#and way before they released their 2020 album

[accio-victuuri]

what’s with the kadian 16:23?

we have a couple of number combinations that have meaning to the fandom and this one is making the rounds lately. primarily because xzs have been posting material related to this album at this time. i understand 10:00 and 10:05, even 10:30, 11, 12, 13:00 but for some reason the 16:23 has been very consistent and too specific. the conversation around it and digging up times related to it became louder because of how xzs featured this specific time on their video from friday. personally, 16 to me is yibo’s number and 23 is ofcourse love zhan. so putting that together in a bjyx-kadian-biased way made sense to me.

maybe it’s as simple as someone from xzs team asking gege if there is a specific posting time he wants and he said 16:23.

if we are going by that assumption, then these may be some reasons why it’s important…

1. I’m seeing some throw in the explanation that this may be a substitute to 18:23. It may be too sus to use this repeatedly when everyone knows what it means lol. So 16:23 may be a safer choice, those who know that 16 is yibo’s number will understand. and not many are aware of this fact. He also allegedly has a fake account called ASAP16

2. XZ has used 1623 license plate before which i understand is stalker information and more likely than not out of their control. I’m just putting it out there.

3. Back in 2020, WYB bday post was a shoe. This was back when he was a Nike boy. But the posting of 16:23 is unique and why would he choose that for a special day.

4. This is more of the number 16, there was a LRLG rumor where it appears they are talking about this pig doll with a 16 on it. I really think that this kadian is directed more towards the 16 to represent Yibo.

🟢: "It's getting cold. I'm afraid his head will freeze. Doesn't this hat look pretty?"

🔴: "Well, you're pretty good at taking care of yourself."

Wang laoshi then just locked the phone and refused to reply? Hahahahahaha. It was a little piggy doll wearing a hat with the number "16" on it. Very cute

5. There are other times that XZS posted at this time and one if for the new year and GG’s bday. I’d like to think that this has always been a favorite but it’s more in our face with the album promotion.

compared to other kadian, this is one that may need more time to be fully realized. i find it significant that out all the songs, Lighthouse got the 16:23 written all over it. if you believe that it’s a song for yibo, then maybe the 16:23 is really what we think it is. 🫶🏼

lastly, another cpn connected to this is how xzs skipped to post anything on GRA weekend. but to me this was more of professional courtesy to this important event. xz and his team most likely didn’t want to be mistaken as trying to overshadow anyone. there are other times where i think their studios are coordinated in order to not clash — for example this tuesday, the main release time for XZ materials is 10:00 and WYB’s magazine release is 12 onwards — but this incidence ( at least to me ) is not one of those.

END.

disclaimer that i’m not reducing the releases and all the content gg and his team has worked hard for to prove some kind of cpn. this is just to explain what the posting time may mean. it may or may not be significant at all and that’s just how cpns work.

[fqlling4it]

we can’t be friends (wait for your love) | max verstappen x best friend! reader

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen, kellypiquet, and others

yourusername maxxie won in brazil! so so so proud of my best friend 💗

view all 2,181 comments

user372 okay but compare y/n’s post to kelly’s and you can tell who actually is proud of him

↳ user33 one of them only posts when he wins and the other posts congratulating him no matter the results

maxverstappen ecstatic to have you in the paddock this past weekend! thanks for coming y/n/n

↳ yourusername i’m there whenever you want me to be maxxie!

kellypiquet so so proud of my boy!

↳ yourusername so proud of him too! 💗

user81 kelly staking her claim on max like y/n and max aren’t just friends 😭

↳ user44 you don’t know the lore??? go check user711’s pinned on twitter… rip y/nmax ☹️💔

francisca.cgomez great to see you around this weekend! missed you tons bbygirl 💗

↳ yourusername missed you tons kiks, so so grateful to have seen you this weekend 😘

user4 missed the ynmax content </3

↳ user71 when we went YEARS without ynmax content because kelly told y/n she didn’t like her relationship with max :(

twitter user771 pinned tweet!

kellypiquet

liked by maxverstappen, yourusername, and others

kellypiquet still riding the high ☄️

view all 2,373 comments

yourusername so so proud of him! can’t believe it!

↳ kellypiquet p’s asking when auntie y/n can come over

↳ yourusername give me a date and a time and i’ll babysit for you!

user832 only posting when he wins is crazy 😭

user18 diabolical move telling y/n (the ultimate mom friend) that her daughter wants to see her auntie y/n

↳ user33 plotting how to get rid of y/n using P

maxverstappen ❤️

messages between Kelly and y/n

kellypiquet and maxverstappen

liked by landonorris, carlossainz, and others

kellypiquet and maxverstappen baby verstappen coming may 2025!

view all 8,382 comments

user33 no y/n in the likes ???

↳ user72 ynmax drought again????

↳ user21 definitely something to do with max and kelly having a baby together ☹️💔

carlossainz congratulations to the two of you!

↳ maxverstappen thank you carlos!

landonorris that was.. unexpected. godfather lando 2025!

↳ maxverstappen and who said anything about you being godfather?

user91 the way y/n would’ve been the mother of max’s kid if they both stopped being delusional 💔

↳ user61 leave them alone my god, do you y/n fans ever stop being weird

↳ user91 nah this has gotta be kelly’s burner or something 😭

lewishamilton congrats man! happy for you!

↳ maxverstappen thank you! means a lot coming from you

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, lewishamilton and others

yourusername while i am not officially a musician, i have dabbled in music before… here’s my first ever single, we can’t be friends, out friday! i hope you love it just as much as i do.. and a special thank you to charles_leclerc and lewishamilton for helping produce and cowrite this song!

view all 7,382 comments

lewishamilton thank you for letting me help produce this song! so so proud of you and how far you’ve come from the little girl in the paddock chasing around her papa and his drivers to now being an official marketing and pr agent

↳ yourusername thanks lew! i appreciate you so so much! truly such a blessing for you to help me out with this!

user832 okay but album when?

↳ user1 CHILL she just released a single

user44 and when we get an album about what truly went down 2016-2020 then what

↳ user33 hey so actually let’s not because i’ll go insane

charles_leclerc thank you for letting me compose some of the piano parts! it was a blessing to be able to work with you

↳ yourusername no, thank you for helping me get the ideas out of my head! so honored to work with you on this piece

messages between max and y/n

this was definitely not what was supposed to come out first, but i figured posting this which was sitting in my drafts was better than trying to write and add photos to a new smau! so hurt my feelings, which is max x ex! reader, will be out sometime by the end of the week (or beginning of next week at the latest)! this is very short, but i do really like this one and wanted to post it to garner feedback on what everyone seems to like seeing from me! likes and reblogs are appreciated.. (also i am working on a taglist and masterlist, so comment down below if you’re interested in being added to a taglist!)

[kindahoping4forever]

vs. 4 years with CALM

1 week with CALM vs. 1 year with CALM

If you've got your song sorter post from last year, play along if you like 😌😉 (Even if you don't have an old one, create one today at https://louisezimmerlin.tumblr.com/calmsongsorter - If you've never used before, be aware the sorter doesn't work in app, you need to use your browser ☺️)

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Nothing but Thieves - Is Everybody Going Crazy? 2020

Nothing but Thieves are a British rockband, formed in 2012 in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. In 2015, they released their self-titled debut album. Their second album Broken Machine was released in 2017, receiving wide acclaim in addition to peaking at number 2 in the UK Album Charts. They released an EP titled What Did You Think When You Made Me This Way? in 2018, followed by their third studio album, Moral Panic, in 2020. This was followed in 2021 by the album's "second part" with the EP entitled Moral Panic II. In 2023, they released their fourth studio album, Dead Club City, which became their first UK number 1 album.

