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yellowocaballero · 4 years ago

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Human Relations Snippet: Tim teaches Jon the internet and odious goats are sacrificed to the cult of Bezos

There’s no reason for this to exist. I was rereading a bit of HR and I saw a throwaway joke about Jon wanting to buy Martin a Portal Gun. I started wondering about how that would even work. The answer is, obviously, a 200 year old man squinting at a computer screen wondering why there’s so many horny singles in his area. I get possessed by demons easily, so I took three hours out of writing my daemon au and wrote this instead. Bon Appetit.

(Edit, quick clarification: I think that Jon would refuse to use the name for the Beholding that Smirke made up, and although all of this exists in my head and you guys don’t know this, there was a lot of tension between Jon and Jonah’s ‘circle’. So Jon hated Smirke and thought he was a hack. He uses Smirke’s terms to others sometimes for ease of understanding or in deference to Jonah (:/) but I think that mentally he mainly calls the Beholding his own name, The Witness. It rings of that personal and intimate connection Jon and the Beholding has. Anyway, onto the story.)

After one hour in anguished uncertainty, fifty popups that advised Jon of very many ‘hot singles in his area’, six separate sites that Jon’s God had to inform him were covers for thieves that stole money from you, and a very confusing retreat to Jon’s favorite internet page ‘Wikipedia’ as to what an Amazon was, Jon had given up.

Normally this was where he asked one of his personal assistants for help. Normally, he wouldn’t even be trying, and he would have just told one of them to do it. This was how Jon had cunningly mostly avoided using computers for the past twenty years. Some endeavors were unavoidable, and Jon was proud to say that he mastered email in 2010. Or was it 2008? He liked to think it was 2006, but it was possible...never mind. If it was important, the Witness would tell him.

Peter Lukas was right on almost nothing, Jon thought disgruntledly as he slammed his laptop shut - including in his taste of men, company, philosophies, men, patron deities, professions, and men - but he was right in his proclamation that the internet was the degradation of society. Not that he hadn’t sacrificed his morality and sold out, feeding his patron through something called “incel forums” and “Reddit”. Between him, Jonah’s “Excel spreadsheets” and “TurboTax”, and Annabelle Cane’s ridiculous “MMO guilds”, the Society was filling with computer geeks. Jon could always read the wind: he had to keep up, and quickly.

Besides, Martin had kindly educated him on how it was almost unheard of for a young man like Jon to not understand how to work that Goggle thing. Giggle? Martin was very streetwise and was one of the most insightful people Jon had ever known, he was definitely right.

Which is why he had to buy him this “Portal Gun” that he wanted. He had even shown Jon the website! And if Jon was in desperate times trying to navigate these confusing webpages entirely with URLs he memorized, then he would take desperate measures!

“I’m going down to the Archives,” Jon said, slithering off the couch and clutching his laptop to chest. Jonah had bought it for him. He appeared surprised that Jon was using it. “I may not be back for a while. I need...a book.”

Jonah didn’t look away from his own infernal machine. It seemed he was on that ‘Excel’ program again. Was it one of those ‘video games’ he kept hearing about? “Do I want to know what you were doing on that laptop.”

“Reading Wikipedia,” Jon said immediately, and somewhat defensively. Jon had discovered Wikipedia in 2001 before promptly funding it and throwing his weight behind its development. He had spent a solid five years convinced a computer was a kind of electronic screen that let you read digital Encyclopedia pages, like in Star Trek. He’d seen Star Trek. Georgie made him. “Did you know that -”

“Yes, yes, have fun. Haven’t you read that entire site already?”

“Not even,” Jon said defensively. “I can’t just sit and read through entire Encyclopedias anymore, Jonah. We know more things now.”

“What a way to describe the last two hundred years,” Jonah said, not even looking away from his computer. “We know more things. Never change, Jon.”

“You’re the one who never changes,” Jon grumbled. But it was a weak comeback, and considering his brand new delightfully short stature somewhat untrue, so Jon breezed out of Jonah’s office with full knowledge that he’d think of a better comeback halfway down the steps to the Archives.

In fact, it wasn’t until he was at the door, and by then he felt stupid for losing a point against Jonah anyway. He easily opened the door, stepping inside and quickly bee-lining for Sasha’s office. Her burgeoning powers were wonderfully flowing in the shape of access to and understanding of technology. He had never seen such gratuitous breeches of privacy as she casually committed. Every day Jon was validated in his decision to save her from the Stranger. A balance, an equal yet opposite Archivist from Jon, would be invaluable. Not that Jonah and Jon weren’t their own yin and yang, but Jonah’s powers were paltry and out-of-date. Mind reading and spying through iconography was so 1960. They needed fresh blood.

Sasha had been a wonderful choice, and Jon didn’t regret choosing her to act as saviour. Most of the time. Some of the time she -

“She’s not in.”

Jon’s fist halted in front of the door, about to sharply rap on her office door. He turned around to actually look through the bullpen, only to see that Timothy was sitting in his chair chewing a sandwich. Somehow angrily. Definitely suspiciously.

“Are you sure?” Jon asked dubiously. “Because you’ve lied about this before.”

“Because you should stop coming down here and bothering her.” Timothy balled the saran wrap in his hand and dunked it in the trash can, somehow undoubtedly giving the impression that he wished it was Jon’s head. “Just bugger off.”

Someone was in a snit. Normally Timothy wasn’t this hostile. Jon had thought that learning his name might make him less mean, but it did little to help. But when Jon looked around he didn’t see Martin, and a quick check assured him that both Sasha and Martin were having lunch at their favorite deli and engaging in that plotting hobby they both enjoyed. Timothy had elected to stay behind, stewing in his own angry and paranoid juices.

He would have to do this with Martin out of the Archives...and he really wanted to take care of this now so Martin would get it before the weekend...and it wasn’t as if Jon was scared of this boy he was one hundred and seventy years older than…

“Uh,” Jon said intelligently, “can you help me with...something…”

Timothy’s face twisted in a novel combination of surprise and disgust. “What,” he sneered, “your evil fear god or whatever can’t figure it out for you?”

“I don’t need others to think for me,” Jon said stiffly. It was something he’d had to say far too many times. “The Witness is less helpful with...troubleshooting...look, do you know how to work a computer?”

Timothy stared at him blankly. “Like, at all?”

“I’m trying to buy Martin this toy he desires,” Jon said desperately. Fuck it all, he walked over and sat down in the chair next to Tim’s desk. He pulled a little bit closer, placing his laptop on Tim’s desk, and ignored the way the other man leaned away. “But whenever I try I keep on seeing alerts about hot singles. I’m not interested in young women, I just need to buy a ‘Portal Gun’. Do you know what a Portal Gun is?”

Timothy continued staring at him, eyebrows raised. Clearly involuntarily, so quick that he may not even have noticed, one corner of his lips was ticking upwards into a smile.

“How many credit card scams have you fallen for?”

“Absolutely none,” Jon said, very quickly. He pulled out his credit card, placing it on the table. He knew a credit card was involved, although he didn’t know how. “What do I do? Do I swipe it? Is there a port?” He picked up the laptop and squinted at its sides, looking for a port. “I wanted to ask Sasha for help, since she’s the expert in hacking, but surely you know the basics?”

“I mean...I can’t, like, code, but yeah, I can work Amazon.” Timothy carefully opened the laptop, watching the display light up. He effortlessly navigated to an icon on the screen, clicking it open.

“That’s not right,” Jon said urgently. “You’re supposed to press the E.”

“I do not want to know how many toolbars you have,” Timothy said bluntly. “We’re using Chrome. That’s another way to look at the Internet.” He rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, I got a grandmother, we can do this.”

Jon perked up. “So you’ll help?”

Went unsaid: even though you hate me?

“Whatever,” Timothy grumbled. Jon decided not to press his luck.

Jon decided that he liked the Chrome better than the Internet Explorer, because it was simpler and Google was on the first page. Tim rapidly typed on ‘Amazon.com’ into the search bar and easily scrolled through the very busy and picture filled page that immediately popped up. Why was everything so fast? Maybe this was why the young people had no attention span: these pages just came up immediately. No flipping for indices for finding anything in phone books.

“Right. What was it, a Portal Gun? Like from the game?”

“A board game?”

“Video game.”

“Like on a VHS…?”

“Right.” Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know, Sasha said that you’re one of the most famous sociologists and anthropologists in British history.”

“I am extremely intelligent, Timothy, and I won’t abide any insinuation otherwise,” Jon said curtly. “I cannot be expected to keep constant track every time there’s another - iPhone or whatever. You have teenagers in your family, correct? Do you always know what they’re talking about? That’s, what, a twenty year age gap? Multiply that by ten.”

That shut him up. Timothy sighed again, much more aggressively, but he clicked the white bar and typed in ‘portal gun’ anyway. “Right. Not fucking apologizing, but right. I still don’t fucking know what ‘Twitch’ is.”

“It’s a brief spasmodic contraction of the muscle fibers,” Jon said helpfully. “Fascinatingly, this phenomenon was first observed in frog’s legs before I was even born in 1780, by Luigi Galvani. Erudite man, by the way, but he couldn’t hold his liquor. It was the birth of the study of bioelectricity, although the exact mechanism of muscle contraction eluded scientists for years.”

“Never mind.” Timothy sighed again, the perfect mix of aggravated and long-suffering. It seemed to be the man’s two favorite emotions. “My grandmother has a PhD and she still can’t figure out her cell, either. We had to get her a Jitterbug.”

Amazon, as Timothy explained, was a kind of shopping mall, except you could pick out what you wanted by its picture and have the shopping mall pack it up and send it to you. Jon didn’t quite understand why people preferred this to just going to a shop yourself, seeing as you could get it immediately instead of with a three or four day turnaround, but Tim explained that Amazon was cheaper, had a wider selection, and didn’t make you get off the couch.

“Oh,” Jon said, finally getting it, “this follows the economic model of large scale businesses underpricing their products to undercut smaller businesses in the area, driving them out of business until they hold monopoly over the market and can raise their prices without worrying about staying competitive.”

Timothy stared at him.

“I mean,” he said, “I guess?”

“This explains why my Alexa project was successful so quickly,” Jon mused. “With a lack of competition or alternatives, consumers are more likely to accept the dramatic invasions of privacy as normal. Normalizing intrusions into privacy took ages, but my early efforts paid off very well. The Ring doorbell was even better, along with the line of security and home protection systems. We’re now working on live streamed 24/7 surveillance to social media platforms.”

Timothy stared at him further.

Finally, he said, “Alexa was...you?”

“Of course,” Jon said, baffled. Who else would it be? “I gave Jeff the idea and convinced him it would be profitable. I didn’t understand the whole mechanics of it, but once I gave Jeff a vision from the Witness he was eager to implement the divinely inspired spyware.”

Timothy continued to stare.

“The evil fear god controls Jeff Bezos.”

“He thinks I’m a prophet, actually,” Jon said helpfully. “I let him become Cardinal of the imaginary cult in exchange for funding some of my more esoteric programs. Had him sacrifice a goat and everything, it was great.” At Timothy’s alarmed look, Jon was quick to elaborate, “It was the most evil goat you’ve met in your life. Morally odious.”

“...for my sanity I’m going to pretend that you said none of that.”

In retrospect, although Timothy had worked at the Institute for a few years, it did take quite a bit of time to acclimate to the fact that the Avatars permanently shaped the shape of human existence in order to better feed their gods. Jon knew better than anyone: when humanity made gods, and gods made man, and man made gods...the feedback loop could self-perpetuate for years. Eternity, if needed.

But they had no luck on ‘Amazon’. With Jon’s eidetic memory he was able to easily pick out the one that looked most similar to the one that Martin had showed him, but all of the little toy guns were for someone named ‘Rick’. Then Timothy took twenty laborious minutes explaining the entire plot of ‘Rick & Morty’ to him, which Jon patiently sat through.

“I think young people today deeply enjoy explaining media,” Jon said, once Timothy finished telling him the funny jokes. “I’m very interested in your interests, Timothy.”

“You are so fucking condescending. And please call me Tim, you’re sounding even more like my grandmother.” When Jon brightened, Tim - Tim! - quickly said, “This does not mean we are friends.”

Granted, Jon had never once in his life gave a shit about making friends, but he felt as if he should be making more of an effort with Tim. He was a sort of supernatural brother in law, wasn’t he? Although Sasha perhaps Sasha was more of a favored niece. At least, he would be, if today’s generation found some morality and stopped living in sin.

Good lord. Now he was sounding like Jonah. Georgie used to joke that he was born in the wrong generation - he should have been born a 17th century Puritan instead. Jon found it a very funny joke. Jonah did not.

“Are there any other shopping websites?” Jon asked finally, after Amazon failed them. He’d have to call up Jeff later and complain. “Or is this the only one?”

Tim sighed. “Let’s check Google.”

Quickly and efficiently, yet with many lightning fast detours, Tim found another site called ‘eBay’ - pronounced ‘e-Bay’, not ‘ehbay’ - that listed off exactly what they needed. They weren’t under the toy section, instead listed as something called ‘cosplay’, but Tim seemed highly resistant to explaining that one, so he dropped it.

They picked a likely looking white toy gun that looked the most similar to the one that Martin had liked and Tim talked Jon through punching in the numbers on his card into the website and sorting through the billing and shipping information. Tim helpfully took down the numbers on his card to file later.

“And...done!” Tim said, pressing a button and leaning back. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“It was ten times as complicated as I thought it would be,” Jon assured him, “but also much more fun. What else can you buy online?”

“Oh, god. What can’t you buy.”

Jon brightened. “Can you buy books?”

“Old Gertrude used to buy Leitners on eBay,” Tim said dully, “so yeah, sure, why not.”

Jon stared at his computer. He carefully navigated the mouse to the big red x and clicked out of the internet browser. “That’s enough of eBay, then, I think.”

Guess he would have to stick to buying Leitners in person. It was no good buying fucked up books from sketchy sources. Always stick to people you trusted, or at least trusted to be themselves. Mikaele was Jon’s favorite supplier since the kid Leitner disappeared, and they had a pleasant working relationship. Mikaele shared his grandfather’s stories about the history and culture of the Maori, and Jon told him which of his haunted artifacts would be the most helpful in the imminent apocalypse.

“Well,” Tim said finally, gently pushing Jon’s laptop away, “that was...something, great bonding session with my local supervillain, please run back to Elias and bother him instead.”

“You were very helpful, Mr. Stoker,” Jon said, as professionally yet paternally as possible. Tim was six years older than his body, so he’s not sure how it came off, but the touch of grey at his temples helped with the dignified air. “And as soon as you start acting like a man and propose to my Archivist, you’ll make an excellent brother in law -”

“Uh, excuse me?”

Jon spun around in his chair to see Sasha and Martin standing at the door, holding doggy bags and looking somewhat flummoxed. Probably confused at the sight of him and Tim having a civil conversation, which admittedly had never happened before. Possibly also confused at how completely mortified Tim looked.

“Who said anything about proposing?” Sasha asked incredulously. “Tim, are you -”

“No! No, god no!” Tim stood up quickly, holding his hands out as if he was placating a raging bull. “Nobody’s been saying anything - I would never do that to you -”

“Oh,” Sasha said frostily, crossing her arms and letting the bags swing, “would you.”

That was a domestic Jon should stay out of, even though he definitely caused it. He and Martin sidled away in tandem, huddling near the back of the Archives as Tim frantically pled for his life.

Sneakily, Jon glanced at Martin out of the corner of his eye. He looked happy. Happy, and just as stressed as he always looked - Jon had never known Martin when he wasn’t constantly stressed out, and he was more than aware that it was his fault.

He looked good, too. Really nice, broad jawline that gave his face a friendly round shape. Just friendly and round in general, it was really handsome. His hair was as nicely short and ruffles as ever. The big glasses were super stylish, and really framed his face well. Really big, broad hands. Jon, who had always been so poky and tall and thin and gaunt, like some kind of haunted scarecrow that lurked through the corners of time, was envious. He wanted some of that softness and gentleness. Really, he wanted some of Martin’s -

“So what were you and Tim doing?” Martin asked. “I didn’t know you knew he existed.”

“You told me his name,” Jon said anxiously. “I don’t forget the things you tell me, you know.”

Martin smiled shyly and him, and Jon found himself smiling back. “It’s pretty good for my ego to hear that I have something to teach the immortal genius.”

“I don’t know,” Jon said, as Sasha yelled in the background, “I’ve been learning a lot lately.”

“Really?” Martin teased. “Anything interesting?”

“Oh,” Jon said, watching the yellow fluorescent light cast Martin’s dim smile in soft relief, “I can think of a few things.”

#my writing #jonathan sims #tim stoker #archivist!sasha #martin blackwood #sasha james #mild homosexual activity and massive old man activity inbound #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fanfic #im posting this at an awkward time so prep for a lot of self rbs

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segenassefa · 5 years ago

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2: On Consumerism, Fighting Demons, and Societies Inevitable Collapse

Quarantine has been lowkey surreal. My constant complaint of never having enough time to do all the things I want/should be doing has now left me bored in the house, bored in the house, bored with nothing but time to get said things done. However, it is a dual edged sword - with the collapse and subsequent reformation of civil society outside my doors, it leaves me wondering – as well as a lot of other people – in the words of Miss Juicy…what the hell we gone do now?

Nearing the end of the first leg of my university career, I should be thinking about getting ready to transition to the next logical stages of adulthood - saving for an apartment, applying for permanent residency, as well as graduate schools and part time jobs. Yet, I’m worried about if these things will even be a possibility within the next month, six months, or even the next year.

On top of ALL of that, the recent BLM protests and the way that people (read: white people, Latinxs, Black men, homo/transphobes, etc.) have shown their asses the past few months is beyond mortifying - especially regarding the treatment of black women and how our value as individuals as well as a collective to society is really perceived.* This is not to downplay the murder of numerous black men in society, BUT who the fuck is riding for black women aside from other black women? And not just the ones who find attractive, or are racially ambiguous, or the ones you feel as if you get “guilted” into supporting and demanding justice for, I mean each and every black woman. I’m just saying, it gets pretty disheartening to feel like the legwork of the revolution is on the back of one category of people, and that your value to society is measured by the amount of emotional labour you’re ready to do for others, or how fat your ass is (but I digress…).

I feel like most people have used material things as coping mechanisms instead of actually facing their feelings and dealing with the things that bother them. Just think of the number of packages that have arrived on your doorstep the past few months. Breaking the glossy seal of packing tape is similar to therapy, until all the boxes are open, and you start feeling like shit again. And now, more than ever, there’s a lot to be bothered about. Western society has dedicated phrases based on the phenomenon of substituting true self-work with figurative emotional bandages (Phrases like comfort eating and retail therapy come to mind).

It’s nice to think that we – the people entering their adolescent and young adult years – will be the one to change these things, but suddenly it’s 2 am, you have twenty different things in your Amazon cart, (who the fuck needs a metal straw cleaning kit?) and you’re trying to see how far you can stretch and grab your debit card before falling off of the bed.

The conflicting messages pushed by society don’t help all that much either. If you look up “Kondo method” or “decluttering my closet” on YouTube, the numbers of videos that come up is astounding. Pages and pages of sweaty-faced, smiling YouTubers monetizing from this kind of faux “minimalism” only to post haul videos a few days later because “I threw everything out and now I have to rebuild from scratch sksksk!”. Does this not just perpetuate a cycle of buying and throwing and buying? I am....confusion, to say the least. Still I watch them, because I’m a hypocrite, and am also easily amused.

I will be the first to admit I have always had a very unhealthy relationship with money, with self-image, and with measuring my self-worth in proximity with “stuff that stems from a complicated relationship with physical self. Follow along:

Growing up, I was a fat kid. We don’t even have to sugar coat it. Think Terrio, but better eyebrows and more hair. Except I was not killin’ em, just myself. I always envied my friends who were able to go shopping at regular stores – read: Hollister, Abercrombie, Urban Outfitters (yes my friends were white), meanwhile I was condemned to shopping in the women’s department.

