#but it would also mean looking through all our old videos for some specific clips im thinking about

[dianagj-art]

Grief really is a bitch huh? I've written another piece about my dad and I've made myself cry again

[into-the-afterlife]

Why I Ship Johnny/Female V: Part 2

[Part 1] [Part 2]

This is Part 2 of my essay series on why I ship Johnny and female V. Back in part 1, I covered why I ship female V specifically with Johnny and not male V, as well as some thoughts on Johnny’s sexuality. This time, I’m looking at Johnny himself. (Content warning: there is some discussion of rape and how rape is handled in fiction.)

Johnny, ambiguity and age-old romantic tropes

Look, I’m just going to come out and say this: part of my interest in this ship is thirsting over Johnny. And when I’m interested in something, whether it’s an intellectual, creative or sexual interest, I like to do what I always do – analyse it to death. So what is it about the actor, the performance and the character that makes Johnny as attractive as he is?

Keanu Reeves himself, obviously, can’t be ignored here. He has a gorgeous face and voice, but crucially, he’s distinctively beautiful. Obviously, everyone has the right to be into what they’re into, and I don’t want to shame anyone for their tastes. But I do not understand people who are into the blandly beautiful. Sure, there’s nothing wrong about, let’s say, Chris Evans. But what’s right about him? Where are the snags that catch your attention and hold it? Where’s the life?

Reeves, meanwhile, is attractive because he’s unusual. He has long, dark hair, but he’s regularly photographed at public events with it mussed-up. He has a chiselled face, but his cheekbones are high enough that he looks alien. He has all the charisma of any Hollywood actor, but, whether this is him as he is or an especially well-calculated image choice, it comes off as genuine. When watching interviews with him, you feel less in the presence of a star and more an especially fascinating stranger at a party, one who, despite bursting with witticisms and stories, somehow wants to talk to you most of all.  

There’s also an element of age ambiguity here. Reeves is in his fifties, and while age suits his looks better than youth did, it shows. Meanwhile, Johnny the character is in his thirties when he dies, and to match this, the animators smooth out Reeves’ face and darken his beard. They also give Johnny the (unrealistic but glorious) organic arms of a dedicated bodybuilder. So what Johnny ends up with is the presence, confidence and charisma of an older guy, combined with the physicality of someone younger. It’s potent, to say the least. It also adds to Johnny’s uncanniness as a character. He’s caught between maturity and youth, life and death, humanity and machine; he’s hard to pinpoint no matter where you look. And whether you express this academia-style, as, ‘the gothic associates uncanniness with sexuality’, or internet-style,  as, ‘I’m a monster/robotfucker’, this is, as the kids say, pretty damn hot.

This uncanniness, as well as Reeves’ looks and performance, also offset some of the more unlikeable aspects of Johnny’s personality. This is best illustrated by the concept art created for Johnny before Reeves was brought on board. (Found courtesy of the lovely folks at r/LowSodiumCyberpunk.)

As you can see, they had a lot of Johnny’s look already nailed down. But this makes the differences all the more startling. This Johnny looks like he’s been dragged through the wringer. His hair is messier, and he seems to be getting premature wrinkles and balding. He’s strung-out, with a genuinely hopeless cast to his face. His look is also a lot more dated. While our Johnny has elements of the old rocker, the jean jacket, bandana, V-necked black jumper and aviators clipped to the tank top root this Johnny inescapably in 1980s music and fashion.

Why is all this relevant to shipping Johnny with V? Partially because I’m shallow, I’m not going to lie. But it’s also because making Johnny look like this would have made him much more obviously an intrusion. A guy dressed like this next to 2077’s booty shorts and space buns is like a ghost in a ballgown next to a woman in jeans. He’s not just out of time; he’s been irrevocably left behind. Johnny’s face here also has much less in the way of possibility. Where our Johnny says, ‘maybe your life would be better if you listened to me’, this Johnny screams, ‘my way is hopeless, but you can’t ignore it’. It’s leaning much more into the tragic aspects of Johnny’s character and of the genre of cyberpunk. And don’t get me wrong – I love that artwork, and think that angle would be an interesting artistic choice.

But making Johnny a tragic intrusion like this removes the element of seduction, so to speak, from his character. What makes Johnny attractive, ideologically, sexually and romantically, is a balance of certainty and uncertainty. On the surface, he’s passionately, blazingly certain of his politics, his music and himself. If you’re taking a leap of faith, whether that’s fighting against the corpos that rule your life or hopping into bed with an engram, what draws you to it is the kind of confidence that makes you doubt your own certainties. Yet too much of that can be off-putting. Nobody wants a partner who’s so cocksure (pardon the pun) that they don’t listen to what you want, and nobody wants a political ally who’s gone so far into their own rhetoric that they can’t convince those outside it.

Therefore, the common factor across all the ways Reeves’ looks impact our perception of Johnny is the balancing of two seemingly opposing things. Keep that in mind, because it only gets more relevant the deeper into this ship, and Johnny’s attractiveness, we go.

Of course, Reeves’ looks are far from the only thing he brings to the table. His acting, across body language, facial expressions and voice acting, is incredible. I want to take a look at his voice acting, as well as his voice generally, first.

I’m not familiar enough with the subtleties of American accents to pinpoint why, but Reeves’ accent sounds slightly different to the more generic accents of other famous actors. Perhaps it’s because he’s Canadian. Either way, his consonants are less harsh on the ear than other A-list actors, his vowels less elongated. He speaks slowly, sounding as if he just woke up. His voice is mellow and soothing; it’s the sort of sound you could take a bath in.

(For reference purposes, I’m listening to this Cyberpunk trailer as I write this, as well as, um, this video that I���ve watched far too many times. XD)

Obviously, to play Johnny he has to modify that laid-back aspect of his voice. But it’s interesting how his natural voice and his ‘Johnny’ voice bounce off each other. Reeves is able to pull off a much more belligerent Johnny than many actors could, precisely because of that laid-back quality his natural voice has. Think of that ‘impressive cock’ line. It’s made as funny as it is because of the total lack of shame in how Reeves delivers it. But in the mouth of an actor like, let’s say, Robert Downey Jr, that level of shamelessness would just come off as annoying. Reeves uses his natural voice to amp up Johnny’s, for lack of a better word, Chad-ness, far beyond the place another actor could manage. Because he has that base of softness, he can go hard on Johnny’s arrogance.

Why is this relevant to Johnny’s attractiveness as a character, as well as why Johnny/F!V are a fascinating ship? To develop a character well, you have to have an extremely solid base to start on – and that base is where a lot of writing and acting falls down. The audience has to know intimately what a character is usually like, or who they seem to be, before burrowing into the character further is made effective. That equal hard/soft approach means that when Johnny does soften later in the game, it seems both unexpected and inevitable. Even as the harsh tone and words were conveying one thing, that softness underneath was always conveying another. But the fact that Reeves can go hard on the arrogance makes that change much more impactful than it would be in another character. Once again, we’re seeing an equal balance of two seemingly opposing qualities, not openly leaning towards one or the other.

There’s also some aspects of the body language Reeves and the animators give to Johnny I’d like to focus in on. While I’m not an actor, nor am I a psychologist, and therefore am likely to have missed things, there were a few things I noticed when going through footage of Johnny in pivotal scenes. (If you spot something I haven’t talked about, please reply or reblog! I’d love to get a back-and-forth discussion going.)

Over and over again, Johnny’s body language has two layers. There’s what I’m calling the ‘douchebag’ layer, which is where Johnny seems insultingly relaxed. The scene when V and Johnny first meet, as well as the scene at the diner, have two great examples of this. Johnny gets into V’s space, but it’s slow, catlike. There’s no urgency when he leans in, nor when he stands over V.

Similarly, at the diner, he tells V he doesn’t want to kill her anymore – something pivotally important for their relationship and the plot - while putting his arms behind his head and his feet up on the table. It communicates, at least on the surface, a real sense of disrespect. ‘I don’t give a shit’, says his posture, ‘whether you hate and fear me or not’. His threatening slowness when they first meet, meanwhile, communicates that he doesn’t think V is a competent opponent. Why should he hurry if he can get her any time?

At least, that’s what it looks like. Take a look from 9:40 onwards here. Sure, he swings his legs up on the table – but not before hurrying into the diner booth and tapping his fingers rapidly on the table. Even when he gets into that relaxed posture, he’s bouncing his leg the entire time. Those catlike movements I talked about when they first meet? If you look from 5:42 here, they’re there. But they’re also interspersed with banging his head incessantly against the wall, pacing back and forth and glitching unpredictably all around the room.

This is where the second layer of Johnny’s body language comes in. Underneath all that casual condescension, he communicates constant, frenetic energy, even anxiety. Even in his default, idle animations, it’s extremely rarely that Johnny communicates real coolness and calm. He covers constantly racing thoughts and feelings with a slick persona.

What this does is very like the hard/soft balance of the voice acting I talked about earlier. Because the ‘douchebag’ layer of body language is the most obvious one, you pick up on that first. But the other layer is there throughout Johnny’s entire arc, and it goes into your brain on a much more subconscious level. Then, when Johnny’s guard does come down, it seems like a natural development of his character while still being a surprise. Once again, there’s that knife-edge balance between two disparate qualities. And for me, attraction always lies in the space between.

There’s also something highly sexual about the way he gets into V’s space when they first meet, the way he stands over her. When first playing the scene where they first meet, it felt like watching the moments before an act of rape. You see him first as he leans over you while you’re still in bed. He beats you to the ground, smashes your head into the window, and towers over you while you’re collapsed on the floor. Given the context of him taking over your body, the overtones are unmistakeable.

But again, crucially, that frantic body language and his lines are the complete opposite of how someone behaves when making the kind of power play that rape is. The pacing, the panicked words and the fact that he’s caught off guard all communicate disempowerment. While it’s still a violent, frightening scene, it’s not a monstrous one.

Why is that relevant to discussing Johnny’s attractiveness, and Johnny/V? Because rape fantasies and male domination are some of the oldest tropes in the book for M/F romantic arcs. Done properly, they play on desires of sexual submission without explicitly acknowledging the kink, depict the eroticism of that liminal space between humanity and monstrosity I talked about earlier and allow you to fantasise about being deeply wanted. Of course, that last bit isn’t a factual depiction of rape in real life. But in the fantasy, the story, the idea of being ravished is partially about being special, being so uniquely attractive that the guy loses all control of himself. If you have a more conservative or repressed view of your sexuality, the ravishment/rape fantasy also allows you to fantasise about sex without seeing yourself as a slut. (This post is a great look at that last idea as applied to the movie Labyrinth, if you want to find out more.)

The idea of sexualised monstrosity is also everywhere in the tropes used to characterise Johnny. He’s a troubled rockstar, an angst-ridden artist who died tragically young, a violent political rebel, part human and part supernatural creature, a charismatic, cocky, seemingly heartless guy, who just might have a heart if you look deep enough. What all these tropes have in common is the promise of both reassuring humanity and fascinating, exciting monstrosity.

Reeves’ and Johnny’s looks combine strangeness and humanity. Reeves’ voice acting moves between soaring arrogance and languid softness. Johnny’s body language combines fear and overconfidence. And the use of age-old romantic tropes in an unexpected context, as well as the use of these specific romantic tropes, knit all the effects of the other things together to create that balance between the human and the strange. He’s unusual enough to be interesting, human enough to seem real and associated with all our cultural symbolism of an attractive man. With all that going on, how could you not find him hot as hell?

But the thing about these tropes is, they’re also so common they’re clichéd. Not just in fandom, but all across Western media and art. So what lifts Johnny and Johnny/V out of being something generic? What makes them so fascinating that I’ve written thousands of words about them? What, in short, makes them different?

That’s what I’ll go into next time.

[Part 1] [Part 2]

[hopefullystillatheatrestudent]

okay so i’ve been going crazy these past few days. all about cockles/jensmish and obsessively watching their panels or reading the transcripts BECAUSE. THEY ARE LOUD. LIKE. i saw some fancams on twt and i thought people were just exaggerating but noooooooooo!!!???? so, getting to the point. you said that how do we know that jensen is performing masculinity? because jared isn’t and THAT IS A BIG BRAIN MOMENT. ON POINT. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. a particular moment from gag reel that jumps out (which you’ve talked about) when jensen goes ‘cas, you are my baby daddy’ and misha goes, ‘i know i love you too’ and jensen goes, ‘i didn’t say i love you’ and misha goes, ‘i know you wanted to’ and jensen says, ‘i love you’ WHAT THE FUCK! that was NOT a joke. yes, people took it as a joke and had a good laugh BUT I HAVE WATCHED IT TOO MANY TIMES AND IT LIVES IN MY MIND RENT FREE BECAUSE IT WAS NOT A PERFORMANCE. THAT WAS JENSEN. THAT WAS MISHA. jensen has a had trouble with the pda and being all touch feely (the breakup theory) and he gradually grew into it, accepted it and misha was right there all along, never pushed it. it was like a deancas au but tbh, 99% of destiel is because of cockles and we all know it. i just. jensen has latched onto dean as an emotional support because he tunes with it. understands it. projects on to it. yeah, i just had to say it and get it off my chest. (and what about those poetry pages on instagram? alma? what is your opinion?) btw, you have a lovely blog and your analysis are right on target.

so there is a LOT i’m going to address here(how dare you bring up [gunshot] i HAVE to talk about it now) so again!!!! under a cut it goes but i hope you appreciate my rambles anon it seems like you do :,)

1. jared vs. jensen and performing masculinity. hell yeah man. jared and jensen are both just ‘guys from texas’ but they are still so vastly different. today i actually had a revelation that i’m pretty sure has to do with me being bi. and it’s that i have a group of straight friends(that i love dearly but they care too much about hockey and pitbull imo could not be me) and i have a group of queer friends(who are also batshit[affectionate]). and it’s like whichever group i hang out with a different side of me emerges? they’re both me, it’s just that certain aspects of who i am as a person only surface depending on who i am around. however, i will say i feel like i watch what i say around my straight friends more. i see that very clearly in jensen as well. around jared during panels and on set, he’s definitely putting on an air of machismo and engages in typical guy talk. i do think an element of it is performative, because he wants validation from jared that they’re still just two dudes from texas taking on the world together despite his sexual identity. does that make any sense??? i hope so. but when he’s with misha he is an entirely different person and his sense of humour becomes wildly different. the machismo fades away, he’s way less caught up in what people think about him, lets his guard down, etc. to go back to my original point which is how j2 are different in that regard....jared does not do this. he is a constant. he does not flip a switch between ‘performing masculinity’ and ‘not’ because he isn’t performing any part of who he is. he just IS. so yeah these two are similar in many regards but there’s somewhat of a dissonance between them when it comes to how they perform masculinity because one of them is putting on a show and the other is merely being.

2. that crypt scene blooper(here just in case you need to see it again. do it. as a treat.) when i tell you i have easily seen this over thirty times??? since it first came out??? i mean it. it is such an overlooked(r*mantic) moment and it means so much more than people think it does. i’ve talked about the context behind it, and i think that’s why this blooper was so meaningful, so i’ll mention it again. jensen and misha had a LOT of trouble with this scene. the reason is that jensen couldn’t wrap his head around why dean would be saying these things, if i remember correctly, and both of them sat down and scoured over how they should play it for a while before filming(teamwork ;) teammates *ahem*). [to be honest we all know why jensen had a hard time with that scene and it is because it is blatantly romantic. rip to him but i would simply give in to it at that point but oh well] so anyway, their heads were scattered going into shooting, which is NEVER a good headspace to be in for a scene, ESPECIALLY not a pivotal one. but they had each other to help them through said weird energy on set that couldn’t possibly have invoked the best feelings, especially considering jensen STILL doesn’t think he played that correctly(but he praised misha on his performance :,) ). and with that context every single part of that video hits haRD 

-’stop pulling my face towards your crotch’ i think this is objectively hilarious because it really really looks like jensen is pulling HIMSELF towards misha’s crotch. again, you’re fooling no one, jensen. misha’s wheezing laugh and the way he wraps himself around jensen is also,,,sweet??? like i don’t know how else to describe how i see it but this moment really reads as jensen, in his weird ‘constructing elaborate rituals’ way is asking for security through a physical touch from misha and he happily obliges and gives jensen what he needs. because i mean...watch it again. jensen ‘fights back’, but not really at all, actually. pretty wimpy counterattack. he literally lets himself be smothered by misha, and i would literally describe what they end up doing as cuddling. 

-’i need you, cas. you’re my baby daddy’ i love having an actor’s perspective on things bc i think i can explain what’s going on here. jensen just delivered what was(in his own mind) a rotten take of the lines he’s most scared of delivering. so the scene was already messed up. therefore; ensuing fuckery is warranted to help him feel better. but there’s also for sure more than meets the eye for what he says here because of misha’s reaction after??? like he seemed genuinely touched. first of all, he’s saying ‘you’re my baby daddy’ as half-jensen, but not necessarily dean either(because he didn’t say the previous lines as true to his character...you get it), to misha, not cas. i think i’ve made this point before, but every single innuendo in the gag reels is to misha specifically, never once cas. therefore; logical conclusion: ‘you’re my baby daddy’ was for misha and it meant something deeper than we think because of what follows it

-this part. jensen’s giddy ass smile after he sees misha crack and then misha says ‘yeah, i know’ (can i just say his voice when he says this is so intimate???? like am i intruding guys??? sorry i’ll let myself out) also he is smiling SO BIG

- ‘i know’ ‘why are you laughing?’ ‘no i know i love you too’ this analysis is already so long but i still want to get into what THAT whole exchange means. ‘why are you laughing?’ to me sounds like jensen’s pretending to be affronted by misha laughing at something that is serious. and it’s serious because he quite literally meant ‘i love you’. he did. misha knows it. misha’s really REALLY good at cutting the bs and just getting to what people are actually trying to say. he has an innate sharpness to his sense of humour. so yes, misha is being 100% accurate when he says ‘i know, but you wanted to say it.’ misha isn’t lying here. jensen did want and mean to say ‘i love you’. and then he actually does say it(in a jokey way but not really). 

- so yeah. it is actually so romantic??? like in a weird way jensen was professing his love for misha here?????? and that’s why this clip will NEVER. ever. get old. 

3. jensen having trouble with pda and projecting onto dean: we can all call ourselves dean coded cas girls but NO one deserves that title more than jensen ackles himself. he is dean winchester but marginally less repressed because he actually did admit he was in love with his best friend and let himself be happy, and pretty early on too. one year and two months as opposed to twelve years. so. happy deancas au is correct. and yes about the pda thing: one day i want to write my own post about both of their body language when it comes to each other, but all i can tell is jensen, even in the early days, couldn’t help himself from flirting with misha, but if misha ever crossed a line, jensen would not be happy. clearly he’s come around, however. what i find sweet is that misha always follows jensen’s lead when it comes to how much affection they’re allowed to show each other onstage. it touches my soul

4. destiel is cockles fault. yeah. and the thing is everyone knows it, too. even non-cockles shippers will explain early destiel as entirely dependant on jensen and misha’s wild chemistry. and that chemistry is easily explained by the fact that misha and jensen are literally just wildly horny bisexuals who were crazily attracted to one another and were falling in love on screen before our very eyes. and when you have THAT insider info(which sounds cray doesn’t it!!!! the destiel actors are in love irl??? huh???) everything really does click into place. why destiel got SO popular when the show and actors never ever intended for it to happen.(i know some people think misha was playing cas as gay the whole time for shits and giggles, and i won’t deny that[especially considering he found out early on that destiel was why he was staying on the show], but i don’t think he really wanted it to amount to anything, nor did he care??? i mean he has the real thing with jensen, for one, so their characters aren’t really as important. for two, he loves joking about destiel because it’s a cultural phenomenon and it’s fascinating, and i’m sure he did ship it because he’s unhinged, but i don’t think it was vastly important to him either way.) destiel got popular because everyone was and is unintentionally reading into the real deal. i could pull up countless gifs that people have used as destiel proof that is actually just jensen and misha being messy. mainly jensen. if i’m being honest.  the symbiotic relationship between destiel and cockles is why i’ve stayed onboard the destielcule and shellerscape for three solid months now; because it is utterly fascinating to witness and kind of super beautiful, too. 

5. alma(and others). so. i do NOT want to really REALLY get into this in its entirety here and now so i will just give you my opinion on if i think alma is misha or not. also; i don’t want to mention the other poetry accounts here bc i feel like that’s a bigger breach in privacy, but a lot of people do know about alma now. way too many, actually. this is why we can’t have nice things. anyway-to answer your question-there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that yes, misha is running that alma poetry account. i am 100% certain. some people think it’s actually three people and they’re all connected to misha in some way but that is so needlessly complicated. as it goes in psychology; the easiest explanation is probably the right one. it’s just one person running that account, and it is misha collins. i don’t know why it’s so hard to believe KNOWN POET misha collins(who is known to spend most of his free time writing poetry anyway) would have created a secret poetry account to write about his intense secret relationship under an alias and also get legitimate feedback since no one used to know it was him. oh and the handwriting is identical??? you are blind if you do not see that i am sorry. and a million other things prove it’s misha too but yeah all you need to know is yes. it’s him. it would take a literal livestream from a random woman on that account to convince me otherwise. and honestly not even that because a random woman could technically still log in if misha asked her too. so. it would take a hell of a lot to convince me otherwise, clearly. that said DO NOTTTTTTTTTTTT GO ONTO THAT ACCOUNT WITH A SUPERNATURAL RELATED USERNAME AND COMMENT THINGS THAT ARE COCKLES RELATED. ARE YOU BRAIN DEAD WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT’S OKAY. sorry i got heated but god please just don’t be dumb so many people have already gone way too far 

6. thank you for your lovely compliment on my analyses!!! i love doing them but i don’t know if people actually like reading them so i really appreciate it

[tiramisiyu]

【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: Main Story 6-26 Translation

Translation Masterlist | Video

Chapter 6 – Tiger’s Accomplice Ghost (Parts 1, 2): 6-1 / 6-3 / 6-5 / 6-7 / 6-9 / 6-11 / 6-13 / 6-15 ♦️ ♦️  6-16 / 6-18 / 6-20 / 6-22 / 6-24 / 6-26 / 6-27 / 6-28 / 6-29

Information on the Chapter title (helpful to know): Wikipedia | My notes

--

Abandoned Archive Library

Just when I wanted to get in touch with Zuo Ran about going to the archive library to investigate, Zuo Ran called me with perfect timing.

He had also been pondering the whole time about the location of the target, and with unplanned similarity, we thought about this archive library.

Zuo Ran: The people monitoring Fu Qiao tonight lost him. On his side of things, Leader Yan is dispatching people on search.

Zuo Ran: Leader Yan has also already dispatched people to rush towards the few suspicious art galleries nearby, and they’ll be investigating at the same time as us.

MC: If we can find Chen Hanzhang’s secret location one step ahead, then this case can be solved earlier.

Zuo Ran: Coming to a pitch-black place like this in the middle of the night – are you scared?

MC: Lawyer Zuo, you’ve forgotten – I’m not scared of ghosts to begin with.

At our law firm’s last team building exercise, Zuo Ran and I went to a haunted house together.

Hearing me say this, Zuo Ran relaxed and smiled, obviously also remembering the experience in the haunted house.

Zuo Ran: In a moment, follow me closely and walk behind me. You must be careful of what’s under your feet in particular.

MC: I understand.

I took flashlights out of my bag and handed one to Zuo Ran.

MC: I’ve brought two flashlights, so we can each have one. Let’s head out.