The band started composing the songs for Moral Panic in the early 2019. Although its release coincided with Covid-19 pandemic and a lot of related anxiety and tension in the society, the idea for the album (including its title and even the first single, "Is Everybody Going Crazy?") came prior to that and took inspiration from various social issues in the world.

"Is Everybody Going Crazy?" received a total of 75,7% yes votes!

[midnightsslut]

A Guide to Red - The Quintessential Taylor Swift Album

After the release of The Manuscript, the role of Red and Red (Taylor’s Version) in Taylor’s life and discography has been highly discussed. A lot of people have referred to it as her magnum opus and most formative album. I have decided to compile a condensed list of about a dozen key interviews, performances, speeches, posts, and videos from 2011 all the way until 2024 that illustrate the importance of this record for Taylor’s personal life and career. I’m putting the list under a cut because it got pretty long. You don’t have to go through all of these, obviously, but I would suggest at least one per era. The bolded ones are essential in my opinion.

Pre-Red - These interviews hint at Taylor’s emotional state at the time and thus the content that will be explored on the Red album

2011 The New Yorker profile

Taylor Swift reveals new album is all about heartbreak - Extra TV

Bonus: an article going through Taylor’s arm lyrics on the Speak Now World Tour, which she described as mood rings for any particular show

Lover diary entries from the making of Red (credit to @cabincreaking for the scans)

- All Too Well lyrics first draft (February 2011)

- Random bursts of happiness and anxiety during the Speak Now Tour (June 17, 2011)

- Red (September 8, 2011)

- Holy Ground (February 2012)

- Nothing New (March 2, 2012)

- Working with Max Martin (June 10, 2012)

Red era - Listen to the original sixteen songs on the Red album at this point.

Red announcement livestream + Q&A

Red prologue

2012 Rolling Stone interview

2012 The Guardian interview

2012 Billboard interview

2012 Esquire interview

Sirius XM Town Hall - an hourlong interview from the day Red came out

Good Morning America - this is the first mention of the ten-minute version of All Too Well

Red track-by-track descriptions

Random interview where she discusses the connection between writing Speak Now and Red

I Knew You Were Trouble music video

Diary entry about how love is fiction and she might move to New York after all (January 6, 2014)

Diary entry from Grammy night (January 25, 2014)

Red Tour London performance of All Too Well - any performance of this song from 2013-14 will work here, but this one has a pretty comprehensive speech

Final performance of All Too Well on the Red Tour - just listen to the speech here

Post-Red era - Over the course of these interviews, you’ll see her relationship to the album evolve.

Taylor’s description of Clean (skip to 11:18)

2014 BBC Live Lounge interview

1989 World Tour interview where she mentions thinking she’d never sell as many albums as she did with Red before 1989 came out

Clean speech - a lot of these will work, but these two best describe her relationship with the Red era and heartbreak in general

All Too Well (The 1989 World Tour live)

2015 GrammyPro interview

All Too Well Super Saturday Night performance

Reputation Tour All Too Well speech

Red into Daylight performance - 2019 City of Lover concert in Paris

Re-recordings era - at this point, listen to the red vault

2020 Rolling Stone podcast

Red (Taylor’s Version) prologue

2021 Saturday Night Live performance

All Too Well: The Short Film + Behind the Scenes

Seth Meyers interview

2022 Tribeca film talk OR TIFF (both are equally good. I have a slight preference for the former, but there are some interesting new details in the latter). You could also watch directors on directors from the same year as a bonus, but it’s less comprehensive.

2022 Graham Norton - How All Too Well (10 Minute Version) came about + how the re-recordings inspired Midnights

Also listen to Midnights

The Eras Tour

All Too Well speech (Glendale Night 2 & Atlanta Night 1) - any of the speeches from March and April 2023 will work, but these two really illustrate how she feels about this time in her life now and how the fans changed the Red album for her. Obviously credit to @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes for the transcripts!

Maroon first ever live performance (‘This is a song about something that happened a long time ago, but it took place in New York’)

Aaaand finally listen to The Tortured Poets Department, especially The Manuscript

This is a lot, but it’s worth it. Enjoy!

[maevstar]

| Introducing myself in my fame dr ᯓᡣ𐭩

ᝰ. My name is Maeve Amelie Solace, but people usually call me by “Mae”.

ᝰ. I’m 26yo and I’m an A-list american actress and singer. (I was born in 1997 but I didn’t turned 27 yet).

ᝰ. I started my way on acting when I was 16 when my older brother was doing a play on high school and begged me to participate. I did, and since then I’ve been in love with acting.

ᝰ. When I graduated from high school i moved out from my hometown — Austin, Texas — to LA and entered to UCLA School of Theater.

ᝰ. My first big project in Hollywood was “The Edge of Seventeen” when I was 19-20yo, before that I just worked with small projects, mostly from my uni.

ᝰ. That project gave me more visibility in the industry and I became more well known.

ᝰ. Some of my films: The Edge of Seventeen, The School for Good and Evil (adaptation of the books), Lady bird, Scream 4 (2018), Little Woman, Causeway, We Live in a Time, Challengers, Me Before You, Glass Onion 2, Duna, Anyone but You, Don’t look up, No hard feelings, Don’t worry darling, The outrun, and etc.

ᝰ. Some of my shows: Supernatural (Claire Novak), Looking for Alasca, YOU, outer banks (season 4).

ᝰ. I’ve been nominated for the Oscar 4 times as the best Actress in a Leading Role, but I’m just gonna win the award in the 4th time (2024). Futhermore, i’ve won a lot of awards and nominations like Emmy’s and Golden Globes. In 2022, I entered the list of The Most Influential People by Time Magazine.

Now, my singer career:

ᝰ. My mom is a country singer — not much known — in Texas, so I’ve grew up loving music, and I’ve been writing songs since I was 15, but these never turned into real songs, until 2019-2020, when I recorded my EP’s.

ᝰ. My first EP is called “Minor” and it has 7 songs. I released it in 2019 just for fun, was some songs that I’ve been writing during the years. In 2020 I released more 2 EPs, called “Bittersweet” and “Good Riddance”, with 7 and 10 songs respectively, again, just for fun.

ᝰ. Now, my new coming up project on music is my first Album, called “The Secret Of Us”, it has 13 songs (+ 7 from deluxe) and all of them will have a music video, cause my objective is making a visual album.

ᝰ. With my new album, I intend to go on my first tour.

Fun facts about me:

ᝰ. I know ballet and gymnastics cause when my sister was 8 years old she wanted to learn but was scared to do it alone, so I used to go to classes with her.

ᝰ. I have 3 siblings, Will, Kayla and Austin. Will is 2 years older than me, Kayla is younger than me 4 years and Austin is 8 years younger than me. (Another fun fact is that Austin is adopted).

ᝰ. My s/o is Drew Starkey, I met him in a party at Maddie Cline’s house (2021). Also, Madelyn is my best friend and I’m very close to the cast of the outer banks too.

ᝰ. I’m in fact brazilian. I was born there but my family moved to the US when I was 8 — my father is brazilian but my mom is from us, she was in a trip when met my dad in brazil and blablabla — so I have dual nationality. (latinas are better lol). But when I was 14, I moved again to Brazil and lived there for almost 2 years with my aunt before I came back to US.

