#i feel like… i’ve done a lot of solo advocating for like.

[jynersq]

i fucking love organizing i fucking love being in activist spaces i fucking love my union and i can’t fucking wait to yell at my state’s board of regents during public comment in a few days!!!!!!!!!!!

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR: On "too easy"

I keep seeing posts elsewhere from "serious gamers" saying "waaah, they nerfed the game, IT'S TOO EASY NOW." I keep seeing posts from people who seem to think the only way to "save" SWTOR is to make it really difficult. And posts that cast judgment on those who prefer a more laid-back approach. 

I can't stand that. Truly, one of the worst things about gaming is some of the playerbase. 

I fully believe that where possible, content should have story/veteran/NiM modes available, the way KOTFE, KOTET and the non-story flashpoints do. If someone's idea of fun is to run every single thing with extreme difficulty, and that's what they get a charge from, let them at it...as long as it doesn't mean everyone else has to play that way too. That's where these discussions usually go off the rails, since these folks seem to think that everyone should play at an arbitrary high standard they deem acceptable. 

A lot of different types of players love SWTOR. Some really do want NiM all the time. Others want to decorate strongholds or dress their characters. Some are all about story. Some love the group aspect and always want to play with guildies or friends; others steer clear of all interaction with other players. Some do a mix of all of the above. Some avoid certain activities at all costs. 

I'm a solo story player. For me, extreme challenge isn't fun. It's usually enough to get me to quit. It's not fun for me to die over and over in a game or to struggle with complicated mechanics where one misstep means death. I hate things like the Onderon datacrons. I felt that Spirit of Vengeance was originally tuned way too high and had way too many mobs, even though I was fully able to finish it. 

I've gone in and done some more difficult things like Dread Seeds and veteran flashpoints solo because I wanted to see the content and complete those missions. If the entire game was tuned like the last Dread Seeds mission or those veteran flashpoints, I'd likely leave in about two seconds. In the longterm, it's not pleasant for me. It's physically painful, it's boring and I don't find it relaxing or fun.

No one playstyle is "correct" or "normal." They all are. What's abnormal is when someone insists everyone has to play a certain way. What would I say to those gatekeepers whining about content being too easy? 

The story content isn't getting people ready for endgame. 

So? 

You're assuming everyone wants to play endgame content. They don't. There's nothing Bioware could do, say or bribe me with that would get me into things like Ops, ranked PvP, PvP at all, PUGs or Master Mode flashpoints. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I am here for the story. Period. 

A training ground for endgame content exists in the form of flashpoints. The flashpoints in the game do get progressively tougher. If someone's truly interested in getting raid-worthy skills they're likely going to be doing solo flashpoints. And using groupfinder or joining a guild that works to help players progress. There are options, and those who are interested in raids will seek them out. 

But the story is so easy. It's a faceroll. Games are about challenge.  

Challenge means different things to different people.

Everyone has different abilities. You might roll through every flashpoint. The next player might die seven times just getting through the first tomb on Korriban. By the way, I'm "next player." I think my first toon may have kicked the bucket before even getting into Ajunta Pall's tomb. The word "easy" is very, very relative. 

Also, for some of us, easier content is relaxing and fun. The same way some people like a leisurely bicycle ride along the bike path and others train for the Tour de France. 

If challenge for you involves very difficult gameplay, it does exist. Go join a NiM guild for raids. Go play ranked PvP. Play another game. Why does everyone else need to play the way you play? 

People aren't grouping. They should be forced to group. 

Because you think they should? What gives you any right to dictate how other people play or who they play the game with? Are you the National Gaming Czar and nobody told us? 

This "grouping should be compulsory!" belief is bullshit. People who want to group WILL group. That's always been the case. Hell, I remember being a kid and playing single player console games with friends. We'd take turns, cheer each other on, and yell out advice to the person playing. We found a way to play in a group because we wanted to. 

Right now, the people in SWTOR there are guilds and healthy incentives to join them. Right now, the people in SWTOR who want to play with a friend or friends can do that. Even in things like class stories or KOTFE where it only progresses for one person, they can still come along and help. There are multiple opportunities in the game for players to meet each other. There are social media sites where they can do the same. There's group finder. There are people who look for groups on the fleet. There are PvP and GSF where they can play against others. 

Bottom line? Anyone who wants to group has multiple ways to accomplish that at this very moment. 

Those who aren't grouping likely do not want to group. They don't have to explain why. If you force them to group one of two things will probably happen: they will do it and hate every second of it and not want to be there, or they will stop playing. Which is more likely? Well, I'm sure we've all finished Oricon, Iokath and Macrobinoculars, right? Oh wait...

This is a game. It's not supposed to be like a job where you have coworkers you detest and still have to interact with them. It's not some life skill. It's. A. Game. Get over it if people don't want to play with you.   There should always be open world PvP. Sure, if you want a mass exodus from the game in about a day. The minute they make open world PvP non-optional or make PvP content compulsory is the day I stop playing. And I don't think I'm alone there. I feel like this comment usually comes from people who are frustrated that others don't accept their duel requests and that there isn't a huge pool of players for PVP matches. They can't get people to play with them voluntarily so they want to force it. And you should be able to tag a mob someone else is working on. I keep seeing this brought up as an ideal in other games. It seems to be a way to force people to group with you even if they've said no to an invite. You know what will happen with this? You'll have players hitting the mob once and getting credit/loot without any effort. Or you will have players following around other players to "share mobs" with them even when that other player wants to be left alone. I'm of the opinion that any type of group play should be consensual in all cases, not forced on players because they happen to be in open world.

*sigh* It's an MMO. 

And? MMO doesn't mean "group all the time" or even some of the time. It means a lot of players are co-existing in a shared online world. It means the ability to group should exist - and it does. 

People come into group content and don't know what to do. 

#1: Everyone starts somewhere. We all know that you were so miraculously gifted that you came out of the womb knowing advanced mechanisms for every boss fight, but most of us didn't. 

#2. If you want to play strictly with a team of veteran players, join a guild, make some friends in the game and have fun. That's a lot more realistic than expecting random players in a PUG or groupfinder to meet whatever your exacting specifications are. 

#3. Blame the devs for forcing players into Groupfinder to complete Galactic Seasons and other objectives. There are plenty of people who wouldn't be there if that weren't the case. 

People come into flashpoints and want to watch the cut scenes. 

Hang on. Let me process this. In a story based game, players want to watch the cut scenes? For real? That's completely unreasonable! /sarcasm

In the latest flashpoints, they've more or less removed all the cut scenes. You have your wish granted. For the older flashpoints, there are still many that don't have solo/story mode. The only way people can see those cut scenes is in veteran or master. If you have an issue with this, start advocating to the devs to make solo story versions of those flashpoints.  I feel like the bottom line is that everyone has the right to ask for the type of gaming experience they want, but they don't have the right to insist everyone else should share that experience.

[fearlessmayee]

Top ten AFHF documentary moments, go!

Thank you for asking sea, but you've really put me in a dilemma, how the f am I supposed to choose 10? All of it was my favorite, he shined like the sun throughout the entire thing.

1. We got to see him in his element, him being nervous and excited just anticipating to share his passion with us. Can you imagine him thinking wishing to run away, and yet, staying put, squaring his shoulders and facing it head on. Hoping to give up, yet hoping against hope to do it again, even if it's just one more time.

“I hate this feeling [before going onstage]. Helene always said to me, that's a choice is it nerves or is excitement? It’s the same. Only now I look in the moment I feel it, but I look at it differently. […] I always have this feeling before in my mind where I’m thinking ‘if I could run away, I would’ but now I’m thinking ‘just get me out there!’ ”

2. You can see, that he is so far away from his ''image'' of One direction, yet the same teenage boy having this unattainable dream of being a singer, and that lad from donny. Expectedly, yes, he has grown and changed throughout the years, but his fundamentals and core remain the same.

“You know coming from a situation like One Direction it was never gonna be a walk in the park becoming a solo artist. I’ve had shit to deal with.“

2. BRUH, Vulnerability? from a white male? In his 20s and 30s?Who's an reputed artist? Who's a millionaire? I-? This line was just so true, and raw, and REAL.

“When everyday is the same, it’s hard to feel creative and its hard to get any kind of inspiration”

3. This sentence to me represented acceptance of struggles, usually a strong personality would rather not acknowledge his/her/their struggles. They'd rather be seen as someone who can do this in their sleep instead of saying, that yes my life is hard sometimes.

“Too many times in my career have I had to pick myself up and go ‘right let’s go again’ ”

4. Efforts, the sheer efforts. When you're at the level that you are, you happen to start putting significantly lot less effort in your work. Instead here's this baby, who is working even more hard, putting in extra energy, time, and assets into honing his craft. A true dedicated artist.

“I put in a lot of work with Helene over Zoom as well because of that I don’t think I’ve ever been that excited over a gig and I finally feel like I’m gonna get out there and not just enjoy it for fucking just bathe in it. Love it.“

5. Right, an artist who values his fanbase instead of taking them for granted and only using them for their money? you're kidding! An artist, who regularly emphasizes the importance of his fans, and never forgets to thanks them? Right, you're dreaming! An artist who meticulously plans a free festival for his fans? You're delusional

“Just the togetherness. That’s what makes me feel like I can take on the world. Because with that lot behind me, who’s gonna fucking stop us?”

6. Helene. That relationship - its closeness and intensity -- really surprised me. You can tell that they share a deep meaningful emotional bond. She's a mentor for him in every way and its clear she loves him as much as he loves her. A pretty rare sight, in between people who don't give really seem to give a fuck about him. There's a mother/son vibe there and he seems to trust her as completely as she admires him. Tbh, Helene I cried too.

“I trust Helene implicitly. She can tell me after I smashed it and I’m trying to read between the lines. Today, today she was fucking crying man.”

7. The moments the band were given to really what they can do, jamming out (including the strings going for it too.) Steve is phenomenal as is Michael, but they're all incredible frankly. The band was so cool, I'd also like to mention the other artists and people who's work The production design, the set design, the lighting, the sounds. Everyone except the marketing and advertising department, should clap themselves for a job well done.

8. Charlie. How well he gets Louis. How loyal he is to Louis, how much he appreciates who he is and what he can do. And how extraordinarily skilled he is at what he does himself. In fact this demonstrate just how good Louis is at finding people whore superb at what they do. He did his job phenomenally, exceptionally.

9. The fans as shown through the lens, which might be a substitute for through Louis eyes. Their love, their pride and delight came across so clearly .I loved that all the rainbow flags were given the spotlight - instead of being skimmed over, Only the Brave was a true moment. Similarly Two of Us, was a real moment, the fans knowing how much the song it meant for him, and understanding its value and being respectful about it. How they seemed shell-shocked and speechless during changes.

10. Maybe most of all, the reckless, fun, fuck it all style of the celebration shots moment and the band euphoric celebratory hug, showing their bond and relationship clearly. I absolutely loved those moments in the film because they were so Louis. He may be the leader but he's also a literal kid, a partner in crime some might say, pure unpredictable fun.

Watching the AFHF documentary, I feel every emotion that Louis went through and I know that we all are felt them together. He was just so happy and confident during the concert. A God on the stage. Anyone who has doubts Louis performance abilities, I urge you to watch 5 minutes of this. The immensity and intimacy are like nothing I’ve experienced with any other artist.

He is a real person, instead of some carefully crafted media persona; he is genuine artist, instead of any fake popstar wannabe; has real talent, instead of pretending to be talented; he is humble and kind, instead of someone advocating to be humble and kind, he is gold, instead of being glitter, and he is the SUN, instead of the moon who leaches of off someone else's light.

His character and personality was really visible. This was better than any interview, any promo, anything we could have hoped for. His standards are so very high, and he’s truly harder on himself than anyone else around him. I've no idea how he doesn't drown in the pressure and instead finds a way to break the expectations. Truly, As many have already commented, Louis always delivers, because what he gives is from his incredible intelligence and his big heart.

The reason it was fucking unbelievable was yes, ’cause I played me music and I sang some shit, but more importantly that we all are in the same room with the same idea, the same intention, the same feeling... And that, more than anything, is what I’ve come away from these situations feeling just this togetherness, and that is what makes me feel like I can take on the fucking world.

[chemiste]

Voicemail. ~part 2~

a/n : you want it? go get it! heres the second part to voicemail!! I’m thinking a 3rd and final part for this??? if y’all want it tell me! ALSO I’ve linked what the reader is wearing and maybe what others are too so if you see a link thats what it is. also wanted to say thank you so much for the support on this one shot!! i would put those big eye emojis but im typing on a laptop and i dont think O.O is the same....

first part!!!! go read

mah masterlist

“Next on the red carpet is singer/song writer Y/N L/N, wow look at that beautiful dress!! This year at the Grammys she is up for 3 awards, Song of the Year, Best Dance Recording, and Best Solo Pop Artist!” 

The interviewer exclaimed excitedly from her podium along side the paparazzi wall. It had been a week since the songs were let out for the world and so there was definitely an electricity in the air at the awards ceremony.

“All you fans are probably watching for the most anticipated performances of tonight! Harry Styles will be singing one of his new songs from his album FineLine! Twitter is going ballistic from the recently leaked songs about is break up with L/N, we all know the cameras will be on her tonight whenever he’s mentioned! Oh look, here she comes now!”

You walked over in your beautiful award dress, safe to say you were the best dress star there. Your hair was done up and the red long dress seemed to flow around you effortlessly as you walked. 

“Hello Diane, it’s lovely to see you again.” 

You said in a polite voice, smiling to her and the camera, she handed you an extra mic, ready to drown you with questions.

“I’m going to cut to the chase— did you listen to the songs?”

Wow, this lady’s cut throat I’ll give her that.

“Oh yes! I’ve listened to all the albums nominated this year and I’m so excited.”

“Oh I was talking about—“

“I’m so incredibly grateful for the nominations, I put my blood, sweat, and tears into this album and I’m glad the fans love it as much as I do.”

You could see the Diane deflate a little, understanding you’d keep dodging questions about Harry until it was over so she moved on. 

“Yes, you’re nominated for Best Dance Recording, the music video for your song Clouds was crazy! How long did it take you to figure out how to dance while flying?!” 

You laughed, thinking back to the many rehearsals of choreography on the ground and then being connected to cables and hoisted into the air to perform it. 

“A girl never tells her secrets,” you said with a wink. 

“Well speaking of flying in a music video, I know one performance tonight will be—“

Cheers and hysteric screaming filled the fan area as someone came on to the carpet. 

“Is that? Oh look, Harry Styles enters the stage in a—, my goodness! You and him are matching!”

You couldn’t believe it.

Harry was decked out in a full red suit, hair beautifully fluffed and glimmering in the light. He had red heels that looked like Dorthy’s slippers.

And he had the faintest amount of red lipstick on, making him look like an ethereal being in red.

“Wow, we really are matching.” 

You mumbled to yourself, half forgetting you were being filmed. 

You turned back to the camera the moment you remembered, making your face emotionless so hopefully the interviewer wouldn’t pick up on your thoughts at the moment. 

You quickly thanked her and slipped off into the sea of celebrities, hearing his voice ‘hello love! So happy you could come’ to the fans hoping he would give them a signature.

You entered the award room, looking for your assigned seat. Luckily you were strangely one of the only people in there aside from a few techies working on the stage lights.

“Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Billie Elish, Kahild… Harry….” 

You gasped, basically scoffing at what you saw next. 

“Y/N L/N? Are you fucking kidding me?!” 

You started to breathe a little faster, “Oh god, I don’t think I can do a whole ceremony next to him, after the whole thing online… and not responding to his texts.”

