#he made that 'i miss the old kanye' song as a joke but i miss the old kanye!!!!!!!!! his lyrics now are so uninspired and also he sucks

[heelcody]

"mayonnaise colored Benz I push miracle whips" and "I'm like the fly Malcom X buy any jeans necessary" some of the craziest bars of all time I think

[guessimjoiningthespidermanfandom]

Roses of Melrose

Peter Parker x bisexual!reader 

Peter Parker x fem!reader

Peter Parker x black!reader 

Peter Parker x villain!reader 

Warnings: Language, murder, death, mentions of gangs, gun violence, mercenaries, physical abuse, verbal abuse, parental neglect, drug use, underage drinking, mentions of knives, brief mentions of sex, blood, piercings. 

Word Count:  8.4k

Songs: Ultralight beam-Kanye, I love Kanye- Kanye, Good Kid-Kendrick Lamar, Sing about me I’m dying of thirst- Kendrick Lamar, Violent Crimes- Kanye, Apparently- J.Cole, Black Wave- K.Flay, Pretty Little Birds- SZA, Wouldn’t it be Nice- The Beach Boys. 

“  It was the way I fought back. It was my first ‘fuck you’ to everyone to everything. It was my best friend. It was my first love. So to you I’m just another girl with another basic rose tattoo but to me. To me? It’s the way I remember it’s the way I keep my friend with me. It’s the way I’d make sure I couldn’t forget the unforgettable”

A/N: Sorry it took so long to finish this school and home got in the way. Sorry If the grammar is off there was only one proof read. Hopefully you enjoy it. Sorry that there’s less Peter in this one. It’s more character building. 

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I had my suspicions about Peter being Spiderman, I mean it was kinda obvious he’s always leaving decathlon meetings according to MJ. They both have the same annoying ass optimism. No one is just that sure of anything. Like ever. Thanks to Liz I’d finally know. 

I entered the house having to maneuver past a couple of people standing in the hall past the front door. This party was tame compared to others I’d been to. Flash was DJ-ing he’s so annoying. Liz was cool though she was nice. 

I found MJ standing in the kitchen opening a pack of bread holding a jar of peanut butter. When I walked over and said 

“Only you would come to a party to just eat bread.”

She only replied with a short “Whatever loser,” 

“Hey, Peter Parker. Where’s your friend Spiderman?” Flash announced on the mic.

“Lemme guess with your imaginary girlfriend?”

Peter just stood there stunned 

“That’s not Spiderman that’s just Ned in a red shirt,” Okay that one would’ve been kinda funny if he didn’t add that annoying horn sound.  

“Shut the fuck up!” I said before smiling at Peter and walking off. I didn't do it for him, necessarily Flash was just annoying. Like I’ve never understood how someone with the grandpa name Eugene could talk so much shit. 

 I was making small talk with some random senior boy when I heard a high pitched squeal and excused myself to the bathroom. The sound only got louder and louder and louder. It was so painful it felt like Athena should’ve split my forehead and climbed her way out. My vision blurring together made me not able to grab onto anything as I lost balance. I wasn't going to cry, 

I wasn't. I couldn’t crying’s pathetic I wasn't going to cry. I could push through the pain. I’ve done it before, that's what I always do. Just when it got so intense I was sure I was gonna pass out it stopped. I did not pass out however I did throw up into the toilet. I looked in the mirror after washing my face off and for a second I could’ve sworn my eyes were glowing. Great now I’m going into a psychotic break why would my eyes be glowing. 

I just need some fresh air. Yeah that’s all. I sat there for a while letting my mind wander until I heard MJ’s voice from behind me. 

“So this is where you were? I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” She said as she sat down next to me. When I didn’t respond she turned facing me waving her hands my face 

“You good?” 

I looked up from picking at the grass. 

“I’m just tired MJ,” I mean I have every right to be tired there’s a whole fucking gang war going down where I live. Which makes no fucking sense why are people fighting over streets that no one actually owns. The weapons Vulture is selling make me good money, but they’re getting way too close to where my friends lived. I was snapped out of diving into all my problems by a purple cloud in the distance. Hearing the distant squeal slash siren hybrid. I felt my eyes widen. 

“What was that?” MJ asked. 

Fucking Vulture 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME. I told him to stay out of my neighborhood and he came to my friends. 

“I don’t know,” I said “Let’s just go back inside,”

As we were walking back to the backdoors I took one glance behind me, and there he was Spiderman heading towards the cloud

“Hey,” I called out walking closer to Ned, “Ned!”

He turned around 

“Who me?” He pointed to himself. 

“I mean I don’t see any other Neds around were,” I joked

“Oh, it’s you just usually don’t talk to me,” He pointed out. 

“Yeah sorry about that,” I said “Actually where’s Peter? I can’t seem to find him,” 

“Oh he uh,” he scratched the back of his neck “He had to go,” 

“Aw, how unfortunate,” I patted his shoulder “Well enjoy the party I have to go too,” So Ned knew Peter was Spiderman. 

“Can I get a ride?” I asked MJ to which she just said 

“You don’t have to ask,”

 “Just drop me off at the corner store by my house,”

It never felt awkward around MJ. Normally I had to be on high alert around everyone, but it’s never like that with her. This isn't an “honor” many people have but she’s one of the few I feel comfortable falling asleep around. I knew being in the car would make me feel sick so I drifted off. 

Shutting the door to the car we said our goodbyes and I headed into the gas station when Mr. William greeted me. I felt a warm feeling in my body. It was nice but short lived and replaced by an emptiness that humans like to call nostalgia. I missed feeling “home” I still lived here. I don’t know why It seems like I don't. I guess it was the fact I’d been giving more attention to Queens and Thorn lately. I know it’s not the projects anymore which I am immensely grateful for but it’s the same neighborhood. According to Briana, one of the like 3 friends I managed to keep I “never come around anymore” or “I’m too good for them”. 

I made my way to the bathroom and located the tile I kept my burner phone in. I used to keep it in a shoe box at home until my sister started going through the phase where she feels the need to borrow all my clothes. Stomping on the edge of the tile it flipped up and I grabbed the phone and shoved it in the pocket of my hoodie. 

Getting a soda and some gummy worms before I left. I started to walk back to my apartment complex. I went up to sit on the roof of the building just eating my gummies looking. That was something I did a lot just look. When I was younger I couldn’t stand being alone in my own head, but the older I got the more I began to understand why old people would just sit out on their porch doing nothing but looking. 

When I checked my phone it was 12:47 and I decided it was time to go back in. First I sent out a message on the burner phone to what I hope to God was the right number. 

I headed back down to my room and spent the whole night tossing and turning. When I put on a podcast I slept much easier. I found that the environment I grew up in bred me to not be able to sleep probably without some sort of noise even if it’s just arguing. 

I woke up with my phone on my face and my bonnet halfway across the continent. I checked my phone fully expecting to be late but by some blessing I had at least two hours to get ready before I had to leave. The house was quiet like eerily quiet no TV on or anything. I went to wake up the drama queen, middle child, Aaliyah. When I say drama queen I mean both acting and just straight up being dramatic. And then there’s Sapphire who’s the physical embodiment of a Gemini. I flicked on the lights, revealing toys scattered all over Sapphire‘s side of the room. The only response I got was from Aaliyah who simply whined and pulled her blanket over her head. I picked up a pair of rolled up socks and tossed them at her to which she loudly exclaimed 

“Ow!” 

See what I mean by dramatic but thankfully for me, she woke up Sapphire meaning I didn’t have to step on sharp plastic trying to navigate her side. Not that I could judge her though I can’t remember the last time I had the motivation to clean my room. 

I was fully expecting my dad to be passed out on the couch when I walked into the living room but he wasn’t. He wasn’t in his room either. This was nothing out of the ordinary though, he’d probably be back tonight or tomorrow.

One of the perks of my dad being gone was I could use the bathroom in his room to shower and take as long as I want. Another perk of dad not being here is I can take his car today instead of my skateboard. My sisters don't go to a local school but it’s still way closer to our home then Midtown so they don’t have to go so far away. I,on the other hand, have to skate to the bus stop, get on the metro then get on a subway and skate the rest of the way to school. 

“Y’all wanna get something to eat?” I asked my sisters once we were in the car. 

“Wendys!” Sapphire interjected from the backseat 

“No one wants to eat Wendys,” Aaliyah turned around from the passenger to face her. “Get McDonald’s” she demanded, turning back to face me. 

“Oh so you don’t want Wendys but you can eat the plastic from McDonald's,” Sapphire asked accusingly. 

“Wendy's tastes like shit,” 

“You taste like shit,” 

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

I just giggled at the fact this is what they decided to argue about. 

“I’m just gonna get somethin’ from Mr. Washington, Since it’s the closest thing to us” was all I said before turning the radio up. 

I pulled into the parking lot. Looking at the buildings that look like they should be dead. With their bulletproof windows with anti robbery bars. It’s honestly depressing if you think about it for too long. But these places are nothing but living and bustling no matter what. Like the roses in the cracks of the sidewalk. I left the keys in the ignition once my sister confirmed they weren’t coming inside. 

“Hey Y/N,” Mr.Washington’s son said from the kitchen. I believe he’s 18 now?

“Hey,” I nodded my head at him walking towards his father to order. 

“Hey, Y/N how are you doing?”

“I’m good how are you?” 

“I’m good thanks for asking, you know you look more and more like your mom everyday,” he pointed out and I just smiled. “She was a great kid,” 

“Yeah…” I trailed off. 

“So the usual?” he asked and I nodded. 

I don’t know how but he remembered everyone’s usual orders and knows everyone’s names. 

Quick rule of thumb the best food comes in brown paper bags.

Once I was back in the car I had to make the conscious effort not to speed. MJ never goes anywhere when I drive because I “drive like I have nothing to live for” which personally I just think she’s dramatic. 

Honestly my sisters are so lucky they go to a local school. I mean yeah the education at Midtown is better than the local highschool, but it’s not like I even belong there. So basically I commute almost 40 minutes everyday to a school I’m not smart enough to go to.  

By the time lunch came around I had a terrible headache the smell of my food made me vomit. And no I’m not being dramatic I really had to stop by the bathroom and throw up. 

Now I didn’t really feel like walking all the way over to sit at my usual table so I just sat with the school stoners. Yes cliques are real and if this were a movie I’d be one of those clique surfers. Pretty much everyone is a clique surfer if we’re being honest. 

I don’t know why they get such a bad wrap stoners have got to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Like this one girl Jessica she gave me one of my first tattoos for free in freshman year when I met her. Since she noticed that I looked stressed, she offered to let me hit her cart. I didn’t even have to ask her 

Oh my god I’ll marry you were my exact thoughts at that moment. That I’d apparently voiced out loud because she responded with. 

“I’m down. When’s the wedding?” 

Her and two guys who were sitting at the table with us made their way to the boys bathroom with me. 

 After about 3 hits I could feel the life returning to my body as if the rain finally stopped crashing down and the rainbow entered the sky. I could've sworn I heard God say “I’ll never flood the earth again” 

“Do you think I’d look good with a nostril piercing?” I asked while examining my nose in the mirror. 

“Are you kidding me? You’d look hot as fuck,” Jessica added in. 

“You should pierce her nose, J” the guy who was standing closest to the door said. Zach I think. 

“Yeah I could do that, do you want me to?” She asked. 

I pondered it for a second before the boy who already looked off of cloud nine Tyler I believe his name was interjected with 

“She’s really good at it, she did my girlfriends,” 

You know what? Fuck it 

“Why the hell not,” I said

“Alright,” she said after clapping her hands and walking over to her backpack on the floor. She pulled out a lighter and an earring. She lit the earring to disinfect and I hopped up on the sink and she moved towards the right side of my body. Just as she was asking me where exactly I wanted it we all jumped at the sound of the door creaking open. 

Low and behold Peter Parker of all people walked in. 

“Uh I was just gonna...yeah,” He stammered out still standing by the door. He was still just staring at me. Now I’m not sure if it was because I was a girl in the boys bathroom, if I looked high, or if it was the fact I was about to pierce my nose in a dirty school bathroom but he was starting to make me feel awkward. 

“Can I help you?” I asked. 

“Oh,” he said as a blush raised up his cheeks “I’m just gonna,” he pointed to one of the stalls before scurrying into it. 

Jessica simply chuckled and called him cute.

By the time he came back out to wash his hands the earring was already pushed into my nostril with a slight pinch. Jessica told me that I’d have to clean the piercing everyday for a couple weeks, which is something I could manage. I hopped down the sink and asked 

“Do I look okay?” Referring to my eyes

“Yeah and me?” Jessica asked

“Yeah you’re good,” I reassured her. That was the last thing she needed to hear before her and the other two guys left the bathroom. 

As Peter was washing his hands I turned back around to look at my nose in the mirror. It was still a little red with irritation. It was also slightly sore to the touch. I was shaken out of my thoughts by Peter’s voice. 

“Did that hurt?” He asked. 

He was so adorable. 

“This?” I pointed to my nose and he nodded. 

“No not really,” I said grabbing my bag off the floor. 

“Well this very short convo has been a blast but I gotta go,” 

Okay so, I hadn’t been to the class in like forever because of the sheer fear of what would happen cause I skipped it so much. However, my fear of having to confront Olivia is stronger and she was coming towards me so, I ran in through the door. Ugh I’m such a pussy. I saw her walk out of my view. I was gonna turn back out and leave but ,unfortunately I had already locked eyes with the teacher. Looking around at all the students staring at me I just looked back at the teacher. 

“Y/N! So nice of you to finally join us,” Ms Warren just had to announce. I simply choose to give a curt nod before she said 

“We’re doing a partnered assignment, you can sit by Peter,” She said while pointing near the back of the classroom.  

I made my way to the back of the class and slumped into the seat. 

“Hey,” I said putting my legs on the empty desk in front of me. 

“Hey, didn’t know you were in this class,” Peter pointed out. 

“I mean I don’t think I’ve been here since the second week of school? Yeah I’m not sure. So from the beginning of sophomore year to now would be like maybe 1…2...3. No 2, yeah 2.” I went on before realizing I was rambling “Sorry I’m talking too much I’m like tiniest bit faded right now, and okay let me shut up,” 

“No, no you’re fine. I like hearing you talk” 

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered before raising my hand. 

“Yes Y/N?” Ms Warren asked. 

“Can I go to the bathroom?” 

She sighed “Uh, Yes I guess that’s fine just don’t take to long,” 

I grabbed the pass and started down the hallway. I was never planning to go to the bathroom. In all honesty I was going to the freshmans’ lunch cause I’d gotten hungry. I was in the line to get snacks when I felt a buzz in my pocket. I knew it was the burner phone so I got my chips and went outside to the area of the school with no cameras. Looking around to make sure no one was looking. I opened the text. Which read 

this T?- B 

yes, do you still have it?- T I responded 

I do- B 

ok meet at usual X and Place- T 

ok- B

I’d confirmed my brother could pick up my sisters from daycare. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about them at home when I was doing what I needed to do. 

I was trying to keep a low profile. I don't need anyone to claim they saw Thorn tonight. Since I’ve been on the radar of the police more often lately. No one would be looking in an abandoned train cart anyways. I‘d be fine. I just went with a black hoodie and a bandana to cover my face. 

But of course Black Cat was in her suit because when was she ever not. 

“You sure this is it?” I asked 

“Yes I’m sure,” she said and placed the flash drive in my hand. I stuffed it in the pocket of my hoodie. 

“Don’t forget what we talked about,” she said pointedly. 

“Yeah, yeah I’ve got you,” 

Great now I have to get into the government protected flash drive and clear her name. Just as I was about to turn to leave. The sound of someone sliding open the doors to one of the carts. 

“Were you followed?” she whispered

“No of course not,” I rolled my eyes 

I only had one weapon on me but I knew that Black Cat could handle whoever it was. Although just because she could do this on her own doesn’t mean I was gonna help. I had one expandable baton. Waiting for whoever was here to come in. I got my baton knocked out of my hand. 

The fight that broke out wasn’t really a fight if you could even call it that, it was just like 3 guys trying to get the flash drive and us knocking them out. I did however get my fair share of bruises but that’s only because I was thrown into the wall once. I did have a pretty deep gash on my forehead but I should be able to cover it with a headband.  

I almost gave myself a heart attack when I checked my sisters’ room because I forgot they were at our brothers house. My dad also still wasn’t home so I was just sitting home alone on the living room floor watching ‘Nick at Night’ with a caked up bloody forehead eating cold leftover spaghetti. 

I knew my dad had come home because I heard the keys turning in the door but I was too tired to move. 

I should’ve moved. 

By the way the door was slammed shut I could tell he was in a bad mood. And what’d he do when he was in a bad mood? Take it out on me. 

I don’t remember what happened. I just know he said I looked like a whore and I probably got heated and blacked out, but I do know I was in immense pain and my nose was bleeding and the police were on their way. 

Only two things could come from my dad calling the police: I get sent back to the Psych ward or I get arrested. I wasn’t about to stick around to find out which one was going down. 

I grabbed my skateboard and took off. Technically he did kick me out so he couldn’t say I ran away. 

I can’t exactly recall how I remember where he lived seeing as I hadn’t been there since his girlfriend died. 

I was going to knock but I knew he never actually opens the door. I went around to the back and started banging on the window and I’m sure looking at this from an outsider's view it must’ve looked like I was breaking in. Which I’m not sure that I wasn’t. I could see his shadow. 

“Open the fucking door, Wade!” I yelled from the door I could see his light was on. 

He sleepily strutted down to the door and slid it open. 

“What do you- Oh my god you look terrible,” He stated. 

“Oh really? Thanks, I didn’t notice,” I spat back pushing past him. 

I popped down on the couch. 

“I need somewhere to stay for a minute” I said once I was settled in. 

He moved over to me and grabbed my face but I pushed his hands away. 

“I’m fine,” I lied “Can I stay here though?” 

“Did you really think I’d ever say no?”

He examined my face again 

“Did your dad do this?” He asked. 

He took my silence for the answer that it was. 

“Do you want me to kill him?” He asked as what I thought was supposed to be a joke but I was scared to answer yes cause I knew there was a chance he actually would.

He was never very fond of my dad from the moment he’d met my mom. Wade was always trying to keep my mom away from him.

If only she’d listened. 

“Yes, I was joking and go clean your face before you get infected” 

Oh well I guess I voiced that thought out loud. 

I promise I was just looking for the first-aid kit but who was I to say no to a 6 ounce bottle of Hennessy. It was almost as if it’s eyes bore into my soul calling after me because it knew I was too weak to resist. 

The sweet burning sensation of it going down my throat was relieving and fun at first until I realized I was turning into my dad. Then it wasn’t so appealing anymore it was just depressing. 

The last thing on earth that I’d want would be anything like him. It was pathetic. 

It was pathetic how I had to throw up because apparently I couldn’t handle my alcohol.

It was pathetic how I couldn’t even bring myself to stand in the shower. 

It was pathetic how I couldn’t even hide the fact I was drunk. 

It was pathetic how I broke down crying in front of Wade. 

It was pathetic how he had to lull me to sleep by stroking my hair. 

It was pathetic because I knew he wasn’t mad.

It was pathetic because it wasn’t anger it was pathetic because it was pity. 

Pity. I hated pity with my entire chest. She always seemed to just hold you down underneath the water knowing you couldn’t breath but the feeling around you made you believe you were floating. It’s like the feeling of drowning in the open sea but it isn’t painful but still you know you’re gonna die but you can’t help but look at how beautiful everything around you is. All the fish, the seaweed, the sunlight shining through the water. But still you’re drowning and you know you’re gonna die so how beautiful can it really be?

Pity. That’s what I saw in the hallways so I knew I must’ve looked terrible because no one bothered to say anything negative about me. Everytime anyone looked at me it was like they knew. They knew. They knew that I had a shitty life and a fucked up family. Of course they didn’t but I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that everyone knew. 

Everyone was looking at me with a glint of pity in their eyes because I knew I looked like I was going to pass out at any moment now, I had bruises everywhere, I had no makeup to cover them up, possibly had a broken rib, and the gash on my forehead was probably still visible under the sweatband.  

Literally everyone looked like they felt bad for me. Except Flash. I never thought I’d say this but, thank God for Flash. The only sense of normalcy I’d experienced all day, was him calling me a witch then acting like it was the funniest thing ever and walking off after I told him to go fuck himself. One thing about Flash is he’s unoriginal. He'll find one “good” joke and use it for the rest of his life. The fact I could put out a lit match in my mouth spread around through a tiktok at some point, and he’s been calling me a witch ever since. I’m assuming the fact I had a pretty gothic style freshman year probably played a part in it too. Major small dick energy right there. 

I was on the verge of passing out and all I really wanted was to go out and get high with my old friends but I can never get what I want. Can I? The universe must really fucking hate me.

I just went to the nurses office and slept all throughout lunch but when I woke it was like I was even more tired than before. 

I wonder if this is what zombies feel like. I couldn’t tell if it was getting bad again or if I was just getting sick because the lines were blurred between a depressive episode and a cold or the flu. However my eyes were watery and my nose was stuffed so hopefully it was the latter. 

The odds had finally aligned in my favor and the class I’d skipped like all year teacher was out. We had my favorite sub who was really just the ISS teacher. Normally I would’ve sat by him and caught him up on all the chisme I had but I felt terrible. So I just leaned on the closest person to me instinctively. Once my brain caught up to my body and I realized. I was laying on Peter's shoulder. I shot it and immediately apologized. 