ᝰ. When I was 16, I made a YouTube channel with my brother Will and we used to talk about the most random things ever (btw it was a flop lol, this channel just came up when we became famous). (another fun fact is that he is also a well known actor, but more on theater plays than on screen).

ᝰ. When I was in high school, I was planning on going to med school — mostly because of my dad, he’s a doctor (my obsession with greys anatomy might got me inclined to that too🤭) — but then I fell in love with acting (when I was 16, like i said) and never quit. Besides that, I’m still very interested with things related to science and human body, stuff like that; most of things that I know are bc of my dad tho.

ᝰ. I’m polyglot. I speak Portuguese, English, Italian, Spanish and a bit of French and Latin. I also know ASL.

ᝰ. I still don’t know how to ride bikes without training wheels cause no one ever taught me (😭).

ᝰ. I love the sea, beaches, everything related to that, it’s one of my favorite places in the world.

mood boards; mood boards details;

─────── ୨ৎ ───────

[betterthanburrow]

It Was Divine - Instagram AU

(Bengals Quarterback! Joe Burrow x RnB Singer! OC)

liked by yourinstagram and 99,690 more users

Bengals: Starting off May with a pic of Joe.

view all 13,009 comments

username1: a great start to the month

username2: thank you admin!

liked by 113,009 users

ENEWS: is it the time of season for romantic relationships between singers and football players?!

R&B Singer Y/FN Y/LN and Football Quarterback Joe Burrow are rumored to be in a relationship.

Official Sources tell us that the two met earlier this year when Y/N performed the National Anthem at the AFC Championship game between the Bengals vs the Chiefs and have stayed close in touch ever since.

view all 909 comments

username1: my favorite singer and my favorite football player are in a RELATIONSHIP?!

username2: this relationship seems like a fever dream

username3: he didn’t walk away from this football season with a SB ring… but he’s walking away with a new hot girl by his side.

liked by 222,013 users

WorldOfY/N: AFTER 3 YEARS OF WAITING…

WE’RE GETTING A NEW ALBUM THIS MONTH!

view all 69,420 comments

username1: dating rumors AND album announcement on the same day? … this is too much to handle 🫨

username2: OH MY GOSH!

username3: AM I DREAMING RIGHT NOW?!

username4: GO CHECK HER INSTAGRAM! … SHE JUST POSTED THE ALBUM NAME, THE ALBUM COVER, THE RELEASE DATE, AND THE TRACK-LIST!

liked by joeyb_9 and 5,420,013 more users

yourinstagram: It Was Divine 🦋 The Tracklist 🤍

view all 999,009 comments

yourrecordlabel: very excited for this new album 🤍

username1: I’M CLAIMING TRACK 4!

username2: i can already tell that this will be my new favorite album of all time!

Twitter:

liked by joeyb_9 and 4,250,009 more users

yourinstagram: More Than Enough is Out Now ☁️

view all 250,045 comments

username1: MORE THAN ENOUGH IS MY NEW FAVORITE SONG!

username2: is this a soft launch 🤨

username3: i think there’s only one man on this planet who would wear those tie-dye sweatpants…

liked by yourinstagram and 245,450 more users

Bengals: Headband Joe: Unlocked

view all 99,513 comments

username1: i didn’t expect to see this kind of look on Joe… but i don’t hate it at all.

username2: this dude is SO FINE!

username3: hard to watch ❌ hard while watching ✅

username4: i understand what the tiktok girls see now

username5: you’re a lucky woman @.yourinstagram

liked by yourinstagram and 930,205 more users

joeyb_9: First day of school vibes

view all 20,013 comments

username1: you got me feeling some type of way on this lovely morning Mr. Joe Burrow.

username2: 🤤🤤🤤

username3: MY FAVORITE WHITE BOY!!!

liked by 255,505 users

ENEWS: Despite no official confirmation of the relationship between the Singer and the Quarterback, Sources close to the new couple say that they’re both “head over heels in love” and that fans will be able to feel that with the songs on Y/N’s upcoming album.

“Things in their relationships are moving quicker than they expected but for all good reasons… Ever since the two met for the first time earlier this year, Joe has made a huge impact on Y/N’s life to the point where she got very inspired to get into the music studio to create her new album.” one source says.

Another source says, “After the lost of the AFC Championship game, Y/N was by Joe’s side as a new friend and Joe had been very welcoming of the new friendship because he had been a fan of her music since her debut album was released in 2020 (Joe had said in an interview before that her debut album helped ease his mind during the Covid Lockdown).”

“Don’t expect Joe and Y/N to hard launch their relationship on social media because Joe and Y/N use social media as just a business platform… but through the way they’ll be supporting each other is how the world will be able to see the love that Joe and Y/N have for each other.” an official source says.

view all 55,013 comments

username1: i can’t believe that my favorite singer and my favorite NFL quarterback are in a relationship WITH EACH OTHER?!

username2: the two most private celebrities that i stan are in a relationship… I JUST NEED ONE PICTURE!

username3: oh okay… so they’re IN LOVE!

username4: Y/N is a WAG!

username5: this man has made such a huge impact in her life to the point where she was INSPIRED to go to the MUSIC STUDIO to RECORD A NEW ALBUM!

liked by joeyb_9 and 10,013,420 more likes

yourinstagram: It Was Divine 🦋 Out Now!

view all 690,513 comments

yourrecordlabel: congratulations on the new album 🤍

username1: THIS IS YOUR BEST ALBUM!!!!

username2: ALBUM OF THE YEAR!

username3: the album has been on repeat ALL DAY!

joeyb_9: 🤍

Author’s Note:

if you have a Instagram AU request, please send the IG AU request to my Inbox and i’ll try to get the requested Instagram AU published as fast as i can!

thank you for all the love and support! 🤍

[sleepanonymous]

About your tags about those known collabs with other artists, what are all the known collabs hes done? Id heard he did piano for bfmv before but i havent been able to find out which songs

Hello Anon 🖤 Thanks for the ask, I actually had fun typing all of this up and doing research. Spoiler alert: I am now sus of every and any song that George Lever and Carl Bown have produced that contain synth/keys 😅

Also, side note, listening to all of these songs while fact checking really cemented how unique Vessel is as a pianist. It’s like he’s playing in his own language, if that makes sense? It’s truly beautiful.

For Bullet For My Valentine, Vessel did the Piano Versions on the deluxe Gravity album: Breathe Under Water, The Very Last Time, and Under Again. I’ve heard a couple of times that he also did synths for the standard version of the album, but there’s no absolute confirmation of it, since he was only initially credited in the three songs I mentioned. He did have the credits changed to Vessel1 before they were removed altogether from the songs. The album Gravity was supposedly recorded between 2016/2017, so around the same time that the One and Two EPs dropped. I’m not 100% positive how he got that gig, but that is supposedly how he met Carl Bown (the producer for Take Me Back to Eden). It could also be the other way around, and Carl and Vessel already knew each other and he brought Vessel in to do the piano versions.

He is credited as a composer (ie he played piano) for Holding Absence’s song Purge. Their self-titled album was recorded in 2018, so around the time Sleep Token released the singles Jaws and The Way That You Were. Fun fact about this collab: the band most likely met Ves through George Lever, since he produced Holding Absence’s album, and that’s how the Loathe/Holding Absence/Sleep Token tour came about.

