#heroes and villains fan fest

[musingsofkriti]

HVFF London 2017

[agendergorgon]

Worm Crisis Protocol

Marvel Crisis Protocol is a tabletop miniatures wargame where the heroes and villains of the Marvel universe (well, a Marvel Universe, and a fun one at that where MCU inspired pouch fest heroes are stood shoulder to shoulder with leotard clad villains fresh from the 60s) get into manic brawls and gradually disassemble all the pretty dollhouse terrain pieces you spent so long laying out by chucking them at each other, and chucking each other at each other. Worm is a webnovel about a young woman who controls bugs and has too much of an imagination. Her and her friends have some well cool powers, like smoke clouds that sap people's powers, or a mind that unravels a foe's secrets over time. And her foes! Heroes that can conjure forth any weapon, villains that can summon blades from any surface. There's a whole rogues gallery. Or there would be, if Worm's fights weren't quite as cutthroat. What if one was to make a couple custom rules for adapting some of Worm's beloved and beloathed characters to Marvel Crisis Protocol's madcap combat? What if one was to make more than a couple? Whole teams and rosters to let people field everything from the Undersiders; a bank robbing team of teen supervillains who pull together to pull off daring heists and escape certain death or capture at every turn, to the Slaughterhouse 9, America's most feared roving gang of sinister slashers only barely held together by the machinations of their mad leader. And what if it came with little cut outs of character art so you could print tokens/proxies at home? What if indeed! Anyway, me and my husband to be have been working on this for a while but it sort of fell on the way side while other projects came up. BUT! figure if I stick a big ol COMING SOON on this to maybe kick my arse into finishing the Undersiders before I make rules for yet another Slaughterhouse 9 member that I'd only have to make up an alter ego for. Any Worm fans do tell us your own headcanon names for those we don't know and I'll use the best ones in this or a fanfic. Any MCP fans do give Worm a check out for some superpowered shenaniganry in literary form. Any questions or interest do DM me it'll help with motivation. Anyway, here's a sneak peak. Thanks again to @creator-crash for letting us use some phenomenal Worm fan art in this project.

[taylor-on-your-dash]

WRITING OF FOLKLORE & EVERMORE TIMELINE

“I used to put all these parameters on myself like, ‘How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?’ If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is... folklore.”

December 18, 2019: Taylor records my tears ricochet. On folklore: long pond sessions, she confirms that my tears ricochet was the first song written for TS8 and she knew right away that it would take the 5th spot on the track list.

“I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There's no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote "My Tears Ricochet" and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both. It’s definitely one of the saddest songs on the album. Picking a ‘Track Five’ is sort of a pressurized decision but I knew from day one this was probably going to be it. It’s a song about karma, about greed, about how somebody could be your best friend and your companion and your most trusted person in your life and then they could go and become your worst enemy who knows how to hurt you because they were once your most trusted person. Writing this song, it kind of occurred to me that in all of the superhero stories the hero’s greatest nemesis is the villain that used to be his best friend. When you think about that, you think about how there’s this beautiful moment in the beginning of a friendship where these people have no idea that one day, they’ll hate each other and try to take each other out. I mean, that’s really sad and terrible.”

March 5-12, 2020: Band rehearsals for Lover Fest. The band rehearsed 32 songs and Taylor sings on a few.

March 11, 2020: Taylor lands in LA. She'll stay there for the whole lockdown until May 22nd.

March 19, 2020: The state of California issue a stay-at-home order. The lockdown starts. During the Eras Tour, Taylor says that she started writing songs with Jack soon after. It's possible that illicit affairs and august were two of the first songs, as Taylor confirmed that august was the first song she wrote for the Love Triangle. This first version of august doesn't include the bridge.

[Taylor about illicit affairs] This was the first album that I’ve ever let go of that need to be 100 percent autobiographical because I think I needed to do that. I felt like fans needed to hear a 'stripped from the headlines' account of my life and it actually ended up being a bit confining. Because there’s so much more to writing songs than just what you’re feeling and your singular storyline. And I think this was spurred on by the fact that I was watching movies every day, I was reading books every day, I was thinking about other people every day. I was kind of outside my own, personal stuff. I think that’s been my favorite thing about this album: that it’s allowed to exist on its own merit without it just being, ‘Oh, people are listening to this because it tells them something that they could read in a tabloid’. It feels like a completely different experience.

[Taylor about august] In my head, I’ve been calling the girl from ‘august’ either Augusta or Augustine. What happened in my head was: ‘cardigan’ is Betty’s perspective from 20 or 30 years later, looking back on this love that was this tumultuous thing. I think Betty and James ended up together. So in my head, she ends up with him but he really put her through it. ‘august’ was obviously about the girl that James had this summer with. She seems like she’s a bad girl, but really she’s not. She’s a really sensitive person who fell for him and she was trying to seem cool and like she didn’t care because that’s what girls have to do. And she was trying to let him think that she didn’t care, but she did and she thought they had something very real. And then he goes back to Betty. So the idea that there is some bad, villain girl in any type of situation who ‘takes your man’ is a total myth because that’s not usually the case at all. Everybody has feelings and wants to be seen and loved. And Augustine…that’s all she wanted.

[Taylor] I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective. It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is—Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

Taylor had previously written down the phrase ‘Meet me behind the mall’ in her phone years ago, wanting to write it into a song.

April 17, 2020: Lover Fest is cancelled. Taylor writes mirrorball and this is me trying shortly after.

MIRRORBALL

On folklore there are a lot of songs that reference each other or have lyrical parallels and one of the ones that I like is the entire song 'this is me trying' then being referenced again in ‘mirrorball,’ which is, ‘I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try’. Sometimes when I’m writing to an instrumental track I’ll push ‘Play’ and I’ll immediately see a scene set and this was one of those cases. I just saw a lonely disco ball, twinkly lights, neon signs, people drinking beer by the bar, a couple of stragglers on the dance floor. Sort of a sad, moonlit, lonely experience in the middle of a town you’ve never been. I was just thinking that we have mirrorballs in the middle of a dance floor because they reflect light, they are broken a million times and that’s what makes them so shiny. We have people like that in society, too. They hang there and every time they break it entertains us. And when you shine a light on them it’s this glittering, fantastic thing. But then, a lot of the time when the spotlight isn’t on them they’re just still there, up on that pedestal but no one is watching them. It was a metaphor for celebrity but it’s also a metaphor for so many people. Everybody has to feel like they have to be ‘on’ for certain people. You have to be different versions of yourself for different people. Different versions at work, different versions around friends. Different versions of yourself around different friends. A different version of yourself around family. Everybody feels that they have to be in some ways duplicitous and that’s part of the human experience. But it’s also exhausting. And you learn that every one of us has the ability to become a shapeshifter. But what does that do to us?

THIS IS ME TRYING

“I’ve been thinking about people who are either suffering through mental illness, addiction or who have an everyday struggle. No one pats them on the back every day but every day they are actively fighting something. There are so many days that nobody gives them credit for that and so, how often must somebody who’s in that sort of internal struggle wanna say to everyone in the room: ‘You have no idea how close I am to going back to a dark place.’ I had this idea that the first verse would be about someone who is in a life crisis and has just been trying and failing in their relationship, has been messing things up with people they love, has been letting everyone down and has driven to this overlook, this cliff, and is just in the car, going, ‘I could do whatever I want in this moment and it could affect everything forever.’ But this person backs up and drives home. The second verse is about someone who felt like they had a lot of potential in their life. I feel like there are a lot of mechanisms for us in our school days, in high school or college, to excel and to be patted on the back for something. And then a lot of people get out of school and there are less abilities for them to get gold stars. Then you have to make all these decisions and you have to pave your own way. There’s no set class course you can take. I think a lot of people feel really swept up in that. And so I was thinking about this person who is really lost in life and then starts drinking…and every second is trying not to.”

March/April 2020: the lakes was also done remotely, but written before Taylor started collaborating with Aaron, placing it between March and April 2020:

[Taylor] “We’d gone to the Lake District in England a couple years ago. In the 19th century you had a lot of poets like William Wordsworth and John Keats who’d spend a lot of time there. And there was a poet district, these artists that moved there. They were heckled for it and made fun of for being these eccentrics and kind of odd artists who decided that they just wanted to live there. I remember thinking, ‘I could see this.’ You live in a cottage and you got wisteria growing up the outside of it…of course they escaped like that. And they had their own community of other artists who’d done the same thing. I’ve always, in my career since I was probably about twenty, written about this cottage backup plan that I have. I have been writing about that forever. I went to William Wordsworth’s grave and just sat there and I was like, ‘Wow. He went and did it.’ And you kept writing but you didn’t subscribe to the things that were killing you. And that’s really the overarching thing that I felt when I was writing folklore: I may not be able to go to The Lakes right now – or to go anywhere – but I’m going there in my head. The escape plan is working.”

[Jack] On one of my favorite songs on folklore, “The Lakes,” there was this big orchestral version, and Taylor was like, “Eh, make it small.” I had gotten lost in the string arrangements and all this stuff, and I took everything out. I was just like, “Oh, my God!” We were not together because that record was made [remotely], but I remember being in the studio alone like, “Holy shit, this is so perfect.”

This version of the lakes was released on folklore's first anniversary.

April 24, 2020: For his birthday, Aaron Dessner goes on an Instagram Live where he plays a bunch of songs including “Gaite” aka “happiness” and “Stella”, like his daughter, aka “invisible string”

April 27-28, 2020: Taylor contacts Aaron Dessner and asks him to work with her. He sends her a folder of instrumental tracks he had recorded over the years. The first one that inspires Taylor is called “Maple” which will become cardigan. She sends back a voice memo, and right after, she posts a selfie on Instagram with the caption “Not a lot going on at the moment”. What a troll.

[Taylor] The song is about a long lost romance, and why young love is often fixed so permanently within our memories. When looking back on it, why it leaves such an incredible mark and how special it made you feel; all the good things it made you feel, all the pain that it made you feel... The line about feeling like you were an old cardigan under someone's bed, but someone put you on and made you feel like you were their favorite.

[Aaron] That’s the first song we wrote. After Taylor asked if I would be interested in writing with her remotely and working on songs, I said, “Are you interested in a certain kind of sound?” She said, “I’m just interested in what you do and what you’re up to. Just send anything, literally anything, it could be the weirdest thing you’ve ever done,” so I sent a folder of stuff I had done that I was really excited about recently. “cardigan” was one of those sketches; it was originally called “Maple.” It was basically exactly what it is on the record, except we added orchestration later that my brother wrote. I sent [the file] at 9 p.m., and around 2 a.m. or something, there was “cardigan,” fully written. That’s when I realized something crazy was happening. She just dialed directly into the heart of the music and wrote an incredible song and fully conceived of it and then kept going. It harkens back to lessons learned, or experiences in your youth, in a really beautiful way and this sense of longing and sadness, but ultimately, it’s cathartic. I thought it was a perfect match for the music, and how her voice feels. It was kind of a guide. It had these lower register parts, and I think we both realized that this was a bit of a lightning rod for a lot of the rest of the record.

[Taylor] “The quality that really confounded me about Aaron’s instrumental tracks is that to me, they were immediately, intensely visual,” Swift wrote in an email. “As soon as I heard the first one, I understood why he calls them ‘sketches.’ The first time I heard the track for ‘Cardigan,’ I saw high heels on cobblestones. I knew it had to be about teenage miscommunications and the loss of what could’ve been. I’ve always been so curious about people with synesthesia, who see colors or shapes when they hear music. The closest thing I’ve ever experienced is seeing an entire story or scene play out in my head when I hear Aaron Dessner’s instrumental tracks.”

Aaron Dessner shared a screenshot from when Taylor sent him back cardigan.

April 29-30, 2020: Taylor writes seven and peace. seven is the only song that was entirely recorded at Long Pond.

SEVEN

[Aaron] This is the second song we wrote. It’s kind of looking back at childhood and those childhood feelings, recounting memories and memorializing them. It’s this beautiful folk song. It has one of the most important lines on the record: “And just like a folk song, our love will be passed on.” That’s what this album is doing. It’s passing down. It’s memorializing love, childhood, and memories. It’s a folkloric way of processing.

