#I had seen this photoshoot on tumblr but not the first and third shots!!

[sainz100]

Daniel Ricciardo for Australian Financial Review Magazine | 📸 Shaughn and John

[rnegitsune]

Ok so I thought I'd put together some horror stories from my time as a babymetal fan bc of how drastic the shift in the fandom has been the past year or so. For context I got into babymetal in like june of 2014 (all 3 girls were still underage at the time, I was 22; when I first got into them I thought I would be considered an older fan lmao the naivete, the innocence of new fan me wow I know now I'm not at all in the older half of the fandom esp considering I was born the same decade as su and moa), and I made this blog in I think may of 2015.

I've had people say I should compile men being gross into a post and I just couldn't do that out of fear for my own mental health but this will be pretty close. These are all my experiences with this fandom over the years; I'm definitely missing some but what I do remember should do well to cover most of how this fandom used to be vs now. It's gonna be a lot and tw for men being gross about minors.

Back in my first year or so of this blog I on multiple occasions got dms from men asking to be friends. At the time my bio only said my name and my pronouns. I've always been cautious of dms so I'd ask their age and every single one was considerably older than me. I wouldn't usually answer after that bc no thanks but they would generally try to continue convos til I blocked. The only one I still had was this one

After I put my age in my bio, which was 23 at the time, I never got a dm like that again; take from that what you will. But if you're young please be wary of this hell fandom even now. And if you're an older fan and esp an older male fan reading this, don't dm people trying to be friends. I was over 18 and it still creeped me out to no end.

One of my real first men in this fandom are disgusting moments was a blog back in like 2015 or 2016 who I had some contact with due to common interests; he was a huge yui stan and made bm content. He was like 28 or 29 at the time and I eventually noticed he would tag idols, mostly kpop girls, by their body parts (legs, butt, etc) which is disgusting enough as it is but then I saw him do the same for literal minors, like tzuyu from twice. I messaged him asking what the hell he was doing objectifying women but also actual children and he blocked me lmao. He later unblocked me to let me know that's just how he tagged things and it was my fault he had anxiety and then he blocked me again.

Back before the tumblr purge this fandom was repulsive to a degree I cannot even begin to describe. Someone would reblog something from me, I'd go to their blog and it would be underage jpop idols and japanese p*rn all the way down. I even stumbled upon a man editing underage su into p*rn gifs. Obviously no proof of that but I did go find my initial reaction to it

The number of times I'd get a follow from someone then go to their blog and it would be as mentioned above or their bio would be the most misogynistic trash I'd ever read was staggering. I genuinely considered giving up and deleting this blog so many times bc i felt oberwhelmed and outnumbered by these gross old dudes; and so the fact that this fandom has evolved into a bunch of chaotic wlw?? Amazing, I could cry.

Fun phenomenon of women running bm blogs was men sending messages asking if we liked babymetal. No joke. I think this happened to me two or three times but I spoke w other female creators at the time and it had happened to them as well. My entire blog is babymetal, and yet???

He said the weird guy idk bc he sent some random ass messages vaguely insulting me and when I responded coldly, he acted confused so I said you're some guy idk, hence the above message starting as such. Also that pic and the one up above that has my current pfp bc I just took those screenshots. Like I said I typically blocked weird dms but I guess these passed me by so I still had the messages.

Most people know the sub reddit is the worst and don't need me to tell you but it's a hellscape and I highly recommend avoiding it. A short list of things I've had to see as a result of going there: men discussing at length kano and momoko's appearances and how they look in costume vs in normal clothes. Men discussing at length the hope that the girls would marry men who aren't Japanese, a thread that was from when all 3 girls were underage. They aren't gonna marry you dude they're really not.

The insulting of billie Eilish, a 17 year old at the time, was horrible too. Su and moa got to meet her, something they were extremely excited for, and they posted a pic; the comments were disgusting as you can imagine. The yui rumors were terrible too, fatshaming, slutshaming etc all based on nothing. Some man saying the rumors about yui leaving bc, no joke this was a real rumor, she "got too fat" couldn't be true bc "look at saya." Saya being a barely 18 yo back up dancer who covered the third spot after yui left but before the avengers. Not to mention the upskirt shots from when they were minors, the constant editing of their faces onto explicit photoshoots etc. I remember being a new fan looking for a su pic on google and being horrified at the fact that one of the top suggested results after her name was “bikini;” she was 16 at the time. Also, the uptick in massively creepy posts and messages sent to bm blogs as each girl, but esp moa and yui, approached 18 was disgusting.