So, to compensate, I would buy trinkets – things like nail polish, lip gloss, journals, you get the point. My proximity to worthiness was measured not by the things that I bought, but within the act of buying. Growing up with parents who were also financially frugal also altered my relationship with money and blessed me with crippling buyers’ remorse after every purchase, even on things that are important (read: groceries).

But as a kid, buying “stuff” was fun for me – it gave me some sort of purpose, and the acquisition of things (even if they weren’t the same things my peers had) made me feel like, to some extent, I could compete on the same playing field. As I got older, and I started to have real expenses, I moved towards second-hand shopping. I would religiously find myself at Goodwill on weekend, after school, or with friends. I could literally feel an endorphin rush when I would find something that I would consider a “good deal”, and it made me feel (again) purposeful, to be spending money, even if I didn’t need whatever I was buying.

I should also add that the people in my immediate family does not believe in thrift stores (“Why am I working for you to wear other people’s clothing?”, I remember my dad asking me one day), so the act of second-hand shopping was also my form of rebellion.

I began to amass a collection of clothing that would put Kylie’s closet to shame. I began buying things for events and situations that were yet to happen, for other people, for when I lose ten pounds. It was a madness.

In freshman year of university, I had an unhealthy relationship with clubbing clothes. Did I have the figure for clubbing clothes? Absolutely not. The funnier part is, I couldn’t even go clubbing because I wasn’t 19 at the time. And yet I had drawers and drawers full of the stuff. Not to mention that clubbing clothes is incredibly similar to summer clothing and living between Minnesota and Canada meant that these things were barely seeing the light of day.

The moral of this was – I could never figure out my relationship with stuff, This quarantine has forced me to try and break down the compulsion behind my behaviour. I felt like I was spiralling the six weeks that they closed thrift stores, and I knew myself well enough to not try and online shop with the same kind of frequency as that. But the crazy part was, I didn’t die. I didn’t go into withdrawal (ok, I did a little bit, but whatever), and I was able to take the time to go through the things I already owned and find some hidden gems that were routinely buried in the cracks and crevices of my closet. It was like the episode of Family Guy when Peter realizes he has a vestigial twin – alarming and cool at first, but then it’s just alarming and annoying.

Its more embarrassing to realize that some semblance of myself image is tied to the frequency with which I am able to spend money. I would never say that participating in capitalist society gives me some kind of purpose as a black woman because God forbid. Also, considering that a lot of big names companies are actually racist and fatphobic as hell creates a whole new dimension for analyzing the power of my black dollar, sometimes creating another spiral of guilt leading to you guessed it – more spending.

As much as it seems like it, however, this self-reflection was not in vain. In the past month, I’ve cut down my closet from +200 pieces of clothing and shoes to about 40. If you ever want a fun, humbling activity this quarantine, just clean out your closet and be honest with yourself about how often you wear certain things. It was revolting to see the number of shirts, dresses, pants, skirts that I had bought and convinced myself wholeheartedly I was going to wear, only to pull them out of my closet months later with the tags attached *insert Marge Simpson covering her face meme*.

But at the end of the whole ordeal, it felt really good to look at my space and not feel burden or guilt. It was somewhat philanthropic realizing that not only will these clothes make someone else happier (I donated pretty much everything because it’s not always about money), but that my quality of life was not dramatically impacted in owning (or not owning) certain things. The past few weeks, I’ve spent more money on going out and sharing experiences with friends, but still nowhere near the same amount of money I would have spent buying clothes and other material possession.

Youtuber Kelly Stamps has a video on how minimalism “cured” her depression**, and the whole thesis boils down to the idea that owning less things gives you less to compare yourself too, thus making you happier (in a sense) and allowing you to focus the energy and time that would have been centered around maintaining and building your collection of possessions other things.

This still doesn’t break down the root of the issue, but it’s a start. I think when you have traits or patterns that you’ve participated in for so long, it becomes hard to step back and be objective enough to realize that you – yes, you – are part of the problem. I can blame my habits on a lot of things but at the end of the day, it’s important to realize that certain cycles seem never-ending because I actively choose to participate in these kinds of behaviours (accountability is sexy, huh?). While I’m not ready to face all my demons quite yet, it’s easier to do it with a nice wardrobe and a streamlined sense of mind.

Notes

*When I say black women, I mean ALL black women. Not some limited, cis-gendered, heteronormative view of what a woman is. Over here we ride for all those who identify as women.

**She emphasizes that she doesn’t actually means that it cured anything, but rather helped with her anxiety, and in turn, helped with her depression.

Links

That Family Guy Episode

The Kelly Stamps video

#cms #selfhelp?#consumerism

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ao3porcelainstorm · 4 years ago

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poison ivy & stinging nettles 5

On Ao3

Pairing: Sherlock/OFC

Rated: M

Warnings: eventual violence, torture, swears, adult themes (no explicit smut)

Chapter 4 - Chapter 6

Chapter 5- Fungi

~~~

Despite the initial tension regarding Jessica Reynolds, things seem to be progressing well with Amelia’s case. Sherlock was able to pull a number of shipping manifests from the assistant’s computer, each bound for the manufacturing factory in Manila.

It was fortunate that it confirmed almost every compound Amelia had noted when she stole the data set, at least in the cancer drugs.

The problem was the secondary product bound into the cancer drugs that caused adverse effects. The details on the manifests were less than helpful…

~~~

“Psilocybe mushroom components,” Amelia read the computer screen out loud for the third time since Sherlock had passed it to her, annoyance in her tone. “That’s it?”

“Magic mushrooms?” John asked, passing her a cup of tea, she immediately set it aside, scrolling through the computer logs further. “Seems straightforward enough.”

“John, there are over 200 different types of Psilocybe spores,” Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath. “Sherlock, please tell me you have an idea for how we can possibly narrow it down?”

“How many did you use in your research?” The detective asked, reaching for his own tea cup.

“47,” she answered. “Two were almost identical hybrids, so maybe 46.”

“There you go,” he smirked over the rim of his cup. “Narrowed down.”

“You know we’re going to have to get samples, even if we run the equations, some might work but not technically be the component. Not to mention the cancer drugs might be different,” she groaned and set her cup aside, throwing her head back against the sofa.

“Sherlock, it might be time to contact your brother,” John suggested quietly, earning a glare from the brunette.

“You have a brother?” Amelia asked, her head still flung back with her eyes closed. “Please tell me he’s a reputable drug dealer because it’s going to be a pain in the ass getting these things.”

“Even better, he’s a member of her Majesty’s Royal Government,” Sherlock chimed back. Amelia snorted, remaining still.

“He could also order seizures of the shipments,” John reminded the group coolly, sensing the rising tension between the group.

“Unhelpful if we can’t properly determine the malicious components, John,” Sherlock shot back, picking up on Amelia’s frustration. “The idea is that Chemco’s random samples are unable to be traced, and random.”

“Certainly a shipment would contain some variations?” he asked the pair. Amelia threw her arms up hopelessly, and he frowned. “Sherlock, don’t tell me you’re at a loss?”

“Short of breaking into a hospital, stealing their current supply, and testing it against the 46 varieties of mushroom Mia has worked with, this doesn’t lend a more efficient solution,” the detective hummed, drumming his fingers on his chin in thought.

Silence fell over the group, each person thinking through potential solutions.

“Monty!” Amelia shot up, nearly startling John into dropping his tea.

“What on earth-?” The doctor grumbled while Amelia fished out her phone.

“Ruthie’s brother in law, Monty, he’s an, er, herbal enthusiast,” she explained, tapping into her phone. “I bought a few illicit plants from him when I first moved over. He’s basically got everything you could think of. If not, he’ll know someone who does.”

“Is he in London?”

“Canterbury, lives down the road from Ruthie and her husband,” Amelia got a ping back. “Says we can swing by tomorrow if we’d like. I know offhand, I saw at least a dozen spores in one of his cold storages. I’ll dig up my research list, I can probably narrow down the list from 46 to something more reasonable if I look through what moved to the second stages of trials.”

“And then we go shopping for illicit drugs,” John replied dryly. “And what about the cancer medications?”

Sherlock and Amelia exchanged humored glances. There was certainly something that the doctor was missing.

“What?” John gawked between the pair. “You’re not actually breaking into a hospital, are you?”

“We wouldn’t need much, maybe one or two treatments?” Sherlock asked Amelia, who nodded after doing a quick calculation in her head.

“The binding components are easy enough to track down over the counter, though we might need a better equipped lab than what you’ve got in the kitchen,” she noted.

“That’s not a problem,” Sherlock waved her off, skimming through the list of components from the shipping logs. “Easy.”

“I don’t like it when you two conspire together. It always leads to some sort of trouble,” John pressed, frown deepening.

“John, you’re a doctor,” Amelia reminded him excitedly. “Prescribe poor Sherlock Holmes a chemotherapy treatment for the tumor in his ego.”

“No, absolutely not,” John stood up. “That violates so many ethical rules- besides, you’re a licensed pharmacist. It’d be easier for you.”

“Not here, not yet. I mean, we can let innocent, immune compromised patients die,” Amelia shrugged, leaning back into the sofa. “What a shame about the little babies with leukemia. All because my wicked mother wanted a second mega yacht.”

“What truly is the core of medical ethics Dr. Watson?” Sherlock inquired, slowly closing his laptop, his gaze boring into his friend. “Is it not to protect life?”

John Watson, caught between an American and a hard place, was less than thrilled when he finally, begrudgingly, scribbled his name on a prescription pad and passed it to Sherlock.

“If my license is revoked-,” he threatened, holding it away from Sherlock briefly.

“Will you kill him?” Amelia asked, grabbing her crimson scarf from the back of the sofa and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Because I’d be very interested in seeing that.”

“Don’t think you get off that easy,” John turned his attention to Amelia while Sherlock scampered to his coat, mocking Amelia over John’s shoulder with a smirk. “You’re equally responsible for anything that goes wrong.”

“That’s not fair, I’m an innocent bystander to your collusion,” she pouted, catching her navy pea coat when John tossed it at her head.

“Careful John,” Sherlock warned, passing the doctor his jacket, shielding his friend from Amelia’s sad eyes. “Keep her pouting like that and she’ll convince you to clean her hair out of the shower drain.”

“Just go,” John shoved the detective through the doorway, not bothering to wait for the grumbling Amelia as she pulled her boots on and stumbled her way out the door behind them.

~~~

“And you’re going to be administering the medications at home?” the chemist studied the prescription order, glancing over the paper to John with a quirked brow.

“That’s right,” he answered with a curt nod, his hands stuffed in his pockets to try and stave off the nervous energy that radiated through his core.

“To a Mr. William Holmes?” the chemist looked to Sherlock next to him. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” he pulled out his ID and passed it to the woman, flashing a quick smile.

“Did you guys know that Beyonce is pregnant again?” Amelia held up a tabloid to Sherlock. “Oh wait, never mind. Just a rumor.”

“Who is this?” the chemist paused, looking up at Amelia.

“His fiancé,” she replied, setting the magazine aside and looping an arm through Sherlock’s. “Here for moral support. He’s just starting treatment and is nervous as all get out, isn’t that right, love?” For added effect, she snuggled closer, pressing her cheek against his arm.

“I wouldn’t have made it in one piece without her,” he nodded, giving her cheek a quick peck. “Just an absolute blessing.”

“We’re just so lucky to find Dr. Watson,” Amelia continued with a long sigh. “Not a lot of doctor’s are willing to do home treatments within the NHS, you know. And of course I’m completely out of my element with all of it!”

The chemist chuckled empathetically, asking how the pair met as she typed up the order for the supplies. Sherlock and Amelia shot back and forth, exchanging little tidbits about their “relationship” enough to almost convince John it was real.

“The order will be ready tomorrow morning,” the woman smiled at the trio and reached for Amelia’s hand. “I’ll be praying for you both.”

“You’re an angel,” Amelia replied, giving them a squeeze before ushering the group out of the pharmacy with a final wave at the woman.

Back on the street, Amelia slipped a hand into Sherlock’s pocket, pulling out his wallet.

“I did not know your name was William,” she studied his ID, trying to memorize the details before he snatched it from her. “And you’re only three years older than me? I don’t believe that.”

Sherlock grabbed the wallet and ID out her hands, returning them to his coat pocket with a huff.

“Is there no privacy with you?” he grumbled. “And what’s so surprising about how old I am?”

“I just figured you were older,” she shrugged. “I mean, I’m almost thirty, right? I figured you were like, almost forty or something.”

John sputtered out a laugh.

“That’s spectacular,” he threw an arm around her shoulders. “How old do you think I am?”

“John, in all honesty, I have no idea,” she answered. “Sometimes I’m convinced you’re fifty, other times you have to be my age.”

Sherlock snorted under his breath.

“It’s a fair assessment,” she insisted, frowning apologetically at John. “You get very grumpy in the mornings, and the matching flannel pajamas don’t help very much.”

“They’re warm.”

“I’m sure they’re wonderful,” Amelia smiled, patting his arm in a placating tone. “I’m just a terrible judge of age apparently. I should have know how old you actually were with all of the part-time super models you bring by.”

“Mia, you’re digging yourself into a hole you’ll regret for the foreseeable future,” Sherlock warned.

“Shush,” Amelia swatted his arm.

“That reminds me,” John glanced down at his phone. “I have a second date with Ann tonight.”

“Is she the one with the Pomeranian?” Amelia asked hopefully. He shook his head and she sighed. “I liked that one.”

“You liked the dog and I’m very allergic,” John reminded her. “Ann is a barrister.”

“Maybe you should make sacrifices for your relationships, John,” she countered. “Have fun with your boring lawyer date.”

“Ann is the boring one, that’s right,” Sherlock perked up.

“She is not boring,” John insisted, flagging down a taxi.

“We’ll call with an ‘emergency’ in a bit,” Amelia promised earnestly. “Get you out of talks about law and order. Blegh.”

“I’m turning my phone off,” he called, slipping into the backseat of the taxi.

“If it wasn’t so cold, I’d be half tempted to follow them,” Amelia mused, continuing down the street with the detective.

“Don’t, they’re seeing that action movie that just came out,” he sighed dramatically. "Boring."

“Movies never make sense as an early date,” she noted. “You can’t talk. How do you get to know anything about the other person? They could be a serial killer for all you know.”

“Exactly, hardly an intimate setting,” he shook his head in disappointment. Amelia looked at him in surprise, stifling a laugh. “What?”

“It’s hard to picture you trying to take someone on a date,” she confessed lightly.

“You’re one to talk,” he countered quickly. “You never leave the flat.”

“You literally don’t let me?” she replied with another laugh. “And arguably, I’ve gone at least one more date than you in the last month.”

“Jessica Reynolds does not count,” he shot back.

“She has the remnants of my favorite shirt on her bedroom floor,” Amelia shivered at the memory. “She counts. John’s been on half a dozen dates since then, yet I’m fairly certain I heard you making love to your calculator the other night.”

“Why did I allow you to move into my building?” Sherlock kept his focus forward. “And I’d be a wonderful date, assuming I knew who i was meeting and could plan accordingly.”

“You’d stalk your date for ideas,” Amelia bit back a smirk. “It’d almost be endearing if it wasn’t super illegal.”

“I do not have to stalk someone to take them on a decent date,” he insisted. “What about you? What would you do aside from a bar?”

“First of all, I would never take someone to a bar on a first date,” she held a hand up, stopping in front of him. “It’s tacky. Would you want to date someone tacky?”

“Ok, where would you take me?” he offered, folding his arms across his chest. Amelia considered his challenge, pulling out her cell phone and tapping at the screen. Grinning at the device, she looked up at him.

“I get a little leeway because I’m not from here,” she warned, flagging down a passing cab.

“What are you doing?” he watched her chat with the driver, and look up at him expectantly.

“I’m taking you on a date,” she answered. “Get in Mr. Holmes, and prepare to be wooed.”

~~~

The Barbican Conservatory wasn’t very busy at midday in the middle of the week, so they were able to secure entrance and tour around the large space without too much interruption from other guests.

“There are over 1,500 different plants in 23,000 cubic square feet of space,” Amelia tucked her hands behind her back. “And the ponds feature koi and carp from Japan and America respectively.”

“Did you just read the pamphlet?” Sherlock asked, looking over the informational packet. “Because you quoted the first paragraph verbatim.”

“It’s because I’m well versed in what I sought out,” she answered with a grin. “Look, flowers.”

She pulled him toward a large selection of tropical flora, naming the species as they moved through in both their common names and scientific ones.

“This one is particularly rare,” she gestured to a bright red flower, the pamphlet long discarded in her coat pocket. Sherlock listened intently, occasionally chiming in his own facts about the flora that surrounded them. He could tell she was pleasantly surprised at his own knowledge on some of the more obscure plants.

“Waitwaitwait,” Amelia pulled him by the wrist toward a large swath of sunflowers. “They’re taller than you, that’s so cool!”

“Does that make them extra haughty?” he retorted, letting her shove him in front of the flowers. She snapped a picture while he continued to quip, ignoring his comments a moment while she saved it to her phone. “Do not show that to anyone.”

“I would never,” she promised. “It’s a good picture, though.” She held her phone up, and sure enough, she’d captured a flattering angle while he’d been laughing.

“I’m not haughty,” he quickly stated.

“You know that isn’t their only meaning,” she hummed, tucking the phone away. “They also mean strength, happiness, confidence… I think they sum you up perfectly.”

“Happiness?”

“Oh that’s right, you were happy once and it was terrible,” she replied coyly. “How could I have forgotten? Happiness can mean bringing it to others as well, Sherlock.”

She turned to look at some lilacs, absently chatting while he stood frozen in place, the words running on repeat in the front of his mind.

Who did he make happy?

~~~

Amelia had a mouth full of falafel when Sherlock decided on where he was going to take her next.

“Mmwha mwean?” she asked, tilting her head in confusion. “Dwon’t swteal mwwy dawte!”

“You did an adequate job,” he answered. “But I still think I’m the superior date planner.”

She swallowed her food, eyeing distrustfully.

“I’m only interested if it’s a very old cemetery,” she replied, stealing one of his chips. “And it better be nighttime and there had better be ghosts.”

“There is no such thing as ghosts,” Sherlock clarified sharply.

“Consider this date over,” she stood up from the public bench they’d settled on. “It’s not me, it’s definitely you.”

“Amelia, come back,” he called, but she continued down the road, night starting to swallow the city. “They’re theoretically impossible.”

~~~

Amelia had to admit (though never out loud), Sherlock Holmes did know a thing or two about impressing a date (despite his disbelief in ghosts).

He purchased her a pink peony, her favorite flower, from a street vendor.

Next, they went to the aquarium, where they wandered away from the main tour and Sherlock gave his own version of the tour, naming the fish and telling her random facts about their origins. Together, they came up with complex names and origin stories for all of the fish.

“The puffer fish is obviously fed up with the whale shark’s nonsense,” Amelia laughed, pointing out the fish blowing up as the white shark passed it in the tank. “He’s probably having an affair with the puffer fish’s wife.”

“I don’t know, the whale shark was eyeing the sea turtle…” Sherlock mused, watching the mesmerizing scene next to her.

Every once in a while, Amelia would steal a look at him. The way the light reflected around them, and how it flickered through his blue eyes- should almost wished she had a paint pallet to try and capture the almost perfect cerulean color.

They left the aquarium chuckling about an octopus that had escaped during a demonstration, night having finally swept over the city.

“Ok,” she relented. “You win this round.”

“I’m not done yet,” he pulled his phone out and glanced up. “We have a final stop.”

“What else could you have planned on such short notice?” she asked, letting him grab her hand and pull her along.

“I told you, I know what I’m doing,” he teased, stopping after a few blocks, looking up at the glowing carriages of the London Eye. “It’s not a cemetery.”

“Might be better,” Amelia admitted.

And it was.

Amelia had never experienced anything so spectacular in her life. The lights over the Thames and the London skyline were unlike anything she’d seen before. The old city had a different energy to it compared to New York, and from the top of the famous Ferris wheel, she could see it all.