In 2019, he collaborated with The Hell on their song Jump the Fuck Up. This one I have the least information on, since the band is also anonymous and seems to have revolving members. The only credits on the song are the band name and the composer/lyricist Stephen Sears. I haven’t done too much digging, but I would not be surprised if the band had ties to George, Carl, or even both producers.

In summer 2020, during lockdown, he did a piano cover of Type O Negative’s Love You To Death with the vocalist of Forlorn, Megan Jenkins. Her band has previously worked with George Lever. I do have to warn anyone who looks up this song on YouTube, since you’ll see him in the music video that was filmed (hands, arms, chin, hair/hair color, back). He was uncredited, but the mv is proof of his involvement.

The band Malevolence stated in a podcast interview that he played keys on the acoustic version of Higher Place, but was not credited (at least one band member didn’t even realize this). The song was produced by Carl Bown, and since the album/song was released in 2022, I’m assuming it was recorded sometime in 2021, so between recording TPWBYT and TMBTE.

[shineemoon]

TAEMIN ✨ NME Interview (Full → HERE)

“A lot of my songs carry words that could be considered negative and although positive words have power, I think it’s more attractive to make the negative look beautiful.”

Taemin’s definition of love: “There’s different forms. There is love that you receive from your parents, the love from your girlfriend or boyfriend, and the love from fans. But there’s always a sacrifice, and pushing someone to sacrifice is also love. There are a lot of things I gain from being a singer but, at the same time, there are lots of things I have to give up, and these are the ones I emphasised in this single.”

“I learned to be careful to trust someone, because it really hurts when someone suddenly disappoints you. It’s very important in relationships to be careful about what you talk and what you do.” These words reflect Taemin’s growth since he released his previous mini-album, 2020’s ‘Advice’, shortly before enlisting in South Korea’s obligatory military service. During that break from music, he realised that people learn from experience. “I found out that I’m interested in different hobbies, different food, different restaurants, different vacation spots. Having moments to relax were an opportunity to feel like the person Taemin, instead of the artist Taemin.”

“I like to separate the personas. It’s like actors, who separate the person and the character. Off stage, I think I’m more playful and simpler, like a little kid.” While reminiscing about this dichotomy, he goes as far as to compare his life to the 1998 satirical drama The Truman Show. “In the movie, Jim Carey realises that everyone has been watching him at the end. I came to SM [Entertainment] when I was 12 years old, and the period of time when I was training, my debut, all the moments where I was growing up were shared and seen by a lot of people, so I relate to that.”

“The music video was [also] inspired by this book called Eroticism, by George Bataille. It covers a lot of topics about breaking taboos, and I thought about how this can reflect on my music and the perspective I put into it. For example, showing skin is still a taboo, so when a male performer rips their shirt and the crowd goes wild, I wanted to understand and incorporate the concept of breaking that taboo.” He describes his albums as ways into himself. “I always learn something. Like when you’re writing a journal, you can organise your thoughts [there], but I find that I’m able to organise what I learned and what I think through the albums that I release.” And then, in order to apply his lessons, he pours all his “energy and passion” into performances, to the point of no regrets. “Because there’s some wear to any image, I always think of how to change and show different sides of myself.”

“I have a very different lifestyle than most people, and I realised that, because of my career, I receive a lot of love and support. I knew it in my head, but now I feel it in my skin. Many people my age are still finding their way, so I feel very fortunate to have found out what I love to do.”

[venusvity]

˚˖𓍢ִ໋🍒✧˚.⋆ UR MY BABY! HELLO, I'M BAEBI!

cw: sexualization + controlling company

  JUNG YOONAH took on the stage name BAEBI in 2018 upon her debut with VENUS and the world was never the same.

Baebi would take the world by storm with her solo debut the same year Venus would debut, sparking much discussion among fans over favoritism, a debate that still rages today. But who cares about favoritism when the music is good? Bubble Pop! Would take the Kpop world by storm, becoming the song of the summer.

It peaked at number two on South Korea's Gaon Album Chart and charted atop the US Billboard World Albums. As of 2023, it has sold 560,000 copies in South Korea. 

Bubble Pop! 's commercial success was the main contributor to Angelico Entertainment's leading music sales. The song peaked at number one in South Korea, where it has sold over 2.5 million digital units. To accompany her solo release, Baebi held a series of small concerts called Baebi's Summer Splash. She was awarded Best Female Artist at the 2018 Mnet Asian Music Awards and at the 2019 Golden Disk Awards.

Chart data is boring. Let's talk about something else.

Returning just a few months later with the mini album "Tell Me More" and a title track of the same name, fans grew slightly more concerned over Yoonah's concept as a soloist. According to her most dedicated fans, her sound and look were very mature, very sensual, and bordering on sexual, which didn't really match Yoonah's character.

No one would be shocked at the music and content Baebi would be releasing when looking at her creative team:

The Son Brothers, Jinhwa and Roan, would be the proud creative directors behind all of Baebi's solo work. Bubble Pop! would be Son Roan's, later turned CEO of Angelico after his brother departed from the label to become CEO of Mydol, Angelico's now parent company, first project in the Kpop realm.

"I like working with Baebi because she's something different than what you're used to seeing from the other idols out there. You can do things with Baebi you can't normally do with other idols and I find that very exciting." – Son Roan when asked about the Baebi brand in 2020.

2020 Baebi hit a career-high with her mini album "Glassdoor" and the lead single, Gashina. This song was everywhere, but even more to an extent, no Angelico artist had ever seen. Baebi was an international sensation. She'd go on a mini world tour as a soloist, the first and only Venus member to do so, promoting internationally, being the first soloist under Angelico to do so internationally.

A point of contention in Baebi's career is the botched release of her first full album, "Hello Baebi!" with the poorly promoted single, Hello. When Baebi was coming back, you knew about it, your friends knew about it, your mama knew about it, hell, even your grandma knew about it. For Hello Baebi? Not a peep. Even Baebi fans were confused when Ktown4u posted a pre-order poster for the album before Angelico even posted teasers. Which, mind you, she only got four photo teasers and a single video trailer for a full album.

When the comeback happened, promotions only lasted for two weeks, something unheard of for Baebi and the outfits? Fresh off the Forever21 rack. The stages? Bare. Nothing. The MV? Budget cut in half. Something wasn't right...Then when you looked at the album credits, neither of the Son brothers were anywhere to be seen. The entire album was made by Baebi herself, something she shared often on her Instagram or during the few interviews she did during this era.

Either way, Hello Baebi, her one cute era completely controlled by her, was deemed a flop and the Son brothers used that to their advantage, taking full creative control over Baebi's image again.

Which is where Touch came in.

Touch was noted for its overtly sexual music video, on-the-nose sexual lyrics, and latex outfits Baebi would promote in. The single, which was, of course, promoted ions better than Hello Baebi!, was phenomenally on the charts and in sales, "proving" that the mature concept is what people wanted from Baebi. At least, that's Jinhwa's belief.

Baebi's release after Touch would be a mini album titled "Stupid B—" with the promoted track TWIT. Fans that worried for Baebi would be soothed by this less sexual yet mature concept and the actual look of enjoyment on Yoonah's face when performing the song, something that seemed to be lacking when she was performing Touch.

After a year break from solo activities, Baebi would come back swinging in 2024 with her second full album, "Choke On It," and the title track LIPLOCKER, which was a hit, of course. Though the concept was leaning more toward sexual than mature, Baebi seemed more comfortable performing and actually had fun during this promotional period. She'd go on to say that LIPLOCKER was her favorite comeback since Hello Baebi!, which fans are hesitant to believe, but whatever makes her happy!