Now for some personal nonsense. A big reason why I haven't touched my youtube channel in months is bc I got tired of dealing with the men of this fandom. I poke fun at metal and get told I deserve to die. I say ped*philes and creepy men are gross and get a swarm of middle aged men cursing at me. Had a guy cry about how men are shamed for liking bm and then he turned around and said some gross shit about wlw. Had a guy call me racist for liking a band he also likes (and despite him having no way of knowing my own race) and tell me the babymetal fandom doesn't need my kpop feminist bullshit, which is honestly a great description and I thought about putting it in my yt about lmao. Had a middle aged man unironically say he'd never seen a man be creepy towards bm but fans su and moa's ages calling them hot was creepy. The disillusionment....the level of unawareness is astounding. If you want to see screenshots of some of these comments they are fairly recent in my don't mind me tag; I don't want to see them anymore tho bc they're infuriating so I'm not going to look at them to post here.

Essentially I haven't looked at my channel since may bc men are exhausting and rude and refuse to examine the fandoms they're a part of no matter what. They're told by a woman of the fandom that she's had bad experiences personally and they all start crying about how it's either a lie bc they haven't seen it or unimportant. I did stop reading comments in may and I will never read another one again probably as a result of this shit. Trash men being trash are not worth my time and I refuse to give them anymore of it. I do plan on making more videos tho and let my ~feminist kpop bullshit~ live in their minds rent free.

I will also continue to make fun of metal and the creepy men in this fandom bc it's important and I'm a spiteful asshole who likes disrupting these dudes perfect bubble of a fandom. It genuinely brings me so much joy seeing all the new fans recently (which sidenote if you got into them recently I am kinda curious as to how you found them; I've gotten tons of new followers and considering how inactive they are rn I'm curious). People sending messages about how they finally feel like they belong or that they have a safe space....like I don't even know what to say and I never feel like my responses fully convey how genuinely wonderful that is and how thrilled I am that this is where we're at now and I have had at least some part in it. As this post shows, my experiences have been negative for the most part so the shift recently is such a relief I cannot even begin to explain my gratitude.

So to anyone who read all of this and hasn't disintegrated from the male bullshit, thank you. Keep being yourself and fighting for your place in this fandom, esp if you're a young woman; keep making fun of the creeps and keep making wlw memes!! Babymetal's music is in such a huge way meant for girls and to see more and more finding their way to this previously hellish beyond belief fandom is incredible.

[larryfanficwriter98]

Chapter Twelve

The top five trends worldwide were of Larry Stylinson and Louis Tomlinson the very next day. Number one trend was "#LarryStylinsonIsForever", the second was "#LouisTomlinSONDATASS" with the videos the girls recorded from last night attached to it. The eight of them had danced their asses off with zero thoughts of their dignity for the next day. Louis was seen in all of them his ass and hips getting wilder the more he drank.

The third trend was "#PartyWithLouis" with the video of Louis drowning shots and high fiving the seven people group as well as yelling out the happy birthday song to the girl who was twenty now. The fourth trend was "#PartyWithLarry" with videos of Louis and videos of Harry from his birthday at a club attached to the posts.

Both lads taking shots in their respective videos and both lads having a good time with their friends. The final trend was of his shirt last night which said "Wine and Dildos" and Louis has never regretted buying a funny shirt until that moment. Even the "vanilla is for ice cream" shirt form Valentine's Day didn't draw as much attention as his shirt from last night was.

Louis sighed as he rolled out of bed to go downstairs where Liam, Zayn, and Niall were eating cereal at the counter.

"I hate every single one of you." Louis told them as he pulled down his coco pops

"Shut it cum stains." Zayn said around his toast making Louis glare at him

"Hey what's with the photos of Harry with that guy yesterday?" Liam asked

"His ex tried to get back with him but Harry shot him down. Nothing to worry about. It was just lunch." Louis said

"Just lunch? The guy was at his concert last night." Louis frowned and looked at Liam, "yeah there's photos of him in the crowd and a video of him going backstage after the show."