“I can’t believe we live in the same city as all of this,” she gestured below them. “It doesn’t seem real.”

“It looks like stars,” he agreed, looking over the edge.

“And the reflection on the river?” Amelia continued to gush in excitement, practically jumping around the edges of the capsule as they moved through the sky.

It was over far too quickly, though Amelia knew they needed to get back. John was probably long home from his date.

“You win,” she sighed. “You definitely win, but only for today.”

“That means there’s a second date?” he smirked, offering her his arm as they walk. She took it, falling in step while they tried to track down a taxi.

Amelia knew he was teasing. It was more of an outing between friends, a means to prove a point with no real intimate feelings involved. A challenge.

She repeated this to herself as she stared at the peony in her hands on the taxi ride home. Or when Sherlock made a quiet quip about extra marital whale shark affairs.

He had to prove his point, and he did. She was sufficiently surprised, and very much felt conflicted about it.

When they returned, Amelia cut into the conversation before John could ask where they’d been. He told her all about his date, and that while Ann was very nice, there probably wasn’t a third date in their future.

“Because she’s boring?” Sherlock joked, pulling out his laptop and checking his email.

“We have different interests,” John clarified sharply. “I think I’m going to take a break from dating for a bit. What about you two? What did you do all day?” His eyes fell on the peony in Amelia’s hand, and she froze, not sure how to respond.

“We went on a date,” Sherlock spoke up confidently from his perch, eyeing John and waiting for a reaction.

“You… on a date?” he looked between the pair. “Both of you? Together?”

Admittedly, it was a bit fun watching their friend process the information. Amelia just braced herself for when Sherlock clarified their challenge with one another.

“Yep,” he answered, popping the “p”. “It was a lovely day, wasn’t it Mia?”

Dazed, Amelia choked out an affirmative, her head still catching up with the fact there hadn’t been any specifications as to the motivation behind everything.

“A long day,” she forced out a yawn. “I’m going to put this in some water and head to bed. We’ve got an early morning tomorrow, don’t forget. I have our train tickets already, but one of you needs to get the chemotherapy into the fridge before we go.”

Both men said goodnight and she slipped downstairs to her apartment, sneaking a final glance over her shoulder, in case he was going to add anything else to the date conversation.

“A date?” John waited until Amelia was out of earshot. “You never mentioned being interested like that. In fact, you mocked me.”

“We were merely getting to know one another,” he shrugged. “Initially we were trying to prove a point, but it turned into an enjoyable afternoon. Though, I wouldn’t get too excited about it, John.”

“And why not?” John asked. “She’s been here for two months now, you two get along in your weird, mad scientist way, it could be a good match.”

“I’m far too busy to have time for romantic partners,” Sherlock shot the suggestion down. He stilled, his hands resting on the keys of his laptop. “And she seemed odd just now, didn’t she?”

“No more than usual,” John replied. “Worried she didn’t enjoy herself? You got her a flower, I’m sure she was enthralled.”

“A peony,” Sherlock corrected quietly. “She likes peonies. They’re in the perfume she wears.”

“Maybe she’s just deep in denial, much like yourself, and needed to sleep to get her head straight?” John snorted, standing up from his chair. “Speaking of, don’t stay up too late.”

Sherlock waved him off, staring down at his computer and re-reading the same sentence over and over. He couldn’t focus on any of his cases right now, his head was all over the place.

Grabbing his violin, he plucked away at the strings, trying to find a sound for the chaos in his head.

Meanwhile, laying in bed with her eyes closed, listening to the soft sounds, Amelia decided she had more important things to think about besides date challenges and eccentric roommates.

Things like corrupt CEOs and fungi.

Chapter 6

#sherlock original female character #sherlock holmes #sherlock #sherlock/ofc #sherlock bbc #sherlock fanfiction #sherlock holmes fanfiction #sherlock fanfic #writing #john watson #watson #OFC #sherlock/oc #sherlock/reader #reader insert #reader

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docholligay · 6 years ago

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BITS FROM THE SURVEYS

For the optional question on the surveys, where I get a ton of enjoyment reading, I asked for all of them “Tell me why you picked what you picked” I loved reading all of them so thank you to those who filled it out, but I’m going to share a few favorites:

Miscellaneous:

Real talk - I'd love more Bob Ross, but those supplies ain't cheap, either. I may not vote for it in further rounds, because I do not want you to be in financial hurting by trying to provide this for us. (And second real talk - I desperately want to hear you talk about history and formal manners. You make topics come alive in wonderful ways.)

It’s true it is NOT CHEAP, but I do have more of the stuff now so it won’t be QUITE AS MUCH OF A BOMB as last year where we totally lost money on the whole deal ahaha. And thank you! I love history and manners and all of that good goofy stuff.

JUST FINISH THE WALKING DEAD GAME FOR THE LOVE OF JEW GOD IT'S BEEN YEARS

LIKE THREE I THINK BUT NO ONE VOTED FOR IT

Can’t get enough of your writing

There is no way I COULDN'T choose fix/writing day because your writing is phenomenal and I will never pass up an opportunity for more.

I basically kept these because they made me feel good and I wanted an easy place to get to them, I am bought cheaply.

Utena:

I used a random number generator to pick these! (Because every episode of Utena is wonderful when you're talking about it.)

This absolutely delighted me

Deeper... Go deeper. (Seriously though I’d love to see your thoughts on the Nemuro flashbacks now that you’ve finished the show.)

There are so many things I want to revisit in Utena now that I’m finished but I don’t know that anyone would think it was cute for me just to start the anime again ahaha.

Sailor Moon:

I picked pretty much all of the episodes featuring Michiru and Haruka because IM GAY

Idk any of the episodes, I just picked the ones that sounded the most gay

THESE ARE BOTH THE MOST VALID TAKES.

CALL IT "MICHIRU BULLIES A TEENAGER AT A PUBLIC POOL" YOU COWARD

WE ALL KNOW THAT IS THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE

You don't normally do inners-only things (for obvious reasons), but I think there's a lot to dig into in EP 45 and it would be really interesting to hear your take!

I pretty much NEVER do anything before S, because if there aren’t my lesbians why is the show even around, but 45 got through!

Clocks are stupid.

L O L

Livestream:

I am legit shocked you have not seen The Last Unicorn, but it could be that I'm remembering you've read the book instead? I swear I read a post of yours that talked about it…

I swear I haven’t! I’ve seen like 15 minutes of it when Jetty livestreamed it and it was like right at the end so honestly the credits and Jet not being impressed are the only things I know! I have heard great things about the book, and considered picking it up, but never have!

If I had fuck-you-money, I'd visit every time Ari Aster released a new movie and just goddamn scream about it PLEASE consider the director's cut if possible!!

I am low key obsessed with Ari Aster and approve of you gaining fuck you money.

Doc talks about class romance YES PLEASE.

ALWAYS CLASS ROMANCIN’ IN MY SENSHI HEART

You made freaks sound very interesting!

IT WAS SO GOOD. It didn’t get through this round, I imagine because it’s not well known, but it was basically the sort of thing I always wanted Xmen to be, and also it was a very Jewish movie on a number of levels.

Non-Animated:

Doctor Who is my favorite show ever, but the original run is just, well, ummmmm.... Great characters, great stories, wow bad effects. I think this would be more fun for you than the New Who eps starting in 200?

I have seen a handful of Doctor Who episodes: The angry baldish one and the inescapable David Tennant. I LOVED Torchwood though, watched it like wild once it was recommended to me, so we’ll see!

I thought Twilight Zone was nominated! I thought I had nominated it! A great disservice upon us all! I really love reading your commentary on the Haunting of Hill House, even though I haven't watched it. It's just so fascinating, especially the mentions on camera work and the like.

I was a little surprised no one went for TZ either! But not in a bummed way, just a surprised way, everyone seemed to really really enjoy the TZ liveblog last year. Thank you! I LOVED hill house, and it’s such a treat to me to get to liveblog it.

I need to see you intensely on your shit, and feel that will happen with most of what I picked.

JEWS ON THEIR SHIT, NEWS AT 11.

Bc Leverage is the best show in the entire world and it’s so good everyone should watch it

I know almost NOTHING about Leverage except that people want me and Jet both to watch it (And I’m going to have her report back to me when she streams it for Patreon on the 26th, either way) but from what little I know it’s a heist procedural? So I’m sort of surprised people look at it for me, but maybe I have the wrong idea about the show PLEASE NO SPOILERS

YOU DESERVE SUE PERKINS

WE ALL DO, REALLY.

Animated:

To quote Regalli in your discord: "make someone liveblog A Place Further Than The Universe, I need well-articulated screaming about spite as a motivator and friendship and loss!"

I know nothing about this show but I have to say this was a magnificent pitch and my ears are officially perked.

Psycho Pass because I really love your non-fiction pieces and the tidbits of morals and ethics that you dole out and I would love to see your take on the morals/ethics of the ending of the series. <--which is 500 years away until I win a liveblog, but that is my goal for next year, to pay patron and get one of those positions!

Thank you! I feel like I see so much shit just because I started running the patreon liveblog contest, which gives people a chance they might not have had.

I want to see you talk about the murder cupcake forever? Is that a good reason?

I LOVE THE MURDER CUPCAKE.

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andrewdburton · 6 years ago

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How we raised $10,000+ for a charity (actual metrics)

What happens when you try to raise money for a cause you care about?

Recently, my wife and I held a fundraiser in NYC. We both come from families of immigrants and we wanted to raise money for families being separated at the border. What we’ve seen has made us feel helpless, outraged, and sad. But we also know that we’re in the enviable position of being able to do something about it.

This was the first time we’ve ever raised money for a fundraiser together and I want to share what we learned (plus all the numbers).

VIDEO: My wife and me explaining why we launched this fundraiser

It turns out I LOVE fundraising. I think it’s because…

It’s a cause I care about

I have friends and readers I can share this with

Thanks to having 40,000 customers, I have no fear of asking for money. Especially from IWT readers who asked for a free ticket to my event, and (1) one had spent $10,000 on my products, (2) another worked at Amazon, and (3) a third was an engineer at VISA. I showed no mercy.

MRW when someone asks for a free ticket to my charity event, but they’ve spent $10,000 on my products

Our fundraising metrics

We raised $12,975, beating our goal of $5,000!! (We donated 100% of that money.)

To raise money, we first asked a few friends in the nonprofit space for their advice. They pointed us to groups we started researching, then we settled on Families Belong Together to donate our funds to.

Our next step was to email friends. We emailed about 50 friends and family, raising $2,450. Some people donated to come to the NYC event we held, while others just donated funds.

Then Cass and I recorded a video explaining why we were raising money and why this is important to us, which I posted on my Instagram feed/stories, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The video got watched about 50,000 times.

That video linked back to our Eventbrite page, which got ~2,000 views and raised ~$9,000.

We held an event in NYC, where we hosted about 35 people in a space donated by https://energi.life/welcome/. Paola from Families Belong Together shared stories about what she’s seen along the border, along with drinks served by Andrew from Crafttender (big thanks to everyone for making this possible!!).

Overall, for our first fundraiser, this was a big success!!

Paola shared her experiences working with Families Belong Together. Some of my friends cried during the presentation.

LESSON #1: Get comfortable with small numbers

Initially, Cass and I set a goal of $50,000. When we went to a few fundraising friends and asked for advice, one of them smiled. “Why don’t you start small?” he gently asked us. Even though it was hard to hear, he was right.

I learned that I had to get comfortable with smaller numbers.

This wasn’t some massive fundraiser where we could leverage crazy press or the entire IWT business (e.g., when IWT raised $300,000 for Pencils of Promise).

After running IWT, where I oversee a team that manages complex lead acquisition, funnels, conversion, and products, I’ve gotten used to big numbers. To give you an example, during the week my wife and I raised $12,975 for this fundraiser, one individual IWT student bought 3 courses equaling $10,388.

So with this fundraiser, it was humbling to start small and be satisfied with small numbers and modest goals. This was my wife and me setting up our first fundraiser together, trying to find a free event space, and trying to send anything we can to support families at the border.

I had to reframe our new goal of “only” $5,000 as a win. When you’re starting something new, it’s hard to remember that starting small is how EVERYONE starts off. This was a great reminder. Most of all, we were just thrilled to be able to contribute to a cause we care about.

LESSON #2: When a friend asks, show up

You might have seen “Ramit’s 10 Money Rules” that I posted a while back. Look closely at #4:

#4: “Never question spending money on books, appetizers, health, or donating to a friend’s charity fundraiser.”

Read about Ramit’s Money Rules

There’s a reason I always donate to friends’ charity events. When your friend emails you for a fundraiser, they really want your help (in general, people HATE asking for money, so when they do, there’s usually a reason for it).

If you respond and donate quickly, they’ll appreciate it.

And if you donate more than they asked for, they will never forget it.

For example, Sam Gavis-Hughson is a Zero To Launch graduate who helps job candidates prepare for their coding interviews at companies like Google and Facebook. He used our Zero To Launch program to recently run a $50,000 launch. When we posted about our fundraiser, he was one of our first donors and came in big with a $500 donation — that’s more than our requested $100 donation. I will never forget it.

Other friends never donated. Maybe they were busy or missed the email. But I’ll never forget that, either.

Showing up doesn’t just mean spending money. It also means physically showing up when it’s important to your friend.

Over the last couple of weeks, two of my friends have launched books. I went to Nir Eyal’s launch of his book. A few days later, Cass and I went to support Paula Rizzo’s launch of her book. Yes, I’m busy. Yes, it was out of the way. Yes, we showed up.

Showing up for Paula Rizzo’s book launch of Listful Living

When an author launches their book, they’re nervous, they’re excited, and most of all, THEY DESPERATELY WANT YOUR SUPPORT.

SHOW UP!! Show up for birthdays parties, weddings, book launches, and charity events. ALWAYS.

Those are moments in someone’s life that mean so much to them.

Cass and I learned the importance of showing up when we were planning our wedding. After we were married, we made a set of joint rules for attending other people’s weddings:

Always be first on the dance floor

Be the couple that you can seat anywhere because you know we’ll get the table having fun (AKA, don’t be a dud)

Make sure your gifts arrive before the wedding

After going through our first fundraiser, our new rules are:

Always donate to our friends’ fundraisers

Always donate MORE than they ask for (an extra $100 or $200 will always be remembered)

LESSON #3: Deal with critics

Invariably, I had some people who didn’t agree with the cause we were raising money for. I think this stops a lot of people from ever getting started with something like this (or starting a business). What will people think? What will they say? Will my friends get annoyed by me asking them for money?

Whenever you try something new, you’re going to encounter critics. It happened with this fundraiser.

LOL at the critics who decided that instead of donating, they’d leave angry comments on a fundraiser for a good cause.

I typically find that they use 3 strategies:

Telling me they disagree with my cause

Hateful comment: “Send everyone the fuck back” (screenshots below)

Confuse the issue by asking seemingly innocent question (concern trolling): “What about X? Have you considered Y? Are you concerned about Z?”

Here’s how I dealt with them.

First, when they disagree with your cause: I had a woman DM me on Instagram and politely tell me that she doesn’t agree with me politically, but she appreciates that I’m using my platform to support a cause I care about. I totally respect that.

Then there were the #MAGA morons who decided to lob potshots from their anonymous accounts with hateful comments.

Unfortunately for them, this New York Times bestselling author is considerably smarter than the usual empty-headed cretins they deal with at the local parking lot where they spend their Saturday nights.

You can safely ignore twitter commenters whose feeds are filled with hateful posts, whose headshots are cartoon characters wearing a birthday hat, and who seem to share one thing in common: the intellectual aptitude of a gnat. Just move on — they already live in a prison in their own mind.

But beyond anonymous critics, there were the more insidious critics who try to confuse the issue by concern trolling, or asking question after question after question.

Here’s what you must understand: These people will never support your cause, whether it’s a fundraiser or a business or your plan to lose weight. They have no interest in a genuine discussion (if they did, they would engage privately). They’re asking questions because getting others riled up is their entertainment. And, to put it delicately, my successful friends never leave comments like this.

“If it was X, MAYBE I would donate” = “I will never donate”

You can delete or ignore these comments. I intentionally responded to a couple so my followers could see my responses.

If you decide to try something new, remember this: Opinions are cheap. You’ll ALWAYS get people saying, “What about this? What about that? How do where every cent of this $100 is going? If you did X, maybe I would donate.”

Oh, ok. Suddenly, some anonymous guy with an icon of a banana has developed a 14-page quiz on Kantian ethics that you must answer before they donate $100. In reality, they have the moral compass of a cupholder.

Guess what? They’re not your audience.

Actual supporters didn’t demand that I jump through their gauntlet of requirements for one hundred dollars. They wanted to get involved, they clicked DONATE, and they showed up.

It’s fine if not everyone supports your cause (whether it’s a business, a new hobby, or a fundraiser). But I wanted to show you some of the worst critics of all — the ones who try to derail you by questioning you, by concern trolling you, by trying to make you second-guess yourself — so you can see that these people are everywhere.

You want to raise money for your own cause? Great! Do it. My wife and I saw something we wanted to support and we raised over $12,000 to help these families. If you’re more comfortable lobbing hateful comments on social media, then sit down and get the fuck out of my way. I have work to do.

LESSON #4: Use your time and money to live a Rich Life

THIS is a Rich Life — where you use your time and money to help other people.

When something outrages you or inspires you…when something makes you MAD or SAD or THRILLED, that’s an opportunity to lean into it and use your time and money to improve it.

It’s not about needing to have $1,000,000. A tiny amount can change someone’s life.

IWT isn’t simply about earning more money. I show you how to do that in my book, my business courses, and my career courses.

But to be able to use your time and money to help other people…that’s another level.

I want you to see how that you can use money to support the things you care about. Your family, your health, and yes — giving back.

I want to show you that raising money for something you believe in comes in lots of shapes and colors and sizes. It doesn’t mean you have to attend a black-tie gala in Manhattan. I never wrote fundraising checks as a child — but I did do “sewa” (volunteer service) at my local Sikh temple.

I want to show you how to pick a goal, then go after it without anyone or anything getting in your way. Critics? GTFO. What about the perfect financial structu–forget all that! Raise the money and send it.

More than anything, I want you to know that you can define your Rich Life. This is ours. I hope you find yours and lean into it.

How we raised $10,000+ for a charity (actual metrics) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-we-raised-10000-for-a-charity/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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lozzykins · 3 years ago

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I posted 610 times in 2022

That's 200 more posts than 2021!

54 posts created (9%)

556 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@asinglemagpie

@razziecat

@allsortsoflicorice

@birdblacksocialclub

@evil-robot-cat

I tagged 92 of my posts in 2022

#useful - 3 posts

#xd - 3 posts

#<3 - 2 posts

#deadline looming - 2 posts

#not my clowns not my circus - 2 posts

#i repeat not my clowns not my circus - 2 posts

#procrastinating - 2 posts

#i'll fucking do it darling - 2 posts

#phd to finish - 2 posts

#big mood - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 121 characters

#in my co-pilot car i can be loud and shrieky and driver doesn't give a fuck because she's usually trying to out shriek me

My Top Posts in 2022:

Seedling, Leaf, Sheep <3

Gentle Cottagecore Emoji Asks

🌱 Seedling: What is something you want to begin learning?

I always like the idea of learning instruments but I am completely tone deaf, I can just about hear a difference in notes - depending on the note and what is being played, but I can't tell you if something is in tune or not - which is great if you think you've got little musical talent because it all sounds good to me XD

🍃 Leaf: What is a plant you find beautiful?

There's honeysuckle and sweet pea - I love the smell of both of them I think or one of them and I can never remember which it is. Might be both. I also love the smell of jasmine too.

🐑 Sheep: What is a comfort item you own?

I don't really have a lot in the way of comfort items - probably why I'm always so stressed XD I have the octopus you gave me is always near, my phone I suppose? That is always nearby, I like to have you nearby.