Zuo Ran led me to the abandoned archive library’s front courtyard. Here, the ground was piled thickly with fallen leaves, as well as all sorts of decorative garbage that nearby residents had tossed here.

I basically understood why the police ruled out this place after a simple search… Looking at the shattered glass windows on the outside and the useless door, this place really did not seem like a place to store important products.

--

Inside the Archive Library

The lighting in the archive library was better than we’d imagined. Light from the streets shone in from the street-facing windows, so we didn’t really need to turn on the flashlights.

MC: The first and second floors are completely deserted – they’re empty with only some abandoned furniture left.

Zuo Ran: The conditions on the third floor might not be that similar.

MC: Eh?

Following the stairs, I looked towards the third floor. At the same time, Zuo Ran turned on the flashlight and shone it towards the third-floor staircase opening.

There was an electronic password door that had been opened.

MC: This archive building was built at the beginning of last century, and it belonged to a private collector.

MC: Though the first and second floors are abandoned, it’s evident that the remaining furniture is in last century’s style.

MC: This electronic door is clearly a product of recent years.

Zuo Ran: It indicates that this place has been changed by someone.

Zuo Ran: Most of the old buildings of the north district are private properties, and some of the property owners are even foreigners, so the houses have sat idle for many years with no one to manage them.

Zuo Ran: In the past few years, cases about the occupation of old buildings by lawbreakers have also appeared. This may also be the case here.

MC: No wonder the police didn’t notice any suspicious locations from checking through the properties under Chen Hanzhang’s name.

MC: If she occupied an old building in the north district that seems like it has no inhabitants, the police wouldn’t be able to find it at all.

Zuo Ran: Let’s go up and look – careful on the stairs.

--

Zuo Ran walked in front of me with the flashlight on. We arrived at the stairway opening and carefully looked over that electronic password lock.

Zuo Ran: It doesn’t look like it was opened by force. The password lock is still operating like normal.

MC: Is there someone in the building right now? It doesn’t seem like it…

From a bird’s-eye view, this three-level building was in an “H” shape, and each level had four large rooms. If we used the staircase’s location as the centre, the locations of the four large rooms were northeast, northwest, southwest, and southeast.

Zuo Ran and I had looked in every corner of the first and second floors just now, and we didn’t notice a single person. The entire building was also completely quiet – you could even hear the sound of a pin drop. We didn’t hear movement sounds of anyone else.

Zuo Ran: The third-floor design isn’t the same as on lower floors.

Zuo Ran’s flashlight swept over the floor.

Zuo Ran: It seems like the floorboards here were given specific soundproofing treatment. The audiovisuals room at my house also has a similar setup.

MC: Which also means that, as we can’t hear sounds of movement upstairs, this door might have been ignored by someone who came before…

MC: Another possibility is that the visitor is still here and hasn’t left.

When I thought about this, I couldn’t help tensing up my back.

Zuo Ran: Don’t be afraid. I’m right beside you.

My slightly cold fingers suddenly fell in the middle of warmth – it was Zuo Ran, holding my hand.

MC: Lawyer Zuo…

Zuo Ran: Hold onto my hand… th-this way, it’ll be a little safer.

MC: Mhmm…

Like this, as I shone my flashlight, Zuo Ran led me onwards as I walked side-by-side with him…

The moonlight tonight shone brightly, passing through the window and spilling over Zuo Ran’s body, outlining his straight and handsome profile.

I originally thought that people like Zuo Ran would probably look cold with moonlight on them. But I never would’ve thought… that there would actually be a sliver of a different kind of warmth.

I had never looked at him from this angle, under moonlight like this. Inexplicably, at this moment, I wanted to keep looking at him like this…

Zuo Ran: Why have you been looking at me the whole time? Is there something on my face?

MC: There isn’t…

MC: It might be because it’s too quiet that I haven’t quite adapted…

Zuo Ran: Then talk a bit, although you must be somewhat quiet.

>Select: Face

Zuo Ran: If there’s time, would you like to go to the haunted house again?

MC: With you, Lawyer Zuo?

Zuo Ran: Of course.

MC: Sure then. I heard that the themed amusement park’s haunted house has changed to a new story recently, so it’s perfect timing for us to try it out.

Zuo Ran: Then let’s wait for the weekend.

 >Select: Neck

MC: Aside from cufflinks, tie clips and collar pins, it seems like I rarely see Lawyer Zuo wear jewelry.

Zuo Ran: Watches also count as jewelry, right?

MC: Oh right, they also count.

Zuo Ran: If I attend certain special occasions, I will dress up, and I’ll occasionally accessorize with jewelry.

MC: Could you give an example?

Zuo Ran: I participated in a costume party in university, and I wore earrings for it.

Zuo Ran: Mm… it felt a little uncomfortable, and I couldn’t really adapt to it.

 >Select: Hair

MC: Under the moonlight… it looks like your hair has been layered over with silver light.

Zuo Ran: Do you mean… a hair full for frost?

MC: …

Zuo Ran: Frost with moonlight is imagery that often appears in literature and movies.

Zuo Ran: What often follows this is a beautiful woman who hopes for return.

MC: Waiting? If it is a happy ending, it will be worth it no matter how long she waits.

Zuo Ran: We don’t know how many people can return before the moonlight runs out – only the moon rocks with longing, lighting the forests by the river…*

Zuo Ran: If it were me, I would not make the person waiting for me wait too long.

Zuo Ran: I would rather be the person waiting.

  TL Note: Please see the full translation of the poem that Zuo Ran recited a line from here! The translation I used also comes from this site.

 >Select: Ellipses

MC: Lawyer Zuo, it seems like there’s a room in front of us.

A door appeared in front of us.

Based on its position, this was the room in the northwest direction.

>Open door

Artwork Display Room

MC: Seems like this place… is a place for the collection of antiques and artwork.

Zuo Ran: This password lock is not turned on. Looks like this room was originally in use, but it was later abandoned.

MC: Lawyer Zuo, look at that crystal bust. Does it look like… Chen Hanzhang?

Most of these things in this room were placed in complete disorder. The hung pictures on the wall were crooked, and there were also piles of artwork and porcelain pieces on the ground.

Only this half-bodied crystal bust was placed safely in the display case.

Zuo Ran: It’s very much alike. You could say that it’s a perfect imitation.

MC: This expression really is… a perfect replication of Chen Hanzhang’s classic smile.

Proud, confident, and it even hid a bit of fierceness.

MC: Was this thing given to Chen Hanzhang?

Zuo Ran: It’s not very common to see half-bodied busts like this used as gifts.

Zuo Ran: Perhaps it has a special commemorative meaning.

When we turned the bust upside down, we saw two rows of words on the bottom.

Zuo Ran: “From the beginning to the end, regardless of how you change, you are still you…”

MC: On the bottom-right angle, are those numbers?

MC: It looks like someone deliberately ground it off.

On the bottom-right corner, there probably had been a long line of numbers originally, but aside from the first digit “1” and the last digit “4”, there was no way to identify the rest.

I touched the base of the bust, and felt that the side of the base had an uneven area.

MC: Rose?

I found that place and noticed that a four-petaled flower had been carved there, with the single English word “Rose” on the side.

MC: The rose has four petals?

Zuo Ran: Perhaps… this does not point to a rose in the general meaning.

MC: …

>Select: Hanging drawings

I shone my flashlight at the hanging drawings on the wall. I could only see that it was an oil painting, and I couldn’t distinguish who the creator was.

Zuo Ran: These drawings may have been purchased by Gu Wei.

MC: How did you know?

Zuo Ran: Look here. There is a row of little words on the bottom-right corner.

I sidled over and carefully looked them over, and only then did I see what the little words that Zuo Ran was talking about were.

MC: “Gu Wei, year of 2010 at Qinlun Auction House…”

MC: Lawyer Zuo, your eyesight is way too good – you were even able to see this with a glance.

Zuo Ran: I typically drink liver-cleansing, eye-clearing tea. Perhaps it was fruitful.

 >Select: Piles on the ground

MC: These drawings and porcelain works have been piled here like garbage. The porcelain’s all broken.

Zuo Ran: Regardless of who their past owner was, it’s obvious their new owner was not interested in them, even feeling disgust.

MC: There’s even a fairly sharp hammer left here. Looks like it was used when smashing the porcelain.

Zuo Ran: Careful, don’t get cut by the porcelain shards.

 >Select: Bust

MC: (If it were a present, who could it be that sent it to Chen Hanzhang? Gu Wei…?)

MC: (What exactly was the relationship between them like…?)

 >Select: Ellipses

Zuo Ran: We probably have found the right place – otherwise, why would this place have Chen Hanzhang’s bust.

MC: …

[Got Crystal Bust!]

MC: There aren’t any things like blackmail crime evidence or illegal drugs in this room. Let’s go somewhere else and see.

--

…

We continued to search on this floor.

>Select: Suit

MC: Will it be hard for you to walk around, wearing your suit here, Lawyer Zuo?

Zuo Ran: After returning home, I didn’t have time to change clothes before I came out again.

Zuo Ran: But it’s alright. If it hinders my movement later, I can take off the suit.

 >Select: Face

Zuo Ran: After getting off work and returning home earlier, did you already wash up?

MC: How did you know?

Zuo Ran: Hmm… the scent on your body should be that of shower gel.

MC: Mhmm, I can relax from taking a hot shower.

Zuo Ran: Working as my partner, you might often encounter these kinds of sudden situations, which will upset your original lifestyle.

Zuo Ran: Same for joining NXX.

MC: But it’ll also bring me different life experiences – I like that a lot.

Zuo Ran: Mhmm, I also like it a lot.

 >Select: Eyes

MC: Lawyer Zuo, you read so many books, yet you actually don’t wear glasses.

Zuo Ran: My mother works so much that she doesn’t have time for anything, yet she is able to make time to concern herself with my health, especially my eyesight.

MC: Eh?

Zuo Ran: My mother said, with an ice-cold personality like mine, there definitely wouldn’t be any girls who like me in the future.

Zuo Ran: If I also wear glasses and end up looking like an old fogey, it’ll be even more so…

MC: I didn’t think that Professor An was such a humorous person. Though she cared about the students in my impression of her, she always looked very serious.

Zuo Ran: My mother was actually joking around. It’s just that the time she spends interacting with me is little, and she doesn’t know how to express her concern.

 >Select: Ellipses

MC: (I’m walking through a building like this in the middle of the night, yet I actually don’t feel scared.)

A door appeared in front of us.

Based on its position, this was the room in the southwest direction.

>Open door

Drug Storage Room

This room also had not been locked, but on the door, the electronic lock’s indicator light was lit up, indicating that this place was not abandoned.

When we pushed open the door and entered, a familiar scent assaulted our senses.

MC: They’re the drugs!

Zuo Ran immediately took out his phone to take photos and sent the photo and archive library location to Yan Wei.

Zuo Ran: Be a little careful. We should do our utmost to not bump or break anything in here.

MC: Understood!

Just like if when people find a large stash of cash in a money-related case, where to avoid suspicion, every single person on the scene will avoid the stolen cash until the police arrive.

MC: Though the area here isn’t small, it seems like it hasn’t been filled with drugs.

>Select: Further cabinet

Zuo Ran: This row of drug cabinets has things on them. The scent seems to be coming from this direction.

MC: There are no marks on the drugs – it seems like we have no way to identify that they’re Chen Hanzhang’s.

Zuo Ran: Look at the logo on this shelf – it’s Wiley Financial’s.

MC: Now we’ve caught both the person and the goods!

 >Select: Nearer cabinet

MC: Looks like this row of drug cabinets is empty.

Zuo Ran: If this room was filled with drugs, then this would be a large case that would shock the entire nation.

Zuo Ran: Although, to be able to make so much storage space specifically for the drugs, Chen Hanzhang’s ambition is not small.

 >Select: Panel

MC: This is the control panel to control the room’s internal temperature, moisture, as well as oxygen levels.

MC: I originally thought that Chen Hanzhang was using the equipment that the archive room originally had. I didn’t think she’d install a completely new one.

Zuo Ran: This equipment has requirements for ventilation and humidity piping.

Zuo Ran: Aside from new houses, if old buildings want to install them, they must have reserved space to begin with.

Zuo Ran: It’s within reason for Chen Hanzhang to choose an abandoned archive library for modifications.

 >Select: Ellipses

Zuo Ran: Don’t go in yet. Wait until Leader Yan comes.

MC: Okay.

--

…

We continued to search on this floor.

>Select: Face

MC: Lawyer Zuo, are you a little too tired and slightly overheated recently? I see that your lips are peeling.

Zuo Ran: I…

Zuo Ran: That might be, I drink less water when going out on work.

MC: Tomorrow at work, I’ll buy you a lip balm from the downstairs convenience store. I know a really good brand.

Zuo Ran: Okay, thank you.

 >Select: Sleeve

MC: Aside from shooting and swimming, do you like other sports, Lawyer Zuo?

MC: I remember that during university, to stay fit and look good, lots of guys would learn things like mixed martial arts.

Zuo Ran: I’m not skilled at sports like these. Aside from shooting and swimming…

Zuo Ran: Does bridge count? An exercise of mental strength.

MC: Lawyer Zuo, you know how to play bridge?

Zuo Ran: When relaxing, I sometimes go to bridge clubs to play.

Zuo Ran: Playing cards actually comes second – what’s important is chatting with friends and relaxing.

MC: If there’s a chance, could you teach me? I’ve heard that bridge is very interesting.

Zuo Ran: Sure.

 >Select: Ellipses

MC: (I never would’ve thought that Lawyer Zuo knows how to play bridge.)

A door appeared in front of us.

Based on its position, this was the room in the southeast direction.

>Open door

 Special File Room

The door to the room was opened, but the door’s password lock was still working, and the electricity normal.

MC: Look, what’s that?

Facing the door was an indomitable-looking, transparent… closet?

I didn’t know how to describe this thing. It looked a little like a water tank or standing closet used by magicians to perform escape magic.

The closet had an electronic lock on it and was currently in locked state. The dashboard on the side displayed the oxygen levels in the closet.

The entire closet was partitioned into two parts, both different from each other. Both sides had a lever, and I didn’t know what they were used for.

MC: Lawyer Zuo, can you tell what this thing is used for?

Zuo Ran: I can’t imagine it.

Zuo Ran: Although there might be what we’re looking for in the file cabinets on these two sides.

>Select: Cabinets

Zuo Ran: Li Gang, 2 million, redeemed…

Zuo Ran: Xue Fan, 4.7 million, redeemed…

Zuo Ran: What’s placed here should be the case files of the “redeemed” people Qing Zhian talked about.

MC: There are only paper document records – there isn’t any other evidence… looks like the so-called blackmail leverage really was destroyed.

Zuo Ran: Whether it’s Gu Wei or Chen Hanzhang, once they’ve set up the rules, they must comply with them.

Zuo Ran: Otherwise, the Tiger’s Accomplice Ghosts might as well surrender to the police and go to jail, and the methods that they use to control the Ghosts would become invalid.

 >Select: Cabinets (2)

MC: Cheng Kaiyuan, August 20th, 2017, died from car crash…

I flipped through the materials on the second file cabinet. Here, all the records were of those who had already died.

Zuo Ran: There are only paper document records – looks like the related person’s physical evidence has already been destroyed.

Zuo Ran: For those who have passed, keeping their blackmail leverage is useless.

Dong—

Suddenly, a muffled sound came from outside.

MC: Someone’s there?

I lowered my voice.

Zuo Ran: Don’t panic.

We silently waited for a moment. No other sound came again.

MC: Maybe the wind knocked something over?

Zuo Ran: Act carefully, don’t lower your guard.

 >Select: Glass closet

MC: (What is this closet used for?)

MC: (From a safety perspective, I shouldn’t touch it.)

 >Select: Ellipses

Zuo Ran: Fu Qiao’s crime evidence is not here, and neither is Qing Zhian’s.

MC: Let’s keep searching.

--

…

We continued to search on this floor.

>Select: Tie

MC: Lawyer Zuo, when did you learn to tie your tie?

Zuo Ran: Why did you want to ask this? I remember it was… when I was in middle school.

MC: This early?

Zuo Ran: Mhmm, I participated in a school event, and it just so happened that the attire was dress shirt and tie.

MC: I noticed that I can tie a tie for myself, but when I tie it for others, I always get it wrong.

MC: When swapping directions, it seems like everything is different.

Zuo Ran: Perhaps you will get used to it after finding more chances to practice.

 >Select: Face

MC: Actually, Lawyer Zuo, when you smile, you really look especially handsome.

Zuo Ran: …

MC: If you typically smiled more, the colleagues at the law firm probably won’t fear you that much.

Zuo Ran: That’s also true.

 >Select: Ellipses

MC: In front, over there – that should be another room, right?

A door appeared in front of us.

Based on its position, this was the room in the northeast direction.

>Open door

MC: This door is closed – we need the password to open it.

Zuo Ran: Password… how many digits?

I looked at the password lock’s digit prompts.

MC: 1, 2, 3… it requires 12 digits. This design at the end… it feels like I’ve seen it somewhere.

Zuo Ran: It’s the four-petaled flower design on that crystal bust.

MC: Could the riddle’s answer be on the bust?

MC: Could the text on the bust be the riddle? Are the ground-off numbers the password?

Zuo Ran: It’s very possible.

MC: If it’s guessing riddles…

>Take a picture and send it to Xia Yan >Ask Zuo Ran

MC: Xia Yan is the most skilled when it comes to solving riddles. Let’s go to that display room and take a picture of the bust to send to Xia Yan.

Zuo Ran: No need – this riddle is very easy to solve.

 >Take a picture and send it to Xia Yan >Ask Zuo Ran

MC: Lawyer Zuo, do you have any ideas?

Zuo Ran: This riddle isn’t hard. I’ve already got the answer.

Zuo Ran: The answer to the riddle should be 1634 8208 9474. It just so happens to be the same as with the ground-off numbers – the first digit is 1 and the last digit is 4.

MC: Lawyer Zuo, how did you figure it out this quickly?

Zuo Ran: Have you heard of the four-leaf rose number?

Zuo Ran: It refers to a four-digit number. The sum of each digit to the fourth exponent equals the number itself.

Zuo Ran: There are three numbers like this. Individually, they are 1634, 8208 and 9474.

MC: So the four petals and Rose on the bust were hinting at the four-leaf rose numbers?

Zuo Ran: Not only that, but that poem-like text also meant this, and it also hinted at the order of the numbers.

Zuo Ran: “Regardless of how you change, you are still you” refers to exponents.

Zuo Ran: “From the beginning to the end” indicates that the order goes from small to large.

MC: Lawyer Zuo, you really are too amazing. Are you really a law student? Your science grades must also have been great.

Zuo Ran: They’re just things that I got interested in and read about for middle school math. Typically, I’m not able to use them, and they’re not worth bringing up.

Zuo Ran: I’ll input the password. You stand behind me, a little far away.

I knew that Zuo Ran was afraid that the password lock had other safety mechanisms…

I heeded his arrangement and stood behind him, although it was not too far – it was a distance where I could reinforce him at any time.

Beep beep beep—

Right after Zuo Ran pressed the confirmation button, a quiet sound came from the door lock.

Zuo Ran: It’s open.

We pushed open the door and looked in. This was a file room again.

[alwaysalreadyangry]

most of the UK reviews i’ve read of martin eden have been a disappointment, tbh. i don’t know if this is because critics have been busy with cannes or because outlets here just don’t have the space, or because it’s kind of seen as old news. i have seen no real engagement with the politics or form beyond a couple of cursory lines, and it’s a shame because... i think it’s really rich wrt those elements?

so i am looking again at the (wonderful) review from film comment last year and it’s such a shame that it’s not available freely online. so i thought i’d post it here behind a cut. it’s long but worth it imo (and also engages really interestingly with marcello’s other films). it’s by phoebe chen.

COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS              Jan  3, 2020                    BY PHOEBE CHEN

EARLY IN JACK LONDON’S 1909 NOVEL MARTIN EDEN, there is a scattering of references to technical ephemera that the 20th century will promptly leave behind: “chromos and lithographs,” those early attempts at large-scale reproduction; “a vast camera obscura,” by then a centuries-old relic; a bullfight so fervid it’s like “gazing into a kinetoscope,” that proto-cinematic spectacle of cloistered motion. These objects now seem like archaic curios, not much more than the flotsam of culture from the moment it shifted gears to mass production. It’s a change in scale that also ensnares the novel’s title character, a hardy young sailor and autodidact-turned-writer-célèbre, famously an avatar of London’s own hollowing transmutation into a figure for mass consumption. But, lucky him—he remains eminent now on the other side of a century; chance still leaves a world of names and faces to gather dust. Easily the most arresting aspect of Pietro Marcello’s new adaptation is its spotlight on the peripheral: from start to end, London’s linear Künstlerroman is intercut with a dizzying range of archival footage, from a decaying nitrate strip of anarchist Errico Malatesta at a workers’ rally to home video–style super 16mm of kids jiving by an arcade game. In these ghostly interludes, Marcello reanimates the visual detritus of industrial production as a kind of archival unconscious.

This temporal remixing is central to Marcello’s work, mostly experimental documentaries that skew auto-ethnographic and use elusive, essayistic editing to constellate place and memory, but always with a clear eye to the present. Marcello’s first feature, Crossing the Line (2007), gathers footage of domestic migrant workers and the nocturnal trains that barrel them to jobs across the country, laying down a recurring fascination with infrastructure. By his second feature, The Mouth of the Wolf (2009), there is already the sense of an artist in riveting negotiation with the scope of his story and setting. Commissioned by a Jesuit foundation during Marcello’s yearlong residency in the port city of Genoa, the film ebbs between a city-symphonic array and a singular focus on the story of a trans sex worker and her formerly incarcerated lover, still together after 20-odd years and spells of separation. Their lives are bound up with a poetic figuration of the city’s making, from the mythic horizon of ancient travails, recalled in bluer-than-blue shots of the Ligurian Sea at dawn, to new-millennium enterprise in the docklands, filled with shipping crates and bulldozers busy with destruction.

Marcello brings a similar approach to Martin Eden, though its emphasis is inverted: it’s the individual narrative that telescopes a broader history of 20th-century Italy. In this pivotal move, Marcello and co-writer Maurizio Braucci shift London’s Oakland-set story to Naples, switching the cold expanse of the North Pacific for the Mediterranean and its well-traversed waters. The young century, too, is switched out for an indeterminate period with jumbled signifiers: initial clues point to a time just shy of World War II, though a television set in a working-class household soon suggests the late ’50s, and then a plastic helicopter figurine loosely yokes us to the ’70s. Even the score delights in anachronism, marked by a heavy synth bass that perforates the sacral reverb of a cappella and organ song, like a discotheque in a cathedral. And—why not?—’70s and ’80s Europop throwbacks lend archival sequences a further sense of epochal collapse. While Marcello worked with researcher Alessia Petitto for the film’s analog trove, much of its vintage stock is feigned by hand-tinting and distressing original 16mm footage. Sometimes a medium-change jolts with sudden incongruity, as in a cut to dockworkers filmed in black and white, their faces and hands painted in uncanny approximations of living complexions. Other transitions are so precisely matched to color and texture that they seem extensions of a dream.

Martin’s writer’s optimism is built on a faith in language as the site of communication and mutual recognition. So follows his tragedy.