"Well I spoke with Harry before his show and he probably didn't know he'd be there them after we were sort of...distracted. Look I'm sure it looks bad-"

"Lou none of us is accusing Harry of anything, we all love him and don't think he'd cheat especially after getting to know the real him. I just thought I'd let you know the guy was there last night." Louis nodded pulling his phone out as he grabbed the milk from the fridge. He hesitated but pressed Harry's number feeling bad that it was only 6 in the morning in Brazil.

"Hey, Lou." Harry said answering almost immediately

"Hey what are you doing up so early?" Louis asked

"Watching the sunrise, thinking of you, writing, and eating fruit. Couldn't sleep after 5 so I got up to start the day." Harry said, "how's the hangover?"

"Horrible, but I'll live." Louis said putting Harry on speaker-phone to set it on the countertop as he stood beside Liam.

"Hey, Harry." The lads greeted

"Hey, guys. How was last night? Saw you made friends."

"Niall has a crush." Liam said

"Oh?"

"Shut up. It's nothing." Niall said shoving waffles into his mouth, "how was the concert?"

"It was fine. Had a girl try to get into my dressing room it was a weird night. I'm tired of South America already. Ready to leave." Harry said

"You sound exhausted. You okay?" Zayn asked

"I am. It was a long night. Management wants publicity around me for the UK leg and so they have brought my ex into the media with me without telling me. So now I'm being painted as a cheater over here even though I haven't done anything. Management gave him a ticket and a backstage passed yesterday without letting me know so now there's that going around the web. Then they have a room under his name in the same hotel I'm staying at. I'm probably going to stay in my tour bus or a different hotel tonight. Tonight is my last concert here so the rest is interviews and photoshoots but if this keeps up I'll leave early. Management and I have been arguing about it since last night." Harry explained

"Is there anything we can do?" Liam asked concerned

"Legally yeah, but honestly it's not worth it. As long as none of you have signed anything with Sony you're legally allowed to talk about anything. That doesn't mean you're safe to do so, however."

"What do you mean?" Louis asked

"If they know it's you then they can sue you for misinformation or slander. However, if you just happen to have an anonymous twitter or Tumblr account that can't be traced by to you by email or phone number and it must happen to tell the world about controlling managements. Well, they can't sue someone if they don't have their names." Harry said Louis looked at the boys who grinned

*************

Harry folded his arms sitting back in his seat frowning at his management team.

"Harry this will bring in a lot of publicity." Frank said, "We think it's for the best."

"Also we think Louis isn't the most...appropriate person to be associated with. The shirts, the jokes, the middle finger." Becca said as she spread out screenshots of Louis' tweets and pictures.

"Our point is Louis isn't someone to keep around when your music is for young girls ages 13 and up. That's your audience."

"It's not happening." Harry said shaking his head

"You signed a contract-"

"A contract you guys are going against." Harry argued glaring at them, "it's not going to happen."

"Yes, it will. You are expected at the beach tomorrow at noon for your date. That's final." Harry stormed out of the room slamming the door closed, he headed to the hotel and contacted his lawyer telling him what was going on. After his lawyer confirmed that it was against the contract Harry made his mind up and spent the next few hours talking to him.

*********

"Hey, lads how was work?" Louis asked walking into the house kicking off his shoes quickly. He frowned when silence met his question and was even more confused when he saw the lads sitting on the couch waiting for him. "What's going on?"

"Has Harry called yet?"

"What do you mean? Is it another stupid ex-boyfriend picture because I swear-"

"Harry's tour is canceled."

"What?" Louis asked stopping in his tracks, "is Harry okay?" Liam turned his laptop around and Louis stared at the picture of Harry with his bags and his eyes filled with tears with his head down as he walked through Manchester airport a few hours ago with the title,

HARRY STYLES CANCELS TOUR UNEXPECTEDLY!

LETS DOWN AND DISAPPOINTS MILLIONS OF FANS!

HARRY STYLES CAREER OVER?!

"What...why?" Louis asked immediately grabbing his phone and saw no missed calls or texts. Frowning he quickly called Harry putting him on speaker but got no answer. He tried two more times, but still no answer. "Alright, I'm going to go check his house. Make sure he's okay." Louis said getting up to pull his shoes back on

"Keep us updated." Liam said getting a nod from Louis who hurried out of the house and back into his car.