2 notes - Posted July 30, 2022

Every day there is something new. Todays lesson was for my mum: We remove assets from morally bankrupt giant corporations, not small business owners, and artists. She considered that for a few minutes. 'Ok, that's fair.' She spent five minutes looking like she wanted to ask further questions, but thought better of it.

2 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

3 notes - Posted January 24, 2022

🎂 💒 💘 <3

Sweet and Pure asks <3

🎂- if you had 3 wishes, what would they be?

Assuming there's no double talk or conditions to navigate through

To clear all debts for everyone (myself included)

2. To give everyone a healthy boost to their finances.

3. Make sure no one ever goes hungry again.

💒- which show would you want to live in?

Given that you'd likely jump into ADoW world, I'd jump in there with you <3

💘- 3 ways to win your heart?

Talking to me - about anything and everything, I love to listen to interests and passions, even if I've got no clue <3

Little 'saw this and thought of you' things - whether that's a meme, a quote, character, tags in a tumblr post, or something you've bought in a shop, I love seeing what you relate to me, what reminds you of me, and there's just something sweet about being on your mind that much <3

Doing something together - this could be anything. going out and trying something new, staying in and occupying the same space, just having the time together <3

4 notes - Posted April 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

@crimson-sun @risingoflights I'll stop shrieking over these sometime this year <3 (yes that was me screeching like a pterodactyl in your patreon inbox first thing this morning XD) They are so beautiful and it's taken me years but I've finally got hold of them! Just a few of my favourites pictured above, wish I had the space to just lay them all out. <3

22 notes - Posted May 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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lookbackmachine · 7 years ago

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Disney Afternoon Part 2

The Disney Afternoon Pt 2

Subscribe:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-look-back-machine/id1257301677?mt=2

0:00:00 Speaker 1: The Disney Afternoon hit an unexpected hiccup a few years earlier that was finally starting to rear its ugly head. Eisner and Katzenberg would try to strong-arm their former boss Barry Diller, which would lead to unexpected new competition. In 1988, Eisner bought a television station in Los Angeles that eventually became KCAL. With his new station, he obviously wanted to air Disney product. There was a problem. They were already airing the Disney Afternoon on Fox affiliates, Barry Diller's network.

0:00:32 S1: According to DisneyWar, Eisner had Katzenberg call Diller. In Diller's recounting of the discussion, Katzenberg said, "We want to renegotiate the Disney Afternoon, and we're taking away the LA market." Diller was shocked. They had a contract. "That's not fair," he protested. "I know you bought an LA station, but give us two or three years to replace this. Let's be reasonable." Diller called Eisner, who refused. "We were there for you when you needed us," Diller reminded him, pointing out that he'd bought the original programming for Disney Afternoon. Eisner still refused. "Okay then, we're out of business," Diller said. Fox promptly dropped the Disney Afternoon from all of its wholly owned stations and encouraged its affiliates to do the same. Still, that wasn't what put Diller over the edge. Even though he felt Eisner had betrayed him, it was when Disney sued Fox on antitrust grounds claiming Fox was trying to monopolize children's programming and then complained to the FCC that Fox was a morally unfit broadcaster with programming like the Simpsons.

0:01:35 S1: When Disney lawyers approached Diller about a possible settlement, Diller said the only settlement he'd consider was an apology. Disney ended up dropping the suit in 1992, but Diller told David Geffen, "I'm never going to speak to him, Eisner, again." Fox would launch its own kids programming in 1990, which would eventually cut into Disney's ratings with the cultural phenomenon Power Rangers, not to mention Batman, the animated series, and Animaniacs. Power Rangers was a show that no one wanted. It was turned down by everyone, and then became the show everyone wanted and wanted to replicate. Premiering in August of 1993, by December it was the biggest kid show by far. According to the Baltimore Sun, it was averaging a 12.5 on weekends with kids two to 11. Fox's X-Men was doing a 10.0. And it was first on weekdays. It was doing a 7.5 rating. Second was Fox's Animaniacs with a 5.6, and the highest rated non-Fox show on weekdays was Bonkers with a 4.5. Also in 1994, Power Ranger toy sales would reach nearly a billion dollars. At their highest height, Ninja Turtles had done only $450 million in sales.

0:02:50 S1: The butterfly effect was now spreading its wings, and the Disney Afternoon would take a hit, as did the future of syndication as networks realized they should be promoting their own IPs instead of other companies. It would even happen to Fox when Warner Brothers would take its popular hits, Batman and Animaniacs, and put it on their own WB network. And it wasn't just network competitors anymore, cable had entered the market as well. Nickelodeon had popped into the world of animation and their first three cartoons, Ren and Stimpy, Doug, and Rugrats had all been big successes. The syndication window was closing in the not too distant future, but for now Disney Television Animation was about to change with the times.

[music]

0:03:43 S1: Greg Weisman, creator Gargoyles.

0:03:46 Greg Weisman: The pitch for Aladdin, that I pitched to Eisner, it was just one poster shot of Aladdin and the Genie and three words, "Aladdin the series". He's like, "Sold." That was it. And I knew that. In other words, going in, it was like I could have given this whole pitch on Aladdin, but I thought anything I say would only give him a reason to say no. Aladdin's this huge movie. Let him imagine what the show is.

0:04:11 S1: Tad Stones, creator of Darkwing Duck.

0:04:14 Tad Stones: At the end of Darkwing, I said, "Okay, now Darkwing worked much closer." I think I can get even closer with my next show, which was going to be a science fiction show. Again, a comedy. The staff loved it, but the boss did not. I never got to pitch it to Michael and Jeffrey. You know, had a meeting, I said, "Oh, I'm gonna get a chance to do it." And it was like, "No." They wanted me to do Aladdin. Now, Aladdin was done by Ron Clements, John Musker. I said, "I used to room with... In the same office as Ron Clements." I mean I was literally four feet away from him. "Let me talk to those guys." With Aladdin there was the other thing that I did the first direct to home video, Return of Jafar. And all I was trying to do was keep our budgets up. And I thought, if there's one more source of revenue that comes in from our shows, this would be the excuse to not cut budgets or give us the money we need to pull off some of this stuff. I called up Home Video and said, "Technically, when I do this four part episode pilot to set up the show, technically it's the sequel to Aladdin. Are you interested?" And the guy took it to the higher ups and they were not.

0:05:25 TS: Then they put out Aladdin on video. Again, it broke records. They made a huge amount of money, and I called the guy back and again restated what I was doing. And this time he took it to the top and they were very interested. And we had a story meeting with my boss where he gave all sorts of notes. And I said, "Well, we got... That's a lot to pull off. We have to do that by March 14th or whatever the date was." He said, "Why?" I said, "Well, Home Video was willing to put this out on literally video at that time." And he said, "That's gravy. Do these notes and if you get them done in time, that's fine." And I had to be told this later by people who were in the room 'cause I had forgotten that I had said, "Okay we have to take those notes, but it also has to be done by this date so I can get it to Home Video."

0:06:11 TS: We did. And Return of Jafar was made for $3.5 million and it made something between $180 and $200 million domestic out on video. This may be apocryphal, but I was told that it was the first quarter where the company wouldn't have grown. Well, I don't know what, ten percent or whatever the number was, and I guess a bunch of executives had bonuses tied into profit growth. Evidently that was the first quarter that there wouldn't be bonuses, and then suddenly everybody got a bonus, and it was because of Return of Jafar, that out of nowhere this thing came in and making all this money. And that started the whole direct to video thing.

0:06:53 TS: All I was trying to do was to keep our budgets up. The stories involving the bonuses, they tried to do things like Lucas had with Star Wars had given everybody involved points or some sort of bonus, so they had X amount of money and they divided it up so everybody got something. And what that led to is whoever was last in line, some of the lower level people, got a bonus, a check of $50 or $100, whatever. People who basically were in the department who didn't work on the show, and all that did was piss them off 'cause they knew how much the movie had made. I got $14,000 and I told that to Ron and John. Now I was not an idiot. I knew that the only reason why the movie made that much money is because they had done an incredible Aladdin, and I remember telling that to them and their reaction was, "You got ripped off." And I realized, yeah, in live action terms, if you do a crappy spinoff of something that made a lot of money and your crappy spinoff makes a ton of money, you get a five picture deal and a new car in your driveway as a present from the studio. In animation, I was happy to get the bonus. But get a pat on the back and then you move on, do something else for us.

0:08:09 S1: Jymn Magon, writer.

0:08:11 Jymn Magon: Disney's had a definite style there for a while, of... I think we cornered the market in the comedy adventure genre. When Disney execs felt like they needed to branch out, I felt like the formula fell by the wayside. And it's like, "Hey, look what John Kricfalusi is doing on Ren and Stimpy. Let's do something like that. Hey, look what Warner Brothers is doing with superheroes. Let's do something like that." And I felt like, "Oh, this is interesting." Obviously, we're branching out, trying new things. But it felt weird to me that where we had before had been sort of chopping our way through the jungle, creating our own path. Now we were sort of following other people's paths, copying them. And that always seemed odd to me. But anyway, department does what the department does over the years, and the changes, and the new policy, and it gets worse or it gets better. And is it Disney? Yes, because it's Disney TV Animation. They're Disney and this is the show they're doing. It becomes part of the canon, you know.

0:09:15 S1: In 1994, Variety reported that Disney was spending $50 million to boost its afternoon, which resulted in two new series, Shnookums and Meat, and Gargoyles. Gargoyles, Aladdin, and Shnookums helped cut into the lead of Fox, but there was a larger problem that television animation was about to encounter. Disney's syndication contract with networks ran only through 1997, meaning that other networks could produce their own shows and make more money. This would leave Disney Animation without a home because Disney didn't own a network. In fact, earlier in the year, they had tried to buy NBC but failed. Total viewership was also in decline during this period, which had to do with VCRs, computers, and video games offering alternatives to television. And to add to the uncertainty of 1994, Jeffrey Katzenberg left the company and he left because he was fired by Michael Eisner.

0:10:12 S1: In a walk in Aspen together, according to Katzenberg, Eisner promised him that if anything happened to Frank Wells, Katzenberg would take over Wells's role as president. Eisner would later say that Katzenberg misunderstood this conversation. Unfortunately, something did happen to Wells. He was killed in a tragic helicopter crash on April 3, 1994. But business stops for no man, and Eisner went back on his word and did not put Katzenberg in Wells's position as president, nor did he name him as his successor. To make matters worse, in a white glove slap to the face to Katzenberg, Eisner took on the role of president himself. This led to a further deterioration of their relationship and Eisner gave Katzenberg his walking papers. Eventually Eisner also refused Katzenberg part of his contract, which stated Katzenberg would get two percent of all profits from any of the projects he had worked on at Disney.

0:11:08 S1: So, like all great Hollywood love stories, they went to court. At one point it came out that Eisner had said he hated that midget, referring to Katzenberg. The case could have been settled for $90 million at one point, but instead it was eventually settled for $280 million in Katzenberg's favor. And then to further complicate matters, Katzenberg went on to form DreamWorks with Spielberg and David Geffen. In the midst of all that, Shnookums and Meat, a funny cartoon show, was being made. Bill Kopp, animator.

0:11:40 Bill Kopp: And then I got a call from Disney Television, which I had never heard of. I didn't even know they had it. And Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston made me an offer. They said, "Hey, we need some new funny stuff and we really think your eat show is funny, and can you come and do a funny show?" And I was like, "Well, like what?" And they were like, "Whatever you want." Seriously. I didn't have to pitch anything. They were just like, "Just come over and we'll do whatever comes out of your head." It was incredible. So I had a sketchbook full of stuff, and I just came in. And they said, "Well, how about a cat and a dog?" I said, "Okay." We started with that, and that must have been 1992 or 1993, something like that. I forget. Pitching at Disney now. I'm not saying [0:12:22] ____. I mean, it's legendarily hard. It's like running a gauntlet. There's all these people in these giant buildings and you just got to carve your way through. And then once you do get into development, you're gonna be there for a year or two just trying to get it through. My experience was, we had lunch and the next week I was there with a contract.

0:12:40 BK: There was no feeling of pressure or ever like, "Oh my God, the wheels are coming off." It never was like that. And we had a saying that Disney [0:12:49] ____. It's like, "Well, if something's... If something crashes, well, I'll just throw money at it." You know. Nobody bothered us. When they said, "You can do whatever you want," they never brought it up. I remember sitting in the editor room with Gary Krisel, who was a great guy, and he'd look at some of the rough animation coming back. He'd look at me and he'd go, "Is that funny?" And we're like, "Yeah, that's funny." He just trusted us, and it was awesome. Now, Jeffie came over one day, as he frequently did, while we were kicking it around. And I said, "The cat's kind of abrasive. So let's give him the opposite kind of name," you know, Shnookum, 'cause he was kind of a dick. And then we were just like, "What the fuck are we gonna call this dog?" We had no clue. Just nothing. And Jeffie came up with the name, and I think we were actually barbecuing something, which we also frequently did. And I think he just said, "Meat." And we had the design already. And I said, "Fuck, that's it."

0:13:40 BK: Shnookums and Meat. A little confusion came when they made the SpaghettiOs though. I had a can of them around here, they finally just deteriorated. I had to get rid of it, it was gonna explode. And it said, "Shnookums and Meat." It was like SpaghettiOs. The lawyers were like, "No, no, no, man. You gotta say that it's not meat. It's not a meat product."

0:13:58 Shnookums: Hey, what happened to your head?

0:14:00 Meat: Hey, what happened to your head?

[music]

0:14:07 Shnookums: Oh my gosh, my brain's gone.

0:14:10 Meat: Oh no, mine is to. What we gonna do Shnookums, what we gonna do? We don't have any brains.

0:14:21 Shnookums: Now, let's stay calm. I don't think you have too much to worry about, but I know I do. They couldn't have gone far.

0:14:27 BK: Right after the first two shorts went on to [0:14:29] ____ said, "Okay, let's make it a whole half hour. What else do you got?" And I just pulled out the Pith Possum, and the Tex Tinstar bit was gonna be a space serial called Guy Guy and the Space Vigilantes. We were all set to go, and then I got a call from John Kricfalusi, and I had Fontanelli there, you know, all of Kricfalusi's guys, [0:14:47] ____ was there. A couple... Eddie Fitzgerald. And John called me. He goes, "Hey man, I heard you're expanding your show, but can you maybe not do a space thing?" Actually, it was like getting a call from the Godfather. He was like, "Yeah, don't do a space thing." And I was like, I go, "Why?" And he goes, "Well, 'cause I'm working on one. I've been working on it for a while." Actually, Fontanelli brought that up to me too. So I just turned it into a western, which was easy because I was happy to accommodate. But I guess he never sold his space thing.

[music]

0:15:14 Speaker 8: Pith Possum. At one time an ordinary laboratory possum. He was changed forever by an experiment gone wrong, an experiment that endowed him with ultra possum-like abilities, turning him into Pith Possum, super dynamic possum of tomorrow. Maintaining his secret identity by cleverly disguising himself as Peter Possum, copy boy for a great metropolitan tabloid. He defends truth, justice, and the forest critter way for the good citizens of Possum City.

[music]

0:15:56 Speaker 9: Let me just grab what I have in store for you. The rope that holds you up Tinstar, will soon be burned through by that candle. When you fall, you'll land head first on this trampoline, which will send you flying into the pen full of rabid badgers. As you go down the ramp inside the pen, this torch will be knocked over, igniting the trail of gunpowder burning toward that cannon. Your barrel will roll toward that cannon and your head will become stuck. The gunpowder will burn the cannon's fuse and the cannon will fire. The blast will ignite the waterproof fuses on the dynamite surrounding your head. The cannon will shoot you through the roof of the barn, and then down into this giant tank full of man-eating sharks. The sharks will eat you. Then the dynamite will explode. The whole mess will be blown skyward and your remains will fall into this envelope, which I will place on a boat bound for Tunisia. So long, Tinstar.

0:16:48 BK: Anyway, and that was Shnookums and Meat, but again, that was so busy and I was the only writer. I wrote all 39 of those because I didn't know any better. After the show was on the air and we were done, Jeffie and I sat around. I went to Hawaii for six weeks to recuperate. I came back and they were just like, "Well, we don't know about the second season." And I mean, Shnookums and Meat was not... It was amazing that they let us do it 'cause it's not Disney, really. Well, it's not out of line, but it's weird. So we were just sitting there waiting to get the word, and I mean the writing was on the wall. I was like, "Yeah okay, there goes that. What are we gonna do next?" And I was there still getting paid. I developed other stuff. Jeffie and I were like, "This is gonna crack, man. What are we gonna fucking do now?"

0:17:34 BK: We didn't have a plan. And then, what happened was they said, "Oh, sorry boys. You're through." And we were like, "Ah fuck, okay well, at least we got that out." I mean that was three in one, dude. You got Pith and Tex, and Shnookum and Meat was actually our weakest link in the thing. And that was the only part that was foisted on us. But right after they canceled it, that was when Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston left to go to Dreamworks, and we were like, "Ah." And it was like a sad goodbye and stuff.

0:18:06 BK: A new executive moved in, and we just weren't part of their plan. Because... And rightfully... They didn't know what to do with us. We were like a weird thing that, they were like, "Huh? Now what with these guys?" But we had a good time. I think we sort of knew in the back of our heads, it was like, "Wow, this will never last here." It isn't Disney material. The real story of that time was they were trying to keep up with Margaret and Fox Kids, and they were right to try crazy things. To their credit, they really, they stuck right by it. And then they... And Gary and Bruce did the same for us at DreamWorks when we went to do Toonsylvania.

0:18:42 S1: Greg Weisman, creator Gargoyles.

0:18:44 GW: We had the Disney Afternoon, which we viewed as sort of like the dragon that you had to feed a virgin to every six months. So every six months, we'd go up in front of Michael Eisner. In those days, Michael personally chose the shows. And we would pitch him six or seven shows. And he knew he always had to pick one to put into production. He could pick more than one, but he had to always pick at least one.

0:19:10 S1: Jymn Magon.

0:19:11 JM: Yeah, what we would do is every week, we would have this writer's meeting that I think it was Wednesday mornings, and it was like any new writers out there, any new talent, any new ideas, it was always looking for what are we gonna pitch? What's the next big thing? And of course, like everything in Hollywood, it was basically, what was the most recent hit film? With Star Wars, Indiana Jones, whatever. But people would come in and they'd pitch all kinds of things. And the things that were noteworthy would get... I'm not sure we did artwork on all of it, but at least we had a list of shows that we would take to the meetings with Eisner and Katzenberg and say, "Okay, this is called Wonder Weenie. It's about a guy in a hot dog suit that gets kidnapped and taken to another planet, where they think he's a hero 'cause of his television commercials." And it was like, Gong. [chuckle] "No, next." And we would just do that. We would come up with these sort of one, two sentence pitches and they would go, "Nah, or yeah."

0:20:13 S1: Greg Weisman.

0:20:14 GW: We were all sort of keeping an eye on Batman, and sort of seeing was this going to be a success or not? It was a serious drama on cartoon, and would that work? Because the conventional wisdom is it always has to be comedy, and often it's a pendulum and that conventional wisdom swings back into the forefront all the time. But Batman was working, it was working so well they tried it in prime time, and then it didn't work in prime time. And so the desire for us to do something along those lines sort of waxed and waned, often with Batman's ratings. And we didn't have superheroes in our camp so to speak, so we didn't wanna do Batman, we didn't wanna copy that, but we wanted to try and do something different. But that's not how Gargoyles came about at all. Those are almost two separate discussions that dovetailed later.