It’s true, when he had texted you that morning, it took you 5 hours and a shot of tequila to actually open his messages.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

Hey… I don’t know if you’ve gotten a call from one of your PR people yet but, I just wanted you to know I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I don’t wish to put you through anymore than what I already have…

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

Um, but uh, if you’ve listened to the songs, just know that I really do mean the words I sang. I wish we could have, uh talked, but I understand I’m not in any position to ask for that. Just, there were a few others songs that didn’t get leaked, and uh, I’d like you to have them. You don’t have to listen to them but, it would mean a lot to me if you did.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

“Mrs. Styles.”M4A. Click to open.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

“I Should Have Fought.”M4A. Click to open.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

“I’m Sorry.”M4A. Click to open.

You didn’t listen to them, like the others. 

You just… couldn’t. 

It had taken you so long to get over him and grind it into your head that you didn’t do anything wrong, he did. 

Your PR team decided the best thing to do was acted like nothing had happened because if you didn’t give a response the public would have nothing to go off of, so here you were, looking at one of the scheming ideas from someone on the Award Team to see if they’d be the first to get some action between the two of you.

“Fuck that.” 

You said to yourself, looking around to make sure no one was looking, you snatched your name paper and walked about 15 seats over and changed with Lana Del Ray. 

Because you were all in the front row, you couldn’t get farther than that, but this would have to do. You quickly put Lana’s paper in your previous seat and walked out of the room, escaping the ‘crime scene’.

At least I’m sitting next to Shawn now.

You and Shawn had gotten to be friends around a year ago when you bumped into him at the recording studio and....maybe spilled your marshmallow milkshake down his shirt.

“I’m so fuckin sorry! Oh god please don’t sue me for this, or worst, tell your fans!!” 

You rambled, padding him off with the napkins from your fast food bag. You looked up at the tall Canadian in front of you that just had a smile on his face.

 “Hey don’t worry about it, uh, I’m Shawn but I guess you already knew that.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been listening to your music for a while its fantastic, I’m—“ 

“Y/N L/N, America’s Favorite Child and Feminist thats not faired to fuck you up?” 

You grinned, “Oh you saw that video?” 

He laughed, “Hell ya I did, You punching that old misogynist groping that girl on the street is one of the videos saved on my phone!”

After that day, you both caught on like a house on fire since you seemed to be in the studio at the same time, it was great having someone to throw ideas around with at 3am when everyone else had left the studio.

“Y/N! Girl! I haven’t seen you in forever!” 

You looked up from the corner of the red carpet you had been hiding standing in. Hailee Steinfeld made her way over to you in a black dress that hugged her perfectly. 

You let out a sigh of relief, you gave her a big hug, breathing in her sweet perfume. 

“Hailee you’re a life savor, I feel so out of it here.” 

She gave you a soft look, “Cause he’s here right?”

You clinched your jaw, “And we’re fucking matching! How did that even happen? It’s literally the same shade of my dress and everything! There are so many shades his team could have chose but they went with that one! And the lipstick! He’s basically a devil personified! But he’s got style!”

You quietly rambled to your fellow singer, she squeezed your hand when the bell chimed telling everyone it was time to enter. 

“Y/N, before we go in I wanted to ask if you had listened to the songs.” 

“Uh, no… I… I couldn’t hear his voice staying those things to me so I just read the lyrics.” 

Hailee gave your bare shoulder a squeeze, “Well, I don’t want to play devil’s advocate,” you smiled at her little quip, “but I did, and what’s not in the lyrics just written is the emotion you could hear in his voice. During Drunk Thoughts, theres a part that people are speculating he’s crying while recording, trying force sing it out and, it’s just, I think it’s time you spoke to him.”

Hailee was one of your most trusted friends and to hear her say this, wasn’t surprising.

You were starting to think it too.

“But, I’m scared H, what if makes it worse?”

The final bell chimed and you both started to walk inside. “I have a feeling it won’t."

                                                        ........

“What an incredible performance by Ariana Grande, next up is the show we’ve all been waiting for, or well I’ve been waiting for, here’s Harry Styles performing a new song from his nominated Album, FineLine!” 

James Corden announced from the side aisle. You felt Shawn subtly queen your hand, knowing there was bound to be a camera on you the whole time while Harry sang.

You took a deep breath,

No facials.

No twitching.

Calm.

The curtain came up from the stage, the set was a back cube cut diagonally so the audience could see the inside. 

Harry stood in a white suit sans a shirt. He wasn’t wearing shoes so you could see the painted red toe nails peeking out from underneath the too long suit pants. 

His hair had been messed with a bit, giving it a soft and fluffy just out of bed look.

Now he looks like an angel.

He held a red mic in his hand, and spoke into it.

“Before we start, I’d like to inform you that I will be singing an unreleased song not from my album called.”

He took a breath.

"Red.”

You curled your toes in your heels the only way you’d be allowed to release the tension you felt in your body since they were covered by your dress.

Fuck, that’s why we match.

A piano started playing, a sort of dark melody that reverberated through your bones and into your soul.

It’s all I can see,

It’s all I can hear,

The sound is loud,

But it’s not clear.

The tone of your voice,

Plays in my head,

That look in your eyes,

I can tell you want me dead.

Grays are the only color I see,

Black and white and in between.

But then I saw you in that dress.

The color of blood always suited you the best.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

Thoughts swirl around, in my mind.

Pretty eyes and satin clothes,

They plagues my dreams, in the night.

Grays are the only color I see,

Black and white and in between.

But then I saw you in that dress.

The color of blood always suited you the best.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

You watched as he struggled to hold back the emotion in his voice, you sucked in a small breathe when his eyes made contact with yours, unwavering.

Oh… I wish could take it back.

Oh… I wish I could take it back.

Oh… I wish could take it back.

Oh… I wish I could take it back.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

The song ended and the audience was silent.

 Everyone could feel the tension in the room, so you did the only you could do.

You stood and started to clap.

Shawn and Hailee immediately followed your cue and soon the rest of the auditorium was erupting with cheers and roars of excitement.

But all you could focus on was the smile on his face, looking down at you.

And the one forming on yours too.

<3

3rd part right here!

alsoooo i’d like to say a big wtf to people that white wash reader inserts! it’s so damn easy to just put a little colleague together like i did and add it so everyone can envision themselves and like,,, need a hairstyle? literally say ‘you did your favorite hairstyle’ thats perfect and a neutral way to keep everyone happy!!! people that bitch about going the extra mile are worthless writers smh

[thorne93]

The Stars Made Us (Part 1)

Prompt: In this world, you’re one of the “lucky” ones who got a soulmate, but what if the universe gives you more than you bargained for?

(Prompt challenge -- You live in a world where your soulmate can write on their skin and you will get the writing on your own and vice versa. Where they can wash away the ink on their own skin, however, the writing is forever scarred onto your skin until you meet face to face)

Word Count: 1857

Warnings: angst and language throughout

Notes: This was supposed to be for @sorryimacrapwriter and their challenge like a year ago, I think? I still loved the prompt though and have been working on this story for quite some time. This aesthetic was made by @dontshootmespence, thank you so much! Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes, couldn’t have done it without you, as well as @carryonmyswansong and @arrow-guy and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo

Also, I’ve never really liked the whole soulmate AU thing idea, but this felt so right and it was amazing to write. I hope y’all love it too!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ever since you were little, you’d heard the legends. The legend of soulmates. It was as common as Santa Claus or winning the lottery. Some weren’t sure they believed it, because although it was real, it was so rare that people didn’t know how to feel about it. Perhaps it was like believing in ghosts. Documented cases, proof, eye witness accounts weren’t enough to sway some skeptics. Yet, it had to be real because there was a registry, much like when you go to get your license or file a birth certificate or a social security number. There was a system in place to keep track of soulmates.

While others, mainly hopeless romantics, truly believed in soulmates. You heard whispers of it when people talked of their grandparents “perfect marriage” and how they just had to be soulmates. You’d heard some kids on the playground swear their cousin just got their soulmate. 

Now, it wasn’t for everyone. It was a rarity, and much like winning the lottery, it only happened to a select few. 

The few were seemingly random. Everyone from celebrities and CEOs down to starving artists and people who managed grocery stores. It touched all races, religions, and economic status. It was global. It wasn’t unheard of for a South American woman to be mated with a French man. Or one Australian to find their mate within Africa. 

Stories of epic journeys to find their love and mate had been told as bedtime stories. Heart wrenching stories of soulmates who never got to be together. 

The idea of soulmates was so endowed in the world and in history that it was rare enough to be celebrated, but common enough to be easily accepted. That’s why, when people walked with scars all over their body, formed in words, people didn’t even think twice.

That’s how it worked. On people’s 18th birthday, their soulmate was assigned, if they had one. Writing on any part of your skin would show up on your mate’s skin as a scar, and vice-versa. For two days out of the year, their birthdays, they could communicate this way. 

The only downside was that you couldn’t give out your information to your mate -- that part was up to the universe. When they needed you most, their name and address would show up on your arm. It could be life or death, it could be a mental breakdown, it could be that they’re hurt and need a friend. But until then, you shouldn’t share personal information. People had done it before, met their mates before the universe decided it was time, and awful things tended to happen. 

But if they were patient enough, willing enough to wait for the right day, it would all be worth it and they were usually guaranteed a happy life. 

Even though you grew up with this knowledge, you’d let it fall to the wayside in your mind. School and friendships took precedence, and you led your life normally. Every now and again, like on birthdays, a fleeting thought of the prospect of a soulmate would run through your head, but for the most part, you filed it away as a fantasy. 

That was, until your best friend Jenny reminded you of it on your 18th birthday.

You were having a party at your house. A group of about ten friends and you went out and played mini-golf, then had pizza at your house with cake and gifts, then watched a new movie. Your parents gave you money to buy a lottery ticket for fun, and gave you some money for college. 

Nearly everyone had gone home, and your parents already wished you a happy birthday with hugs and kisses before going off to bed. All that was left were you and Jenny, and she was about to walk out the door.

“I’m just saying, you’re 18 now,” she stated as she walked. 

“Yeah, I gathered that when I counted 18 candles on the cake, what’s your point?” you asked with a smile.

“My point is, maybe you should try and see if you’ve got a soulmate.” 

You shook your head and rolled your eyes. “Jenny, the odds of me having a soulmate are like 1 in a million. It’s a silly idea.”

“That’s been true. You know it and I know it. What’s the harm in finding out? I just had a cousin last year that found out. She wrote some appointment down when she was 21, her soulmate got it and wrote back.” 

You perched an eyebrow at her. “How romantic.” 

“I’m serious! Come on, how cool would it be?” 

“It would be kind of neat,” you admitted sheepishly, grinning. “But if no one writes back--”

“Then you haven’t lost anything, and you’ll find someone great later in life. No harm, no foul. Right?” She gave you that super convincing gorgeous smile before dropping her pushiness. “Alright, alright. Just think about it, okay? Happy birthday,” she said before hugging you tightly. 

“Thanks,” you said back.

With that, you cleaned up the kitchen and living room, gathered your gifts, and headed up to bed.  You pulled on your pajamas and crawled into your bed, you sat there, thinking about what Jenny had said.

What would be the harm in writing on your arm? If no one spoke back, it was no big deal, right? 

But if they didn’t write back, would you be saddened? You’d always secretly hoped you had a soulmate out there, so to find out you didn’t have one would be a little devastating. Of course, your life wouldn’t be over, and like Jenny said, you could always find a partner just like you normally would. 

Ultimately, it was just a schoolgirl fantasy… but what if it wasn't? you wondered idly as you sat with your leg propped up on the bed. 

You grabbed a pen off your nightstand and took a deep breath, trying to think of the best thing to ask - this would be scarred on them indefinitely after all. 

You thought, and you thought, pondering anything you could say. But what do you say to a potential soulmate? Finally, you decided there was no perfect way to go about this, and you put your pen to your arm, writing: Is anyone out there? 

You held your breath for a second, wondering if you’d get a scar somewhere in response, even bracing for some form of pain, but after a few moments -- nothing. Nothing happened. 

You sighed. Well, it was a long shot anyway.

After lying in bed disappointed for a while, a feather light sensation came crawling across your arm. You frowned for a split second before glancing down and seeing the letters. Instantly, a grin grew wide across your face. 

“Hi there. : )” 

You wanted to jump for joy. Immediately, your heart soared at the sight. Someone out there was actually fated to be yours? You couldn’t believe this. Why you? You weren’t special. 

“This is my email, if you would like to talk more,” you offered, scribbling on your skin before adding in your email. You opted for email since any other form of communication you might be tempted to find out their name.

Within two minutes, a ping noise came from your computer. You sprang from your bed, not even caring that you were the epitome of a school girl right that second. You dashed the cursor over to your inbox and read the new email. 

“Hello. So I suppose this means we’re soulmates...”

“I suppose it does,” you wrote back, a giant grin on your face. 

“We should probably get some of the formalities out of the way. What should I call you? How old are you?” 

“You can call me… Y/F/I. And I’m 18, today is my birthday. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of people giving out their information before their time. I think we should stick to initials.” 

One minute later, in the same penmanship, you felt something on your bicep -- Happy Birthday

The smile on your face lit back up. 

“That’s my gift to you. And yes, I have heard of the stories. I would rather be safe than sorry as well. You can call me X. I’m 21. I’m in college, actually in graduate school.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. You’re already in grad school? How? What’s your area of study? I’m going into college in the fall - psychology.” 

“I think I should be surprised, but I’m not. That’s what my PhD will be in,” he informed. “As well as genetics and biophysics.” 

Well, the universe is funny, isn’t it? 

You continued to read his message. 

“Long story short, I graduated college at 16. Harvard, if you can believe it.”

Instantly, you were hit with a wave of surprise and shock. Your soulmate was a genius? He was a Harvard grad at 16? In what universe was that possible?

“That’s… really impressive. God I wish I could do that. It’d be amazing to be already done with college. I haven’t even gone there yet but it seems like a lot of work and a lot of stress. Hopefully, the pay off will be worth it though.” 

“What are you wanting to do with your degree?”

“Psychiatry.”

“A noble profession.” 

“I think so. I’d like to help people, as corny as that sounds.”

“I don’t think it sounds corny at all. Quite admirable, in fact. If people didn’t feel that way, we wouldn’t have good people in the world.”

He already thought you were a good person? you wondered, warmth spreading over you.

“I guess that is one way to look at it. I just want to help people and be a voice for people who don’t exactly have a lot of advocates.”

“That’s precisely why we get into these professions, darling,” he wrote.

Darling? Wow, so far, this guy was the jackpot. 

“I suppose it is. So what are some of your favorite books, if you don’t mind me asking? And movies. I feel like a quick way to get to know someone pretty well is through their interests.”

“Indeed it is,” he replied. “I happen to favor T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, as far as books go and I don’t particularly have time for many films.”

“Oh, I see,” you started, and then explained your favorite books and film. 

He had asked you why you liked those and you went into a rather lengthy explanation of why you enjoyed them more than others. After that you two talked music, actually having quite a lot in common there. 

You stayed up all night emailing, until the sun came up. It wasn’t until the glare hit your computer screen that you realized it, either. You didn’t want to end the magical evening, but you did need rest, and you were sure as a grad student, he needed all he could get as well. 

