close. We were not good friends. Let’s be honest, okay?” Ashley has said of her relationship with Lucas. “We hated each other.”

But, most crucially, in the year and a half between filming High School Musicaland High School Musical 2, Zac had become a Star with a capital “S.” High School Musical made America fall in love with him, and the opportunities beyond Disney Channel were aplenty. While everyone else had been traveling on the High School Musical concert tour together, Zac had filmed Universal’s movie musical Hairspray with John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Queen Latifah. Universal reportedly paid him a mere $100,000 to play teen idol Link Larkin, but at least they hadn’t done him dirty by subbing in someone else’s singing voice. Zac felt like he was becoming valued by Hollywood at large—if not by Disney. Now, on the High School Musical sequel, he had enough cachet to stand his ground and do all his own singing.

“Personally, I feel no competition with the cast because I’m not going for the same things they are,” he told a New York Times reporter on the set of High School Musical 2. “A lot of them are doing teen music things, and tours, various TV deals and other Disney TV movies and Disney albums. That’s the last thing I want to be doing at the moment.” He added, “I’m setting my sights a little bit higher.”

A division had formed. Zac, while still kind and polite, returned to Utah with his dream of becoming a full-fledged Hollywood star within reach. He was more aloof with the cast and crew and mainly kept to himself or with Vanessa. The principal actors had all been seen as equals while making the first film. Now, Zac had been singled out as the one with the most promise. And the rest of the cast noticed. “It’s hard when you’re going through that and people are getting asked different questions and getting different jobs, when you started basically at the same spot,” Lucas said. “It was a huge adjustment.”

By the time of High School Musical 2’s release in August 2007, Disney Channel knew what they had on their hands. The sequel got a proper red carpet premiere at Disneyland, attended by most of the network’s stars, plus celebrity parents eager to score points with their kids. Cindy Crawford and her brood arrived by helicopter, and even company VIPs Mickey and Minnie Mouse made an appearance.

More than 17.2 million viewers tuned in to the US premiere of High School Musical 2 on August 17, 2007, allowing it to handily beat the series finale of The Sopranos that had drawn 11.9 million viewers on HBO two months earlier. High School Musical 2 was the most-watched basic cable telecast of all time, beating the previous record held by a Monday Night Football game on ESPN in 2006. And with kids eleven and under, who accounted for 6.1 million of its viewers, it was the most-watched TV broadcast of all time.

“Take a bow, Disney Channel entertainment [president] Gary Marsh, Rich Ross and the rest of the exec team that backed the notion of a kid-friendly tuner last year when most of us were going, huh?” Variety wrote at the time. “The kids of today—singing and dancing, Mickey and Judy style? Just goes to prove the industry cliche about zigging when others are zagging.”

Disney Channel had become a domineering force in cable television. It was now available in more than ninety-two million homes and steadily topping the prime-time ratings for all of basic cable. But unlike most television networks, the value in the ratings bonanza for Disney Channel didn’t lie in increased ad revenue. The value was in how those eyeballs on the channel could translate into merchandise and music sales. And because Disney owned the publishing and the masters of all the network’s original songs in their entirety, the profits were massive.

“You’re talking about a seventeen million audience for High School Musical 2,” Disney music executive Mitchell Leib said. “What? Is every kid in America watching the Disney Channel? The answer is yes. And then guess what? Is every kid in America buying a Cheetah Girls soundtrack and a Hannah Montana soundtrack and a High School Musical soundtrack? Yes.”

But not all High School Musical news was good news. In early September 2007, just weeks after High School Musical 2 premiered on Disney Channel, someone leaked private photos of Vanessa Hudgens posing in her underwear and in the nude. Vanessa was eighteen at the time of the online leak, but the amateur photos had reportedly been taken years earlier when they were sent to a former boyfriend.

Rich Ross was in Australia on a business trip when he awoke to the story splashed on the front page of a local newspaper. “I knew then that, clearly, it was going to be everywhere,” he said.

Back in Burbank, Vanessa came to Anne Sweeney’s office in tears.

“That was one of the most heartbreaking moments I remember,” said Sweeney, who was then the president of the Disney/ABC Television Group. “It was not an interrogation. It was more of an, Oh, God, how could this happen to this kid? How in the world does someone get access to a child? And the word to underscore was ‘child.’ She was just a kid.”

The public distribution of the images, which happened without Vanessa’s involvement or consent, amounted to child pornography. Disney lawyers swooped in, highlighting that Vanessa was underage when the photos were taken and threatening severe legal action to any outlets that posted the images. “I remember feeling so angry at whoever it was who was out there exploiting her,” Sweeney said.