Patchworked from the scraps of a long century, this composite view seems to bristle against a story of individual formation. It feels like a strange time for an artist’s coming-of-age tale adapted with such sincerity, especially when that central emphasis on becoming—and becoming a writer, no less—is upended by geopolitical and ecological hostility. At first, our young Martin strides on screen with all the endearing curiosity of an archetypal naïf, played by Luca Marinelli with a cannonballing force that still makes room for the gentler affects of embarrassment and first love. Like the novel, the film begins with a dockside rescue: early one morning, Martin saves a young aristocrat from a beating, for which he is rewarded with lunch at the family estate. On its storied grounds, Martin meets the stranger’s luminous sister, Elena Orsini (Jessica Cressy), a blonde-haloed and silk-bloused conduit for his twinned desires of knowledge and class transgression. In rooms of ornate stucco and gilded everything, the Orsinis parade their enthusiasm for education in a contrived show of open-mindedness, a familiar posture of well-meaning liberals who love to trumpet a certain model of education as global panacea. University-educated Elena can recite Baudelaire in French; Martin trips over simple conjugations in his mother tongue. “You need money to study,” he protests, after Elena prescribes him a back-to-school stint. “I’m sure that your family would not ignore such an important objective,” she insists (to an orphan, who first set sail at age 11).

Anyone who has ever been thrilled into critical pursuit by a single moment of understanding knows the first beat of this story. Bolting through book after book, Martin is fired by the ever-shifting measure of his knowledge. In these limitless stretches of facts to come, there’s the promised glow of sheer comprehension, the way it clarifies the world as it intoxicates: “All hidden things were laying their secrets bare. He was drunk with comprehension,” writes London. Marcello is just as attentive to how Martin understands, a process anchored to the past experiences of his working body. From his years of manual labor, he comes to knowledge in a distinctly embodied way, charming by being so literal. At lunch with the Orsinis, he offers a bread roll as a metaphor for education and gestures at the sauce on his plate as “poverty,” tearing off a piece of education and mopping up the remnants with relish. Later, in a letter to Elena, he recounts his adventures in literacy: “I note down new words, I turn them into my friends.” In these early moments, his expressions are as playful as they are trenchant, enlivened by newfound ways of articulating experience. His writer’s optimism is built on a faith in language as the site of communication and mutual recognition. So follows his tragedy.

One of Marcello’s major structural decisions admittedly makes for some final-act whiplash, when a cut elides the loaded years of Martin’s incremental success, stratospheric fame, and present fall into jaded torpor. By now, he is a bottle-blonde chain-smoker with his own palazzo and entourage, set to leave on a U.S. press tour even though he hasn’t written a thing in years. His ideas have been amplified to unprecedented reach by mass media, and his words circulate as abstract commodities for a vulturine audience. For all its emphasis on formation, Martin Eden is less a story of ebullient self-discovery than one of inhibiting self-consciousness. There is no real sense that Martin’s baseline character has changed, because it hasn’t. Even his now best-selling writing is the stuff of countless prior rejected manuscripts. From that first day at the Orsini estate, when his roughness sticks out to him as a fact, he learns about the gulf between a hardier self-image and the surface self that’s eyed by others.

WITH SUCH A DEEPLY INHABITED PERFORMANCE by Marinelli, it’s intuitive to read the film as a character study, but the lyrical interiority of London’s novel never feels like the point of Marcello’s adaptation. Archival clips—aged by time, or a colorist’s hand—often seem to illustrate episodes from Martin’s past, punctuating the visual specificity of individual memory: a tense encounter with his sister cuts to two children dancing with joyous frenzy; his failed grammar-school entrance exam finds its way to sepia-stained shots of a crippled, shoeless boy. These insertions are more affective echoes than literal ones, the store of a single life drawn from a pool of collective happening.

But, that catch: writing in the hopes of being read, as Martin does (as most do), means feeding some construct of a distinctive self. While the spotlight of celebrity singles out the destructive irony of Martin’s aggressive individualism, Marcello draws from Italy’s roiling history of anarchist and workerist movements to complicate the film’s political critique, taking an itinerant path through factions and waves from anarcho-communism in the early 1900s to the pro-strike years of autonomist Marxism in the late ’70s. In place of crystalline messaging is a structure that parallels Martin’s own desultory politics, traced in both film and novel through his commitment to liberal theorist Herbert Spencer. Early on, Martin has an epiphanic encounter with Spencer’s First Principles (a detail informed by London’s own discovery of the text as a teen), which lays out a systematic philosophy of natural laws, and offers evolution as a structuring principle for the universe—a “master-key,” London offers. Soon, Martin bellows diatribes shaped by Spencer’s more divisive, social Darwinist ideas of evolutionary justice, as though progress is only possible through cruel ambivalence. Late in the film, an image of a drunk and passed-out Martin cuts to yellowed footage of a young boy penciling his name—“Martin Eden”—over and over in an exercise book, a dream of becoming turned memory.

In Marcello’s previous feature, Lost and Beautiful (2015), memory is more explicitly staged as an attachment to landscape. Like Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro, Lost and Beautiful plays as a pastoral elegy but lays out the bureaucratic inefficiency that hastens heritage loss through neglect. Rolling fields make occasional appearances in Martin Eden, but its Neapolitan surroundings evoke a different history. Far from the two oceans that inspired a North American tradition of maritime literature, the Mediterranean guards its own idiosyncrasies of promise and catastrophe. Of the Sea’s fraught function as a regional crossroads, Marcello has noted, in The Mouth of the Wolf, a braiding of fate and agency: “They are men who transmigrate,” the opening voiceover intones. “We don’t know their stories. We know they chose, found this place, not others.” Mare Nostrum—“Our Sea”—is the Roman epithet for the Mediterranean, a possessive projection that abides in current vernacular. Like so many cities that cup the sea, Naples is a site of immigrant crossing, a fact slyly addressed in Martin Eden with a fleeting long shot of black workers barreling hay in a field of slanted sun, and, at the end, a group of immigrants sitting on a beach at dusk. Brief, but enough to mark the changing conditions of a new century.

Not much is really new, however: not the perils of migration, nor the proselytizing individualists, nor the media circus, nor the classist distortions of taste, nor, blessedly, the kind of learning for learning’s sake that stokes and sustains an interest in the world. Toward the end of the film, there is a shot of our tired once-hero, slumped in the back seat of a car, that cuts to sepia stock of children laughing and running to reach the camera-as-car-window, as if peering through glass and time. It recalls a scene from Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, which leaps backward through a similar gaze, when the weary angel Cassiel looks out of a car window at the vista of ’80s Berlin and sees, instead, grainy footage of postwar streets strewn with rubble in fresh ruin. Where human perception is shackled to linearity, these wool-coated and scarfed seraphs—a materialization of Walter Benjamin’s “angel of history”—see all of time in a simultaneous sweep, as they wander Berlin with their palliative touch. Marcello’s Martin Eden mosaics a view less pointedly omniscient, but just as filled with a humanist commitment to the turning world, even as Martin slides into disillusion. All its faces plucked from history remind me of a line from a Pasolini poem: “Everything on that street / was human, and the people all clung / to it tightly.”

Phoebe Chen is a writer and graduate student living in New York.

[authenticcadence18]

ok so. I’m gonna talk about a certain non-canon PnF ship I dislike for a bit.

(and by a bit. I mean for far longer than I intended.) 

And. Ok. I’m just gonna preface this by saying:  I am not seeking to tear down the ship in question. If you ship it, if it makes you happy, I am not trying to step on your toes and make you feel bad at all!!! I’m sure there are plenty of great reasons to ship these two characters, I just don’t agree. And that’s fine! 

I simply want to talk through a certain scene in Phineas and Ferb that fans of this ship usually point to as a pivotal moment between the two, point out another scene between a DIFFERENT ship that is often overlooked, and compare the two. 

analysis/rant will be below the cut

(this post is about Ferb*lla, btw. in case you hadn’t guessed.)

Ok so. Recently I watched a video where someone talked about shipping Ferb and Isabella and why they did so. (I’ll also say I did NOT seek out a video about this specific ship, it just happened to be a brief topic of discussion in it. And I stopped watching the video after this.). I don’t want to say which video it was because I’m not trying to attack any given person here! But I wanted to give y’all context for why I’m writing this. 

Anyway. The infamous “hand-holding” scene from “When Worlds Collide” was used as the main evidence for this ship. The person in the video claimed that “Isabella instinctively grabbed Ferb’s hand” and that they looked at each other and “had a moment” and went on about how they shipped Ferb and Isabella because Phineas was just “so oblivious.” 

Now. I understand being frustrated with Phineas’s obliviousness. Been there, done that. And I understand how some would want Isabella to be paired romantically with someone who registers and reciprocates her feelings.

But this take on that scene is just, well, not right. (I suspect the maker of this video had not viewed said scene in quite some time and it was just a vague memory.) In this post, I’m going to go over what actually happens in that scene, compare it to a Phinabella scene with a similar vibe, and then just talk about Phineas’s treatment of Isabella in general and how their dynamic is so much more than “pining girl/oblivious to a fault boy.”

PART 1: “When Worlds Collide” 

(you can run! wait...wrong show) 

Ok so. In this episode, there is a scene towards the end where Isabella reaches out for Phineas’s hand but ends up grabbing Ferb’s instead. Ferb pats her hand and assures her that everything will be alright, and Isabella immediately pulls her hand back and curiously glances over at an aloof Phineas. 

In the video in question, the speaker claimed that Isabella “instinctively” reached out for Ferb. 

But that’s not what happened. 

Isabella deliberately reached out for Phineas’s hand. You can tell by the way the shot prior to the handholding bit is staged. 

Phineas is clearly on Isabella’s left while Ferb is on her right. (From our perspective as audience members.)

In the very next shot, Isabella smiles and reaches out to the left, where Phineas should be

In any world other than that of a cartoon, she’d have grabbed Phineas’s hand. But because of cartoon shenanigans, Ferb is inexplicably standing directly to her left in the next shot, so she grabs his hand instead.

As SOON as Isabella realizes she’s holding Ferb’s hand and not Phineas’s, her smile disappears and she pulls her hand away before glancing over at Phineas, confused.

CLEARLY this scene is just a gag. Isabella wants to hold Phineas’s hand, but whoops! she holds Ferb’s instead. Phineas being oblivious isn’t even a part of the joke, it’s just 100% the universe being against Isabella 🙃. And Isabella shows no romantic affection towards Ferb whatsoever in this scene.

Now, one could say Ferb’s reaction to Isabella holding his hand indicates at least a one-sided crush on his part. But I disagree. From Ferb’s perspective, Isabella grabbed his hand because she was worried, and he reassured her like any good friend would do before returning to his former position once Isabella pulled her hand away. He wasn’t offended by her pulling her hand away, and he didn’t make a lovestruck/disappointed face when she pulled away.

And Ferb also misread her gesture. Because Isabella wasn’t worried. She was awestruck, amazed, and wanted to share the moment with the boy she has feelings for. I suspect if she’d grabbed Phineas’s hand, he wouldn’t have misread her gesture.

(Well. Ok. He WOULD have misread it but in a different way. Isabella and Phineas hold hands a lot in the show, so it wouldn’t have been unusual to him. In his mind, Isabella’s his best friend and sometimes they hold hands! I suspect he might have glanced at her for a moment before returning his gaze to the sky, smile never faltering, because who better to share such a special moment with than his best friend?)

I also personally like to think of Ferb and Isabella as having a sibling-like relationship. Ferb teases her about her crush on Phineas AND acts as her wingman on multiple occasions, which are 100% things a sibling would do. And they genuinely are friends! I love their friendship. And so that’s how I characterize this scene, as Isabella being confused and Ferb just trying to be a good friend. It’s not romantic: it’s first and foremost a joke. And on a deeper level, it’s a moment of Ferb expressing platonic affection towards a close friend.

Part 2: “The Klimpaloon Ultimatum”

This episode came out a little less than two years after “When Worlds Collide,” when Phineas and Ferb was a bit on the decline in terms of popularity. Neither episode is a mainstream one, but this one is definitely the less well-known of the two. 

This is a shame. Because it’s a fantastic episode. AND because it contains one of my favorite Phinabella moments. 

Just to set up the scene: the kiddos have been captured and learn of Mittington Random’s nefarious deeds. He’s been conducting inhumane experiments and trying to create “living” swimwear with no success and plans to take Klimpaloon--the magical old timey bathing suit that lives in the Himalayas himself--apart to do so. Isabella expresses distress at his evildoings before they even come across Klimpaloon, and when they DO come across Klimpaloon and learn the extent of Random’s plan, Phineas is right there....

and they REACH OUT FOR EACH OTHER. INSTINCTIVELY. LOOK AT THIS.

They don’t even have to LOOK at one another. Phineas can just SENSE Isabella’s distress, and Isabella reaches out for him to comfort her without even thinking about it and he DOES.

I mean!! LOOK AT THEM. This is Isabella realizing what’s happened! She didn’t reach out for Phineas intentionally, it just happened!! They were totally in sync!

and LOOK HOW CONTENT SHE IS NOW. even amidst the horror of the villain’s plan, just being close to Phineas comforts her. Or at least momentarily cheers her up. (And ok I know this moment is also primarily a gag but IT’S IN ISABELLA’S FAVOR THIS TIME. Instead of leaving her confused and without Phineas, it leaves her with a dreamy grin on her face and in his arms. Bless Season 4.)

And AND. The next shot is of Random speaking for a few seconds, and then we get a shot of all the characters...

AND ISABELLA AND PHINEAS ARE STILL HOLDING ONE ANOTHER. Although it looks like they’ve gone from hugging  to just holding hands, which means even if they didn’t want to keep hugging they DID WANT TO KEEP HOLDING ONE ANOTHER I JUST AHHHH. 

So. Let’s review. 

In the first scene, Isabella accidentally holds Ferb’s hand. She doesn’t need to be comforted, she just wants to share a moment with Phineas and is confused when she realizes she isn’t holding his hand. Ferb comforts her because he’s being a good friend and thinks she is concerned. He misreads her needs. So like, he means well, he’s her friend! But it’s not romantic. And they hardly hold hands at all. (And, come on, this scene is mostly meant to be a gag.) 

In the second scene, Isabella is definitely distressed, and without a word (or even having to make eye contact), she and Phineas reach out to hold one another without thinking about it. Somehow, Phineas knows Isabella needs to be comforted and Isabella knows Phineas will be there for her. And they STAY HOLDING HANDS into the next shot. 

Isabella does not instinctively reach out for Ferb’s hand in the first clip. 

Isabella and Phineas instinctively reach out for one another in the second.

Need I say more? 

Part 3: In Defense of Phineas and the Phinabella Dynamic

So. Yes. Phineas is oblivious to Isabella’s romantic feelings for him. Painfully, painfully oblivious to them. (And he’s painfully oblivious to his own feelings for her because COME ON. “Night of the Living Pharmacists” alone proves he almost certainly had feelings for her when they were kids, he just had no idea.)

But. He can’t be blamed for this. He is a CHILD, for goodness sake. When I was younger his obliviousness definitely got on my nerves, but like....he IS just a kid. He was never obligated to return Isabella’s feelings (...that should sound familiar to some of y’all). Phineas just wasn’t thinking about romance relating to himself when he was younger. He was oblivious to it, and that’s okay.

And you know what he’s not oblivious to in the show proper? How much he cares for Isabella as his friend. 

Phineas LOVES being Isabella’s friend. Like. She’s his best friend. (Vincent Martella himself said so!!) 

He goes out of his way to help her earn patches and overcome other problems (like an incurable case of the hiccups!). 

He consistently compliments her athleticism and skills and cuteness (in his own unique way, of course😂). 

Although he expresses distress when Baljeet expects him to go a day without inventing in “Bully Bromance Breakup,” he is more than happy to spend the day alone with Isabella and suggests having a regular ol’ picnic when she mentions being hungry in “It’s No Picnic.” AND he is excited to take that picnic and make it even better for Isabella once Ferb returns (because Phineas probably thinks Isabella would rather have a big picnic as opposed to a small one! He’s doing that for himself but also for her!).

He partners up with her for inventions over Ferb sometimes and is willing to put big ideas for the day on hold if she can’t participate. 

He planned surprise after surprise for her birthday (and presumably for her birthdays before that!) and felt the need to “make it up to her” when the final surprise didn’t go as planned.  

He was DEVASTATED when separated from her in “Night of the Living Pharmacists” and claimed he’d “never forgive himself” if she was infected, and once being reunited with her, he didn’t leave her side and held her hand and made sure she was alright. And he SACRIFICED HIMSELF FOR HER IN THE END. Like. At that point Phineas could’ve let Isabella get infected and stopped the invasion himself. BUT HE DIDN’T. HE SACRIFICED HIMSELF FOR HER. He both cared enough to give himself up and TRUSTED her to save him. LIKE. LIKE. 

Come on. Maybe Phineas doesn’t know Isabella has a crush on him in the show proper. But GOSH. He cares so, so, SO much about her. 

To claim Ferb is a better match for Isabella simply because he’s more aware of romance in general is just a disservice to the close friendship she and Phineas share. 

Did Isabella deserve better during the show? I mean. Yeah. (I wrote a whole fic because of that, lol.) But it isn’t really Phineas’s fault that he never found out about her feelings. So many times, Isabella’s plans to confess or spend time with Phineas were ruined by circumstances totally out of her control (aka: the b-plot’s inator of the day. aka: the writers maintaining the status quo.) If it weren’t for Doofenshmirtz, Isabella would’ve confessed to him in the main summer the show takes place in. 

And you’ll notice! Even in episodes where Isabella is frustrated with Phineas’s obliviousness, their friendship remains in tact. Isabella is TICKED at Phineas during the “do I know romance or what?” scene in “That Sinking Feeling.” But then in the next scene they’re both in, Isabella is at Phineas’s side and smiling! His obliviousness hurts her sometimes, but it doesn’t outweigh the friendship and sweet moments they share. It doesn’t define their dynamic.

Phineas is oblivious. But he still loves Isabella in his own unique way. And Isabella loves him and loves being his friend even though he’s oblivious. 

(And also FERB SHIPS PHINABELLA. He steps away to let them spend time together, he sends them off to get ice cream together at the end of “Happy Birthday Isabella”. He 100% supports Isabella and Phineas and wants them to be together. And there’s no jealousy there either! He’s just supportive and awesome and I LOVE FERB OKAY.) 

So. In Conclusion.

If you ship Ferb and Isabella. That’s great! I do not want to step on your toes, and I’m sure you’ve got your own reasons for doing so. I know firsthand just how wonderful a favorite ship can make one feel, so I’d never want to take that from anyone. 

But just. Please. PLEAAASE. Please don’t belittle Phineas in shipping them. And don’t disregard the moments he and Isabella share. 

Phineas cares for Isabella. So very much. In his own unique, wonderful way. And there is so much more to meaningful relationships than romance. 

Thank you. 

[taylizmasterpost]

Liz After the Agency (September 2012 - September 2014)

So, Liz is spiraling. Her mental health isn’t doing great. And she was just asked to leave The Agency (presumably to take care of herself, although the public reason given was for her to start a solo career). Things are bad.

However, in the darkness, there’s always a light. And the light for Liz, in this case is her neighbor, Bryan Brown.

24 September 2012 - Liz and Bryan tweet at each other for the first time:

17  October 2012 - Taylor writes This Love:

Now, this COULD be about Liz, considering the back and forth. However, I’m more inclined to believe Taylor wrote this about Swiftgron’s first break up, right after they got back together, which you can read more about here. 

The same day, Liz makes a vague tweet about jealousy:

It’s crazy weird to me that the same day Taylor is celebrating getting back together with Dianna and writing This Love, Liz is pissed off and jealous about something. Coincidence? Maybe. But I don’t think so.

22 October 2012 - Red is released. According to a later interview with the photographer who did the Red booklet (who happens to be Liz’s current roommate), Taylor based the concept of the photoshoot on some headshots they’d taken for Liz: 

“Taylor is a mutual friend of ours. Stephen and his brother were friends with her years before, and I became friends with her separately. What ended up happening was one of her background singers needed headshots. When Taylor saw them a few months later, she came to me and was like, “Liz showed me the shots you took of her, and I need my album to look exactly like that.” Clearly, this was a no-brainer. I said, “OK!” Before then, I’d been kind of burned out on music photography. A lot of the shoots were super controlling. I needed a new perspective on the field itself and wanted future shoots to be very free-flowing — just the artist and a minimum crew. Luckily for Stephen and me, that’s exactly how Taylor presented the Red album shoot. So it was just the three of us shooting everything together. She wanted everybody else to remain off set, allowing for a more personal and intimate experience.”

So, I don’t know why Taylor did this. Maybe she wanted to look like a hipster for the Red album and Liz was the best she knew. Or, maybe, she wanted to scream to those who knew her well that this album was about LIZ HUETT. 

In this series of Liz headshots, there’s also one specific photo of Liz wearing the Stevie Nicks moon necklace that Taylor possibly gave to her:

Is this possibly one of the reasons why Taylor wanted to mimic them for the Red album? 

Later that day, Taylor goes on Good Morning America and says she wrote a new song “like two days ago” (probably talking about This Love?)

And after that, Taylor tells the LA Times that Begin Again and State of Grace are about the same person:

“There were a few track list choices I knew I was going to make way in advance,” she said. “I knew I wanted to bookend the album with ‘State of Grace’ and ‘Begin Again’ because they’re inspired by the same person who inspired a few songs on the record. I wanted to start and end the album with the first and last song I ever wrote about that relationship.”

“Then in between those songs, I wanted to paint a picture of the ups and downs I’ve experienced in life and love, not necessarily in the order it happened chronologically,” Swift continued. “I like to spread the emotions out in a way that never makes you feel like there’s a sad lull, then a burst of four songs in a row about joy. At the end of the day, I make a track list based on what my gut feeling tells me.” ‘Begin Again’ is my song version of a cliffhanger ending. Throughout the whole album, there have been songs about the trials and tribulations of love and loss, and there at the end of the record it starts all over. As soon as I wrote that song, I knew exactly where I wanted to put it.”

Now, I don’t think this means Begin Again is about Liz. I think it means that Liz is the past relationship in the song, and Dianna is the present. And Liz actually has a song called “Good About Her” that kind of mirrors Begin Again and I find that HILARIOUS and also kind of a smoking gun.

26 October 2012 -Taylor goes on Katie Couric. Katie asks if Taylor’s ex in WANEGBT got the message and Taylor says she “hasn’t heard from him since” and also mentions “some of my exes like to write really long emails.” Now, if the song is about Liz, this is a lie, because she definitely did get lunch with Liz after WANEGBT came out. However, I think it’s fair that what she’s hinting here is that things did not end well in that messy relationship.

25 October 2012 - Liz quote tweets Caitlin about crying on the treadmill to All Too Well :

8 November 2012 - Liz releases Never Know on YouTube:

The lyrics that make me think this is about Taylor are the “now and then I catch myself singing your old song.” ESPECIALLY in the context of that treadmill tweet and Liz probably having written this during her Nashville sessions over the summer. However, it could also be about Jason, who, as we know, was a struggling musician before he became a photographer.

18 November 2012 - Taylor shoots the MV for IKYWT, wears the same black and white shirt she wore around when Liz first joined the band. Liz calls the news of her leaving the Agency “bittersweet.”

And “bittersweet” is the exact same phrasing that around a week later Taylor would say the ex who most of Red is about used to describe listening to the album:

19 November 2012 - Ali Puliti tweets about listening to two Liz demos -- Blessed Are the Brokenhearted and Dammit, meaning this song, which wouldn’t be released until 2018, was likely written during those summer 2012 songwriting sessions:

When the song was eventually released by Jana Kramer in 2018, Liz posted this on Facebook:

The song also notably contains the lyric “cause I could hear you in the kitchen, playing your guitar” which REALLY REALLY makes me think of Taylor. Although it could maybe be for Jason, who was also a musician.

