#you're here now and that's what counts

[teathattast]

feels like i've known you for all my life

tell me where you've been all my lonely nights

you're just what i've been waiting on

so i made you mine

now the summers never felt like this

and the colors never looked like this

[samijey]

You have a funny way of showing it

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.

[misclogarts]

why was citrus so popular it's ... there's better yuri out there 😭

[bonnieisaway]

seven and thirteen are so funny to me because these iditols are so in love i cant picture them ever doing a normal romance thing ever because their normal is like risking their entire life and putting their absolute faith in the other to protect them through hell or high water but if these two kissed they'd both fucking explode

[iceeericeee]

I wonder how many tags i can add on to this

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Even 6 years after botw, and 3 months after totk's release, I have to admit: They're good games, though lacking in story, but they're honestly not good "Legend of Zelda games." Totk being less so than botw. It's not about the shrines, puzzles or temples, or lack of them; the games are just kinda missing that LoZ feeling. I think an anon had a good take: LoZ refers to Zelda's story from a historians perspective, but is actually the story of Link and his adventure for us players. Botw is missing that, and in totk that's completely gone, with everything focusing on Zelda.

Hey, thank you!

I think I try to stray away from what makes a good Zelda game (or a Zelda game altogether) because I think that there is nothing more Zelda-core than fighting about what makes the essence of Zelda, and everybody being convinced they're extremely right about it (not excluding myself AT ALL btw, it's just... for some reason it's impossible to talk about Zelda and what you care about in the series without taking it to weird absolutes and being semi-toxic about it, which ??? it's so strange that it's a nearly-universal thing, why is it such a thing) and it's ultimately very personal. Obviously they kind of lost me with TotK in terms of player values, but I completely relate to seeing this thing you love drifting away from you.

I think what I miss the most is the bittersweetness, this idea that for any act of bravery to become a legend, you have to part with something meaningful and let it rest behind. At the heart of every single one of your adventures, there is this sacrifice that you have to make: be it a relationship, a sense of innocence, a person, an entire world... I often hear that Zelda only cares for happy endings, and I don't think it's that true? Like of course things are good by the end, the baddie is dead or sealed away, you are triumphant, the world is no longer in disarray... But there's always a cost.

I think it's really the heart of why I failed to connect with TotK's themes at the end of the day, if I try to de-intellectualize and take it in a more emotional way (and then of course it resonates with all of the reasons why I'm bothered with depicting any kingdom as worth preserving as is, without questioning anything about it)

[egginfroggin]

Heehoo, Pandemonic Paradise doodles.

Doodle jabbers:

Been in my head for a while; just him. Pulling on a glove. Looking uhhhh less than happy.

The goodest Doom Chandelier! She, uh. First time, eh?

From the next chapter! Ingo meeting three good little Rotoms! I am very happy with the profile.

I gave him a steel chair. Finally.

Steel chair saga continues with violent intent.

4 and 5 aren't in the actual fic. They're just there for sillies.

I can't believe that my first time drawing Volo was for this.

(Program used: Krita)

(Time taken: approximately 2 hours 15 minutes) (that's a lot don't look at me that's a lot)

[broke-on-books]

☕

The live action Scooby-Doo movies?

I did not see this ask until RIGHT now (first time on desktop since crab day, second time since Nov 5 2020 [which was DOUBLY experience since I got my phone taken the same day]) so I'm going to assume this ask got eaten on mobile because tumblr, HOWEVER you poked a bear with this ask anon (as I'm sure you knew when asking) SO without further ado: my Scooby Doo live action opinions

So when you say 'live action Scooby-Doo movies' I'm assuming you're talking about the James Gunn films, starting with Scooby-Doo (2002) followed by Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, just due to like, generally popularity and also the fact that I have actually seen those films. However shoot another ask if you wanted me to include Curse of the Lake Monster in this (because I will if anyone cares and turn this into a live-action scooby dissertation, i'd just need to like. watch the movie first) But anyways where I'm going with this is that this post is about the Gunn movies aka the ones with SMG, Freddie Prinze Jr., Linda Cardellini, and ofc our #1 man, Matthew Lilliard.

Okay so my take on these movies is... complicated. I wouldn't say it's as complicated as my feelings towards SDMI, because I watched the live actions way less as a kid and generally care less about them, but still no matter how much shit I throw at these two movies there are parts that I generally like (even love) that stops me from totally condemning them wholesale. Like the fact that these movies are FUNNY! There's so many moments from this duology that are just beyond iconic "like, that's one of my favorite names!" the whole thing with Scooby in the dress at the airport, ET. CETERA (like I can go on!)