But the novelty of celebrity hacks and the persistent idea that Disney stars should be infallible role models meant that a frenzy of judgment and shaming of Vanessa ensued. “It was at a moment in time where celebrities were starting to realize that what they thought was private wasn’t necessarily staying that way,” Ross said.

For many pundits and commenters, the blame lay more on Vanessa for taking the photos than on the person who betrayed her and leaked them. “She’s damaged,” one L.A. mom told Reuters. “She’s got this teeny- bop audience, young preteens and younger, who are admiring her and thinking she’s this wonderful, pure innocent person.” And the public messaging from Disney Channel did little to change these victim-blaming perceptions.

“I want to apologize to my fans, whose support and trust means the world to me,” Vanessa wrote in a curated statement days after the leak. “I am embarrassed over this situation and regret having ever taken these photos.”

Tabloid rumors swirled that Disney was planning to axe Vanessa from the third High School Musical film, for which cast negotiations were ongoing. But Disney stressed that they were still in talks with all of the main cast. “Vanessa has apologized for what was obviously a lapse in judgment,” then–Disney Channel PR head Patti McTeague said in a statement. “We hope she’s learned a valuable lesson.”

Despite the scolding tone of that statement, those on the ground say that behind the scenes, the matter seemed to be handled with a more compassionate hand by the network brass. “What I heard in the hallways wasn’t, ‘This is a property. We don’t want to fuck it up,’” High School Musicalwriter Peter Barsocchini said. “There was an attitude from people like, ‘She’s just a kid. Give her a fucking break.’”

Looking back, the network executives reiterated to me that they never considered removing Vanessa from the film or punishing her in any way. “We made the decision that Vanessa was part of the family, and she was going to stay part of the family,” Ross said. The stated “lesson” they imparted on Vanessa, Sweeney said, was, “Protect yourself. Protect your privacy. Protect your being.”

“From a Disney perspective, it wasn’t, ‘You’re a bad girl. You shouldn’t have done this,’” Sweeney reflected sixteen years later. “It was, ‘You’re a young woman. Be careful out there.’ I know the media ran with it like this scolding, but she was surrounded by a lot of women in corporate jobs who didn’t want to see anything bad happen to her.”

Women, while not as prevalent at the executive level as men, played crucial roles in Disney Channel’s ascent. (Exhibit A: executive vice president of production Susette Hsiung, who oversaw the projects’ budgets and was described by one male producer as “a tough motherfucker” who was “in many ways, the heart and muscle and brain of keeping the operation going.”)

By this point, Sweeney was overseeing all of Disney’s television properties, including ESPN and ABC. And she was long familiar with the sexism that permeated the media landscape. When Paramount chief Sherry Lansing had stepped down three years prior, Sweeney took on the mantle of “the most powerful woman in Hollywood.��

Yet, when Sweeney joined the other Disney executives to pose for photos with the cast at the High School Musical 2 premiere, a tabloid identified her as “Zac Efron’s mom,” assuming she must have been accompanying him to the event. “The sexism was rampant. It was constant. And I didn’t take the time to think about it very much, or react to it,” she said. “I just kind of parked it.”

The Vanessa incident highlighted to Sweeney and the rest of the executives that the nature of celebrity—especially what was expected of young female celebrities—was rapidly changing with the dominance of the internet and the rise of social media. It was clear there was more that needed to be done to protect and train Disney Channel’s stars, but it would take until 2009, after the High School Musical franchise had ended, for institutionalized action to take place.

[xtruss]

Can Big Tech Keep Getting Bigger in the Age of AI?

America’s digital behemoths face a huge obstacle to growth—their size

— August 2nd, 2023 | Leaders | A Giant Conundrum

Inflatable tech company logos jostling for space. Image: Vincent Kilbride

Can anything stop big tech? After a post-lockdown wobble in 2022, America’s digital giants have come roaring back. Last week Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft all reported robust results in the second quarter, following a stellar set in the first. Between January and June, the three of them together raked in $106bn of operating profits, up by $9bn from the same period last year.

Do not look to regulators to stop their march. Last month a court threw out an effort by America’s trustbusters to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a games developer. Markets have shrugged off other fitful efforts to rein in the tech giants, such as the eu’s new rules for digital markets.

What is more, investors expect the tech giants, with their deep technological insights and even deeper pockets, to capture the spoils of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The share prices of Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are all climbing back towards their peaks of 2021. Those of Microsoft and Apple (which, with Amazon, announces its latest quarterly earnings on August 3rd) are higher than ever.

