#this certainly has nothing to do me projecting my math background onto him

[demonicseries]

in my personal headcanon, before being taken to the tva, mobius was a mathematician who specialized in chaos theory. That's why he studies Lokis at the tva, and has the name mobius (named after the 1800's mathematician August Mobius who invented the mobius strip. He worked in analytic geometry and topology AKA analyzing multiple dimensions including time. This represents his new job here, since he is studying "chaos" from his new identity of a time analyst.)

[archivepolarisornah]

“I cannot believe I broke my phone on my first day!” The girl was almost to scared to pick her phone up. She had this one for years, and now it was broken. I surely hope this isn’t some bad omen telling me my freshman year is going to be hell.

“Oh. Damn, I’m sorry,” Hallie said with a sympathetic frown. “Is it like … actually broken or is the screen just cracked? Maybe it won’t be that expensive to fix?” She wanted to suggest a thicker case, as well, but she wasn’t sure how well received that suggestion would be, knowing now might not be the best time. 

Lilo sighed before noticing someone had noticed her. Awkward. “Uh-yeah no I mean there is nothing to apologize for.” She rambled before starting to laugh. “I’m sorry, first impressions always are the worst with me.” She looked at her phone and frowned. “I think it’s just the glass I’m not sure.” Either way, she’d have to work a bit longer at the dance studio now. “Maybe, I’ll go to the store to see what they can do. Oh, right! My name is Lilo. Nice to meet you, as you might have guessed I’m new here.” 

“Oh! A freshman!” Hallie said with a friendly smile. “It’s really nice to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances.” She looked at the broken phone with sympathy. “I’m sure there’s like … coupons or something you can get for repairs. Maybe there’s a student on campus who could fix it for credit on an assignment or something.” She didn’t really know what else to suggest, she just felt bad for the girl and wanted to do something to help.

Lilo was quick to jump back on her feet and offer the other a handshake. First impressions were important after all, especially to upperclassmen, or well women in this case. She gave the stranger a weak nod. “I can try, I’ll first check at the store if it can be saved. Could you give me the time, I really have no clue now if I’m running late or not?” Moreover, the campus was far larger than she had pictured and she could see herself getting lost with ease.

“Oh, sure,” Hallie said, giving her the time. “Do you have summer classes?” she asked curiously, wondering if the freshman was taking extra classes before her school year officially started. It was a good idea to get ahead of the curve, and Hallie admired the younger girl for it. Hallie had never been able to take on extra work due to needing a job while she was in school, but she thought it was a good idea in general.

“I am.” She had been worried that she would end up being behind if she didn’t. “I mean I don’t know what is waiting for me, and I’m someone who gets lost quite easily. I thought if I attended summer classes then I can get familiar with the place and lower the risks of coming across as a big…idiot.” Well, she didn’t really have a world-class first impression now did she?

“I think that’s a good idea,” Hallie said with a nod. “Not that I think you’d come across as an idiot otherwise, but it’s always nice to go the extra mile and get an advantage.” She smiled. “I’m sure you’ll quickly get used to things and know this place like the back of your hand. Do you like exploring normally?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been a bit…” Well, could she call it bullied? “Having some issues with a girl I went to school with, she kept calling me out and since then I’ve always been a bit wary about my image.” Or what she represented. They were becoming adults and she wanted to be likeable, gain lots of friends and offer support instead of being the clutz that ended things in disaster. “I do LOVE exploring. you know how everything can seem mysterious with a bit of imagination. It’s a bit what I do when I look for a place for my pictures- search the magic of a location.”

“Oh, pictures? You do photography?” Hallie asked, latching onto that topic of conversation. She felt bad for the girl when she mentioned having issues with someone, and she didn’t want to dwell on any painful topics. Besides, she thought people with a gift for photography were really interesting. They saw the world in an entirely new way, kind of like how Wallace did. She wished she had the same eye for beauty in unconventional places like that. “What’re your favorite things to take photos of?”

“Yes, I love holding a camera and creating memories wherever I go.” It was her magic wand in some way and at the same time something she could hold on to. She regrets the lack of pictures of her parents, that’s why she held onto the pictures of other things in her life. “The world changes through the eye of a lens you know, you start to appreciate the rain, how light reflects on any ordinary object and with some artificial things, it’s like you create magic.”

She took a map out of her bag showing a recent picture she had taken. “I’ve been playing around with colour a lot lately.” She smiled. “And certainly people. People have something magical around them, especially their eyes. You can cover their mouth and you’ll still be able to read their emotion.” Lilo explained. “Do this with the eyes and you can fool the world.”

“Oh wow, this is really cool,” Hallie said with a nod, looking at the photos then up at Lilo with a faint grin. “I love color. Are eyes the thing you notice first about people, then?” she asked curiously. “I tend to notice their smiles, first. My best friend Wallace has the best smile. But eyes can be really expressive, you’re right.”