0:21:08 GW: Gargoyles was initially developed as a comedy adventure, very much inspired by and along the lines of Gummi Bears, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which was a show we were really proud of, created by a guy named Jymn Magon. We thought was great. It had this very rich backstory and we thought it didn't get enough respect, and we thought that the main reason for that was because there was brand confusion with Care Bears. Care Bears was a sort of sacchariney sweet, kinda awful show, from my point of anyway. But the brand confusion was understandable because both shows featured cute, cuddly, multi-colored bears. Gummi Bears wasn't that. It was an adventure show. It was funny. It was exciting. It had a great comedic villain in Duke Igthorn and great sidekick in [0:21:54] ____, and great characters, and just a lot of fun. So we set out very consciously to create a show in that vein with the same sort of rich backstory, but that would get more respect. So everything in the 90s, the sort of buzz word was everything had to be edgy. Instead of doing cute, cuddly, multi-colored bears, we did cute, cuddly, multi-colored gargoyles. Gargoyles having been something that fascinated me since I was in high school.

0:22:23 GW: And we thought that's edgier. And instead of setting it in medieval times, we'd have this rich medieval backstory, but we'd set it in the present. We'd have gargoyles have a spell cast on them and they'd wake up in the 20th century, and that seemed edgier too. And so we thought, we can do this kind of show and have this fun comedy adventure with Gargoyles. So we put together a pitch, and we pitched it to Michael Eisner, and he passed. But we really liked the show and my bosses, Bruce and Gary, both really liked it. And they were like, "Well, take another pass at it." So I showed it to a number of people, just the original comedy pitch, to try and get some feedback and see what else I might do with it. One of the people I showed it to was Tad Stones.

0:23:06 TS: Gargoyles had a long history of things that are in a direct line that ended up with Gargoyles. And some of them didn't involve Gargoyles at all. They were gremlins, or whatever. The last thing I'd been playing with I think was a Three Musketeers version of these gargoyles. I had just seen the rough cut of Beauty and the Beast. So again, I'm instrumental. I'm not a genius, at least not in that meeting. Greg had asked me in just to talk about things and be in the discussion with his assistants basically. Again, he was an executive. And I said, "What if he was the last of the gargoyles? This could be your Beauty and the Beast 'cause you've already got the female there." He is one of the fastest thinkers I've ever seen. While he's watching a movie, he is analyzing, dissecting it. And walking out of a movie he'll have all sorts of comments, where I'm going, "Well, I thought the colors were nice." Anyway, he was on to something, he kind of said to his assistant, "Okay, you follow up on the Three Musketeers angle. I wanna work on this."

0:24:07 GW: And that really clicked for me. And so I created the character of Goliath with the artist Greg Guler, and we took the whole show, the whole comedy development and put it through the prism of Goliath and came out the other side fundamentally with the show that made it on the air. And we were so enthusiastic about it, we came up with all these concepts for villains and adventures and stories and put together this huge long pitch and pitched it to Eisner six months after we'd pitched it the first time. And he passed, killed it. And so I thought it was done. We tried. It wasn't the first time I'd pitched a show and it had gotten killed. And the next day we had what we called a postmortem meeting. In those days, Jeffrey Katzenberg was... And Michael ran the whole company, but Jeffrey Katzenberg was head of the studio. And so Jeffrey had been in the meeting with Gary and Bruce and I, and we were having this postmortem meeting where we were discussing actually the shows that Michael had said yes to and what the next steps would be. And so after having this discussion about the yes shows, we all got up to go. And as I'm about to go, Jeffrey said to me, "Oh, and you're gonna work on Gargoyles some more, right?"

0:25:20 GW: And Bruce and I sort of looked at each other, and I was like, "Well no, Michael killed it. He killed it as a comedy. He killed it as a drama. I don't know what else we'd do with it." And Jeffrey said, "Oh, Michael didn't kill it, he just thought it needed more work." Now I had been there the day before, and I knew that he had killed it. But what this was telling me was that Michael may not have liked it, but Jeffrey liked it. And in those days Jeffrey wasn't gonna contradict what Michael had said, but he still felt it was worth pursuing. I also found out later that Gary had talked to Jeffrey about the need to diversify the Disney Afternoon from the standpoint of all we had in those days were very similar, funny animal comedy adventure cartoons, and that if we just kept doing that over and over again, eventually the audience would get bored with those kind of cartoons. No matter how good they were, they'd just get bored with them. And we had to bring other types of things in, which led to shows like Goof Troop, which was really more sitcom than comedy adventure. Shows like Shnookums and Meat, which was more sort of Tex Avery short cartoons, and Gargoyles.

0:26:36 GW: And so we went back to the drawing board for a third time to try and figure out how we were gonna pitch Gargoyles for a third time. And we looked at the show that we had, and we thought, "Nope, this is the show. We don't wanna change the show at all." So the problem isn't the show, the problem is the pitch. And what you realize is that we had just put way too much into the pitch. It had diffused it all and gotten confusing and we hadn't been crisp and clear. So we just pulled things out, things that we eventually did use in the show, but we pulled all these elements out and really narrowed it down to the key idea, which frankly, was the Beauty and the Beast idea.

0:27:16 GW: It was this relationship between Goliath, the lead gargoyle, and Elisa, the cop, who befriends him in the 20th century after he wakes up. And we very much played it like Beauty and the Beast, which actually was a movie that had done very well for Disney recently. So six months later, we pitched it to Michael a third time, and this time they bought it. We had added nothing to this pitch, we just subtracted. I'd reordered a few things. We may have redrawn a card or two just to clarify an idea, but there was nothing new, it was just shorter. Jeffrey turned to me and said, "You added a lot to that pitch didn't you?" And I said, "Yes, I did." And that was history. We went on and made the show.

0:28:03 Speaker 10: One thousand years ago superstition in the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness, it was a world of fear, it was the age of Gargoyles. Stone by day, warriors by night. We were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect, frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years. Now, here in Manhattan, the spell is broken and we live again. We are defenders of the night. We are Gargoyles!

0:29:01 GW: And so, yes, relative to Goof Troop it's dark, but I don't think of it as dark. There's tons of humor in that show. The color palette is rich, full of blues and purples and magentas and neon. It's not a dark show either visually or thematically. It's fundamentally a show about a guy, Goliath, who's an optimist, who believes that the world can be a better place, that bad things happen but they can be fixed, that the next generation can do better or that we can make it better. And so it's got a fundamentally optimistic tone to it. In terms of supervision, the advantage there was that I'd been the executive at Disney for five years when we went into production. I often compare it to a lunatic asylum, TV animation, in that there are inmates and then there are trustees, and the trustees are actually also inmates, but they're considered by management to be less crazy.

0:30:07 GW: So they give the trustee a stick, a baton to keep the other lunatics in line. And so that's how I sort of see my role on Gargoyles. I was the lunatic most trusted. So because of what was going on, both in the larger company and at TV Animation, there were a lot of shows in crisis for various reasons. And because of that and because I was in charge of Gargoyles, which I produced with Frank Paur, we were both producers, but from an executive standpoint it was still me. I was the lunatic most trusted at Disney TV Animation, so they kinda left us alone. And I remember at one point, Frank and I had lunch with Gary during season two and Gary said, "I wanna apologize to you guys. I have not been paying attention to Gargoyles at all. We've had other things going on. How is it going? What's going on? How's it going on the show?"

0:30:54 GW: And we said, "Well, it's going pretty good. Schedule's tough, but we're managing and we're happy with how things are turning out." He's like, "Great. What kind of stories are you doing?" So we started telling him about that and at one point we told him about Xanatos and Fox getting married and having a baby. And he goes, "Whoa, whoa. I wouldn't do that. You can't have the bad guy have a baby. You can't have the bad guy raising a kid. You gonna take the kid away from him? That'll be bad. And if you don't take the kid away from him then you got a villain raising a kid. Don't do that one."

0:31:23 GW: And we were like looking at each other and then I say to him, "Well, we already did it." So there was this long pause. And Frank and I are both sort of like what's gonna happen here? Is he gonna still reject it and force us to sort of tear the whole show apart and start over? And you could sort of tell he's thinking the same thing, like he doesn't like this idea at all. But on the other hand, this was the one show that was going smoothly, and if he rips it all apart, then he's gotta get another show in crisis. So after this long pause, he says to us, "Well, don't dwell on it." I said, "Okay, we won't dwell on it." Whatever the hell that meant, but so we didn't. I mean we didn't do it, we didn't change anything, but that was the kind of thing, we had very little supervision because of where I had come from. We pretty much made the show that Frank and I wanted to make and had almost no interference whatsoever.

0:32:25 GW: Gargoyles was sort of superheroes done without flagging that they're superheroes. No tights, no capes. For all intents and purposes that was the genre we were doing. A year or so later, I was in a meeting with Eisner where he announced his desire to buy Marvel, and I watched his corporate strategic guys talk him out of it and say, "Marvel's a disaster. They've got their rights sold all over the place. So you'd buy the company and then find out you can't make a movie about Spiderman because they've tripled sold the rights to three different companies. And Fantastic Four is being held by this company. And blah, blah, blah, blah."

0:33:05 GW: Now of course, years later Bob Iger just bought it anyway, and yeah, couldn't do X-Men, couldn't do Fantastic Four, couldn't do Spiderman, at least not at first, bought it anyway. Of course, it's been a huge success for Disney. But Eisner was talked out of it that day. So he turned to us, to Gary and Bruce and myself and says, "Can we use Gargoyles to start a Disney superhero universe?" And I said, "Yeah." And we began developing spinoffs, which we would do backdoor pilots for during season two of the show. But by the time those things got on the air, Jeffrey had left the company. Rich Frank had left the company. Frank Wells had died. Bruce had left the company. All the main supporters of Gargoyles had gone, and so that notion of using Gargoyles to launch Disney's own superhero universe sort of fell away.

0:34:01 GW: But for, I don't know, three or four months, it was like this is what we've got to do 'cause we can't buy Marvel, and Warner Brothers has DC. And on one level, and I don't think we even appreciated it at the time, but the great thing about Michael himself picking the shows was that everyone in every division got on board or got out of the way. In the years that followed, when Michael stopped picking the shows personally, those decisions began being made by committee. You found you had to get literally unanimous vote in order to sell a show. You needed not just one important person to say yes, or two or three, but literally you needed something like eight or nine people to say yes. And if even one said no, the others would jump off the show. And it became much harder to sell. So Michael was sort of the last of the moguls from my point of view, and we didn't appreciate it at the time 'cause there were so many shows he passed on that we thought were great, but what we didn't get was yeah, that may have been so but the shows he picked we got to just make. And that hasn't been the same in most places since then.

0:35:12 GW: I think what happened was, is that over time, there was this sort of sense within the corporation that Michael was micromanaging, not from us per se. I don't think it had anything to do with TV Animation, but just in general. And there was this sense that he had to start giving some things up. One of the things he gave up was choosing the animated series, but he didn't invest that power in another individual. Again, sort of became a decision by committee, a committee where any one person could derail something.

0:35:40 Speaker 11: Five-eights today to close at 42 and five-eights, one day after the company announced the resignation of Disney studio's chief Jeffrey Katzenberg. While rumors run rampant about where Katzenberg will end up, Disney chairman Michael Eisner said today, the company will likely produce fewer films.

0:35:57 GW: Jeffrey left. Rich Frank left. A lot of this was in the wake of Frank Wells's death, which was a tragedy in it's own right, but also destabilized the company. Roy Disney was not happy with Jeffrey. Ultimately, not happy with Michael either. So ultimately, both departed and Gary had at least a couple job offers that I know about, maybe more. I think Jeffrey wanted him at DreamWorks and had an offer out to him, and then when Bruce Cranston left to go to Dreamworks, Gary decided that DreamWorks would be a good place to sort of work with Bruce again and reform that team. So Gary also picked DreamWorks. So you had Jeffrey, Gary, and Bruce all at DreamWorks. Those were the three guys who I'd worked with. So at Disney, everyone sort of assumed that I'd be going to DreamWorks.

0:36:50 GW: When my deal was up at the end of the second season of Gargoyles, that I'd leave and go to DreamWorks. And I didn't actually want to. I wanted to stay and do a third season of Gargoyles. But it became this self-fulfilling prophesy. They were so sure I was gonna go to DreamWorks that they stopped inviting me to meetings, 'cause they thought of me as I was already spying for DreamWorks or something. It was kind of ridiculous. But they didn't make a job offer to me until a week before I was leaving, at which point, I did end up going to DreamWorks because I didn't have any other job offers. A week out they finally made an offer to me too late. So I went. And they really kind of made it clear that I wasn't welcome there anymore.

0:37:36 GW: In November of 1995, I wanna say, they came to me, and said they wanted me to do the third season of Gargoyles but they were offering me a demotion from producer to story editor. They said the show was going to be animated at Deak, but Deak had a very bad track record in those days in terms of the look of the thing, and that it would be pre-produced there as well. And they gave me a schedule in November of 1995, where the first script was due in October of 1995. And I looked at the schedule. I said, "Well, do you have a time machine? Because I don't know how I'm supposed to go back and deliver a script in October when it's already November and we haven't started." And they're like, "Well, we know that schedule's gotta be adjusted, but we wanted you to see where it had to end so you'd have to catch up. Not instantaneously, but by the end of the season you'd have to catch up." And so it felt to me like they were asking me to preside over the demise of the show. That they were reducing the budget, reducing the quality of the animation, reducing the quality of all the preproduction, giving us an impossible schedule, and then asking me on top of all that, to take it to motion.

0:38:57 GW: And we didn't even talk about money. That... We didn't even get to that. I just said, "Look, I need the weekend to think about this." And they said, "Great. Take the weekend." And then I came in Monday and they had hired my replacement already. And I said, "What the hell?" And they said, "Oh well, you can still say yes. You're a... We just figured we needed someone in case you said no." Which basically said they were trying to get me to say no. They were trying to make the deal so horrible that I'd say no. So I just said, "Fine, I'll walk away." And so I winded up going to DreamWorks, and they all sort of patted themselves on the back and said, "See, we knew he was gonna go to DreamWorks." But of course they're the reason I went to DreamWorks 'cause they basically kicked me out. Not literally, but basically.

0:39:44 GW: I ended up writing the first episode for them, which they gave to other people to add it into whatever. So the version that got on TV was, I thought, a mess, but still better than the other 12, which were done by good people, but good people who didn't know the show and didn't have time to familiarize themselves with the show. And so those last, that last season of Gargoyles, the fans and I just don't even count it as canon to the series. And we look at the comic book series that I did years later as the sort of true third season. I watched the third season. I watched every episode exactly once. That's not quite true, I watched the one that I wrote more than once, not a lot, but the other 12 I watched exactly once each and made myself do it. I don't know why, but I did. It was very painful for me on a lot of levels, not just again, not just because I didn't think they were very good, which I didn't, even though I know a lot of good people worked on them, but characters were just behaving out of character. And the stories just weren't up to our standards. And it was just a different show.

0:40:57 S1: The original Mighty Ducks movie was made because Eisner's kids liked hockey. So it got a green light. And based on the success of the movie, which the company termed market research, Eisner bought an expansion NHL team and promptly named them the Mighty Ducks. And with that purchase came an addition to the television line up. The Mighty Ducks, the Animated Series, premiered in September 1996, and Joe Barruso, and animation veteran, served as a director and supervising producer.

0:41:27 Joe Barruso: The reason I was able get a job at Disney, and went from Deak to Disney I think had more to do with the fact that the show that I had directed and produced, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, had won an Emmy in '95 as the best children's animated program. And it was one of the first shows that they called edutainment because it had this emphasis on providing real information, whether it was historical or science, in combination with an entertaining story. It was a detective-type story where a couple of younger kids were pursuing Carmen Sandiego. It was based on a computer game that was very popular at that time. They were looking for someone specifically for Mighty Ducks at the time. They needed a producer and director. And so yeah, I went and interviewed specifically for that project.

0:42:20 JB: In the initial meetings they showed me what they had done to that point and it wasn't a lot. It's funny, thinking back on it, it had started because Friends was very popular at that time, hugely successful at that time, so they wanted something like Friends. I remember them pitching it to me that way, and I thought, "Oh well, that's interesting." In the development that I'd seen to that point, when it was the Friend's concept, it was like we had in the show ultimately, it was human characters with duck heads, so it was sort of breaking with Disney tradition in terms of DuckTales and things that were clearly Donald Duck type characters. This was a new twist on the ducks for them. And that wasn't tremendously interesting to me, but then I can't recall at what point it shifted and became more sci-fi based, you know heroes in the image of sort of Ninja Turtles. And that's when David Wise, the editor, came on board.

0:43:22 JB: It was clear it was gonna go that direction. He had had a great deal of experience with Ninja Turtles, editing those shows, so he brought all that thinking and that expertise in terms of that particular genre, in going in that direction. He bought all that. That's when I was excited about... Sci-fi had always been a big interest for me and then anime was just getting really a lot of attention at that time. It really caught my interest, so that when we started talking that way, I was like, "Oh well, this will be great. We can use anime influences on this." But yeah, I think the old school that was there, because it was ducks, was a little uncomfortable. But our character designer, Greg Guler, he had had a longstanding relationship with Disney TV, and so he had done it all. He really knew it inside out. At the same time he had a great interest in superheroes. His background, he had originally come from comic books, so his first love was superheroes. So here he had a chance to combine Disney ducks with superheroes, so it was really a perfect opportunity for him. He was just a fantastic artist. So it all sort of came together.

0:44:32 JB: I was relieved that it was moving away from sort of a Friends sitcom to something more sci-fi and hero based. All our influences in terms of doing the art were harder edged. We never really got to go as far in that sci-fi direction as we would have liked to, but the way it's done is in terms of the development and art direction, it's sort of a consensus. So you have to put it in front of a whole bunch of people. And that included at the time, that included Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz. We had meetings where they reviewed the artwork, and so they would have their input. I was kind of reaching for one end of the spectrum, and them pulling us back to something that was a little more comfortable. I was pleased that we were able to go as far as we did, given what they had done with ducks to that point.

0:45:24 Speaker 13: Six hockey playing ducks appear out of nowhere and suddenly six vigilantes in comic book get-up start showing up whenever there's trouble. Spill it. Where are they from? Another planet?

0:45:36 Speaker 14: Not another planet babe. A whole 'nother universe.

0:45:40 S1: And in this universe, there's a planet inhabited entirely by ducks.

0:45:45 Speaker 15: They called it Puckworld in honor of their greatest hero, the legendary hockey player, Drake DuCaine. He was the ultimate team captain. He saved Puckworld from a horde of conquering aliens, called the Saurian Overlords, hundreds of years ago.

0:46:00 JB: Michael Eisner, he was excited about it because he was excited about the hockey team. So here was just an opportunity to promote it.

0:46:07 Speaker 16: Well, this is sad news indeed for Duck fans. It looks like the Mighty Ducks season long winning streak may be coming to an end. They're tied with the Maine Quahogs with forty seconds remaining at Quahog Center. John Luke [0:46:20] ____ is aiming to score again. Oh, a spectacular save by the Mighty Ducks goalie, Wildwing. You know, not only are these ducks mighty, they're really ducks.

0:46:36 JB: Interesting thing that we did, which was sort of unconventional, was after the shows would come back animated, we would of course assemble them. It was decided that they were not funny enough. I would spend large amounts of time each day sitting with two comedy writers who would rewrite the shows. And rewrite jokes into the shows. And we would sit and we would have to make sure, because the shows were already animated, we would have to make sure that the new lines would work with the mouths that we already had. So, it was a grueling exercise of... They're trying to be funny, trying to... Coming up with jokes, but we had to make sure that they could work in the animation, as it was already completed. That was different, yeah, maybe one in ten were actually worth all the time and energy.

0:47:29 S1: So these hockey playing ducks were attacked by a dinosaur named Dragaunus. Am I hearing you right?

0:47:36 S1: You're bright, you got it babe.

0:47:38 S1: Beautiful. I could have stayed home watching sci-fi chiller theater, but this is much funnier. All right, what happened next?

0:47:48 JB: It was kind of disappointing that it went away just after 26 episodes 'cause there really was a big push behind it. The Disney marketing machine and merchandising machine was behind it entirely. And Mattel was on board entirely for the toy line. And I guess it was the second largest toy line in Canada, second only to Star Wars at that time, which makes sense 'cause it was hockey. And I know for a fact that Mattel was disappointed that it went away 'cause they had planned years of it. It never did horribly, but some weeks it would be just average, but other weeks it would be doing really well, so it was a surprise when we didn't get more episodes. I had worked my whole life towards the point of having the opportunity to do the traditional look, and a big thrill for me was to finally be at Disney, which was a personal goal. And so I was happy that I was able to do Mighty Ducks and sort of kick it up a notch in terms of duck properties.