He had Harry's address and lock code for the time he had gone to his house to let in Harry's yard worker. Gemma usually did it, but or she had been asked to work so Harry had asked Louis to do it and to just stay there until he was finished. Louis had agreed and stayed there all Sunday watching Netflix on Harry's couch in his living room. Harry was on the other side of Manchester, but Louis didn't care as he out in the lock code watching the gate slide open letting him inside. He got out of his car and headed to the door glad to find it unlocked when he tested the handle.

Closing the door behind him, he ran up the stairs and headed to Harry's room opening the door gently and saw Harry laying on the bed. He walked inside the room and closed the door as he took his shoes off then headed to the bed. Louis sat on the side looking at Harry who had fallen asleep crying according to the tear tracks. He reached his hand out and gently pulled his hair away from his face and ran his fingers through it.

"Harry." Louis spoke soft and gentle, "Haz." Harry slowly opened his eyes and Louis smiled, "what are you doing here Haz? What's wrong? What happened?" Louis asked a few minutes later after he was sure Harry was awake

"Does everyone hate me?"

"The tabloids are having a field day, but I don't think your fans are as angry as you fear. Want me to look?" Harry nodded so Louis pulled his phone out and got on Instagram to see what is going on there and saw the picture of Harry at the airport going around. Each post was of support and wishing everything was okay, "nobody hates you, sweetie. Now, what's wrong?"

"They wanted me to cheat on you on a fucking beach in fucking Brazil. I told them no and they said some shit them by the end of it they told I was going to do it and they were the end of it. I walked out and I called my lawyer and he told me it was against the contract so I packed up and I left on the jet. Canceled the tour on the jet." Harry said, "they went against the contract they made up so unless they want to take it to court it'll be a simple case of getting ownership of my songs and making them refund the last ten concerts. So unless they want what they tried to do out in the open them it'll be over within a few weeks."

"Baby you could have called me and told me the situation. I'd of understood." Louis said gently

"No, you don't get it. First, it'd be cheating then they'd make it impossible for us to talk, then we'd break up and make me into the victim somehow and push hate on to you. They'll ruin your life and besides, I don't cheat. I'd never do that to you no matter who wanted me to do it. Can you just cuddle me?"

"Of course. Scoot over." Louis set his phone and keys beside Harry's phone and laid down beside him snuggling his head against his chest. "I love you."

"I love you too." Harry said

[shefightslikeagirl]

CORSETS AND STRIPED STOCKINGS: OUTFITTING THE ASYLUM FOR WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS by She Fights Like A Girl

These articles are best viewed on desktop, but are mobile friendly. Please excuse any strange formatting on your phone browser or the Tumblr app.

PART IV: WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS

“Why can I never go back to bed? Who's is the voice ringing in my head? Where is the sense in these desperate dreams? Why should I wake when I'm half past dead?” - 4 o’Clock (2007)

The Gate Tour, which featured a short set of European-exclusive dates in late 2008, was the first notable tone shift in the Opheliac tours. With Vecona’s departure from all things Asylum after The Plague Tour, new costumes were debuted and the Crumpet line-up changed. The Naughty Veronica, Captain Maggot, the Blessed Contessa, and Aprella became the main line-up through 2009 (with some appearances by Little Miss Sugarless).

Most notably, we see the introduction of the third white heart corset, as Vecona’s costumes had been auctioned to fans on eBay. 

EA Heart Corset / Third White Heart Corset, various sets, 2008-2011

More detail on this look later. 

Then there’s a one-tour-only appearance of The Gate “corset” (a possibly-pleather torso wrap that went over a corset).

And how could I forget? There’s also the Rat Queen herself!

While this particular costume has a deeper history than what I’ll talk about (which you can read about here), it’s most indicative of the tone shift in shows. “4 o’Clock” had been performed in almost every tour previously, but this was the first instance of a song being assigned a character. Not just Emilie singing it and the Crumpets playing along in their on-stage world, but the image of a rat crawling out of the Asylum; Emilie embodying a pivotal character from her book and letting the rats out to play. There’s structure here, matched with a more solid sort of storytelling.

The style of the Rat Queen changes from tour to tour. The mask-slash-headpiece gained more decorations, sparkles, and stones as tours went on, and the original corset with white stripes and a white heart (seen above) was later toned down to a grey-only design (seen below). Ear headbands from previous tours were used, as well as the rat tail; decorative sleeve parts were changed and remade between tours.

Emilie Autumn by Scott Legato (2011, right) and detail shots from 2012 eBay listing (left).