“Thanks.” Lilo smiled, watching her stare at her portfolio. “I love colour as well, and actually that’s not the first thing I notice. It’s more often their hands.” Do they tremble, where do they place it when they are with their partner, do their veins show, do they hold scars. The hands at time tell a story about the person, and how they treat others.

“Wallace is quite a unique name.” She smiled. “And they aren’t called the mirror to the soul for nothing.”

“Oh, hands,” Hallie repeated with an interested look. “I never would’ve thought to look at hands. Can you tell a lot about a person by their hands?” She tried to think if she’d ever noticed Wallace’s hands. Not unless they were touching her in some way, she supposed. She noticed a lot about Wallace in general, but not ever anything super specific, except for his smile.

“Actually you should be surprised how sometimes you can even read the profession in someone’s hands.” She smiled. “Like how sometimes a hairdresser still has dye on their hands, how a surgeon has two lines that indicate they stitch a lot. “But also age.” There could be spots due to age appearing. “Also their health can be indicated in the hands, example liver, lung and heart illnesses could be found in your fingernails.

“And the way they move their hands while holding the partner can even reveal if they are a great partner or a douchbag.” She shrugged.

“Oh, wow, I guess you’re right,” Hallie said, never having considered all those things, but once Lilo mentioned them, she could see how that all made sense. She looked down at her own hands and wondered what they said about her, before her mind went to Wallace’s, wondering what they said about him.

“That’s really insightful of you,” she said, looking back up at Lilo with a smile. “You could probably do a whole project on the stories people’s hands tell.”

Lilo nodded. “You learn some things looking at one’s hand, and eyes. People really are amazing.” It’s like everyone had a story, and some people just want to read the book without making someone else uncomfortable. She had the urge to twirl around but refrained. It still was the first meeting, so she couldn’t be too eager in expressing herself.

“Well, that’s something new.” She laughed. She was bullied before so she wasn’t used to being complimented, other’s just saw her as that weird kid without any parents. “I could, but I guess it depends on what the teacher assigns. I do want to include people in it.”

“I think you totally should. I know sometimes the professors will work with you on a certain concept if you really want to incorporate it into your assignments. They like it when you’re engaged and interested,” Hallie said with a nod and a smile. “At least, the ones I have always are. Some of them seem really tired and like they’d rather be anywhere else, but most of them like being there because that’s usually the subject they’re interested in too, you know? Not like in high school where you’ll get, like, the PE teacher also teaching math or something.”

She nodded toward Lilo’s phone. “I know of some really cute cases you can find at this kiosk at the mall. Once you get it fixed, you should check them out!”

“I really hope so, I’m curious to get to know my teachers. I’m still waiting on my schedule for when actual classes start.” Lilo tapped her feet, crossing it. “Ah, I wonder what I look most forward to, photography or dancing!” She clapped her hands, glowing with excitement, she was trying to go for classic ballet, so it was quite challenging with her hip hop background. “I understand what you mean, it’s a wonder some people are even allowed to teach, one of my math teachers actually spend his time on Facebook instead. It was horrible. He didn’t even have a textbook so most of it was self-study.”

“OH! I SHOULD!” It would lower the chance of her phone breaking as well. “Thank you.” Before she knew it she already hugged Hallie, but was quick to let go. “Woops, sorry I get a bit too excited sometimes, I hope I didn’t offend you.”

“Oh!” Hallie jumped slightly as she was suddenly in a hug and then not again. She smiled, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “It’s okay. I like hugs,” she assured Lilo. “It’s cute how excited you are about starting school. Most people wouldn’t be.” She shook her head. “But I’m glad you are.”

“Sorry, I am known to be a bit of a ball of energy.” Lilo really needed to start and try to respect boundaries, she was lucky that Hallie didn’t mind. “Well, it’s a new start. I had a lot of problems in my previous school, so I wish to make lovely new memories now.” She wanted to link school to a positive experience. “Thanks.”

“Oh, I bet you will,” Hallie assured her. “You make really good friends in college. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of people with a common interest in photography and dancing and before you know it you’ll have your own posse.” She grinned. “I think it’s a lot easier to find your people in college than in high school.”

Lilo wasn’t that sure about it, but she wanted to believe she would meet some wonderful people. “I hope so, I love to dance and photography with every part of my being, it would be nice to meet people with that same love. Yet I also would like to get friends with people interested in other things as well.” She hoped that with her being open to the teachers about her anxiety, things would go easier now than it had been in high school.

“Well, I think I should go now, It’s very nice to meet you, Hallie. I don’t think I can postpone things too long without getting late for my class. If you want we can meet up afterwards, if not then who knows we might bump into school.”