That morning you went to sleep with this newfound relief. It was one less thing you’d have to worry about in life. Worry about finding a mate, a partner for life. They were already there, already perfect, already waiting…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Forever Tag: 

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[bbugyu]

:o i dont really know much about mbti types but u seem really knowlegable >.< what about dk's mbti??

oh my god the way i got a boner from being called knowledgeable OK LETS GO I LOVE SEOKMIN SO MUCH

seokmin is an infp, which is the mediator. i actually float between this personality type and infj (the advocate, which is also what wonwoo jihoon and minghao are), so seokmin and i are very similar in a lot of ways - our differences come from our zodiac signs i think ㅠㅠ; infps are actually really rare! yet seventeen has four KDJFSK they value harmony and authenticity and they always have the best intentions - which!!! IS SO SEOKMIN!!!! he will always see the best in people and always act with the best intentions! he is kind to a fault! what a sweet baby.

ok, here’s the breakdown. under the cut. tw seokmin best boy

seokmin is so shy. he doesn’t seem it, because when he’s with svt he goes BUCK FUCKING WILD but in reality he clams up around people he’s not super comfortable around. example: that one picture of him standing with yuju from gfriend where he looks like he’s gonna shit himself kJHFJS or when he was filming his solo parts for the mama performance and he kept saying how nervous he was without the members. he’s super reserved around people he hasn’t known for forever. he even tends to be quiet on variety shows, only really doing his fun comedy bits and talking when other members prompt him (which is almost always jeonghan or seungkwan don’t get me started). infjs (like isfjs) tend to keep a very small group of friends that they are very open and seemingly extroverted with, which is why we get to see seokmin’s genuine personality a lot. he is so fully himself when he is with seventeen and i think that is so beautiful. that being said, infps also are the most social introverts. he makes friends everywhere, and genuinely cares about all of them. his excallibur castmates have said that he was such a bright loving personality on stage and behind the scenes, and he would always visit and support them even after they stopped working together! he went to plays they starred in and posted pictures with them, telling carats to go support them too. you can tell they really appreciated this, because they would return the favor and go to seventeen concerts to cheer him on!

seokmin’s intuition is no joke. he seems a little naive at times, but he is also extremely good at looking at the big picture of a situation and deciding what needs to be done, ie. when they were leaving the venue during ttt he was seemingly the only one that remembered they left a giant mess in the kitchen. that being said, infps skip over details a lot. he also is SO FUNNY like he is genuinely the FUNNIEST MEMBER in my opinion because he just understands every situation so clearly. he’s able to take something a little mundane or whatever and comment on it or react in a way that’s REALLY FUNNY like when they were driving home from ttt and mingyu said he could buy the walnut sweets JFDSKJDSF mingyu wasn’t expecting him to say yes bc they’re such a common treat and seokmin laughed at first but hten immeidately was like “oh actually yes order them” and gyu was like ??? but seokmin kept just saying “stop talking to me order the walnut sweets pls” GODD THEY’RE SO FUNNY i literally cry laugh at shit seokmin does like i don’t know how he does it he’s the funniest motherfucker i’ve ever seen.

he seems like the most understanding member of svt to me. the others are too, ofc, but seokmin’s on another level. infps also feel very deeply and genuinely. as an intuitive personality type, he is immensely empathetic, but not in the same way that jeonghan is. seokmin feels other peoples’ emotions like they’re his own. he sympathizes fully and completely, and i think he tries really hard to internalize that as to not seem so emotional all the time, but as soon as the facade cracks he starts cRYINGGG like he’s a BABY he can’t help it he just FEELS SO MUCHhhh. idk if anyone else notices this but he always repeats what is being said? i find this to be related because he is actively listening, and his way of showing is affirming with short responses every few sentences. he seems like such a good person to go to when you’re struggling and want someone to comiserate with. seungkwan is someone you go to when you need advice, but seokmin is the one you go to when you want to vent, because he’ll immediately match how you’re feeling about the situation and empathize with you.

i think seokmin also tends to take things personally? i think he’s gotten better about this in recent years and instead uses it as a joke, but you can tell it still bothers him sometimes ㅠㅠ like, okay, so seokmin posted that picture for seungkwan’s birthday and said something along the lines of “do you remember when we went out to have fun and fought? sorry i couldn’t be better” etc so in boo’s birthday live he explained the situation because it was resolved nicely. he said that the two of them went kayaking with jeonghan (which, btw, booseokhan are literally married and i am the most spoiled carat ever) and got in a little disagreement about something menial, and seungkwan thought it was resolved quickly, but afterwards jeonghan was driving them and seokmin put on a song and boo was like “oh what kind of song is this?” as a joke, but seokmin took it personally and got sulky. but then him and jeonghan danced to anysong and honestly who can blame them. it seems like every time he gets in a fight with other members, he thinks about how he doesn’t want it to tear them apart, so no matter how mad he is, he tries to find a way to resolve it. like with the gray bag incident JDHFKJHF he said that he thought if he didn’t pick up the bag, mingyu might hit him. he was mad and thought he was in the right, but he didn’t want the argument to escalate, so he did something he didn’t want to end it where it was. also, when jeonghan went live during seokmin’s live, saying “those who want to watch dokyeom watch him, those who want to watch this watch this,” and seokmin got all sulky about carats saying they wanted to see what jeonghan was up to. he laughed and said he was kidding, but then he was like “i’m not fun anyways.” whiCH leads us to...

infps have chronic inferiority complexes, but they aren’t envious people, so it manifests in just being immensely self critical. seokmin genuinely believes he isn’t handsome. or a good singer. like. what the fuck is that all about. i get genuinely angry when i think about this. i could talk about how fucking WRONG he is but this is just supposed to be a personality analysis so i’ll just mention that i talked about why i think he’s the perfect man alive in another ask! check that out if you want JKFHKSDF he always has negative things to say about himself but only positives to say about others. which makes me wanna fight. he also is maybe too idealistic??? like i said before, he will always see the best in other people, and it leads the rest of the members to genuinely worry about him. they’re worried that if they’re not there to take care of him, he’ll end up getting taken advantage of by someone. they don’t want him to get scammed ㅠㅠ

some other aspects of infp personalities that i think suit seokmin well but i’m literally braindead and cannot write more of this: open minded, passionate, determined, and loyal.

i would marry seokmin in an instant.

[ushiwakaout]

Lead Singer! Tamaki Amajiki with tattoo artist & lead guitarist S/O || MHA

Genre: Rock Star AU || Fluff || Self-Indulgent angst ||

⚠️ Warnings: Drug Use || Nsfw || Orgy || Mommy kink? ||

Words: 2k+

A/N: very self indulgent bc i love rockstar aus i’ve never seen one of tamaki so here it is! 

Gender Neutral Reader

Dude, don’t even get me started

HE SINGS LIKE JESSE THE GUY WHO SING SWEATHER WEATHER AND DADDY ISSUES

Can you imagine his singing devils advocate, holy shit he’d look so good MA’AM PLEASE

YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT HE WOULDN’T DRESS LIKE HARRY STYLES 

He’s still shy and still has stage fright the first few times but your his lead guitar player (dated before the band was together)

Mirio is on the drums while Nejire is the bass player

It’s so hard not to pounce on him once he gets into his music like wow 

ESPECIALLY IF HE SUNG DEVILS ADVOCATE

You guys wear a matching matte black rings and people assume you’re married, y’all never say no so you’re gonna let people assume bc you’re fine with it.

You used to be a tattoo artist so many tattoos Tamaki has or will have, it’s done by you, he won’t want 

After every set he’ll either kiss you or your hand, it just depends if you go straight into the next set or not

He sings pretty boy dedicated to you bc if it where all to end, he’d be okay if it was by your side

The fans either ship you or they don’t 

It’s a little hard thinking that people don’t think you’re a good match but Tamaki always says that you’re his angel and he’d never fall in love with anyone else bc you’re his soulmate 

Some fans ship him with mirio and they both think its funny bc they’ve been best friends since they where kids so they don’t have a problem

But Tamaki does not, DOES NOT like it when they ship him with Nejire. Not that he doesn’t like her bc she, along with mirio, got him out of his comfort zone a lot (in a good way). 

He sees the way you’re smile fades when you see a post about their ship, people saying that they look good and all. It’s gotten to a point of wanting to break up with Tamaki just to make a handfull of fans happy

You’d do anything for his music to rise up the ranks, even if it meant losing your relationship

You’ve gone to mirio sobbing about this, it kinda hurt Tamaki that you didn’t go to him but you just couldn’t face him without the reminder of those stupid post

There was one day where a post said “look at the way he looks at her, he looks at her like he’s in love with her.” You looked at the picture for a long time and didn’t even realize the water works

You didn’t really mention it to anybody but when tamaki sang pretty boy, everyone could tell that it had a different feel to it

the set was over and before tamaki could look at you, you had already gone off the stage and ran towards the back locking yourself into the bathroom and kinda just letting it all out

god you hated this feeling, the ache in your chest 

Tamaki basically broke into the bathroom and froze when he saw you crying. He was so worry and so angry at the same time.

You both ended up crying on the bathroom floor together proclaiming your love for each other in such a snotty mess that it ended in laughter.

After that incident there was a long thread tweet of Tamaki explaining politely why he doesn’t like when people ship him with someone else other than his s/o or mirio (bc you don’t mind it either) people could tell that he was angry through the tweet and it was a lil scary bc tamaki DOES NOT GET ANGRY 

anygays- angst is over, sorry very self-indulgent. 

YOU CANNOT TELL ME THIS MAN DOESN’T SMOKE DUE TO ANXIETY 

You guys have 21+ concerts bc it’s those type of concerts where u can smoke weed legally and drink

SHOT GUN SMOKE WITH TAMAKI HOT HOT HOT

Tamaki’s a lil high so he does it with mirio too and u end up doing it with nejire (your relationship def gets a lot better after the whole shipping situation bc yall talk about it and nejire ends up outing herself to you guys as a lesbian)

so if you’re a girl, Tamaki will def. tell her to watch herself when it comes to his girl but if you’re a dude- you guys are like oh... cool, good for you.

MMM  tourbus sex

YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT AS A BAND YALL DIDN’T DO SOMETHING TOGETHER

you don’t Nejire anywhere near Tamaki tho, def a small cat fight while it happens 

TAMAKI GOT REALLY JELOUS WHEN MIRIO KISSED YOU OH MAN

Tamaki def fucked you several times while Mirio was listening bc TAMAKI WANTS HIM TOO KNOW WHO YOU BELONG TOO (cannon amajiki is a bottom and probably a pillow prince but fannon tamaki is a switch but in my head in this au TAMAKI IS A HARDCORE TOP)

Several occasions where you have to sit down during concerts bc tamaki ruined you minutes beforehand

FOR A FUCKING FACT yall do it in the dressing room and he just cums inside you and slips you’re underwear back on minutes before set AND U HAVE NO TIME TO CLEAN YOURSELF SO YOU’RE LIKE FUCK

mmm i love me some dom tamaki

Okay lets get to award shows

B E S T D R E S S E D C O U P L E A W A R D 

its something like this:  female / male

if y’all win something tamaki will NOT speak, way too many people are looking at him at the moment and he almost died during the pictures. 

“some many flashing cameras”

holds your hand tighter and y’all ask to get escorted out 

If y’all live together like only you and him, you’re house def is the definition of dark decor

if you guys every do get married, you aren’t getting a live band, everyone thought you did but it turns out it’s you guys in wedding attire- they love it.

Also very small wedding, somehow able to hide it from the pap and its like 50 people or so, mostly friends and like 1/3 family

100% LIKE PEWDIEPIES WEDDING. very very private but very nature/dark decor 

do y’all get wedding tattoos. yes. but not matching, not really.

do y’all tattoo each-other at the wedding... yes.

on your ring finger you have a sun and he has the moon.

you are the light that guides his threw the darkness  and he is your sun, always lighting up your life you know bc the sun lights up the moon

y’all just love eachother sorry

you don’t break up and y’all don’t expect to

BABIES Fem version

do you still play while pregnant yes

are people surprised, yell yeah

you gotta sit down tho bc your feet are killing you 

around the 6 to 9 month mark, the band goes on a break tamaki ends up going solo for a bit during the break and he makes you sing with him AND WOW do you get a larger fanbase bc of it. yes

angelic voice of a pregnant mother

it made tamaki horny, like how the fuck are are you so fucking great at fucking everything please let me fuck you god please

will whine, WILL CALL YOU MOMMY god yes

BABIES Male version.

Yall really wanted to adopt w one baby but the baby you liked had a twin so youre like HOW CAN U TAKE ONE AND NOT THE OTHER

they are twins but ones a boy and one is a girl

god you love them with all your heart

BABIES IN GENERAL (fem version yall have twins too, boy and girl)

they grow up to be band geeks, yall love it but your boy learns piano and the girl ends up playing the guitar (def not the outcome you guys thought it would be but you really dont care)

Let set names Mizuki for a girl, Haru for a boy. (legit beautiful moon and the sun)

Mizuki is very alternative meets fairy academia/ loves plants. probably a baby witch: has the same attitude as Tamaki

Haru is Dark Academia meets city pop / loves record, old gadgets and reading books: very much more like their other parent 

If y’all ever retire to just making music at home the kids are def. gonna take the band name and just put “The new gen” after it. You guys make fun of them for being unoriginal and they get pouty 

but they had you guys crying the first time they got a gig. they both sing, make music like billie and finneas and y’all just so proud. 

when you guys start getting older they will take you to award shows as their date to flex the fact that they are gen celebs who actually made something off of their parent success unlike some people

y’all just flex you’re kid bc they doing so well

just for shits and giggles (kids are like 22 at this point, you guys are like 46) :

Haru would probably get a girl pregnant during a one night stand and end up in a baby daddy situation

Mizuki probably steals Tamakis weeb and smokes it w lavander, you catch her and you’re like.... is it good? mother/father daughter smoke sesh

Haru is like “where’s mom, i need her to run by some notes- are you guys smoking? I’m telling dad.”

“It’s not like you’re dad doesn’t smoke either.” 

Haru and Mizuki are like “WHAT?! SINCE WHEN?!” 

“Since always... how’d you think he got over his stage fright? It’s not like i could go down on you’re dad every time before a concert to lift his nerves.”

Fake gagging from the two kids. 

You guys a def the parents who kinda don’t care about your image but you don’t let your kids go off easy

They are good kids who kept good grades and never got caught while doing trouble- so they are well respected and have liberty to do what they like.

There ends up being an article about your family and the cover is you guys- all of you with your nails painted and eyemakeup

very very controversial interview with strict and non liberals calling you guys bad parents and such

and you guys also talked about the topic about how you cared for your children. explaining that you guys stopped smoking, stopped drinking, kept a healty diet until they where 15. once they became 18 it was a very open enviroment, letting your kids grow the way they want and not suffocating them. not shoving down their beliefs and likes- they grew up the way they wanted to with the care of their parents.

parents kinda hate you ngl, yall too great sksksksk

yall also play the game where they ask you questions and if you don’t answer you have to take a shot

Mizuki: “Oh ew, please don’t answer this question... Have you ever had- *clears throat* have you guys ever had sex while we where in the house

Tamaki gets all red and shoves a shot down your throat and now you don’t get to answer “But I wanted to answer!” Haru is cringing hard and he takes a shot himself “You guys are gross”

Haru asks a question and just HATES IT “Oh god... Okay- Only because I wanna know I’m asking parent number 2 (you’re parent #2) Is the rumor of you guys doing the dirty with your band true. Did you guys have an orgy.”

You start to laugh your ass off but Mizuki and Tamaki are looking at eachother bc they cant believe they’ve done this Haru def is out of his shy bubble and now Mizuki has it

“You want a shot papa?” She asked tamaki, he just nodds and she fills it to the brim, “I think thats enough.” But before he’s able to reach for it, She shoots it down and put another one full for him

“Oh yeah, that’s true. Kinda i guess, it wasn’t really an orgy- It was more like two couples doing it in the same room while doing it but you’re uncle mirio did kiss me.”

Kids: Forever gagging

Tamaki: Forever blushing

You: Ah sweet memories :)

Request are open! You can request anyone from My Hero Academia (low key wont write for tsu or uraraka. Will not write for mineta), Haikyuu, Attack on Titan or Balance Unlimited!

[babbushka]

Saying this from a place of compassion and love... if a post criticising you has over 70 notes, the author and people who reblog it are being approached by others agreeing with them, if even anons not within the fandom but who are aware from the situation agree with them (like me)... have you considered they may be right? Please listen. Please do self-introspection. If there’s such a loud message out there it’s because of a reason. Lots of love

I hear you, and I understand where you’re coming from completely, and I’m going to say this as clearly and neatly as I possibly can, because it’s been made very clear that people on the internet like to whip things up and let it spiral out of control. 

I reblogged the post that @wayward-rose made with the tags of “i still stand by everything that I said” without much more explanation than that, which people didn’t seem to really appreciate, and I recognize that that was wrong. 