The Rat Queen and accessories through various tours (2008-2012)

The following tour was called “The Gate II,” as it almost immediately followed the former and didn’t need much distinction. Some pictures from that tour are featured above. There isn’t much notable change in costume design during this tour, but it is the beginning of what I’ll call SparkleGate, because everything that could go through a Bedazzler did.

Then, in late 2009, the Asylum as we knew it was turned upside down by a rather sudden shift in management. Emilie split with Trisol Records and thus ended a very large and lengthy chapter of her career, going on to re-release Opheliac under a new label, The End Records. This double disk re-release came complete with a new photo shoot by Don Scott, usually known as “The End Photoshoot,” or “Opheliac Industrial.”

The same outfit was featured in book readings preceding her next tour, Opheliac’s first North and South American tour, “The Key.”

The overall design concept becomes considerably more glam (see: SparkleGate) than steampunk-goth, while the set remained relatively the same as tours past. The Bloody Crumpets continued wearing costumes similar or the same as tours past. It’s not until Opheliac’s final tour, The Door, that we see the full sparkle of the Asylum’s glam phase.

The SparkleGlam Corset. Or, as it was more commonly referred to, the KinKats Ensemble. 

Again, the individual parts that make up this ensemble aren’t new. In typical EA style, this corset is a piece from former tours that was re-purposed and accosted with Swarovski crystals. 

This full ensemble made its debut in two parts: the KinKats photoshoot and the Medical Burlesque Performance. (See the whole burlesque performance here.) Fans who’ve been here for a while might remember this as the pasties and/or “GlitterTits” phase (roughly 2010 to 2011), when the fandom was in a constant turmoil over Twitter Rants and Playboy blurbs. 

By the time this ensemble it made its way off magazine covers and to stage, it had changed slightly in the bra, accessory, and wig department, and would continue to do so between tour legs (European, South and North American). But it was always the same general idea: pink, sparkly glam-rock. With really tall hats.

The rest of the stage costumes remained largely the same, featuring the Rat Queen (for the final time) and the white heart corset (#3). The Door Tour was advertised as the final tour for Opheliac and became something of a worldwide event, performed in separate legs across the world. By the official end of it, there was only one place left to go.

Australia.

Emilie was invited to perform in The Harvest Festival “Down Under” after The Door Tour had come to a close. The set ended up being a majority of Opheliac songs despite the record’s retirement from tour, but there was one new song that did debut:

Fight Like A Girl.

“It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.” -The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls (2009)

Up next... PART V: AN ASYLUM MUSICAL

Fly back... PART I: Enchant and the Faerie Queene PART II: Drowning Ophelia PART III: Vecona, Seamstress of the Asylum

Remember to visit Part III and enter our giveaway! Ends 12/1/19.

[SEE ALL CREDITS AND SOURCES HERE.] 

[ghostofatree]

When I had moved to Stoke I dressed in a particular way which described my tribal musical allegiance to punk and ska music. It seemed logical to me and that ska was Jamaican music and that the roots of skinhead were anti-racist, working class and essentially positive. Stoke however was contaminated with a sizeable cohort of Nazi skinheads (who naively, I had previously struggled to believe actually existed in numbers since I had never seen a single one in Liverpool.) When we marched against their lot in London and met them coincidentally on our field trip to Prague they became suddenly real to me. At the time then I was aware of red skins, nazi skins and the gay scene had its own separate tribe. To the outsider they probably all looked the same apart from small badges or sometimes a bootlace colour code. For male skinheads symbols of working class, masculinity (whatever the fuck that might be…), music and politics were common to them all but we couldn’t have been more different ideologically. The photoshoot around the ideas of what skinhead meant to me as a tribe and a community continues with these shots of my excellent harmful brother and fellow artist @extremenoisejasper (who often collaborated with me on art work over these years). The first is a simple portrait shot where the genius sneer is key. The second was the centre shot for a triptych I will show at some later point, the third referenced the remarkable number of times we were very regularly stopped and searched by over zealous OSD police (who lazily profiled us on how we looked -although neither of us had ever committed a crime per say). Finally another portrait with a Stanley knife just messing around with focus and depth of field. It was an afternoon’s work but did become a sizeable element of second year output. #artdegree #queerart #queerartistsofinstagram #photoshoot #queerskin #identity #tribe #oi #acab #portraitphotography #bootsandbraces (at Toxteth, L8) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWOp-5BMGre/?utm_medium=tumblr