“Oh no, you’re fine I don’t mind,” he said. 

Well okay then. I think I slept at least 10 minutes in every single class today. Which is good I’d need it cause I forgot I promised my brother I’d babysit today. 

After I sent Wade a text that I probably wouldn’t be back in his house for a while. I went to my brother's house. Sometimes I’m jealous of him for getting to escape our dad and live in an actual nice area.  He literally has a house. Like he has his own property, no landlords or anything.  Pros of him having a different mom I guess. However he needs to stop having kids. Like yes I love my niece and my nephews however they can be the biggest pain in the ass. 

“I get off at like 11, so make sure they don’t break anything or die thanks, and you know where everything’s at, so,” He said, giving me a hug before walking towards the door but right before he opened it he turned around with a smile on his face. 

“Oh and don’t get my kids high,” 

I rolled my eyes trying to keep the edges of my mouth from turning into a smile. I lost that battle. 

“Yeah, yeah whatever asshole,” I flipped him off. 

I went into the room where the youngest child was sleeping. Taylon, he was about 1 I believe. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about him for a while. I made it back to the front room where the two trouble makers Kaitlyn and Jason. Kaitlyns the oldest at 4 years old and Jason at 2. Although I don’t think Kaitlyn has ever gotten in trouble like ever because she’s a huge daddy’s girl. 

I had like 36 missing assignments for Physics and about 4 things of homework one test to study for, a partnered project to work on, still had to go two decathlon practice 3 days a week, and a flashdrive to get past the firewall of. God could I use some adderall right now. 

By distracting the kids in the room with me with the Cocomelon channel. 

I’d put my headphones on and nodded along to my music and actually got two homework assignments done in a relatively short time before the screaming started. I went to get Taylon who’d woken up because he peed. I changed his diaper but he was still crying. 

I truly did not have time for this. I fed him and everything. Thank God the Cocomelon was still distracting the other kids. Whoever made that channel needs a raise. I could not get him to stop crying for more than 5 minutes. I found if I held him he’d stop but I didn’t have the time to just sit around holding him. 

I gave him my phone and let him play with that which shut him up. 

Then Kaitlyn decided to come and pester me about food. I made peanut butter jelly sandwiches, but they decided they didn’t want them after I’d already made them. So here I was making spaghetti with a toddler on my hip and doing homework at the same time. 

I’d actually gotten used to all this multi tasking that’s when I heard a knock at the door. 

I put the spoon back in the pot and closed my textbook heading over to the door. 

I open the door to Peter standing there. 

“Uh Hello?” I asked more than said. 

“Uh, yeah hi, we were supposed to work on the project?” 

“Oh shi-” I almost said then remembered I was holding a kid. “Sorry I forgot,” If we're being completely honest I don’t remember anything from school that day nor do I remember telling him to come here but I wasn’t gonna send him away. 

“Well you can come in” I announced stepping towards the side of the door. 

“Sorry about the chaos” I gestured to everything. ”You can go sit on the couch, I’ll be right over” 

He did just that and sat his backpack on his lap. 

“Jason, Kaitlyn bebé ven a buscar tu comida” 

( Jason Kaitlyn baby come get your food) 

They made their way over still attached to the tablet. 

“I thought your dad said no tablet at the table?” I said. I wasn’t really going to take it away, I was just teasing. 

“I thought you were fun tía,” Jason shot back. 

“I am fun!” I said fake hurt and they both giggled. 

I slid the plates across the table towards them. “Here eat,” 

“¿Es tu novio de ahí?” Kaitlyn asked looking over at Peter. 

(Is that your boyfriend over there?)

“No he’s not, but can you watch your brother for me for a little bit?” 

She nodded. I shifted Taylon off my hip and slipped him into his high chair and gave him a bag of chips. 

Plopping down next to Peter I clapped my hands.

“Okay sorry about the wait, so what do we need to do?” 

After explaining the project to me we’d gotten half of it done and Taylon was napping again and everyone else was quiet and watching TV. We probably could’ve finished the whole thing if we hadn’t gone on so many tangents. Peter was actually good at explaining things. 

We talked about literally everything from favorite flavors of starburst to life goals and shit. I don't know what I want in life actually. It’d be cool to go to college but it’s expensive and no one else in my family has been. 

When it got late Peter announced that he had to go. 

“Alright let me walk you out,” I pushed up off the couch.

“You’re really smart, I know you don’t think that but you are,” he said almost out of nowhere once we were out the door. I could feel my face heat up. This is a moment I was thankful for my melanin allowing me not to blush. 

“Thank you, you’re not so bad yourself, Parker,” 

“So we're doing this same time tomorrow right?” 

“Yes, that’s the plan,” 

For the past week I’d convinced my brother to let my babysit everyday so I could still hang out with Peter. I never thought that we of all people could be friends. Before this he was so like “Peter” just way too much. Once you get to know him he’s not that bad. We’d finished the project and I still hadn’t done any of my other work but by the power of adderall I’d gotten into the flashdrive. I was too scared to check anything in it, but I did erase Black Cats name from the police station records. 

It’d been at least three more days and I hadn’t done any work. I hadn’t talked to Peter or MJ or anyone else either. The one other human I’ve had contact with is Wade. Even with me living at his house it was still minimal. I hadn’t gotten much sleep because adderall keeps you up at all hours of the day but I don’t think I could survive without it. 

I knew I had to be walking. I was walking because I had to. I mean I was walking and I had no intention of stopping. I was getting major deja vu. This exact place felt so familiar.

Oh- that’s why.

I was in the projects where I used to live. I was off in Bronxchester off of 156th St. Ann’s Avenue. I hate this place so much.

I hated it.

I hated it. 

I hated it. 

Having to live in a rat infested one bedroom apartment sleeping cramped up on top of my siblings was literally the worst time of my life. The shitty school University Heights where half the girls were pregnant. Not to mention my dad was on a fucking rage rampage all the time cause he couldnt get a job as a felon. 

I was still walking though. I knew I was going somewhere. Not sure where until I’d gotten near the Hartz chicken on the end of the street. That’s where I was going. I knew I was meeting up with my friend. How could I forget that? I was about to cross the street until someone in a grey van rolled down their window sticking out a gun.

I knew she was gonna get shot. There was nothing I could do to stop it. Yet still I was screaming at least I was trying to. I couldn’t find my voice. 

By the time I could it was too late.

I’d seen her. The bullets piercing her skin would be something seared into my brain forever. And as fast as the car came it was gone. 

Then I was running. I was running to get to her because I could still help her. I had to.

She was bleeding and there was too much blood. It was everywhere. I remember my brother told me if someone is ever bleeding out you need to stop the blood. 

I could barely see because my tears were clouding my vision. I was pushing down on her stomach screaming for someone to call 9-1-1. Just to help. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” I remember saying it over and over again I don’t know if I was trying to convince myself or her.. 

The police got here right after I’d watched her eyes gloss over just because that’s how it works in Melrose. Yes she was gone but she was only the first of many. The police had never done anything for me before so why would they start now. 

They had to pry me off her. They couldn't, I had to help, I had to… I had to help. She didn’t like to be alone. Yeah sure she’d done bad things but she didn't deserve this. She was just a kid. I was just a kid. They took her phone while I was screaming not to touch her.

 They asked for my parents' information. I didn’t want to tell them, I didn’t want my dad. I don’t wanna see him. I just wanted my friend back. They loaded her into the back of the ambulance. I

 knew they were driving away. I was running and screaming. I could feel people staring. I knew they were looking at me. I knew they knew. I didn’t care, I had to run. I had to get her. A pair of hands grabbed me from behind and I started thrashing. 

I couldn’t, I can’t, I had to help, I had to help her. I was still screaming and my throat was sore. Her blood was everywhere, it was all over me and I couldn’t I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t help myself. I was scared. 

“Hey,” I felt myself being shook from behind. “Hey!” 

I turned around to Wade’s familiar face. 

“I’m sorry for waking you, I know it’s dangerous or something like that but you were just screaming and I got worried,” 

Wasn’t supposed to wake me?

“I was,” my voice was small I sounded 5 I felt 5 “I was sleeping walking?” 

“Yeah you were”  he confirmed, leading me to one of the stools by his kitchen island. 

He sat me down, walked off and got me a glass of water. I didn’t realize how bad I was shaking until I tried to bring the cup to my lips. 

He brought a towel to the side of my arm dabbing at it. The blood dripped from the side of my wrist all the way down to my elbow. 

“What’d you cut yourself on?” He asked and I shrugged my shoulders. 

“You know they never even said her name?” I said after we sat in silence for a moment. 

“What?” 

“Rose you know my friend,” 

“Oh…” he said as the realization of who I was talking about settled in. 

“Yeah her, they never said her name no one said it around me because they felt I was gonna break, they all just looked at me like I was made out of glass, I don’t even know how people knew I was there. But I was- I was just so angry, ”  

I waited to see if he was going to say anything but he didn’t. He was just going to listen, no jokes to lighten the mood just listening. 

“Even on the news. To everyone outside of St Ann’s she was just a ‘14 year old girl caught up in gang violence fatally shot’ they used a terrible picture of her too. It made my blood boil that, that was all she got, Then I realized that’s just how it was for us and the only way I was making it out the hood was if it was 6 feet under,” 

My mom used to say that’s what they did for black people, used a picture of them looking ‘hood’ some people call it a thugshot. They use a picture that makes them look mean and aggressive. She was neither of those things she was the nicest person I ever knew. She just got caught up in the gang mess because it was the only family she had.  

“I’ve never talked about this before, but I feel like everyone just forgot about her like it’s only been 2 years and I’ve never heard anyone say her name. At least not around me” I ran my finger on the tattoo of a rose. “This was the first tattoo I’d ever gotten I did it myself so it’s kinda shitty but I feel like it keeps her memory alive, because if no one else was gonna do it and If wasn’t gonna then who would you know?” I trailed off for a second. Then noticed he was in the Deadpool suit just without the mask. 

“Where are you going?” I asked. 

“Now I think you know me well enough to know I’m not telling you that,” He smiled and I smiled back weakly. 

“You’ll be okay though?” He asked. 

“Now I think you know me well enough to know I’ll be okay,” I turned his own words against him. 

I glanced back down at the tattoo and I remember looking over the tattoo on my finger for you it means merely nothing. Just another girl getting another basic tattoo. For me it means everything. It was the way I fought back. It was my first ‘fuck you’ to everyone to everything. It was my best friend. It was my first love. So to you I’m just another girl with another basic rose tattoo but to me. To me? It’s the way I remember it’s the way I keep my friend with me. It’s the way I’d make sure I couldn’t forget the unforgettable. Roses are delicate and fragile but they’ll hurt you when you try to pick them. So even the most beautiful of flowers would defend itself if it came to it. To you my rose tattoo is just a flower. However, to me Rose was the most beautiful human this world had ever seen.

Art had to be my favorite subject. Solely for the reason I’ve never had a non chill art teacher, but today it was Physics which is usually my least favorite class. 

Only because the class made me feel like my day was turning around. 

MJ was standing next to me when I opened by locker and loudly exclaimed 

“Yes!” 

“What?” She turned to me “What is it?” 

“Sorry for scaring you, it's nothing. I just found some candy” I held up the Push Pop “See?” 

“Oh if you don’t show up to practice today they’re kicking you off the decathlon team, and make sure you get to class on time though,” 

“Of course when have I ever been late,” 

She gave me a look that had “really?” written all over it. 

“Okay don’t answer that question but I’m going, now you need to get to class you have a test to take,” 

I’d taken the test already because I had Harrison’s class on A day, but MJ wasn’t the type to cheat. She was smart enough and didn’t need my help.

She was very smart but she wasn’t smart enough to know the Push Pop wasn’t really a push pop at all. 

It was a cart that I thought I’d lost. It was just hidden in an empty Push Pop. Nightmares made me stressed and I know the perfect way to relieve stress. I know many actually such as (good) sex, running, fighting, throwing knives at shit, and weed. Luckily for me this is the last one. 

So here I was sitting in the back of the class by the farthest window away from Peter with a “Push Pop” in my mouth and my head down on the desk. I never really paid attention in class but today we were just watching some documentary so I didn’t have to. 

One of the students office workers came in and gave a note to the teacher and I figured it was about the new student I heard some of the students talking about here and there. I didn’t think anything of it until. 

Briana walked in behind Principal Morita. Briana was my best friend from elementary through middle school and the first half of freshman year before I switched schools. She acted... I didn’t wanna say ghetto but you could definitely tell she was from Melrose if you were from there. I can’t blame her with her dad being a leader to the local set and all. 

The teacher told her to introduce herself to the class and she kept it short and sweet. Then she was told to find a seat. I waved her over and she sat next to me. 

“I thought you’d forgotten about me,” She said. 

I laughed 

“As if, you’re the most extra person I know,” I said, taking another hit. 

“First of all fuck you second of all give me a hit,” I smiled handing the “Push Pop” over to her.

”Don’t you dare get caught.” 

She stuck her head under the table lightly blowing out her mouth then inhaling before the vapours could go too far out. 

“So where you been at? Haven’t heard from you in a minute,” 

“Been busy with school shit, but I’ve been around,” I responded taking the “Push Pop” from her again. 

“How’s your dad?” She asked. I just gave her an incredulous look and went.

“How’s your dad,” 

“Same old same old,” 

We spent the rest of the class with her catching me up on the people from our crew and reminiscing. Also might be good to mention we finished half the cart. So I was bugging. We both were. I would not have remembered to go to the decathlon meeting if it weren’t for MJ reminding me again. I didn’t really care for the team. I was just an alternative and I was only doing it so I could pass Mr. Harrington’s class because of the  extra credit. 

Thank God Peter wasn't at the meeting. I hadn’t talken to him since we turned in our project last week. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him per se. I could just feel myself getting closer to him and I didn't have time for more friends. Because everyone I end up loving leaves me. The more people you let into your life the more people you give the chance to leave. Seeing as I was ‘Thorn’ I probably shouldn’t get close to Spiderman anyway. 

Flash was talking about Briana. He didn't say her name directly but I knew he was talking about her. Since he was talking about the new girl. He talked shit about everyone, so I don’t know why this made me as angry as it did. It just rubbed me the wrong way but it did. Seeing as I naturally gave zero fucks and had no impulse control. I definitely had way less control over myself when high. So before I knew it I’d punched him in the nose. 

“Y/N!” Liz and MJ yelled simultaneously. 

“What the fuck?” Flash screamed, holding his face. 

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fucking daddy’s money ass bitch,” I pointed in my face. 

“Y/N enough, go to the office,” Mr. Harrington said. 

I could hear Flash calling me crazy as I walked out the room. Which put a smile on my face. The weird thing about principals is that the more you get in trouble the more they like you and the less harsh your punishments. I only got a week of detention which wasn’t too bad but that stupid “so you got dentention” video of Captain America was gonna get extremely annoying. 

I was right it’d only been two days and every time I heard it I wanted to rip my head off. By the third day Peter and MJ had both joined me. 

MJ didn’t even actually have detention she never did; she just liked to “draw people in despair” or whatever it was that she said. Today she was drawing Peter. It was surprising to see him here.  I was scrolling through tiktok. I was going to say something to him but what would I even say?

I grew some balls and I’d said hi. It was just small talk but we still spoke nonetheless. The week was going by so fucking fast. Tomorrow’s the day we’re going to Washington. I did have to spend a lot of my saved money though. I’d spoken to my sisters and they said dad was sober now and he wanted me to come home. Which I’m not sure if I believe. I mean I know he’s sober. I talked to him too but how long would that last. How many times has this happened before? I don’t have time to worry about him. 

It seemed like I had only blinked and now I was on the bus to D.C. Now for the next couple of days I gotta stay in a hotel room. Nothing out of the ordinary for me, except now I get to stay with MJ and Bri. I don’t know how I managed to convince Mr. Harrington to let her come. 

Peter had almost missed the bus but showed up last minute. Liz was drilling people and MJ was sitting near her participating so I had the seat to myself. Bri was behind me on facetime with her boyfriend who just happened to be my ex. None of it was awkward though since we only dated for like a week and decided we were better off as friends. If we were being honest I was so tired. I felt like shit. Listening to sad music when sad is a set routine of mine so I was listening to Violent Crimes and staring out the window before I knew it I had drifted off to sleep. 

Taglist:

@tomdiddlyumptious

[wormmomma]

tyler, the creator: the very queer discography review!!!

Im bored of writing overly long threads on twitter so i wrote a look at tyler the creators discography and why hes gay and im gay and deserved to have his dick immortalized in gold when he dies. So tyler gregory okanma is a black man born in ladera heights california. He’s also my third favorite rapper and since he discovered my favorite rapper earl sweatshirt I guess he deserves goat status for that shit too. Tyler started his career around 17 years old as the ace the creator. He did features at the time with casey veggies and the inspirations in his flow to mf doom where already apparent even back then. From ace the creator mixtape you can already hear the very digital and jazz inspired pharrell production. Funny story if you look up any of his ace stuff now you'll mostly find some really old production that in the age of tyler the creator type beats doesn't really hold u all that great. From there Tyler went on to create odd futures and his first album bastard. He quite quickly followed up bastard with godlin. Goblin, bastard, and the OF tape vol.1 all feel pretty interconnected so im gonna speed round from worst to best. So odd future tape volume one is fun and punk and really crass, it's also completely eclipsed by odd futures other releases. I love odd future and the collective's ability too be both edgy teen skate rap garbage, and a risky artistic rap collective all at the same time. In odd future's first tape it seems pretty clear that tylers description of the groups early work as a bunch of niggas joking around in a studio is very apparent for better or worse. If you wanna get high with some friends can listen to some funny edgy and downright grimey tracks over left brains booking production skip this and listen to odd future's next mixtape but come back here to listen to some funny skits and a few proto mellowhype track with domo genesis. Goblin is Tyler's attempt to do a bigger darker more sprawling version of bastard but misses the mark. I like the album and I love singles on the album. Goblin the opening track is amazing and is a great look at tylers mental state attempting to live up to his newfound fame and anxiety about his infamy. I love yonkers and tron cat. Tyler says alot at this time that he doesn't make horrorcore and he's correct but the lack of emotional honesty and his immature deflections is really going off on all cylinders. If you dont wanna hear skits like “my bitch suck dick” and lines like “im not homophobic faggot” i would probably call it his worst album. Before i talk about bastard id like to go over his use of slurs and rape in his work. Tylers consistent lyrics about violence towards women and use of the lgbtq community really don't insult me. I feel like his lyrical content is filled with a clear look of how angry and insecure tyler was about not having a father or any way of processing his angst. Did he have to sound like a incel threatening to stalk and murder women who refuse to love him for over 3 albums? No, but i really enjoy looking at his early music. He doesn't shy away from how angry, sad and desperate he was at the time. That synthesis of need for fatherly love, anger from a lack of it and deteriorating mental state honestly makes the content more palatable. Also as a black trans women id rather hear tranny an faggot bars from a male rapper making intreeating music. Tyler at the time was being honest, angry and vulnerable not like eminem and action bronson who spit these bars with all the same rap bravado and violent anger toward women with zero pathos. Bastard is amazing, it's an intimate dark album. At the time it felt like it was tapping right into where I was at the time. The amount of mental anguish on bastards opening track really hit me. I was an angry kid with a lot of angst and bipolar disease so hearing a rapper yell about that same dysfunction really meant alot to me. The flows are amazing and it was a really good look at tylers ability to build a narrative. Wolf was tyler's next album. For a while wolf was my favorite album by tyler. His look at relationships and breakups on bimmer and ifhy are amazing and are expanded on his future releases. Find your wings and treehome are also a good look at his more melodic influence. It was such a good album I actually bought the mrech for and went to see Tyler at afropunk. Also hearing an entire song about the death of his grandma really hit me, my grandfather died around the same time. Cherry bomb was bad, now moving one. Ok im  joking i've listened to it two or three times but its really not worth going back to even though tyler put his all into it. The soul features and amazing production is worth listening to but even Tyler admits he rushed the album a little and that he needed to blow people away next time. Flower boy, is one of the most important albums in hip hop. That's it. Bar none. It was my favorite release of 2018. Flower boy is about tylers newfound isolation with his fame, and how he drives cars by himself in beautiful la vistas. Its also about how he’s gay (or bisexual). There are ALOT of stupid takes on this album. There is a contingency of tyler stans that think tyler has been “playing a character” since bastard. Now I'll admit that wolf haley and dr.teecee are clearly characters; they are also artists' representations of tyler's mental state. If wolf haley has adhd and no father that means tyler also has those issues. So whether or not Tyler is playing a character he has in fact “been kissing white boys since 2004”. I also have seen an insipid article that asks if “tyler the creator should be accepted into the lgbtq community” due to his homophobia? Much more controversial and actually homophobic and transphobic people are in this community hes tyler the creator, not milo yinnaoplous. I also dont think that it occurs to the reviewer that alot of gay men are very hmophobic before they come out and that self hate is very common. Lyrics like “im not gay i just wanna dance to some marvin” also has a much deeper context now. Listening to older releases you can see how in your face tyler was about his queerness. He even said he filmed himself kissing his friend Lucas to prove he wasn't a homophobe. I'm happy Tyler grew enough to make an album not only about being attracted to men but how lonely he felt in and out of the closet. As someone who came out as bisexual at the time it came at a perfect time. Being  gay is isolating and confusing and when you do you lose alot of friends and family. Garden shed, who dat boy, and 911 are real standouts. His collaboration with kali uchis was also so fucking smooth and she a born r&b star. Tyler gained a grammy nomination off the album and said he loved the feeling of finally making popular catchy music people wanna sing the lyrics too, so he followed it with igor. Igor opens with this addendum on the back of the physical album: 

This might be fiction, this might be about igor but it is fully about tyler okanga. The album is very hard to parse and barely has any rapping. It's more of a pop experimental album with a lot of lofi synth production. Tylers production chops are full force here. Igor is melodic, sad and full of the same anger and obsession from his previous albums. Its just more mature and really gay, and i fucking love it. Tyler was dealing with a tumultuous relationship with a guy and his refusal to be with tyler exclusively. Its about a breakup. A love tragedy that only becomes more depressing after the argument on a boy is a gun, the breakup in my love is gone, and the sad slump back into needing closure in can we be friends. The album is fun to sing to, and fucking devestating. I've dealt with a lot of similar issues with love and obsession so to hear it so clearly illustrated on igor really hit me. I think the album becomes even more depressing with the unreleased track best interest, about tyler being a side nigga. This is the kind of music that's sometimes made in r&b and pop but never in rap. There was an interview where Tyler says he hated his voice which is why he edits it so evident on igor. Tyler also said he wanted to send these songs to rihanna and Justin Beiber but they didn't want them, as cool as it sounds. I'm happy tyler was able to tell his own story. I would also recommend magic wand since it's my favorite track on the album and kicks you in the face with how angry and heartbroken Tyler was at the time. 