This response is going to serve as that explanation. This is most likely going to be long, so I’ll be putting it under a cut, but I hope that people will read my side of things before casting judgement against me. I understand people are going to still cast judgement, and that’s fine, but I would like the chance to just say my side. 

The screenshots that were chosen to be put in that callout post about me, of posts and conversations that I’ve had back and forth with people, or posts that I’ve made/ask responses I’ve given, were confusing, because there is much more context surrounding pretty much all of these situations, as well as things that went on behind the scenes. I’d like, if I may, to explain what those screenshots are referring to, from my perspective. For ease of clarity, I’ll just go in the order of which the original post has been done. 

The Oscars where JP won for best actor were filled with many beautifully heartfelt speeches about giving support to Australia during the wildfire crisis. Cate Blanchett, Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Aniston on behalf of Russel Crow, Pierce Brosnan -- they all made speeches. And yet, the only thing I was seeing on my dashboard were gifs of JP, a known sexual predator and overall very bad guy, being celebrated for at the very last minute, likely after having seen everyone else include a heartfelt statement in their speech, tacking on a ‘oh save Australia’ at the end of his own speech. 

I made a post expressing how I was disappointed with the amount of coverage JP was getting in comparison to how little everyone else who had spoken up. @callmehopeless reblogged the post and began to say that regardless of what JP has done, his message is somehow more important than everyone else’s message that was said, because he won best actor. You all saw the conversation that took place afterwards, with me reiterating my point of ‘yes he spoke out about it but he’s not the only one and he shouldn’t the only one lauded for it.’ and her insinuating that I wanted everyone in Australia to die by fire. Not that it matters for anything, but I would like to mention that while all this was going on, I was frequently sharing support links, donation sites, and news coverage on how to help the wildfires in Australia, as we all were. I didn’t include it on the post, because that’s not what the post was really about, but I disagree with the insinuation that I wasn’t spreading information too. 

I still stand by my point that he should not have received the most praise for doing the bare minimum in a time of crisis. I saw that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, so I ended it. I never accused anyone of being a rape apologist, I only expressed my frustration that the known allegations about him were being ignored. There is a difference. 

The second point regarding the blush, I will admit wasn’t handled well on my part. I fully recognize that now, and looking back, I can understand how my frustration with @wayward-rose looks hostile. It was never intended to be hostile, I was just genuinely confused with her reblogging one of my fics as having a “white reader” because of the inclusion of blush. I was extremely hesitant to approach TWR about this tagging of the fic, because the only interactions I had had previously with her, were when she reblogged one of my posts with writing of her own, surrounding a topic that I was uncomfortable with, and then proceeded to lecture me on what triggers are and are not as if I were an incompetent fool, which, for all intents and purposes, she might’ve thought that I was. Conversations with TWR very quickly turn to technicalities, which is why I tried to be as cut and dry about it as I was. 

With this frame of reference from her point of view regarding the whole “I have friends of color so I can do whatever I want,” I would like to say that I never had that intention, and seeing it presented that way does make me feel awful, and I’m sorry for it. I don’t want people to think that I’m in any way tokenizing anyone, because if you know me, you know that that’s something I am constantly expressing feelings against. I was trying to explain that I didn’t make up this idea that only white people blush, but I admit fully that it was a poor explanation and a poor argument to have been made. I try very hard to make my readers as vague in terms of skin color as possible, and I thought that because I didn’t mention the color of the blush (like denoting it as a pink or rosy blush for example) that I would be inclusive. I was wrong, and I admit that. 

In regards to the writing of Flip Zimmerman with catholic iconography even though he’s a canonically Jewish character, particularly by a non-Jewish author, I still stand by my point. Characters who have no stated religion can and should be interpreted as everyone sees fit, because representation matters for marginalized communities. But when a Jewish character’s identity is replaced or erased with another, well, that’s just a small piece of a long line of casual antisemitism that I wanted to bring up to her. I never wanted or told her to delete her story, I never sent anyone to go fill her inbox, I never told her to edit it. After the blush discussion, I tried to simply end the argument by voicing my concerns and saying I thought it was in poor taste to have done what she did, because of the history around such topics -- and I still stand by that. 

The posts regarding the Very Popular Fic I take full responsibility for, I don’t deny that I make them, nor do I deny any of the sentiments in them. I expressed my annoyance at constantly being asked if I’ve read that fic, if I liked that fic, what I thought of that fic weekly for months and months after it blew up on tik tok, despite having expressed my dislike for it in the past. You can only get asked something so many times before it grates on your nerves. 

I still stand by my point that seeing content which you find upsetting being the type of content that gets “””famous”” is frustrating. I didn’t imply that I’m only writing for the notes. I referred to the fic as a ‘joke’ because in the tags of that fic on AO3, the author compares it to a shitpost. Similarly to the Other Fic with the handmaid’s tale AU, the author themselves put in the tags of the fic on AO3 that they knew this was in poor taste. 

I’d like to make it clear that I don’t dislike fics because they’re popular. I dislike fics because sometimes there’s content that I find disturbing or damaging, or in poor taste with regards to source material. I don’t go out of my way to read that content, because I don’t like it. So when hundreds of people are asking my opinions about it, and I express those opinions, then people like to jump down my throat and say I’m a bully...you can imagine why I get so snappish when the topic comes up. The comment about the brain cells thing was understandably harsh. I apologize for that comparison, it’s just a phrase I say frequently, I honestly didn’t think anything of it at the time, and I’ll do better in the future to not make such harsh comparisons. 

I also stand by my point that I don’t like the fic, I don’t advocate for the fic, and it really shouldn’t matter what I think because the author will do what the author does, and that’s fine. I don’t have to like it, and you guys don’t have to like the fact that I dislike it. 

When someone sends in a message anonymously, I have no idea who they are, and most of the time, unless they leave an emoji or something, I’ve got no idea what context they’re asking me about, particularly when it comes to blocking. I had absolutely no way of knowing that the anon who messaged me asking why I blocked them, was someone I had blocked for reblogging gifs of mine. However, the idea that it’s a bad thing that I blocked someone for reblogging my gifs with comments I didn’t really appreciate (I wouldn’t have blocked them for the comments shown in the fic, usually it’s stuff about how they want to get pregnant by flip, or once there was someone who commented that they wanted flip to destroy their pussy -- that’s the comments that tend to get blocked. 

But either way, blocking people from accessing your content is not a bad thing, and I stand by my point that blocking does not always mean I have anything personally against them, but rather I’d rather just not interact with their posts/have them interact with mine. It’s really not that deep. 

I don’t really know how many times I have to say that of course I don’t own a character or anything, but I do say it, constantly. Particularly regarding personal AUs, which, I really don’t find as deep as people seem to think I do. However, the content that I make, I do believe I have some right to voice my opinion on what the internet does with it. I think that if someone comments something on one of my fics, or my posts, or my gifs, and I don’t like it, I should be allowed to block them -- just as anyone else should be allowed to with their own content. 

The comment about Ben Solo still stands, I won’t be expanding on that. 

The last point that I would like to explain myself about, was made in Hope’s reblog of the post, is the whole “I bullied someone for leaving fandom” incident. I can only assume that she means an author who I had been informed was plagiarizing my work from the fic Blue Moon. I had never had this happen to me before, but I’d been told my many other people that this author has a history of taking other people’s content and uploading it as their own, including someone that I was at one point good friends with. I believed them, and I reached out to this author expressing my concerns, only expressing to please not do this in the future, or at the very least, mention that this was related to my story. This author deleted her account, and that was the last I heard about it. 

I’m honestly shocked and confused by how many people have come forward and said that they find my responses to anonymous questions mean-spirited or toxic. I try very hard to maintain a general rule of, if you’re kind to me, I’ll be kind back. In many instances, anonymous questions come across as rude, disrespectful, flat out mean, or frustrating, and so I reply back with a less-than-nice manner. 

The last thing I’d like to say on this whole matter is this: I want to make it clear that I mean no personal malice towards any of the people that these screenshots surround. I vehemently disagree with the narrative that I send people after one another, I just don’t do that. What people do is of their own accord. I don’t ever want people to be sent hate, because firstly I don’t think that’s a good thing to do, but secondly, I get sent hate all the time, and I know how it feels. I don’t want that for anyone. I know that the collection of these screenshots may make it seem otherwise, but I really do try to stay in my lane, and I only speak up on things that I’m passionate about -- whether it’s passionately positive or negative. 

I would like to apologize for the way that I’ve responded to criticism in the past, it’s just frustrating when people are criticizing you from a perspective that doesn’t take into consideration that there might be more to the story. All I can do is move forward and try to check myself, and I hope that with these explanations, people out there will realize that when I act out of frustration or aggressively, it’s because I feel as though I’m not being heard. 

I know that whatever opinion you form of me is yours and will be yours, but if you’ve read this entire thing then thank you, I appreciate you hearing me out. Hope you’re all doing well, and as always, I truly am sending you guys all my love. 

[alinaastarkov]

Honestly, like ... it's funny cause I actually liked Sophie before Season 8 aired, because I wasn't paying that much attention to her and her behavior outside the show, you know? Other than Emilia and Kit's interviews I wasn't really following the any of the actors outside of the show. But after the finale aired and everything exploded and fell to pieces, it was like a magnifying glass was put on all of them for me. And then I saw the shit Sophie had been saying for YEARS. (1/?)

Like how it wouldn't be fair if Daenerys got the iron throne because she had dragons, that Daenerys couldn't have EvErYtHiNg - as if she was personally affronted that Daenerys was so popular. And it was the same with Arya! She was constantly saying Sansa was the best character (and like, ok, a lot of actors probably say that about their characters, fine), but also going on about how 'smart' Sansa was and complaining that she wasn't as popular as other female characters (2/?) because she didn't 'act like a man'. 

Thank you so much for this long ask! To keep things organised, I am roughly going to answer this in sections.

I agree with you. I did not pay much attention to any of the cast really, and I’m still not hugely bothered about them. GOT is done and I rarely get invested in cast members. It’s characters I’m interested in. But I remember randomly coming across bts footage of the Jon/Arya hug from season 1, and I just fell in love with those two actors in particular, and I happened to see an interview with Emilia and adored her too. And that’s when I happened to see more of this cast and understand what they were like. But with the final season, and seeing pretty much everyone’s reactions that ranged from forced awkward laughter to straight up saying it sucked, it became incredibly obvious when any single person reacted positively. Even former cast members were saying it sucked, and celebrities not even involved were dragging it, so Sophie’s words on this topic (which I will touch on in a second) were put under a microscope, and subsequently everything she had said before was too. Her hatred for Dany was definitely fed to her by D&D, but there was definitely a jealousy about how other characters and actors were more popular than her. But her comments about female characters in general were so toxic.

I was even annoyed for a hot minute with Maisie too, because of all the shit she and Sophie said about Daenerys while promoting S8 (calling her power-hungry and saying she was worse than Cersei). BUT THEN. I noticed exactly what you said in an earlier post about Maisie going along with WHATEVER Sophie said. And when I re-watched those interviews it was always SOPHIE saying those shitty things, and Maisie just agreeing. (3/?) I even saw the interview you mentioned where Maisie kept changing her answers to match Sophie's. They're friendship comes off as really uneven and toxic, tbh, cause it felt like Sophie was CONSTANTLY running roughshod over Maisie.

Yeah, Maisie’s attitude initially seems off as well, especially with regard to Daenerys. But as you said, she never says this sort of thing in solo interviews, or interviews with other actors. It’s such a shame that there are so few without Sophie, so we rarely get to see what she’s like on her own. It would be one thing I suppose if Maisie gave similar answers to Sophie without much prompting, but she always has one answer, then Sophie speaks, and she changes it based on what she says. That really clearly shows you she is amending her behaviour to fit in with Sophie, which is not good. It does feel so uneven and I’ve had friendships like that and it took a while for me to cut them out. Once I did I felt much better. We obviously don’t know the ins and outs of their relationship, but it does feel very similar.

Sophie's also made uncomfortable comments dealing with racism in the past, she claims to be an advocate for mental health but then behaves abominably towards her castmates (4/?) (making insensitive comments about Kit's drinking during an interview, saying shit about Daenerys when she knows how much that could affect Emilia, etc.), the way she said she "loved" Sansa's rape scene because of how twisted it was, all that in addition to how she defended the show's final season (with it's STRONG xenophobic, isolationist undertones) even though she didn't even watch the last 2-3 episodes (5/?) - how she seemed so smug and happy about the (tone-deaf) ending, even seemed to be celebrating it when it was brought up in interviews (talk about not being able to read the room - seriously, everybody else seemed to realize it, and kept their mouths shut after the required promo period) - her history of sicking her fans on people who disliked Sansa/said anything negative about her on social media even when they didn't @ her (6/?) 

Her comments about race and mental health always made me uncomfortable too. I was sympathetic to her struggle with mental health, but then she invalidates everyone else’s struggles and it just made me dislike her even more. You can’t be an advocate for mental health and then say stuff like that about other people. Those two things do not go together. You could see when she said that stuff about Kit’s drinking that, though the audience laughed, everyone in the cast including Kit gave awkward smiles and giggles to cover how uncomfortable they were because they didn’t want to make a scene. And the way she talks about other characters is disrespectful. These characters mean a lot to the people who play them, and she does not react well when people give the same back to her. It reminds of John Boyega and his comments about Reylo and Ben Solo especially, knowing how much his castmates, Adam and Daisy in particular, love the character and how much he means to them, and he went ahead and said those things anyway, fuelling his fans to be cruel to other fans. It’s not as bad as Sophie perhaps, but it’s just poor form when these people are supposed to be professional. Sophie’s comments about Sansa’s rape scene came straight from D&D’s mouth, but she has to be at least a little self-aware about how that sounds and how gross it is, especially when she loves it because of how gross it was. You don’t see Emilia defending Drogo, do you?

Her reaction to the ending was so telling because it was the single positive opinion in a sea of negativity. Everyone else, including people no longer in the show and celebrities who were never involved, hated it and called it out to varying degrees (there was still contracts to fulfill) for how tone-deaf and nonsensical it was, and there was the table-read were everyone was devastated, but Sophie was grinning the entire time. She liked the show because her character won in the end. Sophie is not a writer, and it’s obvious when she praises the writing of this show (and criticises others which had far fewer problems than this). She did not care how nonsensical and crass the rest of the show was, as long as her character ended up on top, and then went out of her way to criticise people who hated it. Other actors have done the same, but on top of everything else it’s not a good look. And don’t even get me started on her behaviour on social media. It’s gross and not something we can blame on someone else.

after all that, everything about her just reeks of this 'woe-is-me I'm so oppressed white feminist' bs. It makes it impossible for me to like her now. Like, I think I'm only 1-2 years older than her, I don't come from nearly as much privilege as she does, and she has all the resources in the world to be educating herself and improving herself but...I don't see anything resembling that kind of growth in her. (7/7)

Yeah I can only agree. I’m five years younger than her and you would never catch me acting the way she does. She’s 24, she’s an adult, and obviously early fame and the producers affected her, but at some point we can’t keep absolving her of blame. She could be educating herself and alleviating her own ignorance, but it seems like she’s just doubling down. Maisie has had the same troubling influence from an earlier age, and she is younger, but she is not acting this way. I’m not hugely into following actors’ lives as I said, but when this was brought to my attention it rubbed me the wrong way. I am perfectly fine to ignore her as best I can, but I don’t have to like her. You don’t have to like celebrities if they’re not great people, and I don’t like her. And I’m glad the show is over so her castmates can go on to bigger and better things and leave that toxic environment the show created behind.

[pehters]

anonymous asked :  what r reggie’s individual relationships with each of his band members

               OFFSTAGE. || Thank you for this question, anon!!!!!! Okay, let’s just jump right in!