“Oh! Yeah, of course,” Hallie said, realizing she’d held up the girl a lot longer than she’d meant to and the other had been on her way somewhere. “Sorry, I guess we got a little carried away.” She smiled, nodding. “I’d love to meet up sometime. Why don’t you give me your phone number? Then when you get your phone fixed I’ll text you and we can get coffee sometime or something?” She got her phone out and held it out to Lilo so she could put her number in.

[quatrepourtoiglencoco]

A semi-old fart and her fandom pet peeves...

1) Over-tagging. Say, for example, your post concerns one character and/or the actor who plays him/her/them. It makes sense to tag the character (if the post is about the character). It makes sense to tag the actor (if the post is about another project that the actor is involved in that is not the character they are most known for). It makes sense to tag the project associated with the post. If the post is about one specific character and/or one specific actor from a show, there is no need to tag every single actor and character from the show.

For example, if you are making a post about Chris Colfer meeting your little nephew who comes to one of his book signings dressed up as Kurt Hummel, it makes sense to tag Chris's name, the title of Chris's book, and Kurt Hummel (because the little kid is dressed like Kurt). You don't need to tag Lea Michele, Darren Criss, Naya Rivera, etc. unless they are in the picture as well. It's not going to get you more notes on tumblr, it's going to get your post blocked because people are sick of seeing unrelated posts in the tags for their favorites. People who have certain characters/actors blacklisted through Tumblr Savior or XKit might also miss out on your perfectly innocent post because you tagged that actor even though they aren’t in the picture. For example, say there is someone who is a big fan of Chris and Kurt, but they have Naya’s name blacklisted because she’s most famous for playing Santana, and the fan found Santana’s treatment of Kurt objectionable and gets sad whenever they see her face. If you tag the whole cast, that person is not going to see your precious nephew meeting Chris because your post got lost in their blacklist. The same thing goes for characters who are played by multiple people. Davey Jacobs is my favorite character in Newsies. If you're making a gifset of all the actors who played him, it makes sense to tag "Davey Jacobs" and the names of all the actors who played him in the various iterations of the movie/show. If your gifset or post exclusively features/discusses Ben Fankhauser and/or his particular portrayal of Davey, you do not need to tag Jeremy (Greenbaum), Jacob or Stephen in the post.

2) Tagging multiple characters/actors/ships in a controversial post just to get a rise out of people. There is a bit of an overlap with the overtagging here as the offenders tend to be the same. My examples here are the "Marvin discourse" in Falsettos and the identity discourse in Newsies. Marvin is written as gay and is referred to by other characters in the show as "homosexual." He divorces his wife because he wants to be with a man (who, technically, he was already with if Trina's account in "I'm Breaking Down" is correct). However, the character description on a few different character breakdown sites claims he is bisexual. These sites are not "gospel" and are generally not written by the creators of the projects themselves. While sexuality can certainly be fluid, Marvin's marriage to a woman and successful conception of a child seems to be a result of closeted behavior rather than bisexuality. The majority of the Falsettos fandom seems to accept that Marvin is gay, but occasionally there will be someone who INSISTS he's bi (not that there's anything wrong with being bisexual) and fills EVERY SINGLE FALSETTOS-RELATED TAG with it for attention.

With Newsies, there's a strong contingent of people who headcanon the less-developed background newsies (and sometimes the lead newsies and their friends and siblings) as LGBT. I haven't seen the movie in probably 20 years (I thought it was boring which is why I had no intention of seeing it live until one of my dearest friends booked the tour) so the characters in the movie-verse might have done something that was very clearly gay that I missed when I was in sixth grade, but I didn't catch anything particularly "gay" in the stage version although if the writers had gone the Jack/Crutchie route I could sort of understand it based on their interactions. That being said, unless someone is blatantly making stuff up or ripping Katherine or Sarah apart for the tiniest little flaw to blow a hole in Jack/Katherine or Jack/Sarah to justify why they ship Jack/Davey or Jack/Crutchie or Jack/Race or whatever, headcanoning characters as gay really isn't hurting anyone. If some gay kid in the middle of nowhere sees a lot of himself in Crutchie and wants to imagine a world where Crutchie is EXACTLY like him (well, apart from being born in a different century), it's not a bad thing.