Here’s the story Liz told about the song:

“‘Dammit’, actually, was a story that I lived out. Like, I was with somebody I was, you know, getting very serious. We were talking about starting a life together and we even had this house, like, picked out in the city where we lived and we would drive by it and be like ‘one day when we buy that house’. And, so, when we broke up, the pain of, like, saying goodbye was really, you know, really intense, but it was also mourning the loss of the hypothetical future. So, it was like saying goodbye to the past memories and stuff, sort of what we almost had and that’s where that song came from. So, honestly, I didn’t write it for anyone else, but myself, truly. But, um, it’s beautiful that music has such a way of resonating with someone who might not even know and they connect with it so much that another artist would want to sing it. It’s such a high compliment.”  

And here’s a quick clip of Liz singing it. So, seems like a Jason song, if not for the fact that she wrote it almost a year after they broke up and kept it hidden for years before eventually giving it to another artist.

13 December 2012 - Taylor’s birthday. Liz does not wish her happy birthday. This, to me, is the biggest evidence that there’s some amount of bad blood between them at this point.

14 December 2012 - The Music Video for IKYWT comes out. Taylor wears a shirt she wore a LOT when TayLiz was first a thing in 2009. She also wears a key necklace, which will be important later.

17 December 2012 - Liz posts a picture from Claire’s birthday party using a picture without Taylor in it (even though it seems fair to assume Taylor would’ve been invited).

20 December 2012 - Liz tells a fan her favorite song from Red is All Too Well:

21 December 2012 - Liz wishes Claire happy birthday. Further signaling bad blood with her and Taylor since she didn’t bother to do it for Taylor.

9 January 2013 - Liz releases Blessed Are the Brokenhearted:

Here she describes love as “burning up out of control” which is the same phrase Taylor used on Red -- “burning red” -- and Begin Again -- “I’ve been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end.” Also, the idea of love as an out of control flame really does describe their relationship.

20 January 2013 - Liz releases One Hand on the Wheel:

Here, much like in Red, Liz describes a relationship using the metaphor of a car. The relationship is messy, maybe even toxic. There’s even a lyric that sounds like it could be out of treacherous: “Being wrong shouldn’t feel so right like it does / But it does.”

22 January 2013 - Liz releases Wreck of Who I Am.

This is the song that is the strongest evidence for me that Liz WAS going through some mental health stuff over the summer when she was doing all this songwriting, and that that Reddit post about running into a drunk Liz who said she was fired for being “out of control” seems somewhat accurate. Here Liz sings about her battles, the way she’s losing them, and asks her younger self what she would think if she saw her now.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on Liz and Bryan (since unlike her and Jason there’s no need to use them to say much about TayLiz) but, despite his flaws, he was the person to pick Liz up off the ground when she was feeling this way, so he should get some credit for that.

Sometime around this - Liz releases Stones. Similar upbeat nature to Blessed Are the Brokenhearted with mentions to some of the struggles of Wreck of Who I Am.

Choice Lyrics:

When you’re knocked off your throne And lying on your back Things will never be so clear Cause when you see it all like that Sooner or later it comes around Yeah we all taste that bitter truth But all the stones you’re throwing now Will be the ones they throw at you

Also with these batch of songs, we get Sun Out of the Rain:

So baby, hold on, the storm will roll away It may be pouring down, but it’s only for today A million pieces might be falling into place And when there are no words to say We’ll make the sun out of the rain

29 January 2013 - Chantelle Paige posts a picture of Liz and Taylor and talks about a “sad night turned awesome.” Once again, I think this is a throwback from that night in 2012.

2 April 2013 - Liz goes to therapy. Her and Bryan are dating at this point.

2 September 2013 - Liz tells a fan on twitter that she hasn’t been to any of the Red shows, which to me definitely backs up that fan account of Liz being bitter about being fired.

23 December 2013 - Liz wishes Taylor Happy Birthday. This seems like a peace offering to me, considering they haven’t spoken in like a year and she refused to do this the earlier year. Also worth noting that Swiftgron is on its last legs at this point.

1 March 2014 - Sara Evans releases Put My Heart Down, which was co-written by Liz and is about walking away from a toxic relationship:

Now, from what I know of Liz and Jason, this doesn’t seem like their dynamic at all. It’s too soon for it to be about her and Bryan However, it does remind me a LOT of what Taylor was writing about on Red. Her are some choice lyrics:

I never pictured us fighting this much Thought we were figured out, but it’s so messy now Your words cut so deep and I think you should leave

Put my heart down and walk away This kind of love is dangerous So pack up all your things, just leave some air to breathe A million toxic tears fallin’ like rain over here This is the final hour The end of our story tonight And I don’t wanna fight

Now, please go listen to Treacherous, Battle/Let’s Go and Story of Us and tell me this is not the same relationship.

Bonus though, this song is copyrighted for 2014, making it make even LESS SENSE for it to be written about Bryan. 

17 July 2014 -  Timothy James Brown releases a song called Change My Mind that was co-written by Liz. I’m out of video links, so here are some choice lyrics:

All the horses became soldiers Dark as night to drag me away A complicated kind of heartbreak When you promise somebody you’ll stay

I know you’ve been hurting I know more than most I don’t have the courage Where you’re going, I can’t follow

To me, this reads as Liz making peace with leaving the Agency. She recognizes her demons, and how they ruined her relationship with Taylor, and says “where you’re going, I can’t follow” because she’s not in a good enough place to keep touring with Taylor.

So things are looking bleak in TayLiz land. However, Liz seems to be recovering! She’s writing songs acknowledging some problems in the relationship and her own battles, and she’s also in therapy and dating Bryan. It’s time for some reconciliation. But first, let’s see what’s up in Taylor-land:

Liz References on the Red Tour

[spiderparkerpeterman]

kissing your best friend

anonymous asked: Hi this is a rly cringe-y request huhu but do u know the “i try kissing my best friend” tiktok trend? [...] Hehe sorry it’s v specific but lots of changes are up to u ofc ily

this fic made me feel real old, i'll tell you that. but it was fun to write! specific requests are good sometimes. i had no idea what this trend was before the request, so it was a cute learning experience. thanks so much for the request! i've shortened it as to not give away the plot.

content: fluff, tiny bit of angst, peter parker the awkward gen z wildcard

warnings: i only use tiktok to let out meme steam and it shows, really bad twerking

word count: 1579 (whoops i went off hard)

--

peter was a nervous wreck. he had invited you over to his apartment- not an unusual occurrence- and led you into his bedroom- this happened all the time- and set up his cracked and duct-taped laptop so you could watch silly youtube videos together while curled up on his bed- what was new?- with a bowl of popcorn rested in-between his crossed legs. but this normal, everyday situation wasn't why he was borderline sweating, his heart pounding, fingers shaking.

it was that damn tiktok he'd seen earlier this morning. he had woken up and scrolled through tiktok to see what was new and popular. he came across one, where a girl was holding her phone with a guy behind her, the two smiling, the caption saying "this is my best friend". there were a few clips of them being all cute and whatnot until it said "i decided to kiss him!" and then she had tapped him on the shoulder, held his face and pulled him in, sharing a kind of awkward kiss, until they broke apart and her best friend leant in again and the video looped. something within peter's chest had done double flips, only intensifying when he thought of maybe... maybe doing that with you.

and now here you were, on his bed, laughing at the meme compilation you two were watching- well, that you were watching, while peter daydreamed and sweated some more- eating popcorn that you were getting from a bowl in-between his legs, being all cute and sweet and pretty. but he wanted to do this. he really wanted to do this. he'd liked you for ages, after you had run into each other at the same circuit in gym class and he had taught you the proper form for situps. the way you had smiled at him, completed your circuit and jogged off and then later caught up with him at lunch to say thanks and "maybe we should hang out sometime?" had made him obsessed. it had got to the point where even ned was throwing hints that you liked him and he liked you and wouldn't you two make such a cute couple? and then you were paired up together for a spanish project and the way the language rolled off your tongue made him fall even deeper in love and-

peter had to do this. for ned's sanity. for his own sanity. because if he didn't do this soon he would give up and maybe kiss you in the middle of class or something.

he cleared his throat, prompting you to look at him.

"can i make a tiktok?" he asked, his voice somewhat strained. "there's this thing going around where people show off their best friends, it's pretty nice."

"oh, sure," you replied sitting up. "what do you want me to do?"

peter pursed his lips, unlocking his phone and opening tiktok. he went into his bookmarked sounds, selected that song to make a tiktok with, and then held it up like he was going to take a selfie. "maybe just like smile and wave? and then i wanna get a few videos of us just doing our everyday things, y'know?"

you nodded, taking a second to fix your hair. peter pressed record and grinned, somewhat nervously. you also smiled softly, raising a hand and waving. he stopped the recording, and the two of you collapsed into giggles.

"sorry, that was really awkward," he groaned.

"you're really awkward," you countered, running a hand through your hair. "what's next?"

"i dunno... maybe just you mucking around? i, uh, i really don't know!" peter laughed.

you rolled your eyes with a grin, getting off peter's bed and standing up. peter was typing a caption for the portion of the video, so you waited for him. he held the phone camera up at you.

"what are you gonna do?" he asked. you looked off at the side, considering, but while you were doing that peter pressed record.

"you should dance with me," you said. peter put his phone down, and you gasped. "did you- you just filmed that!"

"yeah, i did," peter laughed. he felt his nervousness fading away as he joked around with you, so he felt like he could really do this. "you wanna dance?"

"yeah," you replied, leaning forward to grab his hands gently and pull him up. peter felt his skin burnup where you were touching him, but he smiled. "set your phone up, and we'll dance."

"what kind of dance?" peter asked as he bent back down to get his phone, crossing his room to set it up on a shelf at shoulder-height so that the video would capture your antics. he selected how long to record hands-free, but didn't press record just yet. he turned to you.

"you should twerk," you suggested jokingly, but peter had an idea. he pressed record, smirking, ran over to you, and started shaking his butt at you. the acoustic music played, nowhere near suitable enough for his "twerking". you laughed aloud and started mockingly hitting his butt. you messed around for a few more seconds, even after peter's phone stopped recording.

he stood back up and nudged you, laughing. his face was bright red, and you laughed even harder at that. he went back to get his phone and selected another few seconds to record hands-free.

"what should we do now?" he asked.

"not sure," you replied, crossing the room to rest your head on his shoulder. you reached out and pressed record for him. "i could just stare at you creepily like this."

the music started playing so you widened your eyes and stared intently at him, but peter immediately burst out laughing and knocked your head off his shoulder. you grinned at the camera just as it finished recording.

"okay," peter said, selecting the last bit to film. this was it. "now i want you to stand here, and like make weird faces at the camera or something, i don't know."

"i can do that," you replied, standing next to him.

he reached out and pressed the record, looking at you through the phone's capture as you put two peace signs up. he smiled then turned, and gently cradled your face, turning it towards him. he leant in, hearing you gasp and feeling you also lean in and-

a loud ding came from his phone- a police alert. he sprung away from you, swearing. you looked away from him, your cheeks bright pink. he left tiktok, now playing the loop of the tiktok, and went into his police app, seeing a shootout in brooklyn.

"i have to go," he stammered, rushing around his room to take off his clothes- you looked away pointedly- put his spider-man suit on, find his spare web fluid just in case and where the hell was his mask? he stopped just as he was about to climb out the window.

"stay here," he said, "please. i'll be back soon. just stay. i'll explain everything, i promise."

he lept from the window, leaving you shellshocked, webbing himself up and away. he almost smacked into multiple buildings on his way over to the shootout, too distracted to really pay attention.

did you really lean in?

he arrived at the scene, not saying his usual quips as he pulled guns away and webbed people to walls and avoided the hail of bullets coming his way and broke one guy's nose.

no, he totally imagined it.

when he had dealt with everyone he didn't stop to chat with the police, just webbed himself back to where you were, hopefully waiting, please be waiting...

he leaned in really quickly, and he was nervous, but maybe...?

he clambered back into his window and pulled off his mask. you were curled up on his desk chair, scrolling through your phone. he stared at you.

"i looked it up," you said, not looking at him, your voice quiet, "best friend tiktoks. the only thing that came up was kissing your best friend."

it took peter a few seconds to open his throat back up. "yeah."

you looked at him, something sad in your eyes.

"did you-"

"i only-"

peter bit his lip, gesturing for you to speak first. "go."

you took a deep breath. "did you- did you just do it for views? it's a kinda popular trend and so i was just wondering... i mean, it'd kinda suck if you did, and i mean- um..." you trailed off, looking away again.

"i- no, i just... uh, did you see that most people who do it have a crush on their best friends?" he asked, hoping you'd get the message.

you looked at him again, confused. but then that confusion morphed into comprehension, and then that comprehension morphed into hope and-

"you mean it?" you whispered.

peter threw his mask away somewhere, striding up to you and pulled your hands up so you'd stand. he held your face again, so gently, as you stared back at him with your big eyes, and leaned in. your lips touched, and something exploded in peter's chest. he shifted an arm to your waist, holding you tight against him, as your arms snaked around his neck, holding him closer.

a few moments later, you broke apart, your face bright pink again. peter knew his face was just as bright.

"i think we need to adjust the tiktok," he murmured, before leaning in to kiss you again.

[technicallydeliciouspainter]

How we got duped into cooking with gas

Gas stove actually unleash indoor air pollutants like soot, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Beyond that, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels like natural gas drive climate change. That’s why there’s a push now to electrify homes; electric stoves can run on clean energy.

The history of how “cooking with gas” campaigns have made a source of fossil fuel combustion in our homes seem completely innocuous gets pretty ridiculous. Leber dug up a rap video from 1988 that spends an entire four minutes hyping up gas stoves in rhyme. “Gas is so hot, it’s not on when it’s off / it’s the only way to cook, that’s what I was taught,” the rap starts off.

Fast forward to about two minutes into the video, however, and there’s a disclaimer in the lyrics that my colleague Sean O’Kane noticed: “Safe cooking begins with range location / avoid main traffic paths and also isolation.”

Today, gas groups pay social media influencers to advertise the supposed benefits of cooking with the fossil fuel, Leber reports. A public relations representative even posed as a resident in a neighborhood to stir up backlash against building codes that would discourage natural gas hookups in new construction, she writes.

You have to read the truly bizarre and alarming history of gas that Leber traces in her article. With many of us spending more time working and hanging out at home during the pandemic, it’s more important than ever to be aware of what we’re exposed to inside the place that’s supposed to be our refuge.

How to Deep Clean Your Gas Stove Burners Using Natural Cleaners

No library of kitchen cleaning tips would be complete without an article on deep cleaning gas and electric burners! Dirty, greasy gas burner grates and drip pans not only age the appliance, but they also can affect your cooking and present a fire hazard. Cleaning stove burners is simple when you use these tips from the pros. Read on to see how you can get your stove sparkling clean with gas stove cleaner made from natural ingredients.

How Often To Clean Gas Stove Burners

Tempered glass gas stove is easy to maintain. However, when the flow of gas gets blocked, the burner heads can’t burn efficiently. Check the gas burners for irregular flame patterns and yellow flames. These are the best indicators that it’s time to grab your gas stove cleaner and get to work. Other than that, cleaning your gas stove monthly should keep it working at its best.

Here’s what you’ll need to get your gas burners clean:

Dishwashing detergent

Baking soda

Non-abrasive scrub pad

Cleaning cloths

Old toothbrush

Paper clip

Cleaning Gas Stove Burners and Caps

If you have a cooktop with a pilot light, you’ll need to shut off the gas valve first. Gas burners have a removable ceramic cap that diffuses the flames. Beneath the caps, the burner head sits atop the gas tube. Remove the caps and the burner heads by carefully lifting them straight up. Avoid damaging the ignition electrode if you have one.

Soak the burner heads and caps in soap and warm water for 30 minutes. Scrub buildup from the burner heads and caps using a non-abrasive scrub pad and an old toothbrush. If the port openings are clogged, use a paper clip to clear them. Be careful not to damage the metal.

How To Clean Electric Stove Burners

Here’s what you’ll need to get your burner stand clean:

Dishwashing detergent

Baking soda

Non-abrasive scrub pad

Microfiber towel

Cleaning cloths

If your coils and drip pans have caked-on grime, turn the burners on for a few minutes to burn off residue. After they cool, wash the drip pans with warm soapy water and cover them completely with a mixture of 2 parts baking soda and 1 part water. Let the drip pans sit for 15 minutes.

While the drip pans are soaking, wipe down the stove coils with a damp cloth to remove stains and residue. Scrub the drip pans and rinse the baking soda mixture. Use fresh soapy water to wash off the residue, then rinse and dry. Buff them to a nice shiny finish with a microfiber towel. Now, on to your stovetop.

How to Clean Your Stovetop

For gas stovetops, use caution and avoid getting the electric starter wet. Degrease the stovetop by wiping it down with a damp cloth to loosen up the top layer of residue. Use a sponge and soapy water to cut through the grease and wipe down your stovetop with a damp cloth to remove the cleaning solution.

For tough buildup, turn to your homemade baking soda mixture. Spread your cleaning paste over the entire stovetop and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. Scrub the stovetop and wipe off the baking soda cleaner with a clean, damp cloth.

If you are intimidated by cleaning your gas or electric stove, or any other place in your kitchen, don’t fret. Call The Maids for a free estimate and get that good-as-new, clean home feeling you love.

Gas stove tops offer quick temperature control and are more affordable to use than electric stove tops.

The best material for a gas stove is one that can conduct and distribute heat evenly, and respond quickly to temperature changes.

For the best cookware for gas stoves, look for ones that are made of stainless steel with aluminum or copper layers.

The average household gas stove looks like it can handle quite a bit. Its sizable build, durable fabrication, rugged cast iron grates, all signify a hard-wearing kitchen appliance.

Still, as with any appliance, especially one used practically every day to prepare food, it’s important to handle gas stoves with care. This means making sure the stove is well-maintained, properly cleaned, and used with the right cookware.

While technically any pot or pan can be used on a gas stove, there are certain materials that are better suited for its open-flame style of cooking. We recommend our own stainless steel cookware for gas stoves. In this article, we’ll share what those materials are, explain why they work so well, and round up some of the best cookware for gas stoves available today.

The Features of a Gas Stove

Iron gas stove may be older than electric stoves, but they’re still the preferred option for a number of reasons.

First and most important is how easy it is to adjust the heat of a gas stove. A burner can be turned on and off in an instant. And every twist of the control knob creates an immediate corresponding change in the burner’s flame level — a lightning quick heat response that’s crucial in cooking.

Many cooks also like how the flames provide a convenient visual cue about the stove’s current heat setting. This can be a bit trickier to gauge with the dark glass tops of electric or induction cooktops.

An added bonus of the open flame is that it lends itself well to quickly roasting a few small items, like corn tortillas, bell peppers, or marshmallows.

Cooking with gas is also comparatively cheaper than cooking with electricity. Gas stoves generally run on propane, butane, petroleum, or natural gas, all of which are quite affordable. This gives gas stoves an advantage, not only for the cost-conscious home cook, but for anyone who finds themselves in the middle of a power outage.

As for cookware, gas stovetops easily accommodate a wide range. They can be used with just about any type of cookware material and shape — from small skillets to tall stockpots. Woks in particular were designed to be used over an open flame.

Flames, however, don't naturally distribute heat in a uniform manner. Some parts of a pan will have more contact with stronger flames than other parts, and the heat can be very concentrated, especially on a low setting.

Add this to a gas stove’s ability to change temperatures in an instant, and it's easy to see why it's so important to use cookware that can ably withstand these variations.

Choosing the Best Portable Gas Stove

Portable gas stoves are crucial gear for the gourmet on the go. These stoves usually come with a burner and a cooking surface, and they let you boil, simmer, sauté, and fry. If you can do it on a stovetop at home, you can do it on a portable stove.

Folding gas stove is different than a portable gas grills. Portable grills are similar to the grills you use at home. If you want to grill up hot dogs, chicken, or vegetables, you’re good to go with a portable grill. But sometimes you want more than your standard backyard barbecue menu, and that’s where a portable gas stove comes in. These have burners more like a traditional stove. They often come with containers to cook in, but many can also be used with other types of pots, pans, and skillets like a regular stovetop.

What Kind of Portable Gas Stove Do You Need?

The adventures you have on the trail aren’t like anyone else’s. Your needs and your priorities are unique. That’s why there are stoves for every type of outdoor explorer, from long-distance backpackers to car campers.

As you think about your needs, there are some specific features you may want to think about:

Size – If you’re hiking, you’ll want to save as much space and weight in your pack as possible. If you’re getting to base camp and setting up quickly, you might be more willing to haul a little more gear in the name of having the perfect home away from home.

Fuel type – There are three main liquid fuels. Each have their own considerations and limitations. Then there’s our Jetpower fuel, which combines the benefits of both.

Propane is the most common camp stove fuel. It’s high-performance, and you can find it just about everywhere. Propane is what powers the Genesis base camp system, and Jetlink technology lets you build a high-efficiency network of burners from one propane tank.

Isobutane has a lower boiling point, and it’s lighter. That means it’s easier to carry, and it’s more efficient in colder environments. However, it’s also more expensive.

Butane is the cheapest fuel for a portable gas stove, but it’s also the least efficient and reliable. It has the highest boiling point and the lowest vapor pressure of the three gases.

Jetpower is Jetboil’s engineered blend of propane and isobutane. It’s a unique mix that combines the best aspects of both, and it’s what we trust to power most of our stoves. Jetpower delivers high vapor pressure in all four seasons.

Cost – Cost is certainly a factor in choosing a portable gas stove, and there are options at every price point. However, it’s worth noting that sometimes paying more up front can save money in the long run. A high-efficiency stove means you’ll spend less on fuel over time, and durable equipment means you won’t have to buy a replacement for a long time.

Durability – Most people want a stove that holds up outdoors as well as they do. Knowing that you’ve got a well-engineered stove means knowing you’ve got a reliable one.

Number of burners – How big is the group that you’re feeding? If you’re solo, or just out with a partner, you can probably get away with one. But if you’re feeding a group, you may want a setup like the Genesis, which starts with two burners and can expand as your group dose.

Utility – What are you cooking? Are you boiling soup? Are you making a three-course meal? The meals you plan to cook may be the biggest factor of all in choosing the stove that suits your needs.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift: ‘I was literally about to break’

By: Laura Snapes for The Guardian Date: August 24th 2019

Taylor Swift’s Nashville apartment is an Etsy fever dream, a 365-days-a-year Christmas shop, pure teenage girl id. You enter through a vestibule clad in blue velvet and covered in gilt frames bursting with fake flowers. The ceiling is painted like the night sky. Above a koi pond in the living area, a narrow staircase spirals six feet up towards a giant, pillow-lagged birdcage that probably has the best view in the city. Later, Swift will tell me she needs metaphors “to understand anything that happens to me”, and the birdcage defies you not to interpret it as a pointed comment on the contradictions of stardom.

Swift, wearing pale jeans and dip-dyed shirt, her sandy hair tied in a blue scrunchie, leads the way up the staircase to show me the view. The decor hasn’t changed since she bought this place in 2009, when she was 19. “All of these high rises are new since then,” she says, gesturing at the squat glass structures and cranes. Meanwhile her oven is still covered in stickers, more teenage diary than adult appliance.