ALEX. || A lot of this is based on all of the headcanons and development that I’ve done with @yearsunlived​, so it’s possible that this dynamic could be different with other Alexes. But since Flick is the Alex I write with the most — and in  fact the only Alex currently that I’m writing with, I’m going to go off of what we have developed. 

For our dynamic between Reggie and Alex, they knew each other first. They met in second grade when Reggie moved to LA, and this was at a time when Reggie didn’t speak much at all. Alex was bolder back then, and ended up just attaching to Reggie, and they’ve been together ever since. They never are together romantically, but Reggie is Alex’s first kiss, mostly just to get it out of the way for Alex so he could move on from focusing on how he’d never been kissed. When they were back in high school, they’d get mistaken for a couple a lot due to being physically affectionate, but neither really cared. Alex jokes about how Reggie’s basically his husband, and they do bicker sometimes like they’re together, but they’re just each other’s other half, you know? The silver bracelet that Reggie wears is a replacement friendship bracelet that Alex got him after they outgrew the ones they’d made each other as kids, and Alex has one made out of string as well. Reggie loves going to the beach or the mall with Alex to scope out hot guys and convince Alex to go talk to them. There’s basically nothing he wouldn’t do for Alex, and they tease each other and rib each other just as much as they are lovey-dovey assholes to each other, too. Ralex just hits different, you know? 

LUKE. || Okay, so my dynamic with Luke is a mixture of the incredible development that’s happened with @pahtterson and @timerased​ primarily, but there are so many INSANELY talented Luke writers and I’m just stupid excited to see what dynamics come up at all. But basically as per @pahtterson​, Reggie meets Luke because Reggie sneaks off to the music room instead of the playground during recess, and little baby Luke eventually meets him there. With both Alex and Luke’s development with my specific Reggie, the common thread of them meeting as kids is Alex and Luke having an instinctive understanding of how to communicate with a kid who doesn’t do a lot of communicating. In Luke and Reggie’s case, they let the music do the talking. After that day in the music room, they’re inseparable. 

But beyond that, and especially as they get older, Reggie and Luke ( and definitely Alex as well ) are bonded over how fractious their home life gets. Luke is living in the studio for about eight months before they died, and I headcanon that Reggie was there most of the time with him, and in the month or two that led up to their deaths and the Orpheum performance, had been living there full time as well. Luke had the couch, and Reggie had a little blanket next in the loft. There was this kind of heart-bond of their shared experience that really brought them together even more than they already were. The instinctive way that their souls reached out to music also was undeniable and they just work. 

I always default to Reggie being the most technical in the band, especially in terms of music theory and composition. We know he plays multiple instruments for the band, and so there’s an element of Luke writing the songs and then Reggie being a big part of ironing out the rest of the details like the harmonies and how he and Alex should produce a beat. So there’s a huge level of trust that has to inherently be between Luke and Reggie for Luke to have his faith that Reggie is going to help produce what’s in his mind. We see them collaborating together onscreen, and that includes Luke asking Reggie what he thinks about a riff. Luke trusts Reggie’s ear, and in turn, Reggie knows Luke’s style about as well as he knows his own. 

JULIE. || Reggie is a huge advocate for Julie within the band pretty much from the jump, and I think this is really important to the development of their dynamic! My Rulie dynamics are really informed by the development I have with @mohlinas, @sprkbright, @shinemade, and @dahliakeys​, though I have had some unforgettable moments with other Julie writers as well! But as far as their dynamic goes, Julie is really fortunate that even as she is facing struggles, she also has really unconditional support from so many levels. Her family is unceasingly supportive — even going so far as to being willing to move if it would help her heal — and believes in her 100%. Ray was going to go as far as sending her to a school a million miles away if it would just help her live her dream! And Carlos, when he realizes how important the ghosts are to Julie, stops his ghost-hunting and instead protects them in his own way. Flynn is one of the world’s best ride-or-dies and you really don’t have the same show without her there. Reggie falls into this sort of instant ride-or-die energy for Julie for sure. Since I HC that Reggie is the one who deals the most in compositions for the band, that also means that I HC that he’s the one who worked on Bright with Julie, being asked to rework it by Luke from a four-piece quartet to a piano and vocal solo. So Reggie is the first ghost for Julie to spend like a really extended amount of time with. And he has the easiest smile and talks about everyone more than he talks about himself and believes in her so much already, so that really lays the groundwork for how their relationship develops. 

For Julie, Reggie believes implicitly in everything she does. He really does think that she’s their guardian angel, and he wants to do everything for her. This really manifests itself in a really protective role — I know a lot of people call him a “brother” and this is accurate but I feel like it’s not all the way right. But it definitely does evoke that kind of unconditional support and devotion that Reggie ends up showing Julie. I love Rulie more than I love most things in life, just so you know. 

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, I think, to remember is that Reggie makes everyone feel like they’re the most important person in the universe when he’s with them, and it’s because he does truly believe that they’re the most important person in the universe when he’s with them. He believes in these people with every fiber of his being, and he isn’t himself without them. There’s a reason why Caleb appealed to Reggie by saying that he could stay with the guys if they signed on to be his house band. All Reggie cares about, when it comes down to it, is the wellbeing of his friends, and his friends are the band. 

[mercury-retrograde-concept]

since you’re doing friendship readings, may i request a rosè and lisa friendship reading whenever you have the time ? thank you 🥺🌈

Oh yes, definitely! I’ve been wanting to do a friendship reading for members of a girl group for a while. And this is a very intriguing duo, that led to a very intriguing tarot spread! I feel like I wrote a whole wattpad novel in here, hahaha.

Disclaimer: This tarot reading is for entertainment purposes only. All speculation comes from my interpretation only.

Current state of relationship: Page of Pentacles (Reversed) Positive side of relationship: Ten of Cups (Reversed) Negative side of relationship: Six of Cups

Clarifier card: Eight of Pentacles (Reversed)

Rose's role in the relationship: Exorcist Archetype Card How Rose views Lisa: The Empress (Reversed)

Clarifier card: The Sun (Reversed)

What Rose wants from Lisa: Queen of Cups

Lisa's role in the relationship: God Archetype Card How Lisa views Rose: King of Swords What Lisa wants from Rose: The Emperor (Reversed)

Recent past: King of Wands (Reversed) Near future: Justice

Stray card: Three of Pentacles

There’s a strong sense of emotional depletion throughout this reading. Currently, Rosé and Lisa have next to no energy for one another, but I don’t think this is permanent. This is because their cards really echo each other, possibly more than any other relationship reading I’ve done thus far. In the sections dedicated to their unique take on the situation, we have the reversed emperor and empress. There’s also a King and Queen, albeit from different arcanas (this just makes me think about how they’re from two different countries but ended up bonding as international trainees in YG.) The Exorcist and God archetype cards also seem symbolically connected to me as well. The bonds here are strong. 

But - like I said - that doesn’t mean life is easy. 

They both have approximately a million projects going on, and Rosé’s solo is imminent. Those factors alone would make it difficult to chill and hangout, but I think there’s a bit more at work here than business. Although Lisa has a lot of traditionally powerful imagery here (she literally has a card associating her with God), a lot of the energy here seems to be flowing to Rosé. She seems to have a lot of the power here. I’m not talking in terms of hierarchy. Rather, Lisa very much seems to value Rosé’s ability to be a truth-teller. It appears as though Rosé will advocate for Lisa when someone is being unfair or unkind to Lisa. She will also let Lisa know difficult truths.  Rosé’s opinions are so valued that they basically become facts to Lisa. However, sometimes Lisa doesn’t necessarily want to hear those “facts.” Sometimes she wants to see what their relationship would look like if Rosé didn’t have such an influence on her. 

Don’t get me wrong! If it sounds like this is saying Rosé is overbearing ... I don’t think so. In this reading, I’m not getting the energy of someone who “tells it like it is” (and “what it is” always happens to be something hurtful.) This comes across as someone who’s gregarious and open-hearted, whose charisma influences you without the person even trying. 

Hilariously, also sees Lisa as quite strong. Lisa comes across as a bit reticent and poised, and in her more emotional moments Rosé wishes she can be like that. She’s also well-aware that Lisa finds Rosé a bit overwhelming sometimes, and Rosé has been trying to dial it back. She might actually be a little too successful at that, actually. Lisa is burned out right now and Rosé has some ideas on how Lisa might be able to deal with that, but doesn’t want to be overbearing. 

Of course, some of that might be because Rosé is also burned out. They both are, lately. ‘Lately’ isn’t the right word, actually. This is a long-term burn out. It’s not secret that their company was chaotic throughout much of their time as idols. Until recently they’ve been in the position of having to advocate for their career in the place of people who should have been advocating for them. Obviously that was exhausting, and they’ve been having trouble letting go of their need for constant vigilance. They can both exacerbate these perfectionist/ambitious tendencies in one another as well. It’s a strength but also an Achilles heel in them both, even if they express their ambitions different. 

All that being said, I do think they’re good for each other. Like I said, the cards complement each other in many places, almost as though this was a creative partnership that was meant to be. Above all, even if there are hiccups in how they communicate and perceive one another, they do generally feel safe with each other. They don’t have to be perfect idols or role models with each other. 

And good times are definitely coming for both of them! It appears as though their upcoming creative works will be well-received and they’ll both be supportive and thrilled for each other! 

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: “Out in the Open”

Last night, out of morbid curiosity and perhaps a smidgen of self-hatred, I asked myself, “Huh. I wonder how long my RWBY Recaps are?” Not the whole project, just this season’s writings. So in the fifteen minutes between being a functioning member of society and falling into bed, I copied all my recaps from Volume Seven, chucked them into a Word document, removed the images, fixed wonky spacing, and ended up with:

Over 40,000 words. I have, arguably, written the equivalent of a middle school grade book. If middle schoolers were interested in reading salt about a web series. …Which now that I think about it, they probably are. The point though is that there’s a lot here and some of you have read every single word of it.  That’s seriously impressive and I want you to all have virtual cookies. Especially when I watch “Out in the Open” and realize how absolutely off the rails this show has gone and I consider it a minor miracle that any of us are still sticking with it.

First off, let me lay out the things I really liked about this episode:

Setting the trap for Watts at Amity Arena. Provided that Ironwood really can beat him solo (does his skill deserve that amount of self-confidence? Especially after recognizing that he should craft a team of three to go against Tyrian?), that was just an all around smart move on his part. Watts now has enough control over the technology of Mantle and Atlas that he would have come across the Amity project eventually, so best to just spill the beans on his own terms. The terms being claiming it’s complete when really that’s just a lie in order to lure Watts out into the open. And uh, yeah... take note that this was another lie. If viewers honestly believe that leaders must never ever lie/keep anything from their people simply because it’s morally wrong, then start calling out Ironwood for this now. Because we don’t get to praise some lies when they work out well (like now) and others when they don’t (like with Ozpin).

Setting up the fight at the Arena itself with Watts having control over the dust there, essentially turning the whole area into one massive weapon. If Rooster Teeth makes use of even half the possibilities here, that should make for an absolutely epic fight.

Watts’ steampunk-esque, dramatic as fuck gun. That weapon is a thing of beauty.

Yeah, basically if it has Watts in it I enjoyed myself. Everything else? Not so much.

We open on Mantle positively overrun with grimm. No surprise there. We’re once again shown though how absolutely devastating grimm remain as an enemy. Ironwood’s soldiers are able to kill the lesser grimm with their guns, but in seconds one is taken out. The older, mammoth-like grimm take at least two to three highly skilled huntsmen to defeat and, as we saw with Blake, Yang, and Elm, they’re going to be really out of breath when they’re done with just one of them. Really then, with a team of only fifteen or so, how are they going to manage all of this:

Obviously they do manage and I can’t truly fault Rooster Teeth for giving us a solution that doesn’t quite align with the problem. It’s common enough in any story to set big stakes and then have the heroes, somewhat miraculously, come out on top. Rather, this is only an issue as it pertains to the conflicts Rooster Teeth themselves have introduced, namely what telling people about Salem will do to the rest of the world as it pertains to grimm attacks. I’ll get to the details of Ironwood’s announcement in just a moment (oh boy...), but we’re seeing that same sort of ~everything is magically okay, just hand wave away the issue~ writing here. It’s one thing to watch the group struggle and then have all those grimm conveniently defeated off screen, to have the audience fill in those magical blanks during a single battle. It’s something else entirely though to do that for one of the major problems you’ve set up for a season. Ironwood is right to worry about the grimm because everything we’ve been shown tells us that an announcement of this nature would decimate the world. Mantle gets that many grimm, of that age and power, because their heat has been off for half an hour? But telling them about a woman hell-bent on their destruction doesn’t change the situation in the slightest? Everyone just conveniently cheers in solidarity rather than experiencing a base function they have no control over: fear? If RWBY adhered to its own logic that announcement should have been Mantle’s ruin. It would have been another Fall of Beacon. Because all the “We can beat her!” encouragement isn’t going to override the basic terror that comes with learning that a) someone is actively trying to kill you and b) at least two of that person’s minions are currently in your city, doing a damn good job of it. To say nothing of the added anger at learning that Ironwood was keeping this from them, that this is why he was taking resources, that he still hasn’t managed to fix things, etc. The only reason this announcement didn’t lead to Mantle’s destruction is because, again, RWBY prioritizes one very convenient emotion over all the others. Mantle miraculously comes together, putting aside all their previous fury and only feeling hope in the face of even worse news, conveniently keeping more grimm from arriving. That’s... not how an angry mob works. And as I’ve pointed out numerous times before, RWBY is no longer a fairy tale unconcerned with realism. This isn’t, as I’ve seen others insist, a wonderful moment of hopepunk. This is the writing turning repercussions on and off at their will.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Before all this we see Nora taking out some sort of saber-toothed cat grimm, then looking put out at the horde rushing towards her. Which for me just re-emphasizes how huntsmen are the only ones capable of handling this kind of threat. They’re almost bored at times, whereas the normal fighters are straight up dying. All of which should be a problem because there’s like twenty fully trained huntsmen in Atlas right now and we had a whole arc about how Lionheart managed to wipe out a ton elsewhere. How will the world handle these kinds of grimm attacks when the one group of people capable of beating them are so few and far between? Again, it’s not a question that is answered or shown to have any consequences attached to the implied answer of, “They can’t.” Because all those hundreds of grimm are just taken care of off screen. Somehow, someway. 

During all this we get a nice moment where Weiss saves Marrow with her knight. Love new team-ups like that! Too bad Blake and Yang are still attached at the hip. Will they ever be allowed to be girlfriends while also maintaining other relationships? Who knows.

We also see Nora dealing with the above mentioned angry mob and the only reason she’s not put into the position of defending herself against civilians is because Ironwood and Robyn conveniently pop up on the screen to make their announcement. 

Okay... Here we go. 

I’m going to be honest with you readers. I don’t even know how to write about all this. It’s just a colossal mess and my thoughts are so scattered I haven’t even figured out how to pull them together yet, let alone start expressing them to an audience. So I apologize that this recap is a mess all its own. However, I can at least start with this.

Ironwood didn’t tell them about Salem’s immortality.

That’s the crux of EVERYTHING here. I could point out how astoundingly stupid it is to tell the people this while they are currently being attacked by grimm and how, again, the only reason why that didn’t result in his people’s massacre is because the writing is straight up inconsistent about when grimm are a threat. I could spend this whole recap criticizing this moment---another moment---where we see Ruby smiling over the horrible situation she’s helped create, the story painting her as a perfect hero. I could also talk in-depth about how flawed Ironwood’s logic is. Salem inciting hatred has never and will never be the problem. What, does he think that with a common enemy the racists will suddenly open their doors to the faunus? Or that the bandit attacks will stop? That people like Jacques will suddenly start loving everyone who can’t give them more money? I’ve gotten a lot of asks over the last year regarding real life issues, asking me how we solve these horrendous problems. My answer is always the same: there is no simple solution. There is no one, convenient thing that we can implement and then bam, racism, sexism, ableism, etc. is solved forever and always. It takes generations of slow, methodical, one-step-forward-two-steps-back work in order to enact change, the precise sort of work that Ozpin was doing in the form of schooling and advocating for tolerance across Remanant. Ironwood, meanwhile, has given the people that band-aid solution. Salem is the reason we’re divided. Salem is the reason why we’re in danger. Don’t think about our own prejudices or the separate threat of the grimm. Just come together against her and it’ll all be fine, I swear. 