PEACE

[Taylor] “I think this is a song that is extremely personal to me. There are times when I feel like with everything that’s in my control, I can make myself seem like someone who doesn’t have an abnormal life and I try that every day. It’s like, 'How do I make my friends, and family, and my loved ones not see this big elephant that’s in the room for our normal life?' Because I don’t want the elephant in the room. If you’re gonna be in my life I feel like there’s a certain amount that comes with it that I can’t stop from happening. I can’t stop from you getting a call in the morning that says, ‘The tabloids are writing this today.’ I can’t help it if there’s a guy with a camera two miles away with a telescope lense taking pictures of you. I can’t stop those things from happening. And so this song was basically like, ‘Is it enough? Is the stuff that I can control enough to block out the things that I can’t?' So it makes me really emotional to hear this song.

[Taylor] To know that a lot of people related to it who aren’t talking about the same things that I’m talking about. They’re talking about human complexity. It’s about someone who you wanna provide with peace, someone you love, so you want them to have as much peace in their life as possible and reconciling the fact that you might not be their best option for that. But is it still a deal they wanna take?

[Taylor to Paul McCartney] peace is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living. I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.

[Aaron] “I wrote this, and Justin provided the pulse. We trade ideas all the time and he made a folder, and there was a pulse in there that I wrote these bass lines to. In the other parts of the composition, I did it to Justin’s pulse. Taylor heard this sketch and she wrote the song. It reminds me of Joni Mitchell, in a way — there’s this really powerful and emotional love song, even the impressionistic, almost jazz-like bridge, and she weaves it perfectly together. This is one of my favorites, for sure. But the truth is that the music, that way of playing with harmonized bass lines, is something that probably comes a little bit from me being inspired by how Justin does that sometimes. There’s probably a connection there. We didn’t talk too much about it [laughs]. The song “peace” — when she wrote that, it was just a harmonized bass and a pulse. She wrote this incredible love song to it that’s one vocal take.”

May 2020: Taylor and Aaron spend the entire month writing all the songs on folklore.

EXILE (FT. BON IVER)

Taylor and William Bowery, the singer-songwriter, wrote that song initially together and sent it to me as a sort of a rough demo where Taylor was singing both the male and female parts. It’s supposed to be a dialogue between two lovers. I interpreted that and built the song, played the piano, and built around that template. We recorded Taylor’s vocals with her singing her parts but also the male parts. We talked a lot about who she thought would be perfect to sing, and we kept coming back to Justin [Vernon]. Obviously, he’s a dear friend of mine and collaborator. I said, “Well, if he’s inspired by the song, he’ll do it, and if not, he won’t.” I sent it to him and said, “No pressure at all, literally no pressure, but how do you feel about this?” He said, “Wow.” He wrote some parts into it also, and we went back and forth a little bit, but it felt like an incredibly natural and safe collaboration between friends. It didn’t feel like getting a guest star or whatever. It was just like, well, we’re working on something, and obviously he’s crazy talented, but it just felt right. I think they both put so much raw emotion into it. It’s like a surface bubbling. It’s believable, you know? You believe that they’re having this intense dialogue. With other people I had to be secretive, but with Justin, because he was going to sing, I actually did send him a version of the song with her vocals and told him what I was up to. He was like, “Whoa! Awesome!” But he’s been involved in so many big collaborative things that he wasn’t interested in it from that point of view. It’s more because he loved the song and he thought he could do something with it that would add something.

[Taylor on exile] “Exile was a song that was written about miscommunications in relationships, and in the case of this song I imagine that the miscommunications ended the relationship - that they led to sort of the demise of this love affair. And now these two people are seeing each other out for the first time and they keep miscommunicating with each other, they can’t quite get on the same page, they never were able to. So even in their end, even after they’ve broken up they’re still not hearing each other, so we imagined that the beginning of it would be his side of the story, second verse would be her side of the story, and then the end would be sort of them talking over each other and not listening to the other, sort of like an argument. Yeah, I’m really stoked about how it turned out because it really does seem like this sort of tragedy of two people, two ships passing in the night.”

[Joe Alwyn] Alwyn doesn’t consider himself a musician or songwriter and insists that he is, in fact, an awful singer. He was merely “messing around” on the piano when Swift heard and walked over, intrigued. He had been singing the fully formed first verse to the song that became “Exile.”. “It was completely off the cuff, an accident,” he says, shrugging. “She said, ‘Can we try and sit down and get to the end together?’ And so we did. It was as basic as some people made sourdough.” I’d probably had a drink and was just stumbling around the house. We couldn’t decide on a film to watch that night, and she was like, ‘Do you want to try and finish writing that song you were singing earlier?’ And so we got a guitar and did that. I press him on this point — he wrote an entire verse to a Taylor Swift song without trying? “Who doesn’t walk around the house singing?” he asks. I explain that it’s unusual for hit songs to spring forth like that from non-musicians’ heads. He says he wasn’t trying to write to Swift’s personal sound but had been listening to a lot of the National.

[Aaron] It was Taylor’s idea to approach [Justin Vernon]. I sent him Taylor’s voice memo of her singing both parts, and he got really excited and loved the song and then he wrote the extra part in the bridge.

INVISIBLE STRING

[Taylor] When I first heard the track that [Aaron] sent me I thought, ‘I have to write something that matches it’. And pretty quickly I came upon the idea of fate. ‘Cause sometimes I just go into a rabbit hole of thinking about how things happen and I love the romantic idea that every step you’re taking, you’re taking one step closer to what you’re supposed to be, guided by this little invisible string. I wrote it right after I sent an ex a baby gift and I just remember thinking, 'This is a full signifier that life is great!'

[Aaron] That was another one where it was music that I’d been playing for a couple of months and sort of humming along to her. It felt like one of the songs that pulls you along. Just playing it on one guitar, it has this emotional locomotion in it, a meditative finger-picking pattern that I really gravitate to. It’s played on this rubber bridge that my friend put on [the guitar] and it deadens the strings so that it sounds old. The core of it sounds like a folk song. It’s also kind of a sneaky pop song, because of the beat that comes in. She knew that there was something coming because she said, “You know, I love this and I’m hearing something already.” And then she said, “This will change the story,” this beautiful and direct kind of recounting of a relationship in its origin.

MAD WOMAN

[Taylor] [“mad woman” has] these ominous strings underneath it and I was like, ‘Oh, this is female rage.' And then I was thinking the most rage provoking element of being a female is the gaslighting that happens. For centuries, we were just expected to absorb male behavior silently. And oftentimes, when we – in our enlightened and emboldened state – now respond to bad male behavior or somebody just doing something that’s absolutely out of line and we respond, that response is treated like the offense itself. There’s been situations recently with someone who’s very guilty of this in my life and it’s a person who makes me feel (or tries to make me feel) like I’m the offender by having any kind of defense to his offenses. It’s like I have absolutely no right to respond or I’m crazy. I have no right to respond or I’m angry. I have no right to respond or I’m out of line. So [Aaron] provided the musical bed for me to make that point that I’ve been trying so hard to figure out how to make…How do I say why this feels so bad?

[Aaron] That might be the most scathing song on folklore. It has a darkness that I think is cathartic, sort of witch-hunting and gaslighting and maybe bullying. Sometimes you become the person people try to pin you into a corner to be, which is not really fair. But again, don’t quote me on that [laughs], I just have my own interpretation. It’s one of the biggest releases on the album to me. It has this very sharp tone to it, but sort of in gothic folklore. It’s this record’s goth song.

EPIPHANY

[Taylor] I remember thinking, ‘Maybe I wanna write a sports story.’ Because I had just watched The Last Dance and I was thinking all in terms of sports, and winners, and underdogs. But actually, what I had been doing really frequently up until that point was I had been doing a lot of research on my grandfather who fought in World War II at Guadalcanal, which was an extremely bloody battle. And he never talked about it. Not with his sons, not with his wife. Nobody got to hear about what happened there. So my dad and his brothers did a lot of digging and found out that my granddad was exposed to some of the worst situations you could ever imagine as a human being. So I kind of tried to imagine what would happen in order to make you just never be able to speak about something. And when I was thinking about that I realized that there are people right now taking a twenty minute break in between shifts at a hospital who are having this kind of trauma happen to them right now, that they probably will never wanna speak about. And so I thought that this is an opportunity to maybe tell that story. I often feel that there have been times in my life where things have fallen apart so methodically, and I couldn’t control how things were going wrong, and nothing I did stopped it. I just felt like I’d been pushed out a plane and I was scratching on the air on the way down. I just felt like the universe was doing its thing. It was just dismantling my life and there was nothing I could do. And this is a weird situation where – ever since I started making music with [Aaron] – I felt like that was the universe forcing things to fall into place perfectly and there’s nothing I could do. It’s one of those weird things that makes you think about life a lot. This lockdown could’ve been a time where I absolutely lost my mind and instead I think this album was a real floatation device for both of us.

[Aaron] For epiphany, she did have this idea of a beautiful drone, or a very cinematic sort of widescreen song, where it’s not a lot of accents but more like a sea to bathe in. A stillness, in a sense. I first made this crazy drone which starts the song, and it’s there the whole time. It’s lots of different instruments played and then slowed down and reversed. It created this giant stack of harmony, which is so giant that it was kind of hard to manage, sonically, but it was very beautiful to get lost in. And then I played the piano to it, and it almost felt classical or something, those suspended chords. I think she just heard it, and instantly, this song came to her, which is really an important one. It’s partially the story of her grandfather, who was a soldier, and partially then a story about a nurse in modern times. I don’t know if this is how she did it, but to me, it’s like a nurse, doctor, or medical professional, where med school doesn’t fully prepare you for seeing someone pass away or just the difficult emotional things that you’ll encounter in your job. In the past, heroes were just soldiers. Now they’re also medical professionals. To me, that’s the underlying mission of the song. There are some things that you see that are hard to talk about. You can’t talk about it. You just bear witness to them. But there’s something else incredibly soothing and comforting about this song. To me, it’s this Icelandic kind of feel, almost classical. My brother did really beautiful orchestration of it.

BETTY

[Aaron] This one Taylor and William wrote, and then both Jack and I worked on it. We all kind of passed it around. This is the one where Taylor wanted a reference. She wanted it to have an early Bob Dylan, sort of a Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan feel. We pushed it a little more towards John Wesley Harding, since it has some drums. It’s this epic narrative folk song where it tells us a long story and connects back to “cardigan.” It starts to connect dots and I think it’s a beautifully written folk song.

[Taylor] I just heard Joe singing the entire fully formed chorus of ‘betty’ from another room. And I was just like, ‘Hello.’ It was a step that we would never have taken, because why would we have ever written a song together? So this was the first time we had a conversation where I came in and I was like, 'Hey, this could be really weird, and we could hate this, so because we’re in quarantine and there’s nothing else going on, could we just try to see what it’s like if we write this song together?' So he was singing the chorus of it, and I thought it sounded really good from a man’s voice, from a masculine perspective. And I really liked that it seemed to be an apology. I’ve written so many songs from a female’s perspective of wanting a male apology that we decided to make it from a teenage boy’s perspective apologizing after he loses the love of his life because he’s been foolish.

[James] has lost the love of his life basically and doesn't understand how to get it back. I think we all have these situations in our lives where we learn to really, really give a heartfelt apology for the first time. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody really messes up sometimes and this is a song that I wrote from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy. I've always loved that in music you can kinda slip into different identities and you can sing from other people's perspectives. So that's what I did on this one," the superstar explained of the song's premise, before revealing, "I named all the characters in this story after my friends' kids... and I hope you like it!

[Joe Alwyn] I’d probably had a drink and was just stumbling around the house. We couldn’t decide on a film to watch that night, and she was like, ‘Do you want to try and finish writing that song you were singing earlier?’ And so we got a guitar and did that.” Initially, Alwyn didn’t want his name credited, anticipating that what he describes as the “clickbait conversation” would distract people from actually listening to the music. So he went by William Bowery as a nod to his music-composer great-grandfather and the Manhattan street.