Tyler is an artist that talks and speaks about how he feels all the time, he's also a person who feels enigmatic and mysterious somehow. I think it has to do with how constantly he's put to the side of his other hip hop contemporaries. He always seems to be making music Tom weird, controversial and experimental to be treated like asap rocky, vince staples, or the late mac miller. A fact that feels ironic since he worked with all of those artists, lil wayne, and even kanye west. I'm as big a stan for tyler as he is for Pharrell, if it wherent forever I'd never take rap seriously and would never have chosen to make my own music. As a black trans woman I find a lot of tylers work really relatable. I've been in alot of the angry hopeless situations Tyler talks about in his music. I think he's the artist who hits me the most on a personal level and yeah when i was depressed i sat in my bedroom and listened to bastard in my low moments. I like riding in the car and listening to all of flowerboy. Igor is amazing as well for almost half a decade it's been amazing growing up and hitting the same emotional beats Tyler went through5 in his work. Hearing about him coming out as gay ajd dealing with very similar backlash mad me feel less alone if im being honest. Tyler has said he wants to take a more production heavy role in the industry moving forward but he says that a lot, i think as long as he has a story to tell he's always going to make music. His music feels like a diary and I'm happy to read it and sonnet to it in all its beauty and ugliness. 

Hi my name is lua o'reilly i make music on soundcloud.com/wormmother

If you liked this review let me know and I'll do a look into earl sweatshirt.

[bananaofswifts]

When Taylor Swift made the decision to post her first-ever political endorsement on Instagram in Taylor Swift: Miss Americana, a new Netflix documentary that premiered at Sundance Film Festival on Thursday night, the audience burst into applause. They applauded again when she told her publicist “f*ck that, I don’t care,” about the possibility of the president attacking her, and then again when a news clip announced Swift’s post significantly increased millennial voter registration. For a pop star whose reputation has been up and down and down some more, it seems Miss Americana has her poised for an upswing.

From director Lana Wilson, who won an Emmy for her 2013 doc After Tiller, and produced by Academy Award-winners Morgan Neville and Caitrin Rogers (20 Feet From Stardom) and Christine O’Malley (Wordplay, I.O.U.S.A.), Miss Americana presents the world with a new Taylor Swift.  By “new Taylor Swift,” I don’t mean a Taylor Swift who’s willing to tell Kanye West where to shove it—we already know she’s willing to do that. No, this is a Taylor Swift who’s willing to tell the American government where to shove it, and that’s very new indeed. Whether haters will be willing to hear the new Taylor out remains to be seen, but if they do, they would certainly find someone worth listening to.

Titled after her recent song, “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,”  the film begins where a lot of music documentaries have gone before: the trials and tribulations of being a world-famous artist. We open with Swift playing piano in her house, dressed down in simple overalls and a tee-shirt, perusing her old songbooks. From there Wilson launches into a fairly standard but still enjoyable rundown of Swift’s career.  It’s got everything you want and expect a music documentary to have, from adorable clips of Swift as a charismatic 13-year-old girl to a recap of her public feud with Kanye West. (Swift calls West’s infamous interruption at the 2009 VMAs a “formative experience” and “a catalyst for a lot of psychological paths I went down.”) Wilson also spends extensive time with Swift in the studio, giving fans an intimate look at her songwriting process as they’ve never seen before.

The second, more interesting half of the film is dedicated to Swift’s political awakening as an increasingly liberal activist. In 2016, while her famous friends were campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Swift stayed silent on the election. Some assumed that meant Swift was a Trump voter, an assumption she more or less blew to shreds in the 2018 midterm election when she came out—as a Democrat—in favor of Senatorial candidate Phil Bredesen, and strongly against Republican Marsha Blackburn in her home state of Tennessee.

Her decision to post that endorsement on Instagram—the first time she ever truly voiced a political opinion publicly—is easily the best scenes in the film. Her dad, a former Merill Lynch stockbroker, as well as several other members of her team, aruge with her, and tell her not to post it. They’re worried she’ll alienate half of her fanbase, and they’re also worried about her safety. She does it anyway, citing her regret for not taking a stand against Trump in 2016 as a reason why—as well as her recent, unpleasant experience going to court, countersuing a DJ who groped her, and then sued her when he was fired, something she says “no man in my family or organization can ever understand.”

“I’m sad I didn’t two years ago, but I can’t change that,” she tells her dad sharply in the film, on the verge of tears as she struggles to explain why this matters to her. “[Blackburn] votes against paid leave for women … It’s right and wrong at this point.”

Watching defy her father and her closest advisors through tears, it’s hard to feel that Swift did so for any reason other than believing it was the right thing to do. Here is the proof that so many have been asking for that her feminism is genuine, rather than something to be indulged in when it’s convenient and profitable for her. Following Bredesen’s loss in the 2018 midterm, we see Swift writing a new song, “Only the Young,” urging young people not to give up on politics when elections disappoint, which has not yet been released. (The song plays over the film’s credits and will be released with the film.)

Speaking of insights into Swift’s personal life, fans hoping for an update on Swift’s mom, who the pop star revealed was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 might not get the answer they’re hoping for. Andrea Swift, 62, is present in the film and at one point jokes about bringing her “cancer dog,” into a family of cat lovers. Unlike the Instagram scene, it doesn’t dig in deep or get teary. Perhaps Swift feels that’s not her personal story to tell. (Last week the singe revealed her mother had also been diagnosed with a brain tumor.)

Swift’s public confrontation with former record label owners—Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records, who Swift claimed were preventing her from using her older songs on television, including in this documentary—is never mentioned in the film. According to Wilson in an interview with Variety, that’s because that drama went down too close to the film’s wrap. (Variety also reported in December that all of Swift’s songs were cleared for use in Miss Americana.) But the controversy fits neatly in with the film’s theme: No more Mrs. Nice Taylor.

I’m hardly Taylor Swift’s No. 1 fan, and like many of her non-fans, I’ve let my opinion of the pop star ebb and flow with the narrative of the moment. Miss Americana is undoubtedly a pro-Tay narrative, but it’s a good one. Wilson and her team captured moments that felt personal, vulnerable, and deeply authentic, and they did so with a skill and artistry that Instagram Live stories just can’t match. I was convinced that Swift is thinking deeply about issues of gender, sexuality, and politics in ways she never has before. To me, that’s a good thing.

I’m sure some will feel differently. How could an educated, privileged woman living in America in the 21st century be this slow on the uptake? It’s a fair point. But I’d argue many men before have had their awakening much later in life, and were applauded for doing so. One hopes it’s never too late to come to the light side.

Miss Americana will play in select theaters and on Netflix on January 31.

[herondaleholly31]

Love On The Weekend  Chris Evans X Reader

overview: Whenever you can you and Chris spend a weekend together just the two of you. This  weekend is different. 

A/N Hey guys!! I’m currently in the middle of exams but I wanted to start writing some of the requests that was sent to me after my last post. Thank you so much for all your kind messages and follows after that post, it really means so much to me. I’m working through the list so I will try and upload as much as I can I promise. I hope you enjoy this one, make sure to keep sending me any requests! 

Like and Reblog! 

word count: 3,738

4:55. Five more minutes to go. You were impatient, and having already cleaned your desk three times in the past hour you were checking your emails one last time before you clocked out. Delete, delete, asos discount code saved, the rest thrown in spam. That’s it. All done. Only three more minutes. 

“Y/N!”

Jack entered your office without knocking, an ominous stack of papers under his arm. “you’re still here, great. I need you to sort these files out before you go.” The stack fell with a thud onto your desk.

“I can’t,” you shook your head “I’m just about to head out.” 

“Oh I’ve also put you on call duty this weekend,” Jack ignored you “so any plans you have cancel them.”

Your spine chilled “I can’t do this weekend. I cant I-“ you shook your head to try and stop your rising panic “I have to have this weekend off.”

“Tough luck. You’re going to want to keep you phone charged, I get a lot of emails.”

“No Jack-“

“Is there a problem?” He scowled.

The clock had struck five, he was going to be there any minute. “I can’t reschedule this plan my boyfriend’s job-“

“sweetheart can I be frank? I don’t give a shit,’ your bosses patient demeanour had gone and his normal irritation came through “I’ve got a golf game tomorrow and you were the last person to ask for time off. So you’re on this weekend.” He slammed his hand on top of the stack of papers and then turned to leave when suddenly a deafening sound came from outside. Shocked, Jack smacked his arm onto your computer, causing him to swear colourfully “WHAT IS THAT?” But you had already rushed to the window, your smile widening. 

“He’s here.”

“WHO?” 

You weren’t listening, grabbing your bag and throwing your coat over your arm “I’m going.”

“Is that for you?”

“Yes.” You turned once more, determination overruling your fear “Have a nice weekend Jack.” And with that, you flicked off the light switch and walked out the office. The honk was ringing down the corridor as you took the stairs two at a time before bursting out the door. A black range rover was sat in the middle of the carpark, and leaning against the  bonnet was your boyfriend Chris. His eyes were covered with sunglasses but you knew his eye brows were raised in a teasing expression as he watched you stride over “are you always that dramatic when leaving work?”

“Only when my boss is being a dick.’ You reached him and cocked your head back so you could kiss him, both smiling against each other as the realisation that this moment had finally happened washed over. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Chris rested his forehead against yours and you breathed deeply, feeling the anger ebb away. “I missed you,” he whispered.

“I missed you too. I couldn’t get out of that place fast enough.”

‘I saw” Chris laughed. He pulled away to open the door next to him to reveal  leather seats and your battered rucksack, bulging at the seams. “I packed everything on the list.”

“including the-“

“including my grey jumper for you to wear in the car.” 

“thank youuuu,” clambering up into the seat you started to get changed, tights getting ripped and pony tails being loosened. Chris’s jumper had been washed one too many times, the fluffy interior bobbled and stretched to fit his physique; however you always wore it on these trips and had therefore become a running joke. “Where to this time?” You asked, popping your head over the collar to look over at Chris who was fiddling about with the Keys. He slid them in and a second later the car roared and shot out of the car park, the revs barking through the quiet. He didn’t answer until you had made it onto the highway.

“I’m going to keep it a surprise this time.”

“ooooo” you perked up “we haven’t done that for a while. Do I get a clue?”

“nope.”

“pleaseeeeee.”

Chris shook his head chuckling “you’ll like it I promise.” Still determined to know you sat up on your knees, leaning over the gear stick to kiss his cheek “not one hint?”

“No!” Chris laughed. You continued to ask, peppering the half of his face and neck with jokey kisses until his death went slightly ragged. “you’re going to make me crash.” He didn’t move away though, enjoying the way you bumped your nose against his cheekbone as the car steamed ahead. The car flew like a the air of you were on the run, Chris only realising when cramp started to form in his ankle from the clenching. You were so present to him in that moment his mind seems to have fogged over. Luckily You only kissed him a couple more times before sitting back, defeated. He was able to calm his pulse once again. “fine” You rolled your eyes teasingly “I guess I’ll trust you. Give me the aux cord.” You propped your bare feet up onto the dash board and plugged it into your phone and scrolled down until you found the playlist: Love on the weekend.

The weekend was something you and Chris had done for a long as you’d been dating. Although you lived in Boston near his family and spent stints in LA, work and business sometimes kept the pair of you apart for weeks if not months at a time. This had been difficult, until on a whim Chris had done what he would come to do every time; text you the night before that he was picking you up and that you two were going away together. That first time he’d taken you to a beach house where you’d spent the weekend getting a suntan and much needed alone time. That had been nearly two years ago and since the pair of you had taken trips all over the country, with nothing but a car and essentials. They had become your favourite tradition together. 

The first song of the playlist started and Chris nodded his head in satisfaction “yessss!’ He pumped his foot on the gas and the car shot down the fast lane, leaving the traffic behind. The music swelled until the rough voice of Journey’s “Don’t stop believing” was blasting through the speakers, matched only by Chris’ rendition. He was tossing his head about and giving it his all, making you laugh so hard you felt the breath pound against your throat and your chest started to tense. The tipping point was when on the final high note your boyfriend’s voice cracked dramatically, to which you had to dig your hands in-between your clenched thighs to stop you from peeing. God it was so good to laugh like this again. 

The speakers continued to blast out classics, raging from Kanye West to Disney to Prince until both your voices were frayed and your chests ached from laughing. At one point there was no sound from either of you except for wheezing and knee slapping. You were like children, bubbling with energy and excitement as the feeling of each other there made you giddy. 

“We’re nearly there,” Chris was able to heave out later, breathing deliberately to even out his chuckles “keep an eye out for the right exit.”

“exit for what?” 

“I’m still not telling you.”

“How am I going to know what the right exit is if I don’t know where we’re going?”

“Hey I gave you a name just trust me.” He reached out and patted your knee, before slowly moving his hand up to rest on your thigh. There was nothing suggestive about it, but you felt your body melt under his touch as he continued to drive. He hummed to the dulcet tones of John Mayer and would occasionally have to shift in his seat but he made sure to keep your thigh at arms length. His palm stayed soft and warm against you  as the car pulled off the highway and drove down strips of long roads under golden sun stained foliage. One rumbling dirt track later and the car rolled into an opening, where it stopped and slumped, exhausted. Chris breathed, smiled, and squeezed your leg “we’re here.”

The house sat snuggled in the trees, overlooking a lake that shone brightly. White walls, blue tiles roof, a rickety dock that rocked slightly against the wind. It looked exactly the same as it did in the pictures that were hung around the Evan’s family home. You gasped in excitement “This is the place-“

“From my childhood pictures,” Chris nodded.

“The place you said you’d always take me,” you placed your hand on top of his “I can’t believe you did this.” In your excitement you leant over the gear stick and grabbed Chris’s face In between your hands “Thank you thank you Thank you!” You planted one big kiss on his lips causing him to laugh loudly before leaping out the car, your bare feet lacing with the grass. The pair of you grabbed the bags from the car and dragged them up into the house, abandoning them in the hall way to explore your home for the weekend. An open floor plan of polished wooden floors, white furniture and blue wallpaper stretched through the house, with soft corduroy sofas and shelves of thumbed classic books and board games. It was a weird mix of modern and old; as if time didn’t effect it. You were running around the house, calling for Chris to see something before discovering something else and getting even more excited.  When Chris still hadn’t come after the fifth time you called you went clattering down the stairs to find him in the kitchen, already pulling things out of the stocked fridge “pesto eggs?” He asked.

“MMMM YES!” You yelled in excitement. “Sorry,” you quietened “sorry. Yes please.” 

“I take it you like the house then?’ “Is this the part of the story where you tell me you’ve bought it?” You slid onto one of the stools by the island, nicking a bit of red pepper from the chopping board.

“ Unfortunately not.”

“shame. I would’ve quit work on the spot to move.”

“It’s that stressful huh?”

“You have no idea.”

Chris stopped stirring “so tell me about it.”

You shook your head, running your hands through your hair once before letting them fall on the table “I don’t want to weigh you down with that. You don’t wanna hear about that.”

“Yes I do,” Chris said “its obviously bothering you.”

“Not tonight Chris. Please.” You didn’t want to think about anything negative this weekend. Not with the limited time you had with him. “your eggs are burning by the way.”

“Huh? Oh Shit,” Chris went back to wildly stirring the contents of his pan, and the conversation was dropped. 

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

The next couple days felt like the montage to a rom com movie, a warped bubble where negative thoughts and emotions weren’t allowed to penetrate. There was a lot to Catch up with so the pair of you didn’t waste a single minute. Swimming in the lake, running together through the woods, playing chess whilst drinking too much beer. A lot of random hugs and heated make outs that lead to other things that caused your skin to flush and tingle. This was partly due to Your shoulders getting  burnt, resulting with Chris finding great pleasure in occasionally smacking the sensitive skin causing you to scream blue murder whilst chasing after him. 

‘I still think I’ll have a hand imprint on my shoulder forever,” you joked. It was the last night and you were cooking whilst Chris picked the movie. He was crouched by the shelfs, his recently showered hair peering his grey t shirt with droplets. “What movie we thinking?” He called.

“hmmmm How about Captain America?”

“Funny.” Chris rolled his eyes. You laughed before diving down to retrieve the steaming dish of Chicken and vegetable pasta from the oven and dishing into bowls. 

“Babe! You’ll never guess what movie they have.” Chris lifted the DVD case like a trophy, the title in your direction. You read it and gasped excitedly “About Time? Oh my days yes!”

“You’re gonna cry.”

“I am not.”

“You say that every time.”

“well this time I can definitely say that I will not cry!”

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

“It’s just” you stuttered, “it just so…so” you had to gulp loudly through the raked sobs “so sad!” Bill Nighy and the little boy started skimming stones on the beach, causing you to whimper loudly, more tears streaming down your flushed cheeks.

“I told you you would cry,” Chris said, but his own eyes were watery and his jaw clenched in emotion. Seeing this made you even more upset and you started to grip onto the pillow, holding your breath so to stop the sobs. It didn’t work. Chris couldn’t stand it anymore; part of him obviously wanted to comfort you but also your turmoil was starting to become comical. “sweetheart,” he laughed “come here.” He dragged you over to sit in between his legs, your back against his chest so he could try and stop you from crying. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,” you breathed “I’m not going to-oh my god they’re hugging.” The crying was uncontrollable now “This is the last hug they’re ever going to have together.”

“Okay you need to tell me whats wrong now,” Chris’ tone shifted to worry. He’d never seen you this upset over this movie before “hey, hey. Talk to me.”

“I don’t want you to leave me tomorrow.” 

“what?”

“You’re going to leave tomorrow and I’ll be left with an apartment that is too big for just one person, a job I hate and the constant reminder that these weekends are the only things that I actually enjoy in life.” 

The movie continued to play but Chris wasn’t watching anymore. Instead he sat there, struggling to find the right words to say. He didn’t want to ask, you’d specifically told him not to ask this weekend, the itch of knowing was starting to burn in his brain. “What’s wrong with work?”

You huffed, flinging your head back to knock against his shoulder “I hate it Chris. I used to love working there, but I just can’t do it anymore. The last time I had a weekend off was our last weekend 3 months ago.” 

“why?”

“Because Jack makes me work so he can piss about golfing and spend the weekends screwing his assistant. I see the texts,” you nodded as Chris’s eyebrows shot up in surprise “they’re just as awful as you can imagine.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“about the affair? It’s not tha-“

“No. About work.” 

“Oh.” You shrugged,  wiping the back of your sleeve across your face “I didn’t want you to worry about me that’s all.” Feeling your boyfriend huff you felt yourself get defensive “you’re away for so long I didn’t want you to have to take off anymore time than you had to just because my career turned shit.”

‘That’s not fair,” Chris shook his head “I should’ve known.”

“Why? What would’ve you done?’ You were sitting up now, frowning at him, arms crossed “Quit your work and moved back full time to Boston?’ “Maybe!”

“No you wouldn’t of!”

“But at least I would’ve had that option!” His eyes flashed with a mixture of pain and annoyance “Y/N how am I supposed to be there for you if you don’t tell me these things?” 

“That’s not fair Chris.”

“NO,” he snapped “what’s not fair is finding out that you’re feeling like this and yet I was the last person to know!”

“If you were here more YOU’D KNOW!”

There was a horrible silence. Shocked, you put your fingers over your lips, as if trying to grab back the words that were still ringing through the room. You were both shocked; hurt plastered on both your faces. You wanted to take them back, to rewind time so you could start this conversation again, to finish this weekend in a way that you will treasure and picture for the next weeks as you wait for him to come home to you. “I’m sorry.” You finally spoke “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Chris nodded slowly, and you noticed that his eyes were glistening with tears and you felt your brain screaming in fear and your heart be squished like a juice box “yea you did.”

“NO! No I didn’t.” You pulled him closer “I’m just upset about work, I’m taking it out on you.”

“But you do wish It don’t you?” Chris whispered.

“Of course I wish you were here more,” You nodded “but acting’s your dream. Of course I want you to be doing that.”