0:48:47 S1: Jymn Magon. The last show the Disney Afternoon would produce was Quack Pack, a descendant of DuckTales, but with the nephews as teenagers and Donald as the parental figure instead of Uncle Scrooge. It should have been a perfect ending to Disney's run, but some things are not meant to be.

0:49:04 JM: I did move after the Goofy Movie into development on Duck Days, which eventually became Quack Pack. By that time, the whole mindset of the studio was changing. People that were valuable before were being sort of pushed aside and people that weren't valuable were being elevated and there was a lot more what I call baby suits showing up, middle management who were making decisions, creative decisions about things, people who had never made a single frame of film were making decisions. And it just got very strained, and it got so strained that I eventually said I need more money or I'm gonna go somewhere else, which was very, very difficult for me because I loved Disney. I thought I would retire from Disney, and it just didn't happen.

0:49:58 JM: From then on it was just like, I can't even follow what they're doing anymore. Well, it was part of the deal breaker. We were trying something new. We said, "How are we gonna do a series with Donald Duck when nobody can really understand Donald?" He's fine in a short where he goes, "Oh brother," or, "What's the big idea?" That kind of stuff. But to do dialogue is crazy. To try and hang a show on someone that you can't understand was gonna be very difficult. And we had some radical ideas and management looked down their noses at us. And I remember at one point our producer on the show, Larry Latham, was listening to management spouting about something or another. He looked over at me and he just, he did the throat cut, like cut, I'm out here.

0:50:51 JM: And shortly after that Carl Gears and I, who were the executive producers on the show, we just said, "We're happy to continue working on this, but we can't be running the show because management doesn't believe in it." And management said, "Okay fine." They never even called us and said, "What's wrong?" Accepted our statement and, which was basically a big, you know, forget you. And it was like, "Well, they don't care about us anymore." Like I said, that was sort of a turning point, for me anyway. I think it was a turning point for the department as well. But anyway, and I left shortly after that. We had a terrific run, and then just things felt... Started to get weird, that's all.

0:51:36 JM: And again, I can't put my finger on it, but to me, it had a lot to do with we stopped doing what we were good at and started following other people's leads. Every show we did was like number one in its slot, and so it wasn't like, "Oh ratings are slipping, let's do something different." To me, that genre, that style of Disney comedy adventure could still be going as far as I know. But it was like, "No, let's do Shnookums and Meat, and let's do Gargoyles. Let's do things that look like other studios." It just felt wrong to me. But again, I'm not in charge, I don't make those calls, I just, I'm a stupid ass show developer and story editor. I don't get to make the big decisions.

0:52:18 S1: Dean Stefan, writer.

0:52:20 Dean Stefan: And then of course Quack Pack was originally called Duck Days. The way I hear it, and I don't know, 'cause you know. It could be not exactly true, but I think it's true. Jymn Magon and, I think, Carl Gears were set to develop it, and much like Tad Stones was locked in his office for about six months or so when I first started, coming up with Darkwing Duck and all the artwork or whatever. Jymn and Carl were figuring out the show for Duck Days or Quack Pack. And at the time, Home Improvement was a big hit for Disney ABC, and they got the idea that Donald would be like the Tim Allen character. And he would have Huey, Louie, and Dewey, much like Tim Allen was the harried dad of the three kids. And the conceit was gonna be 'cause Donald couldn't really, he didn't have that many phrases he could say that... Disney actually had a list from the 30s they would hand to us, say, "These are the phrases that are recognizable, that Donald said." Because there just weren't that many words that you could make out, the way he talked.

0:53:26 DS: So their conceit was that he would have been a tailgunner in some kind of war and nobody could understand his instructions, so the military sent him to allocution school. And he would learn to speak clearer so that now he could do the sit-comy stuff with the kids and they can interact and stuff like that. So they had this whole thing worked out based upon the harried dad interacting with... And the way I hear it, they went to pitch to Katzenberg and the whole table of Disney suits. And they said, "Okay so, in this Donald, he went to allocution school because nobody could understand him in the military. Now he can speak a lot clearer." And that's about as far as they got.

0:54:07 DS: And Katzenberg says, "Wait, you wanna change the duck? You're gonna change the way Donald Duck talks?" And that was pretty much the end of the pitch, so that was it. So six months of work down the drain, 'cause without that they didn't really have a show. So then it became just really harried and it became Daisy Duck would be a roving reporter, and the kids would be tagalongs and Donald would almost be comic relief. You'd cut to him in the hammock doing gags and stuff like that. And it was a weird time at Disney 'cause we were between shows. And I think I wrote the Bible for Quack Pack, but I guess the show was okay. I'm not sure how it did in relation to the other ones. I don't think of it as one of the great ones.

0:54:49 S1: Jim Peterson, writer.

0:54:51 Jim Peterson: The origin of it is kind of muddled a little bit 'cause it kinda went through a whole bunch of different creative hands. So there was, I think it was originally Jymn Magon's project, and then he ended up leaving Disney. And Carl Gears took over. And then Carl got taken off the project and it was turned over to Kevin Hopps, who was our original story editor on Darkwing. And on the artistic side, Toby Shelton was running it, and they had kind of very different views of just between the two of them, how they wanted the series to run. And Toby really loved classic Donald Duck cartoons, and he kinda wanted to take it that way. And Kevin was more, it seemed, more on the sit-comy kind of stuff. We came in. There had already been a couple scripts written, but we ended up rewriting on what would become essentially the first episode, which was where Donald Duck gets drafted back into the Navy, of course, for some bizarre reason.

[music]

0:56:14 JP: The one that came out, kind of was still watchable was an episode called "The really Mighty Ducks". In it Huey, Dewey, and Louie become superheroes and Donald becomes a super villain called the Duck of Doom. And the whole battle is just about Donald trying to get the boys to clean their room, and they're doing everything humanly possible to, or duckly possible I suppose, to avoid cleaning their room.

0:56:41 Donald Duck: Clean this room or else.

0:56:47 Speaker 20: Clean our room? The nerve of some people.

0:56:50 Speaker 21: We're much too busy.

0:56:52 Speaker 22: We got a million things to do.

0:56:55 S?: We got nothing to do.

0:56:57 JP: And when Duck Days was winding up, it was an era where Disney was letting go of all of their staff writers. During the Bonkers run, they were also doing a couple other series at the time. So there were like 51 staff writers at that point, at Disney TV Animation. And when we finally left at the end of Duck Days, there were less than ten. So part of the reason was that Disney lost their market when Fox acquired the rights to the NFL. And a lot of stations that were independent and carrying the Disney Afternoon, signed up with Fox and had to drop the Disney Afternoon for the Fox cartoons. But at the time, that was our perception on the executive explanations for why the affiliates were dropping the Disney Afternoon. So that and also, at the same time, Turner acquiring Hanna-Barbara. Then he let go of all of the staff writers and decided to go freelance, and Disney kind of followed suit on that 'cause there were a bunch of writers available on the freelance market that didn't used to be available.

0:58:01 S1: In 1997 Disney purchased ABC, which was the final nail in the coffin for what had been known as the Disney Afternoon. Not only was that over, syndication was basically over as well. With their new network, Disney went full Nickelodeon, even bringing in Geraldine Laybourne who headed the Nickelodeon network. And Disney Television Animation changed quickly in response.

0:58:24 S1: In an attempt that the press called The Nickelodeonization of Disney, they bought Doug out from under Viacom and brought in Joe Ansolabehere who helped develop Hey Arnold! And Paul Germain who co-created Rugrats, to launch Recess, which became the flagship show of Disney's One Saturday Morning. With One Saturday Morning, Disney would retake the title of the number one kids block. The shows were far different than what had been done in the past, and the familiar faces that had transformed television animation like Gary Krisel, Greg Weisman, Mark Zaslove, and Jymn Magon, no longer wandered the halls. But a few were still there. Tad Stones.

0:59:02 TS: They had a luncheon at the rotunda restaurant where they invited the key people in the department, key creative people in the department were all there for the executives to introduce themselves. And Jerry Laborne, [0:59:17] ____ that she's talking about her direction. And she says, and obviously they had worked this out before. Says, "Dean, I hate ducks." And then that was Dean Valentine, and he replied. "I hate ducks too." Which was basically crapping on 80 percent of the people in the room, to say nothing of you would not have been offered a job because there would be no job to be had if it wasn't for those shows that you're currently crapping on. I was luckily on vacation during that luncheon. I don't know how I would have reacted. I wouldn't have said anything, but I might have walked out, which would've had the same effect. But it was totally disrespectful.

1:00:00 TS: You can certainly say, "You guys have done a fantastic job. And now the market's changing, we want to do something entirely different and we're looking for new ideas, and here's the ideas we're starting with." It's like, "Why do you have to piss on something to move forward?" So that was, again, this... They had a pitch, they had a strategy. Upper upper managment had signed off on it. So it's just basically, here's our show runners and some of you are gonna be working on these shows and some of you are not. So it's just a management thing. It's not like a slow evolution. It is just, "Hey, this is what we're doing now." And it's like, "Okay, are we doing any more of that?" "No, we're not gonna do any more of that, but we're still gonna do those feature spin-offs 'cause they're still doing well."

1:00:45 TS: That's that, you know.

[music]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-look-back-machine/id1257301677?mt=2

#disneylandparis art disneypic spongebob disneyresort disneyaddict disneystore movies lgbt instagood disneymagic dc tvshows xboxone nintendos #disneyland disney disneygram disneyworld disneylife instadisney waltdisney disneyparks disneyphoto mickeymouse love waltdisneyworld disneypr

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easyhairstylesbest · 4 years ago

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Your Husband Cheated. Should You Be Able to Sue His Mistress?

“Did you say things like you love Elizabeth Clark?”

“Yes. She was my wife. Of course I would have said that at the time.”

“Okay. And did she say she loved you back?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“And did you love her at the time?”

“No.”

“You’re saying you didn’t love your wife.”

“No.”

“You just said you loved her?”

“Yes.”

That was the first time that Elizabeth Clark was in the same room as her ex-husband, Adam, and his new partner, Kimberly Barrett, the woman he’d cheated with. Though Adam and Elizabeth had been sharing custody of their two children since they separated, she hadn’t really seen Kimberly “face-to-face,” just brief flashes through car windows and the like, not “in the flesh.” But now here was Kimberly, seated to Elizabeth’s left, while her husband of nearly eight years sat on the witness stand answering questions about the demise of their marriage. As he spoke, Elizabeth tried not to look at anyone but the lawyers and the judge. But she believed Adam was lying. At the time of their separation, he had told her how much he truly cared about her, and she believed him. So much so that she sued Adam and Kimberly. In particular, she sued Kimberly for “alienation of affection,” a legal term used to describe the breakup of a marriage by a third party.

Cases like hers are rare in the U.S. overall, but they are somewhat common, though controversial, in North Carolina, where Elizabeth and Adam live. For such a claim to be successful, the plaintiff has to show that some degree of love existed in the marriage; that this existing love and affection was alienated and destroyed; and that the malicious conduct of a third party contributed to its loss. To defend herself against the lawsuit’s claims, Kimberly argued Adam’s affection couldn’t be alienated if it didn’t exist in the first place. As his testimony went on, Elizabeth couldn’t help but break down crying. But, she says now, “The only way to help yourself is standing up for yourself.”

Alienation of affection lawsuits are rare in the U.S. overall, but they are somewhat common, though controversial, in North Carolina.

MIKE BELLEME

The story of how Elizabeth and Adam Clark got to the courthouse that day in August 2019 begins about a year earlier at a restaurant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Elizabeth was working as a bartender. One night as she poured beers for two attorneys, Michael Porter and Jose Coker, she told them about how her marriage had ended because her husband had cheated with another woman and gotten her pregnant. Porter and Coker said they thought they could help her, and the next day, Elizabeth found herself sitting in Porter’s office laying out evidence as they explained how she might be able to sue for alienation of affection.

The legal argument behind such cases dates back to colonial times, when wives were considered the property of their husbands. Under common law inherited from England, men (and only men) could sue for harms they faced when women were unfaithful. Sex wasn’t a prerequisite. A mother-in-law who poisoned a wife against her husband could be labeled as an alienator; so could a church that convinced a wife to join the convent.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, alienation lawsuits flourished in the U.S. Even one of the nation’s most esteemed families was ensnared: In 1911, the millionaire playboy Alfred Vanderbilt married a divorcée whose husband threatened to sue for alienation. (The two settled out of court.) Many believed the lawsuits helped to reinforce good morals, though critics argued such policies were sexist. In response to demands for equality, states started to enact Married Women’s Property Acts in the 1800s, granting married women the ability to own property and collect wages—and file alienation of affection lawsuits.

“The only way to help yourself is standing up for yourself.”

But the move toward equality also caused a reconsideration of the legal tactic altogether. Could spouses really be considered property that could be stolen? Over time, many came to believe the markers of a modern marriage—respect, admiration, teamwork—could not be mandated by a court. The media showed how claims could be used for blackmail, greed, and revenge, and in the early 1900s, states began repealing alienation of affection statutes. Today, they are allowed in just six states—Hawaii, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, Utah—but are infrequent in all but North Carolina, which has the highest number of such lawsuits in the nation. The Family Law Section of the state’s bar association has tried to persuade legislators to revoke the tort, but has been repeatedly thwarted by socially conservative organizations. “This tort has a strong lobby,” says Carolyn Woodruff, a North Carolina attorney. Experts estimate the state sees about 200 such cases each year. Both men and women sue, typically targeting defendants capable of paying the awards. Because lawyers are “savvy” about vetting cases, Woodruff says, “most plaintiffs win.”

When her courtroom battle began in the summer of 2019, Elizabeth Clark knew what she was up against. Both she and Adam took turns on the stand describing their marriage. They had gotten engaged in 2010 after dating for more than a year. They planned their wedding in a hurry because Adam, then a captain in the U.S. Army, was stationed in another state. She bought a wedding dress at Kohl’s, assembled the cake from a mix in a box, and invited whatever family could make it. But, as she told the jury, the weekend of the ceremony, Elizabeth discovered Adam had been messaging other women. He consoled her, explaining it away, and Elizabeth celebrated as best she could. Still, after the wedding, Elizabeth couldn’t shake the feeling that Adam was cheating. She created an ad on Craigslist, where she had found him trolling for women, to see if he would reply. Instead, she wound up connecting with a man she’d previously dated, she told the jury, and the two of them carried on an affair for a few months before Elizabeth and Adam confronted each other about their mutual infidelities and promised to recommit.

After that rocky start, things seemed to improve. They went to marriage retreats, talked to a chaplain, and tried to strengthen their bond by writing love letters. Their son was born in 2014, their daughter in 2015. Adam proved himself a devoted father. “I thought it was going very amazing,” Elizabeth told the jury. “He was very loving, very caring, very affectionate.” Little did she know, Adam still had reservations, which he confessed to years later in court. In the spring of 2016, Adam met Kimberly, an army ob-gyn, when he was sent to Virginia for several months of leadership training. He and the 14 others in his class, including Kimberly, became close, working out as a group and periodically having dinner on weekends. Elizabeth felt a change in her husband’s behavior. She testified, “He wasn’t coming home as often. He started staying up there. He wasn’t texting me as often.” Late one night, she called his room and couldn’t reach him. Through a tracking app, she discovered his phone “pinging [at] the other end of the hotel.”

When Elizabeth asked Adam about his changing behavior toward her, he brushed her off. But when he came home one July weekend, Elizabeth checked his phone and saw he was texting with someone. When she called the number, she heard a woman’s voice, she told the jury.

Elizabeth Jamison (formerly Clark) and one of her lawyers, Michael Porter, who told her she might be able to sue for alienation of affection after learning of her husband’s affair.

MIKE BELLEME

Elizabeth saved the number and was able to figure out the woman’s name. When she asked Adam if he knew someone named Kimberly, he insisted they were just friends. But, Elizabeth would testify, she remained suspicious. Then, in August, she got the confirmation she was seeking: Adam had sent Kimberly a photo of his penis.

Two weeks later, Elizabeth and Adam separated. North Carolina mandates a separation agreement be in place for a year before couples legally file for divorce. The period is supposed to be a time for both parties to think about their decision. Elizabeth and Adam continued to see each other in the messy, complicated way many newly fractured couples do. “He would keep coming over and seeing the kids and in between—I mean, I was doing a lot of crying. And he was holding me, and we had sex a couple of times,” she told the jury. They continued to see each other on and off for months. She wanted to make the marriage work. In August of 2017, to keep him interested when they were apart, she sent him a topless photo.

The final straw came soon afterward, when Elizabeth learned Kimberly was pregnant. Adam had given her his sperm to use for IVF treatment, according to trial testimony. Kimberly told Elizabeth’s lawyer in court she wasn’t aware of the extent of the sexual relationship Adam was still having with his wife at the time:

“Did your partner tell you that he was still telling his wife [at] the time that he loved her and sending sex videos to each other?”

“No.”

“…What was he telling you about the relationship?”

“He told me their relationship was over, that the divorce would be finalized September 11th.”

“He lied to you; didn’t he?”

“I don’t know—”

“He didn’t tell you about that?”

“He didn’t tell me about this.”

The final straw came when Elizabeth learned Kimberly was pregnant. Adam had given her his sperm to use for IVF treatment, according to trial testimony. In August 2018, Elizabeth filed her alienation of affection lawsuit.

MIKE BELLEME

It is not unusual to see wronged spouses in North Carolina be awarded millions of dollars in damages. In 2011, a Wake County judge awarded what is believed to be the largest alienation of affection judgment in state history—$30 million—to Carol Puryear, against Betty Devin for breaking up Carol’s marriage to her husband, Donald Puryear. Proponents say these cases protect families by deterring infidelity and treating marriage as a contract like any other. Without such repercussions, what is there to prevent cheating? “If you see these large monetary awards, and you’re considering having an affair, you might think again about it, right?” says Marcia A. Yablon-Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. On the other hand, she says, some of the judgments in North Carolina have been excessively punishing, especially given how common adultery is. And while such cases are known as “heart balm”—torts meant to soothe the heart of someone who has been wronged—the acrimony caused by the lawsuits arguably creates more strife for the plaintiff and their family, especially when there are children involved. Others say the fact that such cases are rampant in North Carolina but nowhere else calls their legitimacy into question.

“The good outweighs the harm,” insists Porter, Elizabeth’s attorney. “The alternative would be that she would have no recourse.” Elizabeth and Adam’s divorce was finalized in February 2018; she received nine months of alimony, or $4,950.

In the months that followed the divorce, Elizabeth and Adam’s relationship grew more combative. Adam and Kimberly built a house on land he had once shared with Elizabeth. Over time, Adam disputed the amount of child support he had agreed to during the separation and ultimately stopped paying it, according to trial testimony. Elizabeth also saw the topless photo of herself that she had sent Adam (and only Adam) posted online in a solicitation for sex. (An investigation later traced the origin of the photo to Adam’s IP address.)

Elizabeth was awarded $3.2 million. Adam was ordered to pay $2 million; Kimberly, the remaining $1.2 million. While it is unlikely Elizabeth will receive the full award, her lawyer is confident she will receive some portion over time.

MIKE BELLEME

In August 2018, Elizabeth filed her alienation of affection lawsuit. In court, Porter presented Kimberly as desperate to start a family. “Ladies and gentlemen, she had spent her whole adult life on her career, which unfortunately sometimes leads you to a place where you’re over 40 and you realize, Oh no, I never had that family that I also want.… And now here I am and it’s getting too late.” So, Porter argued, she decided to steal the life that Elizabeth had built for herself: husband, children, and home. The defendants’ lawyers presented the marriage as troubled from the start and Elizabeth as an adulterer in her own right.