[Taylor] With ‘betty,’ Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that’s exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people’s. It’s been really fun to watch.

THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN DYNASTY

[Taylor] When [Aaron] sent me the track to ‘the last great american dynasty’ I had been wanting to write a song about Rebekah Harkness since 2013, probably. I’d never figured out the right way to do it because there was never a track that felt like it could hold an entire story of somebody’s life and moving between generations. When I heard that [the track] I was like, ‘Oh my God, I think this is my opening. I think this is my moment. I think I can write the Rebekah Harkness story!' It has that country music narrative device.”

[Aaron] I wrote that after we’d been working for a while. It was an attempt to write something attractive, more uptempo and kind of pushing. I also was interested in this almost In Rainbows-style latticework of electric guitars. They come in and sort of pull you along, kind of reminiscent of Big Red Machine. It was very much in this sound world that I’ve been playing around with, and she immediately clicked with that. Initially I was imagining these dreamlike distant electric guitars and electronics but with an element of folk. There’s a lot going on in that sense. I sent it before I went on a run, and when I got back from the run, that song was there [laughs].She told me the story behind it, which sort of recounts the narrative of Rebekah Harkness, whom people actually called Betty. She was married to the heir of Standard Oil fortune, married into the Harkness family, and they bought this house in Rhode Island up on a cliff. It’s kind of the story of this woman and the outrageous parties she threw. She was infamous for not fitting in, entirely, in society; that story, at the end, becomes personal. Eventually, Taylor bought that house. I think that is symptomatic of folklore, this type of narrative song. We didn’t do very much to that either.

[Taylor] “Anyone who's been there before knows that I do 'The Tour,' where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.”

Dessner and Swift were working intensively and at high speed throughout 2020, so much so that on one occasion the producer sent the singer a track and went out for a run in the countryside around Long Pond. By the time he got back, Swift had already written ‘the last great american dynasty’ and it was waiting for him in his inbox.

Late May/Early June 2020: Taylor sends Aaron the last two folklore songs, the 1 and hoax.

[Aaron] “the 1” and “hoax,” the first song and the last song, were the last songs we did. The album was sort of finished before that. We thought it was complete, but Taylor then went back into the folder of ideas that I had shared. I think in a way, she didn’t realize she was writing for this album or a future something. She wrote “the 1,” and then she wrote “hoax” a couple of hours later and sent them in the middle of the night. When I woke up in the morning, I wrote her before she woke up in LA and said, “These have to be on the record.” She woke up and said, “I agree” [laughs]. These are the bookends, you know?It’s clear that “the 1” is not written from her perspective. It’s written from another friend’s perspective. There’s an emotional wryness and rawness, while also to this kind of wink in her eyes. There’s a little bit of her sense of humor in there, in addition to this kind of sadness that exists both underneath and on the surface. I enjoy that about her writing. The song [began from] the voice memo she sent me, and then I worked on the music some and we tracked her vocals, and then my brother added orchestration. There are a few other little bits, but basically that was one of the very last things we did. [Hoax] is a big departure. I think she said to me, “Don’t try to give it any other space other than what feels natural to you.” If you leave me in a room with a piano, I might play something like this. I take a lot of comfort in this. I think I imagined her playing this and singing it. After writing all these songs, this one felt the most emotional and, in a way, the rawest. It is one of my favorites. There’s sadness, but it’s a kind of hopeful sadness. It’s a recognition that you take on the burden of your partners, your loved ones, and their ups and downs. That’s both “peace” and “hoax” to me. That’s part of how I feel about those songs because I think that’s life. There’s a reality, the gravity or an understanding of the human condition.

[Taylor on the 1] I think, ‘I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit, been saying 'Yes' instead of 'No’ has a double meaning. Opening the album with that line applies to the situation that this song is written about where you’re updating a former lover on what your life is like now and trying to be positive about it. But it was also about where I am creatively. I’m just saying ‘Yes’, I’m just putting out an album in the worst time you could put one out, I’m just making stuff with someone who I’ve always wanted to make stuff with, as long as I’ve been a fan of The National. I’m just going to say 'Yes’ to stuff and it worked out.

[Taylor on hoax] The word ‘hoax’ is another one that I love. I love that is has an ‘x’ and the way it looks and sounds. I think with this song being the last one on the album it kind of embodied all the things that this album was thematically: confessions, incorporating nature, emotional volatility and ambiguity at the same time, love that isn’t just easy. And it’s the most symbolic and poetic thing, listing all these things that this person is to you. That line, ‘You know it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart’ – anyone in my life knows what I’m singing about there but everybody has that situation in their life where you let someone in and they get to know you and they know exactly what buttons to push to hurt you the most. That thing where the scars healed over but there’s still phantom pain. I think the part that sounds like love to me is, ‘Don’t want no other shade of blue but you. No other sadness in the world would do.’ To me that sounds like what love really is. Who would you be sad with? And who would you deal with when they were sad? And like, gray skies every day for months, would you still stay?

[Aaron] We didn’t talk about [the meaning of the album] at first. It was only after writing six or seven songs, basically when I thought my writing was done, when we got on the phone and said, “OK, I think we’re making an album. I have these six other ideas that I love with Jack [Antonoff] that we’ve already done, and I think what we’ve done fits really well with them.” It’s sort of these narratives, these folkloric songs, with characters that interweave and are written from different perspectives. She had a vision, and it was connecting back in some way to the folk tradition, but obviously not entirely sonically. It’s more about the narrative aspect of it. I think it’s this sort of nostalgia and wistfulness that is in a lot of the songs. A lot of them have this kind of longing for looking back on things that have happened in your life, in your friend’s life, or another loved one’s life, and the kind of storytelling around that. That was clear to her. But then we kept going, and more and more songs happened. It was a very organic process where [meaning] wasn’t something that we really discussed. It just kind of would happen where she would dive back into the folder and find other things that were inspiring. Or she and William Bowery would write “exile,” and then that happened. There were different stages of the process.

May 21, 2020: As stated in the folklore: long pond sessions, Taylor started recording the vocals on this day. She also finishes august while in the vocal booth.

[Taylor] In my head, I’ve been calling the girl from ‘august’ either Augusta or Augustine. What happened in my head was: ‘cardigan’ is Betty’s perspective from 20 or 30 years later, looking back on this love that was this tumultuous thing. I think Betty and James ended up together. So in my head, she ends up with him but he really put her through it. ‘august’ was obviously about the girl that James had this summer with. She seems like she’s a bad girl, but really she’s not. She’s a really sensitive person who fell for him and she was trying to seem cool and like she didn’t care because that’s what girls have to do. And she was trying to let him think that she didn’t care, but she did and she thought they had something very real. And then he goes back to Betty. So the idea that there is some bad, villain girl in any type of situation who ‘takes your man’ is a total myth because that’s not usually the case at all. Everybody has feelings and wants to be seen and loved. And Augustine…that’s all she wanted.

She previously had written down the phrase ‘Meet me behind the mall’ in her phone years ago, wanting to write it into a song.

May 22-June 5, 2020: Taylor leaves LA and goes to Upstate New York to touch up some vocals (Betty), and shooting the photoshoot at Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' house. She also records Carolina at Long Pond. The song was recorded in one take using only instruments available before 1953.

[EW Interview] “I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a mood board and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.”

[About Carolina] About a year & half ago I wrote a song about the story of a girl who always lived on the outside, looking in. Figuratively & literally. The juxtaposition of her loneliness & independence. Her curiosity & fear all tangled up. Her persisting gentleness & the world’s betrayal of it. I wrote this one alone in the middle of the night and then Aaron Dessner and I meticulously worked on a sound that we felt would be authentic to the moment when this story takes place. I made a wish that one day you would hear it. here The Crawdads Sing is a book I got absolutely lost in when I read it years ago. As soon as I heard there was a film in the works starring the incredible Daisy Edgar-Jones and produced by the brilliant Reese Witherspoon, I knew I wanted to be a part of it from the musical side. I wrote the song “Carolina” alone and asked my friend Aaron Dessner to produce it. I wanted to create something haunting and ethereal to match this mesmerizing story.

June 5, 2020: The Inner Circle posts the Oxford definition of the word folklore: “The traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth.” adding “Taylor, your secret is safe with us.” later that day.

June 16, 2020: The Inner Circle posts the Oxford definition of the word cardigan: “A knitted sweater fastening down the front, typically with long sleeves. (Taylor, your secret remains safe with us. Here at the IC we are anxiously awaiting your big reveal)”

June-July 2020: During June and possibly early July, Aaron and Jon Low mix and master the album. It's a complicated process.

[Aaron] If there was trouble it started to be because of track counts. I probably only used 20 percent of what was actually recorded, ’cause we would try a lot of things, y’know. So, eventually the sessions got kinda crazy and you’d have to deactivate a lot of things and print things. But we got used to that. [...] I think the main thing was I wanted her vocals to have a more full range than maybe you typically hear, because I think a lot of the more pop oriented records are mixed a certain way and they take some of the warmth out of the vocal, so that it’s very bright and it kinda cuts really well on the radio. But she has this wonderful lower warmth frequency in her voice which is particularly important on a song like ‘seven’. If you carved out that mud, y’know, it wouldn’t hit you the same way. Or, like, ‘cardigan’, I think it needs that warmth, the kind of fuller feeling to it. It makes it darker, but to me that’s where a lot of emotion is.

[Aaron on the mixing process] In some instances, the final mix ended up being the never bettered rough mix, while other songs took far more work. “‘cardigan’ is basically the rough, as is ‘seven’. So, like the early, early mixes, when we didn’t even know we were mixing, we never were able to make it better. Like if you make it sound ‘good’, it might not be as good ’cause it loses some of its weird magic, y’know. But songs like ‘the last great american dynasty’ or ‘mad woman’, those songs were a little harder to create the dynamics the way you want them, and the pay off without going too far, and with also just keeping in the kind of aesthetic that we were in. Those were harder, I would say.

[Mixer Jon Low] In the beginning it did not feel real,” recalls Low. “There was this brand new collaboration, and it was amazing how quickly Aaron made these instrumental sketches and Taylor wrote lyrics and melodies to them, which she initially sent to us as iPhone voice memos. During our nightly family dinners in lockdown, Aaron would regularly pull up his phone and say, ‘Listen to this!’ and there would be another voice memo from Taylor with this beautiful song that she had written over a sketch of Aaron’s in a matter of hours. The rate at which it was happening was mind blowing. There was constant elevation, inspiration and just wanting to continue the momentum. “We put her voice memos straight into Pro Tools. They had tons of character, because of the weird phone compression and cutting midrange quality you just would not get when you put someone in front of a pristine recording chain. Plus there was all this bleed. It’s interesting how that dictates the attitude of the vocal and of the song. Even though none of the original voice memos ended up on the albums, they often gave us unexpected hints. These voice memos were such on a whim things, they were really telling. Taylor had certain phrasings and inflections that we often returned to later on. They became our reference points. “Taylor’s voice memos often came with suggestions for how to edit the sketches: maybe throw in a bridge somewhere, shorten a section, change the chords or arrangement somewhere, and so on. Aaron would have similar ideas, and he then developed the arrangements, often with his brother Bryce, adding or replacing instruments. This happened fast, and became very interactive between us and Taylor, even though we were working remotely. When we added instruments, we were reacting to the way my rough mixes felt at the very beginning. Of course, it was also dictated by how Taylor wrote and sang to the tracks.”

[Jon Low on the mixing process] Throughout the entire process we were trying to maintain the original feel. Sometimes this was hard, because that initial rawness would get lost in large arrangements and additional layering. With revisions of folklore in particular we sometimes were losing the emotional weight from earlier more casual mixes. Because I was always mixing, there was also always the danger of over mixing. “We were trying to get the best of each mix version, and sometimes that meant stepping backwards, and grabbing a piano chain from an earlier mix, or going three versions back to before we added orchestration. There were definitely moments of thinking, ‘Is this going to compete sonically? Is this loud enough?’ We knew we loved the way the songs sounded as we were building them, so we stuck with what we knew. There were times where I tried to keep pushing a mix forward but it didn’t improve the song — ‘cardigan’ is an example of a song where we ended up choosing a very early mix.