However, the digital behemoths must still reckon with the most powerful force of all: arithmetic. Big tech’s main limit to growth is its own bigness. In the years ahead that will be big tech’s real challenge.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft lord it over American business. The five firms dominate the s&p 500 stockmarket index, collectively accounting for 9% of its sales, 16% of its net profits and 22% of its market capitalisation. Last year their capital spending of $360bn made up over a tenth of all American business investment.

But it is their sustained growth that makes them unique in the history of capitalism. When ExxonMobil and ge were the titans of America Inc in the 1990s and 2000s, their revenues were rising at an average annual rate of 5-6% and their net profits at 5-10% or so. The tech giants’ have been growing at 16% and 13%, respectively, for a decade or more.

To sustain its long-term average sales growth of 28%, Alphabet needs to add $86bn to its top line in 2024, more than any of the s&p 500’s 461 smallest firms generated last year—and a further $111bn in 2025 and so on, year after exhausting year. To keep profits growing at their historical rates, next year Apple and Alphabet must earn an extra $25bn, or roughly a Meta’s worth of net income; Meta must earn a Verizon’s. And then they need to beat their own records all over again.

Maintaining those averages in the long run is surely asking too much. Indeed, growth has already been less blistering of late. But the firms’ bosses and investors are unlikely to settle for a slowdown. If so, they will need to focus on the three main ways that companies have to grow. Could these work for big tech?

The first is to pursue profits, and slim down. Cutting costs, scaling back projects and hiving off non-core units is the go-to strategy for a conventional business seeking to cushion its margins. Big tech may be as unconventional as it gets, but it, too, sees the need for a diet. Apple is the only one of the five giants not to have announced lay-offs this year; the others have sacked more than 70,000 workers, all told. Still, the iPhone-maker has pushed back the launch of some new devices. Alphabet has scotched a few cash-burning moonshots bankrolled by Google search. Amazon has abandoned some physical shops.

A second route to growth is for companies to go all-in on their core businesses. Microsoft’s souped-up ai search engine, Bing, got all the attention earlier this year as a potential Google-slayer. In fact, Bing remains an also-ran in search (the old barb is that its most-searched term was “Google”). But the same Chatgpt-like powers are, with less fanfare, making their way into Microsoft’s corporate offering. Last month it said it would make generative-ai tools available to Office 365 users for an extra $30 a month. Google and Meta, for their part, are investing in ai services for their advertising clients.

The most ambitious growth strategy is to seek new markets. All five firms are encroaching on each other’s turf. Their share of sales in overlapping areas has doubled since 2015, to 40%. Alphabet is elbowing in on Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing. Amazon and Microsoft are trying their hand at advertising. In June Apple unveiled a virtual-reality headset to compete with Meta, which has so far had that market mostly to itself. All five are also sizing up the last undisrupted markets—including finance, health care and public procurement—that are large enough to make a noticeable difference to their gargantuan revenues. Or, like Microsoft, they may try to buy growth—its $69bn purchase of Activision would bring in annual sales of around $8bn.

None of these approaches is foolproof. Slimming down boosts profits for only a year or two, and comes at the expense of future revenues. Big tech’s main markets—be they for iPhones, digital ads or business software—are no longer reliably growing at 20% or more. Competing against each other brings fresh revenue but compresses margins. Undisrupted markets are often undisrupted for good reason: they are highly regulated and controlled by incumbents, from Wall Street banks to Pentagon contractors. And not even cash-rich big tech can splurge $69bn for an extra few billion of revenue for long.

Down From The Heavens

Perhaps computing will, one day, eat the world. If so, big tech could use its ai prowess to wrest business from incumbents in all manner of industries—eventually. Between today and eventually, the mix of strategies that each company chooses will speak volumes about how it sees itself. A preference for cost-cutting will signal maturity, but also a lack of faith. A hunger for expansion will hint at self-confidence—or perhaps hubris. Shareholders and executives should brace themselves for a period of uncertainty, as old rents are lost and new ones not yet found. Everybody else will enjoy the wealth of products that big tech dreams up to stay ahead. ■

[sojournerstales]

Works In Progress

So much of my writing is wrapped up in various WIPs that have been slowed by the usual winter-lull that sits into my fingers and brain. Which is to say: I haven't had much to show lately!

If you're new here, I highly recommend checking out my horror short The Long Fingers, go in armed with a warning against psychological horror and gross garbage bugs. [blog link]

I'm still sort of experimenting with how I want to present things on Tumblr. I'm not a huge fan of huge-huge posts, and I like the formatting freedom that Carrd offers when hosting short stories. We shall see.