[glossamerfaerie]

This is obvious, but bear with me.

2020: publication of Crescent City 1, which introduces the concept of the four Houses of Midgard and how the series titles will mirror them.

2021: A COURT OF SILVER FLAMES (Nesta’s book with Cassian as love interest)

2022: CC2 releases. We find out about upcoming crossover.

2024: HOUSE OF FLAME AND SHADOW (CC3 crossover in which Nesta and Azriel are the main ACOTAR characters)

Double meaning: Nesta is Flame and Azriel is Shadow.

2025 (?): upcoming ACOTAR title. Extremely likely to be A COURT OF [ADJECTIVE] SHADOWS. (Azriel book with Gwyn). The phrase could also be “SHADOWY + NOUN” but I think that looks messier. Nesta’s book also used the plural noun with Flames.

***

Assuming that my 2025 guess is correct, HOFAS is literally bookended by two ACOTAR books with the ✨exact same title word as HOFAS.✨

“But wait,” you say, “this is just a coincidence. HOFAS is named after a House of Midgard, the one with the reapers and necromancers. CC1 was published way before these ACOTAR books. Flame and shadow are super common words!”

I think these titles and book order have been planned for a long time. It’s possible that SJM had shifting ideas when she wrote ACOFAS in 2017, but by the time she wrote CC1 (which clearly introduced multiverse concept with Bryce’s tattoo) in 2018/2019, SJM knew that she wanted Nesta and Az to be the prominent characters in CC3 and the upcoming ACOTAR protagonists. The crossover details may have changed over the years, but Nesta and Az prominence didn’t.

Definition of House of Flame and Shadow: “Daemonaki, Reapers, wraiths, vampyrs, draki, dragons, necromancers, and many wicked and unnamed things that even Urd herself cannot see.”

There is literally no reason why this House HAD to be named Flame and Shadow. The other Midgard houses have elements (Earth, Sky, Waters), but why use the word FLAME specifically? It could’ve been Embers, Blaze, Inferno, etc. SJM could’ve also used “Fire” — it didn’t need to be fancy since House of Many Waters just used Waters.

Same analysis with Shadow. What about that creature classification necessitated the word Shadow? There are lots of natural phenomenon associated with darkness and death and wickedness — the use of Shadow is a deliberate choice.

I genuinely think that this fandom overreaches with the theories. It’s like Taylor Swift — Swifties overthink every Easter egg, but sometimes the answer of the album title is just a giant billboard in a music video.

HOFAS is that giant billboard. SJM is not a complicated writer re: worldbuilding or foreshadowing. It is as simple as “the next ACOTAR books are Nesta and Azriel — what if I represented them in CC3 with the crossover title?” It’s obvious. Setting aside foreshadowing in the actual story, the answer can solely be found in the title.

I love Elucien and know it’s been a long wait, but I’m afraid that the wait is going to be longer than some people hope. I know people think Elain’s book is next but I really don’t see how that’s the case. Not interested in debating or explaining the Gwynriel ship rationale since there’s a million other posts out there.

Re: Azriel’s title being A COURT OF [ADJECTIVE] SHADOWS. I’ve seen people on all sides of the ship war suggest that the adjective be related to the heroine (Gwyn or Elain). I really don’t think so. The title will solely focus on Az, just like how SILVER FLAMES solely focused on Nesta. It could be MELODIC SHADOWS or WHISPERING SHADOWS or something else. But the adjective will fit an ability that we’ve already seen from Az’s shadows (we know they whisper to Az and can sing). Similarly, Elucien book title will solely focus on Elain. Cassian and Gwyn and Lucien are extremely important characters, but they won’t be represented in the title.

[duplicitywrites]

Does fandom feel very different to you now than it did pre-2020? This could be a rather myopic viewpoint- I’m in college, so I’m young enough to have never really lived in times where fandom was ridiculed or whatever, but it still felt fringe-like in 2019. I’d go to school and chat about fanfic and fan art with my nerd friends, but fandom did not feel omnipresent in the mainstream- not just fan art or fanfic ( which is still 100% fringe like ) but fandom discussions too. Now swifties get mentioned on the news and crap. Perhaps that’s a bad example since Taylor swift is….Taylor swift, but I feel like a fandom that big and powerful wouldn’t have even formed pre 2020. Swifties certainly existed, but even in 2014, they would not be mentioned in the news.

i'm afraid i can only confirm your viewpoint as myopic because my friends weren't fandom nerds haha. the only other person i knew who read fanfic was this one guy in my year who i think only read what i wrote because he had a crush on me. which, well. not sure if that actually counts 😂

i first started engaging in fandom at large around... 2012? i think? or maybe sooner than that, i don't remember anymore. i used to rp on facebook LMAO but my later fandom experience mostly centers around tumblr and discord.

now that fandom is mainstream it really does feel omnipresent. people as a whole have changed. but to circle back to your other point — swifties have history that relates to this, because taylor used do private fan sessions (screenings)? of her album before release, and i think a majority of those fans were selected from social media, tumblr in particular, because she was active here. you can imagine how that made the parasocial aspect was even worse.

this stuff predated 2020s but it did drive a significant amount of fan behaviour. and ik not every celebrity is taylor swift, but you see a lot of that continues to be replicated because modern fandom is about 🚨 ATTENTION 🚨! so it's quantity over quality, anything that isn't an immediate massive hit gets dismissed, etc. then the stuff that does make the news so to speak gets exploited to death until people are sick of it, which again, you know, takes us back to taylor swift.

things are better when i can just enjoy my little guys in peace. which i do! or try to do. it's difficult because the rest of the world seems to want less and less to operate like that.

all this to say i think fandom can still be close to the way it was. it can still be fringe, with you and your friends in a group hanging out. you just have to block out the noise and really make that space for yourself. then you can still decide how much you want to engage with the rest of it.

[happinessismusic]

“I’ve been waiting and wanting to, but it’s just not that easy.” Gwen Stefani is talking to me about making new music: Aside from a holiday offering, You Make It Feel Like Christmas, in 2017, Stefani hasn’t debuted a full album in nearly a decade. All that time has cloaked Bouquet—her new record, out today—in a lot of mystery, and more than a little anticipation. “That makes me scared when you say it like that,” she says. In many ways, she’s just as excited and curious about this next chapter in her career as her fans are. “I feel so good to finally have a record that reflects the truth of who I am right this second.

That truth involved a lot of healing, a major theme of her new music. Stefani has been through it since her last pop release—notably titled This Is What the Truth Feels Like—came out in 2016, ending her 13-year marriage to musician Gavin Rossdale, with whom she shares three sons, and beginning a very public romance with country star Blake Shelton, one of her fellow judges on NBC’s popular music-competition show The Voice. She and Shelton then married in Oklahoma in 2021.

Stefani had planned to put out her fifth studio album the same year—teasing it with a single, “Let Me Reintroduce Myself,” in December 2020—but the project was scrapped. “I describe it like being in a cul-de-sac,” Stefani says now. “You’re driving and then you just hit this circle and you’re like, something’s not right.”

What has since risen from its ashes is Bouquet, an album that combines bold pop songwriting and major hooks with a little yacht rock flare. (Stefani is the queen of genre shapeshifting, after all, having launched her career with the ska-inflected pop-punk of No Doubt in the 1990s before going solo in the aughts, and helping to define that decade’s earworm-y bubblegum pop.)