July 2020: While folklore is being finished, Taylor continues to write songs. The first two songs, that at first seem like Big Red Machine songs, are dorothea and closure.

[Aaron] A lot more of [evermore] was made from scratch. After Folklore came out, I think Taylor had written two songs early on that we both thought were for Big Red Machine, “Closure” and “Dorothea.” But the more I listened to them, not that they couldn’t be Big Red Machine songs, but they felt like interesting, exciting Taylor songs. “Closure” is very experimental and in this weird time signature, but still lyrically felt like some evolution of Folklore, and “Dorothea” definitely felt like it was reflecting on some character.

[Aaron on closure] Vernon provided the grainy beat that kicks off ‘closure’, one of two tracks on evermore that started life as a sketch for the second Big Red Machine album. “It was this little loop that Justin had given me in this folder of ‘Starters’, he calls them. I had heard that and been playing the piano to it. But I was hearing it in 5/4, although it’s not in 5/4. ‘Closure’ really opened everything up further. There were no real limits to where we were gonna try to write songs.”

In the Billboard interview above, Aaron says he thinks that Taylor wrote them after folklore was released, while in the Rolling Stone one he says they were written while finishing up the folklore mixes.

“I think I’d written around 30 of those songs in total,” Dessner recalls. “So when I started sharing them with Taylor over the months that we were working on Folklore, she got really into it, and she wrote two songs to some of that music.” One was “Closure,” an experimental electronic track in 5/4 time signature that was built over a staccato drum kit. The other song was “Dorothea,” a rollicking, Americana piano tune. The more Dessner listened to them, the more he realized that they were continuations of Folklore‘s characters and stories. But the real turning point came soon after Folklore‘s surprise release in late July, when Dessner wrote a musical sketch and named it “Westerly,” after the town in Rhode Island where Swift owns the house previously owned by Rebekah Harkness.

Dorothea is the only evermore song to have been recorded at Taylor's home studio in LA, she left LA 3 days after the release of folklore so Occam's razor, I'm guessing that the RS interview is the correct one and dorothea and closure were written in late June/early July, while the Folklorians were finishing up the album.

July 24, 2020: folklore is released, after being announced the day before.

August 6-18, 2020: To celebrate how well folklore was received, Aaron composes an instrumental track called Westerly, named after the town in Rhode Island where Taylor owns Holiday House. Taylor writes willow on it, then sends a voice memo to Aaron.

[Voice Memo] “Here's the Westerly one, written in Westerly!”

[Aaron] And I, sort of in celebration of Folklore, had written a piece of music that I titled “Westerly,” that’s where she has the house that she wrote “Last Great American Dynasty” about. I’ll do that sometimes, just make things for friends or write music just to write it, but I didn’t at all think it would become a song. And she, like an hour later, sent back “Willow” written to that song, and that sort of set [things in motion] and we just started filling this Dropbox again. It was kind of like, “What’s happening?”

There are so many stories I could share. When I sent Taylor the music for our song 'willow' — I think she wrote the entire song from start to finish in less than 10 minutes and sent it back to me. It was like an earthquake. Then Taylor said, 'I guess we are making another album.'

I liked opening the album with ['willow'] because I loved the feeling that I got, immediately upon hearing the instrumental that Aaron created for it. It felt strangely witchy, like somebody making a love potion, dreaming up the person that they want and desire, and trying to figure out how to get that person in their life. And all the misdirection, and bait and switch, and complexity that goes into seeing someone, feeling a connection, wanting them, and trying to make them a part of your life. It’s tactical at times, it’s confusing at times, it’s up to fate, it’s magical. It felt a bit magical and mysterious, which is what I want people to feel going into an album that was a collection of these stories that were going to take them in all kinds of directions. I just wanted to start them off with a setting of the vibe.

August/September 2020: Taylor writes no body, no crime, possibly while in London.

[Taylor] Working with the HAIM sisters on 'no body, no crime' was pretty hilarious because it came about after I wrote a pretty dark murder mystery song and had named the character Este, because she’s the friend I have who would be stoked to be in a song like that. I had finished the song and was nailing down some lyric details and texted her, 'You’re not going to understand this text for a few days but... which chain restaurant do you like best?' and I named a few. She chose Olive Garden and a few days later I sent her the song and asked if they would sing on it. It was an immediate 'YES.'

[Aaron] Taylor wrote that one alone and sent me a voice memo of her playing guitar — she wrote it on this rubber-bridge guitar that I got for her. It’s the same kind I play on “Invisible String.” So she wrote “No Body, No Crime” and sent me a voice memo of it, and then I started building on that. It’s funny, because the music I’ve listened to the most in my life are things that are more like that — roots music, folk music, country music, old-school rock & roll, the Grateful Dead. It’s not really the sound of the National or other things I’ve done, but it feels like a warm blanket. Taylor had specific ideas from the beginning about references and how she wanted it to feel, and that she wanted the Haim sisters to sing on it. We had them record the song with Ariel Reichshaid, they sent that from L.A., and then we put it together when Taylor was here [at Long Pond]. They’re an incredible band, and it was another situation where we were like, “Well, this happened.” It felt like this weird little rock & roll history anecdote.

[Aaron] [We realized evermore was going to end up being another album] after we’d written several songs, seven or eight or nine. Each one would happen, and we would both be in this sort of disbelief of this weird alchemy that we had unleashed. The ideas were coming fast and furiously and were just as compelling as anything on Folklore, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. At some point, Taylor wrote evermore with William Bowery, and then we sent it to Justin, who wrote the bridge, and all of a sudden, that’s when it started to become clear that there was a sister record.

September 16- 23, 2020: Taylor and Jack go to Upstate New York to record the Long Pond Studio Session. She writes 'tis the damn season there on the 17th. Afterwards Taylor stays a few more days to record the bulk of the evermore vocals: willow, champagne problems, gold rush, 'tis the damn season, tolerate it, no body no crime, coney island, ivy, long story short, marjorie, closure, evermore, and it’s time to go.

After the Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, [Taylor] stayed for quite a while and we recorded a lot. She actually wrote 'tis the damn season when she arrived for the first day of rehearsal. We played all night and drank a lot of wine after the fireside chat — and we were all pretty drunk, to be honest — and then I thought she went to bed. But the next morning, at 9:00 a.m. or something, she showed up and was like, “I have to sing you this song,” and she had written it in the middle of the night. That was definitely another moment [where] my brain exploded, because she sang it to me in my kitchen, and it was just surreal. That music is actually older — it’s something I wrote many years ago, and hid away because I loved it so much. It meant something to me, and it felt like the perfect song finally found it. There was a feeling in it, and she identified that feeling: That feeling of... “The ache in you, put there by the ache in me.” I think everyone can relate to that. It’s one of my favorites.

[Aaron] She stayed after we were done filming and then we recorded a lot. It was crazy because we were getting ready to make that film, but at the same time, these songs were accumulating. And so we thought, “Hmm, I guess we should just stay and work.”

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS

[Taylor] Joe and I really love sad songs. He started that one and came up with the melodic structure of it. I say it was a surprise that we started writing together, but in a way it wasn’t cause we had always bonded over music and had the same musical tastes. He’s always the person who’s showing me songs by artists and then they become my favorite songs. ‘champagne problems’ was one of my favorite bridges to write. I really love a bridge where you tell the full story in the bridge. You really shift gears in that bridge. I’m so excited to one day be in front of a crowd, when they all sing, ‘She would’ve made such a lovely bride, what a shame she’s fucked in the head’. Cause I know it’s so sad, but it’s those songs like ‘All Too Well’. Performing that song is one of the most joyful experiences I ever go through when I perform live, so when there’s a song like ‘champagne problems’ where you know it’s so sad… I love a sad song, you know?

GOLD RUSH

During the willow live stream premiere, Taylor revealed that “gold rush” is Jack's favourite song and that it takes place inside a single daydream where you get lost in thought for a minute and then snap out of it.

[Jack] gold rush was a pretty different sound than what was on folklore. Even the movement in the chorus and some of the chord changes, they're very outside of the realm for what we've done together. We have different processes. Sometimes we sit in a room, sometimes she'll send me a song, sometimes I'll send her a track. That was one where I had the track going. And she did the classic thing where you send it to her, and a very short time later, she sent back a voice note with all of these brilliant ideas of what the song is.

'TIS THE DAMN SEASON

[Aaron] '‘tis the damn season' is a really special song to me for a number of reasons. When I wrote the music to it, which was a long time ago, I remember thinking that this is one of my favorite things I’ve ever made, even though it’s an incredibly simple musical sketch. But it has this arc to it, and there’s this simplicity in the minimalism of it, and the kind of drum programming in there, and I always loved the tone of that guitar. When Taylor played the track and sang it to me in my kitchen, that was a highlight of this whole time. That track felt like something I have always loved and could have just stayed music, but instead, someone of her incredible storytelling ability and musical ability took it and made something much greater. And it’s something that we can all relate to. [Note: The instrumental Aaron is talking about is called Ingrid and was written in 2013 when his daughter Ingrid Stella was born. It was released in 2018 on the album Songs Without Words.]

TOLERATE IT

[Taylor] When you watch a film or you read a book and there’s a character that you identify with, most of the time you identify with them because they’re targeting something in you that feels that you’ve been there. That’s why we relate to characters. When I was reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier I was thinking, ‘Her husband just tolerates her. She’s doing all these things, trying so hard to impress him and he’s just tolerating her the whole time.’ There was a part of me that could relate to that because at some point in my life I felt that way. So I ended up writing this song ‘tolerate it’ that’s all about trying to love someone who’s ambivalent.

[Aaron] When I wrote the piano track to 'tolerate it,' right before I sent it to her, I thought, 'This song is intense.' It’s in 10/8, which is an odd time signature. And I did think for a second, 'Maybe I shouldn’t send it to her, she won’t be into it.' But I sent it to her, and it conjured a scene in her mind, and she wrote this crushingly beautiful song to it and sent it back. I think I cried when I first heard it. It just felt like the most natural thing, you know? There weren’t limitations to the process. And in these places where we were pushing into more experimental sounds or odd time signatures, that just felt like part of the work.

CONEY ISLAND

[Taylor on coney island] “The story behind writing Coney Island - Aaron Dessner had sent me this track that he had created with his brother Bryce and I wrote the lyrics and the melody with William Bowery. I think I might have been coming from a place of somebody who’s been in a relationship for decades and wakes up one day and realizes that they have taken their partner completely for granted. So whether you wanna look at it from the perspective of somebody who’s in a new relationship or very long-standing relationship, I think it just really speaks to if people are trying to communicate but they’re two ships passing in the night, they’re trying to love each other but their signals are somehow missing each other - I just found that really interesting... and yeah, we’re really proud of this one. There were elements of it that immediately reminded me of Matt Berninger‘s vocal stylings and his writing, and I kind of targeted some of the lyrics of the second verse to sound sort of like what he might do - cause I hoped that he might sing on it. Because, you know, we already had two members of The National on the song, with Aaron and Bryce. So we got our wish and Matt sang on this song. I think he did an amazing job, I’m such a huge fan of the band and I’m really honored this was able to come together with The National.”

[Aaron on coney island] One key track on evermore, ‘coney island’, features all of the members of the National and sees Swift duetting with their singer Matt Berninger. “My brother [Bryce] actually originated that song,” says Aaron Dessner. “I sent him a reference at one point — I can’t remember what it was — and then he was sort of inspired to write that chord progression. Then we worked together to sort of develop it and I wrote a bunch of parts and we structured it. Taylor and William Bowery [the songwriting pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn] wrote ‘coney island’ and she sang a beautiful version. It felt kind of done, actually. But then I think we all collectively thought — Taylor and myself and Bryce — like this was the closest to a National song. Dessner then asked the brothers who make up the National’s rhythm section, drummer Bryan and bassist Scott Devendorf, to play on ‘coney island’. Matt Berninger, as he often does with the band’s own tracks, recorded his vocal at home in Los Angeles. “It was never in the same place, it was done remotely,” says Dessner, “except Bryan was here at Long Pond when he played. It was great to collaborate as a band with Taylor.”