Anyways sometimes I find it helpful to just unroll everything I'm working on so it is not trapped entirely in my brain so here it goes:

KALIEDOHOUSE - A Haunted House Stories. This is my novel, progress is very slow as when it comes to long-form projects like this I prefer to nail down the structure and key ideas before work proper. That is to say I know entirely what it's about now, I just need to start the chisel work. The idea is how stories and memory inform the sort of anxieties and fears we might project on a house, and what a house might do with those feelings were it - say - impassively evil.

It disguises itself as an anthology, and the deeper we explore the more we see how these separate haunted house stories relate, reflect back on, and influence each other. Right up until the fire starts, and everything that burns up with it.

SHE, NO.99 - Hyper-indulgent cyberpunk trans action heroism. Everyone needs a project where they do not attempt to quality check themselves. This is where I've been focusing all my But It's Just Cool energy, I enjoy writing action and rarely find the space for it, so here we have a cyberpunk setting and a canonically trans action hero who happens to be an amalgamation of all my favourite badass women characters.

It's also framed around this idea of being recovered episodes from a TV show that was cancelled before it ever got to air. A Saturday morning cartoon that was defunded as soon as the producers realized what it was really about.

'GIRLS,!' - Single scene sapphic love stories. I write a lot of horror and this exists for me to just make something nice and softly sapphic and indulgent. I hope to be finished with it by January, at which point I won't shut up about it for another month or two. It's just girls loving girls in all the configurations that can take.

FIELD. - In the dead of winter a heavy blanket of snow settles over the towns that exist along the stretch of A30 road. Except one field. A woman's father becomes obsessed with finding the cause of this anomaly. Why did snow refuse to settle in that square of land?

THE RETURN OF THE JUNIOR CRYPTID SOCIETY - Years after leaving high school, ex-club leader Fizz resummons the members of the Junior Cryptid Society for one last investigation. Safely returning a landlocked mermaid to her ocean home.

It's sort of about having that one shared interest that bonded you to those adjacent in your school years, where your social circle was restricted to who you were in proximity with, and then how those people change from what you remember. It's also about that odd melancholic feeling of growing up and realizing your social circle was almost entirely queer and maybe you'd have more time and better memories if you had known sooner.

That's everything with a name anyway - I've also been passively working on a fantasy anthology because, c'mon, like I'm not going to write sword lesbians at some point in my future? I also want to work on my Sojourner's Tales volumes, which might be where TROTJCS ends up (how about that for an acronym?). I also want to do a volume about queer slasher horror stories.

In general I would like to figure out Blogging more because I just want to get my stuff seen. I intend on posting another personal essay, this time about my stay in hospital post-The Big Surgery. I also intend on trying to interact with the community more in general, alas when it comes to others I often have the constitution of a startled rabbit.

What are you all working on?

[spiltscribbles]

Miss you and your marvelous writing!!!! Just a prompt if you’re up to it 😊 exes wolfstar staying friends but sirius gets into a new relationship and he brings his new boo to somewhere he took remus and remus gets sad 😭 but they get back together eventually

Notes: OMFG BABEY! this is so SO beyond precious of you! i adore you to bits! thank you for the sweetness and for this scrumptious angst🥺🥺 i really hope you like it😭😘😘💜

.-

SEND ME A PROMPT  |  A Reblog means SO SO much! I ADORE YOU💜💜

.-

“He can just be so… So” James pauses right then, takes off his cap with the hand that’s still clutching his baseball bat, and ruffles his hair with the other.

“Un-opinionated,” Remus offers half heartedly as they turn the block to the small coffee shop nearest school, both of them freshly showered after the required morning workouts for Tuesday and Thursdays. It’s the first semester in which Remus has actually joined in on the seven minute track, considering the fact that even despite their crazy contradictory schedules with all the sports and extra curriculars they each had, Sirius always made it a point to buy their ice coffees and drop it off to Remus, sometimes leaving them a quarter of an hour late for first period, or as just a quick drop and dash if one of them had an exam. 

It was sweet, considerate. It was Sirius showing how much he cared because he’s never been one for words, even if he would frequently print off the little texts Remus would send him about how Sirius made him feel, and hang it up on the wall besides his bed, along with photos of them and Remus by himself and a few of their other friends too.