“Im so sorry Babe,” he pushed out a heavy sigh to stop the emotions from stunting his voice “I wish I knew how bad it was.”

“It’s not your fault You didn’t know. I wasn’t telling you.”

“I should’ve picked up on it. If I’d known I’d-“

“It’s not your fault Chris. I’m sorry for not telling you.”

Chris smiled softly. He wrapped his arms around your shoulders, locking his hands together so you were pressed against his shoulder. He kissed the top of your head, nodding slightly “This was not how I was thinking this conversation was going to go.”

You laughed, snorting slightly due to the snot that had built up from your previous sobs “me neither.”

“And I was looking forward to telling you about my plans for after the movie.”

You felt your heart sink slightly. These conversations were always awfully painful. “Did your agent get another script for you?”

“Actually no. He won’t be getting me any for a while.”

“What?’ You looked up at him, confused “why?”

“because I told him I didn’t want any. Because I’m taking a little break.”

‘Chris? Please say you didn’t do that because of me!”

“only partly,” Chris smiled guiltily “I just miss Boston. I miss my parents, My nieces and nephews, You. I just want to spend some time here. Spending time with my family.”

The tears were falling again, only this time they were ones of happiness “you serious? You’re coming home?”

Chris nodded, savouring this moment for as long as he could. “5 more weeks and then I’m yours.”  

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

The Boston skyline had never looked so unwelcoming. Despite the sunrise bathing the windows with molten pink and blue reflections, they were a reminder that you were back in reality. You’d left the house early that morning with the remise you’d return in the summer with the whole family. It had still been difficult to say goodbye. The entire drive back you and Chris only spoke a few times, both too nervous of what to say in these last moment. Chris’s hand was back on your thigh, but this time your hand was intertwined with his, your only lifeline from breaking down into uncontrollable tears once more. Although this was the last goodbye you’d have to say for a long time, this one felt the most difficult because of the reality of what they were going back to. The buildings of the city grew thicker and thicker as you drove down main streets and over bridges until all too soon the looming signs floor your office building started to come, and then the ruling for the carpark, and in no time at all Chris was pulling into one of the visitors spots and switching off the engine. “we’re here.” 

“yea.” A silence. “ Thanks for dropping me off by the way.” 

“Yea of course.” Chris swallowed. Neither of you moved. No one made the move to say goodbye. But you knew it was going to happen, and your grip on his hand got tighter as you realised that now was the moment to let go. 

In the end it was him. It left you feeling empty, like you’d dropped something into water and you knew that you were never going to get it back, and that’s when the tears started to fall again. In a moment Chris jumped out of the car and ran over to your side of the car, opening your door so he was able to scoop you into a hug. “ I know,” he whispered as you clung to him “ I know.”

“i don’t know if I can do this Chris,” you sniffed into his neck.

“Yes you can. You can sweetheart. Remember what we said.” He kissed your ear lightly “Just five more weeks. Five more weeks and the I’m home, you can quit your job here and we’ll figure something out together okay? Okay?” His tone made you move your gaze so you were looking at his wide eyed expression, full of promise and reassurance “We’ll figure this out together.”

“Five weeks.”

“five weeks and then I’m yours.”

You nodded, sniffing “Okay,” You breathed “Okay I’ll do it.”

“You can do it.” He kissed you then, and his lips tasted of salt but they were familiar and warm and his, and you already missed him so much five weeks suddenly felt like a lifetime. 

“I am,” he rested his head against yours once more “so proud of you. I really am.” 

You nodded. You kissed him as long as your lungs could muster and this time you let go, flattening your skirt and slipping on your heels as Chris grabbed your bags from the boot and handing them to you. He kissed you once more, told you he loved you and then walked back around to sit in the car. You walked around to his door and leaned in through the open window to kiss him again.

“I can’t watch you walk away,” he confessed “because if I do all I’ll want to do is stay.” 

You nodded “That’s fine. I’ll see you in five weeks.”

‘Five weeks.” 

“I love you Chris.”

One more kiss, and then he pushed the car into gear and pulled away, leaving you to wave goodbye to him. As he did, the windows rolled down, and a second later you heard the opening chords to “Love on the weekend” play. He didn’t look back, but you knew that he too was already counting down the days until the next time you two could see each other. 

[ts1989fanatic]

Todrick Hall's Comments About Taylor Swift Are All About Support – EXCLUSIVE

Todrick Hall has some famous friends and co-workers. His YouTube channel (which has close to 3 million subscribers) has gotten him worldwide recognition and into the room where it happens with the likes of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. He choreographed Beyoncé's "Blow" music video after she saw some of his own videos, and his friendship with Taylor Swift got him a featured cameo in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video. Todrick Hall's comments about Taylor Swift prove that working and being close friends with the star is not what you may think.

Hall and I are on the set of his "Glitter" music video when we sit down to chat about his career. He had already met T. Swift by the time he starred as Lola in Kinky Boots on Broadway in 2016, but it was during this stint in Harvey Fierstein and Cindy Lauper's Tony-winning show that his friendship with the "Delicate" singer really solidified.

"When I moved to New York, I went out to eat with her when I was doing Kinky Boots," Hall tells Elite Daily, "and I had done shows in New York before, but it had been so many years and I felt like I had lost my friend circle. And so I was so happy that she was [living in New York]." Hall says their friendship was a casual one, so he didn't expect her to come see him in the Broadway show.

"She said that she was going to come and see the show and I was like, I'm never going to ask her to come and see it again because I know she's busy, I don't want to pressure her. And she just showed up to the show one day." He says Swift not only saw the show, but she stayed for two hours after meeting, speaking, and taking pictures with everyone in the cast and crew. From then on, he knew he had a solid friend in her.

Hall reveals that, like many on the internet, he believed Swift's niceness was just a front she put on for her famous persona. But he maintains that niceness still holds true in their personal and professional relationships.

"Huge things will happen and she'll be like, 'OK, great. This is what we have to do, this is what the universe has given us, this is what we're faced with. How are we going to fix this?' I would love to handle my minor issues the way that she handles some of her huge issues that billions of people are going to see and judge." He doesn't hint as to what any of those "huge issues" he's talking about are, but her public beef with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West comes to mind, as well as incessant tabloid coverage of her past relationships. (Miraculously, she and actor Joe Alwyn have managed to keep their two-year relationship under tight lock and key.)

"I think that one thing that I really love about her is she has been burned by a lot of people," Halls continues, "and you would think in a lot of ways that she would be totally OK with being a princess locked in a tower that nobody was able to enter. But she's willing to get back up again and trust people again, which is a very scary thing when you're somebody in that position."

Hall has proven himself to be a loyal friend to Swift as well, going to bat for her frequently against Kanye West.

When Swift finally voiced her political opinions in what the internet felt was a long overdue Instagram post, Hall posted on Instagram as well, showing his pride in her decision.

He explained in the lengthy caption that Swift being so guarded for so long about her political beliefs was part of the reason he kept their friendship casual at first. He echoes the same sentiment in our conversation.

Referencing her complete lack of a public political stance over the years, Hall tells me, "She has such power that I don't even think she realizes how much of an affect it would have on people."

He continues, "I was explaining to her that, as a gay person, I didn't know for sure how you felt about gay people and I was a little bit nervous to talk to you about my love life or whatever." And he recognizes the criticism she would receive for not voicing her political opinions before the 2016 presidential election.

Many people justifiably feel that Swift, with such a powerful influence over newly 18-year-old potential voters, could have done much more political advocacy in 2016 than just posting a picture of herself with an "I Voted" sticker. When you have a platform as large as Swift's, it's easy to see how not using said platform in a tumultuous political time would garner heavy criticism. Some of that criticism, Hall says, was pointed at him as well.

As a gay man of color, Hall tells me that people online occasionally placed the onus of getting Swift to "come out" as a democrat on him.

"Sometimes, people would give me flack online that she wasn't doing certain things," he tells me. "I love the fact that she has grown and evolved in her own time, as every artist has to do." He continues, "It can be very scary to potentially risk your career or your reputation to stick your neck out for something when you don't have to do it. You don't have to stand up for gay rights, you don't have to voice your opinion, and you'll sell the same amount of records. But somebody who truly cares about the way this country is falling apart and will take it upon themselves to use their voice to do something — that, I believe, is just the right thing to do."

She did that when she officially endorsed democratic candidates running in Tennessee elections in 2018 (and there was a massive surge in voter registration as a result). But Hall recognizes this was overdue. But Hall knew that being a good friend meant supporting her decision, regardless of how late it was.

So when Kanye West tweeted that he was "distancing" himself from politics, Hall couldn't help but laugh (and call the rapper out on Twitter).

“Well well well Miss @kanyewest," he said, "while I’m thrilled that you claim to have hopped off the Trump train, I cannot help but bask in the irony that you are now ‘distancing yourself from politics’ while the girl everybody was dragging is now promoting a blue candidate like it’s her job." Look what you made him do, Kanye! Elite Daily reached out to West's team for comment on Hall's tweets, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

All tea and shade aside, Hall tells me that Swift is one of those friends who is basically a therapist for him, and vice versa.

Throughout their entire friendship, however, they never had the chance to work together. That is, until Swift asked him to be in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video.

"I feel like I owe her money for the amount of therapy that she's given me for the boys that I've dated," Hall quips. He reveals that he hasn't always approved of her past relationships either, although he stays tightlipped on just which of her famous exes he's referring to. (Booooo.)

"I think that it's easy to be surrounded with a lot of 'yes' people," he says, "but with Taylor, there was somebody that she was dating that I didn't necessarily approve of and I was definitely very honest with her about how I felt about it. She just would always be like, 'Thank you so much for your honesty.'"

"I feel like it is the most expensive music video that's ever been created in history," Hall jokes.

Outside of working with his bestie on the video, Hall says it was a wonder to see director Joseph Kahn at work on the video. Kahn has directed a large number of Swift's videos in the past, including most of the videos from Reputation. The biggest were "Look What You Made Me Do" and "...Ready For It?" both of which Hall was on set. To perform in the former, and just observe the latter.

"It was amazing to watch [Joseph Kahn] work and to see everything," Hall says, adding, "I was also on the set of '...Ready For It?' to watch that as well. And it was just really, really awesome and to be able to hear the song and to see the sets. I make videos for a living, but to see the budget of how these sets were built and how amazing they look, it was just insane. I had never seen anything like that before in my life."

He brings up his choreography for Beyoncé on the "Blow" music video as a comparison. Beyoncé's self-titled surprise album was famously more low-budget than some of her other videos because it was being kept as such a huge secret, so seeing Swift's massive budget for her Reputation videos was an eye-opener.

"When I did the video with Beyoncé, we went to a location, a roller skating rink, and that's where we did it, so that was the aesthetic of that video," he explains, "But I've never been somewhere where they built an entire world and a cemetery and a thrown and all these things. It was just really crazy to see it and to be a part of it was just really, really awesome."

As for her dancing in the video (people have always trolled Swift for dancing even though she's not near someone like Beyoncé's level), Hall says she's doing it for the joy it brings her.

"Taylor Swift doesn't have to ever dance," he, a professional dancer, says. "She'll still sell the same amount of tickets. She just loves to dance." She danced alongside Hall in the "Look What You Made Me Do" video, and Hall sees it as a huge moment of pride. He tells me, "She was scared at first, she was for sure nervous. But once we saw the playback and I was like, 'You look amazing,' she just kept going in more and more and more and more. Every single time, she'd give it more energy, more performance, and now I see her dancing in [the Reputation stadium tour] more than she's ever danced before. And I'm just so proud of her."

This is why he gets his own membership card

[makistar2018]

Todrick Hall's Comments About Taylor Swift Are All About Support – EXCLUSIVE

BY KELLI BOYLE January 6, 2019

Do your friends tell you you're "celeb obsessed"? Do you follow your favorite celebs' every move? Know their Instagram histories so well that you can rattle off their inner circle by name and IG handle? If yes, Elite Daily's new series, SideClique, is just for you. We're bringing you everything you've ever wanted to know about the people living their lives right alongside our favorite celebs.

Todrick Hall has some famous friends and co-workers. His YouTube channel (which has close to 3 million subscribers) has gotten him worldwide recognition and into the room where it happens with the likes of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. He choreographed Beyoncé's "Blow" music video after she saw some of his own videos, and his friendship with Taylor Swift got him a featured cameo in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video. Todrick Hall's comments about Taylor Swift prove that working and being close friends with the star is not what you may think.

Hall and I are on the set of his "Glitter" music video when we sit down to chat about his career. He had already met T. Swift by the time he starred as Lola in Kinky Boots on Broadway in 2016, but it was during this stint in Harvey Fierstein and Cindy Lauper's Tony-winning show that his friendship with the "Delicate" singer really solidified.

“I FEEL LIKE I OWE HER MONEY FOR THE AMOUNT OF THERAPY THAT SHE'S GIVEN ME FOR THE BOYS THAT I'VE DATED.“

"When I moved to New York, I went out to eat with her when I was doing Kinky Boots," Hall tells Elite Daily, "and I had done shows in New York before, but it had been so many years and I felt like I had lost my friend circle. And so I was so happy that she was [living in New York]." Hall says their friendship was a casual one, so he didn't expect her to come see him in the Broadway show.

"She said that she was going to come and see the show and I was like, I'm never going to ask her to come and see it again because I know she's busy, I don't want to pressure her. And she just showed up to the show one day." He says Swift not only saw the show, but she stayed for two hours after meeting, speaking, and taking pictures with everyone in the cast and crew. From then on, he knew he had a solid friend in her.

Hall reveals that, like many on the internet, he believed Swift's niceness was just a front she put on for her famous persona. But he maintains that niceness still holds true in their personal and professional relationships.

"Huge things will happen and she'll be like, 'OK, great. This is what we have to do, this is what the universe has given us, this is what we're faced with. How are we going to fix this?' I would love to handle my minor issues the way that she handles some of her huge issues that billions of people are going to see and judge." He doesn't hint as to what any of those "huge issues" he's talking about are, but her public beef with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West comes to mind, as well as incessant tabloid coverage of her past relationships. (Miraculously, she and actor Joe Alwyn have managed to keep their two-year relationship under tight lock and key.)

"I think that one thing that I really love about her is she has been burned by a lot of people," Halls continues, "and you would think in a lot of ways that she would be totally OK with being a princess locked in a tower that nobody was able to enter. But she's willing to get back up again and trust people again, which is a very scary thing when you're somebody in that position."

Hall has proven himself to be a loyal friend to Swift as well, going to bat for her frequently against Kanye West.

When Swift finally voiced her political opinions in what the internet felt was a long overdue Instagram post, Hall posted on Instagram as well, showing his pride in her decision.

He explained in the lengthy caption that Swift being so guarded for so long about her political beliefs was part of the reason he kept their friendship casual at first. He echoes the same sentiment in our conversation.

Referencing her complete lack of a public political stance over the years, Hall tells me, "She has such power that I don't even think she realizes how much of an affect it would have on people."

He continues, "I was explaining to her that, as a gay person, I didn't know for sure how you felt about gay people and I was a little bit nervous to talk to you about my love life or whatever." And he recognizes the criticism she would receive for not voicing her political opinions before the 2016 presidential election.

Many people justifiably feel that Swift, with such a powerful influence over newly 18-year-old potential voters, could have done much more political advocacy in 2016 than just posting a picture of herself with an "I Voted" sticker. When you have a platform as large as Swift's, it's easy to see how not using said platform in a tumultuous political time would garner heavy criticism. Some of that criticism, Hall says, was pointed at him as well.

As a gay man of color, Hall tells me that people online occasionally placed the onus of getting Swift to "come out" as a democrat on him.

"Sometimes, people would give me flack online that she wasn't doing certain things," he tells me. "I love the fact that she has grown and evolved in her own time, as every artist has to do." He continues, "It can be very scary to potentially risk your career or your reputation to stick your neck out for something when you don't have to do it. You don't have to stand up for gay rights, you don't have to voice your opinion, and you'll sell the same amount of records. But somebody who truly cares about the way this country is falling apart and will take it upon themselves to use their voice to do something — that, I believe, is just the right thing to do."

She did that when she officially endorsed democratic candidates running in Tennessee elections in 2018 (and there was a massive surge in voter registration as a result). But Hall recognizes this was overdue. But Hall knew that being a good friend meant supporting her decision, regardless of how late it was.

So when Kanye West tweeted that he was "distancing" himself from politics, Hall couldn't help but laugh (and call the rapper out on Twitter).

“Well well well Miss @kanyewest," he said, "while I’m thrilled that you claim to have hopped off the Trump train, I cannot help but bask in the irony that you are now ‘distancing yourself from politics’ while the girl everybody was dragging is now promoting a blue candidate like it’s her job." Look what you made him do, Kanye! Elite Daily reached out to West's team for comment on Hall's tweets, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

All tea and shade aside, Hall tells me that Swift is one of those friends who is basically a therapist for him, and vice versa.

"I feel like I owe her money for the amount of therapy that she's given me for the boys that I've dated," Hall quips. He reveals that he hasn't always approved of her past relationships either, although he stays tightlipped on just which of her famous exes he's referring to. (Booooo.)

“TAYLOR SWIFT DOESN'T HAVE TO EVER DANCE, SHE'LL STILL SELL THE SAME AMOUNT OF TICKETS. SHE JUST LOVES TO DANCE.“

"I think that it's easy to be surrounded with a lot of 'yes' people," he says, "but with Taylor, there was somebody that she was dating that I didn't necessarily approve of and I was definitely very honest with her about how I felt about it. She just would always be like, 'Thank you so much for your honesty.'"

Throughout their entire friendship, however, they never had the chance to work together. That is, until Swift asked him to be in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video.

"I feel like it is the most expensive music video that's ever been created in history," Hall jokes.

Outside of working with his bestie on the video, Hall says it was a wonder to see director Joseph Kahn at work on the video. Kahn has directed a large number of Swift's videos in the past, including most of the videos from Reputation. The biggest were "Look What You Made Me Do" and "...Ready For It?" both of which Hall was on set. To perform in the former, and just observe the latter.

"It was amazing to watch [Joseph Kahn] work and to see everything," Hall says, adding, "I was also on the set of '...Ready For It?' to watch that as well. And it was just really, really awesome and to be able to hear the song and to see the sets. I make videos for a living, but to see the budget of how these sets were built and how amazing they look, it was just insane. I had never seen anything like that before in my life."

He brings up his choreography for Beyoncé on the "Blow" music video as a comparison. Beyoncé's self-titled surprise album was famously more low-budget than some of her other videos because it was being kept as such a huge secret, so seeing Swift's massive budget for her Reputation videos was an eye-opener.

"When I did the video with Beyoncé, we went to a location, a roller skating rink, and that's where we did it, so that was the aesthetic of that video," he explains, "But I've never been somewhere where they built an entire world and a cemetery and a thrown and all these things. It was just really crazy to see it and to be a part of it was just really, really awesome."

As for her dancing in the video (people have always trolled Swift for dancing even though she's not near someone like Beyoncé's level), Hall says she's doing it for the joy it brings her.

"Taylor Swift doesn't have to ever dance," he, a professional dancer, says. "She'll still sell the same amount of tickets. She just loves to dance." She danced alongside Hall in the "Look What You Made Me Do" video, and Hall sees it as a huge moment of pride. He tells me, "She was scared at first, she was for sure nervous. But once we saw the playback and I was like, 'You look amazing,' she just kept going in more and more and more and more. Every single time, she'd give it more energy, more performance, and now I see her dancing in [the Reputation stadium tour] more than she's ever danced before. And I'm just so proud of her."

Elite Daily

[ofmontys]

“ —  and if you’re just tuning in now, you’ve made it just in time for our ‘ sleep with me ’ segment. nightfall has sufficiently fueled my ego and i’m reared and ready to go, compiling a playlist curated to get one lucky, hand-picked bastard in bed with me. tonight’s submission comes from camila, age 18 2/3, from two towns over. ” rustling paper. a delighted scoff. “ tonight, as per camila’s request, i’ll be attempting to seduce vincent van gogh.  vince, this is acid ghost’s ‘ the artist’s high ’, also known as what i hope i can be for you. ”

or, alternatively :   yo yo, my dudes! the name’s linc (19/est/she&her) and you just witnessed an excerpt from bez holmes’s  radio show quite appropriately named, ‘ fuckin’ hell ! ’  that airs weekdays and sundays from 7pm to 8am! 

i am absolutely stoked out of my mind to write with all of y’all! beneath the read more you’ll find a very unapologetically messy introduction to my strange son, killian beelzebub holmes !

* TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET & CISMALE / / here we’ve got KILLIAN BEELZEBUB HOLMES , the TWENTY-ONE year old LOCAL RADIO HOST. with a reputation for being + SLY, + ANOMALOUS, - OSSIFIED, and - RECKLESS, it’s surprising we haven’t heard more about him. BEZ has been around faulk hollow for TEN YEARS, but they ain’t leaving anytime soon. you hear ME AND MICHAEL by MGMT? that means you’ll see ‘em soon. 