MARJORIE

[Aaron] “Taylor’s family gave us a bunch of recordings of her grandmother,” Dessner explains. “But they were from old, very scratchy, noisy vinyl. So, we had to denoise it all using [iZotope’s] RX and then I went in and I found some parts that I thought might work. I pitch shifted them into the key and then placed them. It took a while to find the right ones, but it’s really beautiful to be able to hear her. It’s just an incredibly special thing, I think.”

EVERMORE

[Taylor] When Joe wrote the piano, I based the vocal melody on the piano, and we sent it to Justin, who then added that bridge. And Joe had written the piano part so that the tempo speeds up, and it changes. The music completely changes to a different tempo in the bridge. And Justin really latched onto that, and just 100% embraced it and wrote this beautiful sort of... The clutter of all your anxieties in your head, and they're all speaking at once. And we got the bridge back, and then I wrote this narrative of, 'When I was shipwrecked, I thought of you.' That sort of thing, where there was this beacon of hope, and then in the end, you realize the pain wouldn't be forever.

IT'S TIME TO GO

[Taylor] it’s time to go is about listening to your gut when it tells you to leave. How you always know before you know, you know?

Aaron Dessner, Jon Low, Stine Dessner and Taylor at Long Pond in September 2020.

October 6, 2020: Taylor and Paul McCartney get to chat for Rolling Stone. Taylor softly references tolerate it, ivy and willow.

Swift: I was reading so much more than I ever did, and watching so many more films. McCartney: What stuff were you reading? Swift: I was reading, you know, books like Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which I highly recommend, and books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I was also using words I always wanted to use — kind of bigger, flowerier, prettier words, like “epiphany,” in songs. I always thought, “Well, that’ll never track on pop radio,” but when I was making this record, I thought, “What tracks? Nothing makes sense anymore. If there’s chaos everywhere, why don’t I just use the damn word I want to use in the song?”

October 14, 2020: Jason Treuting records the glockenspiel on willow. (I got this date form the original willow stems)

October 28, 2020: Bryce Devendorf records the percussions on willow. (I got this date form the original willow stems)

October/November 2020: Aaron goes to see Justin Vernon in his home studio in Wisconsin, where they work on the album. Aaron writes the instrumental sketch to right where you left me before going on this trip.

[Aaron] I went to see Justin at one point — that’s the one trip I’ve made — and we worked together at his place on stuff. He plays the drums on “Cowboy Like Me” and “Closure,” and he plays guitar and banjo and sings on “Ivy,” and sings on “Marjorie” and “Evermore.” And then we processed Taylor’s vocals through his Messina chain together. He was really deeply involved in this record, even more so than the last record. He’s always been such a huge help to me, and not just by getting him to play stuff or sing stuff — I can also send him things and get his feedback. We’ve done a ton of work together, but we have different perspectives and different harmonic brains. He obviously has his own studio set up at home, but it was nice to be able to see him and work on this stuff.

November 4, 2020: Taylor shoots the evermore cover, the Red TV cover, and the EW photos. (I got this date from an insider)

November 7, 2020: Taylor films the willow music video. (I got this date from an insider)

November 20, 2020: Aaron records the bass on willow. (I got this date form the original willow stems)

November 25, 2020: Taylor is at Marcus Mumford's studio called Scarlet Pimpernel to finish evermore. They record vocals for two new songs, happiness and right where you left me, they touch up the vocals for coney island, they record Joe's piano on evermore the song, and Marcus records backing vocals on cowboy like me. She possibly stays more than one day.

Taylor has mentioned that you recorded “Happiness” just a week before the album was released. Was that something you guys wrote, recorded, and produced all at the last minute, or was it something you’d been sitting on for a while before you finally cracked the code? There were two songs like that. One is a bonus track called “Right Where You Left Me,” and the other one was “Happiness,” which she wrote literally days before we were supposed to master. That’s similar to what happened with Folklore, with “The 1” and “Hoax,” which she wrote days before. We mixed all the tracks here, and it’s a lot to mix 17 songs, it’s like a Herculean task. And it was funny, because I walked into the studio and Jon Low, our engineer here, was mixing and had been working the whole time toward this. And I came in and he’s in the middle of mixing and I was like, “There are two more songs.” And he looked at me like, “…We’re not gonna make it.” Because it does take a lot of time to work out how to finish them. But she sang those remotely. And the music for “Happiness” is something that I had been working on since last year. I had sang a little bit on it, too — I thought it was a Big Red Machine song, but then she loved the instrumental and ended up writing to it. Same with the other one, “Right Where You Left Me” — it was something I had written right before I went to visit Justin, because I thought, “Maybe we’ll make something when we’re together there.” And Taylor had heard that and wrote this amazing song to it. That is a little bit how she works — she writes a lot of songs, and then at the very end she sometimes writes one or two more, and they often are important ones.

[Taylor on cowboy like me] Take yourselves back to 2020, and I put out folklore, and I just kept writing. I thought, 'Let me make a sister album to folklore and call it evermore.' And so I started immediately. Aaron, Jack, and I were just writing remotely. And the challenge at the time was trying to figure out how to record things. Most studios were completely shut down due to Covid, understandably. I could not find a studio, essentially. So Aaron is like, 'Let me call around to see if there is anyone who is cool, and nice, and generous, and might be willing to offer up their home studio, if we do the right amount of testing, we're totally locked down, and quarantined.' And I was like, 'Okay, please, I really hope someone comes through.' And so he calls me ,'I have really really good news. Marcus Mumford said that you could record at his home studio.' So I first of all, I am so excited that he's saving us, because without this trip, we wouldn't have recorded five or six of the songs on evermore, which came from me getting in a car, driving six hours out into the country past thousands of beautiful sheep, to Marcus Mumford's beautiful house where he has a studio. So I got to do this, we get there, and the whole time I'm thinking, 'Okay, wouldn't it be so cool if he would sing on something?' Because I'm such a Mumford & Sons fan. I just think he's brilliant and has one of the most gorgeous voices in the world. So I'm like, 'Will he sing something, please?' But I didn't want to be weird about it, so I'm like, 'I wonder if fate will have him wander into the studio at the right time.' So sure enough, we're recording a song, and he wanders in at the perfect time and just kind of started humming a harmony. And I turned to him as if I hadn't been thinking of it the whole time, and I was like, 'Oh! You sound really good on that harmony! I wonder if you might sing on this song?' And he said, 'Yep, I would love to!' So essentially, because of Marcus Mumford we have a lot of the songs that probably we wouldn't have been able to put out evermore as quickly as we did. And we also have a gorgeous harmony on a song called 'cowboy like me.'

[Aaron] The music for happiness is something that I had been working on since last year. I had sang a little bit on it, too — I thought it was a Big Red Machine song, but then she loved the instrumental and ended up writing to it.

[Taylor] right where you left me is a song about a girl who stayed forever in the exact spot where her heart was broken, completely frozen in time.

Taylor at Scarlet Pimpernel Studios, and a signed sheet with cowboy like me lyrics which Taylor gave to Marcus Mumford.

December 3 & 4, 2020: Aaron works on willow for the final time, recording some synthesizers. (I got this date form the original willow stems)

[Aaron] On evermore, I would say willow was probably the hardest one to finish just because there were so many ways it could’ve gone. Eventually we settled back almost to the point where it began. So, there’s a lot of stuff that was left out of willow, just because the simplicity of the idea I think was in a way the strongest. It almost felt like a dare or something. We were writing, recording and mixing all in one kind of work stream and we went from one record to the other almost immediately. We were just sort off to the races. We didn’t really ever stop since April.

[Low] The final mix stage for evermore was “very short. There was a moment in the final week or so leading up to the release where the songs were developed far enough for me to sit down and try to make something very cohesive and final, finalising vocal volume, overall volume, and the vibe. There’s a point in every mix where the moves get really small. When a volume ride of 0.1dB makes a difference, you’re really close to being done. Earlier on, those little adjustments don’t really matter.

December 11, 2020: evermore is released.

With folklore, one of the main themes throughout that album was ‘conflict resolution’, trying to figure out how to get through something with someone, or making confessions, or trying to tell them something, trying to communicate with them. evermore deals a lot in endings of all sorts, shapes and sizes. All the kinds of ways we can end a relationship, a friendship, something toxic and the pain that goes along with that.

I have no idea what will come next. I have no idea about a lot of things these days and so I've clung to the one thing that keeps me connected to you all. That thing always has and always will be music. And may it continue, evermore.

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

A few random thoughts on the upcoming War of the Rohirrim, as the filmmakers get set to talk more about it over the next few days at the Annecy animation fest:

Yes, obviously.

I know there is some crossover between the production teams, but I hope that it will prove to have and maintain a visual style that is distinct from the PJ LOTR aesthetic. I love that, too, of course, but I think it’s healthy to have variety out there (one of the reasons I love fan art!) in order to keep room for creative expression and not have one interpretation totally dominate the space.

I am glad that it seems the movie will give the women of the story a much more central place than Tolkien did. After all, Helm’s daughter was one of the central linchpins in the drama that created the titular war, and Tolkien didn’t even bother to name her, much less tell us anything about what she thought or felt as events unfolded. 

I am very curious to see how they treat Helm vs. Freca. I think most people read the appendices and come away with the idea that Helm is a hero and Freca the villain, but I think a close reading makes the situation MUCH more ambiguous. To me, Helm is equally to blame, if not more so, for everything that happened, and I think it would be a more interesting story to recognize the complexity of that (not to mention it would give the legend Brian Cox more to sink his teeth into!). 

No, I cannot explain what seems to be an oliphaunt within an army of Dunlendings in one of the few stills released so far.

Like everything Tolkien related, I’ve got my own ideas and preferences of what I’d like to see or avoid, but I want to keep an open mind and go into everything excited to see it. After all, I’m always rooting for people to succeed and things to be good!

[aashi-heartfilia]

MHA Headcanons#03:

Ochako will be the most popular pro hero out there?

I have seen a lot of people predict and write fan fictions where Uraraka is often depicted as an underdog and not as popular as her other fellow hero classmates. If Deku is no #01, she is #20 or something and she's usually very insecure about her weight, chubby figure, and personality and has low self esteem in general, which is kinda weird if you look at all the canon material we have...

From the get go, it is implied that Uraraka is strong, not just physically but mentally.

She is supposed to be the Ultimate Hero that will surpass All Might in terms of both power and influence she has on the mass of people.

She made it to the top 3 in the practical exams of UA entrance test and secured a position in the top 16 in the sports fest.

She might not be a prodigy like Bakugo or Todoroki, and she might not have All Might's legacy either but she is a strong hero in her own right.

In fact, from her internship with Gunheads to joining Team Ryukyu, she did it all on her own merit.

She managed to go toe to toe against Bakugo, who was the winner of the entire sports fest!

Plus, the strength and mental fortitude she showcased in the sports fest, helped her gain offers from various agencies, something that even Momo wasn't able to secure, because she hardly did anything against Tokoyami in their match.

I'm not saying that Momo's quirk is not powerful. In fact it's quite the opposite but it more or less depends upon how a person uses it.

Just like how Toga used Ochako's Quirk to kill numerous villains in one go, while Ochako resolved to not let a single person drop to their deaths and led her to her quirk Awakening.

And this takes me to my next point. Why wouldn't the golden girl Uravity be popular?

SHE CAN LITERALLY LIFT THE ENTIRE CITY!!

AND IT WAS ON LIVE TV!!!

She would be getting offers from various agencies in the entire world because who wouldn't want a hero that can lift an entire mountain?

She is not some low paid rescue hero, called over during the aftermath just to pick up the rubble.

She's THE HERO THAT SAVES EVERYONE.

Her words inspire people to take action!

Her actions inspire people to take action!

How could she not be one of the most popular heroes of JAPAN?

Plus in one of the recent TUM chapters, a guy was specifically charmed by Ochako's presence after seeing her in a commercial and the entire chapter was about that.