The Gunn movies are genuinely SO fun and I can 100% see and understand how they've stood so well in the public view as a representation of Scooby. HOWEVER, this is where you start to see my problems with them. For the general American, (because that is the audience I'm familiar with) ESPECIALLY millennials and younger, who happen to make up the majority of both people on this site AND people I talk about Scooby with in real life, these movies, and the elements they introduced as "quintessential scooby tropes" are the base of their understanding of the Scooby franchise, along with likely some miscellaneous WAY episodes and maybe SDMI.

Which is where I get pissed off. In the pushing of the narrative of "breaking away" from the Scooby norm, Gunn basically invents (aka totally makes up) an idea of what classic era Scooby was like, cementing an idea of classic Scooby into the public mind that is totally disingenuous and just straight up false. For example, in attempting to portray Daphne as having taken strides to be seen more seriously in solving mysteries and defending herself, it pushes the narrative that in the classic era she WASN'T taken seriously, and only existed as a damsel-in-distress prop of a character, which is just not true??? Like yes, Daphne is clumsy, that's a part of her character, and her friends (because, fun fact, the gang ARE friends) joke about it sometimes because that's what friends DO. Framing that in some kind of sexist "that's all she does" lens is just total bull, especially as gang members fall into secret passageways/get lost etc. in WAY ALL THE DAMN TIME because that's how the plot functions! Like are we calling Velma ditzy for losing her glasses every other episode? Of course not, and Fred falls into passageways all the time, not to MENTION Shaggy and Scooby and all they get up to. Also one last thing on the topic of Daphne, like this idea of her mystery solving skills not being respected by the gang is just so supremely bullshit it amazes me sometimes, especially when she was the LEADER (or leader adjacent) through pretty much all of her appearances in the 1980s [Not that James Gunn could look at '80s era Scooby without spitting on it, but I digress]

AND THIS IS JUST DAPHNE! Like the perceptions pushed towards Fred (and Velma, but mostly Fred) through these movies are just as bad! Like okay, with Fred---In these movies Fred is just an asshole. I hate Gunn Movies!Fred. I mean yeah he can be funny but it's almost always so mean! Almost nothing makes me madder than a mean Fred by the way. If he's putting other gang members down (even halfway, like with his whole "dorky chicks like you turn me on too" line, which... ew) then to me something has gone very, very, VERY, wrong in your basic understanding of Frederick Herman Jones as a character. Like he's the cheerleader! He puts himself in between his friends and danger! He loves nets, and traps, and Elvis impressions, and wrestling, and the trapeze, and cars, and most of all he LOVES sharing the things he loves with his friends! (Sometimes to a bit of an extreme. No one wants to hear about your net facts, Fred) And the live action movies just don't understand that at all. And I know there's maybe something to say I suppose in that some of those aspects of his characterization hadn't been "established yet" by the time "Scooby-Doo" came out in 2002. But it's there if you look. For Fred Jones, being the leader means being the caretaker, (he's the Mom friend what can I say) and any version where he's cruel and arrogant and just DOESN'T CARE about his friends in the way he's shown to in the Gunn movies is just so far from Fred to me it's not even funny. And what makes it even worse for me is that this (or at least something similar) is the idea of Fred that has really spread to the popular culture. Just the "leader", the jock that makes the rules, the one that [insert X adaptation here] finally gave a personality and made interesting (something that has been said more times than I can count for pretty much every gang member, save Shaggy and Scooby).

And I haven't even touched on Velma, and how they gave her a bit of a early 2000s smart superiority girl complex against Daphne, plus the whole makeover thing and etc. etc. The Gunn Movies are pretty much what would happen if you took someone who hadn't seen Scooby since they were 7 years old (and honestly had a pretty negative outlook against it then) and tried to "fix" it, only his memory was so bad he just made up problems (and threw in a good helping of early 2000s style sexism with it) convincing pretty much the entirety of the popular culture that said problems exist and that Gunn was absolutely brilliant for fixing them (and then bringing up said "problems" whenever anyone wants to talk about Scooby) and this entire rant has been without even fucking MENTIONING what is probably the reason you, anonymous tumblr user sent this ask in the first place, to I, Swishy "Scrappy Doo Redemption Arc" Broke-on-books (dot tumblr dot com), which is his HIGHLY SUCESSFUL and utterly sadistic character assassination of my number one man, Scrappy Doo.