But yeah… None of that is really a thing anymore, not the coffees or the texts or the promises of being one another’s always. Not after calling it quits in early January because they knew by August they’d be working with thousands of miles between them and a three hour difference on top of that. It just wouldn’t have been feasible in the long run, and sure— Remus was the one to broach the topic and he knows that Sirius was hesitant about the logical side of it, but sometimes Remus wishes Sirius had fought harder, had argued louder, had wanted Remus more. But that’s a ridiculous expectation, and he had only admitted as much to Lily. And at the end of the day, it was the right choice, because it’s only early May now, and Remus can’t imagine how sick he’ll feel once catching his flight to Berkeley, and they’re steadfastly back in the best friends category of things. He can’t fathom how it would’ve been if they spent all these months and the ones after being together in all those intimate ways, knowing that they’ll be so far apart soon enough.

It was the right decision for the both of them and their friendship.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go with that,” James says, bringing Remus out of his gloomy contemplations while opening the glass door to Three Broomsticks, sporting a thin smile that he always has on when he’s trying to be kind even when he’s irritated as all get out. 

Remus snorts at him, elbow checking his side as he walks past. “Well he’s sharing that dorm with you and Sirius in New Haven, so I guess you’ve got that to look forwards to.”

James’s face pulls into a grimace and their typical barista nods their way, already receiving their orders through the app and sparing them having to wait in the queue. “Maybe Pete’ll grow his own personality in university, yeah?”

“Sure Prongsie,” Remus says, noncommittal as he checks his phone and lies against the windowpane, already exhausted by the morning. “And if he doesn’t, I’m sure Sirius is about to blow his lid any day now.”

“It’s going to be funny as fuck, and you won’t even be there to see the debris,” James counters, sounding pleasant enough even though Remus knows that he’s nearly as pissed off as Sirius is about the decision for him to go back to his home state for undergrad. 

“You’ll send pictures though.”

“Of course Moony my old friend,” James jokes, tossing him a wink as they straighten once spotting their coffees being rung up. But as Remus takes a step forwards, he notices that a familiarly tan pair of hands are reaching for them, and when Remus looks up he feels like an idiot for not noticing him sooner. Because there Sirius is, dashing as ever in their school’s maroon blazer and tan pants, and his hair is windblown and shining as it falls midway of the nape of his neck. But Remus doesn’t really have the chance to appreciate just how damn good looking his ex-boyfriend is, rather, he’s more distracted by how Sirius doesn’t even notice him or James as he pivots around and hands over the second cup to a beaming Gideon Prewett. Their heads incline while they exchange a few words that are absolutely impossible to pick up in the crowded cafe before they bump their shoulders together and walk out the opposite door.

And it feels like nothing else watching that exchange— like their was a hammer and pick chipping away at his stupid, weeping heart.

“I think they’re just doing a project together,” James says lowly in Remus’s ear, clapping him on the back in reassurance, and Remus loves him, but he’s not in the mood for false platitudes, feels like there is a ugly, burning fire festering deep in his stomach and making Remus want to hurl all over the wooden floors.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he replies instead, mild as he discretely picks up his phone again and opens up to the last conversation he had this morning.

R: need intel 

L: Say more sexy things to me, lover 

R: sirius and Gideon

R: what’s going on there

L: I’ll take a look, dw

Buoyed by Lily’s scary levels of detective skills, Remus returns his phone to his satchel and signals James to follow him to pick up their actual drinks. “C’mon, Flitwick hates it when we’re late.”

.-

“Do you want the good news first, or the bad.” Lily asks Remus later that morning during their shared free period, dropping her bag on the tabletop that they typically commandeer towards the back of Hogwarts’s library, nearest the windows and tucked away by the shelves.

“Is there actually any good news? Or are you just saying that to make me feel better.” Remus asks, single brow cocked as he shuts his history book and tosses it to the side.

“Well your hair looks especially nice today,” she offers with a small smile, sitting besides him and ruffling his curls.

“Thanks, I suppose. But I’d rather just get to it. And don’t sigh at me like that! All long suffering and all.”

Rolling her eyes, Lily gathers her hair into a high pony before turning to Remus fully. “You’re my best friend, I love you more than just about anyone. You know that, right?” Lily asks him, stiff stance relaxing when he nods in turn. “Then understand that I’m saying this from a place of love, but you don’t get to be mad at him, okay. You’re the one who called it off Re, you’re the one who wanted you guys to go back to being friends to avoid that messiness in August. And you know I respect the decision, but also it wasn’t the only one to be had. I mean look at James and I—“

“You’re going to Columbia Lils,” Remus bristles, hates how defensive he’s getting all of a sudden. “That train ride is like two hours and some change at the very most. It’s not the same.”

“You guys could’ve made it work,” she insists, green eyes blazing in the dim light. “He’s crazy about you, and you’re in love with him— Like ass backwards in love. You can’t just cut that off like it’s nothing, damn it, Remus.”