Plus, she's really pretty. Have I already mentioned in one of my blogs that Ochako is canonically one of the prettiest girls of class 1a? Her name literally means 'a beautiful day' and 'green tea girl'. Horikoshi himself leaves no opportunity to beautify her and he even considered himself a genius when he came up with her name!

So, she's not just strong but also beautiful.

So with all that being said, I don't know what people writing these fanfics are thinking?

[emerald-truth]

The Fourth Protocol Watch Party

Hello 007 fans and happy fest!

This post is to announce that I (naq) will be hosting a watch party for the Fourth Protocol on Friday July 12/Saturday July 13 at midnight eastern daylight time.

The Fourth Protocol is a 1987 spy movie starring Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan based on Frederick Forsyth's book of the same name. Michael Caine, who you might know from The Ipcress File, The Muppet Christmas Carol, etc. plays the main character British spy while our future Bond plays the Soviet villain. Although it's quite a decent spy movie, the main appeal for me is getting to see our dashing hero and my favorite pretty boy actor in a pre Bond movie and one of his few roles as the antagonist. I hope this appeals to you as well and you are able to join me!

Please be aware that because of the time it will be Friday for some people and Saturday for others. You should be able to see it in your time zone on the fest calendar, but here is the time zone converter for your convenience.

Time in major cities:

Paris - 6am July 13

New York - 12am July 13

Los Angeles - 9pm July 12

Sydney - 2pm July 12

[princess-of-the-corner]

For no particular reason here is some important, totally canon MHA lore courtesy of Smash:

The support course makes most of the stuff for the hero course including comedy props and robotic copies of the staff.

UA occasionally lets people who want to apply there watch classes and even take part in Hero Course lessons.

Momo can perfectly copy others' behaviour if she tries, can stop her lungs at will and is a magnificent opera singer.

Competitive baseball ceased existing after the dawn of quirks but Ochako is a fan anyway.

Fighting game combos are real but only Ochako can do them because her quirk lets her replicate weird physics engine bs.

Bakugo is an expert cook and baker but is also too scary to be asked about it. He's also a pretty good life coach, a favourite of local kids and one of the better rescuers on the team (according to Aizawa)

Endeavor is the most awkward motherfucker on the planet

Mt. Lady wasn't allowed to take hero courses due to her quirk but still decided to be one with some remedial courses to inspire other people with "volatile" quirks. This was a very mixed success.

Disney doesnt exist anymore but its remnant company is still an ass about copyright.

Izuku has a shitton of stuff about Katsuki in his notebooks and made multiple copies of it to hand out/in case they explode. He's also a cat's cradle expert.

The class is generally pretty good at improvised group dances.

All Might drafted up an anime about his life back in his early career and apparently it's Bad.

Midnight has a shonen rivalry fetish.

Shoto has used Half Hot before the Sports Fest but only in love doses and exclusively to attract cats. He also likes hunting bugs a lot (with a similar tactic) and doesn't know how mosquitos work.

Mic knows Muai Tai and wants to show it off really badly.

13's outfit is apparently a uniform UA just has on hand for Reasons.

Gonna respond to these individually so:

Love that! I've actually discussed before on the same wavelength of how the Support Course would be best suited to learn alongside Hero Students so they can see practical applications! I'd like more if they worked together a bit and/or the support students got classes where they just watch the Hero Training classes and take notes.

Honestly being allowed to check out potential schools you apply to does make sense.

Girl has many talents

how do you lose competitive baseball of all things? Like don't get me wrong I have little love for baseball, but why would it go away?

Ochako is best. Just fuckin. That's hilarious.

Katsuki being good at cooking is great but also being good with children? If a hero career never works out then housewife is a great option. (but also something something 'character with abrasive personality and power that's default dangerous and destructive also being one of the best with soft things that take patience like food and children)

This one? Beautiful. He's a loser. I love him.

It seems some bullshit that she wasn't allowed to take Hero Classes like. She can make a good Hero! And while her Quirk application is somewhat niche, it's not out of the realm of being needed. Hell, between her debut scene being fighting a giant villain therefore matching him in size, and the fact that this is a world where things like giant robots can exist, she's def needed. Like yeah she- she needs to learn to be a bit better about property damage but if she'd had gone to one of the schools and had experienced Heroes coaching her, that learning curve would be fantastic.

Disney will be Disney lmao

Izuku. Honey. I love you but that's a bit stalker-y and I would not be surprised if Katsuki blasts you into oblivion for that.

The gang is just all sharing a brain cell

All Might is also a fucking loser I love him.

I 100% think that all Heroes just have something for the shonen rivalry thing because like. Just. You need a close friend you can have a rivalry with to push each other to be the best you can be and then also spar with one another and oh hey getting pinned down like this is kinda hot ain't it? Every Hero has a 'type' and it's 'someone who will be affectionate but also throw me through a wall'.

Shoto using his fire to make himself warm and attract cats is fucking hilarious like baby!!!

Also a fucking loser I love him

That's hilarious actually

[minsarasarahair]

A quick guide to Holotempus HQ, the Holostars EN Brotubers of Hololive Production

Take note that I wrote this before Vanguard’s debut so its only about HQ

What can they offer as a group? 

Guild Lore - They are the strongest and more enticing to the viewers when they are complete together. In the lore, their adventure guild reside in a digital world called “Utopia”. Most of their viewers like their concept because of “Nostalgia” they give off similar to playing online RPG with friends during school days or typical adventure shounen anime consist of 4 male main characters back then. (Saiyuki, Hunter x Hunter) Its hard to tell if they are a hero guild or villain guild but Yagoo the CEO mentioned he want a group of bad boys concept for Holostars before Holotempus debut. This 4 belonged in Headquarters (HQ) while the new guys is called Vanguard (VG). HQ is is located in Elysium, Utopia and VG is in Xenokuni.

Comedy Skits - They are great actors for comedy skits and skilled in improvisation. Ideas for skits is usually Magni’s strength but Vesper, Axel and Altare can bounce well with others too. (Judge Magni, Psychic Therapy, Wheel of Fortune, TTRPG DND, Rock)

4 Players Gameplay - They love playing adventure games to explore together while having a chat about most random things and competitive FPS games that test their teamwork. They used to play together daily or weekly during their earlier days after debut but now they are busy for their solo content. (Raft, Zomboid, Left 4 Dead, Apex, Deep Rock Galactic)

Great conversationalists - Their conversation was natural and flow so well that gives the vibe as if you’re listening to a real group of friends. Vesper has interview series where he ask questions to get to know them, Magni’s unarchived off-collab Karaoke and Axel’s izakaya stream(with Vesper & Magni) are the best example of that. 

Camaraderie - They are surprisingly really close as a group. They support each other and love hanging out together. They are probably the first batch of Holopro vtubers where its a must to do “Raid”(Raiding is a new Youtube function where you can send your viewers to other streamers before you end your stream.) each other and if they can, its very rare for them to overlap each other solo stream. In Pre-Debut, they actually divided each other stream schedule based on Dayparting like Magni covers the Prime Time and Vesper covers the Morning time so their fans can catch up at least one of them depend on what time they are available. If you check their Tier Membership, they also have same prices. They confirmed they discussed it together. Another story is they all want a heart pose for Holopro fest poster but got rejected by the management. 

1. Regis Altare (Blue)  “The masses chose not to act. So I’ll take a stand in their stead.” Lore: The founder of adventurer Guild Tempus. The first hero adventurer in Elysium. He’s straightforward and popular among peers.  Guild Position: Leader, the mediator and representative of the group. Fighting Style: DPS swordsman/warrior/shooter/mage, All rounder As Streamer: The most strict when it comes to his chat rules and a reformed toxic gamer. He’s their best gamer so its easy for him to familiarize himself with new games he consume. He’s usually a chill streamer but he also has demon king persona where he unleash his toxic side and can be scary when he’s angry. He’s still young but he’s trying his best as Tempus leader. As Gamer: Mainstream games, FPS (Apex, Valorant), MMORPG (FF14, Monster Hunter), Horror games (Phasmophobia, Mortuary Assistant), Action games(Cyberpunk 2077), VR games(Cooking simulator, Fishing) - His strength is FPS but he want to try different type of games too like Roguelike games.  Specialty: Plays Guitar & Cello (Trying to learn Songwriting), ASMR (Comfy/Light Romantic Boyfriend Experience), EN Karaoke (Sad boy songs), Love Challenging himself by putting punishment as consequence in his stream (Home Sweet Home, CSGO with Vesper)

2. Magni Dezmond (Purple) “Alchemists have the wonderful ability to grant people’s wishes!” Lore: The self-proclaimed alchemist with a business mindset who sells potion (Copium). He has a darkness within him and willing to do anything to uncover truths. Guild Position: Public Relations, the collab focus guy Fighting Style: DPS and support mage As Streamer: Their explicitly unhinged overconfident competitive toxic gamer but very good at executing his creative ideas. He’s good at multitasking and producing creative output quickly. He’s talented but also very skilled from working hard. Notorious for his cursed stream where he make abomination creatures like Magmo. He might be blunt and sharp with his words but he has a soft side and actually a textbook tsundere. He’s also good at socializing and interacting with different types of people. He’s Altare’s right hand man and genuinely love supporting each Tempus members as long as he can.  As Gamer: Childhood chill games with Iconic characters (Sonic, Super Mario, Spongebob Squarepants), Competitive shooter games (Overwatch, Apex, Fortnite), Open world adventure games (Subnautica, Minecraft, Animal Crossing) - He refuse to play MMORPG because he might destroy his life for it and he’s not good with Horror games like Axel. Specialty: DJ with Loop station (Can play guitar, electronic keyboard), Art Stream (Commission Open), Comedy skit stream (Weremag, Judge Magni), Collab stream (Off-Collab Karaoke with Holotempus members), Roleplay and Creative Storytelling (Alchemist Prologue Lore in his membership)

3. Axel Syrios (Orange) “Doctors resolve the root cause of a problem, right? Well, I destroy it. So I am a doctor.” Lore: The gladiator and owns a combat arena. He’s a blockhead who joined the guild out of whim. He love eating. Guild Position: Former Treasurer, Human Resources  Fighting Style: Tank, DPS Brawler, Bard As Streamer: The luckiest member with spicy mouth and has street smart wisdom who appreciate Ecchi na Neesan from a distance. Notorious for killing his vods so I suggest to watch him live instead. Probably the most normal among the 4 of them. A very hilarious optimistic guy that must be protected at all cost. He’s unfiltered and usually curse a lot but he actually means well and very friendly. His fans find his head empty moment funny and cute. His strength is producing Cover songs and organizing Collab songs.  As Gamer: Visual Novel (DDLC, Your Turn to Die), JRPG (Zelda, Nier Replicant, Final Fantasy), Shooting games (Hitman, Apex) - He’s a big fan of Final Fantasy but sadly he can’t play it on stream bc he can’t get the perms. He don’t like Horror games. Specialty: Bilingual (JP & EN), Cover songs, Collab songs project (Bad End Night, Yatta), JP Karaoke, ASMR (The funny Kusogaki type ASMR), Sharp at figuring out things based on his observation/Perceptive (Weremag, DDLC), Love giving life advises (Love Consultation, Just Chatting)

4. Vesper Noir (Black) “It’s his childish nature that allows him to speak so freely about his dreams. He might even actually let everyone around him dream.” Lore: The resident scholar of grand library. Rational most of the time but can be harsh in his criticism. Don’t like sunlight because of spending too much time in his research. He can’t neither confirm nor deny the vampire allegations. Guild Position: Academic Advisor, Support  Fighting Style: Swordsman (Rapier), Control Effects and Healer-type Mage, All rounder? (Spear user, Berserker?)  As Streamer: The crazy grandpa/uncle-like comfy storyteller with strong viewers engagement. An average guy who’s full of contradictions. Flawed and can be toxic gamer when he’s excited. He will say the most unhinged surprising things you will not expected. Extremely introverted with social anxiety so he’s more comfortable in doing solo stream. He's trying to be an endurance streamer but usually busy because of his off-stream workload.  As Gamer: Turn-based strategy roguelike games (Hitman, FTL, Dicey Dungeon, Solasta), Click-based MMORPG (Diablo II, World of Warcraft), Exploration (Outer Wilds, Zomboid), Building games (Minecraft, Factorio) - Bad at multiplayer competitive games (Pummel & Mario Party) and hand-eye coordination games like FPS.  Specialty: Just Chatting streams (Holotempus King of Zatsudan), Learning (JP Study stream & Membership art stream), Experienced TTRPG Dungeon Master (DND), ASMR (Comfy Soft Speaking Storytelling and Sound focus without whispering or romantic sexual content), Review stream (Bike, PC build, Tea, Dad Jokes, Art), Finishing a game in one sitting (Soma, River City Girls, Fall Out New Vegas)