“road work ahead? uh, yeah, i sure hope it does!” ( alternatively: bez holmes, a roadmap. )

so bez is… kind of a nutcase. he’s just… he’s that guy in the bar who seems so desirable. voice like warmed honey, a smile that could kill – but dear lord, don’t get close to him. he’s fucked in the head. and unless you’re prepared for that, friendships/relationships with him can get... pretty darn overwhelming.

he’s a host at the local radio station, so he curates the music and talks through little segments throughout the day. well, i should say night -- because the show he’s known for occurs weekdays and sunday nights from 7pm - 8am. weird hours. weird guy. so it all clicks right into place! people tune in for the music ( a lot of indie eclectic vibes ) but also his personality. bez tends to veer off-script a lot, which both aggravates and amuses his superiors. he’s basically the only reason the tiny radio station is still alive & kickin’, so what are they gonna do to him, huh? fire him and take the whole station down with that bullshit move? not likely. so bez’ll keep doing and saying whatever the hell he wants on air, thank you very much.

can he get... a mfing... cinnamon raisin waffle???  dude’s friggin’ obsessed. don’t mess with his waffles, man. waffles don’t play.

has a knack for stumbling into stupid situations. y’know how there’s two kinds of people in this world? the kinds that act upon the universe and the kinds the universe acts upon? bez is that guy in textbook math probelms who has 42 apples for no apparent reason. he’s the dude in on top of spaghetti all covered with cheese whose poor meatball fuckin’ rolled out the door. things happen to bez holmes no matter how much he might try to convince you otherwise. his whole life is just a string of varied ( and usually nonchalant/unbothered/troublingly chill ) reactions to crazy shit.

case in point:  why did the holmes family move to faulk hollow? well. their old house had like... a freakin’ meltdown. yes, the house. it swallowed their dog. and their mom. casual... house-y things. but when people ask, bez and his father like to say they just wanted to “ see the sights ”. and apparently faulk hollow was one of those.

[ tw: death, murder mentions ]   basically, faulk hollow offered a place for them to disappear, since the disappearance of bez’s mother couldn’t exactly be explained to and/or believed by police. bez’s father is wanted for her murder. so they friggin’ skrrt skrrted out of iowa and plopped down here, under the radar. “holmes” is an adopted last name.

so bez has been here since his 11th birthday! honestly, he probably earned a reputation pretty quick for being that kid who’d, like, “hey buddy!” at all the insects on the playground.  “ do you believe in magic? ” was often his best icebreaker.

so... fun fact. he accidentally inherited his dead dentist’s vintage jukebox. yes, i know how that sounds, and it’s exactly that. but dear lord, that thing has just been infinitely fucking with him since the day it showed up on his doorstep three months ago. more about that later!

an example of a normal occurrence in bez’s life: “hey. so, uh… i know we just met, and maybe this is moving fast? but i saw this keychain in walgreens and it made me think of you. so… yeah. here. tell anyone i did anything nice for you and you’re dead to me tho.”

he seems smart. he seems so cunning, you guys. like, holy shit, he makes these deep ass statements on the air and curates music that makes people feel things. but don’t be fooled. he’ll drive wearing shades at 10pm just to look cool, all while bumping 80′s glam rock from his blue ‘67 impala. he’ll do that cliché head bop at stoplights, encourage other drivers to join in.

don’t call him killian!! killian who?? his parents gave him “beelzebub” as a middle name to be funny and fuck with his mother’s father, who was a pastor. what they didn’t bank on was four-year-old bez insisting on being called by it – you can guess how well that went over with his teachers and his peers. so to appease them, he accepted the nickname “bez” and has gone mainly by that ever since. most people probably don’t know his true first name, since he goes by “bez” on the air. but close friends and trusted individuals might occasionally call him “kill” or something to that effect.

pets are not bez’s thing. every houseplant he’s had has died. succulents wilt in his presence too, and he thinks maybe at this point, it’s a running joke among plantkind because his birth name has the worldkill in it. still, even with his track record, he has a fish named nigel. nigel dislikes affection and bez. they engage in staredowns and silent mental warfare. bez often “forgets” to feed nigel or change the water in his tank, but that fish just will not die. nigel’s probably just truckin’ on to spite him.

aggressively writes the wrong date for like… 8 months following new year’s. so he finally gets it right for the final ¼, and then the cycle begins again. additionally, cannot keep the days of the week straight. he’s started a multi-song alarm campaign in an attempt to rectify this situation. bez’ll report his findings in a week. if he remembers.

one time he got pulled over for speeding back from the radio station at 7 in the morning, and you know what he did? he freakin’ offered the cop some hard shit from his flask and some of his opened bag of funions. so the two of them got tastefully buzzed in bez’s car and talked about the kardashians for two hours. and it was through that very conversation that bez learned he’d been doing a very shit job of keeping up with them.

scared of birds. yes. those things? with the wings? terrified. how dare they occupy space above his head. how dare they swoop and swerve all around. no. his neighbor in iowa had a parakeet. maybe that bird finally went missing one day, while they were on vacation. maybe it escaped. to like, the afterlife. maybe bez helped. maybe.

he’s really bad at like … taking care of himself? funions, candy, and takeout forever.  what do you mean raisin bran crunch isn’t a wholesome, well-rounded meal? you mean you’re not supposed to pour the entire carafe of syrup on your waffles every time? someone… pls fix that.

hella prone to bullshit! like… did you know aliens are real? yeah. really. hey did you check your horoscope today? what zodiac sign are you? he’ll pretend to know what zodiac he is like: hey, uh… listen .. . if your zodiac is asparagus don’t even bother being my friend… i’m a caprisun & it’s just not gonna work out. sorry.

memorizes commercial jingles. will sing them to prove points.

“what the fuck’s a kanye” - bez holmes, 2k18

“a mug shot? i don’t even drink coffee.” ( alternatively: more pointless headcanons because apparently i think this is necessary. )

don’t be fooled by the title of this section. he drinks coffee. a lot of coffee. with a lot of sugar added to it. could probably kill a horse, tbh. he’s not sorry.

his signature half-smirk drives folks mad. he also has a collection of faithful listeners who like to call in and tell him how soothing his voice is.

lowkey writes his own music? lowkey was in a band called ashes when he was 13; it lasted about 6 seconds. lowkey has a few things recorded on his laptop? but he’ll never actually do anything with ‘em.

owns an unironic walkman! enjoys it immensely! i know!

catch him in the local 24 hour diner spending his life savings on cinnamon raisin waffles and dimes for the jukeboxes! because LMAO, he’s not using the old one at his place!!!

convinced said old, stupid, 1947 jukebox in his apartment lays host to goblins. that thing shakes and quakes at odd hours. it’ll play shitty pop music that isn’t even in the dumb catalogue. sometimes it lights up when he trips over his own feet or accidentally burns his microwave popcorn. the fuckin’ thing is possessed and it’s mocking him. so, naturally, what is there to do but appease the tiny beings inside it?? he makes biweekly sacrifices to it – mainly consisting of snack foods, candies, a casual sprinkling of his own blood. y’know. casual.

super into space? honestly would love to grab sushi with an alien sometime?

uh…  he’s convinced everyone he sleeps with kind of mysteriously dies exactly 53 hours after. maybe that was inspired by like... two isolated incidents. but you can see how this is… kind of a problem, for a guy who likes to sleep around from time to time. is he a murderer? uhm, no, not exactly – but he’s grown kind of immune to the guilt at this point. he stalks obituaries a couple days after his one-night-stands, just to check. so far, it hasn’t been a 100% consistent thing, but... he’s worried. he’ll still leave the bar with you tho. ;)

he’s trying out this whole new thing of like… not going all the way? trying to save lives? but it’s really difficult and he’s losing resolve. he also can’t exactly tell his buddies, “ stop introducing me to your hot friends; if i fuck them, they’re dead. ” that probably wouldn’t go over well. he’s got enough crazy on his plate trying to appease the damn goblins.

consistently blindsided by genuinely liking other people? so if he’s into you... he’s gonna look awestruck and baffled like 99% of the time your face is within a 1-mile radius.

he’s always running his hands through his hair, which just adds to his #indiegrungeaesthetic, if i’m honest.

“girl, you’re thicker than a bowl of oatmeal!” (alternatively: wanted plots.)

childhood neighbor / best friend.   i would love to have a person ( or several )  who knew him growing up (from age 11 on), and kind of got to bear witness to how strange he’s become? maybe even be weirdos together? i dunno, let’s talk. we

past relationships.   i imagine he’s had his fair share of flings in the past. he’s made many mistakes for sure. let’s uncover them.

close friends.   #squadgoals. but really, though. i’d love for bez to have a tightknit group of 3-4 people who he just clicks with. they wreak havoc, but it’s all in good fun.

enemies.    i would love to have an enemies plot that’s actually hilarious? like one tiny thing catapulted these two into a mutual, deep, to-the-bones kind of hatred. it’s irrational, but they’re so infuriated by one another’s presence that all they can do is think of stupid quips and glare from afar. i imagine their public interactions bring onlookers a lot of poorly stifled laughs, because it’s just like… they’re so obviously trying so hard to hate one another with absolutely zero grounds.

miscellaneous.  maybe they got his mail and returned it to his door, and it sparked the beginning of a beautiful friendship. maybe they met in the park when this person’s dog peed on bez’s shoe. maybe they’re a frequent listener to bez’s show and they bonded over that? or perhaps they both enjoy engaging in semi-friendly grocery store competitions to see who can get to the ripest apples the quickest? anything’s possible!

chris! is that a weed?!  smoke with him, my dudes!! or like, anything? my guy’s not shy about investing in “life enhancements”.

but yes come message me on here for plots or hmu for my discord! so hype!

[listofnamesinred13]

Okay I’m about to spill some tea

SO “oh look, taylor swift is dragging up past drama to sell her new album, look at her playing the victim again, you’re still over”

is what all the haters happen to be screaming (among over ridiculous things) tonight, following the release of Look What You Made Me Do, the lead single to Swift’s 6th album: Reputation. But let’s take a little trip down memory lane to see if Taylor really is playing the victim. Hold on ladies, it’s gonna be a long one. 

2006-2008  

Taylor broke out in 2006, and when Love Story stormed the charts in late 2008 she became a global superstar and thus named “America’s Sweetheart” a bittersweet and dangerous title for any young female star, because it’s so easy to fall from the top. She was immediately held to an impossibly high standard of perfection, in every aspect of her life, and she handled this with grace. 

2009 - early 2012

We know what happened here, no real need to recap, but the result of this event was Kanye being thought of internationally as a horrific bully. Which he is and continues to be until this day. Taylor went on to be the youngest artist to win album of the year at the Grammys, the world so does love an underdog. 

Taylor responded to West the way she knows best: song-writing. she released her phenomenal 3rd album Speak Now and it featured a heart-breaking track named Innocent. 

It's okay, life is a tough crowd 32, and still growin' up now Who you are is not what you did. You're still an innocent.

Swift, aged only 20, twelve years junior to her bully, responded maturely, forgiving him. At the same time she wrote a grammy-award-winning anti-bullying anthem of the name “Mean,” said to be about a critic who wasn’t constructive in his criticism, just plain cruel. 

Soon after a standing ovation at the 2012 grammys, Swift brought the speak now era to a close.

Late 2012 - 2014

Taylor’s award winning curls disappeared with the release of her Hunger Games singles, and shortly after, she released We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. Now 22, Swift was growing up, and, if you’ll pardon the pun, the release of the Red album caused a swift departure for her “sweetheart” title. Suddenly the romantic theme to her music was causing people to role their eyes. 2013 was a year of jokes about lists of ex-boyfriends, “keep your sons, brothers, dads and boyfriends away from Miss Swift, she’s destroy them, try to bury them with a song.” This is where the words “Playing the victim” first appeared. She was no longer seen as an innocent princess, the grown woman began to wear less fairy-tale-esque clothing, in favour of her now infamous black shorts. she attended award shows, knowing full well she was going to have to take an insult on the chin, and no one would stand up for her. Everyone was laughing. Her unforgettable but brief romance with Harry Styles caused insane online backlash, his fans taking her reputation for writing about personal relationships as an excuse to tear apart their relationship. Just one of many examples of the opinions of people that don’t know her, have never met her, believe they have a right to bad mouth her because “she’s Taylor Swift” 

2014 - 2017

The released of the record-breaking 1989 album saw Taylor win back her popularity for the first time since before Styles. She declared that she could not be thrown off her game by her haters in “shake it off” insisting she will be herself more. But the real take down came in the form of “blank space.” Her satirical chart-topper saw her take back the narrative for the first time. She stated that she decided to play by their [the media’s] rules, writing and performing from the point of view of the “jet-setting man-eating psycho” they insisted she was. And the media, fickle as ever, lapped up every word. Impressed this silly little girl had played them at their own game, they placed her back on the pedestal.

Thus began the age of the “squad” 

Taylor’s Victoria Secret Performance allowed her to form friendships with the angels, and the media nicknamed her ever-growing group of friends a “squad.” People mistakingly believed Taylor had formed this squad as an clique, an army against her latest enemy, Ex-BFF Katy Perry. We all know the details of their feud and Taylor’s smooth take-down track Bad Blood. I guess I can forgive the confusion, but members of the so called squad have stated that it’s not a clique, it’s just a support group of mostly women. Taylor had bitten back at the media’s representation of her, calling them out for being sexist. I however, personally don’t see it as sexism. I see it as bullying. The simple fact is that no other celebrity on the planet get attacked so much for so little crimes as Taylor Swift. This “squad” theory began positively but soon took a dark turn, as numerous times Taylor Swift was referred to as a “Regina George” Who famously played the victim in the 2004 blockbuster hit “Mean Girls” despite secretly being the mean girl herself. 

 Following her new popularity, an old ghost made an appearance in her life. With encouragement from their mutual friend Jay-Z, Taylor Swift and Kanye West made up. 

Taylor even presented an award to him, mocking the infamous  statement: “Imma let you finish...” by ending it with “but Kanye West has had one of the best careers of all time” The legendary feud was over. Taylor was on top of the world. 

Or so we thought. With the release of Kanye West’s “Famous” came a rather degrading lyric: 

“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex Why? I made that bitch famous (God damn) I made that bitch famous”

Once again, we know the details. Taylor’s not completely innocent, maybe she shouldn’t have claimed she knew nothing of it. But take away your opinions on Miss Swift. Imagine if someone who bullied you, humiliated you, suddenly wanted to end all strife and flaunt an alliance. You’d jump at the chance, I know I would, and have. Taylor has previously proved to be the forgiving type, and in that phone call you can hear how eager she is to please. I believe Taylor did not understand exactly how degrading the finally song would sound, brushing her off, taking credit for her success, coupled with a video depicting a life-like naked wax figure of her he commissioned thousands into making right beside him in large bed full of controversial figures, including sex offenders and abusers. Imagine that had happened to YOU. Not Taylor Swift Trademark, the untouchable millionaire business woman, but a real woman, with real feelings. You would be scared. You’d be filing restraining orders. She had trusted him and let him in. He humiliated her for a second time, and in her panic she responded badly. 

And yet, for some reason, the world took his side. This degrading song and disgusting video was somehow righteous over obscuring a little truth. Taylor’s response to the video release was such:

The internet wasn’t having it though. The final sentence became her death sentence, and thus began a meme and a #/taylorswiftisoverparty. Fans of Swift did try to defend her, but they also knew that Miss Swift was definitely not over. 

2017 (present day)

Finally I have reached the release of “Look What You Made Me Do” the lead single of Swift’s 6th and highly anticipated album “Reputation” 

So now we have tracked the history of Taylor “Playing the victim” I would very much like to address why LWYMMD is certainly not her playing it. I would like to push Kanye, Kim, and Katy aside, their actions were not to be admired, but this post is ultimately about the media and the public’s opinion of Miss Swift. 

SO LETS ANALYSE SHALL WE:

The role you made me play Of the fool, no, I don't like you I don't like your perfect crime How you laugh when you lie You said the gun was mine

It was the media and the public that insisted that Taylor was two faced, a snake, they forced her to play a role in their narrative. This public side of the role was like a villain, and the real way they played her was as a fool. The Media tricking her into trusting them, and then pushing her off the pedestal they put her on. 

But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time I've got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined

Swift is no longer playing nice. Did everyone really expect her to lie down and let Kanye win? She’s out for revenge, and so she should be. 

I don't like your kingdom keys They once belonged to me You ask me for a place to sleep Locked me out and threw a feast (what?) The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma And then the world moves on, but one thing's for sure Maybe I got mine, but you'll all get yours

This is a general address to those who supported her through her success at the start of the 1989 era, and then abandoned her when she fell from grace. They labelled it as Taylor getting what was coming to her, but she knows that eventually the tables will turn again and their time on the chopping block will come. 

I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams

Their betrayal has lead to her inability to trust, and as she says, they all believe she’s a snake, she’s two-faced, if they don’t get her first she’ll get them. Her insane success has made her “untrustworthy”  The world is forcing her to be someone she’s not. 

"I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now." "Why?" "Oh, 'cause she's dead!" (ohh!)

This tongue-in-cheek spoken part is almost a throwback to Blank Space, she joins the taylor swift is over party, okay, we’ll play it your way, just before  I destroy you. It also sadly suggests that their cruelty and endless abuse killed the forgiving version of her. 

Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do

At first, I didn’t quite get this line. She hasn’t done anything yet? What have they made her do? But then it clicked. They made her be a part of the narrative she wanted to be excluded from. They asked for her to play the bad guy, they insisted on her Villainous persona. They insisted she was a snake. So they made her become the snake. 

Taylor has never once purposely “Played the victim.” Swift does not want to be the victim. So, this time around, she’s not forgiving. She’s not crying. She’s not ignoring it. She’s fighting it. Taylor Swift is angry, self-aware enough to know at this point she has no other route to take, bar buying an island and never being heard from again. She’s claiming her own fury, her own narrative, her own reputation. 

And she’s out for blood.

Hiss Hiss.

[matteblacklips]

january updates iii

Disclaimer: I would like to begin this email thread by saying if you didn’t want to receive emails from me you shouldn’t have given me your email to begin with.

Joke of the chain: me if you saw me on saturday morning....

Hello all,

A third January email? I know! What possibly could be going on in my life that I could send out a third MONTHLY email. I know these are kind of long & that some of you barely finished the first couple & I wouldn’t hold it against you to ignore this one, too (Xavier).

Before I start this email, I'm going to attach the snippet I wrote when I thought ___ was cheating/ghosting. Good news though, he wasn't, but now he gets all the space he needs because his phone broke (don't ask how, rly embarrassing), maybe even more if I feel like it, I'm still deciding on how to deal with the situation. It's safe to say we should really hope he doesn't read his emails while he doesn't have a phone, I have a LOT to discuss. That's still my boo, though, so no one talk shit or I'll throw hands, I was really worried about him so my reaction was valid.

Snippet: "Anyways Alisha got ghosted the last time I sent this and it’s funny cause she got ghosted and I definitely got cheated on and maybe I’ll be that dumb bitch that believes him when he says he didn’t or who knows he might not even come back. Not my problem. I don’t believe it because out of all the people I expected to cheat it wouldn’t be him but at the same time, if he did, it would be really shitty of him to do it now and not when the 10 minute version of All Too Well came out in November. The reasons we think he cheated can all be argued with him being drunk but at the same time I know this guy & I didn’t get a single text after 5pm, that’s weird so I really hope he's okay and that nothing happened to him but he better have an explanation. I got fever flashbacks of concussion and I'm proud to say I only spiraled downward for 12 hours and now I'm just irritated and pissed. Hoevid-19 like you never hoed before." Fortunately, he was able to reach out to me before I completely detached from him and now we shall see. This whole situation reiterated that while I don't need to talk to someone 24/7, the space was nice but it's also nice to have someone there. 

Sister update: Shivani got a bag & Alisha got a response from demon that basically said that he was immature, and at 33, he said, "and the 'k' was the icing on the cake" on why he decided to cease contact with her. I find it extremely amusing how we, as individuals, are supposed to be fully developed at 25, and yet there are still people that act like children. Sonali is always doing good and if you call her at the right time, you'll get a lecture on how to live your best non-toxic life.

Pop culture update: Kanye West released a new song and he literally is so self-aware of what everyone says on the internet, he dissed everyone and made a reference to those terrible boots. It sounds like old Kanye. For that, "I miss the old kanye, straight from the go kanye, chop up the soulllll kanye, set on his goals kanye, I hate the new kanye, the bad mood kanye"

Special shoutout to the impromptu group chat I had made to figure out if I was crazy or if it was sus/shady (which we all agreed it was, but I'm also happy that we discussed and no one hates ___). Thank you to Sevin, Shivani, Alisha, Xavier, Kiersten, Fiona and Suhani (the one we like). The next time I have a situation occur, I'm just going to explain the situation, add ___ and leave. I also realized a lot of my reactions toward the situation wasn't towards him in general but towards shitty Boston men, and that's something I need to work on not projecting on 2022 Shefali. I really appreciate all the friends I have because even though some of the people have never met, or only met once or twice, everyone is always so friendly and welcoming to each other and I know it's because I have the best people in my life.

The top quotes are: 

"agreed he's tryna BS the wrong crew rn" - Dr. Alisha Bhagat

"Just lmk who to kill and when" - Kiersten Williams

"Blocked" - Fiona Berger

"No sis that's shady" - Sevin Artik

& my personal favorites, "Like if you think he's cheating" & "Like if you think he's not" - Shivani (Thank you, 7, for liking the he's not one, I needed that)

I went out to dinner with Krystyll last night and it was honestly one of the most refreshing things I’ve done in a while. We've only ever seen each other in a social situation and it was really nice to get 1-1 time with her especially cause we really connected. I feel like I'm talking about a first date or something, I have nervous jitters. It’s interesting how people can have the exact same college experience on two different sides. We both went to MCPHS, we both knew the same people just differently but we very rarely interacted before. Overall 10/10, great date! I love this new era of me trying new things and going out of my comfort zone. I'm terrified of change but I've always been able to put myself in new situations and I'm proud of myself. We also both went home and told our mom's about each other so I think it's getting serious.