Which may have been a decent way of getting people to defeat Salem---we’ll tackle the other issues later---if Salem could be defeated.

Everyone realizes this is just a massive version of what Ozpin did, right? Please tell me people get that. Ozpin had a small group of people, told them about Salem, they logically worked under the assumption that they could beat her, and when her immortality was revealed he was condemned for that supposed manipulation. You sent us to fight a war we couldn’t win. How dare you?

Now Ironwood has done the same thing, but dramatically increased the number of people involved. They find out about Salem, they’re encouraged via no corrections to believe that she’s beatable, and thus this city is preparing for a war that many would view as unwinnable if they had all the information. Every one of our leaders has manipulated in this manner now. Ozpin did it, Ruby perpetuated it, and now here Ironwood is doing it again. Except that, again, given the more specific context of each scenario... I still think Ozpin was the most justified. He never wanted the group involved. Rather, they insisted they be a part of things. The group at least are all made up of skilled fighters, not everyday civilians. Telling willing huntsmen in training that they need to “take care of” Salem with the hope that they’ll continue the work of keeping her at bay is not the same thing as letting Ironwood take resources from Mantle for a doomed plan, or Ironwood telling a city of mostly defenseless people that it’s their responsibility to help him deal with this threat. This is who he is calling to action: 

Not skilled volunteers, but terrified people unwittingly drawn into the situation, and the only reason why their terror hasn’t taken over is because they’re allowed to function under the assumption that Salem can be killed. I’m all for stories where the “useless,” non-combat characters help turn the tide (it’s one of the reasons why I love Pacific Rim so much), but that scenario only works when there’s a clear end in sight; when sacrificing this peace is worth it because banding everyone together will actually lead to victory. But that’s not the case here. All Ironwood has done is set up a situation where the people, like that council member last volume, are going to start asking, “Do you think he can win against Salem? He has to. He’s our only hope. So why hasn’t he beaten her yet? Why aren’t you doing something, Ironwood?” It’s going to be this moment right here on a massive scale. 

A mob of angry people closing in on an innocent, demanding to know why Ironwood isn’t fixing a problem. What the hell is Ironwood going to do now that he’s set up an expectation he can’t fulfill? More importantly, why would he do that in the first place? I really hate how stupid RWBY has made its characters, shooting themselves in the foot in the name of “Well, secret keeping is bad.” It’s not a setup I agree with, but I could at least stomach it if everyone was on the same page regarding where they place blame. However, once again we see how Ozpin is the only one who got heat for these choices.

Everyone remember Yang’s fury over, “How could you not tell us this?” That wasn’t so long ago, folks. So why isn’t she gunning for Ironwood the second he makes his announcement? How could you tell Mantle about Salem but not that she’s immortal, the exact thing Ozpin did to us and we screamed at/physically assaulted him for? Or, more realistically considering that Yang doesn’t seem to know Ironwood has been informed about the immortality yet, why isn’t she gunning for her sister? How could you put Ironwood in the position where he does to an entire city what Ozpin did to us? This is what I keep talking about in regards to the hypocrisy. The group is endlessly furious at Ozpin for his choices, but when they make those same choices, or others make those same choices… nothing. No reaction. Or the reaction is praise. Why the hell does Ruby look like this

while watching Ironwood put an entire city into the position she was in during Volume 6? It’s the same thing! Either the city of Mantle is duped into fighting an impossible war without all the pertinent information---the thing that the fandom has raked Ozpin over the coals for supposedly doing to the group---or they’re told about the immortality later and you’re faced with all the same dangers. Who’s going to attack innocents in their fear and anger? Who’s going to dive back into their addictions? Who’s going to give up completely? Who is going to join Salem? “He’s doing it,” Ruby whispers even though hypocrisy remains the name of the game and “doing it” achieves nothing. Seriously, what did Ironwood accomplish here besides briefly emboldening his people? He could have done that through teaming up with Robyn alone. All revealing Salem has done is set up a host of new problems and put an entire city into the position the group thinks Ozpin is morally horrific for putting them in. “Telling us about Salem but not that she’s immortal is Bad” was the emotional center of Volume 6, but now suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore? Would the writing please acknowledge the double standards here? 

Especially given how many secrets still remain. In the last few hours I’ve seen multiple posts with fans writing about how happy they are that everything is coming to light when... it’s not. This is by no means a clean slate, devoid of secret keeping. In fact, you need a list to keep track of who knows what right now:

Yang: Knows that her mother is the Spring Maiden

Weiss: Knows that her sister is set to become the next Winter Maiden

Blake and Yang: Know that they told Robyn about the Amity secret

Ruby and Oscar: Know that Ironwood now knows about Salem’s immortality. The rest of the group presumably doesn’t know they told him 

Ironwood: Knows about Salem and her immortality but (potentially) not that the relic still has a question, it draws grimm, or the real reason why Ozpin left. Those secrets weren’t acknowledged either way

Robyn: Knows about Salem but not her immortality. Presumably does not know about the relics, the Maidens, etc.

Mantle: Knows about Salem but not the fact that they can’t beat her

At this point I’m just a broken record and I do apologize for that, but what else is there to say when RWBY keeps making the same mistakes every episode? More sloppy setups, more hypocrisy, more picking and choosing when there will be consequences for actions, or when characters will get angry, or even when realism applies. It says a lot about a story that I’m wincing over a shot of our supposed hero smiling and actively agreeing with the villain. Watts is 100% right when he said that “Our tin soldier’s heart has cost him his head.”

And we’ve still got half an episode of nonsense left. I’m just going to power through the rest of this. 

Hated Jaune’s ridiculous “line up!” moment. That just read as so stupid to me. I get that other people loved it but it just didn’t work on my end. There are better ways to demonstrate growth than having him learn the (oh so difficult?) skill of giving an order via treating adults like five-year-olds. 

Tyrian goes off to cause more chaos in the form of trying to murder Robyn, only to find that Clover and Qrow are there to back her up. I liked Qrow’s little line about getting a crack at him first because yeah, for him this fight is personal. Last time they met Qrow nearly succumbed to his poison and Ruby was nearly kidnapped. He deserves to get in any killing blows if Tyrian is set to die this volume. 

We learn that Neo is off to try and steal the lamp from the “farm boy” and oh yeah, wouldn’t it have been great if there was a way to avoid this whole scenario? If the group had, just maybe, put the relic into the vault like they’d intended to do from the start? Or at least give us a good reason for carrying it out in public, at the Schnee mansion of all places. RWBY is chock-full of the most contrived situations I’ve ever seen, relying entirely on random bouts of stupidity for them to “make sense.” No one thinks twice against carrying around their most precious object in a city they know has been infiltrated by Salem’s men. Ironwood starts talking about his secrets in front of the people he’s keeping secrets from. Is it really that hard to come up with scenarios that don’t rely on our heroes randomly losing a large number of brain cells?

Meanwhile, Cinder is going after the Winter Maiden and will no doubt find that Winter is guarding her. Back at the fight, Ruby tries to use her silver eyes but is too distracted. That at least is a limitation on her power, even if it doesn’t make much sense that she’d be more distracted now than when she had a leviathan grimm bearing down on her. 

Penny takes a massive hit and for a brief moment I thought, “Here! Ten episodes in and we’ll finally see Ruby have some reaction to Penny’s resurrection. After all, seeing her friend lying on the ground like that is going to trigger some pretty traumatic memories.” But no. Penny pops up with an “Ouch!” and it’s once again just another joke.

I did like them using the grimm’s own tusk to take it down though. That was a good and visually interesting plan. We also get to see Penny as the darling of Mantle again, including Robyn complimenting her over the comms. So again, what was the point of framing her, either from the villain’s or the story’s perspective? Who knows. We’re not given a reason. It’s just a thing that happened that, like always, led to no consequences. 

Watts walks into his trap, reveals that he has control over the arena, pulls out his gun, and Ironwood absolutely roasts him with, “You always were a pain in the ass.” Highlight of the episode. Everything else remains a chore to watch.

Three more episodes. Just three more and we can put this mess of a volume behind us. Or at least I can.

Until next Saturday 💚

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch: Episode 41 “Kota”

mysterylover123

OK so just a few comments about my last post before we get into it!

First of all, like I predicted, it did get flagged, but quickly restored. Secondly, an ask pointed out that the scene with Bakugo reprimanding Deku about Tomura is not, actually, in the episode. I’m not sure why I thought it was, but oh well. I’ll try and double check next time before I post the recap. Anyway, off to recap-ville. Episode 41 time!

Quirk training! The anime seriously elaborated on this from the manga, where it was just a few pages.

WOOF. At this point Todoroki has spent more screen time in season 3 without clothes than with.

wow that looks like good cake. They did not skimp on the desserts here. 

FULL VERSION! Gotta say, Ragdoll and Tiger really round it out; it just looks kinda silly when it’s just Mandalay and Pixie Bob. They have a really impressive clatch of quirks too, ngl. 

I wish they’d given Deku more than basic boot camp training. I’m kinda split on how they handled Tiger being trans; on the one hand, he’s a cool hero who kicks serious ass and has respect, on the other the characters make a slightly disparaging remark about him...but that could be what a transgender person would deal with in reality, and this series isn’t exactly presenting a utopia...I don’t know, it’s the same way I feel about Pixie Bob’s age thing. I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt and it could be a lot worse, but it could be a lot better, too.

Oh my. Breathless, finding-his-resolve Deku is giving me rather impure thoughts.

I’m not sure what purpose making them cook for themselves serves, honestly.  Iida tries to come up with one, but it kinda comes across like the WWP are just being lazy. The kids are training hard all day, wtf is wrong with having food pre-prepared for them?

Maybe it was just for another excuse to humiliate Bakugo. At this point, he hasn’t even done anything. Karma just hates him.

Or to give us this shot of Momo and her main love interests. Momo standing up for Shoto’s rights, cute TDDMM moment!

Aw poor Kacchan!

Feels overload! Also, kinda low-key ship Todo/Ochaco sometimes. I dunno, they seem like they’d have a good repertoire.

Wow Momo’s getting a lot of moments this episode ain’t she!

Deku is inexplicably drawn to pissed off, antisocial spiky-haired punks who seem like they need saving from their own temper, ain’t he? (Good god Kota looks like a BKDK lovechild in this scene, doesn’t he? Same Kacchan eyes).

BEHOLD, THE SINGLE SADDEST IMAGE SET COMMITTED TO SCREEN! OMG THE FEELS. (Someone give me a firebending Deku au fanfic, please!)

Toga’s complaining about how not-cute her outfit is. I think the fanbase would disagree.

Dabi sure loves monologuing, doesn’t he? Maybe he isn’t Toya after all; the other Todoroki’s don’t like to talk this much. Anyway, cute sleeping babies!

OMG Bakugo’s shirt. It’s like he wanted to remind us that he’s cut too, ya’ll. Deku isn’t the only one with abs of steel. (I think Kaminari’s the one under the pillows). 

Poor remedial course babies! I feel them. I’ve been having bouts of insomnia lately, like, 4 hours of sleep type, and I can’t imagine that schedule they’re on. Honestly, I know they’re trying to make ‘em stronger, but depriving them of good food and sleep is not going to help with that. I’m pretty sure most workout advisors advocate keeping your basic needs provided for for maximum performance.

Aizawa is telling Ochaco and Aoyama that they nearly failed. I think this is an important point that all the people who try and excuse the Uraraka/Aoyama v 13 fight need to remember. Even Aizawa called them out on their mess up. It was a fluke, and there’s something deeper getting in the way of their success. Everyone else either passed by changing, or failed by refusing to change. These two need to be challenged in the same way, or they’ll never change for the better.

The dream 3some is finishing each other’s thoughts! Wow, that used to just be a BKDK thing, but Shoto has effectively nudged his way in there. Also, I love the symbolism of Kacchan looking at his own reflection here. Visual metaphors!

“Is All Might - I mean, the other teachers, coming?” Haha Deku don’t even pretend like you care about any of the other teachers.

Oh I see that’s why we had to have them cook their food! So we could prove who secret best girl really is. And tease Kacchako a little. At this point I’m not sure who most wants a threesome with the Wonder Duo, Uraraka or Todoroki.

Ooh, Shoto’s gaining on her!

Honestly, this is one of my favorite Tododeku moments. I kinda like their smaller moments even more than the “big” moments with these two, where they’re having dramatic stuff. The little stuff like Shoto giving Deku such emotionally intelligent advice. It’s very strong.

Expectations vs reality

Team Animal Bromance Solidarity

Team Just F*ck Already

Team Maximum Cuteness

Team Saved Bakugo and Tokoyami’s Asses

Team Femslash Initiative

Team Poor Ojiro

Team Polar Opposites

Oh no my bbs all alone! I’ll be your teammate Deku!

Everyone on Team Ojiro is unsatisfied.

Tsuchaco begins!

OMG THEY’RE SO CUTE! (THE TODOBAKU ARC!)

NGL, Yui Kodai is really pretty and has a legit awesome quirk. Underrated Best Girl of Class 1B.

Holy Shit that Music tho! The League of Villains is In the Building! (Metaphorically, anyway)

This is the arc where I stopped thinking of the LOV as boring obstacles and started seeing them as kinda awesome.

“Kota” really picks up the momentum of Season 3, throwing us straight into a “holy crap” plotsplosion with little adieu. There’s a little more setup to go before we just jump straight into the chaotic, violent and transformative Training Camp Arc in the upcoming episodes. I pretty much binge-watched the whole first 12 episodes of Season 3 in one sitting the first time I watched it, so I don’t know what it would be like to watch these week to week. Next up: BEST BOY DEKU’S ARMS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

BKDK CORNER:

Nothing really in the actual episode, but I wanna acknowledge Best OP’s heartbreaking BKDK nod:

“don’t come deku” OMG episode 45 is gonna break my heart all over again in’t it?

Also the ED:

“Cause I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this place” (Todoroki’s sitting with them too for some bonus TDBKDK points.) Subtle, Bones. We know which way your bread is buttered.

BEST GIRL OF THE EP: Mandalay!

RANKER: The Test of Courage Teams

8. Ojiro and Mineta (poor Ojiro!)

7. Iida and Koda (normally Iida’d be pretty cool, but this team does basically nothing)

6. Jiro and Tooru (get knocked out pretty quickly.

5. Momo and Aoyama (they seriously saved everyone)

4. Solo Deku (who is better than most on his own and also saved Kota)

3. Tokoyami and Shoji (who are seriously metal)

2. Uraraka and Asui (another seriously awesome duo)

1. Todoroki and Bakugo (just add Deku for maximum perfection)

[fiti-vation]

Mind sharing what you’re passionate about and what your 2019 personal goals are?

That is a really good question dear, with so many layers to it. I am passionate about a lot of things quite frankly. Clearly, since I run a fitness blog, fitness is one thing I am passionate about. Anything that pertains to health, nutrition and well-being. As I’ve always said, I like being active and I view the human body as the most impressive machine built for performance. In fact, the body is a machine that must be taken care of if we want it to perform well for an extended period of time. Developing a passion for health and fitness will not only help with physical health, but it helps improve one’s mental health and overall well-being. In that regard, I don’t think I would ever have had a passion for fitness if it wasn’t for running. I am a passionate about running, I am passionate runner, a solo runner, a runner who runs with her soul not her sole.

I run because it’s my passion, and not just a sport. Every time I walk out the door, I know why I’m going where I’m going, and I’m already focused on that special place where I find my peace and solitude. Running, to me, is more than just a physical exercise… it’s a consistent reward for victory! Running changed my life… Once you get that blood moving, it’s show time!