If you’re a fan of classic anime(weeb): Vesper, Axel If you’re a normie and familiar with mainstream anime: Altare, Magni  If you like ASMR: Altare(most experienced), Axel, Vesper(still learning) If you like music: Altare(EN sad boy songs), Axel(JP songs), Magni(DJ) If you want a chill stream as background: Vesper, Altare If you want to be entertain and laugh: Axel, Magni If you’re into FPS gameplay: Altare, Magni, Axel If you’re young(early 20s and down): Altare, Axel If you’re older(late 20s and up): Magni, Vesper If you’re fine with dark humor and flawed individuals: Magni, Vesper If you only want positive vibe: Altare, Axel If you want to be ignored or be scolded(but they actually like you): Magni, Vesper, Axel? If you want affectionate treatment: Axel, Altare If you want wise average guys vibe: Axel, Vesper If you want smarter chill vibe: Magni, Altare

DUO DYNAMIC

Shiny & Spicy (Altare & Axel) - the youngest pair, chuunibyou duo, the responsible child and the kusogaki. Among the members, Axel is the only member that can’t be control by Altare(Minecraft). Maybe bc Axel is the type who do whatever he want but Axel respect Altare as their leader. In return, Altare see Axel as his rival in singing. They might be kusogaki at times but they can also be the responsible independent children. They are very close friends and both entered a competitive Apex tourney together.

Kintama Bros (Axel & Magni) - hilariously chaotic combined, both of them have spicy mouth. The smart and dumb. The positive guy and the negative guy? Basically Naruto and Sasuke. Older and younger brother? bc Magni mentioned Axel felt like a younger brother to him.

Father & Son (Axel & Vesper) - just cute platonic relationship between Nowa Oji and his kusogaki son Axel. Vesper wish Axel will not experience the bad things he experienced as adult and be happy. Axel’s anime taste is heavily influenced by his parents so he can relate strongly with Vesper despite their age gap. As for Axel, he like trying out Vesper’s style in streaming such as doing frequent Just Chatting stream and playing the same games bc “Like father, like son”.(Hitman, Needy Girl Overdose)

Amugni/DezPerados/MagNoir? (Vesper & Magni) - they don’t really have official name yet. The flawed and oldest pair. Hubris and dumb together. They are the Max Intelligence duo they said. Nerd?? Meme lords and love media references. The villain/betrayer and his accomplice dynamic? Despite how careful Magni is interacting with Vesper in public, they are actually very close and Vesper appreciate how considerate Magni is as friend. They really like each other as friends. 

Prison Break/Almond/Amodo? (Altare & Magni) - started with Way Out stream. Lately, they look like a shipping pair and not a duo. Fans said Almond is their ship name but Altare used that a lot to refer to their duo so I’m not sure if he’s only selling their pair as ship or duo. Openly flirts with each other. Altare usually played the bad guy in their dynamic. In their off-collab, Magni was asking for help and implied he’s Altare’s hostage. Altare also love teasing Magni while Magni played the tsundere role in the dynamic. Magni viewed Altare like a younger brother that he found stupid and someone he should look after.

Short & Tall? (Altare & Vesper) - don’t have official name again. They are oshi of each other. In the lore, they studied in the same mage academy together with Magni but reunited when Altare is looking for guild members(Debut Manga). Their names are inspired from Star-crossed Lovers of Tanabata Festival (Altair & Vega). Their dynamic during stream is more like the responsible child and flawed father or the leader and his henchman something like that?? They like praising each other.

[specialagentartemis]

The Dukatiad

Writing fan poetry is so fun.

Written for the ongoing Multifandom Poetry Fest run by @minutia-r. One-sided Dukat/Sisko. For the prompt "Villain or Antagonist/Hero or Protagonist Relationship, Obsession".

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We are the warriors noble, the sons of the planets that bore us Into this galaxy bitter. Our birthright is struggle and conquest. I am of warriors born, a proud scion of golden Cardassia, Glory of empires, brought low to rise again ever and stronger, You my true enemy. Son of the softness, the waters of Terra, You stand in nobility equal to any the Guls of my planet. Each day I plan out my courses, the ways that are plotted to snare you, To bring you back into my battle, to match once again wits between us. Plans upon plans do I make them, always you rise to the challenge, Always I want once again to see and to best and to beat you, Have you admit my successes. And when you win by your own right, Graciously do I acknowledge the tactics and might that you offer. None on the planet below you ever could match me for honor. Servants are they all, the masses that don’t understand a true soldier. Cowards, guerillas, and traitors. They never offered a rival. You, though, are someone respected, someone who’s earned my respect. I will defeat you one day, yes, but I will then honor you just as You honor me. We are matchless to others. To us we are matched. Ever we’re destined to meet, and to challenge and clash and withdraw, Struggling equally in our equal and opposite war. You see me. You met me on neutral ground that became the last castle, Chosen by Prophets or Pah-Wraiths. The Prophets chose you as their emblem, Champion, vessel, and harbinger of their ultimate planning. This raised you from your beginnings on your soft planet of swamplands, Made you a man of the starfields, the cold empty deserts of space. But we are equals and rivals. I cannot let you precede me In glory and honor. The power of Prophets you hold in your blood, And so I will meet you, my rival, my enemy worthy of myself. Here I beseech to the Pah-Wraiths. Choose me and grant me their power. Make me their champion, vessel, harbinger of their unfolding. This is the fate of Cardassia. This is the judgement of Bajor. This is the balance that has been sought by the forces of battle Such that I meet you again, now no longer merely a mortal, But too an emissary. Now we are truly matched as we’ve never Been so before. See me, Sisko. See me and fight me and meet me As your true rival and brother in the last battle for glory.

[shadytyphoondelusion]

Sonic.exe Manic Mania (VS Sonic.exe Retake)

Too Slow - Press Start You can't Run - Up, Over and Gone Triple Trouble - Sonic Superstars Final Escape - Show's Over, Exit Stage Left Endless - Limitless Cycle - Infernal Milk - Cookie and Crème Sunshine - Moonlight Soulless - Heartless Chaos - Mayhem Running Wild - Wreaking Havok Heroes and Villains - Rebels V Tyrant Faker - Biggest Fan Black Sun - Dark Star Too Fest - Now, I'll Show You! Roundabout - Merry-Go-Round Fatality - Overwritten Failure Manual Blast - Forgotten Insanity Confronting Yourself - September 9th 2023 Phantasm - Hail to The King Personel - Step it up, Bitch! Too Slow D-Sides - Press Start D-Sides Endless D-Sides - Limitless D-Sides Cycles D-Sides - Infernal D-Sides Milk D-Sides - Cookies and Crème D-Sides

Sonic.exe/Xenophanes - Sonic.PC1/Persephone Soul Miles "Tails" Prowler - Taylor Jackson Soul Knuckles the Echidna - Annie Wright and Kris Harrison Soul Dr Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik - Eugene Hamilton and Metal Terminator Majin Sonic - Ashura The Hedgehog Lord X - Sovereign X Sunky - Heghog.raw Tails Doll - Deadlights Vessel Fleetway Super Sonic - Calamity Apex Scourge Faker - Emily Watson/Sega's biggest fan Faker/.EXE - Xerus The Enderdragon Sanic - Sonic Dreams Collection Needlemouse/Sarah Henderson - Phantom Rings!S0nic/Alison Everest Fatal Error - Where_is_Sonic_Error.404.exe Hog The Tenrec/Scorched - Rec The Speedster/VOLCANIC ERUPTION Sonic - Cassidy Green Sonic.exe - Sonic.PC1/Persephone Sonic - Sonic/Super Sonic Fleetway Super Sonic - Scourge/Calamity Apex Scourge Coldsteel - Deathmetal the Tenrec Mighty.zip/Zephaniah - Shadow.SA2/Asclepius Tenma Mighty - Akubōzu The Hedgehog God Z (Mighty, Ristar, Victorman, Alex Kidd) - Overlord Z (Shadow, Bomberman, Nights, Ulara) D-Sides Sunky - D-Side Heghog.raw Mitee - Edgebullet.mp3 Player Characters: Press Start - Boyfriend/Cameron Up, Over and Gone - Boyfriend/Cameron and Girlfriend/Amelia Sonic Superstars - Camelia/Couple (Boyfriend/Girlfriend Fusion) Shows Over, Exit Stage Right - (Hyper) Camelia/Couple Limitless - Boyfriend/Cameron Infernal - Girlfriend/Amelia Cookies and Crème - Rebecca Moonlight - Thorn Heartless - Thorn Mayhem - (Super) Boyfriend/Cameron Wreaking Havok - Super Boyfriend/Cameron Rebels V Tyrant - Sonic/Super Sonic Biggest Fan - Thorn Dark Star - Thorn Now, I'll Show You! - Boyfriend/Cameron Merry-Go-Round - Boyfriend/Cameron Overwritten Failure - Pico N. Newgrounds Forgotten Insanity - Boyfriend/Cameron September 9th 2023 - Sheriff Cassidy Green Hail To The King - Sonic/Super Sonic Step it Up, Bitch! - Boyfriend/Cameron Press Start D-Sides - D-Sides Boyfriend/Cameron Limitless D-Sides - D-Sides Boyfriend/Cameron Infernal D-Sides - D-Sides Girlfriend/Amelia Cookies and Crème - D-Sides Rebecca

[danpuff-ao3]

2022: Oct - Nov - Dec

Introduction

First Quarter: January - February - March

Second Quarter: April - May - June

Third Quarter: July - August - September

Fourth Quarter: October - November - December

🕸️ October

Snape Chat (ep 23) - podcast. "Snape and Sex."

Snape Astro (meta) - Snape horoscope

Harry Astro (meta)

Snarry Astro 1 (meta) - Snarry synastry

Making Contempt (meta) - writing process.

Making A Matter of Time (meta)

Snarry: Creature Feature (recs)

Red All Over (fic) - Kinktober

The Fanfic Maverick - controversial podcast episode

Blue Velvet (fic) - Kinktober

Draco Astro (meta)

A Chain Reaction of Countermoves (fic) - Kinktober

Self Rec: Kinktober & Kinkuary (recs)

Snarry: This is Halloween (recs)

🍁 November

Sirius Astro (meta)

Regulus Astro (meta)

James Astro (meta)

Remus Astro (meta)

Headcanons on Pureblood Society and Culture (meta)

Snarry Astro 2 (meta)

Making Collateral Damage (meta)

Drarry Astro (meta)

Spoiled Severus (recs)

Making Spaghetti (meta)

FleetingDesires birthday (recs)

Making Romantic Notions (meta)

Wolfstar Astro (meta)

A Minor Problem (meta) - more anti discourse

Headcanons: The Half Blood History & addition (meta)

Jegulus Astro (meta)

Snarry Podfics (recs)

Making Sin Again (meta)

Peter Astro (meta)

🎄 December

Making The Christmas Prince (meta)

Starbucks Astro (meta)

My holiday fics (rec)

Heroes, Villains, and Blorbos (meta) - on being a fan of the Marauders and Snape.