Honorable mention to Maddi Turcotte for the condom I will never use, I laugh everytime I open my sock drawer and it's just sitting there. Bring back Shocktober. I saw the condom today and it made me realize how far we've come since then. Another honorable mention goes to Patrick Mcneeley for completing the 75 Hard challenge, I also tried to do that challenge at one point but I live in the cold and not sunny LA, therefore I was extremely lackadaisical when it came to my outdoor workout (Pat, did I use that word right?). While I'm here, I would like to give Sierra Morabito an honorable mention as well, not for supporting Pat but because I really like how she is always so enthusiastic and a great person to talk to when we do talk. I'm honestly not surprised that these two are happy and in love because they compliment each other so well. 

I’m in my icy girl winter moment and I’m getting everyone on the work/school/gym grind and everyone and their mom is being lectured and being held accountable. I've been manifesting a good year for all of us & I really think we can have the best year if we really keep in mind that every year is only a set amount of time and change isn't linear. This isn't about having new years resolutions because frankly, those are BS, but about taking the time to prioritize your mental health and what needs to be done for you. Best,

Shefali Patel

Follow up questions:

Have you ever completed a challenge?

Who would be down for a book club?

Do you guys want to see my twitter drafts? I hear I'm a menace on twitter.

Are there people you'd want added to the email chain? I sometimes forget that I'm a social butterfly considering that I only really talk to three people every day but if you want me to add someone I barely even know so y'all can shoot your shots in the replies, let me know.

Keep in mind you would be responding to the chain so don’t blow my spot if you can help it. I would really appreciate keeping my dignity if I could.

What to expect: monthly to bimonthly emails regarding things that matter to me including but not limited to bad jokes, an update on plans, current events, and my personal favorite new recipes and places to check out!

[iiarchive]

Pittsburgh July 22nd

See anything wrong/missing? Please let us know!

Please click ‘read more’ to view the details from the show! It WILL contain spoilers from the show!

‘Props’/Opening of the Show

Starts with what they are not going to do

Mentions ‘erotic role play’

Dan as a criminal, Phil as a policeman, voiceover of implied smut

Dan and Phil ‘strip’

Truth Bombs

Dan: What job would they have if youtube didn’t exist?

A: sweaty lawyer, angsty hot topic employee (winner), full time real life internet hobo

Phil: What is hidden in their browsing history?

A: “help why am I so tall”, succulent fan fiction (winner), asmr cereal videos

D&P: What do they keep secret from each other?

A: what they keep in their bedside table, what they do in the shower, that they’re actually the same person (winner)

Ball & Mystery Box

Phil threw a ball into the audience to guess what was ‘inside’ the mystery box

steamy pictures of kanye, deepest darkest secrets, his secret stash of malteasers 

Dan VS Phil

Psychic Connections - iconic vines (Dan: two bros chilling in a hot tub. Phil: I smell like beef)

Phantastic Phacts

This part has been removed from the show.

Dan, Phil, or a Rat?

Picture: Rat, (Phil got it wrong, he guessed it was Dan)

Picture: Rat, (Dan got it wrong, he guessed it was Phil)

D&P Dilemma

For Phil: danandphilgames gets 100 million subscribers but Phil has to start every AmazingPhil video with an F-Bomb, Phil wouldn’t do it, Dan shocked him.

For Dan: Phil’s channel will be deleted and to save it Dan has to revert back to his old branding (Phil said he had to go back to square hair, llamas, the whole package) Dan would do it.

Friendship Test loser - Phil ( The score is 25 - 23, Dan is in the lead)

Wheel of Doom

Dan was sacrificed.  

Good VS Evil

Dan - Pineapple on pizza, cannibalism, stepping on a lego 

Phil - Having cake on the beach, playing peek-a-boo with a baby, a million puppies

Getting Deep

Q: What do you guys think of the American accent?

A: Dan and Phil both did accents and tried to mimic an American accent. Dan said there were loads of American accents. They also made fun of Phil’s northern accent.  

Q: Asking for driving trips/learning how to drive?

A: Phil said that he had 60 lessons for driving and 4 tests, which he passed on the fourth. Dan said that since Phil got it so can anyone, even though Phil shouldn’t drive. 

Q: My brother is my best friend and he’s getting married. I’m worried he won’t talk to me anymore. 

A: Dan was worried they were saying they were marrying their brother. They said not to worry and that since they’re best friends their relationship will probably stay strong. They also mentioned the two people that got engaged earlier that day and congratulated them. 

Golden II Awards

They wore glitter suits

Give fandom awards to the audience

Phil’s Diss Track

Lyrics to Phil’s Diss Track (fan cited/not official)

Dan on Piano

Dan plays a song on the piano

Has to do with him and Phil’s origin story

Phil interrupts by returning to his diss track momentarily

Lyrics to this part of the show (fan cited/not official)

Interactive Introverts Duet

Dan and Phil sing a duet with Dan playing the piano

About how they’re ‘Interactive Introverts’

Lyrics to this part of the show (fan cited/not official)

*Bonus*

The audience was named Susan

Mentioned ketchup and they made jokes about being in the Heinz Theatre

Dan said excuse me bitch, when someone said something about getting a photo with a big pickle

Said the stage could of been a pickle juice wrestling ring

Dan was shaming Phil for using so many towels and said “Phil! Where are all the towels!” and Phil replied “On me, hehe”

Someone had a sign that said “LADYDOOR WAS AN INSIDE JOB” and Dan grabbed it and held it on stage

Dan said he would go back to his old branding because “Thats how much you mean to me Phil” everyone cheered and then he yelled “It’s not cute!”

Dan said “and that’s the tea!”

Dan and Phil pointed out a couple that got engaged and congratulated them again

LOTS of pickle jokes

“Nibble on a pickle”

“This is the weirdest thing to happen on stage, in Pittsburgh, or well actually we don’t know what’s going on at Pickle Fest”

Phil’s cactus Loki is dead and Dan made a joke about it being in the same state as Loki in infinity war and everyone booed

Dan and Phil mentioned the in my feelings challenge, and Dan did the dance and showed Phil how to do it and he did it as well 

Phil missed his mark to start singing his diss track twice and everyone was cheering for him

*Current pre-show/intermission playlist*

Thank you to Lili and Lanae for your submissions!

[guessimjoiningthespidermanfandom]

The Zone

Peter Parker x bisexual!reader

Peter Parker x fem!reader

Peter Parker x black!reader

Peter Parker x villain!reader 

Warnings: Mentions of violence, bruising, allusions to corrupt government, drug use, underage drinking, knives, mentions of neo-nazis, bad eating and sleeping habits, a mention of sex, mentions of death and the dead. 

Word Count: 3.7k

Songs: Changes- Charles Bradley, 4 Morant- Doja Cat, Prey-  The Neighborhood, Stay Together- Noah Cyrus, Without me- Eminem, Colors- Halsey, Where’s My Juul??-Full Tac, Pork Soda-Glass Animals, Everyday- A$AP Rocky, Facts- Kanye West,  Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?, Immortal- J.Cole, High Enough- K,Flay, Drugs- UPSAHL.

A/N: This is pretty short but it’s also the fasest I’ve released a chapter after the other was released.

Series Masterlist   Previous Part   Next Part

I smashed the keypad multiple times with the handle of a knife before the metal finally fell. I pulled all the wires out before hearing the words ‘System Malfunction’. 

If I hadn’t disarmed the alarm system already. I’d probably be worried right about now. I manually slid open the cell door. 

That’s when she glanced up at me.

“Took you look enough,” She smirked. 

“I could’ve gotten you out sooner if you didn’t get your ass locked up in solitary,” I tossed her the Black Cat suit. 

“You know I still don’t know your name or what you look like,” She stated pulling the suit up “and I don’t think that's fair seeing as you know those things about me,” She cooed. 

I pulled my mask over my face “It’s Y/N. Happy now?” 

“Wow I always knew your voice sounded attractive, matches the face,” 

“Okay, we can kiss my ass later but now we have about 2 minutes to get out before the guards come and get us,” 

Leaving the building the same way I came in through the vent. You’d think they’d have better security. I was thankful they didn’t when we finally reached the car. 

“Who’s car is this?” Felicia asked hopping in the passenger seat. 

“Dunno,” I said, putting the car in the drive. 

“Hold on tight,” I warned before ramming into the fence at full speed successfully knocking it down. 

I was definitely not holding my breath that whole time. And I definitely was not doubting myself. Okay maybe I was, a little.

“I’m surprised that actually worked, none of this was planned at all,” I laughed in relief.

She laughed along with me 

“Plans are for the ‘good guys’, if you’re smart enough you don’t need plans,” 

“If that’s not the truth,” I replied turning onto a deserted road “You owe me again, I’m not counting, but I believe the score’s 3:1,” 

She was right, you never need a plan. Second moral to the story is that even “villains” never work alone. I know I always talk that “every man for themselves” mess but everyone needs a support team. And for people who supposedly have no morals they haven’t betrayed me yet. 

There are the bad guys and then there are the bad guys. The heroes didn’t seem to care which you were, they just wanted you locked up or dead and to get all the glory for it. I think it’s time one of us gets the glory.

“Ow!” I exclaimed, pulling myself out of my thoughts. 

“Sorry,” Olivia muttered, “You need to be still,” She said, dabbing a cloth on my leg. 

“Well it’s hard to be still when your leg is burning,” 

I was expecting some jab or joke like normal but it was silent. She looked up at me and I could see the tears forming in her eyes. 

“Y/N…” Her eyes drifted over my bruised and cut up body, her voice breaking. 

“You don’t have to worry about me, I promise I’m fine,” 

“How am I supposed to believe that when you won’t tell me anything?”

“I don’t tell you anything cause then you’d worry,” 

“Well I’m already worried!” 

The next day of school was very ordinary. Well as ordinary as it got when you were a kid who was wanted in multiple cities. My body wasn’t as sore as it was the day before, the bruises were clearing up, but honestly these new weapons were no joke. I’d seen them burn straight through buildings and a ferry now. Anyways like I was saying before today was ordinary, nothing exciting unfortunately. 

Rich kids in Queens take homecoming a little too seriously. For the most part, I’m not complaining penthouse parties were fun. Rich white kids love their molly. 

Harry Osborn was one of those rich kids. If we’re being honest I feel like he does coke on occasion. I don’t think he actually liked homecoming all that much seeing as he’s pretty new to our school. I just think he likes being able to brag about his parties and get wasted at parties. 

One of those parties would be the one I was getting ready for right now. 

Olivia walked into the bathroom and stood in the doorway. This bathroom was very modern as well as the whole house. Like an art gallery.

“Hey kitten,” I said since she wasn’t going to say anything. 

“Hey,” 

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” I asked.

“You know how I feel about Harry’s parties,” 

That I did, her dad and Harry’s dad seemed to have some sort of beef. That I didn’t care enough to get into. But Olivia's family took it pretty seriously. I guess I could say Felicia and Olivia’s family. It’s still weird to see them as siblings. It’s not surprising, just weird. Just a weird family of kleptomaniacs. 

This isn’t something I say often but I looked really hot. Like really fucking hot. I had even winged eyeliner. A nice black tube top. A pastel pink tennis skirt. I had black thong type thing on, you could see the thin straps resting on my waist from above the skirt. It wasn’t like I was trying to get fucked or anything because I was not planning on being the slightest bit of sober. 

I also had thigh high socks on but only because they could conceal a knife and I’d been on high alert lately. Just because I wasn’t going to be sober didn’t mean I couldn’t protect myself. It's a sort of muscle memory when it comes to knives, at least with me 

If I wore this anywhere near the kids at my old school they’d probably call me a wannabe white girl, but those kids aren’t there and they have no part of my life anymore. 

I just wanted to get so fucked up that I couldn’t think at all. 

I couldn’t help but think. That’s all I could do lately. My brain wouldn’t slow down to let me breathe for even one second. I just wanted to breathe and go to bed. I still can’t sleep. At least now I have a valid reason. I don’t like talking about it because it’s not a big deal or anything, but today is the anniversary of-. It’s the day Rose died. No use sugarcoating it. It passes every year, no use being in my feels about it. Couldn’t help it though, every year I’d get sad about it for about 5 minutes until I did so many drugs that I couldn’t blink. 

As soon I stepped into the house. I was hit with the buzz I hadn’t felt in a while. I missed it too. It wasn’t like Liz’s “party” her thing could’ve been fun but the whole headache, Vulture thing and lack of drugs made it suck. 

Anyways who cares about that. I’d been at this school long enough to know who had molly. I’d either have to flirt with them or pay which I was down for either. 

See I knew the chewlery gem rod I had attached to a necklace would come in handy one of these days. Now I wouldn’t bite my mouth. 

Only problem is I could still think.  Which wasn’t good. There was some sort of jungle juice on the table but I just went straight for a bottle of beer sitting on the counter, because I was shaking too much to pour anything. 

Beer has to be the nastiest form of alcohol out there. It looks like pee, tastes like pee, it’s like they didn’t bother trying to mask the taste of yeast in it. 

My body was vibrating in a good way as I started talking to people. By the time I’d made small talk with the third person around me. I’d finished the beer and I went back to the kitchen to fill a cup with some form of alcohol and soda I wasn’t picky. Harry must’ve had the same idea. 

“Hey,” He said. 

“Hey, where’s your groupie,” I said referring to the blonde that’d I seen around him earlier. 

“You mean Gwen?” He said, bringing a solo cup to his lips. 

“Probably,” I moved over grabbing the orange soda next to me. 

“Why’re you wondering, jealous?” He asked being his signature flirtatious self. There was this one time that we… you know. But we were both drunk so it doesn’t count. 

“You wish I was jealous,” I rolled my eyes “We both know you're the one obsessed with me,” I laughed. 

“Yep, dream about you every night,” He joked back. 

I took a sip from my drink squinting as it slightly burned my throat. 

“I’m sure you do,” I headed out of the kitchen. 

I could feel my brain slowing down as I started to calm. That was until Facts by Kanye came on. Then suddenly it felt like my blood was boiling in my veins and I couldn’t breathe and not in the good way. I made my way to the nearest bathroom and hoped no one was making out in there. 

I opened the door and the coast was clear. 

I splashed water on my face. When I looked in the mirror my pupils were dilated and my face was flush. Normally my skin tone masked the effects of blushing but not this time.

 I wasn’t drunk. Maybe I was but I wasn’t enough. I was still laying on the bathroom floor because it was cold and felt good in contrast against my hot skin. I was going through my phone and landed on Peter’s number. I texted him because I was bored and I can text whoever I want. 

you: helo 

About thirty seconds later he responded, guess he was already on his phone. 

P 😜🤚: Hey 

you: do yuo like pengwings

pengns 

fck 

penguns 

penguins 

He read the messages and responded rather quickly 

P 😜🤚: ? 

You okay? 

you: yesh im fine d you like penfuins 

P 😜🤚: Are you drunk 

you: no im nt drunk i m jst hPpy 

P 😜🤚: yeah sure, where are you. 

Before I could think, I clicked the option to send location. Even if I did think it wouldn’t have done much help. None of my thoughts were coherent. I was actually happy, like really really happy. 

I was still laying on the ground when I felt the floor vibrate with the knock at the door. 

“Who is it?” I asked. 

“Peter,” The voice called out

“Come in!” I said in a sing-songy voice. 

He opened the door slowly and looked around before looking down at me. 

“Hiii,” 

“Hey, what are you doing on the floor,” 

I shrugged after slowly pushing off the floor so I wouldn’t lose balance.

“How’d you get here?” Since I know he couldn’t drive. 

“I got an Uber,” 

“That’s adorable,” 

“What’s adorable,” 

“You, you spent money on a ride just to come see me,” I pointed out, voice cracking halfway through the sentence as tears started to well in my eyes. 

 “Wait don’t cry, I’m sorry, did I do something? If I did sorry for whatever it was-” 

“No you didn’t do anything, it’s just me,” I moved a hand off the counter I was holding onto for balance before wiping my face. I don’t cry, at least not willingly and definitely not in front of anyone else.

“Well I was going to…” He fiddled with his hands before continuing “I was going to ask if you needed a ride because I didn’t know if you drove here or not and you’re clearly drunk-“

“I’m not drunk!” I said. “I don’t drink how could I be drunk,” 

“Okay, but like I was saying do you need a ride?” 

I was going to say I didn’t want to leave yet but it’s not like I was doing anything but being pathetic and hanging out in the bathroom. 

“Fine, yeah” 

Peter opened his mouth like he was about to say something but a knock on the door interrupted. I immediately opened the door and grabbed Peter’s wrist running, for no reason except I felt like it. I bumped into a couple doorways 

By the time we’d made it out by the pool Peter was hunched over trying to catch his breath. 

I started running toward the water and I could hear a faint 

“Y/N don't!” As I was running but it was too late seeing as I was already in the water. I laughed as I broke the surface as I floated on my back. 

Peter came over to the edge of the water and squatted down. 

“Y/N” 

“And nothing hurts anymore I feel kinda free!” I sang splashing around in the pool. 

“Y/N” 

“We're still the kids we used to be,” 

“Y/N!” Peter yelled, snapping my attention back to him. 

“Hmm?” I asked. 

“You need to get out the pool,” 

“I don’t wanna,” I whined. 

“Yeah I know but don’t you wanna go home?” He asked. 

The last place I’d ever want to go is “home” 

“No, get in the pool,” 

“Y/N,” He said sternly. 

“Pleaseee,” 

“Get out the pool it’s cold you’re gonna get sick,”

“Fine…” I made my way begrudgingly to the steps of the pool. 

Peter gave me the hoodie he was wearing so I was able to take my skirt and socks off. I put the knife I had in the hoodie pocket. 

The last thing I remember is getting in some car. 

Oh shit 

I woke up in a room that I did not recognize. I swear to God if I got kidnapped again. I sat up quickly and hit my head on something. It was dark but there was a nightlight. Thank God if we’re being honest I’m scared of the dark. Long story I don’t wanna get into it.

I was definitely hungover, headache prominent. It only worsened when I stepped out the room and the light from the TV hit my eyes. I glanced over to Peter laying on the couch. 

Oh yeah I forgot about that. 

“Hey…” I whispered. He shifted a bit “You awake?” 

He sat up and looked at me rubbing his eyes before bombarding me with questions. 

“Did you- Are you okay? Does your head hurt? Do you need painkillers? Sorry that I brought you here and didn’t ask. That's really creepy but you were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you because you seemed tired. Again sorry it’s just I didn’t really even know where you lived and I was-“

“Oh my God, shut up!” I interrupted. 

He looked stunned, blinking a few times. 

“Sorry,” I held my hand to my forehead in exasperation. “Sorry, it’s just you- you were making my head hurt.” 

“Oh I’m sorry,”

“No, I promise it’s not you, if it’s okay with you can I go back to sleep? I don’t really feel like going home right now,” 

“Yes of course you can!” He sat up and pushed the blanket off of him before standing. “Wait I’ll be right back,” He said. I nodded before hesitantly sitting down on the couch. 

He came back rather quickly with a glass of water and some painkillers. I mumbled a quick thank you before taking them. 

I yawned, surprised that I was able to actually feel tired. Normally it took at least a few hours before I could sleep if I even got the chance. 

“You can take the bed,” Peter informed. 

“I just wanna stay right here,” I said lazily. 

He tried to scoot over but I already had my arms wrapped around him so I squeezed him tighter. I looked up and his face was tinted red, smiling before I drifted off. 

I felt light hit my face and I heard the squeak of a door. I sat up and slowly unwrapped my arms from around Peter. Walking over towards May. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t know if it was okay for me to stay here I should’ve called and asked,”

“No, no it’s perfectly fine,” 

“Okay…”

“He talks about you all the time you know,”

I smiled at her and she smiled back.

“Thanks for not killing me for being in your house,” I joked. “But I should probably get home anyway,” 

I didn’t go home. Mostly because I don’t have an actual home. I didn’t go to any of the almost 13 places I’ve stayed at, at some point either. I went to some shitty hotel. I had enough money to stay for about a week. Which was great I could stay for all of homecoming week then I’d have to find somewhere else to stay before I got more money at least. 

The last step for this day was go to Olivia’s house and get my stuff back. I made my way into the house through the back door, and sure enough she was sitting on the couch like parents in movies when they catch you sneaking out.

She eyed the bag in my hand.

“So you’re leaving?”

“I-“ I didn’t get the chance to speak.

“And you weren’t going to tell me, oh okay,” 

“Olivia…” 

“Where are you gonna stay?”

“I’m going back to my grandma's house,” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, again I’m sorry that I tried to leave without telling you I just-“

“Didn’t want to be interrogated?” 

“Yeah…”

”It’s okay, I get it, come give me a hug,”

I moved giving her a hug and she mumbled 

“You smell like booze,” 

As soon as I got back to the hotel I turned on the movie Frozen. Which I knew was a bad idea because the movie always made me cry. 

I ended up crying myself to sleep and by the time I woke up I was late for school. I slept for 18 hours straight.  

If I was going to be late might as well have had a reason. So, I got smoothies. 

“I love smoothies a lot, but banana is so so strong. Which like makes it pointless to put anything else in it. People should stop saying strawberry and banana smoothie because in reality it’s a BANANA and strawberry smoothie,” I took another sip of my smoothie.