Running 🏃🏾‍♀️: 

Running is a great metaphor of life; you get out of it what you put into it. It has taught me a lot more than I could ever have imagined. It has taught me about perseverance, failure – how to accept defeat, self-accountability, discipline, determination, but most importantly, running has completely changed my view of life. Running doesn’t only rejuvenate you physically… Actually, it has strengthened me not only physically, but mentally and spiritually. Simply put, it has taught me how to venerate my body, soul and mind. Through difficult times and good times, running has always been there for me. I can’t remember what I was doing before running. I guess procrastinating, watching TV, gaining nothing. Running pervades my life. I wouldn’t go as fa as to say it has crept into other part of my life; I would rather say it has become its own part of my life.Through running, I’ve found exhilaration, challenges, strength, confidence, inspiration, peace and friends. I have run in all directions- away from, toward, in circles. I have run through joy, sorrow, anger, pain and confusion. I have challenged myself again and again and have emerged from each test a stronger, more confident woman.

Getting into running during my first year of college was truly a blessing in disguise. 2010, that’s the year when, as a college freshman, I started running. Immediately I was enamored. I loved the sense of exploration, of challenging myself, of being outside in all kinds of weather. I loved the time alone, time to think about whatever came to my head. I loved seeing if I could go farther than I ever had or run a loop faster than I did the week before. I loved how I felt physically while running and how I felt mentally when I was done. When I joined the university track and field team the next fall, I learned to love running even more. Training with teammates, racing against those teammates, building toward a long-term goal – all this and more about being a competitive runner added a whole other layer of attraction to this most natural act.

*Note college and university are NOT the same thing in Canada as in the U.S. College and university aren’t used interchangeably in Canada – they are two distinct establishments.

On a different note but still in relation to running, I never truly felt good in my skin, but running changed that. It gave me confidence. When you start to feel good physically, mentally and spiritually, you start to enjoy and value yourself as you should. Inevitably, you start to spend more on yourself and your well-being – this brings me to my next passion: skincare.

Skincare – Nutricosmetics, Nutraceuticals and Cosmeceuticals 🧴💊

Not gonna lie, self-care is addictive lol. Prior to my healthy lifestyle, I really wasn’t taking much care of my skin (yikes), but when I got into fitness, I really started reading more about anything and everything that pertains to wellbeing – and skincare caught my attention, I learned that the skin is our largest organ. After learning that the skin is our largest organ – damn right I started taking good care of it lol 💆🏽‍♀️. I will forever be mad at my teenage self for not taking good care of my skin. Luckily, I started sooner than later (18 baby).  I know so much about skincare that at some point I seriously started contemplating doing a certificate in dermatology or becoming an aesthetic/cosmetic nurse 💉.

The skin covers the body and prevents water loss, protects the body from injury and infection, regulates body temperature, eliminates wastes (sweat), produces vitamin D with the help of sunlight, gathers information about the environment, stores fat for fuel and insulation.

As I became a skincare junkie, I discovered about nutricosmetics, nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals. The science behind these topics is quite interesting and fascinating. If one day you ever have some free time, I’d recommend reading on these topics.

Nutraceuticals are products, which other than nutrition are also used as medicine. A nutraceutical product may be defined as a substance, which has physiological benefit or provides protection against chronic disease.

Cosmeceuticals are the marriage of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Think: antioxidant plus lipstick or retinol plus face serum.Cosmeceuticals will contain active ingredients that are known to be beneficial to humans in some way,“ says Marie Jhin, MD, a dermatologist in San Francisco. “For example, vitamin C is a known antioxidant and when this is added to a lotion or cream the product is considered a cosmeceutical.” [X] If you’ve been following me for years, you know that I’m a Vitamin C advocate. Use it internally, topically – splurge yourself of Vitamin C! It did wonders to my skin.

Nutricosmetics - Beauty from Within: The term “Nutricosmetics” is a result of the fusion of “Nutraceuticals” and “Cosmeceuticals.” They are ingestible natural health products that enhance the function and appearance of an individual’s skin, nails, and hair. They are a range of beauty supplements and functional foods and beverages that claim to contain active ingredients and nutrients such as botanical actives, sterol esters, lycopene, enzymes, proteins, minerals, and vitamins that enhance beauty and are beneficial to health.  

Spirituality – motivational speaking, and coaching 🧘🏾‍♀️

In regard to running still, as mentioned earlier running has not only nourished my body, but also my soul and mind. Overall, it helped me grow as the individual that I am today. Although I like the person that I am, as mentioned previously I am in love with the person that I have the potential to be. Running reminds me that there is more to me than what is readily apparent much of the time. In feeding my mind and soul, running taught me that there is ALWAYS room for improvement. I am always pushing myself, so I can be a better version of myself.

Now, you have to wonder how I stay so motivated and determined all the time. The truth is that I do not think I would have had this buoyant strength in me to persevere, to succeed and to overcome the obstacles and difficulties of life, if it was not for all that running has taught me. I am very grateful for all the knowledge I have gained over the years through athletics. Running has humbled me in a way. In this respect, a poignant quote from Kareem Heshmat that deeply impacted me lately reads,

Now you…you know a lot about a lot, or a lot about a little, a little about a lot or a little about a little. You have an understanding of many more concepts than you give yourself credit for. You pick up facts here and there and form opinions that are worth sharing. Gather that knowledge into something useful; either implement that knowledge to bring about change in the world or pass it along to someone who will be inspired to do the same. Having knowledge means sharing knowledge.

It would certainly be selfish for me not to share this incredible knowledge that I have gained over the years. I am admittedly not the most knowledgeable fitness expert, but I believe that some can learn and relate with my journey. Fortunately for me, I was able to blossom as a strong individual. However, I recognize and acknowledge that I was and am privileged in a certain way, because the path to a healthy lifestyle is not the easiest - many fail all along this journey and / or never succeed.

Over the last 2-3 years, I have been really big on spirituality, soul searching, motivational speaking, and coaching. So, in the near future, I hope I can use all the knowledge I’ve gained over the years to inspire others to reach their full potential, whether that is physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, occupationally, socially, environmentally, and / or financially [see post on 7 dimensions of Health]. 

Uplifting Others is an investment that always pays back dividends, not necessarily from the outside, but for one’s own peace of mind and soul. In many ways, what we put out into the world is returned to us in the form of our own inner peace, happiness, contentment, and well-being. That makes developing passion for others into something that can really help with our peace of mind and place in life.

Nature 🍃

With regard to running and spirituality, I’ve found trail running to be so beneficial for my body and mind, and surprisingly, it made me learn to enjoy nature more than I did when I was younger. Trail running takes you up the mountain, over the river, and through the woods, and that often gives you a much more scenic view than we could ever hope for on an urban jaunt on the road. Trails just have a way of closing off the rest of the world and all of the chaos. Put simply, trail running is quiet and contemplative.

There is no Wi-Fi in the forest, but I promise you will find a better connection.

Miscellaneous 🖼🎨✈️👩🏾‍⚖️

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have a lot of passions, but if I list them all, this post will never end. Those discussed above are my main ones, but I am also very passionate about social justice, art, and travelling.

Art: Art such as running is another of expressing oneself. At the end we’re all just searching for that tiny space, perhaps a hole that gives us shelter from the struggles of life.

Travelling:  Although Canada is the second largest country in the world and one of the most diverse, I would like to see what else is out there before being 30. I’d love to spend the rest of my 20s travelling. Traveling is so rewarding, not only for the mind but also for the soul. I love being around people and learning about different cultures and languages and as cheesy as it might sound, what I’d like to do is somehow combine these facts with the aim to help dismantle prejudices and unite people. On that note, this brings me to my next point.

Social justice: Justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society is something we should all advocate for. Fighting against discrimination, prejudice and injustice has always been something dear to my heart, especially as a Black woman.

Personal goals 🗓

In terms of my personal goals for 2019, the year is almost over lol, so my expectations aren’t too high, but before the year ends as I’ve mentioned previously, I’d like to start a YouTube channel. I’m also in the process of writing my first eBook.

Some of my personal goals for the future include:• writing a visual cookbook;• writing a skincare tips book;• partaking in a marathon or bodybuilding contest;• having my own brand of supplement for elite athletes and bodybuilders;• creating fitness gear/compact and affordable gym equipments• doing a TED talk.

But most importantly I’d really love to turn my passion for fitness blogging into a full-time job, I’d like to be my own boss. One of my inspirations is Marc Fitt, what he has accomplished on his own is truly impressive. And he’s French Canadian. so I totally relate to him 😂 (Maple syrup, ketchup chips, poutine, you know 😂😭).

I’m speaking these goals into existence! 🙏🏽

[lastsonlost]

I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire. “

Sina Grace on Writing Iceman at Marvel: “I Was Surrounded by Cowards”

Posted by Jude Terror June 28, 2019 48 Comments

As has been documented in various Bleeding Cool articles throughout the course of the book’s two series, one of my personal favorite X-Men comics of the past few years was Iceman, written by Sina Grace, and drawn it its first volume by Alessandro Vitti and Robert Gill and in its second and concluding one-shot by Nathan Stockman. The book breathed new life into a character who it could be argued hadn’t really received significant character development since his days in X-Factor in the 1980s. It’s true that it was “The Great One” Brian Bendis who wrote Iceman outed by Jean Grey’s invasive telepathy, but it was Grace who wrote adult Iceman coming to grips with this and learning to be himself and love himself, alongside, of course, lots of mutant action and drama. The book ended too soon, when it was really just getting going, IMHO.

With all of that in mind, it’s sad but not surprising to read Sina Grace’s comments, posted to his Tumblr, about his time at Marvel writing the book and what he says was a lack of support from Marvel while he dealt with online bullying as well as a lack of support and promotion for Iceman itself.

Grace writes:

As Pride Month comes to a close, it’s time I spoke candidly about my experience at Marvel Comics.

To date, I’ve always been honest about the joy of writing Iceman’s journey as an out gay superhero, but I’ve skirted around the challenges that came along with it. This is partially because I prefer to give off an upbeat vibe, and there’s also a fear that my truth will affect my career. With more corporations patting themselves on the back for profit-led partnerships wherein celebrities take selfies in rainbow apparel, and with buzz that Marvel Studios is preparing to debut their first gay character in the upcoming Eternals movie, there is an urgency to discuss the realities of creating queer pop culture in a hostile or ambivalent environment. Hopefully, my takeaways will serve as a guide for people in positions of power to consider when advocating for more nuanced and rich representation. In an ideal world, embracing our stories and empowering us to tell them will yield far more profitable (and way less messy) results than what I encountered while writing Iceman.

Stand by your people

It’s no surprise that I got the attention of trolls and irate fans for taking on this job. There was already backlash around the manner in which Bobby Drake aka Iceman came out, and Marvel needed to smooth that landing and put a “so what” to the decision. After a point, I could almost laugh off people making light of my death, saying they have “cancerous AIDS” from my book, or insinuating I’m capable of sexual assault… almost. Between Iceman’s cancellation and its subsequent revival, Marvel reached out and said they noticed threatening behavior on my Twitter account (only after asking me to send proof of all the nasty shit popping up online). An editor called, these conversations always happen over the phone, offering to provide “tips and tricks” to deal with the cyber bullying. I cut him off. All he was going to do was tell me how to fend for myself. 

I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire. 

“We’ll keep you in mind.”

I got so tired of that sentence.

Even after a year of the new editor-in-chief saying I was talented and needed to be on a book that wasn’t “the gay character,” the only assignment I got outside of Iceman was six pages along, about a version of Wolverine where he had diamond claws. Fabulous, yes. Heterosexual, yes. Still kind of the gay character, though.

We as creators are strongly encouraged to build a platform on social media and use it to promote work-for-hire projects owned by massive corporations… but when the going gets tough, these dudes get going real quick.

Believe in the work

You may be asking if my Iceman book was any good, or if I’m just being sour grapes over a bad work experience. Believe me, I asked that, too. From the get-go, my first editor asserted that Iceman would be DOA if it were “too gay,” while also telling me to prepare for a cancellation anyway, given that most solo X-Men titles don’t last beyond a year. Never mind that my work on Iceman had gotten positive press in the New York Times (in-print), or that in spite of (since-deleted) critical sandbagging, the series nets glowing reviews on Amazon… Marvel still treated me as someone to be contained, and the book as something to be nervous about. Do you know how hard it is to not argue with a publicist when he’s explaining the value of announcing Iceman’s revival via the Marvel homepage? Sis, that’s a burial. Instead of clapping back, I just went and got myself more press from the New York Times. From there, they tightened my leash. I had to get all opportunities pre-approved, and all interviews pre-reviewed. This would be fine if it was the standard, but I assure you: none of my straight male colleagues seek permission to go on podcasts promoting their books.

What Marvel should have done is assign me a special projects editor. They should have worked with a specialty PR firm, rather than repeat a tiresome cycle of treating the book like a square peg, and getting confused when it’s a hit.

Give us a real seat at the table

There was a moment before Iceman was cancelled where I wrote then-editor-in-chief Axel Alonso an email, pleading for a Hail Mary arc. I explained that Icemanwas landing with a newer generation of readers who focused more on binge-reading than month-to-month periodicals. The series needed time in the book market before its true strength could be assessed. To Axel’s credit, he was warm to the idea and even gave me an extra month, but when he left Marvel that idea got brushed away. Of course I was right. The first two volumes sold like gangbusters thanks to word-of-mouth, librarian love, and support from retailers big and small.

When the series returned, no one at Marvel asked me: “What do you think landed with readers?” Nor did they ask the question that Axel did: “What matters to your community?” So when I wrote what I thought the fans would be into, a story about a man learning to be a better ally in the war against hate, editorial totally missed its value.

Seat at the table pt II: The Shade of it all

All of the weird drama I put up with crystallized when I created a drag queen mutant, first called Shade, now called Darkveil. I told my editor that Shade would be a big deal for X-Fans, and asked how we should promote her. He said: “leave it up to the reader’s interpretation.” Everyone at Marvel shrugged off two years of goodwill and acted like I’d coordinated behind their backs on an announcement that made headlines. Beyond mentioning on Instagram the queens who inspired the character, I didn’t coordinate shit. Of course, their head publicist can’t admit that my quotes were pre-approved from an unreleased interview. At this point, I stopped believing that there’d be any more work for me. There were so many shady moves on their end that I’m still having trouble putting into language, but it all aligned with an experience I had in retail where a corrupt manager kept lying and moving the goal posts in order to keep me selling in a department I didn’t want to work in. I offered to give Darkveil a proper character bio, and I walked away.  

I recognize that some of my complaints can be filed under “this is freelance life.” I am aware that it was not a queer person of color who joked to me that “it’s not a matter of if Marvel fucks you over, it’s a matter of when.” That came from a cis white male. The same-day turn-arounds without warning, the work emails on Christmas week… that’s the freelance bullshit. Truly, I don’t even think of this as discrimination, I call it general ineptness. It is my belief that if we are telling stories about heroes doing the right thing in the face of adversity, wouldn’t the hope be to embody those ideals as individuals? Instead of feeling like I worked with some of the most inspiring and brave people in comics, I was surrounded by cowards.

Truly, I hate writing this. In keeping with Pride Month, I am proud of the work I did on Iceman… I love the book! It sucks that I may be tarnishing its legacy going public about how the cookies were made. That said, the time for self-congratulating is over, and folks should be earnestly listening when they ask: what could we have done better?

so what’s my take.....

Personally I think the kid got used, plain and simple. Also this should not have come as a shock to anyone.

Look at how badly they treat their customers that pay them money,                  OF COURSE THEY’RE GOING TO FUCK THEIR EMPLOYEES EVERY CHANCE THEY GET. A box full of scorpions would have had more loyalty.

@thespectacularspider-girl

______________________________

little history lesson for you kids: tokyopop did practically the same thing with the rising stars of manga. They snatched up young Talent, use them, and drop them.