Now 29, she has spent much of the past three years living quietly in London with her boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, making the penthouse a kind of time capsule, a monument to youthful naivety given an unlimited budget – the years when she sang about Romeo and Juliet and wore ballgowns to awards shows; before she moved to New York and honed her slick, self-mythologising pop.

It is mid-August. This is Swift’s first UK interview in more than three years, and she seems nervous: neither presidential nor goofy (her usual defaults), but quick with a tongue-out “ugh” of regret or frustration as she picks at her glittery purple nails. We climb down from the birdcage to sit by the pond, and when the conversation turns to 2016, the year the wheels came off for her, Swift stiffens as if driving over a mile of speed bumps. After a series of bruising public spats (with Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj) in 2015, there was a high-profile standoff with Kanye West. The news that she was in a relationship with actor Tom Hiddleston, which leaked soon after, was widely dismissed as a diversionary tactic. Meanwhile, Swift went to court to prosecute a sexual assault claim, and faced a furious backlash when she failed to endorse a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, allowing the alt-right to adopt her as their “Aryan princess”.

Her critics assumed she cared only about the bottom line. The reality, Swift says, is that she was totally broken. “Every domino fell,” she says bitterly. “It became really terrifying for anyone to even know where I was. And I felt completely incapable of doing or saying anything publicly, at all. Even about my music. I always said I wouldn’t talk about what was happening personally, because that was a personal time.” She won’t get into specifics. “I just need some things that are mine,” she despairs. “Just some things.”

A year later, in 2017, Swift released her album Reputation, half high-camp heel turn, drawing on hip-hop and vaudeville (the brilliantly hammy Look What You Made Me Do), half stunned appreciation that her nascent relationship with Alwyn had weathered the storm (the soft, sensual pop of songs Delicate and Dress).

Her new album, Lover, her seventh, was released yesterday. It’s much lighter than Reputation: Swift likens writing it to feeling like “I could take a full deep breath again”. Much of it is about Alwyn: the Galway Girl-ish track London Boy lists their favourite city haunts and her newfound appreciation of watching rugby in the pub with his uni mates; on the ruminative Afterglow, she asks him to forgive her anxious tendency to assume the worst.

While she has always written about relationships, they were either teenage fantasy or a postmortem on a high-profile breakup, with exes such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Harry Styles. But she and Alwyn have seldom been pictured together, and their relationship is the only other thing she won’t talk about. “I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she says, laughing after I attempt a stealthy angle. “If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it – but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”

Instead, she has swapped personal disclosure for activism. Last August, Swift broke her political silence to endorse Democratic Tennessee candidate Phil Bredesen in the November 2018 senate race. Vote.org reported an unprecedented spike in voting registration after Swift’s Instagram post, while Donald Trump responded that he liked her music “about 25% less now”.

Meanwhile, her recent single You Need To Calm Down admonished homophobes and namechecked US LGBTQ rights organisation Glaad (which then saw increased donations). Swift filled her video with cameos from queer stars such as Ellen DeGeneres and Queen singer Adam Lambert, and capped it with a call to sign her petition in support of the Equality Act, which if passed would prohibit gender- and sexuality-based discrimination in the US. A video of Polish LGBTQ fans miming the track in defiance of their government’s homophobic agenda went viral. But Swift was accused of “queerbaiting” and bandwagon-jumping. You can see how she might find it hard to work out what, exactly, people want from her.

***

It was girlhood that made Swift a multimillionaire. When country music’s gatekeepers swore that housewives were the only women interested in the genre, she proved them wrong. Her self-titled debut marked the longest stay on the Billboard 200 by any album released in the decade. A potentially cloying image – corkscrew curls, lyrics thick on “daddy” and down-home values – were undercut by the fact she was evidently, endearingly, a bit of a freak, an unusual combination of intensity and artlessness. Also, she was really, really good at what she did, and not just for a teenager: her entirely self-written third album, 2010’s Speak Now, is unmatched in its devastatingly withering dismissals of awful men.

As a teenager, Swift was obsessed with VH1’s Behind The Music, the series devoted to the rise and fall of great musicians. She would forensically rewatch episodes, trying to pinpoint the moment a career went wrong. I ask her to imagine she’s watching the episode about herself and do the same thing: where was her misstep? “Oh my God,” she says, drawing a deep breath and letting her lips vibrate as she exhales. “I mean, that’s so depressing!” She thinks back and tries to deflect. “What I remember is that [the show] was always like, ‘Then we started fighting in the tour bus and then the drummer quit and the guitarist was like, “You’re not paying me enough.”’’’

But that’s not what she used to say. In interviews into her early 20s, Swift often observed that an artist fails when they lose their self-awareness, as if repeating the fact would work like an insurance against succumbing to the same fate. But did she make that mistake herself? She squeezes her nose and blows to clear a ringing in her ears before answering. “I definitely think that sometimes you don’t realise how you’re being perceived,” she says. “Pop music can feel like it’s The Hunger Games, and like we’re gladiators. And you can really lose focus of the fact that that’s how it feels because that’s how a lot of stan [fan] Twitter and tabloids and blogs make it seem – the overanalysing of everything makes it feel really intense.”

She describes the way she burned bridges in 2016 as a kind of obliviousness. “I didn’t realise it was like a classic overthrow of someone in power – where you didn’t realise the whispers behind your back, you didn’t realise the chain reaction of events that was going to make everything fall apart at the exact, perfect time for it to fall apart.”

Here’s that chain reaction in full. With her 2014 album 1989 (the year she was born), Swift transcended country stardom, becoming as ubiquitous as Beyoncé. For the first time she vocally embraced feminism, something she had rejected in her teens; but, after a while, it seemed to amount to not much more than a lot of pictures of her hanging out with her “squad”, a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham. The squad very much did not include her former friend Katy Perry, whom Swift targeted in her song Bad Blood, as part of what seemed like a painfully overblown dispute about some backing dancers. Then, when Nicki Minaj tweeted that MTV’s 2015 Video Music awards had rewarded white women at the expense of women of colour, multiple-nominee Swift took it personally, responding: “Maybe one of the men took your slot.” For someone prone to talking about the haters, she quickly became her own worst enemy.

Her old adversary Kanye West resurfaced in February 2016. In 2009, West had invaded Swift’s stage at the MTV VMAs to protest against her victory over Beyoncé in the female video of the year category. It remains the peak of interest in Swift on Google Trends, and the conflict between them has become such a cornerstone of celebrity journalism that it’s hard to remember it lay dormant for nearly seven years – until West released his song Famous. “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” he rapped. “Why? I made that bitch famous.” The video depicted a Swift mannequin naked in bed with men including Trump.

Swift loudly condemned both; although she had discussed the track with West, she said she had never agreed to the “bitch” lyric or the video. West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, released a heavily edited clip that showed Swift at least agreeing to the “sex” line on the phone with West, if not the “bitch” part. Swift pleaded the technicality, but it made no difference: when Kardashian went on Twitter to describe her as a snake, the comparison stuck and the singer found herself very publicly “cancelled” – the incident taken as “proof” of Swift’s insincerity. So she went away.

Swift says she stopped trying to explain herself, even though she “definitely” could have. As she worked on Reputation, she was also writing “a think-piece a day that I knew I would never publish: the stuff I would say, and the different facets of the situation that nobody knew”. If she could exonerate herself, why didn’t she? She leans forward. “Here’s why,” she says conspiratorially. “Because when people are in a hate frenzy and they find something to mutually hate together, it bonds them. And anything you say is in an echo chamber of mockery.”

She compares that year to being hit by a tidal wave. “You can either stand there and let the wave crash into you, and you can try as hard as you can to fight something that’s more powerful and bigger than you,” she says. “Or you can dive under the water, hold your breath, wait for it to pass and while you’re down there, try to learn something. Why was I in that part of the ocean? There were clearly signs that said: Rip tide! Undertow! Don’t swim! There are no lifeguards!” She’s on a roll. “Why was I there? Why was I trusting people I trusted? Why was I letting people into my life the way I was letting them in? What was I doing that caused this?”

After the incident with Minaj, her critics started pointing out a narrative of “white victimhood” in Swift’s career. Speaking slowly and carefully, she says she came to understand “a lot about how my privilege allowed me to not have to learn about white privilege. I didn’t know about it as a kid, and that is privilege itself, you know? And that’s something that I’m still trying to educate myself on every day. How can I see where people are coming from, and understand the pain that comes with the history of our world?”

She also accepts some responsibility for her overexposure, and for some of the tabloid drama. If she didn’t wish a friend happy birthday on Instagram, there would be reports about severed friendships, even if they had celebrated together. “Because we didn’t post about it, it didn’t happen – and I realised I had done that,” she says. “I created an expectation that everything in my life that happened, people would see.”

But she also says she couldn’t win. “I’m kinda used to being gaslit by now,” she drawls wearily. “And I think it happens to women so often that, as we get older and see how the world works, we’re able to see through what is gaslighting. So I’m able to look at 1989 and go – KITTIES!” She breaks off as an assistant walks in with Swift’s three beloved cats, stars of her Instagram feed, back from the vet before they fly to England this week. Benjamin, Olivia and Meredith haughtily circle our feet (they are scared of the koi) as Swift resumes her train of thought, back to the release of 1989 and the subsequent fallout. “Oh my God, they were mad at me for smiling a lot and quote-unquote acting fake. And then they were mad at me that I was upset and bitter and kicking back.” The rules kept changing.

***

Swift’s new album comes with printed excerpts from her diaries. On 29 August 2016, she wrote in her girlish, bubble writing: “This summer is the apocalypse.” As the incident with West and Kardashian unfolded, she was preparing for her court case against radio DJ David Mueller, who was fired in 2013 after Swift reported him for putting his hand up her dress at a meet-and–greet event. He sued her for defamation; she countersued for sexual assault.

“Having dealt with a few of them, narcissists basically subscribe to a belief system that they should be able to do and say whatever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want to,” Swift says now, talking at full pelt. “And if we – as anyone else in the world, but specifically women – react to that, well, we’re not allowed to. We’re not allowed to have a reaction to their actions.”

In summer 2016 she was in legal depositions, practising her testimony. “You’re supposed to be really polite to everyone,” she says. But by the time she got to court in August 2017, “something snapped, I think”. She laughs. Her testimony was sharp and uncompromising. She refused to allow Mueller’s lawyers to blame her or her security guards; when asked if she could see the incident, Swift said no, because “my ass is in the back of my body”. It was a brilliant, rude defence.

“You’re supposed to behave yourself in court and say ‘rear end’,” she says with mock politesse. “The other lawyer was saying, ‘When did he touch your backside?’ And I was like, ‘ASS! Call it what it is!’” She claps between each word. But despite the acclaim for her testimony and eventual victory (she asked for one symbolic dollar), she still felt belittled. It was two months prior to the beginning of the #MeToo movement. “Even this case was literally twisted so hard that people were calling it the ‘butt-grab case’. They were saying I sued him because there’s this narrative that I want to sue everyone. That was one of the reasons why the summer was the apocalypse.”

She never wanted the assault to be made public. Have there been other instances she has dealt with privately? “Actually, no,” she says soberly. “I’m really lucky that it hadn’t happened to me before. But that was one of the reasons it was so traumatising. I just didn’t know that could happen. It was really brazen, in front of seven people.” She has since had security cameras installed at every meet-and-greet she does, deliberately pointed at her lower half. “If something happens again, we can prove it with video footage from every angle,” she says.

The allegations about Harvey Weinstein came out soon after she won her case. The film producer had asked her to write a song for the romantic comedy One Chance, which earned her second Golden Globe nomination. Weinstein also got her a supporting role in the 2014 sci-fi movie The Giver, and attended the launch party for 1989. But she says they were never alone together.

“He’d call my management and be like, ‘Does she have a song for this film?’ And I’d be like, ‘Here it is,’” she says dispassionately. “And then I’d be at the Golden Globes. I absolutely never hung out. And I would get a vibe – I would never vouch for him. I believe women who come forward, I believe victims who come forward, I believe men who come forward.” Swift inhales, flustered. She says Weinstein never propositioned her. “If you listen to the stories, he picked people who were vulnerable, in his opinion. It seemed like it was a power thing. So, to me, that doesn’t say anything – that I wasn’t in that situation.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was more than nine months into his presidency, and still Swift had not taken a position. But the idea that a pop star could ever have impeded his path to the White House seemed increasingly naive. In hindsight, the demand that Swift speak up looks less about politics and more about her identity (white, rich, powerful) and a moralistic need for her to redeem herself – as if nobody else had ever acted on a vindictive instinct, or blundered publicly.

But she resisted what might have been an easy return to public favour. Although Reputation contained softer love songs, it was better known for its brittle, vengeful side (see This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things). She describes that side of the album now as a “bit of a persona”, and its hip-hop-influenced production as “a complete defence mechanism”. Personally, I thought she had never been more relatable, trashing the contract of pious relatability that traps young women in the public eye.

***

It was the assault trial, and watching the rights of LGBTQ friends be eroded, that finally politicised her, Swift says. “The things that happen to you in your life are what develop your political opinions. I was living in this Obama eight-year paradise of, you go, you cast your vote, the person you vote for wins, everyone’s happy!” she says. “This whole thing, the last three, four years, it completely blindsided a lot of us, me included.”

She recently said she was “dismayed” when a friend pointed out that her position on gay rights wasn’t obvious (what if she had a gay son, he asked), hence this summer’s course correction with the single You Need To Calm Down (“You’re comin’ at my friends like a missile/Why are you mad?/When you could be GLAAD?”). Didn’t she feel equally dismayed that her politics weren’t clear? “I did,” she insists, “and I hate to admit this, but I felt that I wasn’t educated enough on it. Because I hadn’t actively tried to learn about politics in a way that I felt was necessary for me, making statements that go out to hundreds of millions of people.”

She explains her inner conflict. “I come from country music. The number one thing they absolutely drill into you as a country artist, and you can ask any other country artist this, is ‘Don’t be like the Dixie Chicks!’” In 2003, the Texan country trio denounced the Iraq war, saying they were “ashamed” to share a home state with George W Bush. There was a boycott, and an event where a bulldozer crushed their CDs. “I watched country music snuff that candle out. The most amazing group we had, just because they talked about politics. And they were getting death threats. They were made such an example that basically every country artist that came after that, every label tells you, ‘Just do not get involved, no matter what.’

“And then, you know, if there was a time for me to get involved…” Swift pauses. “The worst part of the timing of what happened in 2016 was I felt completely voiceless. I just felt like, oh God, who would want me? Honestly.” She would otherwise have endorsed Hillary Clinton? “Of course,” she says sincerely. “I just felt completely, ugh, just useless. And maybe even like a hindrance.”

I suggest that, thinking selfishly, her coming out for Clinton might have made people like her. “I wasn’t thinking like that,” she stresses. “I was just trying to protect my mental health – not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn’t. I was literally about to break. For a while.” Did she seek therapy? “That stuff I just really wanna keep personal, if that’s OK,” she says.

She resists blaming anyone else for her political silence. Her emergence as a Democrat came after she left Big Machine, the label she signed to at 15. (They are now at loggerheads after label head Scott Borchetta sold the company, and the rights to Swift’s first six albums, to Kanye West’s manager, Scooter Braun.) Had Borchetta ever advised her against speaking out? She exhales. “It was just me and my life, and also doing a lot of self-reflection about how I did feel really remorseful for not saying anything. I wanted to try and help in any way that I could, the next time I got a chance. I didn’t help, I didn’t feel capable of it – and as soon as I can, I’m going to.”

Swift was once known for throwing extravagant 4 July parties at her Rhode Island mansion. The Instagram posts from these star-studded events – at which guests wore matching stars-and-stripes bikinis and onesies – probably supported a significant chunk of the celebrity news industry GDP. But in 2017, they stopped. “The horror!” wrote Cosmopolitan, citing “reasons that remain a mystery” for their disappearance. It wasn’t “squad” strife or the unavailability of matching cozzies that brought the parties to an end, but Swift’s disillusionment with her country, she says.

There is a smart song about this on the new album – the track that should have been the first single, instead of the cartoonish ME!. Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince is a forlorn, gothic ballad in the vein of Lana Del Rey that uses high-school imagery to dismantle American nationalism: “The whole school is rolling fake dice/You play stupid games/You win stupid prizes,” she sings with disdain. “Boys will be boys then/Where are the wise men?”

As an ambitious 11-year-old, she worked out that singing the national anthem at sports games was the quickest way to get in front of a large audience. When did she start feeling conflicted about what America stands for? She gives another emphatic ugh. “It was the fact that all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked,” she says. “The thing I can’t get over right now is gaslighting the American public into being like” – she adopts a sanctimonious tone – “‘If you hate the president, you hate America.’ We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate.” She doesn’t use Trump’s name. “I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy.”

As we speak, Tennessee lawmakers are trying to impose a near-total ban on abortion. Swift has staunchly defended her “Tennessee values” in recent months. What’s her position? “I mean, obviously, I’m pro-choice, and I just can’t believe this is happening,” she says. She looks close to tears. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s really shocking and awful. And I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help, what are the most effective ways to help. ’Cause this is just…” She sighs again. “This is not it.”

***

It is easy to forget that the point of all this is that a teenage Taylor Swiftwanted to write love songs. Nemeses and negativity are now so entrenched in her public persona that it’s hard to know how she can get back to that, though she seems to want to. At the end of Daylight, the new album’s dreamy final song, there’s a spoken-word section: “I want to be defined by the things that I love,” she says as the music fades. “Not the things that I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.” As well as the songs written for Alwyn, there is one for her mother, who recently experienced a cancer relapse: “You make the best of a bad deal/I just pretend it isn’t real,” Swift sings, backed by the Dixie Chicks.

How does writing about her personal life work if she’s setting clearer boundaries? “It actually made me feel more free,” she says. “I’ve always had this habit of never really going into detail about exactly what situation inspired what thing, but even more so now.” This is only half true: in the past, Swift wasn’t shy of a level of detail that invited fans to figure out specific truths about her relationships. And when I tell her that Lover feels a more emotionally guarded album, she bristles. “I know the difference between making art and living your life like a reality star,” she says. “And then even if it’s hard for other people to grasp, my definition is really clear.”

Even so, Swift begins Lover by addressing an adversary, opening with a song called I Forgot That You Existed (“it isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference”), presumably aimed at Kanye West, a track that slightly defeats its premise by existing. But it sweeps aside old dramas to confront Swift’s real nemesis, herself. “I never grew up/It’s getting so old,” she laments on The Archer.

She has had to learn not to pre-empt disaster, nor to run from it. Her life has been defined by relationships, friendships and business relationships that started and ended very publicly (though she and Perry are friends again). At the same time, the rules around celebrity engagement have evolved beyond recognition in her 15 years of fame. Rather than trying to adapt to them, she’s now asking herself: “How do you learn to maintain? How do you learn not to have these phantom disasters in your head that you play out, and how do you stop yourself from sabotage – because the panic mechanism in your brain is telling you that something must go wrong.” For her, this is what growing up is. “You can’t just make cut-and-dry decisions in life. A lot of things are a negotiation and a grey area and a dance of how to figure it out.”

And so this time, Swift is sticking around. In December she will turn 30, marking the point after which more than half her life will have been lived in public. She’ll start her new decade with a stronger self-preservationist streak, and a looser grip (as well as a cameo in Cats). “You can’t micromanage life, it turns out,” she says, drily.

When Swift finally answered my question about the moment she would choose in the VH1 Behind The Music episode about herself, the one where her career turned, she said she hoped it wouldn’t focus on her “apocalypse” summer of 2016. “Maybe this is wishful thinking,” she said, “but I’d like to think it would be in a couple of years.” It’s funny to hear her hope that the worst is still to come while sitting in her fairytale living room, the cats pacing: a pragmatist at odds with her romantic monument to teenage dreams. But it sounds something like perspective.

[purplesurveys]

1120

[created by: vyvyan86]

What do you do for work? I work at a public relations agency, so I handle servicing for a good number of clients across different industries. PR is basically like the extroverted sibling of journalism; and since I turned out to not enjoy journ, I gave PR a try halfway through my time in college and ended up liking it more.

What would you ideally like to do for work? I actually really enjoy what I do, like getting to work directly with big local and even international brands. I’m glad I made the decision to make the career shift because I can’t imagine how miserable I would be in a newsroom.

What are you doing in order to achieve this? I’m already where I want to be, at least for now. I don’t see it changing any time soon because I’m nowhere near tired of the work yet.

What is the meaning of your life? What is it that you really live for? Erm I don’t really try to define it or have an answer to this right away because I feel like it puts a lot of unwanted pressure on me, by me. As long as I’m satisfied in the present, I shouldn’t be worrying for whom or what my life is ultimately supposed to be.

Have you ever REALLY thought what it means to have children? Yup. Having kids would be the perfect life, but realistically speaking I am not at all ready to start that particular chapter. I don’t make enough money to be able to build a family, and I’ve never even tried changing a diaper yet...then you have to think about weekly formulas, what school to enroll them in, building a nursery...it’s all very hectic and stressful and it’s definitely not a priority as of the moment.

Are you planning to have children anyway? It would be nice, but I still don’t know if it’s in my future.

What is the most awful thing about the world today? I doooooooooon’t understand racism. It’s those videos of white people being caught on tape harassing POCs without a care in the world that get to me the most. It’s horrifying and it’s made me have close to zero plans to travel to the places where the videos usually come from. It’s happened too many times and too many clips have gone viral, that I can’t help but think it would happen to me and my family as well. What do you think is the worst being on the planet? Abusive and/or neglectful parents.

Have you ever been arrested? If so, what for? Nopes.

Have you ever been in court? If so, in which role? Definitely not.

Which do you think is a more valuable being, a human or an animal? I don’t think it’s fair to compare. A life is a life.

What, in your opinion, will cause the end of the world? I’m gonna let science answer this and refer to whatever predictions they have for the future based on their calculations. 

What does your mother do for work? She works in an international hotel chain as an executive secretary, but work is actually kind of slippery for her at the moment because of Covid. There are only certain days in the week where she’s called in to report for work, and there is a chance those requests will stop coming in at a certain point.

^If she's a homemaker, any specific reason for this? She’s not anymore but she did enjoy a brief period of being a homemaker after resigning from her previous workplace back in likeeeee 2013 I’d say? which according to her had increasingly turned into a toxic environment after 20+ years of working there.

What about your father? What does he do? He is an executive sous chef. Cruise ship industry, so his situation is also actually quite bleak. Fortunately the job security with his company is a lot stronger and more guaranteed.

How do you like your coffee? I like it sweet and for its color to be light brown.

If you're of age, what's your favorite alcoholic drink? Tequila shots if we’re going hard. Long Island Iced Tea or Zombie if I’m looking to have a chill session with friends. Red Horse is fine as well, whatever. I hate beer with a passion but I’d drink it if everyone in the table is having a bottle.

If you're under-aged, what is your favorite soft drink? Bold of you to assume all minors like soda hahaha. I don’t, though.

Do you smoke? Yeah, just super seldom though because I don’t want to form a habit. I had the opportunity to last Friday but voluntarily skipped out on it, but that was also because I already had a vape pen on me.

^If so, did you start when you were 18 or were you younger? My first cigarette was when I was 21. Start of 2020.

Did your parents approve of your smoking/alcohol use before you turned 18? They wouldn’t have approved of it at all. And I wouldn’t have let myself either.

Do you have siblings? If not, skip the next few questions. Yeup.

