Lacey

Chapter 8

Lacy's Diaries: August 5th, 2023

Dear Diary,

It's been a quiet week so far. Mostly.

I DM'd a guy yesterday named Archie - erm, Archer J. I've been into him for a while now, but normally I'd be too shy to even comment on any of his stuff. That is, until last morning. Dina gave me a tactic she always uses to become more confident in front of her crushes. Practice starting a conversation directed to a picture of them and treat them like a regular person. It seems to have worked for me.

Today, I met up with Dina and Otto at a café. While Otto ordered a cappuccino, Dina and I ordered medium black coffee with sugar. Dina and I have always had similar tastes in drinks, weirdly enough.

"Any news about the editor application?" asked Dina.

"I applied a few days ago," I answered. "They won't get back to anyone until next week."

"Ah," Dina sipped her coffee. "Anyhow, this tastes way too bitter!"

Otto smirked.

"Then add some more sugar," he snarked.

"I can't do that," stated Dina. "I'm trying to get into a cheerleading squad, and they only want the healthiest and most athletic bodies."

"I never thought cheerleading could be so hard," Otto fingered his light striped pink and blue flag pin.

"Food's not the hardest part, dude," said Dina.

Otto went to go to the washroom, so Dina and I had some girl talk.

"How was it talking to Archer?" Dina wondered.

"Amazing," I responded. "He's such a sweet guy. Very helpful, too. Not to mention sophisticated and hilarious at the same time."

"That's great!" Dina grinned.

Dina continued suffering through her bitter drink. She was very much happy once it was done.

"Wanna know what I like most about him?"

"Go ahead, bestie!" Dina washed her mouth out with water.

"Okay," I narrated, "so there was this girl - Mira - who was dying of cancer. She always wanted to go to Universal, but she and her family never had enough money to."

Dina licked her lip.

"Go on," she stated.

"Archer had a stream that was supposed to raise money for an upgraded Wifi plan." I told her. "But when he found out about Mira, he used some of that money to help her go to Universal before she died instead."

"Aww, that's so sweet!" Dina exclaimed.

"Yeah," I smiled.

August 7th, 2023

Dear Diary,

Yesterday, Dr. Green told me to think of a recent accomplishment I've made for a diary entry. Could be large, small, anything I've succeeded at during this month.

Guess what? I got into the Music Refined editor team! Well, sort of. They accepted me into their ranks as a beta reader according to their recent update article. I basically have to read through submissions and decide whether they should even go to the real editors or not. I'm also not allowed to leave private notes on any drafts.

It doesn't sound like much, but at least I'm getting somewhere. Plus, Archie's a beta reader as well.

My first assignment was to go over a piece about Machine Gun Kelly's fall from grace. It was penned by someone named Oscar Winters.

Here's a little snippet of the draft.

Machine Gun Kelly is a famous musician known for both reviving pop-punk and his forays into hip-hop. That being said, his reputation has also been tarnished by various factors. While he had the potential to become one of punk's forefront rockstars, his underhanded tactics have caused more harm than good to his career.

MGK started his music career as a rapper in the late 2000s with a few extended plays. After being signed onto Interscope Records, he released his first album Lace Up in 2002 to negative reviews. His next two albums - General Admission and Bloom - stayed firmly in pop-rap territory.

The musician leaned more into rock in his subsequent albums. Hotel Diablo of 2018 touched on it, whereas the later Tickets To My Downfall completely eschewed hip-hop in favour of pop-punk.

Perhaps what MGK is most known for, though, is his many, MANY feuds with rappers. These include big names like Eminem as well as smaller ones such as NF. In addition, MGK has allegedly fondled underage boys.

Good God, were there so many factual errors. This Oscar dude got so many dates wrong. I didn't know 2002 was at the end of the 2000s! The math wasn't mathing, the NF feud never happened, and MGK was put on blast for being creepy with underage girls. Also, why was "many" randomly capitalized?

I wanted to pass up this article. But I felt somewhat hesitant to do so. Ignoring the glaringly obvious misinformation, the piece wasn't that bad. The formatting was decent, and there weren't any spelling mistakes. This was also out-of-character for Oscar. On the other hand, I had no idea how to make this mixed bag appeal to the editors.

So I decided to DM Archie for advice. Sure, he's only been a beta reader for Music Refined as long as I have. However, he's far more popular than I. If anyone should know about the secrets to good connections and publicity, it's him.

Archie told me that the writeup, while flawed, was salvageable. He encouraged me to pass it on to the higher-ranked editors - if I could sneak in a few edits.

I pointed out to him it was against policy as we were not official editors. He then responded that I could probably get away with it, as all drafts were submitted as PDFs anyways. Not to mention they made exceptions if we were really good. Archie was right. But I also had several other drafts to go through. Since apparently the editors were easier on Archie, he offered to help edit the draft. I accepted it.

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