He can feel his own ears reddening and Remus hates it, hates how today had started off so innocuous and now it’s an absolute shit show. Remus hates that Lily is always correct about everything, and hates how Sirius probably is regretting telling Remus he still fully intends to ask him out to prom, and hates how much he loves him— how whenever he looks at Sirius it’s just a deluge of wanting and adoring and regretting and needing to feel his lips against Sirius’s own again like a drug, how he’ll never forget how he tasted like coffee beans and cigarette smoke and the strawberries he ate every morning besides his breakfast. Remus hates it all and he can’t figure out how not to feel like suddenly everything is slipping out of his hands like sand drifting through his fingers.

“He’s probably not that crazy over me anymore considering he’s getting Gideon Prewett coffees now, so maybe it’s the right decision after all.” Is what Remus decides to tell Lily instead of that whirlwind of clashing feelings.

“Oh Christ,” Lily huffs, dropping her head back like she’s asking for strength from the heavens above. “Look, Dorcas tells me that they’ve only been out twice. And Marlene says that it’s nothing intense. Just a movie and then he went to go watch his nephew’s little league game.”

“Oh,” Remus intones, because, no. No he will not start crying like this is some fucking Nicholas Sparks novel, and he’s the wayward lead making all the worst decisions. He’s not going to cry damn it!

He is not a bird, and this is suppose to be happening, and none of this has any real consequence at the end of the day. He and Sirius broke up, and Sirius can go out with whoever he pleases— even if it’s good looking, ginger athletes.

Remus is fine.

“Remus,” Lily gently consoles, lacing her fingers into his own that’s resting on his lap, and squeezing for good measure. “Benjy told Mary, who told me during Calc that Gideon doesn’t expect anything. Sirius told him he’s not looking for anything long term.”

“That’s dumb,” Remus retorts, trying to hold everything in so that Lily doesn’t give him that concerned, doe eyed face of hers, like when he’s spent a week living off of protein bars and double shot espressos preparing for finals. “Gideon’s great, and there on the soccer team together, they would be perfect.”

“Remus, stop.”

“And he’s going to Dartmouth, so he’ll be super close for like weekend excursions and all of that.”

“Remus!”

“The more I think about it, Lils, the more it makes sense. They just fit.”

“Sure, those are all nice attributes,” Lily says, peering up at him disappointedly. “But he’s not you.”

Like a legion of angels singing in the distance, the bell begins to shrill for next period and Remus is spared from giving that statement any mind.

.-

He spends the rest of the week acting as if he hadn’t even seen Sirius that morning whenever around him, and internally analyzing each and every exchange between them, and comparing to them to when he sees Sirius chatting with Gideon. And it’s not fun to say the least. It’s like a flashback to when he was trying to hide his crush on Sirius back in Freshman and most of sophomore year, but somehow worse. It’s worse because Remus had him, had Sirius in all the ways someone could ever want an other. He had Sirius’s languid morning kisses, and Sirius’s bark like laughter. Remus had Sirius being nervous the first time Lyall came for his typical Christmas visit, and Sirius had to try and impress him along with Remus’s mom as more than just the friend he hung around with at school. Remus had Sirius’s gruff voice when they were in bed and getting tangled into one another, and Sirius’s dopey looks in the middle of class when he’d be gazing over at Remus instead of the board. And if Remus is being honest, he knows he still has all those things, but it’s suddenly and searingly clear that some time— sooner rather than later— they’ll all leave, abruptly disappearing and shattering Remus’s world in their wake. Because eventually all of those different facets of Sirius’s won’t be Remus’s anymore— they’ll be Gideon’s or some other boy he meets in New Haven. And Remus can’t even be upset at it, he doesn’t have a claim to any of Sirius anymore, doesn’t get to call any part of him his.

And it’s probably the worst Remus has felt since that first night after their break up, because he’s eating every moment he has with Sirius like he’s famished and Sirius is the last meal he’ll ever know. He wants to memorize every part of him before he can’t have any of it. He wants to unravel every layer of Sirius, and kiss it for the final time, and it’s like saying goodbye a thousand times over, strangling his heart and splintering something desperate deep inside of him.

Like now.

It’s edging on midnight, and they drove up to the lake front near their suburb, with Sirius lying with his head on Remus’s lap and his long, muscled body lying against the tattered blanket beneath them. And his eyes are fluttered shut while the speaker they brought croons out the indie playlist they like most from Spotify.