Are you eldest, in the middle or youngest? I’m the eldest of two siblings.

How big an age gap is between you and your siblings? With my sister, 2 years. With my brother, 5 years.

Do/did your siblings cause trouble? Not at all, actually. We were all well-behaved, aka the three of us were always too shy to do anything bad or mischevious. I guess the biggest issues with each of us were - I was very messy with my stuff and ignored all my homework; Nina was a crybaby and would get into tears over literally any inconvenience; and my brother was a violent crybaby, which means he is Nina but always ready to punch you in the face, kick you in the neck or stomach, scream into your ear, etc.

If your siblings are old enough, what do they do for work? My sister is taking up digital filmmaking in an art school; my brother is only in his junior year of high school.

Have you ever been jealous of your siblings? I’m not jealous of her, but Nina is amazing at art and drawing and painting and all that stuff and I always wish I shared even like 1/98th of her skills, hahah.

Do you still live with your parent/s or do you live alone/with a partner? I live with my family, yeah. I’m nowhere near ready to start being on my own.

What do you think about growing up? Like what Paramore said (heheh), has to happen sometimes.

What about having responsibilities? I don’t really think anything of them? They’re kind of expected.

Do you know how to cook? Nope.

^If so, what's your favorite thing to cook? I don’t know how to make anything yet, but some dishes I would love to be able to master are risotto and paella. I’d also love to inherit my grandma’s kare-kare recipe but I’m already 300% sure from this early that I’ll never be able to make it as good as she does.

What about baking? I also can’t bake but some stuff I’d want to learn how to make are cupcakes, macarons, cheesecake, and a chocolate chip cookie recipe so good that my kids would literally bring their friends over to our house just to make them try it.

Do you ever drink tea? Iced tea for the most part. If I do ever drink the traditional hot tea, it’s usually because it’s served either at a hotel I’m staying at, or at an Asian restaurant.

Have you ever followed any of these fad diets that go around? I don’t follow a diet. I’m usually open to trying out foods that are packaged to fall under a certain diet, though – paleo, keto, etc. - just to experience how much different it could possibly taste from the food I typically have.

What do you usually order at your favorite restaurant? I usually get rosu, a type of tonkatsu cut that has a lining of fat on its side. My favorite restaurant then provides unlimited rice, miso soup, and cabbage with my order.

Do you prefer a proper restaurant to a fast food place? Not necessarily. I love a lot of either.

What's your dream vehicle? A Mini Countryman.

What about your dream house? I don’t have an exact image of it yet, but I always said that my dream house, wherever and whatever it might be, must have a room for all the wrestling memorabilia I plan to collect in the future. It’ll be like a ~mancave~  as I also plan to have a couch and a big TV in it so I can watch documentaries and pay-per-views there.

What is the biggest dream of your life? Right now, I would say the ‘biggest’ - since I’ve established it since I was a kid - is to go to the 50th installment of Wrestlemania, which is like the Superbowl of wrestling. This year it’ll be the 37th, so I have 13 years left to plan the dream out and save up and stuff.

If you could travel to another country right now, where would you go? Morocco.

What is a country you'd never ever visit? There isn’t a country I wouldn’t want to visit at least once. I’d probably avoid the ones that have dangerous political situations or are literally at war at the moment, but it doesn’t mean I don’t ever want to step foot in them.

Are you good at taking care of your finances? I’m getting there! I was able to have a good amount of savings this month :) My finances were shit for the first two months of my job because there was immediately soooooooo much to pay for, but I’m glad everything is on track now.

Have you ever had any trouble paying your bills? Well no, because I don’t pay my own yet. I do hand a portion of my allowance to my parents every payday so that I can help out with the family bills, though.

What about your rent? We don’t have rent.

What do you think is the best thing about being an adult? The freedom that comes with it is very empowering. I don’t technically have to ask permission to go out with friends anymore, or be scared of a curfew (but my mom still imposes one, LOL. It’ll mellow it within time though, I’m sure); I make my own money and can spend it however way I want while the rest I can save; I can take a drive or book an entire trip altogether as long as I can afford it...it’s letting me get to know myself even more, in a way that college and my teenage years weren’t able to do.

What about the worst? Being expected to have my shit together when I’m very clueless still about so many things in life. I make fuckups at work at least once a week and I always feel like I’m going to get fired with every mistake, lol.

Is there a person in your life, who wastes their life somehow? Hmm, I don’t think so. I have an uncle who had seemed to be headed nowhere before, but I think he’s slowly getting back on track. I think. At least I don’t hear anything about him anymore.

^If so, how are they wasting their life? Never had a stable job, was a neglectful husband and father (I think he still is), was never able to secure a house and even a car for his family, and deals with his problems by drinking...and worse, drunk-driving, sometimes. It’s an embarrassment and I don’t care if my grandma tells me off for giving him the cold shoulder every family gathering. I’m not gonna get close to someone who negatively affects my mood and my energy.

What is something you need to do, but you keep postponing it? Getting a new pair of glasses. Booking an appointment is a Newly-Unlocked Adult Thing that I’ve never done yet, so I’m nervous and I keep putting it off, hahaha.

Do you think life should just hand things to you? Not at all.

Or should you earn the things you want and need with hard work? Yeah, there you go.

Would you rather live off government benefits or earn your own money? Earn on my own, as much as possible. But some balance would be nice as well so that I can start feeling as if the government is actually helping and serving me.

When you take a survey, do you skip questions? Typically, no. But some of the older ones I’ve seen made by, like, 15 year olds of the time will have nonsense, downright immature, or lowkey racist/homophobic questions that I will have no problem deleting altogether as I think no one here would have any interest in answering them either.

Why, do you think, people write lyrics as the title for a survey? To be creative and catchy, I guess. And it works - I do tend to click on surveys that use lyrics.

If you have a Facebook, what do you use it for? Look for things to share, mainly. I’m fully back on it now after going a way for a bit to do some healing on my own.

If you have a Twitter, what do you use it for? As a space to let out literally all my thoughts and brianfarts. No one cares on Twitter, so it’s the perfect space to make a mess and be a mess.

If you have a Tumblr, what do you use it for? I used to have a wrestling-themed Tumblr (and before that, many more other themed Tumblrs), but when my interest died down I soon switched to using Tumblr for my surveys and being more lowkey altogether on here.

If you have an iPhone, why? I find it easier to use, and I like the interface more. The camera’s features are also more to my liking.

If you have an iPad, why? We have a really old model of it, and we bought that because iPads were all the rage at the time. It had been the newest concept from Apple and most people felt they had to have one, including my family. We definitely don’t feel the need to get another tablet anytime soon since it just functions like a giant phone for the most part.

If you have the latest electronic gadgets, did you pay for them yourself? I’ve never paid for a gadget before.

Do you always put your litter in a trashcan? Of course. I know how to pick up after myself like a respectful human. < Yup.

When you walk/ride your bike/drive your car, are you careful? Yeah, unless I’m mad. Sometimes road rage will take over me tbh, especially if other people on the road have been stupid for quite some time.

What is the rudest thing a person could do or say to you? Something phobic after seeing Jess and I together. < This reminds me of when my ex and I used to get stares or whispers in public. But to be honest, I actually enjoyed those encounters because it only served as fuel for me to get even more affectionate and piss them off more, lol. Good times. 

Anyway, the rudest thing I can think of at the moment is being cut while in line. Some people do it so subtly too, and their shy, careful shuffle to get in front of me is what irritates me the most because THEY KNOW they’re doing something shitty and yet are being so sneaky about it.

Have you ever been that rude to someone else? I have never cut in line, never will.

Do you think your parents are proud of you and what you do with your life? I don’t know. I hope so. I don’t know if they’re expecting me to move out at this point, but I hope they’re at least proud of the fact that their first kid managed to land a job, especially considering we’re living in Covid times.

Which would you rather be, famous or a "nobody"? Why? Can’t I be somewhere in between? When it boils down to it, I’d probably go with being a nobody...I’d miss the socialization and having friends, but at least it means I can get away with more.

Do you need to have the latest fashion in clothes and accessories? It would be nice, but I’m not desperate to have them.

If you have a job, do you get along with your co-workers? Yeah, I’d say so. I definitely have never fought with anyone yet. It’s hard to gauge my relationship with each of them because I entered the workplace while we’re under WFH so I’ve only gotten to talk to most of them through Viber; but so far, so good.

What kind of hobbies do you have? I like traveling and learning, so anything that’s got to do with those - going to museums, visiting ancestral houses, trying local art forms - I would definitely dive into. But if I’m not in a new province or country altogether, I like trying out new food and new restaurants, embroidering, watching my favorite shows, coloring, painting, and reading essays about history. :)

Would anything in the whole world make you give up any of those hobbies? I’m not super attached to painting anymore, so I guess.

Have you had/do you have any pets? I currently have two dogs. In the past we’ve had a cat, a rabbit, two birds, and several goldfish.

Do you even like animals? I love them, except insects.

If you aren't already, would you ever get married? It would be a nice thing to tick off my life event list.

If you are already married, what was the ultimate reason for the marriage? -

As a child, did you do anything really bad? I was raised in a highly violent household with the worst influences as my elders. Yes, I managed to squeeze in some horrible stuff when no one was looking.

^If so, what was it? What were the consequences? I was violent towards my brother but won’t get into it. The only thing I’ll mention is that I used to chase him around with a knife whenever he’d start becoming too much of a headache.

As a teenager, did you do anything really bad? I don’t think so. I was well-traumatized and abused by the time I was a teenager so I was afraid of fucking anything up and being in more trouble.

^If so, what was it? What were the consequences? The worst thing I did was lie about my performance in school, honestly. Which, looking back now, doesn’t even seem like a big deal considering I was only in high school then and grades from there barely matter.

Do you have a problem with authority? Nope. Well, a good number of my teachers didn’t seem to like me for some reason. I’d say it’s their problem though since I never did anything to raise hell in school, ever.

What's your favorite comic strip? I don’t have one.

Is there a piece of clothing you absolutely must wear every day Underwear... < Yep.

Has a doctor ever told you to lose weight? No. I’ve always been on the lighter side so that has never been a comment given to me by anyone.

Have you ever been diagnosed with a lifelong disease? Isn’t scoliosis a lifelong thing? If it is, then yes I have been.

What is something you absolutely hate? Fruits.

What about something you absolutely love? Seafood! Which is why I have spicy tuna salad and dynamite rolls with me at the moment :)

[kitty8roses]

This is what I sent to her lol (under a cut tho bc im not that mean)

DONT LOOK UNDER THIS CUT FOR GIVEN SPOILERS!!!!

Ritsuka quickly realizes that Mafuyu is an exceptionally talented singer, and invites him to join the band. Ritsuka learns that Mafuyu's guitar was previously owned by Yuuki, Mafuyu's childhood friend and boyfriend who died in an apparent suicide. The band begins composing music in advance of a live performance, but Mafuyu is unable to write lyrics for the song.

On the day of the performance, Mafuyu has a breakthrough and sings a powerful song about his feelings of loss over Yuuki. The song prompts Ritsuka to realize his romantic feelings for Mafuyu; he kisses him backstage, and they begin dating shortly thereafter.

The band names itself – "Given", in tribute to the guitar given to Mafuyu by Yuuki – and begin to develop a following after posting a video of their live performance online. Given qualifies for a major amateur music festival, and begin preparing new material. Their efforts are complicated when Akihiko, who Haruki secretly has romantic feelings for, becomes involved with his roommate and ex-boyfriend Ugetsu.

Ok so in the beginning of our show: our first protag mafuyu sato is seen walking to school In the rain (with an umbrella tho lol) he says, as narrator, “mafuyu is not lonely.” And also some other stuff that’s all vibe you know? So THIS is repeated through out the series with him saying that “mafuyu isn’t lonely” especially when something bad happens. The thing is he IS lonely. Why you may ask? Well, his ex boyfriend from middle school killed himself and he thinks it’s his fault and stuff. They had gotten into an argument and he drank himself to death. RIP yuki. The only time where I personally believe this statement of ‘not loneliness’ is true is after Uenoyama (other protagonist and love interest) kisses him. I think that’s very swagger. Right before sed kiss mafuyu sang a song that he wrote at a live performance with da band about his heartbreak with yuki’s death. The person he truly loved. It’s called fuyu no hashi and I recommend you give it a listen it’s really good. Uhm but uhhh he realizes after da kiss that he has a new love ❤️ Ue! Yay canon gay ship time let’s party owah owah

NOW I wanna talk abt the opening and op lyrics. They are SO GOOD. they explain Mafuyu’s situation so we’ll just *mwah*. I think it’s called kizuato. There’s this one part where the singer (which could be interpreted as mafuyu despite it not be8gn his voice) says “Rainy, sunny and cloudy

Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. 365 days. You remain in all of them.” When he says the last line “you remain in all of them” we see mafuyu holding his guitar when a pair of arms wraps around him from behind like a hug. He shifts and kind of like compresses himself? Like you know what would happen if you got a hug. These arms are kinda transparent and they disappear before the line and that clip is over. AT FIRST before I knew about yuki and all that I thoguht they were from his late dad but now I believe the arms belong to yuki. Mafuyu’s dad was abusive and hit him when he spoke and I thoguht that would be the part of his trauma the show focused on but it wasn’t, instead they focused on yuki and his death more. Anyways I thoguht that was cool and representative of what happened pretty well.

Part of it also makes me wanna cry tho. It says “Dig them out. Take away these memories. The invisible voices that wouldn't reach. That Make me suffer/ suffocate me. Search deeper and take a look at this pain inside of me.” Specifically the “take away these memories” part just,, damn. And the invisible voices thing is just too fucking relatable. I’m so sorry Mafuyu

Oh god now I’m getting emotional about fictional boys who play guitar in front of my friends. Sorry guys.

Anyways. Main statement of the song time. “Everything you left behind, became my everything.” D a m n. Not only could he be talking about the guitar the he owns that is from Yuki he could also just be talking about the memories. ‘All the memories you left me, became the only thing that brought me comfort’ and that’s just... so sad man. He LOVED this boy. So much :/ It’s equally as sad with the guitar too. Because of how desperately he wanted to learn to play. For yuki’s sake because YUKI loved music. ‘This guitar you (kinda your mom but wtv lol) gave me, became my life” because it DOES become his life. When he finally accepts new love is after singing fuyu no hanashi. He finally lets go of all the pent up grievance and emotions while singing that song.

Now that point flows perfectly into our next one. It’s a possibility This will be the last one so just bear with me, please! So, one of Mafuyu’s main things is that he never knows how to respond or react the “proper” way. First of all!!!! NEURODIVERGENT KING. Second of all!!!! He talks about how he just doesn’t feel emotions as strongly or just the right way as other people. And how he can’t bring himself to cry and can’t cry despite losing his true love. After the kiss, mafuyu cries. A started clapping for him like yay!!! An icon ❤️ not only did he find a new love and move through some trauma but he also experienced a lot of emotions that he struggles to experience! That’s so good for him 💕💕But yeah he’d been talking about in the show how he just couldn’t “cry or laugh as hard as the other people could” which I can understand very well. It can feel dehumanizing at times so I’m really happy for him. One of the main reasons I kin him!

This brings me into a sort of continuation point about how no thought brain empty emotionless kin time. Sorry o just had to write that out Bc my nose started bleeding and I had to go take care of that and also not forget my clause (again). Mafuyu talks to Uenoyama about how everyone thinks that he doesn’t have emotions or doesn’t have thoughts because of how quiet he is and how emotionless he seems. And how he’s come to kind of believe it himself (a sort of ‘am I really thinking ever’ type beat). Ue kinda-over-aggressively is liek “hell no!!!! No way brain not have thought >:(“ like a old you know? And yes KIN TIME. not to make it about me or anything but I’m also constantly told/it’s joked about how I don’t have emotions. I just kinda roll with it tho.

I wanna say one more thing to end off on a note that isn’t about me but I can’t think of one so let me think. So much for that other one being the last shsndujsjjsidj

:OOOOO ok so I’m rewatching given and I just noticed another thing

So in the beginning, the VERY FIRST thing mafuyu talks about is how he keep shaving the same dream over and over again (this is to himself when he’s walking to school). Then, we see a clip of this dream. He is standing in front of someone (but it’s kinda shadowed so I didn’t see the other person the first time) and his eyes go wide and he grips his guitar so hard one of the strings snap.

Not only do I realize that 1) that dream actually happened: hs8 is a scene from when he fo7nd yuki’s body hanging (mafuyu was the one who found him dead). You can tell from the bottles on the ground (yuki got super drunk and then hung himself). this is why mafuyu’s guitar string is broken for Uenoyama to later fix.

I also realize 2) that this dream actually happened. I realized this when watching the show the first time tho lol. Right before the big concert, mafuyu accidentally breaks his guitar string again. And then Ue has to go run to the music store and buy a new one. That’s why there’s a look of desperation on his face when it happens because, Uenoyama brought his hope back by fixing the string the first time but now he messed it up again. Thank the lord for Haruki and reminding them it can be fixed!

Last thing 3) I talked about the hug scene in the last rant right? Well, when mafuyu broke the strings the first time (upon discovering yuki’s body), he mirrored the motions that he made in the hug scene in the opening. I think I described it as him shifting his body and guitar and like compressing himself? Yeah.

I realized one last minuscule thing while writing this but I doubt you care.

[theparanormalperiodical]

The True Story Behind The Blair Witch Project (1999), And The 13 Real Urban Legends About Witches That Will Make You Lie Down And Cry

It’s been mocked, and it’s been made a cultural icon.

It kick-started a horror trend, and it kicked itself down to the dregs of the film industry.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) is a point of contention among horror fans - you know, a bit like bringing up trans-rights at dinner with your UKIP Aunt sitting two seats down. But, just like trans-rights, we have to talk about it. 

(Fuck you, Jane.)

The Blair Witch Project - and her 2 sequels - was the first film to turn on the camcorder and document the search for something supernatural. 

This was the OG clickbait, this was the beginning of horror films claiming to document true events (ahem Paranormal Activity ahem), and this was the end of horror films being taken seriously.

But it was also these three things that grabbed everyone’s attention.

The original film was based on the claim that in 1994, 3 students went missing whilst exploring the supposedly haunted woods of Burkittsville Maryland. 5 years later, the footage they captured was found and put on the big screen.

Were these real events being documented?

Did these kids actually go missing?

And was the Blair Witch real?

Spoiler alert: no, nope, and not at all.

But even if this specific case wasn’t true, the film itself is unnervingly accurate. Like, literally last night I was researching all the different urban legends relating to witches in the US and I was convinced I had awoken the spirit of the Bell Witch. 

So, considering the solidarity I have with the followers of this blog, I’ve decided to traumatise you, too.

This article is going to provide the summary to the three forgotten ‘n’ fucked-up films that make up the series, tell you why the Blair Witch is an uncomfortably accurate portrayal of witches historically, and finish up with a stroll through the 13 urban legends that are just like the one featured in the film.

Pull on your hiking boots, and hand me the map.

Let’s get spooky.

Here’s A Quick Summary Of The Blair Witch Film Series

Ahh, the 90s. 

Will Smith was gettin’ jiggy with it, and Trump wasn’t President. Times were so much easier back then!

Well, not for budding film students Heather, Mike and Josh, who packed up their filming equipment in a car and headed to Burkittsville, Maryland to make a documentary about the urban legend of the Blair Witch. (The Blair Witch Project (1999))

They start off by interviewing locals, and capture a few key details that set up the rest of the film and its sequels. It is claimed that Rustin Parr was a bloke who lived in the woods and kidnapped several children in the 1940s. 

Why? Because the Blair Witch told him to do so. Two fishermen confirm the legends of the woods being haunted, and mention some lass called Robin Weaver.

Kidnapped in 1888, she returned 3 days later, claiming the witch was “an old woman whose feet never touched the ground."

Having heard the tales and waited out the warnings, they begin their journey and head to their first stop, Coffin Rock. Supposedly, 5 men were murdered in a ritualistic fashion here in the 19th century, and their bodies disappeared without a trace.

The next day, they continue their travels, and their ordeal begins. They arrive at an old cemetery which is made up of cairns (piles of rocks which turn out to have ritualistic meaning) and camp nearby. Noises are heard round the tent all night, like twigs snapping, but they reduce this to woodland creatures. 

The following day, they realise they are lost and cannot find the car. The activity escalates, but is found to be unexplainable. 

They then begin to fight between each other, and encounter a section of humanoid stick figures hanging from the trees. Their evening entertainment of weird noises around the tent resumes, but this time the laughter of children is added to the remix. Something then attacks their tent, sending them fleeing from their campsite. 

Some people will just never like dubstep.

They return to their tent, and discover that their possessions have been rifled through, and slime covers Josh’s stuff. The fighting ensues, and Josh straight-up fucks-off.

His screams are then heard one night, and Heather and Mike deduce it to be the witch’s fabrication to draw them out of their tent and into her grasp. 

Her trap is confirmed when Heather finds a bundle of sticks the next morning containing a ritualistic goody-bag containing what appears to be left of Josh. 

That same night, she records her infamous apology video in a style not dissimilar to most YouTubers who have been caught being racist/homophobic/[insert any terrible thing]. 

Once again, Josh’s screams are heard and they follow them to a house bearing demonic symbols and the bloody handprints of children. Not the aesthetic I myself would go for, but it worked for the Blair Witch...

Mike and Heather stumble into the basement, and we witness our favourite vloggers being killed in the manner described earlier in the film:

One child would face the corner of the basement while the other was being slaughtered. The last shot of the film is of Mike standing in the corner of the basement, suggesting that Heather is the first to die at the hands of the witch.

The second film (Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)) follows up on these events a year after the footage was found. A gaggle of fans of the original film troop to Burkittsville to explore the legend and the circumstances of the kidnapping of Heather, Mike and Josh.

This film is messy and complicated, and it’s for that reason that I don’t want to waste 8,000 words on a film that is actually ignored by the film series. So, I’m going to give you a tl;dr, instead:

Basics, this film documents the group of fans and tourists being turned against each other by the witch. They go to the house where shit reportedly went down, and set up surveillance cameras to document potential activity.

It’s the first film, but with hell of a lot more activity. And it culminates with the symbolic hanging of someone who appears to be inciting the demonic rituals scattered across the film as they are reportedly possessed by the Blair Witch.

Unfortunately, we don’t learn anything new in this film - we simply see the greater extent of her powers.

Tired, yet? 

(Bored, perhaps?)

Our journey is almost over, and it ends with Blair Witch (2016). 

This film ignores the events of the second film, and follows a group of documentary makers as they explore the legend of the Blair Witch - but this time it's not about capturing paranormal activity. They go to investigate a peculiar video on YouTube that proves that Heather - the woman from the OG cult classic - might just be alive.

The brother of Heather leads this group, and focuses this documentary on the desire for closure.

Despite skipping out the Book of Shadows, it basically sticks to that exact premise. Surveillance cameras are set up, and showcases the witch’s methods of turning the crew on each other, but on an even greater level. We even see the witch, alongside a couple other creatures in tow...

It finally gives us behind the scenes insight into the paranormal activity, and ends with everyone dying!

Sigh. 

The Blair Witch Is Based Off Of Urban Legends - And Is Uncomfortably Similar To The Stories

Despite its many flaws, The Blair Witch Project does one thing right: we never see the witch.

But it’s the way that her control of the woods and those within it is portrayed that points to the terrifyingly accurate nature of the witch when compared to other urban legends. 