“But in reality, it doesn’t matter the genre, because at the end of the day it’s all about the lyric,” she reflects. “What’s the song supposed to say and how will the music support that?” For better or worse, she had a lot to write about.

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

Yes! The ways the mechs and mcyt handle narrative have always been so similar to me but I've never been able to put it onto words. Would Love to hear what you have to say on the topic (after you have had a good sleep)

HI, it's time for me to get insane. Thank you for sending this ask cause now I have an excuse to maintag the post, lol. Also, I'm going to be using the term MCYT interchangeably with MCRP (Minecraft roleplay) for my own sanity. You'll know what I mean from context clues, I think.

So, hi, anyone who doesn't know about The Mechanisms. This post is going to be about some meta analysis tools that popped up in the Mechs fandom when it exploded in popularity back in 2020-2021. Due to the nature of both the Mechs and MCYT (which I'll get into in a moment), these concepts are generally very helpful for meta analysis of MCYT as well, and I think you guys would love them.

First of all, what was The Mechanisms?

The Mechanisms, originally known as Dr. Carmilla and The Mechanisms, was a band that formed in the late 2000s. It had a rotating cast of members, though most of the stuff you can easily find from them (such as their albums) was made when they had 8-9 consistent members. The Mechanisms officially released seven albums and one single before the band broke up in early 2020. The reason this band is similar at all to MCYT comes from a few things- the characters the band played, the stories the band told, and the archival aspect/age.

Because the Mechs were not a regular band, it was also a storytelling experience. Each Mechs album tells it's own self contained story (except for the Tales to be Told albums, which feature songs with their own stories that don't tie into the album at large). But furthermore, each Mechanism is a character. All the members of the band had characters they played, acting as a band of immortal space pirates moving through the galaxy on their ship, The Aurora.

The similarity to MCYT here is, of course, the characters. It's not always as simple to tell the difference between MCYT characters and actors as it was with The Mechanisms, seeing as (a lot of) MCYT doesn't start with the acting/roleplaying intention that the Mechs started with. But nonetheless, they share the understanding that even though this isn't a play or a TV show or whatever scripted medium, and that even though these characters (sometimes) share similar/the same names as their creators, they are, ultimately, characters the creators are putting on in order to tell a story. Whether that story is something more connected to the base characters (less roleplay heavy servers, Mechs backstory beats) or a story where the characters themselves are filling a role to tell a new story (more roleplay heavy servers, Mechs filling in for characters on the albums to tell their stories), there is always a story to be told.

There is also, as I said, the archival aspect. Archiving is massively important to both The Mechanisms and MCYT. It's definitely a lot harder with the Mechs than with most MCYT stuff, since the Mechs are a whole lot nicher, but that is not to say it's easy for either group. Archiving is vital to keeping both fanbases, and both sets of characters, alive, and there is only so much archiving you can rely on the creators of either to do. Those of you who take this task on are genuinely so awesome and I love you.

Alongside the archiving aspect (and as such, the lost media aspect), there's also the age of the Mechanisms, and (similarly to MCYT), the large number of people involved in the project, which results in lost and oftentimes conflicting canon beats. Mechs lore was not a strict, planned out thing. Large swaths of it were made up on the fly or forgotten down the line and rewritten or just made to work because the story needed it. As such, a lot of Mechanisms meta analysis had to reckon with the fact that the story was often telling you two or three or more things that could not be true at once nonetheless were, or was telling you something with the assumption that you knew something else, but that something else is now impossible to track down. So, sometimes, you just had to pick and choose, or try to reconstruct that lost knowledge. Similarly, varying POVs and gaps in time or gaps in story result in a similar concept for MCYT analysis- sometimes it doesn't really work if you take every piece of lore into account, so you just can't, even though every piece of lore is equally canon; or sometimes, a specific source is lost and you have to trust the memory of people who saw or were involved in the source instead.

Now, what is narratomancy? And how is it relevant to meta analysis of MCYT?

Narratomancy is the name for a few concepts of meta analysis that popped up when the Mechs fandom exploded in 2020-2021. The term was coined by @lucky-sevens (who, unlike anyone else I bring up in this post, I feel comfortable tagging because they're inactive, lol, so this won't clog their notifs), but the credit for various concepts under the umbrella of narratomancy can go to a ton of people. Personally, I'm going to be heavily referencing one post in particular by @/gunpowderedtim when it comes to the four main pillars of narratomancy, and how they are relevant here. (BTW I know OP of that post has shifted at least a bit to the MCYT fandom as well, so if you see this and would like me to tag you properly, please let me know!)

(EDIT: I was informed in the replies that lucky-sevens did not, in fact, coin this phrase, but they can't remember who specifically did. Alas another Mechs thing lost to time.)

Narratomancy refers to the general concept of the narrative as a thing within the Mechs universe. The narrative, a story that wants to be told, is an (at least semi) sentient creature that is bending the universe to its will in order to be told. This living narrative helps to explain and work through some of the problems or plot holes in the narrative, and understanding this helps a lot for meta analysis, or even just understanding the story. As stated above, I'm going to be breaking down four main pillars that the post above identified, and how they may be relevant to MCYT meta analysis. Not all of them are going to work- these were concepts made up for The Mechanisms, after all, and for all their similarities, it's not a perfect 1 to 1. Let's get into it!

Pillar 1: Universal Story

This is a pillar that has one really important and relevant concept, but I do have to bend a bit of it in order to make it work. Namely, what we're calling "the universe" here. But it's still quite important. You'll see.

As mentioned up top, The Mechanisms were originally called Dr. Carmilla and The Mechanisms. Dr. Carmilla (both the character and the creator) eventually left the Mechs to do her own thing, tell her own story, but the story of the universe at large is still hers. She's still got her name in the title, she's still the one who created the original lore, so to the universe, she's still the main character. She might not be the main character of any given story, even any given story she participates in, but it's all her universe in the end. As such, both her stories and the stories of The Mechanisms are canon, but they might not be strictly canon to each other. Because ultimately, The Mechanisms were the universe's vessel for telling stories, and sometimes the stories they told made for a weird concoction of conflicting canon, so you just had to accept that these conflicting canon beats were both canon, but which one was canon depended entirely on which story you were looking at, which one was trying to be told, who that story specifically was about (this is a concept that'll come up again later).

The reason this is a bit less relevant to MCYT in that, if a roleplay server is being well run, you (hopefully) won't have a main character in this way. And even if you do, that main character is not always going to be the creator of the server/universe, ala Carmilla. But again, it's not irrelevant, because I think this can be applied when you're looking at individual POVs of any given event or server.

Every character is the main character of their own POV, even if they might not be the main character of any given story beat or event. They have their own lore and story to tell in that POV, and when you sit down to watch their POV that is the story you'll get. It just so happens that said story might have things that are canon to it that are not canon to other POVs, that cannot be canon to other POVs, and you as the fan have to reckon with that. Sometimes these things might be small or not something that's gonna really throw you, like the conflicting Magic Mountain lore in this season of Hermitcraft. Other times, these might be really big things, like Martyn's Watcher lore in the Life Series.

But either way, while the idea that there is a Universal Story that has a clear main character doesn't really apply to servers, it certainly ties in to the idea of POVs. And furthermore, the "all of these stories are canon, but not strictly canon to each other" idea that comes along with Universal Story is a really vital thing to keep in mind when it comes to MCYT.