And Remus can’t help but feel like this is one of their last nights like this, alone and quiet and together without any other specter of some other partner. So he watches him, watches the moonlight pacing over his nose and the high bones of his cheeks and across Sirius’s eyelids too. Remus watches his ink  like lashes kissing his skin, and wants to touch the divot of his cupids bow like so many times before while his other hand cards through Sirius’s hair. 

And Remus lets himself want Sirius and wonders if he’ll ever stop wanting, craving, loving him.

“I can hear you thinking Moons,” Sirius says, fluttering his eyes open and crunching up before Remus can even respond. “What’s going on?”

“Huh? What do you mean? I’m fine.” Remus all but sputters, folding his knees against his chest and wrapping his arms around them, feeling somehow vulnerable in blistering ways. “Nothing is going on.”

“Pff,” Sirius gives him a pointed look, settles down so that they’re side by side and tries to get Remus to look at him head on. “You’ve been strange all week, Moony.” 

“That’s not—“

“And then tonight, you didn’t even tease your ma when she was telling us about that patient who puked all over her shoes.”

“Just tired is all.”

“But had enough energy to smoke half the joint I brought.” Sirius says with a snort, looking frustrated again when Remus didn’t even flinch a smile at the counter. “Remus, talk to me.”

“It’s fine Sirius,” Remus sighs, suddenly remembers how exhausting all their arguments were in the past. How Sirius tries getting him to speak everything in his mind, as if Remus could even put them into words. 

“Okay, then tell me why you rejected my offer to go to that Frank Ocean concert. You’re obsessed with him.”

“’S in July,” Remus reminds him lightly, focusses on the way they can see the North star glimmering against the horizon instead.

“And, so?” Sirius asks, sounding more than a bit scathing. “You’re not leaving for another month after that, you trying to cut me off completely by the summer or something?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Don’t be condescending.”

“Sirius, just leave well enough alone. Holy shit.”

“I can leave it alone if you can actually tell me what the fuck is going on with you,” Sirius snaps, standing up now, probably because he always likes using his height advantage on most people whenever he gets all pissy.

“You can be such a prick sometimes, you know that?” Remus snarls at him, following suit and dipping his head back just slightly so that they’re eye to eye. “Not everything is on your schedule, you know that.”

“My schedule!” Sirius’s brows jump to his hairline, and he breaks into that manic laughter that springs up only when he’s so angry he can’t put his thoughts together. “I’m trying to do as much shit with you as possible before you leave, because for some stupid fucking reason I’m going to miss you when your across the fucking country! But yeah, whatever. If you’re actually just sick of me and my presence or what the fuck else, you can just—“

“I would’ve assumed you wanted to go with Gideon,” Remus blurts out, simply unable to hold it back any more, unable to pretend like he’s not suffering a thousand fresh paper cuts every time he even glances Sirius’s way these days. He can’t do this, can’t pretend to just be friends when they were— when they are— so much more than that. “To the concert I mean. I just assumed—“

“No,” Sirius says, seething as he storms up to Remus— close enough that the tips of their noses brush up against each other. 

“No? Excuse me?”

“No Remus you don’t get to do this!” Sirius repeats, voice going frayed at the edges as their glances level. “You don’t get to pretend as if I want anyone more than I want— than I’ve always wanted you. And you don’t get to float around for the rest of your life pretending as if this’ll ever change for me. As if you can’t hit me up in fifteen years when I’m married with kids, and ask to get back together, and think  that I wouldn’t drop it all for you.”

Remus’s heart begins to thud, loud and painful against his ribcage, and his lungs feel like they might collapse the instant Remus let’s the tears swimming in his eyes sprinkle out. “Sirius, I ca—“

“I’ve been in love with you since before we were suppose to mean what that meant, damn it, Remus! And you’re the one who called it off!”

“It was the right decision.” Remus croaks out, plunging his hands into his hoodie’s pockets, doesn’t want Sirius to see the way they’re shaking.

“”For you. The right decision for you.” Sirius presses, his gray eyes dark underneath the stars. “And you know I’d do anything you wanted of me, but you don’t get to be mad at the ways I cope. And you sure as fuck don’t get to be jealous of fucking Gideon Prewett, as if he can hold a match to you.”

“Oh.” Is all Remus can gather to say, peering back down at his shoes and pressing together his lips, feels the most lost he ever has while around Sirius. “I love you too, you know that. You know I love you so much that it hurts sometimes— That was never the problem.”