The film’s fictional legend gives up minimal information regarding the Blair Witch:

We know she was responsible for residents - especially children - going missing throughout the 18th and 20th century, and we know that the locals of Burkittsville claimed that the Blair Witch was the ghost of Elly Kedward, a woman who reportedly practiced witchcraft and was sentenced to death in 1785. 

This salem-witch-what-died-but-didnt-really-die-no-one-really-knows is a common basis of the urban legends that will be explored later in this post, but it's the other attributes of the witch that draw her even closer to the claims made around these cases.

The focus of this is that the Blair Witch represents the crone, one of the core concepts of paganism and many other ancient religions. Of the few glimpses we see of a creature that could be the witch and the descriptions of her made by the locals of Burkittsville, we piece together the image of an elderly, monstrous being.

Take this clip from the final film in the saga:

This unnatural-looking humanoid bears a resemblance to the claims of witches in folklore, such as breasts sagging below waistlines, or bones jutting out of their flesh. Add on top of this the animalistic claims from the original movie - like that one woman claiming she saw her arm which was coated with dark hair - and we arrive at a rather monstrous being.

But this animalistic account does not merely echo her ugliness; it forges the link between the witch and her powers over the woods she resides in.

As the maiden becomes the mother, and the mother becomes the crone, her connection with nature grows. It reaches the extent from which her connection with nature is greater than that of her male counterparts, threatening almighty patriarchy and cursing her as the evil witch she is!!1!

Furthermore, it's not difficult to see the links between the woods she controls, and the imagery of life and fertility. Add a smattering of rumours about kidnapped children, and the house of Rustin Parr becomes a womb. 

(Less PMS, more blood.)

More so, by harnessing the powers of nature, she blurs the boundaries between the genders. Heck, she even goes as far as to blur the boundaries between reality and the reality she creates for her victims! 

She tricks them into falling out with each other, she confuses them by creating this unnavigable wood, and she ensnares them into her invisible trap.

Or, translated into simple terms, the Blair Witch fulfills the concept of the Monstrous-Feminine, a theory conjured up by Barbara Creed. On one hand it suggests women are either portrayed as the victim within horror films, and on the other it suggests that when the woman becomes monstrous, she takes on extreme attributes regarding the female reproductive body.

Guess which one the Blair Witch is. 

But this theory didn’t start with Babs sitting in a room and getting her feminist on - Creed deconstructs notions that can be traced back to the era of the Salem witch trials. Each and every urban legend starts here, when it was #on-trend to burn your local witch. 

The Blair Witch is the puppet master in these films.

And she is not the only one that is pulling the strings.

The Real Urban Legends About Witches That You Need To Know About 

“So, the Blair Witch is some chick who hasn’t shaved in 3 months and has a metaphorical vagina?”

Ok, fair enough. 

The Blair Witch isn’t directly based on a specific urban legend, so yes, delete the sage from your Amazon basket and buy those limited edition poptarts, instead.

…

Oh, you thought this post was over?

My little ghoul - this is The Paranormal Periodical. You didn’t think I’d let you leave without informing you of that witch roaming around your local area, would you?

‘Course not. Here are the 13 real urban legends of witches that’ll scare the shizz outta you. 

#1 - Naale Baa

We trade in deep woodland in Maryland for Karntaka, India for this local legend. And within minutes of arriving, you’ll spot the word ‘naale baa’ on the walls - a decoration not dissimilar to that seen in Rustin Parr’s crib.

It is claimed that by writing these words on their walls they can deter the witch that wanders from house to house in search of her husband.

Glammed up in full bridal wear, Nale Ba (as she is also known) supposedly attempts to entice the man of the house, and then curse the family with bad luck.

In the 1990s, this urban legend faced a particular resurgence, and even evolved to claim that she would imitate the voices of victim’s family members to encourage them to open the door. But when the door is opened, you die!

How? No idea.

Am I still scared? Hell yeah.

But I’m not the only one concerned about this witch - claims that multiple men in Thailand just disappeared from their beds in the middle of the night were pinned onto this urban legend.

#2 - The Bell Witch

This is probably the most famous legend regarding a witch puppeteering an innocent family’s life.

The story starts in 1817. A family begin to witness signs of paranormal activity on their farm that targets the man of the house and his daughter, Betsy. A variety of large animals are seen across their farm and follow the family and their slaves. Strange noises then begin to fill the house, like invisible chains being dragged on the floor, or dogs fighting. Betsy repeatedly claims that she can see a little girl playing on the swings.

But this friendly ghost then begins to attack the child, slapping her and scarring her with pins.

The man of the house then begins to demand answers about these spooky shenanigans, and straight up asks the spirit what the shit is going on.

The spirit gives ‘em a lowdown of her backstory - a bit like those clips from the X Factor where they use Katy Perry’s Firework over the top of this 16 year old girl’s turmoil regarding GCSE maths - and claims that she is "Old Kate Batts' witch". 

‘Couple of convos later and they deduce that the farm rests on a Native American burial ground, and the spirit has been disturbed. 

Yet despite the specificity of this legend, the haunting sticks to familial lines we see with Naale Baa and the Blair Witch:

The witch claims she will leave - but she will return in 7 years. She kept her promise, and haunted Betsy when she achieved her womanly purpose of shitting out a baby and having a family of her own.

#3 - The Perron Family Farmhouse

This case was the inspiration behind the original Conjuring movie, founding one of the most iconic horror film series to date - and it’s clear to see why.

I’ve already done a fully-fledged post on this classic tale, but here’s a tl;dr for people hoping not to delve too deep into the haunting…

The Perron family made the mistake of moving onto the land once owned and now haunted by Bathsheba Sherman, a witch from the 19th century.

With increasingly violent activity beginning to haunt the family - which culminated in the possession of the mother of the house - this has earned its place as one of the scariest tales of terror to feature on this blog.

#4 - Mary Evelyn Ford

She was burned at the stake for her witchcraft. 

She was buried in a steel lined grave, and her casket was covered with concrete to keep her trapped in. 

Oh, and she was 5 years old. 

It is claimed that Mary will wander ‘round the cemetery or stand trapped within the protective fencing around her graveside, making faces at mourners and enticing them towards her final resting place. From there she will suck you into the depths where her body now lies, and use your vitality for strength!

#5 - The Three Legged Lady of Mississippi

The American road trip. 

A classic coming-of-adventure filled with freedom, spotify playlists you accidentally stream via your data, and running over people that are already dead.

No? Just me?

The story goes that there’s one road in Mississippi which is haunted by The Three Legged Lady. If you honk your horn three times, she will knock on the roof of the car, and race your car to the end of the road, hitting it with her body throughout the short journey.

Why?

Her origins, like most urban legends, have been subject to a lot of dispute, but there are 2 claims which follow this tale:

One side to the story claims she was the innocent victim of a sacrifice by a satanic cult, whilst the other side claims she doesn’t actually have three legs. 

She’s holding her daughter’s leg, which was severed off when she was run over by a car. It is said that she is still looking for the rest of her daughter.

#6 - The Skinwalkers of Arizona

Our road trip doesn’t stop there, however - this time we are heading for the Navajo region of Arizona. 

Supposedly, when you’re sailing down the highway, something will tap on your window, and you’ll catch a glance of a skinwalker. These humanoid, mutated beings were shapeshifters that were the witch doctors representing the evil within Navajo society.

This urban legend even featured in a court case when a woman was found brutally murdered!

Heck, there is actually a specific region of Arizona - Skinwalker Ranch - from which you are sure to these mystical beings.

#7 - Goody Cole, The Witch of Hampton

This urban legend sticks to the minimalist aesthetic, but nevertheless has earned its reputation in Hampton.

The story goes that a woman accused of being a witch was found dead in her house, and thus, to ensure this bitch stays dead, they bury her with a stake and horseshoe. She says six feet under, but her powers prevail; she curses those that happen to go past her grave.

Her curses stick to those sailing on the river by her burial site, including that one time she reportedly brewed a storm for an innocent girl enjoying a summer’s day on a sailboat who just so happened to be mocking her past.

Not a good day for yachting with father, then?

#8 - The Curse of Jonathon Buck’s Tomb

Okay, this one’s fucking creepy. 

And I love it.

Jonathon Buck was one of the main lads in charge of the Salem witch trials, and condemned many a woman to death by burning. Unfortunately, his attempts to rid one woman of her alleged powers failed, and she scarred his tombstone with a burn mark in the shape of a leg.

No, seriously. 

Whenever the tomb is moved, the mark reappears. 

#9 - Mary Nohl’s Witch House

This origins of this tale can be traced to much more recent events, but carries the essence of an urban legend that rumoured witches cannot escape from. 

Mary Nohl was a sculptor famed for her wacky art and weird displays that decorated her house and gardens. The local residents petitioned for it to be demolished, but it was placed on the National Register, instead.

It is here that the rumours began to swell:

The legend claims that her husband and son drowned in a nearby lake, so, she created these sculptures to watch out for them and await their return to their home. But it was discovered that she never had any children, voiding the rumours conjured up by teenagers after late night visits to this spectacular house.

#10 - The Pendle Witches

I’ve already covered this gaggle of witches and the legends they’ve left on Pendle Hill, but here’s a quick recap for those that haven’t already checked out that post:

The Pendle witches were a group of peasants who practiced dark and mysterious magic. From neighbours getting ill, to strange effigies being found containing hair and teeth, there was more than enough evidence to send them to trial.

It was on this hill that they were sentenced to death, and it was on this hill that they were hung for their crimes. But their witchy behaviour didn’t stop with their deaths.

Peculiar happenings still haunt Pendle hill…

#11 - The Surrey Witch

Our next urban legend is also resident to the UK, and even takes its form in the same era. 

In the 17th century, a white witch lived in a cave in Surrey, and was known for lending things to her neighbours. All you had to do was stand on the boulder outside her cave and ask!

But one day, some bloke tried his luck, and asked for her cauldron. She was chill with it, but said he must return it by a deadline. He missed the due date, and lost 5% off his final mark he fled to escape her potential wrath. 

He fled to Frensham church, from which the cauldron has been utilised for centuries. I wonder if the witch is still out there looking for it?

#12 - Tituba, The Voodoo Queen

Okay, so this witch might not have an urban legend tied to her memory, but her past mirrors the Blair Witch’s own story so it’s freakalicious, regardless...

Tituba was actually the first woman accused of practicing witchcraft in 1692. She even confessed to her crimes, and threw two other witches under the bus!

(So much for solidarity, guys.)

But her story follows a unique twist, as she was believed to have come to the colony she later resided in to encourage local children to take up Voodoo. Her focus on children and thus her maternal portrayal is a simplified reflection of the Blair Witches own metaphorical genitalia. 

#13 - The Witch House, aka The Jonathon Corwin House

Our final urban legend belongs to one of the most historical buildings in Salem:

No, really, it’s the only structure in Salem still standing that had a hand in the witch trials. Not only has it witnessed dark and twisted histories of innocent people, it’s still home to some of them.

Jonathon Corwin - the former owner of the house - was a judge in the trials, and thus carried the memories of the trials with him back to his home, but with reports of torture in the basement and even his own burial down there after his murder, I think we can safely that many myths and legends will circle this house.

Add in a visit from the Ghost Adventures crew, and we can stamp on the Zak Bagan’s seal of approval.

No wonder it’s considered the most haunted house in Salem!

Now It’s Time To Hear What You Think:

Which urban legend is the winner of tonight’s fuck-off-i-cant-handle-the-spooks-man award?

And will you ever watch The Blair Witch Project again?

😍Up for more spooky stuff? Follow this blog and hear a new real ghost story everyday!😍

(Also this is me now.)

[gins-potter]

One Chicago Promo #2

I had a lot of fun breaking down the first promo we got so I’m going to do this one as well.  This one dropped on the One Chicago twitter account this morning (for me) and is about a minute long (compared to the first one which was only like 20 seconds).

So we open with Dr Charles walking with a crying woman into the ED, and a Boden voice over playing.

Boden voice over: “When this community hurts...”

Cut to black, words “Nov 11″ appear on screen.

Cut to Ruzek reaching out to touch Atwater, looks like they are on scene somewhere (note: this is different to the Ruzwater scene in the first promo which was in a hallway). Also interesting note: it looks like Atwater has blood or something on his face - unknown if this is his or someone else’s.  Both are wearing bullet proof vests.

Boden voice over: “... when it reaches out it’s hand...”

Cut to a screen with words “Wednesday’s Most Watched Dramas”.

Cut to Severide carrying an unconscious woman on a fire scene.

Boden: “... we pull it to it’s feet.”

Cut to Boden sitting in his office, Severide can just be seen in the background.

Cut to word “Return” on screen.

Cut to a scene of 51 responding to a fire.

Boden: “And we respond.”

Cut to Cruz standing on a fire scene, in full gear and mask.  He yells, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

Cut to a brief clip of Voight exiting his car.

Cut to Casey and other firefighters (presumably from 51 but we can’t really see specifically who it is) about to enter a building.

Cut to Mouch opening the door to the building and flames jump out at him.

Cut to a brief shot of a helicopter over Chicago.

Cut to Crockett, Ethan, Capp, and another unidentified doctor running together, presumably on an accident scene because all are in scrubs and turnout gear.

Cut to a three-way split screen, brief clip of Dr Charles, Will, and Natalie (left to right).

Cut to the word “Med” on screen.

Cut to Will, Ethan, and April wheeling a patient out of an ambulance (entrance to ED can be seen in background.

Cut to Ethan walking through the ED in full gown, mask, and cap.

Cut to Ethan and April standing together in the ED (interesting note: both are wearing blue scrubs as opposed to their usual maroon)

Ethan: “-I’m just worried about you.”

April: “They are sick...”

Cut to a shot of a patient in a bed.

April voice over: “... they are frightened...”

Cut back to April and Ethan.

April: “...and they are alone.”

Cut to April standing in a trauma bay in full hazmat gear.  Ethan can be seen watching her from outside the bay.

April, voice over: “I’m not abandoning them.”

Cut to a closer shot of Ethan’s face.

Cut to a three-way split screen, brief clip of Boden, Casey, and Sylvie (left to right).

Cut to word “Fire” on screen.

Cut to Severide in turn out gear with water dripping off his helmet.

Cut to extremely brief clip of a firefighter in the middle of a blaze (I think it’s Stella but it’s very brief).

Cut to a shot of a doorway on fire.

Cut to a firefighter (I believe it’s Severide) on the ground in a hazy, smoke-filled room.  No mask or helmet on.

Stella, voice over: “Severide!”

Cut to Stella crouching down in the middle of a fire.

Cut to shot of a firefighter helping another downed firefighter (presumably Stella helping Severide).

Boden, voice over: “You are the very definition-”

Cut to Stella in the fire surrounded by other firefighters.

Boden, voice over: “- of a leader.”

Cut to Stella standing with Boden in his office.

Boden: “It’s time everyone got to see it.”

Cut to Severide and another unidentified firefighter (he has 51 on his helmet so he could be an extra from Engine) helping a burned victim out of a building.

Cut to Sylvie driving (maybe the ambo - not completely sure as something about it doesn’t like quite like the ambo to me).

Cut to Sylvie and Mackey entering a living room of an unidentified house.  There is a man lying on the couch.

Sylvie: “CFD paramedics!”

Cut to an unidentified man approaching Sylvie and Mackey from behind, and putting a gun to Sylvie’s head.  The click is audible.  Sylvie gasps but stays still, Mackey looks around at him.

Cut to a different angle, Sylvie is looking up at the man with the gun still pointed at her.

Cut to a three-way split screen, brief clip of Burgess, Atwater, and Upton (left to right).

Cut to the word “P.D.” on screen.

Cut to a clip of Atwater, Ruzek, and Burgess standing on scene.

Cut to a clip of Atwater walking alone down a hallway.

Cut to Voight and Micheal Doyle (Tom Doyle’s father) talking in the street.

Doyle: “He snitched on the police. He’s gotta pay the price.”

Cut to Atwater.  He is out of uniform, exiting a car with his hands raised, while a uniformed police officer has a gun pulled on him.

Cut to Voight and Atwater sitting in Voight’s office.

Voight: “Takes a lot of guts to stand up for what you believe in.”

Cut to a shot of Voight standing in the street wearing his bullet proof vest.

Cut to Atwater sitting at a table with an unidentified man.

Atwater: “Just trying to do the right thing.”

Cut to Hailey and Jay walking up an alley together.

Cut to Jay busting down a door.

Cut to the word “Together” on screen.

Cut to a shot of the Med cast, but focused on Will and Nat.

Cut to the words “We Are” on screen.

Cut to a shot of the Fire cast, focused on Boden and Stella.

Cut to the word “Stronger” on screen.

Cut to Atwater walking alone in a parking garage.

Cut to Atwater confronting Doyle outside somewhere.  Doyle is walking away while Atwater follows.

Atwater: “If I’m the one you want then come for me!”

Cut to a different angle.  Doyle has turned around and is facing Atwater again.

Doyle: “I’m gonna keep coming for you until I have your badge.”

Cut to shot from last season of Atwater standing in the streets while the police cars drive off around him.

So there we go, that’s our second One Chicago promo gearing up for the show’s coming back on the 11th.  I don’t think it gives us anything massively new but rather confirms what the main focus of each show is going to be for the upcoming (and rather reduced) seasons.  But like I did with my last post, I’m gonna break down some interesting notes (I’ll put them under the cut because I had more thoughts that I expected and this post is long enough):

So like the last one this one contains some presumably old-ish footage.  It isn’t really a big deal, just moments like Severide carrying the unconscious woman, the shot of Burgess, Ruzek, and Atwater standing together at a scene, patients getting wheeled into the ED.  They look older and a lot of people have speculated that they’re from past seasons and I’m inclined to think so too.  It doesn’t really mean anything or matter just interesting to note.  They were probably put in to pad out the run time of the promo a bit without giving too much away of the new seasons.

We got the same voiceover from Boden from the last promo which really emphasises the idea of community and connecting with community that I think all three shows (but particularly Med and possibly Fire) are going to focus on in s6, 8, and 9.

We get a new shot of Ruzek and Atwater, different to the one we got in the last promo.  Doesn’t really confirm anything of course, but it does make me wonder if we’re going to get some serious Ruzwater friendship moments, which I’m always down for.

And another interesting thing to speculate about is the blood we can kind of see on Kev’s face in that shot.  It’s hard to tell but it looks to me as though he’s been in a fight or an altercation so I wonder if that’s a result of a confrontation with Michael Doyle.

Another short clip that I really found interesting was that short one of Capp, Ethan, and Crockett all running together.  It’s kind of hard to explain without the visual aide of the video but between Capp being there and how it’s set up it definitely looks like a Fire call that maybe they called for extra medical assistance on, hence Ethan and Crockett being there.  Now I’m not 100% sure so if someone can confirm that would be great but this looks new to me.  I don’t remember anything like this from last season.  So it looks like we’re going to get Ethan and Crockett scenes outside of the hospital which makes me wonder what they’re relationship will be like considering how it was left in s5 considering the April of it all.  I’m sure we’ll get something from them at some point during the season, I just wonder if them being away from the hospital and therefor April will have an effect.  Of course if this is them on a mini crossover with Fire then we probably won’t get that in that specific scene, but again this is all very speculative.

So from this promo it definitely seems to me like April and Ethan dealing with the COVID of it all is going to be something that either brings them together or drives them apart for good.  We get that exchange between them, and then we get Ethan watching her with a patient, and idk if it’s just me, but Ethan seemed worried for her.  So I do wonder if going through this, especially because it seems like it’s going to be primarily those two (along with Lanik) that are on the front lines of COVID, is going to be something that mends the relationship between them.  I’m not necessarily against a Sextoi reunion, but I’m also not excited for it if it means more bullshit like s5.  If they’re going to do it, they better do it right.

In that same vein, I don’t know about anyone else but this promo definitely makes me think that Stella’s potential promotion is going to be a big thing this season.  We get Boden telling her she’s a leader, we see her rescuing Severide I believe during a call, we get a shot of her and Boden together later in the promo, but yeah I think this is going to be one of the major multi ep arcs.  Which I love because I’m always there for more Stella Kidd.

And then we have Brett and Mackey getting held at gun point which is just like woah!  I wonder if this is the crazy 10 seconds at the end of 9x01 that Derek warned us about.  I mean, it’s gotta be right?  And as a Brettsey shipper I have to wonder, and would love to see, if Brett and Casey bond over this experience.  Because Casey went through something similar in I want to say season 7? When a gun was pointed at him and it jammed, and basically lead to an existential crisis.  I love me some angst so I would love to see Casey be there for Brett through that.

And just a random interesting side note.  We get a shot of Sylvie driving what I presumed to be the ambo.  But someone noticed on twitter that the dimensions are slightly off, the seats are the wrong colour, and you can’t see the window that shows into the back of the ambo, so she’s possibly driving another car, in her ambo gear?  Wearing gloves?  Don’t really know what’s going on with that one, gonna have to think on it a bit more.

And we been knew but clearly this Atwater/Doyle thing is gonna be a major season 8 storyline.  Well I mean the amount of time devoted to it in the promos suggests it is anyway.  And honestly, it better be.  Atwater deserves to have a major story like this.  I don’t want it wrapped up in the first episode.

I do wonder if the shot of Atwater presumably getting pulled over by a cop is going to be something that was specifically orchestrated by Michael Doyle or if it’s going to be a slightly unconnected storyline that ties into the bigger theme of reform that this season is pushing.

And finally just a comment on Atwater’s line right near the end: “If I’m the one you want then come for me!” which kind of makes me wonder if Doyle tries to hurt Atwater through someone else, either Jordan, or the others in Intelligence, or Vanessa.  There’s lot of speculation that Jordan is going to die, which is a definite possibility.  Or this scene could be related to the uniformed officers not showing up for Intelligence and thereby putting them in danger (which is a plot line I definitely think has been teased for season 8).

So anyway yeah, those are my thoughts.  I hope you liked this break down and found it interesting and helpful since some of the clips are so short that it can be hard to pick up on absolutely everything.  And going through it slowly and transcribing it actually helped me pick up all the little details which was cool.  But anyway yeah, the promo is on the One Chicago twitter account and is probably on the yt account as well, so check it out and let me know what you thought of it :D

[aion-rsa]

Why The Truth About Britney Spears Is So Elusive

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Britney Spears is one of the most-covered and least-known celebrities of the modern era. She is a millennial icon whose songs were the soundtrack of a generation. A choreographed contradiction from her earliest burst onto pop stardom, the singer became a blank canvass for anyone carrying a paint brush. The FX docuseries The New York Times Presents “Framing Britney Spears” is an attempt to find the artist’s place in the gallery. It is also searching for Britney’s whereabouts in general. Spears was placed into a conservatorship when she was 26 years old. That was 13 years ago this month, and she has been petitioning the court to have that changed.

Britney’s conservatorship, overseen by her father Jamie Spears, has been profitable. With a net worth of over $60 million, maybe too profitable to ever get resolved. It could be a form of life imprisonment and wannabe jailers appear to come out of the woodwork regularly in Britney’s career. Spears also currently has a restraining order against Sam Lutfi, one of her former managers.

According to “Framing Britney Spears,” court documents call the singer a “high-functioning conservatee.” Britney’s fans point out their favorite star released four albums, went on three world tours, performed a sold-out five-year residency in Las Vegas, was paid $15 million to be a judge on The X Factor, and put her name on a billion-dollar perfume line. Yet, she has been deemed incapable of taking care of her finances or life, and even when she can drive.The case is being proceeded over by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny.