“Damn bitch, you’re saying a lot and fast what’d they put in that smoothie,” Bri said examining the cup before turning to me again “And can I have some?” I laughed before lighty shoving her shoulder. 

“Noo! Continue talking you were my reference for my excitement portrait,” MJ said flipping her sketchbook towards me “I’ve missed my one and only chance to see you happy,” 

“Now I know you’re not talking, I don’t think anyone has seen you smile ever,”

I slid down the bench of the lunch table 

“Whatcha watching Phineas?” I asked Peter. He quickly swiped out the app. “Was it porn?”

“No! Wha- What?” 

I patted his shoulder “Relax dude, I was just messing with you,” 

That was the last I’d spoken to any of my friends. In all actuality that was the last time I’d spoken to anyone besides the hotel staff. I hadn’t been to school since...what’s today? Wednesday. Well then I hadn’t been to school since 3 days ago. Which also means I haven’t eaten since a week ago? 

Okay I know how bad that sounds but it’s not like I’ve been eating nothing. I just haven’t been hungry lately, I have had snacks though like goldfish and chips. I’ve just been too lazy to cook and don’t have the funds to cook. I’ve also been too lazy to fake a smile or whatever so I just haven’t been going to school. 

However what I have been and haven’t been eating is the issue of concern here. It’s that alien shit from the Avengers a few years ago is so much deeper than anyone could have ever thought. I’d been in research mode for a while now. I call it the zone, anything you say to me will go unheard, I mean business when I’m in the zone. If I want something to happen it will. 

“Okay so, I’ll start with the government flash drive. So the aliens that attacked a while back in 2012 were called Chitauri. So Loki had control of them and was using them as an army. Loki being Thor’s brother and the God of mischief,” I clarified. 

''And Loki was attacking because he wanted to be king but his brother was king instead. I mean I think, I don’t really get that part. So there was this thing called the tesseract and it’s supposedly like super powerful. This branch of government called Shield doesn’t want Loki to have this so they keep, then the invasion ensues. This tesseract however is some space stone and Loki used it to bring in the aliens. It’s some sort of infinity stone whatever that means. Howard Stark found the stone in the ocean, because a Stark is always gonna be the one to fuck the world up when they think they’re helping. Then he and someone else founded Project Pegasus-” 

“What’s project Pegasus?”

“I don’t really know but I know it stands for potential energy group alternate sources,”

“Oh, so it’s Shield that’s over this… Tesseract?”

“Exactly!” I clapped and the papers with all the information I printed from the flash drive rustled underneath me. 

“What are you going on about?” Carmen asked. “Like what’s the bigger picture?” 

“That’s the thing! I don’t know, this is like so covered up and coded that I can’t figure it out with information that I have,” I turned towards her “But I will, and that’s where your help comes in,”

“Y/N, when’s the last time you slept?” She tilted her head like those dogs in Minecraft when you have food. 

“Last night,” I waved her off. 

I looked down at the information I was able to find out about Kingpin since he was mentioned in the video my mom made for me. Apparently she worked for him for a while. So did Felicia but all she’d ever tell me was “He was an ass he did give me a gift I’m grateful for though,”. He had affiliations with everyone. 

From what Black Widow released out unto the world he had connections with a Neo Nazi group called HYDRA which brainwashed people from what’ve heard. 

Before I’d just wanted to take down the Vulture out of pettiness if we’re being honest, but now. Oh now? I knew I’d have to. 

Another paper I’d printed from Kingpin’s affiliations caught my eye. 

“Hey Carmen,”

“Hm?”

“Ever been to Vegas?” 

Taglist:

@tomdiddlyumptious

[lunapaper]

The year was 2010. Emo was just starting to die out (long live the scene). I was studying to become a secondary school teacher, and Katy Perry was shooting whipped cream out of her boobs...

Second albums, more often than not, fail to live up to the hype. And yet, Teenage Dream has somehow endured.

While Perry’s 2008 debut, One of the Boys, launched her into the mainstream, it really hasn’t aged all that well. On tracks like ‘Self Inflicted’ and ‘Fingerprints,’ she tries way too hard to emulate Paramore’s bold pop punk. On others, she attempts to rebel against her gospel roots by turning the bawdiness up to 10.

It can also come off pretty juvenile at times. The singer was almost 25 when she sang on the title track: ‘So over the summer, something changed/I started reading Seventeen and shaving my legs/And I studied Lolita religiously/And I walked right in to school and caught you staring at me.’

But let’s be honest: Even though it’s been declared ~problematic~, you still jam out to ‘I Kissed A Girl’ when you hear it, don’t you? I hadn’t listened to ‘Ur So Gay’ before this, either, but its slinky, jazz-infused vibe absolutely slaps.

Like Teenage Dream is also a product of its time, presenting pop at its most sugary, hook-laden and bombastic. It managed to spawn 5 No.1 singles, the second album in history to do so after Michael Jackson’s Bad, as well as a documentary, Part of Me. There’s even a deluxe edition, cleverly titled The Complete Confection. It was Perry at her peak.

You know the title track, of course. Evoking images of cherry red lipstick, tight denim and driving down an empty highway in summer, Perry desperately clings to the memory of young love, breathlessly pleading ‘don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back.’

‘The One That Got Away,’ meanwhile, is its bittersweet sequel, Perry's lovesick nostalgia now tinged with regret. Yet, the only thing I really remember about the song is the video starring Cassian Andor himself, Diego Luna, as Perry’s past love, the beautifully dishevelled and tortured artist of my dreams (Dear God, that penetrating stare...) He’s also the only reason why anyone bothered to watch Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, if it wasn’t already obvious.

First single ‘California Gurls,’ on the other hand, is pure pop exuberance at its most campy and carefree, indicative of a more innocent time when it wasn’t driven by algorithms or social media. ‘Firework’ is still a go-to empowerment anthem for just about every kind of montage imaginable. ‘ET’ (featuring a pre-’presidential’ Kanye) is heavily-synthesised cyber pop that doesn’t get nearly enough love.

But Teenage Dream, in retrospect, has quite a few misses. ‘Peacock’ is just one big, long, glitchy dick joke. ‘Not Like The Movies’ is big ballad schmaltz. The brassy soft rock of ‘Hummingbird Heartbeat,’ meanwhile, opens with a hell of a line: ‘You make me feel like I'm losing my virginity/The first time, every time when you're touching me.’ And I’m pretty sure ‘What Am I Living For?’ is partly plagiarised from Justin Timberlake’s ‘My Love.’ Even Pitchfork awarded Teenage Dream a rather tame 6.8 in their recent retrospective review.

By the time Perry released Prism in 2013 – her ‘darker, moodier’ record - she had shifted further into ‘inspirational anthems.’ There was the inescapable mega-hit ‘Roar,’ the saccharine power ballad ‘Unconditionally’ and the Eastern-tinged ‘Legendary Lovers,’ complete with wellness and spiritual motifs.

But it wasn’t without its bangers: ‘Dark Horse’ (featuring Juicy J) jumped onto the trap pop bandwagon just in time with its subterranean bass and eerie, otherworldly synths. Even the slick, 90s-indebted ‘This Is How We Do’ has a certain charm.

Prism also marked the point where Perry’s invincibility began to wear off. Where the masses once lapped up her candy-coated antics, they were now calling her out for wearing braids in the video for ‘This Is How We Do’ and dressing up as a geisha during a performance at the American Music Awards.

And they would only get louder during her era of ‘purposeful pop.’ Released in the aftermath of the 2016 US election, Witness was meant to cement Perry as ‘Artist. Activist. Conscious’ - as her Twitter bio read at the time. She had joined Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. On Instagram, she was quoting the likes of Socrates and Plato. She was Woke now, and she was telling anyone who’d listen.

Yet you’d be hard pressed to find much trace of this ‘purposeful pop’ on Witness, bar the first single, ‘Chained to the Rhythm.’ Written with Sia and Max Martin, the singer implores listeners to ‘put your rose-coloured glasses on and party on’ amid whirling, colourful synths.

The rest of the record, however, is made up of either soppy, overly sentimental ballads (‘Save As Draft,’ ‘Pendulum,’ ‘Into Me You See’), awkward lyrical turns and CHVRCHES/Purity Ring knock-offs (‘Hey Hey Hey,’ ‘Roulette,’ ‘Deja Vu’).

Funnily enough, Purity Ring’s Corin Roddick produced some of Witness’ better tracks: ‘Mind Maze’ and the soaring ballad ‘Miss You More, along with ‘Bigger Than Me.’

Final track ‘Act My Age,’ meanwhile, feels like a pre-emptive strike against the criticism Witness would inevitably receive (‘They say that I might lose my Midas touch/They also say I may become irrelevant/But who the fuck are they anyway?’).

Then there’s the godawful ‘Bon Appetit’ (featuring Migos) with its food-related double entendres. It was ‘Yummy’ before ‘Yummy’ existed. Seriously, I just wanna see Orlando Bloom say he likes this song with a straight face...

But I will still defend ‘Swish Swish’ to the death. Do the lyrics suck? Yeah, but Perry’s never been the strongest lyricist. But its pulsing 90s house beat does a lot of the heavy lifting, along with Nicki Minaj’s spitfire verse.

The promotional rollout for Witness, meanwhile, proved just as messy. Among the most infamous was a 72-hour livestream, where voyeurs got to witness Perry sleep, meditate, do yoga and welcome a random assortment of guests, including Gordon Ramsey and activist DeRay McKesson. Then there was the meme-laden video for ‘Swish Swish. She literally served herself up on a platter in the clip for ‘Bon Appetit.’ She tried reigniting her feud with Taylor Swift on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. Needless to say, it reeked of desperation.

Looking back, though, you can’t help but feel a little bad for Perry, trying so hard to please only for it to blow up spectacularly in her face. So devastated, it sent her to the Hoffman Institute, which offers an abridged version of therapy. As she later told the Guardian:

‘I think the universe was like, ‘OK, all right, let’s have some humble pie here […] My negative thoughts were not great. They didn’t want to plan for a future. I also felt like I could control it by saying, ‘I’ll have the last word if I hurt myself or do something stupid and I’ll show you’ — but really, who was I showing?’

But although Witness lacked the perkiness of Teenage Dream or the cartoonish charm of One of the Boys, it shines best on its darker moments.

‘Dance With The Devil’ has the kind of smoky allure that wouldn’t look too out of place on a BANKS album, while ‘Power’ is a revelation. Produced by Jack Garrett, what could’ve been yet another dull empowerment ballad is turned into a gritty, groaning slab of vaporwave pop, with sultry sax riffs that sample, of all things, Smokey Robinson’s ‘Being With You.’ It’s electric as fuck. You believe it when Perry sings: ‘’Cause I'm a goddess and you know it/Some respect, you better show it/I'm done with you siphoning my power.’

If the singer had just done away with the whole ‘purposeful pop’ concept and stuck with Garrett, Roddick and Terror Jr’s Felix Snow as her core producing group, Witness probably wouldn’t have been half the failure it was. It could’ve had a chance to grow on people, the kind of slow burn Perry could’ve gotten away with at this point in her career. The cyberpop dystopian feel also could’ve gone hand in hand with her newfound wokeness, echoing people’s fear and anger in the aftermath of Trump’s win. But alas, we’ll never know...

While the rollout for Witness over the top, Smile’s was lacklustre and wildly inconsistent.

First single ‘Never Really Over’ came out a whole 15 months before the release of Smile to little fanfare, along with a hippie-inspired video to match. ‘Harleys in Hawaii’ later followed, which also stuck with the flower power aesthetic. Other singles - ‘Daisies’ and the title track – seemingly came and went without a trace.

So how did Katy Perry get to this point? And is there any chance of coming back?

It’s hard to say. A lot of artists go through a rough patch or two:   Miley's twerking antics divided audiences when she released 2013’s Bangerz. Taylor Swift’s reputation divided audiences. Only in recent years has Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP been vindicated. Such is the nature of music and pop culture in general. It’s fickle, just one vicious cycle after another; an endless quest for trend-bait that'll never end.

Right now, disco pop is going through a renaissance, while hyperpop reigns supreme. Dua Lip and Charli XCX are basically untouchable at the moment. TikTok has taken over from Top 40 radio when it comes to breaking hits, while the gap between album releases has also grown shorter and shorter. Even the nature of fandom has changed, shifting from old-school elitism to the bloodsport that is ‘stanning,’ along with an unhealthy amount of ‘endless simping’ (to quote a close friend of mine).

Perry, meanwhile, has failed to keep up, choosing to play it safe in order to avoid further scrutiny. But in doing so, she strips away the humour, the mischief and other idiosyncrasies that fans fell in love with in the first place.

But what choice did she have? As Junkee’s Sam Murphy notes in his own piece about Perry’s rise and fall:

‘At that point, you have two choices as a popstar — hunt for relevancy or make what comes naturally to you. Perry chose the former and came unstuck. She inserted vague wokeness into her songs as cancel culture infiltrated pop, tacked on rap features as hip-hop became the dominant commercial genre, and worked with producers who may have been able to find her credibility.’

(Full disclosure: I started writing my piece on Perry back in December 2020, so the timing of Murphy’s piece and mine is purely coincidental).

Even if you don’t believe in cancel culture, no one actually wants to be cancelled. It’s just not good for PR, especially for someone with an image as glossy and as carefully put-together as Perry’s. Even now, she continues to atone for Witness, telling the LA Times: ‘Having more awareness and consciousness, I no longer can just be a blissful, ignorant idealist who sings about love and relationships […] Even my travels have afforded me a new perspective on cultures, class systems and the inequality around the world, not just in the United States,’ though she carefully avoids the subject of politics on Smile.

But redemption is possible. Swift – Perry's one-time nemesis - was a total pariah back in 2016, mocked for her Girl Squad, for diddling the Hiddles while on the rebound from Calvin Harris and criticised for remaining coy on her political leanings. Now she’s earning indie cred with two of 2020’s biggest albums, folklore and evermore, and has thrown her support behind a number of social causes.

The devil works hard, but Swift’s PR team work harder. I might not be her biggest fan, but Taylor works Kris Jenner levels of mastery when it comes to rebuilding public sentiment. Thanks to her newfound indie cred, you’ve almost forgotten about the pastel atrocity ‘Me!,’ her 2019 duet with that insufferable drama kid cliché, Brendon Urie. Shifting her songs away from petty grievances to more original storytelling was also a smart move.

But while Swift has managed to move on, Perry seems to have fallen into the same adult contemporary trap as Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera and Pink, one that ensnares many female artists over 30 (Though many have also managed to escape – Gaga, Taylor, Beyonce, Rihanna, Kesha, Robyn...)

As ‘woke’ as the industry and fans at large might think themselves to be, they’re still pretty ageist. There's still an expectation to ‘mature’ your sound as you age, to become more ‘serious.’ No more fun, no more experimenting, boomer. But when you do end up filing away the edges, you’re called dull, generic and past your prime. Perry said as much on the aforementioned ‘Act My Age. You just. can't. win.

And yet, many female artists over 30 have created some of their best work yet in just the past year or so: Hayley Williams made the dramatic shift from pop rock to low-key, Radiohead-inspired tunes on her solo debut, Petals For Armor. Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters was hailed by critics as her most bold, urgent and visceral. Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure? was a cut of understated disco pop elegance. Carly Rae Jepsen, meanwhile, released an equally stellar companion to 2019’s Dedicated.

At this point in her career, Perry could afford to follow a similar path to that of the Canadian singer. Once the meme value of ‘Call Me Maybe’ wore off, along with her mainstream appeal, Jepsen finally had a chance to discover real creative freedom, pushing her sound to greater heights and earning critical acclaim, all without having to compromise her love for catchy hooks and bold synth pop arrangements.

A couple of years ago, a Reddit user made a post about participating in a focus group held by Perry’s label to discuss why she’s ‘no longer one of the[ir] most notable female pop artists,’ and ‘what can [they] do with her image or marketing to make you care about her again?’

It’s depressing to think that an artist as accomplished as her needs a focus group to help solve her identity crisis. There really is no easy answer. Hopefully, Perry will be able to return more vibrant and assured than ever, on her own terms...

-Bianca B.

[cheonjaem-blog]

boyfriend! kim jaehwan

how kim jaehwan, the waiter, would confess

so you really really like this restaurant on the corner of this street

like it’s your go-to restaurant and you go there all the time

the food is a1 and super authentic,, definitely a 5 star review on yelp

but you like going at night time since there’s less people and of course since you go there so often, the wait staff and the owner recognize you

and the owner really likes you and tries to get you to work there, and low key sets you up with jaehwan :)

she’s basically like your aunt

and jaehwan is always your server,, like every single time you show up he’s always waiting for you

sometimes when there’s no other customers, he comes and eats with you

he started talking to you when you laughed at one of his jokes one day

bc nobody laughs at his dumb jokes lmao he’s stupid

jaehwan said something on the lines of “why is a circle so hot? bc it’s 360 degrees”

wow you’ve never wanted to shoot someone so badly, but you ended up laughing instead bc math jokes are fucking gr9

and shitty jokes are always the start of an amazing and idiotic friendship

jaehwan slowly started falling for you each time you swung by to grab a late dinner,,, like how can someone look so good in sweats and an old stüssy jacket??

you make beauty look effortless in his eyes and wow he even loves how gorgeous you look when you show up to the restaurant in pajamas

story time: jaehwan once spilled water over the front of your shirt one time, and he kept apologizing over and over but you just laughed and joked “i guess you made me wet ;)”

and that’s when he knew you were the one

lmao jk

but for real who tf would hire clumsy jaehwan as a waiter wth

good thing he’s not the chef bc my boy tries to cook without the fire wow so genius

work makes you really stressed and you tell him about your crappy day and he actually listens to your problems and offers his advice aw

but seeing jaehwan at the end of the day really makes things a lot better

sometimes you ask him to sing for you and wow

he truly has god’s voice oml 

his voice is so sweet and calming and makes you forget about your stresses,, it’s like honey 

the first time you heard him sing was when you were eating and you heard him mumbling the lyrics of seventeen’s boomboom under his breath as he cleaned tables

and wow even his half-hearted singing sounded like heaven

you fall for his voice and how caring he was since he would sometimes walk you to the subway station and give you his jackets when he noticed you shivering

yeah jaehwan really likes it when you wear his clothes

at this point y’all are already pretty much dating but jaehwan’s kind of confused bc you’re sending mixed signals 

like you hella flirt with him but you might just be a friendly person??

so one day he asks you out to dinner to determine your true nature

and you’re just like “wow is jaehwannie asking me out on a date?” bc teasing him is so fun lol

and he light weight is but he’s tryna play it off and go “no wth i’m too pretty for you hoe”

woW offensive,,,, we are hands thrown

so you just try to piss him off even more and say “bitch i don’t need you i already have a sugar daddy fuck off”

it’s all jokes to you but jaehwan is internally screaming like wtf do you have a side piece??

so after dinner jaehwan actually can’t take it anymore and when he’s walking you to the subway station, he’s like “what am i to you?”

and that question really gets you thinking bc what actually are you guys??

and you’re so flustered by how straight up this boy is and you can’t formulate an answer

so you end up spluttering some gibberish and jaehwan just laughs awkwardly and says “forget it” and bids his farewells

you end up texting him at night after thinking about jaehwan and thinking of a good reply to him for like 3 hours nice

“you’re someone i love, that’s what you are to me”

and jaehwan is all smiles and an actual blushing mess when he reads that and comes in the next day with his guitar, prepared to serenade you as if you didn’t love him enough already

he even prepared a confession song and everything which he totally didn’t have planned two months ago

you’re so fucking embarrassed that you don’t even go to the restaurant the next day and curl up in your blankets the whole day and bash your head into the wall repeatedly bc you’re so stupid and cringe-worthy yikes

and he didn’t even reply after your flat out confession, and all these thoughts go through your mind like what if he hates you?? 

this boy left you on read,, the disrespecT

but that’s only bc he wanted to tell you his feelings in real life bc he couldn’t find the words to properly convey his love for you awe

yeah you didn’t know that so you’re kind of angry at his dumb ass for not even replying,,, 

jaehwan knows something is wrong when you don’t come grab dinner at the restaurant, and he’s really disappointed and anxious bc what if that confession was a joke too?? like he knows you love teasing him so what if it was a rouse to make him embarrassed?? ;;

at this point, this poor boy is doubting everything, and you’re at home singing single ladies at the top of your lungs bc boys ain’t shit tbh

don’t worry bc hunger will get the best of you and you’ll end up going to the restaurant anyway

and your petty ass will dress up hella even though it’s 12am to show this bitch what he’s missing out on

when jaehwan sees you walk through the door while he’s cleaning up and ready to close, his jaw drops bc damn you look stunning??

and he already had your favorite meal prepared before hand since he was waiting for you all night scute

you walk straight up to him and glare at him 

“why tf did you leave me on read you dumb hoe”

and jaehwan’s at a loss for words bc he was waiting for you to say you loved him or some shit haha beT

“i’m sorry i wanted to tell you how i love you in person”

he starts singing crush’s beautiful and holY

wow you just melt and maybe start crying a lil bc it’s fucking beautiful

“just say you’re mine god you’re sO ruDE”

is what you scream to him in tears as you cry into his shoulder

jaehwan laughs and even his laugh is music to your ears and it makes you cry even harder

the owner of the restaurant was secretly recording this whole time and fangirling since she was shipping you guys since last year 

yeah that’s the start of a dysfunctional beautiful relationship

boyfriend jaehwan is 100% sweet and 200% stupid lmao

jaehwan’s psycho laugh is the best thing in the fucking world don’t @ me, we all know it’s true

90% of the reason why you love his dumb ass

his laugh is the only reason why you laugh at his stupid puns

sings for you!!!

raspy singing at midnight to help you fall asleep

writes song lyrics thinking about you,, most of his songs are written for you or written thinking about you :’)

owns an instagram and 99% of his posts are those cute aesthetic couple pics of you two

selca king wow

knows all the right angles and lighting holy 

karoake dates!!

yes karoake dates at 2am are a thing,

you love watching jaehwan sing his heart out and your heart flutters when he hits those high notes 

nothing makes you smile more when you see your bby so passionate and happy doing something he loves

threatened his nasty ass that you wouldn’t cuddle or kiss him until he took a shower, washed his hands, and cleaned tf up 

sO exTra

thought he was getting murdered once but it turns out he was trying to sing i will always love you

actually an embarrassment wth

when you go put on dates with him, he’s always trying to act super cool like he’s not wearing the same jeans from the 10th grade and 2 inch insoles 

tried to perform seventeen’s boomboom in front of you to make you laugh and you use that video as blackmail now 

what a scammer,,

god of exaggeration

“yes i’m 239 cm tall come fite me”

“i can do kung fu watch me babe”

“i’m a rap god, call me kanye east”

“i’m the dance king, exo got nothing on me”

“if i were in a kpop group, i’d be the main everything”

yeah, you’re having serious regrets about this relationship

but he tries so hard to be a good, caring boyfriend and things just don’t work out lmao

he tried to buy you roses once, but accidentally bought purple cabbage gg

tried to buy you a new album but got finessed by an unauthorized amazon seller

and of course, who can forget the time when he tried cooking without turning on the stove??