I'm younger than most film-Newsies fans but I'm a lot older than most stage-Newsies fans. I was well into my twenties before I joined ANY fandom, and while there are characters I share some similarities with, I can enjoy them and identify with them without needing them to be exactly like me and filling holes in their descriptions with my personal identity traits or with traits I know the actor behind them has but that haven't been specified for their character. That being said, I know that there are other people who do feel more connected to a character they like if they see the character's canon struggles through the lens of a not-necessarily-canon identity (in the case of gender/sexuality/ethnicity) or diagnosis (in terms of a mental illness or developmental disorder). Like, OK, yeah, MOST of the newsboys in 1899 New York were probably cishet neurotypical males and a lot of them were white-passing if not outright white. The thing is, people KNOW that. Posting that and then tagging every single character and actor in the show, even if it's historically accurate, is just going to make you look like a dick (because these are literally just FICTIONAL CHARACTERS and you're screaming "MINE, NOT YOURS!" in people's faces), whereas the people who have headcanons of Jack as mixed race or Davey as autistic or Spot as transgender aren't posting their headcanons to be dicks. That being said, I don't know how many people (I'd wager most, but not all) of the people who headcanon characters with not-explicitly-canon identities actually belong to the identity communities themselves. I don't think it's wrong for a gay autistic trans kid to see Spot Conlon and go "ooh, what if he was gay and autistic and trans like me?" but if it's a straight neurotypical person (and by a straight person, I mean, an actual straight person, not someone who is questioning or closeted gay/lesbian/bi/pan) going "ALL YOUR FAVES ARE GAY! AND TRANS! AND AUTISTIC!" and tagging every single fandom they are in, it reads as a little fetishistic but that's just me.

3) "Rares" blogs posting pictures that aren't rares. If an actor posts an in-costume selfie with his castmates to his instagram during the process of creating a show or after the show is finished, it's not a "rare," even if the first time YOU'VE particularly seen it is two years after the show goes off the air and five years after he posted it. The same goes for someone who is involved in the project from a production aspect (like, for example, Joaquin or Kalen from Glee). A rare would be something that a friend-of-a-celebrity or a fan posted on a public social media account (like Twitter or Instagram) of the celebrity at a party or involved in something they did before their "big break." For example, I think if someone were to be like "hey, oh crap, I just remembered I went to see NLT years ago and I have a selfie with Kevin McHale when he was a teenager that I've never posted," THAT would be a rare. If someone posted a picture of Darren from his study abroad in Italy, that would be a rare. Posting a picture from the Glee set that's been tweeted or Instagrammed (sometimes multiple times) by the actors themselves is not "posting a rare."

4) This sort of could be combined with number 1, but it's more about Instagram/Twitter than Tumblr. It's one thing to make a cool edit of a character or an actor and tag them in it. Like, for example, Stephanie Styles and Drew Gehling were just in a stage production of Roman Holiday. Photoshopping their faces onto the film actors' bodies on the movie poster is a cool edit and I'm sure they would love to be tagged in something like that. Maybe you drew a picture of Brittana from Glee having a picnic and giving each other flowers; there's nothing wrong with tagging Heather and Naya in that. Maybe you identify a lot with Evan Hansen and make an "Evan Hansen aesthetic post" and want Ben Platt to see. Whatever, that's fine. What is overkill is when people literally just post screenshots from a TV show/movie/Broadway bootleg or steal pictures from actors' Instagrams or OTHER PEOPLE'S EDITS and have a completely unrelated caption like "uggggggggh I have so much math homework" or "my stepdad is being a dick and says I can't go see (insert movie here)" and tag the actors just because they happen to be in the picture. Sometimes people look in the actor tags on Instagram for news on their fave that might not be announced yet (for example, someone else from a project an actor is working on tagging them in a BTS picture) but it gets swamped under the same screenshot of the Newsies seizing the day or Klaine kissing or Andrew Rannells standing over Christian Borle with what appears to be a boner or Ben Cook doing the splits while Josh Burrage makes a goofy face in the background OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Sometimes a fan is having a hard time and all they want is to be noticed by their favorite cast member of a show, but their friends' post petitioning the actor to wish them a happy birthday is swamped under 900 notifications of the same unedited screenshot. I have a friend who will sometimes post an old Newsies photo and go on an unrelated rant underneath, but she doesn't tag the actors or the show, so it's fine. If you didn't make the edit, don't post the edit (like, even if you credit whoever made it, someone else might steal it from you and they won't). If you HAVE to post a picture from a show with an unrelated caption, don't tag the actors. It's annoying as hell, and I suspect it contributes a lot to why a lot of them pull away from Instagram.

5) Roleplay blogs clogging up the tags, and then people creating blogs specifically to ADVERTISE their roleplay blogs when they know the actual blogs themselves are getting blocked. Also, FACEBOOK ROLEPLAYS. Facebook won't even let a lot of trans people change their name without a shit load of documentation, but it seems fine with people pretending to be fictional characters and celebrities and changing their FB handles to (insert first name) (insert embarrassing RPF ship portmanteau). Facebook is for real people and businesses, and I can SORT of see making a FB profile for a baby or a pet to have a place where only certain people can access photos and information (since most people have FB but not everyone has Instagram). Also, some of the roleplay scenarios people have are seriously fucked up and racist/ableist/both. YIKES.