And I am going to try my damnedest here not to get totally into my highly passionate opinions over what James Gunn did to Scrappy in the first of his Scooby movies and how thoroughly it has pissed me the fuck off because I have been writing this post for over an hour now and if we start to really get into my feelings on this topic it will certainly be a couple of hours more but like. That Fucking Bitch. I give James Gunn personally a solid eighty-five percent of the blame for making my life as a Scrappy Doo fan UTTERLY unbearable with this stupid fucking movie alone, and just his Scrappy crimes would honestly be enough for me to say that I hate this movie, not even considering the numerous Scooby crimes I've been talking about here for the past million paragraphs, but the part about this movie that makes me the MOST mad the most pissed off is that it's actually a good fucking movie. James Gunn wrote two hilarious and entertaining movies that have become beloved in the popular culture for their successes in that arena, while at the same time pissing all over the core themes and messages of the franchise of which it was based, that of friendship.

TLDR; The Live Action Scooby Doo movies (written by James Gunn) are highly entertaining and fun pieces of media to watch, and are widely loved by the general public and looked at with fondness and nostalgia because of that. However, as a hardcore Scooby Doo fan (writing that phrase sounds so ridiculous but oh well) the existence of these movies and their impact on the popular culture can be extremely frustrating (despite any personal nostalgia said fan may have) due to their spreading of a misinformed picture of what "typical Scooby Doo" looks like. This picture is especially frustrating due to the fabrication or exaggeration of problems present in classic Scooby (such as sexism in regards to the girls), as well as giving more ammunition to other problems in Scooby fandom (such as oversexualization, and sexualization in general, which no one wants to see in regards to their children's cartoons, like HONESTLY.) Discussions of sexism and sexualization in Scooby (both of which ARE present and are issues, although not at their worst in WAY) can often lead to an overlooking of the issues that are very present and clear in WAY and have continued since then with far too little resistance (I'm 100% talking about the racism here) HOWEVER that topic deserves at least a dozen posts of its own that I am no way informed or qualified enough to even begin to think about writing. The Gunn Movies are frustrating to many longtime Scooby fans because of these reasons, but for me, and fellow Scrappy Doo fans there is also the added aspect of the demonization of Scrappy Doo in the live action movies and the affects that has had on the popular culture as well, making it uniquely inhospitable to like or enjoy the character of Scrappy. End post.

[ratislatis]

tapas' 1500 minimum chapter word count for the contest is singlehandedly destroying my spirit where it stands

[evilkitten3]

currently playing slimes and. as deeply fucking uncomfortable as it is, it really is a very good game. i have never been so hopeful for the character i was playing as to get murdered

[moe-broey]

I have 13 pages.

[whysamwhy123]

IT IS DONE.

I mean...not really because I need to proofread it and if I was really a good writer, I'd probably have to edit it down a ton but whatever, I finished the OrangeHook fic!!

It's just over 8k words, yikes. I should probably take out a ton of it but who knows if I actually will or not. Mostly, I'm just happy because this is the first thing I've finished writing in months? The slump I was in was so bad, I honestly thought I might stop writing completely again. Turns out, all it took to get me back into the swing of things was a brand new pairing and a bad idea!

Didn't write the smut in the end though. I did my usual 'fade to black and then we pick up right afterwards'. Whatever. It's better than embarrassing myself with some shoddy, badly written, unsexy-sex times. And this monstrosity is long enough as it is, so.

At least I had the restraint to not include the part I was thinking of where OC politely asks Hook to never call him daddy. Ever. And Hook's just like ''Uh. Sure?''

Now I just need to polish it up a touch and then I've gotta decide whether I feel up to actually posting this thing or not...

[seventeendeer]

"it gets better" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. the good kind. if you can hold on to the idea of a brighter future for yourself, no matter how vague it feels in your mind, you're more likely to sow the seeds of that very future for yourself both consciously and subconsciously.

"tomorrow will be a good day, I should prepare for it" -> "I don't feel like eating, but I need to do so so I won't be too fatigued to enjoy my good day tomorrow" -> "I'm so glad I took care of myself yesterday, it made today so much easier"

it works short-term, it works long-term. no, I don't believe there's some magic force fixing people's lives over time, no, I don't think having more life experience will save you from everything this world is gonna throw at you, I've seen too many awful, final things happen to good people to believe in any of that

but it's like a little good luck charm. you are the spellcaster and the recipient. I don't think having a good attitude toward your own future is naive, in fact I think it's vital to taking good care of yourself and willing yourself to take those extra steps needed to make things turn out alright with your own two hands

[omarwolaeth]

I think if people built Pend Magicians (with a side of Performapal, Odd Eyes, and whatever additions you think are funny i.e. Hallohallo for an additional tuner option) and duelled eachother in a race to get to Zarc first, I think they'd maybe enjoy Pendulum more.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

and i draw parallels solely on the cinematographic basis of “when my man is no more than a millimeter away from perturbation at all times but you give the Whole Right Half Of The Screen 3/4 Closeup of Harrowing Recontextualizations” like that’s right. we’re living it up