Sirius makes a strangled sound deep in his throat, and the next second, Remus can’t feel the warmth of his body besides him because Sirius is darting over to the cusp of the lake and kicking at a rock. “Fuck, Remus. You can’t just say that, all right! You can’t because none of this is fair, or okay. And I fucking hate it and I hate this and—“

“Maybe we can try,” Remus says, quiet but unshaken. And he watches as Sirius slowly turns back around, face scrunched up in utter confusion, but eyes glittering with something like hope. “I love you Sirius, and you love me. And Lily’s right, fucking hell she’s so right. I can’t just turn it off, okay. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I can’t. I can’t be around you and not want every part of you. But I also can’t let myself stay away from you. So let’s try, and it’s probably a stupid difficult decision, and we’re going to be frustrated and we’re going to miss one another but I know there’s going to be no one I want more and I think you migh— Oof.”

Remus can’t continue rattling off any of the reasons why they should get back together, because Sirius is somehow magically popping up in front of him— his large hands cupping against Remus’s jawline and his thin lips crashing against him, and Remus can only wrap his arms around Sirius’s torso and give him back all he’s pushing forwards.

And it might’ve been a minute or an hour that past, but Sirius is pulling back with a face that looks lighter in ways Remus hasn’t seen on him since the breakup all those months ago. “I’d literally agree to anything if it means we can stay together, Moony. Absolutely anything.”

Remus feels the strain against the apples of his cheeks as he beams at him at the sound of the oath. “Yeah, me too Padfoot. Always and forever, it’s you.”

.-

My Other Wolfstar FIC💜

[verycleverboy]

A song at twilight...

(A barely coherent rant about the past twelve months)

I took a large part of 2021 off. Not just from unpaid current events blogging, but from political news in general. It wasn’t me being part of the smug, self-satisfied “I’m sure glad that’s over with” vibe that the corporate news outlets were falling into. It was from the dawning dread that if anything, the anti-democracy wing of the Republican party was escalating its dismantling of the American system.  Every time I looked up, new nightmares were picking up speed.

The January 6th riots were only the beginning, not the end of Trump, and definitely not the end of reality-denying Trumpism. If anything, the Big Lie is gaining traction, and yes, the terrorists are winning.

Here’s where I lose some of you, though, because I’ve resigned myself to the idea that the end result of this is going to be civil war. Not a metaphor for the usual Twitter slap fights, but large-scale political violence from a “conservative” movement that believes political violence is not only inevitable, but necessary to “save” the country for the “patriots”. Another poll showed that a pretty good portion of Trump voters have decided that maybe they’d be better off not being Americans at all. 

I seriously hope that there’s nobody reading this who has to be told this, but there’s no legal path to secession from the Union. The only way out, even temporarily, is through war. Unfortunately, these are the same people who buy all the guns when times get weird. So why shouldn’t I think that a lot of people are going to be willing to murder and die in the name of a vanity project from Clowny McClownface from Queens, a man who was told “no” by the system, and it burned his ass so badly that he decided to burn everything down on his way out? 

When I bring these concerns up with anyone left-leaning in my circle, they think it’s absolutely hilarious. “Dude,” they tell me, “you’re severely underestimating the fundamental laziness of the average American.” Because that’s what we do in this country, right? We complain loudly on the Internet about the way things should be done, and then sit on our asses and wait for someone else to do it. It’s the American way.

The problem is that’s the same line of thought that allowed them to think Trump 2015 was an impossibility, that the Tea Party would blow over, and that QAnon would stay an Internet-based jerk-off fantasy. All of these things developed and thrived based on the same premise: If a person believes in the correctness of something, and that the implications of what they believe in require action, then in their minds they are morally required to act. Otherwise, they don’t genuinely believe in anything.

Never mind whether that “something” has any basis in objective reality. After all, we’re talking about a political moment set into motion by birtherism. Truth doesn’t figure into it. Faith is about belief in defiance of any and all evidence to the contrary.

In this respect, QAnon is starting to take on all the trimmings of a full-fledged apocalypse cult. Far from fading out when absolutely none of their psychotic predictions came true, QAnon members are going deeper into their delusions, one man recently going so far as killing his own family in cold blood because Q convinced him it was the only way to save civilization. They’ve got a Jonestown moment coming somewhere down the line, and I’m not looking forward to it, if for no other reason than someone loves those brain-broken people.

As far as something more earthbound like voter suppression, in nearly a dozen states that “someone else” is already doing it, and that impulse is picking up steam among state-level Republicans nationwide. Using long-discredited evidence pointing at a non-existent election “steal”, the ultimate goal is to be able to throw out inconvenient results (and voters, obviously) at will. Again, the terrorists win.

If these things are allowed to stand, get used to the idea of this being the final generation of the American Experiment. Or at the very least, say hello to the Republic of Texas. 

Anyway, so long to 2021, and as for what’s ahead, God have mercy on us all.