Pillar 2: Casting Call (Narrative Role Filling)

There are two main parts to Casting Call. The first is that The Mechanisms have a role in the stories they tell, even the stories that are not their own, like the album ones. These roles are often trope heavy, or based on pre-existing characters that the Mechanisms themselves have similarities too. The second is that the Mechanisms slot into these roles not necessarily because they want to, but because they have to in order to make the story work. Because the narrative wants them to help the story along to the ending.

This is definitely more relevant in roleplay heavy servers, but it still comes up on just about every server out there. While for the Mechanisms, the divide is between "the character I am" vs. "the character I am playing so the story gets told", the divide for MCYT tends to be a bit more "the person I am" vs. "the character I am playing so the story gets told". This divide (and people's inability to understand it) is the reason why MCYTs so often have to give the "Remember, we're all friends in real life and anything that the others weren't comfortable with wouldn't be in the videos" disclaimer. Everyone involved in this story is playing a character to move the story along, and that character may be totally removed from their real life person (such as Scott playing Xornoth in ESMP s1) or pretty similar to their real life person, but dialed up so they can tell a story, get a reaction (I don't know any of these people in real life, so I can't confidently pin someone down for this, but you get what I'm talking about).

Regardless, there is a story to be told, even if that story isn't thought out in advance, and that requires people playing the villain or the damsel in distress or the knight in shining armor sometimes in order to get it done. And, tying back into Universal Story, who is playing which of these roles can change as the canon of each POV changes (such as in Third Life, where who is filling the "villain" role depends entirely on which POV you're watching).

Pillar 3: Story Echoes

Story Echoes are a very Mechanisms based concept, because unlike everything else here, they are explicitly canon. This concept refers to the fact that The Mechanisms' stories "echo" throughout the universe, or repeat over and over again. It's in different places and different times, but these stories are out there, over and over again.

This one can apply to MCYT, but I have to admit, it's a stretch and a half. Ultimately, the way this applies here is in the fact that there's no such thing as an original story. Every story borrows from or is inspired by or is similar to another story out there. It's the nature of story telling. The first example for MCYT that comes to mind is fan Life Series, stories that take the mechanics of the Life Series but put them somewhere else, somewhen else, with someone else. However, Story Echoes are explicitly the same story repeating over and over again, which isn't really the case with this example. As I said, it's a stretch, but I didn't want to skip over this pillar entirely.

Pillar 4: Narrative Imperative

And the final pillar, Narrative Imperative, also referred to as Narrative Flow. Despite this one also being explicitly canon to The Mechanisms, it is also very relevant to MCYT, and in my opinion, the most important concept on this list for MCYT meta.

Narrative Imperative is explicitly canon in the Mechs universe when it comes to how The Mechanisms heal from injuries or death. As discussed in this post from the official Mechanisms tumblr, that healing factor functions at "whatever speed the story wants it to". This concept of "sometimes stuff just happens because it must for the story, even if it doesn't make sense or actively contradicts previously established canon" has been brought up before when we were discussing Universal Story, in respect to lore, to roleplay based story beats, for both groups. Here, it's more discussing a fact of the universe at large, a fact of how the Mechanisms function. And while the general concept of Narrative Imperative can be applied to literally any conflicting lore thing in any MCYT server or story (it's flexible in that way), I think it works best when talking about how game mechanics tie into the story.

What does death mean for this character? What does death mean for this character when on this specific server? What does death mean for this character on this specific server in this specific moment? What does logging off mean for this character, on this server, in this moment? What does voice mod or discord calls or chat mean to this character? What do skin changes mean? What does the Player Heads mod mean? What does sleep mean?

There are a million mechanics you can ask these questions about, and you can get a million different answers to each of them. Death can and does mean wildly different things on different servers (see: a Hardcore series like Naked and Afraid versus Hermitcraft). But it can also mean wildly different things on the same server to the same character at different points in time (see: the concept of "canon lives" on DSMP). Death, and numerous other game mechanics, mean whatever the hell the story (and the universe and creators involved) wants them to mean. You just have to take it in stride, the rules aren't clear because if they were, there wouldn't be enough freedom to tell a story.

Even on servers where it seems like the rules are clear, like the Life Series or other death games, death doesn't always mean what the rules say it does. Take glitch deaths, for example, like Loony's (almost) glitched death in season 1 of Deceit SMP. He glitched into a wall and should have died, but Legundo was allowed to cheat (use creative) to save him, or, had he died, been allowed to use cheats to bring him back, for fairness' sake. But this doesn't only apply to glitches- take one of Scar's off camera deaths in Third Life. I don't have the source for when Martyn talked about this on hand, but Martyn has mentioned that Scar technically died earlier in Third Life, when Martyn just snapped one day when Scar provoked him, killing Scar in a short, boring fight. There was nothing technically illegal or unfair about that kill, like with a glitched death, but when all was said and done, everyone agreed it just sort of... felt bad. That it didn't feel like a good story. So, the death was overturned, and the server went on as usual. The rules may have been clear here, but sometimes rules get in the way of a good story, so they're disregarded, simple as that.

MCYT stories are not being told in spite of their medium but in harmony with them. And as such, that means that sometimes, the narrative rules above all, and narrative imperative says that this mechanic is going to work like this, at least for now, at least for me. It might not ever work like that again, for me or for anyone else on the server, but it works like that in this moment, so you take it as is.

So, yeah, there's my essay! My final thoughts: Go listen to The Mechanisms. Go listen to Maki Yamazaki (Dr. Carmilla). I hope you enjoy these four concepts and keep them in mind when you are analyzing or playing the space of MCRP, because I think they are really helpful things to keep in mind. Have a good one.

[bratpak]

FLORIAN SANICO is the young, hot, and not rich CEO of ACIDIC RECORDS. He only acquired Acidic Records after his stepfather's passing in 2020. Being born in the Philippines in 1988 to a single mom, Florian grew up primarily raised by his grandparents until his mom found her future husband when Florian was just seven years old. Florian's stepfather would embody the term "the father that stepped up," immediately taking on the father role in Florian's life that the little boy so desperately wanted. When he was ten years old, Florian's father, a South Korean man, would relocate the family to South Korea for his work and to provide a better life for them, which he most certainly did. While in South Korea, Florian would attend the most expensive international school and the most prestigious universities there, obtaining degrees in business management, marketing, psychology, and international business.

Money has never been an issue for Florian if you can't tell.

Acidic Records was a mere side quest for his father, only housing underground indie soloists and producers. They never did anything noteworthy until Florian was appointed CEO in 2020, immediately opening auditions for their training program. Florian has always believed KPOP was where the money was, and his father was just too old to handle the times.

He was...almost right!

With the debut of BRATPACK in 2022, Florian found it much more difficult to break into the KPOP market than planned, initially losing a lot of money in the BRATPACK venture. However, with the group's rapidly rising success and album sales, Florian might not be such a failure after all.

ALMANDA SUMMERS is the alias of the creative director of BRATPACK. No one knows who she is or has ever seen her face. No one can find anything about this woman; seriously, she is a mystery.

Besides her Twitter account.

Almanda, believed to be a woman in her late twenties, is very active on Twitter and Instagram, often posting pictures of her visions for the group and commenting on recent events in the KPOP realm. Though she is quite loved by the fandom, some people believe she is an instigator and gets BRATPACK into drama they would've never gotten into if Almanda just turned her phone off.