For a pop queen in exile, Spears hasn’t been invisible. She’s been spotted at Starbucks with her boyfriend, Sam Asghari. She’s posted clips of her dancing, working out, painting, and giving impromptu fashion shows on Instagram during the coronavirus lockdown. Her posts, of course, only fuel the fire of conspiracy theorists, regardless of their apparent mood or meaning. Spears’ song titles like “Work Bitch,” “I’m a Slave 4 U,” and “”Out from Under,” could also be read as messages concerning her career. 

Spears commands loyalty, and her fans love her. This is poignantly evident in Chris Crocker’s viral 2007 YouTube plea to “Leave Britney Alone.” The #FreeBritney movement rose up spontaneously after the conservatorship. The fan-produced podcast “Britney’s Gram” has dedicated itself to getting information to the public. Miley Cyrus shouted “Free Britney” during a performance. Paris Hilton and Rose McGowan have shown support. Britney’s mother Lynne Spears has been known to “like” comments with the #FreeBritney hashtag. 

Samantha Stark, the director of The New York Times Presents: Framing Britney Spears, freelanced as a choreographer while making the two-step into video journalism. Writing at The New York Times for the past 8 years, she also produced and directed episodes of The Weekly. Stark spoke with Den of Geek about the difficulties of reporting on Spears’ conservatorship, and the future of journalism in a changing media climate.

Den of Geek: What drew you to Britney, of all the cases?

Samantha Stark: We started filming this before a lot of these court filings about the conservatorship started happening. The original concept was to look back at media coverage of her through this 2020-then-lens, post-MeToo and post when things like talking about mental health are more mainstream. There’s not as much stigma. Looking back at the media coverage of her from the early 2000s feels so shocking now. That was the original concept. Then while we were filming, these court filings started pouring in.

Could you have picked two better names for this case than Wallet and Judge Penny?

Right? There are a lot of similar names that run throughout it. You have Jamie Spears and Lynn Spears and Jamie Lynn Spears. You have a lot of Kevins, just like a ton of Kevins running throughout. There are a lot of Sams also in Britney’s story. There are a lot of re-occurring names. But yeah, Andrew Wallet.

What’s the first misconception “Framing Britney Spears” will clarify for the casual Britney Spears fan?

A huge misperception of her, that I had going into the project, is a lot of people think that the creation of her image and the music that she does and the way her shows are and the outfits she wears are other people’s decisions. But what I learned over and over again was how much of a say in her early career, including “Baby One More Time” at the very beginning, she had in her image and the way she was presented. How involved she was creatively in every show she did and every music video she made, particularly at the beginning of her career. I think a lot of people think she’s this puppet that was sexualized as a teenager and didn’t know it. And I think, from talking to the people who worked with her then, that that was her. She had a really big say in that.

From my unscientific survey, asking everyone I came into contact with “what’s the first thing they think of when they think of Britney Spears”: A lot of people say, “Oh, that time she shaved her head,” or “the picture where she shaved her head.” One of the reasons it’s called “Framing Britney Spears” is there seems to be these very few still-image frames in our collective subconscious, that burned into us when we remember her.

We went into it wanting to figure out how we could learn what was behind the frame, outside of the frame. I think a lot of people don’t realize all the different factors that were leading up to that point. A lot of people don’t realize that she was going through a custody battle then and how important her role as a mother was to her, or is to her still. There’s a lot of pulling back the curtain we could do.

Danny Ramos, the photographer we interviewed, was one of the only people doing video during the big paparazzi explosion. We wanted to talk to him and use his video, so you could see what was happening outside of the frame. He describes the time with the umbrella, that’s another big photo that people remember, like the head shaving. What people don’t realize is how upset she was that day because she was trying to see her kids and wasn’t able to. And how much he pushed her buttons before that happened, some deep buttons. So that’s outside of the frame. 

Another one is the central mystery of our film. I think a lot of people don’t know that Britney Spears is still in a court-sanctioned conservatorship and that, for most of the 12 years, her father was the one in charge of her personal, medical, and economic decisions. He controls what happens with her money. The central mystery of our piece is something that Joe Coscarelli, one of our reporters, says in the film: “She’s living the life of a busy pop star, and yet we’re told she’s at risk constantly.” How is someone who can live the life of a busy pop star also be so at risk that she can’t make basic decisions for herself like medical-care decisions, where she lives, contracts, what to do with her money?

Britney’s lawyer, Adam Streisand, mentions a health report he wasn’t allowed to see, and was told by the judge it was justified withholding. I’ve seen a lot of reported diagnoses on the internet. Do you have any idea what that report said specifically?

Absolutely not. I think that’s important. Part of the difficulty with reporting on conservatorships, Britney’s and also any conservatorship, is that a lot of it has to do with medical records. Also, they do have court investigators that go out and interview the people involved. They have different kinds of people who submit reports about the person, and they’re protected under HIPAA and also allow the person some privacy.

Britney has signaled recently through her court filings that she doesn’t want her records to be sealed, that she wants people to be able to see them. But that’s particularly with her estate, which is different from the medical records. Who knows if she would want people to see that report also? But her conservators and lawyers in the past have decided it’s against her best interest. That’s something else interesting about conservatorships, is that other people decide what is in the person’s best interest. As Britney is performing in Vegas, other people are deciding for her what’s in her best interest all the time.

Since we don’t know anything about that report, we don’t know if Britney has a mental health diagnosis. She could not, there could be nothing actually in that realm. A lot of people like to speculate what kind of mental illness she might have, but we don’t know if she even has one. I think that’s important to remember.

Britney’s request for an outside independent party taking conservatorship seems like the most rational solution to the situation. Why is this so difficult?

That is the question. It seems as if Britney requests, “I don’t want my father in charge of being a conservator of the estate. I want this trust, Bessemer Trust, instead.” Yet her father is still in charge. That is legal. The judge made that decision. We don’t know why. A lot of questions about the conservatorship system, as a whole, have been brought up during this process. When someone is under a conservatorship, they are under a conservatorship because it’s considered that they cannot act in their own best interest. Conservatorships are mostly given to the elderly with Alzheimer’s, because a lot of people try to take advantage of people with Alzheimer’s and get them to sign over their money or their wills. And this was put in place to protect those people, which is really necessary.

It’s confusing because Britney is not. It’s a very unique situation, they always say, but we don’t know why.Jamie’s argument is that he has been doing a good job on this for the past 12 years. Her estate has grown, and that if he gets taken off and a whole new company takes over, it can harm her. Bessemer Trust does this professionally. They manage people with gigantic estates’ money all the time. So, the merits of that argument are questionable. But the judge decided that way. She’d left the door open. She didn’t decide he’s definitely staying on. She didn’t do an emergency suspension. That’s what they were asking for. They could still file to remove him.

These legal processes take a really long time, and as they’re happening, everybody’s getting paid. Britney’s estate pays the lawyers on both sides. She pays for her own lawyers, and then she pays for the lawyers arguing against her own lawyers, as well as the conservators’. That is oftentimes what happens with the conservatorship system. That’s also a place where people point to as something that could be a systemic issue in conservatorship systems: are these lawyers always acting in her best interest while also getting paid as long as the conservatorship is in place?

Is Britney a hostage, or is this a self-imposed exile?

I have no idea. We don’t know. Another really hard part of reporting this is there’s such a strong circle around Britney, seemingly controlling who she interacts with, because of the conservatorship, that we can’t talk to her. And she has not said anything publicly on her social media. Through her court documents, she said she appreciates the long “informed support” of her fans and that she “doesn’t want this battle hidden away like a family secret.”

Those were quotes from her court documents written by her lawyer, Sam Ingham, who legally is responsible for speaking for her since she’s not legally necessarily supposed to speak for herself. She could. So, that’s a mystery. Why isn’t she saying anything? Is it because there are people around her stopping her, or is it because she doesn’t want to say anything? Maybe Britney doesn’t want to talk to anyone about this. We have no idea. It makes it very frustrating to report on.

Just because you report on something doesn’t mean you agree with it. Do you think Spears speaks in code on her Instagram posts?

I don’t know. I have looked at every post since 2015 and some before that. It’s really fascinating to look at. Something about her Instagram that I love was this period of time where she was posting a lot of herself with her kids. It was just so beautiful to see her as a mom, because I know from talking to people close to her, that’s the number-one thing she’s ever wanted, to be a mom and to be seen as a mom. So those are really moving to me. Whether or not she’s speaking in code with other things, it’s so hard to tell because they’re always so surprising what she puts up there.

It seems she’s been doing it consistently, even in her songs throughout her career.

Yeah. It is interesting to listen to some of her songs now that we’ve seen all this come out in court. Even the song “Overprotected.” Listening to that now, wow. It has such a different meaning knowing that she does not want her father to be “protecting” her. A lot of her music videos and music has this bondage theme. Britney is often seen in chains or in cages. Also, a lot of themes of people taking from her, like “Gimme More.”

I think people haven’t taken that seriously, but when you look at it and you think of these as art and expression, even if she doesn’t have a song-writing credit on the songs a lot. Felicia [Culotta], her assistant and friend, who’s been with her for most of her career, said she would go into the studio and talk to the people who were writing the songs about what was happening in her life. And they would often write songs based off of what she was saying, which I guess is standard in the industry. I didn’t know. But we can draw our own conclusions to why there is such a big theme, yeah, of bondage and of people taking stuff from her.

Britney was a trendsetter musically. She explored dubstep, and she really is the face of the millennials. Do you think the #FreeBritney movement will also become a millennial icon?

Well, one of the things I find so compelling about the #FreeBritney movement is talking to Kim Kaiman, who was the marketing director at Jive Records. She was the person who met Britney when she first came in at 15, and decided how to market her, what her image was going to be. She very much expressed that she wanted it to be based off of who Britney actually was as a person. She describes her as “your friend that you kind of idolize a bit and look up to, but is the same as you, has the same hopes and dreams as you have.” And the 12, 13-year-old preteen age was who they were marketing her towards, I think she really connected with that.

Kim says she captured so well the dichotomy of what a teenage girl is. Teenage girls want to be grown women, but they’re also kids. It’s this wanting to be sexy and in control feeling that she captured that really spoke to these young people. Almost everyone in #FreeBritney who I talked to was in their late 20s or early 30s. So they were that age then. They were those kids that she was being sold to. I feel like the idea that she’s your friend really carried over, because they’re like, “This is my friend that they’re doing this to. I have to go stop it,” from what they said to me.

When they were that age, she was sold as this perfect, all-American girl. Kevin Wu, who’s one of the #FreeBritney organizers, says this in the film. He was saying finding out that she wasn’t perfect, that time where she was super vulnerable to people, and she was having public issues. I hate saying meltdown because I really don’t know what it was. But the vulnerability that she showed there really, really speaks to this group, and also, I would say, that age bracket in general.

I keep quoting people, but Felicia, it’s not in the film, said “Britney was judged and criticized for who she was. Even when she came out as a teenager, she was judged and criticized for being too sexy. A lot of people who are kind of these outsiders or people who were bullied or LGBTQ people, they were judged and criticized for who they were when they were younger, and so there’s this connection. They can relate to each other.” She said, “Britney relates to them as well.”

There’s kind of this counterculture fandom that the #FreeBritney people are like the people who were bullied when they were younger. And it is kind of millennial. We want to be more open talking about mental health. We don’t want bullying. We want diversity. I do think that it really speaks to that.

You worked extensively with the #FreeBritney movement players. In the review, I wrote you treated them like stringers. How do you rate them as journalists?

I would not say that we treated them like stringers because we did all our own reporting ourselves. We have our own journalists. Liz Day, who’s featured in the piece. Everything that they were finding out and bringing up we independently investigated and verified, absolutely. But I will say, I think they became their own investigators for themselves. There weren’t people doing investigations into it when they first started in 2019. And so, they definitely became their own investigators trying to dig up court documents. But we definitely did that ourselves.

But part of the story is that they became these investigators, so we do feature that in the story. It’s fascinating. Some lawyers are involved with #FreeBritney, and they know how to find the publicly available court documents. They would take them and put them online and highlight them. And as soon as a new court document would come out, like if Sam Ingham, Britney’s court-appointed attorney, would file something new, they would know immediately and post it online and dissect it. But we did that ourselves too.

It’s so much easier for us to do it because we have a full infrastructure set up for it. These people were spending so much time. The reason they started doing the investigating is because there wasn’t any media covering it, and they really wanted that. They wanted people to look into this. And so, they started doing it themselves, and it got a lot of attention. Then the media did look into it.

We had an investigation into her conservatorship in 2016, so we were one of the only people to be looking at it in that way. It was by the reporter who’s in the film, Joe Coscarelli. They did this “Is Britney Spears Ready to Stand on Her Own” questioning: is she ready to not be in this conservatorship? A lot of people are interested in it because of what they started digging up.

I see it similar to the hijacking of right-wing hashtags by the K-pop stans or what’s happening right now with the GameStop stock. The community is bringing the attention and journalism is keeping up with it.

The fact also that the age of a lot of these people means they’re so adept at internet culture and social media culture. They are using social media in a sophisticated way to get people to pay attention to them, for sure.

Do you think Britney had any idea how creepy the Star Search Q&A with Ed McMahon was, or was she just blindsided by the stupidity of it?

I think you can look at her face and be the judge of that. She was 10, but she handled it very well. I think it boded for the future of men asking inappropriate things to her. She just kind of like, “It depends. Boys are mean. It depends.” She kind of shook it off quite well as a ten-year-old.

And you see her in our piece later, when there are men asking her inappropriate questions, she sidesteps it in a really good way, in a really way that’s interesting to watch.

The shocking one was her being told about a mother saying that she wanted to shoot her because she was a bad influence.

The wife of a governor, by the way. That’s the kind of thing that you look at and you wonder would it happen now? I think we’ve come some way of not trying to shame people for their sexuality, but who knows?

There’ve always been persistent dark rumors about Britney, along with other celebrities who reach a certain tier. Why do you think people are so eager to demonize them?

Well, I wonder if that is still true today. I feel like it was very true during this height of the tabloid era, like 2004 to 2009. We’re not as eager to enjoy celebrities’ crashing and burning. If they’re going to rise, they have to fall, that kind of narrative. I feel like our culture is not as into that now. I think we’re less mean-spirited. And I don’t know. That’s what I was trying to figure out this entire time making this piece. Like, why? Why Britney? Why are we, as a culture, consuming all of this?

The reason that there was paparazzi around her all the time is because it sold. We consume that. It sold the magazines better than any other light “storylines.” I don’t know why. I mean, just my opinion, maybe the idea of what could be beautiful in society and perfect in society was so narrow that people were resentful of that. The majority of the US Weekly readers were women, so the majority of people buying those photographs were women. Is it because this ideal was so narrow back then that people became jealous and resentful of her? Now, I think the standard of beauty has opened up much wider, but that’s just my guess.

One of the experts says she’s never seen anyone successfully terminate a conservatorship. If Britney does succeed, will that upset the guardianship designation in the future?

Only time will tell. Who knows? I mean, if there are issues within the system that need to come to light, I think it would help them come to light.

Just because we’re Den of Geek and you’re from The New York Times, I have to ask, are you at all related to Tony Stark?

You know, I get that question a lot, and the true answer is we don’t know.

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The New York Times Presents “Framing Britney Spears” debuts Feb. 5 on FX and FX on Hulu.

The post Why The Truth About Britney Spears Is So Elusive appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[aestheticritique]

For young men (Part 1)

In my latest lockdown induced depressive episode I have been meeting some new people online. They are all young, male, mostly heterosexual, very nice and extremely considerate. However, they also are often afraid becoming a burden, insecure in their appearance or social skills, and often struggling with mental health. Given this, they are also usually extremely afraid of never finding themselves having sex or getting into a meaningful relationship in the late stage neoliberal capitalist dystopia we find ourselves in. To be honest I didn’t understand them at first, especially their obsession with sex. But the more I am thinking about it, the more I realize that we are united in the same dynamic of seeing sex or love as magic verfication of... What?

Growing up, I used hookups as a way to prove to myself that I am worth something. I thought that my value was defined by men’s desire. I originally in writing this wanted to show my perspective from the other side of the same coin, but after realizing how much of an undertaking that would be, I decided to start with the two most common answers from men used as justification to why they think they won’t get laid. These are things I find will help these kinds of people out, but as a great thinker once said...

“I can’t mom you through this one, boys. You are on your own.” - Contrapoints

(I link songs I like through out btw, the underlined text are links you can click on)

Foreword: Social factors

The average age of first intercourse has been rising in the US. Teenagers have less sex than ever before. These changes will affect you. In teen movies and shows charakters often experiment with sexuality before the age of 18. Everything else is played as an abnormality. If we compare ourselves to this misrepresentation of teenage sexuality, of course we seem like the losers.

“The proportion of young people who have had sexual intercourse increases rapidly as they age through adolescence”. It’s very likely, at least from my view, that you are just going to grow out of the awkward zone of wanting intimacy but not getting it. Just like you grew out of other things, such as bad musical taste or that one gaudy outfit. Don’t stress over this one specifically either.

Adolescence is weird for all of us. Even if your first encounter is after college, let’s be real here: having such a good thing in your own place without your parents looming or having to share your room with a roommate you barely know is so much better anyway.

The Ugly fuck too

A common answer to my question why they think that they will never have sex is that they are “unattractive”. The implication being, that sex is the prize for looking a certain way.

But is it? We are so used to the perfect, porn-ready bodies in the media that we forget that the Ugly fuck too. We never see the foldes of fat and skin, never see acne warriors or moles, never see people who actually look like us.

In the movie “The Parasite”, there is a scene where the husband of Gook Moon-gwang, the former housekeeper, is implied to have sex. (the clip, starts at 3:00) It gave me weird feelings of discomfort, as the illusion so stereotypically found on the silver screen was not present. These two characters are not pretty. They look old. She is fat and he is a balding skeleton. They are not special, and that’s okay.

Being fuckable does not equal beauty. Being fuckable does not equal beauty. It was a terrifying thought initially for someone like me who defined their value over beauty & their beauty as being fuckable. It might also be a scary thought for someone who doesn’t think that they deserve love and intimacy because of their looks. I promise you that you still deserve love! Sex did not cure my problems with my appearance, or the fact that I based my self-esteem on the way I look. It will not make you feel normal. It will not make you feel better, prove your worth or even give you more self esteem in the long term beyond the initial rush of dopamine. It is not a caravan to fulfillment.

Beauty is a concept that is based on exclusion. Allow yourself to feel the pain of being excluded, of not reaching the impossible beauty standards and the disadvantages that come with it. Allow yourself to feel the fear of not being “man enough” and be happy in spite of it.

“Patriarchal masculinity teaches us to control our pain, but it can block us from experiencing the grief that is part of a full life. Chasing pleasure and controlling pain is patriarchal. Opening ourselves up to joy and grief is to be fully human.”

”Those of us in that skinny nerd category are especially prone to thinking that we aren’t “man enough.” [..] But the more I talked to men, the more convinced I became that almost all men at some point in their lives don’t feel man enough. Even the men I thought were the “real men” were scared.

That’s not surprising. Masculinity in patriarchy—that is, masculinity in a system of institutionalized male dominance—trains men to be competitive, in pursuit of conquest, which leads to routine confrontation, with the goal of always being in control of oneself and others. But no matter how intensely competitive one is, no matter how complete the conquest, no matter how many successful confrontations, and no matter how much one stays in control—men are haunted by the fear that they aren’t man enough, that they can never stop proving their masculinity.” - Robert Jensen

Stop comparing your appearance to other men’s. Start talking and bonding with them over your undoubtably shared insecurities rooted in society’s relentless toxic masculinity. Unlearning the things you’ve been indoctrinated into since conception is damn hard. I am still in the middle of it personally, but I promise you it is worth it. It will improve not only your relationships with other men, but also with yourself and that one girl you’re pining after.

There are a ton of resources targeted at women about self acceptance, but not many for men. Robert Jenson comes from a tradition of critical men’s groups. Even though I don’t agree with him on everything, he manages to scare most men (especially the kind I mentioned in the first paragraph) to their core, but also improves their lives drastically with his kindness and radical ideas. I implore you to look him up, and try your best to keep an open mind.

“A person who functions normally in a sick society is themselve sick.”

The other most common answer  to the initial question was “being socially maladjusted”, implying that sex is something you earn by behaving a certain way. It is ingrained in the way we talk about love. “Deserving love” is the best example. Neither love nor sex is a product of work. Love and intimacy are a lot like sleep. It is a slow but unconscious process. You slowly work into it, with no idea of what comes next, and then, after an agonizingly long moment, you’re there. The fall is not often expected or easy, is always exhilarating, but never the product of conformity to anything except comfort with who you are.

I do acknowledge that social settings can be weird, existentially unsettling, and full of unseen complexities. This is especially true if you are neurodivergent and / or struggling with mental health.  Being neurodivergent or struggling with mental health goes against the impossible, hegemonically masculine standard of always being in controll. It’s a common cause behind feelings of emasculation. Disregard that feeling, and remember that you deserve love, no matter how manly you are or are not, no matter how you behave.

Learning social settings are lot like learning to skate. In the beginning you will be covered in bruises, but with enough effort, you will be better at it. The chance of mistakes will get lower, but never zero. You will always have awkward situations, but that doesn’t mean that you are bad at them. It just means that you have room to improve still. Maybe consider getting lessons or joining a skate crew.

We tend to hyperfocus on the accidents. Think about how many nice conversations you had over the internet, text or otherwise. I ask you to value them. Value these positive experiences, value your friendships and acquaintances, value the people supporting you, online and offline. We tend to hyperfocus on meaningfull longterm friendships, just like we hyperfocus on love. Value your social enviroment, value someone who just made you feel ok for a moment. You are socially adapted, because you have a social enviroment you feel comfortable in, where you have relationships with people. The depth of a relationship is not messured by time, nor by physical touch. Being mindful of your feelings for the people around you can make you realize that you are less alone than you thought.

Some Tips

If you want to make friends additionally to that, here are some tips from someone, who is bad at social clues:

Join a group with a common interest or struggle: Book clubs, activist groups, selfhelp groups, they are great settings to meet new people and you already have a topic to talk about :)

If you feel save about it: Being open about your issues can help other people adapt to you and understand you better - especially in early on in relationships.

People sitting at the bar or smoking outside are generally more open for conversation

Don’t be afraid of getting rejected: They don’t reject you, when they reject a conversation with you. The reasons people don’t want to talk to you is very diverse. Stay respectful and polite.

Don’t expect to much: No one owes you a long conversation. A smalltalk is perfectly fine.

Learn to make compliments casually and learn to compliments that aren’t based on appearance.

Find a common ground (politically, a interest ect.) and talk about it

Take a improv class, seriously TAKE A IMPROV CLASS! (there are online ones, and sometimes it’s even free)

Here are some youtube videos by Anna Akana with more tips. (1) conversations, (2) how to be a better friend, (3) overthinking

Here are is a piece about being bad at relationship I liked.

Footnote: Trophies and muses

“We do not want to do the work of helping you to believe in your humanity. We cannot do it anymore. We have always tried. We have been repaid with systematic exploitation and systematic abuse. You are going to have to do this yourselves from now on and you know it.” - Andrea Dowkin

Behind the whole obsession with sex is often a distorted perception of women. Just remind yourself that women are human? Access to female bodies is not a human right. We are not trophies to push your ego. We are not there to inspire you or heal you. We are humans with agency. We desire love and being loved, just like everyone else.

I am tired, but I believe in your humanity...

xoxo,

aestheticritique