After 51 minutes of deliberation, the jury came back with a verdict: Elizabeth was awarded $3.2 million. Adam was ordered to pay $2 million; Kimberly, the remaining $1.2 million. The judge also awarded Elizabeth $10,000 in liquidated damages under North Carolina’s so-called “revenge porn” statute for the topless image Adam had posted. While it is unlikely Elizabeth will receive the full award, Porter is confident she will receive some portion over time. Adam and Kimberly, who have since married, are appealing.

Elizabeth reverted back to her maiden name, Jamison, and has also remarried. When she meets the new Mr. and Mrs. Clark, the interactions are formal. Even though, at press time, she hasn’t seen any of the money, Elizabeth says she’s gained something intangible from the experience. “I just want people to know that it’s okay. Help yourself. It’s the only way,” she tells me. “This was my way of going, ‘Don’t be afraid. Speak out.’”

This story appears in the February 2021 issue.

Sushma Subramanian Sushma Subramanian is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Mary Washington and author of How to Feel: The Science and Meaning of Touch.

Your Husband Cheated. Should You Be Able to Sue His Mistress?

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elevenhoursinfront-blog · 8 years ago

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7th September 2017

Thursday. Finally. We love Thursdays. Not the actual working day because it’s extremely long but knowing that it’s Friday tomorrow is far too exciting. I was starving and had my breakfast straight away. Steve made our lunch which was good. We used the ham we bought from IGA deli counter 1kg for $10. We got to work and the rumours had started about an early finish. We’re not getting our hopes up ever again because last time, morale went to an all time low. Apparently, we’ll be done by the end of the day and we wouldn’t have to go in tomorrow… I’d rather go in tomorrow as it’s such a short, easy day. It’s a good $200 that we would lose out on. We started work and Tristan asked me to take Steph’s place again. Oh God. The worst thing about it, is that it’s the other side of the troth too. I stand on the right and the belt is on my left. The papers and plastic is to my right. Everything on the opposite side, is the opposite way… It takes me twice as long to pack because I go to the wrong place for the wrong things. I’m usually like a robot and go fast because I can get things without looking. It’s difficult mentally to change and go fast. After an hour, I went back to my position. How excited. I love my spot and my I <3 U banana. The first session went quickly and I was packing fast. Really fast. I had no idea why, maybe I thought about going home early and chucking this week away. We sat there at first break and we knew that we were going home early should we finish the bananas bought in by the humpers. The humpers had finished for the day and got to go home then. We had about 13 trailers of bananas to do and we can do about 7 in an hour. Here goes… We did the second session and I had to take Maggie’s place as she went home. Maggie stands at the back but on the right hand side. Everything was in the same place so I was able to go fast but time is taken up by chucking all the leftover bananas away. It’s a right pain the bum. I like my spot up front where all I worry about is grabbing the good bananas first. I was standing opposite Steph and she packs really fast. I had to keep up with her because she can’t move the trailer belt without my side being clear of bananas too. I felt like I had done 90 boxes by the time the belt went, but I only done 60. 60 is still a lot but it wasn’t worth the sweat I was soaked in. We sat at break with only 5 trailers left. We were going to be going home on time but with no work tomorrow. We’re happy either way. We worked really fast on the last session, especially the boys. They ended up cutting the bananas way to fast that they all had to stop and sort bananas. I laughed to myself watching like 10 men throwing away ugly bananas. After about 15 minutes, they went back to cutting. They filled the belt up too much that we couldn’t sort them, break them or move the belt with some falling onto the floor. We finished the bananas at 1520. We had until 1610 to do the cleaning. I showed Kat what to do as it was her first week and she hadn’t done the cleaning session yet. There’s so many girls so the job is done pretty quickly. We finished around 1600 and went to the break area. I saw Steve still cleaning so I went over to him. He told me that he held his first snake! What!! He said he had to hold it by the head so it didn't bite him. Blayde said it was a night tiger. Rather him than me... Vicki has been off sick for the last two weeks and she came in today which was nice. We got into the van and left for the weekend. Yes, three day weekend, wahoo! We got back from work and we were knackered. I FaceTimed my mum for a little bit as she had got home from nights the same time we got home. She said that her cat, Willow, is very quiet and down. I think he’s realised now that Tazzy has gone. After I rang Mum, I had to ring the Tax people. I received a text last Thursday saying that my money would be deposited into my bank within 3 business days. It’s now Thursday, again, and I haven’t received anything. Steve got his on Monday. After speaking with countless automated people, I finally got through the someone. She said the my bank bounced the money back and they’ve sent me a cheque. No no no! WHY?! My postal address is the address of Mad Monkey where we stayed in Sydney. I tried to change it to where we are now but the website didn’t recognise it. To be fair, you’re meant to change your address with EVERYTHING here but we can’t. Our medicare, tax file number, our RSA/White Cards etc… They would need to send new cards and by the time they do that, we’ll be at the next place needing to update it again. I told the woman I was no longer at that address so she cancelled the cheque and said she would try the bank account again, although it would now take up to 28 days. What a pain, why so long? Not that I need it, it’s just annoying it happened this way. I got showered and into my pjs. It was already 1930 by the time I had finished doing the above. I was too tired to make dinner, so we went without, again. What a surprise. We need to do a food shop to be fair, and, people went to Coles and didn’t ask us. We’ll have to wait until next time. Someone knocked on our door and I expected it to be Ciar. It wasn’t - it was Cait and Mitch. They were both drunk but Mitchel was s m a s h e d. He was absolutely gone. We sat round the courtyard table for a while chatting away, mainly laughing at those two. Eventually they went inside and other people joined us at the table. It was around 2100 and I started getting really tired. I told Steve I was going inside to bed and he came with me. We got into bed and I fell asleep straight away. Gone for the night, a fairly late night for me.

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theskoomacat · 8 years ago

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I translated this (x) monologue of one of the survivors of homophobic repressions in Chechnya as I think it will provide a lot of useful information on the current situation. (+ notes from another article in the end)

I beg you to at least skim through this as a lot of misinformation is being shared here rn.

Apologize for any mistakes. Tw for homophobia, torture, death, suicide, drugs, alcohol, abuse?

“ I’m gay. I’m not open about it. Even my wife doesn’t know. She’s pregnant with our fourth child. I have a big family, but no one knows that I’m gay. But if i get a chance to meet with someone, I’m not going to refuse. I need it. I don’t think that’s my fault. Maybe it’s natural, maybe it’s a sickness.

In our republic no one wears piercings, long hair, etc; no one shows their orientation. Do I look like I’m gay? Neither do others. A lot of them have families. As a matter of fact, everyone has a family. We don’t come out here. No one uses their real photos on dating websites. None of the local gay people know each other’s real names, where they work, live. Everyone has a nickname, it makes things difficult. They look for Musa, but actually you are Saeed.

I worked - and I worked hard, we had enough money. I had a friend, he is gay as well. We met rarely, very rarely. And we had a mutual acquaintance. Don’t know what they two had in common. I knew both of them. People saw them talking to me. And then that acquaintance introduced me to his relative. And then that relative was arrested for something - and, it seems, they looked through his phone. His contacts made them realize he wasn’t straight. That lead them to me.

A policeman called me: “Where are you? Get ready, I’m coming over.” I immediately swapped my phone for another one, without any contacts. Came out of the house - they were already there. Bent me over in the car so I couldn’t see where we were going. I understood from the start that they took me for being gay. Rifled through my phone, didn’t find anything.

Lead me into a basement. Doors were this thick, it was damp there. It was very hard. That boy was already there - the relative of that man. And our mutual acquaintance was let go - for turning us in.

They have been beating me up for the first few hours. I had a big hematoma here, my ribs were broken. Then electrocution. A special coil, metal pegs on ears or hands - and here we go. I endured. It was more painful morally. Like they say, you can recover from a stab wound, but not from a wound made by a word. They ruined my psyche. They were looking for my friend - couldn’t find his number. I told them I knew everyone like acquaintances, like neighbours, that I have a family. I said: if I’m gay, bring a single man here who will confirm that I was with them. I will swear it’s untrue. And I would swear.

They guy who was with me - an athlete, handsome. A very good guy. He didn’t surrender either. Only shouted very loudly. I yelled to him: make up something for them. He was in so much pain.

There were a lot of rooms in that basement. You can hear everything but you can’t see it. We spent a week there. They didn’t feed us at all. Just starved us. No food, no water. They allowed us to pray. You go to the toilet, perform your ablution and drink quickly.

There is a guy in [Chechnya’s capital]. He is famous among gay people as a style icon. Naturally, the straights who see him suspect, but can’t tell for sure. And the soldier who interrogated me, it seemed, has been looking for information for a long time. But they still had no proof. They found him, brought him there. I am being interrogated, and suddenly they bring him in. “Do you know him?” Thankfully, we saw each other. I say: I don’t. And that guy heard that I didn’t tell them anything about him. And he said he didn’t know me neither. They started lying to him: he says you’re gay. He responds: how? I don’t know him at all, we’re not friends. And they can’t accuse him, so they let him go. He’s abroad now. Everyone was lucky he got out in time. He has no children, he lives his own life. And he wouldn’t endure this torture.

While they held us there they finally found my friend’s address. Came to his home but his parents said he is in Rostov. And warned him afterwards. He immediately sold his real estate at half-price and left the country. It saved us. They let us go soon.

They told me not to leave, to be available at any time: “No word to anyone, be in contact with us all the time”. Me and my family have been planning to move right before everything happened. And, of course, as soon as I was free we moved. I started working, slowly everything came back to normal. Only I turned completely grey, people couldn’t recognize me on the street.

My relatives… If they learned about it, they wouldn’t even let me be killed - they would kill me themselves. They wouldn’t tolerate this disgrace. They knew I was arrested, but they didn’t know for what. They asked the policeman who brought me there - he said he didn’t know, was just transporting me. My relatives were upset, he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, he’s proper, doesn’t do anything bad. One policeman said there were rumours that I was gay. [Relatives said] “How can he be gay, he has a family.” But they didn’t look for me anymore. I came home and told everyone: “They were looking for my acquaintance, wanted to find him through me”. Later one of my relatives led me aside and said: “I heard a rumour, I almost died from shame”. I’m like, that’s not true, how can I be gay, you know me, that’s all lies.

And at the same time the wave [of gay people disappearing] started. How did it happen? An obsession has started in our republic… An obsession as in - vodka has been banned. You almost can’t buy alcohol anywhere, only in two-three places max only during few hours. Everyone switched to pills - [i don’t know how to translate these names], psychoactive. A lot of people got hooked on them. And one guy got arrested for that. They confiscated them, took his phone: found “Hornet”, photos. Began taking people starting from there. Such a tragedy happened because of this accident.

People were held in Zozin-urta. I know this for a fact. My relative works there. He doesn’t know about me. Calls me and says: “How’re you doing? Can you imagine we have so many gays in Chechnya?” I say: Really?? How can this be? “Turns out, we now have 200 people arrested for that. Even that one guy.” He’s a local celebrity. I say: “I can’t believe that”. “Yes, he was brought in. We’ve got the authority to catсh them now.” I ask: why? “To disgrace them. We call their relatives, turn on the camera, well, and - your guy is like this, do something about it. We do it or you do it. You kill him or we do, choose.” They film probably to have evidence.

A man I knew was taken back then. They let him go, he died at home by himself the next day. I know names of those killed by relatives. There was one guy, from Poland or Germany, he could come and go. A cheerful guy. He came to the republic - he was caught as well. They held him for 40 days. When he left his legs were black.

Why did I ran away? My previous neighbour called: soldiers came, were looking for me. She lied to them she didn’t know to where we moved. One of my acquaintances was caught the same day. Let them go almost immediately - weren’t looking for him. But he heard them say my name. He called me: hide, disappear, they’re coming after you.

I got scared, started running between acquaintances. Didn’t trust anyone. Only a friend told me [about the “Russian LGBT Network” hotline]. Although, I’ve heard about it from other people, but I didn’t believe. Everything can be bought, and I have a family. Not for myself - I need to live for my family, I have children, I can’t take risks. But I listened to him, trusted my friend, and here I am now. My parents don’t know where I am. I didn’t even tell my wife. I lied that an acquaintance offered me a job. She was like, if it’s really so good, go.

I barely started recovering from all this, I drink glycine, pills. Forget about being beaten up - but psychologically… They psychologically killed me there. If it wasn’t a sin to hang myself, I would do it. I sleep and jump up with fear. I come outside and I feel like I’m being watched. I’m scared of phones. If a car stops next to me, I dash aside. I don’t even want to live in Moscow. They’re everywhere.

There is no way back for me. I don’t know where I’m going, what is going to happen to me. I know one thing: if I manage to successfully move I’m finding a job and taking my family with me. And not even my children - my grandchildren are not going to return to Chechnya. As long as I am alive I won’t let them. I am scared for them. I know how much my children are attached to me. My daughter doesn’t go to sleep if I’m not around. She cries, do you get it? And I can’t go home right now.

How did I deserve this? I want to lead a normal life like everyone. To work. To drink, to eat. To pay taxes. I never oppressed anyone, never asked anything from anyone. I’ve been working my entire life. I am not guilty that I am gay. I don’t organize pride parades against their will. And if a person gets caught in a situation, I don’t think he should be killed. It shouldn’t be advertised. He should be helped. Maybe put him in a hospital. Maybe there is a cure. Or we need to resign ourselves to it. “

This (x) article also contains info provided by the aforementioned “Russian LGBT Network”. 4-5 people call them for help every day. They’re trying to organize psychological rehabilitation for all survivors, but it’s hard because men don’t want to seem weak. People don’t believe anyone (for a good reason) so it’s hard to come in contact with them and help them, the ones who do do so because their only other option is to be killed. The survivors say the most dangerous people to them are their relatives - they don’t blame them though because that’s just how things are. A lot of refugees can’t get a job because they’re afraid that if they reveal their documents they will be found - the network is getting messages that people from Chechnya even started to come to other regions to look for their “disgraced” relatives. The government calls all this unconfirmed information, but all these people have no reason to lie about all this, moreover most of them have obvious injuries after the torture they were through. There is a chance this shit is slowly starting in neighbour regions.

Thank you for reading

#russia #gay #lgbt #lgbtqia #chechnya

18 notes · View notes

earth-species-love-awakening · 8 years ago

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This is a controversial topic, but please attempt to consider it with an open mind. From “Slavery. It’s Still a Thing.” by Christopher-Sebastian McJetters

Hey, everyone. I’m a black guy! I know it’s probably obvious to some of you when you look at me. But some people don’t see race. So I have to make it clear. Otherwise, this fact will escape them entirely.

Very recently, I rounded up a group of people and asked them a simple question: “Why do we consume animals?” The responses were as simple and concise as the question itself:

“Because I like it.”

“They’re not like us.”

“We’re just superior.”

“We have higher intelligence.”

“It’s perfectly natural.”

“God put them here for us.”

“We’re more important.”

“They don’t feel pain the same way we do.”

“It’s just an animal.”

“They don’t reason or have complex emotions.”

“Because we can.”

“I NEED to.”

“I was raised on a farm. Nothing wrong with it. We’ve done it for generations.”

Okay, great! Second question then: “Why don’t we reinstitute slavery in the United States?”

SLAVERY?!

I always want to have a camera to record the expressions when I ask that question. Let’s think about it though. Are not all of these justifications the same ones that pre-Civil War Americans used to justify keeping African slaves?

Uh oh. Battle stations, everyone. I could almost see the mental wagons starting to circle. More than half of these people were Afro-American, and they were having none of my foolishness. Not even a little bit of it. But it wasn’t just the blacks. The white people in the group were looking uncomfortable too. The expression on their faces was priceless. Hoodwinked! I’d drawn these two disparate groups into a subject that dare not speak its name.

There was so much fidgeting in the room that I could no longer tell if we were having a discussion or if we had declared an impromptu interpretive dance.

This response is not uncommon. I’m used to it; American slavery is the elephant in the room. However, constructive dialogue is the only way we can ever heal systemic injustice. Ignoring it only serves to perpetuate the oppression. But this goes deeper than American slavery. It’s about the mindset that allowed American slavery to take root at all. At least everyone in the room could agree upon the fact that white folks should no longer be making black folks pick their cotton. Unfortunately, we seem to be perfectly comfortable with the captive breeding, torture, forced labor, and killing of others right now. But why?

If I were having this conversation 200 years ago with a white person about owning black people, I would be met with the same level of skepticism. Actually, no … this conversation would not have happened at all 200 years ago because I would be far too busy singing negro spirituals and shucking corn to articulate a position. But you get the picture. Why does one form of slavery get a pass, while we recognize the obvious violation of the other? And why do we get so doggone angry and uncomfortable when we identify these parallels?

Let’s take a moment to unpack some of our prejudices against others. Let’s look at some of the common visceral reactions experienced by people of color when discussing oppression. Let’s push past our current perceptions, and put ourselves in the place of the victims rather than the established system that advantages us.

How dare you compare black people and animals? Those two groups are nothing alike!

Allow me to make a point of clarification. Humans are animals. Whether or not you believe that we are conceived from a common ancestor with bonobos, we don’t exist outside of the animal kingdom. So it’s important to deconstruct the narrative that pits “us” against “them.” Also, let’s listen to the correct part of the conversation. This is not a comparison of human animals to non-human animals. This is a comparison of like systems of oppression. Whether talking about white humans and brown ones or horses and pigs, slavery is an abuse of power. That’s what we’re here to examine.

I wish you would stop saying slavery. It’s not the same thing.

Language is important. The very definition of slavery is the treatment of one group as property to be bought, sold, and forced into work by another group. If non-human animals are not slaves, are they then free? There are not many animals I know of that exist within human society who voluntarily engaged in this system. Cows do not clock in and clock out. They don’t go home to their families. They don’t have conversations in the lunchroom. And the only retirement package available to them at the end of their painful lives is a violent death when their usefulness to us has run out.

Of course, coming to terms with the sobering reality of slavery is probably the most difficult mental hurdle to overcome when having these discussions. Because if we are forced to acknowledge that slavery is wrong and that non-humans are slaves, then we have a moral obligation to talk about abolition. The repercussions for our economic structure and, indeed, our way of life could be devastating. But I imagine it wasn’t easy for pre-Civil War Americans either.

I’m not a bad person. Are you calling me a slave owner?

In America’s historic narrative, it’s easy to paint slave owners as villains, and abolitionists as heroes. But slave owners were not all bad people. Likewise, racists are not all bad people. Racism and slavery are constructs that make otherwise good people engage in really bad behavior. Unfortunately, we were all born into this construct that privileges some of us over others. The key is to unlearn the conditioning that teaches us that any form of oppression is okay.

But comparing black ancestors to pigs is insulting and degrading, and it trivializes the oppression they went through.

Say it with me now—a comparison between like systems of oppression is not a comparison between two species of animal. But even if we were comparing marginalized groups of humans and non-humans, why do we find that offensive? At the root, most of us are insulted because we feel like we’re better than another group based on physical distinctions. This is discrimination. When one group of humans does it to another group of humans, we call it racism. When humans do it to non-humans, this is called speciesism.

Any criteria we use to establish dominance over or to except another group is discriminatory. See, the yardstick used to measure differences between “us and them” is always going to start “us” off at one-and-a-half inches. And a house built with false measurements is destined to fall down. The very act of seeking to point out our differences in a society is a rigged system designed by its very nature to determine who is better. Throughout American history, blacks have always found themselves the victims of a hierarchy that inherently favors whites. To that end, non-humans throughout the whole of history have suffered the same fate, and still do today with no end in sight.

Well what black people have suffered is far worse.

This is all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? From the standpoint of the victim, one could argue that what is happening to non-humans is actually much worse. During the 18th and 19th centuries, approximately 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. Nearly 10 billion land animals alone are killed each year to produce meat, dairy, and eggs. And that’s just in the United States. That number increases to 65 billion globally (or 6 million every hour)[1]. So strictly by numbers, non-humans have Africans beat. It could also be argued that since this exploitation existed prior to the African slave trade and still exists now, it’s an aggression that deserves strong consideration.