Either way, her constantly running mouth doesn't derail her from being one of the most known and sought-after creative directors in KPOP at the moment. Bringing forth aesthetics and ideas the genre has never seen before or has left untouched for too long in her opinion, Almanda is an icon and legend in the making.

TONYA FUKUI is a former African-American—Japanese supermodel whose career was cut short due to a cheating scandal that had her dubbed "Japan's Hottest Homewrecker " for well over a decade now. Though her modeling career was done, she went behind the scenes and started working as a stylist for high-end clients, turned Jpop acts, and turned Kpop acts. Truly, she was just chasing where the money went to fund her purse addiction.

Tonya has worked with groups such as AESPA, NCT 127, NCT DREAM, RED VELVET, SHINEE, EXO, GOT7, STRAYKIDS, NMIXX, BLACKPINK, and many, many more. If you liked an outfit your favorite idol wore, Tonya most likely designed it for them.

Now, she primarily spends her time styling BRATPACK as she claims they let her be as creative as she wants. After years of being a punching bag for the general public, Tonya is finally adored again, mainly just people on BRATPACK Twitter, but hey! It's a start.

AUGUSTUS MOON is the main producer of BRATPACK. He began working in the KPOP industry at just seventeen years old when he and his sister, Autumn Moon, fled America and went to South Korea to get away from their abusive parents. Though Augustus has had some solo releases himself and has garnered a small following, he much prefers sticking behind the scenes as he says, "KPOP is not for me. I hate dancing." even though his Tiktok page will contradict that statement.

Augustus was born in 1995 in Chicago. He doesn't speak much about his time in America, deeming it "a test on if he really wanted to live or not" and saying his life only really started when he moved to South Korea and started making music.

Before exclusively working with Acidic Records and BRATPACK, Augustus would work with a wide variety of KPOP acts and make an even wider variety of songs. Some are phenomenal, and some are the worst things you've ever heard. Not every track can be a winner!

AUTUMN MOON is the main producer of BRATPACK and a part-time soloist. At sixteen, she fled America with her brother and moved to South Korea to get away from her abusive parents. Autumn and Augustus are glued at the hip. You'd swear they're twins by how in sync they are with one another.

Unlike her brother, Autumn is a soloist as well as a producer. However, she has seemingly put her own music career on the back burner to focus on BRATPACK and motherhood. That's right! Actual mother! Autumn has a nine-year-old son, Eunji, who she adores and loves dearly. She married her long-time boyfriend and PRIORITY member, Jang Kiha, last summer and is currently pregnant with their first child.

Autumn has been very open about her love for music and how happy working with BRATPACK makes her. Between her very fulfilling personal life and flourishing career, Autumn has attracted her own fanbase, calling her "Life Goals" and starting the trend of autumnism, where people try to live their lives like Autumn's.

Though her solo career, which only caught her attention once she decided to hang it up, has been put on halt, Autumn is very happy with where she is in life and adds a layer of hope to the BRATPACK team.

[9w1ft]

I always interpreted evermore as a song about depression, I never linked it to Kaylor, can you tell me your view on this song?

dang i had a conversation about this with someone several months ago but i can’t find it. ill give you the abridged version. firstly, i think it can be about both! because the situation got depressing there for a hot minute!!

taylor said in an interview with zane lowe for apple music that she had written the song when the election was upon us and she didn't know what was going to happen. evermore the album was released in december 2020, which suggests that she wrote it pretty close to the release date, but also had time to reflect on what she knew to be true before releasing it— that trump wouldn’t win reelection. there’s a billboard article where she talks about the moment she learned biden won and i think it meshes really well with how evermore concludes thematically and emotionally.

when we think about the impact that trump being elected had on kaylor back in 2016–throwing a birthday party for lorde only days before the 2016 general election and wearing the vsfs angel wing ring in public for the first time, and that picture of them both kissing lorde on the cheek, going from that to at once enacting a love blackout and never being seen regularly in public again (the next time being rep tour 2018)— and on top of that, them going out of their way to separate themselves in the media via the creation of a “feud” during 2017 (swish swish, sushigate, etcetera) which pitted karlie with katy perry and kanye and cast her as someone for swifties to hate, guilty by association, we can imagine the weight and sadness of this chapter in their story. this is the start of the pain. this choice (i consider it a choice), to take the battle underground, sunk kaylor little by little into the world of the improbable for any casual observer. and it also put somewhat of a hex on karlie indefinitely, and for as brave of a soldier as she is, its an awful long while to be put in jail for something you didn’t do.

with these details as the background, i consider evermore to be a song chiefly about 2019 onward, though you might also position some of the date markers in the song within a sort of 2016/2017 focused timeframe. personally though i tend to think that 2019 events work just as well and operate under similar themes. for example, “hey november i’ve been down since july” could be in reference to the period of time where it became slowly more clear that the 2016 election results might not be a non-starter. or, it could reference the day after the masters sale (which was end of june 2019) and the theorized “failed coming out” that many expected her to do at the new york city pride parade that week. this followed by november, the conclusion of editing Miss Americana which would be released the following month (“motion capture put me in a bad light”) or alternatively november 2020, the point at which she is writing this song. there’s also an lsk theory that taylor and karlie were broken up from july to november 2019 but im not so versed in that so i’ll just keep it to a mention.

in any case, “hey december” can circle back to miss americana being released, not as a coming out documentary but as a “political coming out” documentary. hence the “can’t remember what i used to fight for.”

or it could be both, in a way. for example rewinding the tape but all it does is pause on the very moment all was lost could be both the rewinding of the miss americana documentary released in 2019, and/or perhaps conceptually the idea of the 2016 election night footage being rewound by everyone in the disbelief that occured the night that “all was lost”

because all was lost that night, in a way, no?

i tend to see justin vernon’s part as being a depiction of karlie after kaylor was exiled to a new level post the masters sale. i don’t mean this to say they were broken up. it’s just that they had to do a factory reset on a lot of the progress that had been made up until that point, and they would not be seen together (in order to accomplish some vigilante shit, is what i think anyway). back to justin vernon’s lines. it just reminded me deeply of all the hate karlie got that summer. and indeed, all the hate she had accrued until then. whether summer or winter, this feuding arc had put karlie in a position that i would argue was growing unbearable and incessant. “out on waves im being tossed, is there a line that i could just go cross?” referring to the latest wave of said hate. in this scenario, “can’t not think of all the cost and the things that would be lost oh can’t we just get a pause to be certain we’ll be tall again?” seems like karlie calling out to taylor, amidst the haze and confusion of the masters sale, think about everything that we would be giving up if you don’t come out right now. (think of me.). and then upon that line leading nowhere saying hey let’s pause before we hurt each other, to be certain we will make it through. here “tall again” reminds me of paper rings “standing here so tall”

so what of the ending? well, as a time marker i would once again refer to when the song was released, post-2020 election, where taylor saw that trump had lost and they would have a path forward. …covid-19 was yet to happen of course, and with that i think there were life priority shifts, but i just see evermore as a song that covers taylor and karlie seeing a light at the end of the tunnel that had been their love lockdown to love blackout to exile story. its a song that encompasses so much hope and i just really really really love it as a kaylor song because of the specificity with which you can tie it to their story, specifically a more contemporary chapter, the likes of which we hadn’t had too many songs depicting up until that point (basically just peace/hoax/the lakes).

so yeah that’s why it’s a kaylor song to me 🫶