“lmao jaehwan i thought you worked at a restaurant”

it’s okay bc it’s v cute and it shows he cares about you 

cooks you burnt pasta and rice sometimes but

“it’s okay babe you tried”

never let this precious idiot go! 

12/10 need to marry now

[epiphany-in-exile]

Billboard Taylor Swift's 2017: The Timeline 12/18/2017 by Allison Stubblebine From the record-breaking 'Reputation' to speaking out against sexual assault, Swift continued to change culture in 2017. Taylor Swift didn't do a lot in 2017... until she did. Following months spent attempting to fly under the radar, and the Instagram blackout of Aug. 2017, Swift took the rest of the year by storm, with a not-so-traditional album rollout for Reputation and a series of larger than life visuals to accompany the first singles. Fans got a sneak preview at what was to come from her personally curated Secret Sessions, but those were hidden away from the lens of the media. Now that Reputation is here to stay, Billboard has taken a look back at Swift's action packed year. Jan. 27 - “I Don’t Want to Live Forever” music video release Swift kicked off the New Year with the release of the visuals to Fifty Shades Darker track “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.” Swift and former 1D artist Zayn trashed a hotel room for the video, lit by flashing shades of blue and red. The song peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Feb. 4 2017 - Taylor Swift plays “only show of 2017” Swift broke some disappointing news to fans during her pre-Super Bowl set for DIRECTV Now Super Saturday Night. "I have to be really honest with you about something: As far as I know, I'm doing one show in 2017. And as far as I know, this is that one show," Swift said long before the announcement of Reputation. She added, “You're the crowd in my most recent daydreams, when I'm thinking about being onstage, so I was wondering: If you don't feel like dancing for yourself or screaming for yourself, you don't feel in the mood or whatever, you're like stressed out, would you do it for me tonight?" Feb. 15-16 - TAS Rights Management, LLC filed nine separate trademarks for “Swifties” Swift’s brand nailed down the things most true to her: Swifties. Nine separate trademarks were filed for the word alone, including one involving “a website featuring non-downloadable audio recordings [and] video recordings.” The idea that Swift would launch her own streaming service was debunked. Mar. 2 - Ed Sheeran teases Swift’s upcoming album The singer revealed that his pal would be putting her music out quite late on in the year, saying, “Taylor [Swift] isn’t going to be releasing until probably the end of this year—Christmas is the smartest time to release because that’s when everyone buys records.” Looks like he was right. Mar. 10 - Man arrested for stalking/burglary inside Swift’s apartment building A man was arrested in Swift’s New York City building on charges of burglary, stalking, and trespassing. According to a Page Six report, the man allegedly hoped to meet the singer face-to-face. While the man was initially held on $20,000 bail, he was found unfit to stand trial and reportedly “placed in the custody of the New York State Office of Mental Health” as of late September. April 4 - “Busy working” on new album in Nashville After the singer had been spotted driving around Nashville, a source confirmed to ET that she’d come “to get away from the paparazzi,” and also that she had “been busy working on her upcoming album.” May 15 - She’s really in Nashville! Swift celebrates Mother’s Day at home with her mom TMZ did the heavy digging and proved that Swift really had been in Nashville - though she may have been hopping back and forth, as she was spotted getting onto her private jet after a spending the weekend with mama Swift for Mother’s Day. July 4 - Keeping it low-key for the first time in years on the Fourth of July Paparazzi were very upset that Swift didn’t have an Independence day blowout tailor-made for media, even though she'd been keeping a relatively low profile all year. Aug. 14 - $1 Countersuit Win The long-drawn-out legal battle between DJ David Mueller, who was accused of reaching under the pop star’s skirt to grope her during a photo shoot in 2013, was finally put to rest. After Mueller attempted to countersue for damages that occurred following Swift’s accusation (which was quietly made to the station, who promptly let him go), the singer was awarded a single symbolic dollar in damages. Swift’s attorney Douglas Baldridge explained the value, “It means no means no, and it tells every woman that they will determine what is tolerated with their body." Aug. 18-20 - Bye bye, old Taylor… and old posts In the internet-breaking fashion Swift seems to have perfected, the singer’s social media accounts went into full blackout mode. No old posts were to be found anywhere, signaling that she was gearing up to launch something huge. Aug. 21 - She’s back, but only with some snakes In one of the best social media moments of the year, Swift posted a three-part series of glitch-y snake videos without captions to her Instagram to break her short-lived blackout. The image of the snake had become synonymous with Swift’s internet-meme identity, following the drawn-out beef with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West regarding West’s “Famous” lyrics and video. Aug. 23 - It’s an album! After five days (AKA an eternity in Swiftie time), Swift revealed the project behind the social media madness. Continuing in the three-part posting style, Swift announced “FIRST SINGLE OUT TOMORROW NIGHT,” posted the cover art, and announced the release date for then-upcoming album Reputation. All posts were still caption-less. Aug. 24 - Look what you made her do. Swift released Reputation’s lead single “Look What You Made Me Do” with a clever caption on Instagram: “..ready for it? New single #LookWhatYouMadeMeDo out now.” Of course, the forthcoming track title remained an inside joke to the singer’s team upon posting time. Aug. 27 - Look what you made her do, part two. The singer premiered the visuals for “LWYMMD” at the 2017 MTV VMAs, snagging 43.2 million views in the first 24 hours alone, now standing with over 783 million views. The Joseph Kahn-directed visual is loaded with references to the “old Taylor,” including a tombstone for Nils Sjoberg, her songwriting pseudonym on ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris’ 2016 hit “This Is What You Came For,” nearly all of her most iconic outfits, more snakes, and nearly all her besties’ names scribbled on a new version of her “You Belong With Me” music video costume. Sept. 3 - “…Ready for It?” released Swift released the second track off Reputation after she previewed it on Saturday Night Football the night prior. It followed suit with the darker, much more dramatic new Taylor, yet gave no clearer picture of what was yet to come. Sept. 5 - No. 1, again Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" tops the Billboard Hot 100, where it would reign for three weeks. The song was her fifth Hot 100 No. 1 and broke the weekly streaming record for a song by a woman; it also stopped the record-tying 16-week reign of "Despacito." Sept. 7 - TayTay On Demand Ever wanted to know what Swift is up to at any given moment? Well this isn’t exactly that, but the trailer jokes that it will be. Swift announced her new video-on-demand channel in partnership with AT&T and DirectTV called Taylor Swift NOW, accompanied by a hilarious play-by-play of Swift’s day in the studio (complete with Andy Samberg cameo). Oct. 11 - The Swift Life app announced Stans will finally have a one-stop-shop for finding out everything there is to know about their fave singer. It is said to function as a social network of sorts, leaning into Swift’s hobby of “lurking” and replying to fans on social media, and also offering an opportunity to “collect Taymojis, stickers, pics, and more.” Oct. 20 - “Gorgeous” released The predictable yet addicting pop track the world was waiting for finally arrived. Swift sang of a romantic interest that was somehow too gorgeous for even a superstar like her to talk to. James Reynolds, two-year-old daughter of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, was later officially credited in album liner notes as the voice at the beginning of the track. Oct. 27 - “…Ready for it?” returns with visuals The fans surely weren’t ready for it, yet with the Joseph Kahn directed video packed with hidden messages, it wasn’t long before Swifties decoded them all. Among the most obvious are Swift’s birth year spray-painted on a wall, the Chinese characters for “Year of the Snake,” as well as a similar lightning strike in the intro to Calvin Harris’ “This is What You Came For” album art. Nov. 2 - “Call It What You Want” lyric video released Fans started to get a fuller picture of what was coming from Reputation in just over a week. Swift seemed to be finding her way to happiness in the first ballad to be released from the album, but she was still attempting to rid herself of the drama she’d endured. The day was special for more than one reason, coinciding with the 13th anniversary (Swift’s lucky number) of meeting Scott Borchetta, the Big Machine Records executive who signed her and gave her the fateful big break. Nov. 7 - Track list revealed on Swift’s Instagram Account Three days prior to the Reputation release date, Swift posted the back cover to the album, featuring the track listing. Nov. 8 - CMA Win Even though she's left country in the dust on her own albums, Swift's song for Little Big Town, "Better Man," nabbed song of the year at the 2017 CMAs. Nov. 9 - The album was leaked, and this is why we can’t have nice things In this day and age, so many albums leak prior to release date, but not quite in this fashion: missing from the leaked files was track no. 13, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” Whether it was at the hands of Swift’s team, Swift herself, or a sneaky fan, it was quite the clever move. On the same day, an intimate recording “New Years Day” from what looks like a secret session was premiered on ABC during an episode of Scandal. Nov. 10 - Reputation is out everywhere, except for streaming services Reputation hit shelves and online retailers; a Target exclusive version included a magazine with poems and photos from Swift. She announced 20 days later that Reputation would be available to stream at midnight on Dec. 1. Nov. 11 - SNL Swift plays Saturday Night Live, busting out "...Ready for It?" and an acoustic "Call It What You Want." Nov. 13 - Tonight Show Following the death of Jimmy Fallon's mother, Taylor Swift agreed to appear on The Tonight Show to play a moving version of "New Year's Day." Nov. 20 - Reputation Is No. 1 Swift's Reputation becomes her fifth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. Reputation notched 2017’s biggest week for an album, as the set earned 1.238 million equivalent album units in the week ending Nov. 16, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 1.216 million were in traditional album sales -- the largest sales frame for an album since 2015. It would hold the No. 1 spot for three weeks. Nov. 28 - Grammy Time The Taylor Swift-penned "Better Man" from Little Big Town is nominated for best country song -- which is a songwriter(s) award, so Swift will get a trophy if it wins. She's also nominated for best song written for visual media for her Zayn collab "I Don't Want to Live Forever." Dec. 1 - Taylors In the Stream Reputation appears on the major streaming services. Dec. 4 2017 - Reputation, but make it fashion (UK Vogue cover) Vogue UK revealed its first cover of the new year would feature Swift. Newly appointed Editor in Chief Edward Enninful styled the singer during his second cover after taking the reigns from Alexandra Shulman. Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, also photographers for all Reputation visuals, shot the twelve-page spread. Two days later, the high fashion mag revealed a poem Swift wrote exclusively to run with the feature, titled, "The Trick to Holding On." Dec. 6 2017 - Swift is one of Time’s “Silence Breakers” Her summer court case was not meant to be a media spectacle, but it was meant to prove a point with the symbolic $1 request. As Time gave the platform to “The Silence Breakers,” women who helped bring sexual assault and harassment to the forefront of the national conversation, as its 2017 Person of the Year, Swift was among the individuals highlighted. The Time interview is the first time Swift has done press about the court case, and in it she detailed reaching out to Kesha for support, as well as her feelings as she sat in the courtroom. "I was angry. In that moment, I decided to forego any courtroom formalities and just answer the questions the way it happened,” Swift said. “This man hadn’t considered any formalities when he assaulted me, and his lawyer didn’t hold back on my mom -- why should I be polite? I’m told it was the most amount of times the word 'ass' has ever been said in Colorado Federal Court." Dec. 8 2017 - Swift Plays iHeartRadio’s Z100 Jingle Ball in NYC The pre-Super Bowl performance wasn’t her only concert of 2017, after all. Camila Cabello and Lindsay Lohan were Swift’s biggest fans at the show, posting videos dancing the night away to various social media platforms. Dec. 11 - Reputation Continues to Be Big Swift earned her 55th Hot 100 hit with Reputation album track "End Game," featuring rapping from Future, Ed Sheeran and herself. Dec. 13 - B'Day & Tix While some fans were able to buy tickets in advance, the general public tickets for Swift's Reputation Tour went on sale Dec. 13, 2017 -- not coincidentally her 28th birthday. She released a tour trailer to celebrate. Dec. 14 - Still Getting 'Ready' Swift dropped a lyric video for BloodPop's bouncy remix of "...Ready for It?"

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly(/Monthly) Update #44: Well That Was Fast (7/23/17)

How goes, friends. Three weeks ago, I wrote what I thought would be my last weekly update for at least several months. “They’re going on hiatus,” they said, “You won’t have enough content for months.” they said. But they didn’t count on one thing: Joshua. William. Dun.

...And, actually, a few other things. The last three weeks have given us more than enough content to give all two of you who have missed my combination of rambling and dorkery your fix. Again, I write this thinking it will be the last time I’ll write anything for several months, but who’s to say?

This Week’s TØPics:  

Sleepers and Closing the Eye

Josh at the APMAs/WTF is DEMA?

Goldfinger Album Release

We Know That Our Band Did Well in 2016... But How Well?

Major News and Announcements:

There’s been a fair bit of shenaniganry since the boys put a cap on the Blurryface Era. First, as expected, Mark dropped the final Sleepers vid. Peeps cried. Mark got some great shots. Josh got a boo-boo playing in the ocean at Hangout. Artopia notably wasn’t featured, which was a little disappointing, but it was still a great vid. The Sleepers series ended with a nifty animation of an eye closing, and we were all like, “Yeah, that makes sense, it’s called Sleepers, Tyler talks about sleep all the time, nothing new to see here.”

Then, a week later, Tyler (or somebody on the team, but let’s be real, it was Tyler) decided to destroy us.

Over the course of one day, all of TØP’s social media accounts changed their images every hour or so, in a series of pics that featured a red-filtered POV shot of a concert audience. Each image progressively shrunk in the manner of a closing eye, and each featured a different lyric related to sleep or saying goodbye mirrored across the crowd. Interestingly, the o’s in the final message were not crossed out, and instead the e’s have received horizontal slashes, perhaps indicating that the next era will feature the last part of the |-/ logo in its typography. Some people/publications freaked out, speculating it was a countdown to a new single or album, but it was pretty obvious that it was just one more nail in the coffin for the era, especially by the time it reached the above image. They’re done. They’re on hiatus. They’re not releasing music anytime soon. They’re just going to become a bunch of hermits.

...At least, until two weeks later, when Josh singlehandedly revived the fandom just as they had entered into their hiatus coma. Josh was invited to perform at the Alternative Press Music Awards, held this year in Cleveland instead of Columbus, but still not far from home at all (Tyler was likely on vacation and couldn’t attend, though the image of him staying at home with Jenna and his leaf blower rather than go to what I would argue is easily the worst awards ceremony in the music industry is really amusing). 

We’ll get to the performance in just a bit, but we first gotta address the fact that they won an award for Most Dedicated Fanbase. Josh (dressed in camo pants, a band t-shirt, and a baseball cap and yet still looking more professional than almost anyone else at the show), gave all the credit to the fans as expected, but also got in a couple of good jokes about how he is actually the most dedicated Twenty One Pilots fan. The most noticeable part of the speech, however, came at the beginning, when Josh explained Tyler’s absence by saying he was “cutting ties with DEMA [sic?]”.

As expected with the Clique, fan speculation immediately ran wild, and while the immediate reaction seemed to be that he was referencing some security agency that wasn’t properly doing its job, things quickly got out of hand when that son-of-a-gun Blurryface hopped back on his Twitter after months of silence (even through all of Tour de Columbus) to like a fan theory speculating that it was an esoteric reference to the eye-shaped Towers of Silence, old Zoroastrian structures (notably shaped kinda like eyes) on which the dead were left to be eaten by birds. That is awesome, intriguing, infuriating, and worrying at the same time. What’s going on in your head, Ty Jo? Are you just trolling? Are you outsourcing fans to give you cool ideas? What gives? Does any of this even count as news? Who cares, we’re all just flying through space on a speck, live a little.

One last bit of news: the new Goldfinger album The Knife, which features drumming from Jishwa on the song “Orthodontist Girl”, was released Saturday. It’s not really my jam, but if you’re into that sort of thing or just want to support Josh, it’s on Spotify/wherever else music is streamed or sold.

Performances, Interviews, and Other Shenanigans:

Anywho, Josh joined forces with two other amazing drummers (Adrian Young of No Doubt/DREAMCAR and Frank Zummo from Sum-41) to perform a drum medley of various pop and alternative hits. Despite (or perhaps because of) his much shorter time on the scene, Josh noticeably attracted much more noise from the teens in attendance. The performance featured everything from marching snares, audience members holding drums, exploding golf balls, pretty spotty audio mixing/camera work, Josh busting out a backflip, a pretty sick remix of “Ride”, and Josh playing “All Star” on the trumpet. It was pretty surreal.

Other than that, not much to report. Tyler has gone almost completely dark since the end of TDC, and even Josh hasn't been up to anything besides the APMAs and some occasional drum promotions. But there's still more to cover, if you can believe...

Chart Performance:

It's back! My old recurring segment's been kept mostly on the back-burner ever since "Heathens" left the Hot 100, but Billboard and the RIAA gave us a little more sales info about our band that I felt warranted coverage. First, some of the RIAA certifications for the band have been updated. “Message Man” has gone gold (500,000 approximate sold units), while “Holding On To You” and “House of Gold” have both gone platinum (one million). The big singles- in ascending order, “Ride”, “Heathens”, and “Stressed Out”- are now 4x, 5x, and 6x Platinum respectively. Nutty. Absolutely bonkers.

Next, after presumably six months of number crunching, those calculators over at Billboard released their list of the Top Money Makers of 2016. It's a pretty interesting read for any music fan, as the list includes a breakdown of the different revenue streams for each of its fifty featured artists, from how big a percentage of sales they receive in royalties to how massive their touring was in the given year. Our boys made the list for the first time ever, debuting at a whopping #13 and an estimated total of $21.1 (wtf) million. For context: that means that Tyler and Josh together made more money from their music in America in 2016 than Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Future, Metallica, Maroon 5, and Elton John. 

However, like all Billboard rankings, this list contains tons of major caveats and weird arbitrary rules that makes it almost useless for actually assessing success. It doesn’t count sales in other regions, which is crazy for today’s global market and would totally reorder the list (for one, tons of the American country artists on this list would get booted out due to their negligible international sales and touring). It also doesn't cover other hugely significant revenue streams like merchandising, sponsorships, and other jobs like TV host or producer, which would likely put Twenty One Pilots quite a bit behind many of these guys for which the music is almost a secondary thing. Additionally, all of those artists have been making this kind of money much longer than our boys, and after taxes and other costs, most of that change probably isn't going directly into their bank accounts. Still, it's pretty safe to say that both Tyler and Josh are technically millionaires at this point, and it’s hard not to feel an immense sense of pride in the scale of their accomplishments. Now, I just genuinely hope they put those blessings to good use for charitable works.

A few more points from this list: The band was the top earner in 2016 in terms of publishing royalties due to their involvement with a major motion pictures soundtrack and the incredible radio support for three of their singles the whole year round. Additionally, they were the #3 most streamed artist/group of the year, just behind Drake and Kanye. They were also the biggest money-makers of any "new" group that had never previously been in this echelon of popular influence. For further context, the twelve artists that had better sales/touring years were, in ascending order, Rihanna, Billy Joel, Kenny Chesney, Kanye West, Luke Bryan, Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Adele, Drake, Bruce Springsteen, Guns and Roses, and Beyoncé- obviously, the boys are in very, very esteemed company. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly for those fans who consider Twenty One Pilots first-and-foremost a live band who are always playing shows, they were one of very few artists who did not make the majority of their money off of touring in 2016. This is not because they weren't touring their tushes off, but rather because a) they really did have an amazing sales year and b) despite what scalped ticket prices might tell you, the boys really did try to sell those tickets for much lower than what many fans were willing to pay for them. Most of the artists on this list were selling tickets up front at over $100 a pop; TØP was doing half that, and they were still up with the big boys. I'm a proud pop.

That's all for this week, folks. Not sure when I'll be back to chat again. Until then, and as always, power to the local dreamer.