But where is the value in tallying up who has suffered the greater injustice? Why should we choose to take on the narrative that one group has been more deeply aggrieved than another? Establishing a hierarchy of oppression only serves to help the oppressor. The better narrative—the stronger narrative—is in choosing to seek freedom for everyone. Otherwise, we’re only fighting for the right to oppress someone else. Solidarity is the key to establishing equality. Division only perpetuates more tyranny.

This is all well and good, but consuming animals is a personal choice. You’re forcing your beliefs on me.

Again, this is a matter of perspective. We should take a sober look at the kind of aggressions that are being perpetrated against non-humans. Their exploitation is so complete that it’s nearly invisible. Yes, they are our food. But they are also our wool sweaters, our leather shoes, our shampoo, our streets, our electronics, and even our home décor. Can we honestly say that it is our personal choice to take away the agency and sovereignty of someone else while simultaneously saying that American slavery was wrong? If holding up a mirror to expose our complicity in structural inequality toward non-humans is forcing beliefs, then so too did abolitionists force their beliefs on Americans to end the exploitation of black people.

I’m scared.

So am I. It takes a lot of work to unlearn a lifetime of conditioning that privileges certain groups. It’s equally scary when black people have discussions with white people involving race. But even though it makes us uncomfortable, it’s necessary. When we can adequately understand the space occupied by both those who benefit from privilege and those who are oppressed by it, we build a bridge that can liberate us from such inequality altogether. That’s why slavery matters to all of us. Regardless of our racial background, everyone is complicit in this system of persecution against non-human animals. And until we are truly present to the impact of harming the most vulnerable among us, we won’t be able to deconstruct how to stop doing harm to one another.

So how did this exchange end with all these nervous people desperate to distance themselves from their participation in slavery? Same as it always does. We got angry. We got sad. We placed blame. And then something amazing happened. We took responsibility. Did all of these people walk away choosing instantly to let go of their speciesism? No. But every one of them is now more aware. And raising awareness is where it all begins.

Racism hasn’t entirely been eradicated either. Fortunately, far fewer people exercise that choice. So we have these conversations. And we don’t give up.

http://veganpublishers.com/slavery-its-still-a-thing-christopher-sebastian-mcjetters/

Thank you for reading.

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matilda-australia · 8 years ago

Photo

Chatting with Elise McCann about her upcoming show, Dahlesque!

April 18th, 2017 | By: Bec Caton

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival takes place each year in June, showcasing a variety of incredibly talented artists performing their diverse, moving and entertaining pieces. This year, Dahlesque, a concert featuring music from the various adaptations of Roald Dahl’s work, will be making its world premiere at the festival. Very fittingly, it will star the incredibly lovely Elise McCann who won the 2016 Helpmann Award for her performance as Miss Honey in Matilda the Musical. We chatted with Elise to find out all about growing up reading Roald Dahl, her experiences in Matilda, and what audiences can expect from Dahlesque.

Did you grow up reading Roald Dahl and if so did you have a favourite book?

Yes I did! My mum is actually English; she was born in Bath so we grew up with a lot of English writers. My favourite was always The Witches; it terrified me and excited me at the same time. And my sister loved The BFG and we used to debate each other over which one was better. Even though the movies are quite different, we used to watch all of them as well. We were definitely big fans of all of his kind of work and the amalgamations that came from his works as kids.

What do you think it is about Dahl’s writing that lends itself to the musical form?

His stories are so exciting but they never pander to children; they’re dark, yet they’re also really irreverent and playful. So when you’re a kid you feel like you’re doing something a little bit naughty just by virtue of being able to read him. When you’re an adult it’s still really engaging and entertaining because it reminds you of the simple things of being a child, and he represents the things that are real in life like the good don’t always win and sometimes the bad are just bad for no reason. When you’re an adult you lose sense of the things you find hilarious as a kid, but when you read Roald Dahl you kind of feel like a kid again. So it translates so well to musicals, and movies, because it has all of those really wonderful elements of story but also the full range of emotion; the danger and the terror and the naughtiness, and always the heart. It’s just inherently entertaining.

Did your experience of being Miss Honey in Matilda inspire this cabaret in any way?

It absolutely inspired it! Mainly because I had forgotten how great Roald Dahl was so when Matilda came out and when I was auditioning, I started to look into all of Roald Dahl’s work again. My nephew has actually just turned 3 and I bought him the box set of the Dahl stories when I was doing Matilda, so I started reading them again and I remembered how incredible they all are. And then I was at a concert in Sydney and Tony Sheldon performed a song from one of Roald Dahl’s books. And I thought there have been so many great songs that have been made from the movies and the books, so being in Matildainspired me to re-explore Roald Dahl but also it just happened that at the same time, I cottoned on to all the works that have been inspired by Dahl.

And do you think you will bring elements of Miss Honey’s character into the show?

It’s more me in the sense that I’m not playing Miss Honey, but I do sing a few songs from Matilda, one of which is a Miss Honey song because I had to! But there’s a representation of a variation of Miss Honey in almost all the books. There’s always an adult in one of his stories who is a rock star; who is kind and considerate and hasn’t lost their child instinct. So that character is in all of his stories somewhere in some amalgamation, so in that way there’s some elements of Miss Honey throughout the show but it is a lot more me.

So what songs can we expect to hear?

We’re focusing on all the adaptions of his works, so we have something from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the new musical, we have something from the original Willy Wonka movie, we have some new compositions from the revolting rhymes, we have some from Pasek and Paul’s James and the Giant Peach, some from Matilda. We also have a piece from James Bond, because Roald Dahl actually wrote two movies- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and James Bond: You Only Live Twice. He hated Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but he loved James Bond so we’re using one of the songs from that. And the thing we’re focusing on in those adaptions are bringing out those Dahl qualities like those obscurities and that playful darkness and intrigue that you might not always get in the movie or musical adaptions.

You’ve had your own cabaret show before, Everybody Loves Lucy, what are the highlights and challenges of creating and performing your own cabaret in contrast to performing a pre-written role in a show?

When you’re in a film, or a musical, or whatever it is that’s created by someone else- you’re employed to just play that character and focus on that one thing and give it your whole heart. And you have a whole breadth of people behind you in every other area. So there’s a real sense of family and a sense of greater support networks when you’re doing a project like that. For Matilda, we had over 200 people involved on a day-to-day basis just at the theatre, so there’s so many people part of that experience with you and it’s quite wonderful having to only worry about just having to do your one part.

Whereas, when you’re creating your own work, you work ten times harder because even if you’re not doing every single role, you’re still the one overseeing it because it’s your vision. So that’s exhausting and challenging because you need to be on top of so many things, but it’s also so liberating because you get to be an active participant in every element of it. It’s absolutely terrifying, but it’s also a completely rewarding feeling to see something you’ve worked so hard on, come to life. And there’s a real sense of pride and achievement in that. And there’s a real joy in being able to bring people together, because these people do their jobs because they love what they do, so it’s really joyous to be able to create something and employ other people to work with you, because you don’t get to do that all the time.

And who is the team you will be working with?

Richard Carroll, who I wrote Everybody Loves Lucy with, is my co-writer for this show. And Stephen Amos who has been my musical director on a number of projects, he’s done all of the musical arrangements for the show. And Michael Tyack is the musical director for all of the performances. And we have a wonderful female director who is yet to be announced! So we’ve got a great team of people working on the show with us.

Do you have any intentions to tour the show after the festival?

I’m a Sydney girl, but I’m living in Melbourne now, and I have family in Queensland, so we hope to take it to all of those places if we can! And we’ve actually just recorded an album with ten of the tracks of the show, so we’re in the process of getting that out.

Matilda will be on in Adelaide at the time of the cabaret festival, will you go and see the show and how do you think you’ll feel sitting in the audience and not performing on the stage?

I’m definitely going to see the show, 100%. I just finished in Perth and I saw it for the first time then, it was very bizarre to watch the show I’ve done over 650 times but it was incredible, it was just wonderful! I felt this overwhelming sense of emotion, because I felt so honoured to be a part of it, and Lucy Maunder, who is one of my best mates, did a wonderful job. I’m excited to see it in Adelaide when I’m not so emotional, and to see all of the family that’s part of the show, so that’s going to be really exciting.

What do you hope audiences will take away from Dahlesque?

Roald Dahl always said that his main goal in everything he did was to entertain. He would always drop bits of morality into the work because he thought it was important to drop ideas around children so they can pick up what resonates with them and through that he was empowering people. And that’s something I really value. And the big thing I want people to take away is that: a strong sense of having a great time, I want them to be really entertained. But we also really want to bring out those Dahl qualities and help remind people of what makes Dahl so special which is that he is so truthful and he doesn’t shy away from the darker elements but at the same time he’s playful and he has so much heart. So I want people to have a really great time, and to also feel moved at the same time.

#Elise McCann #matilda in oz #matilda the musical

0 notes

redpandamix · 4 years ago

Text

Endings

Love Story: My Girl - Endings

Warning: Spoilers! If you want to discover the game’s endings on your own, then do not view this page.

Ultimate Weapon

Stamina > 900

Strength > 900

Charm > 900

Moral > 900

Intelligence > 900

Mana > 900

Temperament > 900

Self-esteem > 900

Mayan Princess

Sebastian: Master! There are a lot of people from the palace...they are all outside.

Gawain: It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Gawain.

Gawain: I love Emma...I came here to ask for your blessing to marry her.

Emma: Gawain? It’s you!

Gawain: I love you, please marry me? I will spend the rest of my life making you happy!

Emma: Yes...

“She looked so pretty in her wedding dress. She became the prettiest princess in the world! Now the handsome prince and the beautiful princess are finally together. They live happily ever after.”

Intelligence > 800

Temperament > 700

Self-esteem > 450

Rebellious < 20

Charm > 700

Moral > 700

Care > 450

Popularity > 500

Gawain Love > 4

The Prime Minister

“She won the election thanks to her outstanding talents. Now she is the world’s youngest female prime minister. All the people love her, and I am very proud of her accomplishments.”

Intelligence > 800

Temperament > 700

Self-esteem > 500

Charm > 600

Moral > 500

Popularity > 480

Enchanted Friends

The Archmage

“With her outstanding magical talents, the King’s men selected her to be Archmage in the kingdom. I was never too keen on all the magic stuff. But I have to say it is just as strong as any weapon. Especially when you combine the two. As the kingdom’s Archmage, I hope she can protect the nation…”

Stamina > 300

Moral > 700

Mana > 500

Popularity > 500

Intelligence > 620

Temperament > 500

Self-esteem > 500

Foster Love

Intelligence > 400

Temperament > 400

Emotion > 900

Rebellious > 20

Charm > 500

Moral < 300

Care < 500

On the Road

The General

“Thanks to her great grades she got into military school. After graduation, she was sent to the frontline. I was scared to death, but luckily, with her help, we won every way! She and her RH28 fighter plane became a legend in the military. The King praised her himself. She went on to become the youngest general.”

Stamina > 600

Strength > 700

Moral > 450

Rebellious < 50

Intelligence > 500

Mana > 400

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 500

Vampire Queen

The Bishop

“She wants to become a messenger for God. She took the position of bishop. Even the King respects her. She wants to bring more and more people into the church. May God bless her, Amen…”

Intelligence > 480

Temperament > 600

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 400

Mana > 400

Moral > 450

Rebellious < 20

Church Volunteer times > 20

Glamour Sisters

Sebastian: Young Master, your friend is here to see you.

Emma: Opera, come on in, it’s cold outside.

Opera: It’s okay. Emma, can you come out and walk with me?

Emma: Oh, okay, wait a second, I’ll be right back.

Opera: Emma... I...

Emma: Okay, you know that you can tell me anything, right?

Opera: Um... (took a deep breath)

Opera: Emma, I declined the prince’s proposal...

Emma: Why? Isn’t that your biggest dream?

Opera: Because...I want to be with someone else...

Emma: ...But...But...

Emma: What does your family think about that?

Opera: I don’t care.

Opera: I just want to be with the person I like.

Opera: I want to do regular couple stuff with that person...

Opera: Have some tea or go shopping together...

Emma: But what if...The person likes someone else?

Opera: ...I don’t care, as long as she is happy, I am happy.

Emma: ...

Emma: Silly girl...

“Emma and Opera seem to be joined by the hip. Everyone thinks they are weird, but it’s fine with me. As long as she is happy, I don’t care who she is with.”

Intelligence > 500

Self-esteem > 450

Temperament > 600

Popularity > 500

Opera love > 4

Wife of a General

Intelligence > 400

Charm > 500

Moral > 400

Strength > 300

Temperament > 500

Care > 400

The Senator

“My daughter got a position as a civil servant. She is such a hard worker! She went on to serve and become the youngest senator ever to serve. She gave great advice to the kingdom. I am so proud of her,”

Intelligence > 700

Moral > 400

Rebellious < 150

Charm > 350

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 380

Wolf Queen

Strength > 420

Stamina > 600

Intelligence > 300

Mana > 350

Temperament > 500

Charm > 500

Self-esteem > 200

Joey love > 4

Great Gambler

“She doesn’t come home and always stays out at night. Sometimes when she does come, she stinks of cigarettes and booze. I complained to her...so she stopped coming home. She sends me money from time to time. I heard she became the best gambler in the kingdom, I am so worried...”

Intelligence > 400

Moral < 100

Rebellious > 260

Emotion < 100

Charm > 360

Casino Dealer times > 12

Mrs Sebastian

Celebrity

“My daughter has always been praised by other people for her beauty. One day when she was walking on the street and a talent scout stopped her. She became a singer and released an album. Now she has transitioned into acting… A lot of fans chase her down and ask her for autographs. I am so happy for her.”

Stamina > 350

Mana > 300

Temperament > 300

Charm > 600

Self-esteem > 200

Popularity > 600

The Judge

“She got into law school. After graduation, she found a job at the courthouse. Now, she is the youngest judge in the kingdom. I am so proud of her. It makes so happy to see her in that gown.”

Intelligence > 600

Moral > 500

Rebellious < 50

Self-esteem > 500

Lawyer

“She has been doing really well. She graduated from law school and became a lawyer. She just opened up her own law firm. On top of that, she met a man. He is a judge. They are about to get married. I am so happy for her.”

Intelligence > 550

Moral > 400

Rebellious < 50

Self-esteem > 400

Combat Companion

Mathilde: Emma, I have decided to join the Special Forces! I will leave tomorrow.

Emma: So soon?

Mathilde: Yeah? Do you not want me to go?

Emma: Wars can be so cruel and dangerous... Are you sure you want to go so soon?

Mathilde: As a soldier, that’s what I have to deal with.

Emma: No! I don’t want you to deal with that all by yourself!

Mathilde: Eh?

Emma: Let me cover you!

Mathilde: ... Okay, let’s go together!

Emma: Yes!

Mathilde: I am not afraid of anything when you are by my side.

Emma: Me neither!

“She joined the Special Forces with Mathilde. They have accomplished a lot of missions together. As her step-father, I often worry for her. I still think this is not a girl’s job, but after seeing them so happy doing what they loves ... Maybe this I their destiny!”

Strength > 600

Charm > 400

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 300

Mathilde love > 4

The Assassin

“She disappeared out of nowhere one day. I didn’t hear from her since then… A couple of years later, I got a letter from her.

Pops: Please forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye. Thank you for taking care of me. I felt that I had lost all feelings for other as a human. The only thing in my heart is how to kill. I like watching headshots from far away… I am a professional assassin. If you have money, I can kill anyone for you… Including my employer…because my only boss is Death. For a gold coin, I killed my employer and all of his family. But…I let their 10 year-old daughter live. She reminds me of us… I hope you are well, please forget about me…”

Strength > 700

Stamina > 300

Rebellious > 100

Charm > 400

Emotion < 50

Doctor

Intelligence > 500

Moral > 350

Care > 300

Emotion > 100

Self-esteem > 200

Popularity > 300

Nurse times > 20

Civil Servant

Intelligence > 300

Moral > 300

Self-esteem > 180

Care > 200

Dancer

“My daughter became a dancer. All of her instructors approve of her skills. She became one of the most famous dancers kingdom. I have attended all of her shows. I love to watch her doing what she loves.”

Charm > 500

Popularity > 300

Temperament > 500

Dance Lesson times > 30

Musician

“With her amazing talent, she got her success in music. Everyone likes her songs. All of her albums went platinum. If you like her music, remember to support her by buying her albums. Downloading is illegal.”

Intelligence > 300

Charm > 500

Temperament > 500

Popularity > 300

Music Lesson times > 30

Painter

Emma: I want to be a painter!

Foster: What? They don’t make a lot of money…

Emma: So what? For art, I will starve!

“With her outstanding talent, she became a great painter. To my surprise, this job does make money. Her art exhibits are all over the world. As her step-father, I do feel proud, but she is too invested in her art. She stays home all day… I just hope she meets a guy someday.”

Intelligence > 300

Temperament > 500

Popularity > 300

Art Lesson times > 30

Nun

“As I was praying, I heard God talking to me: Emma, you are a nun. Spread my message to the rest of the world.”

“She moved into the church and became a nun. Seeing her happily teaching and playing with the orphans makes me happy. I respect her choice. I hope God will bless her and let her be happy.”

Intelligence > 200

Temperament > 200

Moral > 300

Self-esteem > 300

Rebellious < 20

Church Volunteer times > 12

Commando

“It was beyond my wildest dream. I can’t believe she enrolled into the military behind my back! She said she wanted to be like me. As her step-father, of course, I am worried for her safety. But I know she is more than capable. I am proud of her.”

Stamina > 350

Strength > 400

Self-esteem > 100

The Witch

“Everyone keeps on saying that she is weird. She can see things others can’t. Her seemingly weird predictions have proven to be right. Now she is at a level where no one can reach. She moved into the Enchanted Alley to become a witch. I am just happy to see she is doing what she loves.”

Intelligence > 300

Mana > 400

Maid Café Owner

“Today is the grand reopening for my daughter’s Maid Café. She bought it from the old owner. All of the regulars came to congratulate her. Even the royals came to try her food. As I see her dreams come true, I can’t help but be happy.”

Charm > 400

Care > 100

Help at Maid Café times > 12

Stripper

Happily Married

“She majored in finance to become an accountant. After graduation she got a job and a stable salary. She met someone on a blind date. That guy is a programmer. Even though he is kind of a geek, he is really nice to my girl. Now they are happily married. They want to have two kids. I am so excited to be a grandfather, haha!”

Charm > 200

Care > 400

Rebellious < 50

Vampire

Freelancer

“Where did I go wrong? She doesn’t want to study, she doesn’t want to work. She only works once in a while as a freelancer. But she doesn’t mind… As her step-father, I can’t help but worry for her future…”

Stamina > 700

Mana > 500

Temperament > 550

Care > 300

Rebellious > 400

Bravery

Princess Consort

Married to a Businessman

Teacher

Nurse

Awakening Angel

Stamina > 700

Temperament > 550

Mana > 500

Care > 300

Rebellious > 400

Conqueror

Intelligence > 500

Self-esteem > 300

Care > 500

Moral > 400

Emotion > 100

Nurse times > 40

Desperado

Stamina > 500

Intelligence > 500

Strength > 500

Mana> 500

Rebellious > 500

Emotion < 50

Nurse times > 60

The Puppet of Wars

Stamina > 999

Strength > 999

Charm > 999

Care > 999

Temperament > 999

Rebellious > 999

Moral > 999

Intelligence > 999

Self-esteem > 999

Mana > 999

Popularity > 999

Emotion > 999

Hidden Fate

Stamina > 100

Charm > 100

Care > 100

Special Ending

Congratulation on finishing this game with the hidden ending! Thank you for your support. Even though it’s only a game, it is our greatest pleasure that it

Try not to spend too much time on games! Take some time to spend with your family and friends. Don’t hold your phone too close and protect your eyes. Okay, the game is over, go to bed!

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