Making The Perfect Tree (meta)

Snarry Recs: Holiday Edition (recs)

Making Holidate (meta)

Holiday Recs: Non-Snarry Edition (recs)

Flaws in Fiction: Relationship Edition (meta)

Making Boxes & Baubles (meta)

Charlie Weasley Astro (meta)

Snegulus Astro (meta)

Comfort Characters (meta)

My Year in Fic 2022 (recs)

Snarry Recs: 2022 Fest Fics (recs)

2022 Standouts (recs)

BlueSundayCake Birthday (recs)

Tom Riddle Astro (meta)

[usagirotten]

G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra Trailer Teases Epic Battles and Classic Characters

G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra has just released an exciting new trailer, giving fans a thrilling glimpse into the upcoming retro side-scrolling beat 'em up game. Set to launch in 2024, the game promises to bring back classic G.I. Joe heroes and iconic villains in an action-packed adventure. The legendary G.I. Joe franchise returns for arcade-style beat ’em-up the action with Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Roadblock, and other beloved franchise favourites. Navigate land, air, sea, and even space through iconic locations like Cobra Island, the Pit, Cobra’s top-secret underwater base, and more as you thwart the devious Cobra Commander’s latest scheme to take over the world.  The trailer, revealed at IGN Fan Fest, showcases intense gameplay, nostalgic 8-bit graphics, and beloved characters from the G.I. Joe universe. Players can expect to engage in epic battles against Cobra’s forces, utilizing unique abilities and teamwork to thwart their evil plans. The game will be available on Nintendo Switch and PC, with no word yet on other platforms12. Fans of the franchise are eagerly anticipating the release, as the trailer has already generated significant buzz online. With its blend of retro aesthetics and modern gameplay mechanics, G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra is shaping up to be a must-play title for longtime fans and newcomers alike. G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra, the retro-style beat them up set in the timeless G.I. Joe universe from developer Maple Powered Games and publisher Freedom Games, is coming to Switch in 2024. Today, the PC release date, Sept. 26th, 2024, was announced. That news came with a fresh trailer, which you can check out above.  

    Read the full article

[linuxgamenews]

Roguelite with a Twist: Reverse Bullet Hell in Defenders of the Omnivers

Defenders of the Omniverse bullet hell roguelite game is coming to Linux and Steam Deck via Proton with Windows PC. Thanks to Babushka Entertainment's team for their talented work. Due to making its way onto Steam in 2024. Defenders of the Omniverse, which is due to be part of Steam Next Fest from today until February 12th. Now, let's step into a universe that's a love letter to the 80s - bright, bold, and brimming with nostalgia. That's the visual feast this title offers. It's not your typical shoot-'em-up; it turns the tables with its reverse bullet hell roguelite setup. This twist promises a fresh challenge, even for seasoned players. The title isn't just another drop in the ocean of Linux and Steam Deck releases.

We are planning to have our game available on Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC that uses Proton...

In the recent email reply, the team behind Defenders of the Omniverse is making some exciting moves! They're powering the game with Unity 3D while focusing on the Proton compatibility layer. Due to offering a smooth, seamless gaming experience that's sure to captivate more players across different platforms.

Defenders of the Omniverse Demo Teaser

The heart of this experience lies in its characters. You get to step into the shoes of heroes, each hailing from different realities. Their unique battle styles add layers to the game, ensuring that no two runs are the same. Whether you're a fan of rapid-fire action or strategic play, there's a hero that also matches your style. But what's a hero without their arsenal? Defenders of the Omniverse offers a plethora of weapons and items. The joy comes from experimenting and crafting builds that turn you into a powerhouse. So you're not just playing; you're creating your path to victory. The ultimate showdown is with the Dark Wizard Umbros. He's not your run-of-the-mill villain. Each encounter with him is random, thanks to his random abilities and attacks. This volatility keeps the tension high and your strategies evolving. For those keen on trying before buying, the Steam Next Fest is a golden opportunity. The demo will let you dive into the core mechanics and get a taste of the vibrant world and diverse adversaries. It's thrilling to see small studios like Babushka Entertainment bring such passion projects to life. Defenders of the Omniverse is an experience that melds nostalgia with innovative gameplay. I'm eager to see how the bullet hell roguelite evolves with player feedback. This is a title that's not just about reliving memories but creating new ones. Due to makes its way onto Steam in 2024. Playable on Linux and Steam Deck via Proton with Windows PC.

[apricusnights]

Caverns & Chimeras 30th anniversary!

“Ello Apricus City! For those of you who may not know, I am Lucas Renaud! I am broadcasting to you live from my company headquarters in beautiful Chatoyer, Réunion.”

“I suppose before I keep going I should tell you what it is that I do. You see I am the one currently in charge of all things Caverns & Chimeras! My grandfather invented that game thirty years ago! Well, a version of it anyway. It’s all through many changes over the years.”

“That is why I’m here! We’re planning a huge 30th anniversary event! We’ll be traveling to cities around the globe, including Apricus!”

“We have all new campaigns for the virtual arenas, we have brand new miniatures to show off, a fresh set of books coming out as well! Speaking of books, a series of fantasy novels is debuting this year that will explore the world of C&C and give backstory into some of your favorite heroes, villains, and monsters!”

“Oh, I should also mention a major motion picture is in the works! We have so many things for you this year that I can barely scratch the surface! Would you like to know about one of the very special events?”

“Long before the events that shaped the world of C&C as you know, there was a great conflict. A mad doctor determined to become a god, a kingdom succumbing to a terrible sickness, the birth of heroes! For the first time ever, you’ll get to play campaigns set in this time period! History will reveal itself before your very eyes!”

“You know what that means? All new classes! I can’t talk about them quite yet but trust me, you’re going to love it!”

“The C&C 30th anniversary fan festival will be kicking off in Apricus at the end of the month! I will be there personally!”

“Look forward to more information in the coming weeks, and make sure you sign up to secure your fan fest tickets!”

“Farewell for now!”

[artaacari]

26. Feast

The Superhero Fest in Paris got off to an epic start. Especially when the villain mistook the cosplayers for the heroes and then went to great lengths to prove to Ladybug that she wasn't real. Only Lucky Charm convinced him, falling straight on his head.

All this time Alya was eager to film the battle, and Nino did not let her go. First of all, there was someone to film the battle, moreover, with much better technical means. Secondly, Alya also cosplayed as Ladybug today and risked being caught by the villain.

She somehow felt that it was worth making another costume. But friends, not yet initiated into the heroic secret, could not understand why she ignored the most popular heroine? So I had to spend several evenings looking through fanart on the Internet to find an option that would not look like either Ladybug, or Scarabella, or Mr. Bug - just in case. Fortunately, the imagination of the fans was working at the highest level, so there was a lot to choose from.

It turned out to be more difficult to change Nino's clothes. And this was one of the reasons why Alya still agreed to skip the battle and stay close to her Cat. So that no one would be jealous, she made her boyfriend her partner! And the fact that headphones with cat ears were bought on sale in a supermarket is already an insignificant detail.

- Let Ladybug win the battles at least sometimes, - Nino laughed softly.

He stood behind Ali, hugging her and resting his chin on the top of her head. His hair could be affected by this, but Alya looked at his clawed black gloves and somehow did not dare to look away.

As if the real Cat Noir never did this to his Lady.

- As if she can't win! Alya reminded, involuntarily looking in the direction from where the sounds of the battle were coming.

- But you can't, - Nino insisted. - So let's just have fun today. Now everything will return to its place, shops will open, and we will go to a photo shoot.

- What other photo shoot? - Alya was surprised, because she associated this word exclusively with Adrien's model life.

Her personal Black Cat fell silent for a moment, then cautiously continued:

- Have you forgotten? It's our turn to shoot with fans!

This was the idea of the organizers of this year's festival. The authors of the best costumes took photos as a souvenir with everyone who came - and there were enough of them to keep the pavilion empty almost 24 hours a day.

- If they didn't run away after the villain's attack, - Alya warned.

Although she also wanted to pose - she just had to watch herself so as not to accidentally act like Scarabella. When Alya put on a Ladybug costume - it doesn't matter if it's real or fan-made - it's like she becomes a different person.

- Taking into account the kind of advertising that Mark and Nathaniel did for us, on the contrary - everyone will gather, - assured Nino.

It was already a little alarming, because Alya had not seen that flyer and was afraid to imagine what her inspired friends had come up with.

- When did you make it?

Nino didn't even think to make excuses:

- Relax. It's our time to have fun!

[aritheartfreak]

hi I’m back

SEE I ALSO agree with this take GENERALLY so congrats also not gettign clowned in the texts.

However as much as I DO love watching that, I sincerely SINCERELY do not read Endeavor as doing that. I mean all props to you for that, like honestly this is the least rancid answer we could’ve gotten. Like yea, fair enough.

I just sincerely see no real remorse personally. I love watching people realize they fucked up and climb back up, and MAYBE they could’ve done that better! But to me right now, I’m sitting confused.

Cause like. Sure, could they have tried to redeem him by showing him show empathy and sorrow? Yea. But. I personally haven’t seen it. I would LOVE if he’d apologize. I haven’t seen it. Does he in later seasons? I’m not sure. But it also doesn’t seem like it!

Honestly it’s just kinda confusing how they did his…. ‘Redemption.’ Or at least how they’re starting to do it. Because it seems like it’s coming out of nowhere and he still doesn’t care.

S2 he’s like. Oh shoto I’ll be a good dad or whatever and shoto is like Kay fuck off. Cause, yea he sucks. But this is like the first time he has been legitimately in the show since S2 (slightly in the sports fest and slightly for the stain arc). After that he just has like. No plot. And then all of a sudden, he’s number one hero so he has plot. And SUDDENLY he’s like. Good dad and wants to be good hero or whatever but to me it seems like his motivations are just. Oh shit the people need to like me. I need to be a family man.

Idk just. I’ve seen no progress yet personally.

AND besides all that…

I don’t personally think he can be redeemed for that. Now maybe that’s just me. I don’t know. I personally cannot ever have a character who abused at least 3 people and neglected 2 more of which are all his family, as well as having said children solely for power. Idk. It makes me mad that he can be redeemed and yet they treat the villains like they’re evil. Maybe that’s why it makes me even angrier. Because the show likes to pretend that Dabi is like. Insanely evil (which, he is bad. I get that.) but that he’s insanely evil for stuff but Endeavor is FULLY a hero the NUMBER ONE and apparently gets zero! Zero repercussions or consequences when outed as the abuser he is and was.

Maybe that makes it’s worse for me. Honestly I just wanna see him have any motivation. Cause I haven’t seen it yet. And I’ll give the benefit of the doubt of I have yet to see s5 or s6. But from just a end of season 4 perspective, that shit came out of NOWHERE. I’d at least prefer like idk. Any development.

It’s just hard to root for a guy who doesn’t seem to actually care. Cause idk. I feel like if he actually cared he’d go try to make amends with the wife he broke and stuck in a room for life. The kids he broke and traumatized for life. Not trying to be in the limelight moreso.

And I think this makes me more angry as well because of the Shoto character change all of a sudden too. I’m just mad at how they did it. I mean I didn’t want him to be redeemed either way. But I’d at least appreciate. Something. Some plot.

Like I do agree. And I do see the point. I too like when someone realizes they fucked up and climbs from that. But where is that. Is it later? Multiple people who’ve seen the whole show have said no, but idk.

Like I also don’t think he SHOULD go be near his wife or kids, I agree he needs to stay away. But he’s not even trying. I don’t think he’s staying away to be respectful, it’s not like he ever respected Shoto’s wish to stay away.

Idk. To me it seems like he doesn’t give a shit. Maybe that’s just cause I can never forgive someone so selfish and abusive. Maybe that’s me.

But to see someone only start to go huh maybe I should be nicer after becoming the number one hero in which in the same episode it’s shoved down our throats that personal ranking of hero’s like how liked they are should be what’s important (from Hawks about Jeanist) and SUDDENLY Endeavor wants to be nice to his fans and maybe family? Idk. Seems selfish to me. I feel like HE wants to feel good about himself, but not do what he has to to actually do better.

But maybe that’s just me🤷

Okay I’ve been rage texting the bestie but. Endeavor stans/apologists what do you see in that man. What do you see? Genuinely. Because I cannot even fathom finding him attractive, much less being an Apologist. Like no matter what angle I look at it there is Nothing redeeming about him