[sharpiefaceontangerine]

Harry Styles’ New Direction (Harry’s 2017 Feature in Rolling Stone)

(because apparently I didn’t have the full text on my tumblr and u can never be too careful)

January 2016. There’s a bench at the top of Primrose Hill, in London, that looks out over the skyline of the city. If you’d passed by it one winter night, you might have seen him sitting there. A lanky guy in a wool hat, overcoat and jogging pants, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Harry Styles had a lot on his mind. He had spent five years as the buoyant fan favorite in One Direction; now, an uncertain future stretched out in front of him. The band had announced an indefinite hiatus. The white noise of adulation was gone, replaced by the hushed sound of the city below.

The fame visited upon Harry Styles in his years with One D was a special kind of mania. With a self-effacing smile, a hint of darkness and the hair invariably described as “tousled,” he became a canvas onto which millions of fans pitched their hopes and dreams. Hell, when he pulled over to the side of the 101 freeway in L.A. and discreetly threw up, the spot became a fan shrine. It’s said the puke was even sold on eBay like pieces of the Berlin Wall. Paul McCartney has interviewed him. Then there was the unauthorized fan-fiction series featuring a punky, sexed-up version of “Harry Styles.” A billion readers followed his virtual exploits. (“Didn’t read it,” comments the nonfiction Styles, “but I hope he gets more than me.”)

But at the height of One D–mania, Styles took a step back. For many, 2016 was a year of lost musical heroes and a toxic new world order. For Styles, it was a search for a new identity that began on that bench overlooking London. What would a solo Harry Styles sound like? A plan came into focus. A song cycle about women and relationships. Ten songs. More of a rock sound. A bold single-color cover to match the working title: Pink. (He quotes the Clash’s Paul Simonon: “Pink is the only true rock & roll colour.”) Many of the details would change over the coming year – including the title, which would end up as Harry Styles – but one word stuck in his head.

“Honest,” he says, a year later, driving through midcity Los Angeles in a dusty black Range Rover. He’s lived here off and on for the past few years, always returning to London. Styles’ car stereo pumps a mix of country and obscure classic rock. “I didn’t want to write ‘stories,’ ” he says. “I wanted to write my stories, things that happened to me. The number-one thing was I wanted to be honest. I hadn’t done that before.” There isn’t a yellow light he doesn’t run as he speaks excitedly about the band he’s put together under the tutelage of producer Jeff Bhasker (The Rolling Stones, Kanye West, “Uptown Funk”). He’s full of stories about the two-month recording session last fall at Geejam, a studio and compound built into a mountainside near Port Antonio, a remote section of Jamaica. Drake and Rihanna have recorded there, and it’s where Styles produced the bulk of his new LP, which is due out May 12th. As we weave through traffic today, the album no one has heard is burning a hole in his iPhone.

We arrive at a crowded diner, and Styles cuts through the room holding a black notebook jammed with papers and artifacts from his album, looking like a college student searching for a quiet place to study. He’s here to do something he hasn’t done much of in his young career: an extended one-on-one interview. Often in the past there was another One D member to vector questions into a charmingly evasive display of band camaraderie. Today, Styles is a game but careful custodian of his words, sometimes silently consulting the tablecloth before answering. But as he recounts the events leading up to his year out of the spotlight, the layers begin to slip away.

It was in a London studio in late 2014 that Styles first brought up the idea of One Directiontaking a break. “I didn’t want to exhaust our fan base,” he explains. “If you’re shortsighted, you can think, ‘Let’s just keep touring,’ but we all thought too much of the group than to let that happen. You realize you’re exhausted and you don’t want to drain people’s belief in you.”

After much discussion, the band mutually agreed to a hiatus, which was announced in August 2015 (Zayn Malik had abruptly left One D several months earlier). Fans were traumatized by the band’s decision, but were let down easy with a series of final bows, including a tour that ran through October. Styles remains a One D advocate: “I love the band, and would never rule out anything in the future. The band changed my life, gave me everything.”

Harry Styles reveals the inspiration behind his new music. Here’s five things we learned about Harry Styles’ new album.

Still, a solo career was calling. “I wanted to step up. There were songs I wanted to write and record, and not just have it be ‘Here’s a demo I wrote.’ Every decision I’ve made since I was 16 was made in a democracy. I felt like it was time to make a decision about the future  …  and maybe I shouldn’t rely on others.”

As one of the most well-known 23-year-olds in the world, Styles himself is still largely unknown. Behind the effervescent stage persona, there is more lore than fact. He likes it that way. “With an artist like Prince,” he says, “all you wanted to do was know more. And that mystery – it’s why those people are so magical! Like, fuck, I don’t know what Prince eats for breakfast. That mystery  …  it’s just what I like.”

Styles pauses, savoring the idea of the unknown. He looks at my digital recorder like a barely invited guest. “More than ‘do you keep a mystery alive?’ – it’s not that. I like to separate my personal life and work. It helps, I think, for me to compartmentalize. It’s not about trying to make my career longer, like I’m trying to be this ‘mysterious character,’ because I’m not. When I go home, I feel like the same person I was at school. You can’t expect to keep that if you show everything. There’s the work and the personal stuff, and going between the two is my favorite shit. It’s amazing to me.”

Soon, we head to the Beachwood Canyon studio of Jeff Bhasker. As we arrive, Styles bounds up the steps to the studio, passing a bored pool cleaner. “How are ya,” he announces, unpacking a seriously cheerful smile. The pool cleaner looks perplexed, not quite sharing Styles’ existential joy.

Inside, the band awaits. Styles opens his notebook and heads for the piano. He wants to finish a song he’d started earlier that day. It’s obvious that the band has a well-worn frat-house dynamic, sort of like the Beatles in Help!, as directed by Judd Apatow. Styles is, to all, “H.” Pomegranate-scented candles flicker around the room. Bhasker enters, with guru-length hair, multicolored shirt, red socks and sandals. He was initially busy raising a new baby with his partner, the singer and songwriter Lykke Li, so he guided Styles to two of his producer-player protégés, Alex Salibian and Tyler Johnson, as well as engineer and bassist Ryan Nasci. The band began to form. The final piece of the puzzle was Mitch Rowland, Styles’ guitarist, who had worked in a pizza joint until two weeks into the sessions. “Being around musicians like this had a big effect on me,” Styles says. “Not being able to pass an instrument without sitting down and playing it?” He shakes his head. It was Styles’ first full immersion into the land of musos, and he clearly can’t get enough.

Styles starts singing some freshly written lyrics. It’s a new song called “I Don’t Want to Be the One You’re Waiting On.” His voice sounds warm, burnished and intimate, not unlike early Rod Stewart. The song is quickly finished, and the band assembles for a playback of the album.

“Mind if I play it loud?” asks Bhasker. It’s a rhetorical question. Nasci cranks “Sign of the Times,” the first single, to a seismic level. The song began as a seven-minute voice note on Styles’ phone, and ended up as a sweeping piano ballad, as well as a kind of call to arms. “Most of the stuff that hurts me about what’s going on at the moment is not politics, it’s fundamentals,” Styles says. “Equal rights. For everyone, all races, sexes, everything. …  ’Sign of the Times’ came from ‘This isn’t the first time we’ve been in a hard time, and it’s not going to be the last time.’ The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there’s a complication. The mother is told, ‘The child is fine, but you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child, ‘Go forth and conquer.'” The track was a breakthrough for both the artist and the band. “Harry really led the charge with that one, and the rest of the album,” says Bhasker.

“I wish the album could be called Sign of the Times,” Styles declares.

“I don’t know,” says Bhasker. “I mean, it has been used.“

They debate for a bit. Nasci plays more tracks. The songs range from full-on rock (“Kiwi”) to intricate psychedelic pop (“Meet Me in the Hallway”) to the outright confessional (“Ever Since New York,” a desperate meditation on loss and longing). The lyrics are full of details and references – secrets whispered between friends, doomed declarations of love, empty swimming pools – sure to set fans scrambling for the facts behind the mystery.

“Of course I’m nervous,” Styles admits, jingling his keys. “I mean, I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m happy I found this band and these musicians, where you can be vulnerable enough to put yourself out there. I’m still learning …  but it’s my favorite lesson.”

The album is a distinct departure from the dance pop that permeates the airwaves. “A lot of my influences, and the stuff that I love, is older,” he says. “So the thing I didn’t want to do was, I didn’t want to put out my first album and be like, ‘He’s tried to re-create the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties.’ Loads of amazing music was written then, but I’m not saying I wish I lived back then. I wanted to do something that sounds like me. I just keep pushing forward.”

“It’s different from what you’d expect,” Bhasker says. “It made me realize the Harry [in One D] was kind of the digitized Harry. Almost like a character. I don’t think people know a lot of the sides of him that are on this album. You put it on and people are like, ‘This is Harry Styles?’ ”

Styles is aware that his largest audience so far has been young – often teenage – women. Asked if he spends pressure-filled evenings worried about proving credibility to an older crowd, Styles grows animated. “Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.“

Styles drives to a quiet dinner spot in Laurel Canyon, at the foot of Lookout Mountain Avenue, onetime home to many of his Seventies songwriting heroes. He used to have a place around the corner. As the later tours of One Direction grew larger, longer and more frenetic, he offers with irony, “It was very rock & roll.” He’s not a heavy drinker, he says, maybe some tequila on ice or wine with friends after a show, but by the band’s last tour there wasn’t much time even for that. John Lennon once told Rolling Stone that behind the curtain, the Beatles’ tours were like Fellini’s Satyricon. Styles counters that the One D tours were more like “a Wes Anderson movie. Cut. Cut. New location. Quick cut. New location. Cut. Cut. Show. Shower. Hard cut. Sleep.”

Finding a table, Styles leans forward and discusses his social-media presence, or lack thereof. Styles and his phone have a bittersweet, mature relationship – they spend a lot of time apart. He doesn’t Google himself, and checks Twitter infrequently. “I’ll tell you about Twitter,” he continues, discussing the volley of tweets, some good, some cynical, that met his endorsement of the Women’s March on Washington earlier this year. “It’s the most incredible way to communicate closely with people, but not as well as in person.” When the location of his London home was published a few years ago, he was rattled. His friend James Corden offered him a motto coined by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “Never complain, never explain.”

I mention a few of the verbal Molotov cocktails Zayn Malik has tossed at the band in recent interviews. Here’s one: “[One D is] not music that I would listen to. If I was sat at a dinner date with a girl, I would play some cool shit, you know what I mean? I want to make music that I think is cool shit. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”

Styles adjusts himself in his chair. “I think it’s a shame he felt that way,” he says, threading the needle of diplomacy, “but I never wish anything but luck to anyone doing what they love. If you’re not enjoying something and need to do something else, you absolutely should do that. I’m glad he’s doing what he likes, and good luck to him.”

Perched on his head are the same-style white sunglasses made famous by Kurt Cobain, but the similarities end right there. Styles, born two months before Cobain exited Earth, doesn’t feel tied to any particular genre or era. In the car, he’ll just as easily crank up the country music of Keith Whitley as the esoteric blues-and-soul of Shuggie Otis. He even bought a carrot cake to present to Stevie Nicks at a Fleetwood Mac concert. (“Piped her name onto it. She loved it. Glad she liked carrot cake.”)

This much is clear: The classic role of tortured artist is not one he’ll be playing. “People romanticize places they can’t get to themselves,” he says. “That’s why it’s fascinating when people go dark – when Van Gogh cuts off his ear. You romanticize those people, sometimes out of proportion. It’s the same with music. You want a piece of that darkness, to feel their pain but also to step back into your own [safer] life. I can’t say I had that. I had a really nice upbringing. I feel very lucky. I had a great family and always felt loved. There’s nothing worse than an inauthentic tortured person. ‘They took my allowance away, so I did heroin.’ It’s like – that’s not how it works. I don’t even remember what the question was.”

Styles wanders into the Country Store next door. It’s a store he knows well. Inspecting the shelves, he asks if I’ve had British rice pudding. He finds a can that looks ancient. He collects a roll of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles (“since 1881”), Lindor Swiss chocolates (“irresistibly smooth”) and a jar of Branston Pickles. “There’s only two shops in L.A. that stock all the British snacks. This area’s kind of potluck,” he says, spreading the collection on the counter.

The clerk rings up the snacks. In the most careful, deferential way, the young worker asks the question. “Would you  … happen to be …  Harry Styles?”

“Yep.”

“Could I get a selfie?” Styles obliges, and leans over the counter. Click. We exit into the Laurel Canyon evening.

“Hey,” shouts a grizzled-looking dude on the bench outside the store. “Do you know who you look like?”

Styles turns, expecting more of the same, but this particular night denizen is on a different track.

“River Phoenix,” the man announces, a little sadly. “You ever heard of him? If he hadn’t have passed, I would have said that was you. Talented guy.”

“Yes, he was,” agrees Styles, who is in many ways the generational opposite of Phoenix. “Yes, he was.”

They share a silent moment, before Styles walks to his car. He hands me the bag filled with English snacks. “This is for you,” he says. “This was my youth …”

Harry Edward Styles was born in Worcestershire, England, in true classic-rock form, on a Tuesday Afternoon. The family moved to Cheshire, a quiet spot in Northern England, when he was a baby. His older sister, Gemma, was the studious one. (“She was always smarter than me, and I was always jealous of that.”)

His father, Desmond, worked in finance. He was a fan of the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, a lot of Queen, and Pink Floyd. Young Harry toddled around to The Dark Side of the Moon. “I couldn’t really get it,” he says, “but I just remember being like – this is really fucking cool. Then my mom would always have Shania Twain, and Savage Garden, Norah Jones going on. I had a great childhood. I’ll admit it.”

But in fact, all was not perfection, scored to a cool, retro soundtrack. When Harry was seven, his parents explained to him that Des would be moving out. Asked about that moment today, Styles stares straight ahead. “I don’t remember,” he says. “Honestly, when you’re that young, you can kind of block it out. … I can’t say that I remember the exact thing. I didn’t realize that was the case until just now. Yeah, I mean, I was seven. It’s one of those things. Feeling supported and loved by my parents never changed.”

His eyes moisten a little, but unlike the young man who wept over an early bout with Internet criticism, a powerful moment in the early One Direction documentary A Year in the Making,Styles tonight knocks back the sentiment. Styles is still close with his father, and served as best man to his mom when she remarried a few years ago. “Since I’ve been 10,” he reflects, “it’s kind of felt like – protect Mom at all costs. … My mom is very strong. She has the greatest heart. [Her house in Cheshire] is where I want to go when I want to spend some time.”

In his early teens, Styles joined some school friends as the singer in a mostly-covers band, White Eskimo. “We wrote a couple of songs,” he remembers. “One was called ‘Gone in a Week.’ It was about luggage. ‘I’ll be gone in a week or two/Trying to find myself someplace new/I don’t need any jackets or shoes/The only luggage I need is you.'” He laughs. “I was like, ‘Sick.'”

It was his mother who suggested he try out for the U.K. singing competition The X Factor to compete in the solo “Boy” category. Styles sang Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.” The unforgiving reaction from one of the judges, Louis Walsh, is now infamous. Watching the video today is to watch young Harry’s cheery disposition take a hot bullet.

“In that instant,” he says, “you’re in the whirlwind. You don’t really know what’s happening; you’re just a kid on the show. You don’t even know you’re good at anything. I’d gone because my mum told me I was good from singing in the car …  but your mum tells you things to make you feel good, so you take it with a pinch of salt. I didn’t really know what I was expecting when I went on there.”

Styles didn’t advance in the competition, but Simon Cowell, the show’s creator, sensed a crowd favorite. He put Styles together with four others who’d failed to advance in the same category, and united the members of One D in a musical shotgun marriage. The marriage worked. And worked. And worked.

You wonder how a young musician might find his way here, to these lofty peaks, with his head still attached to his shoulders. No sex tapes, no TMZ meltdowns, no tell-all books written by the rehab nanny? In a world where one messy scandal can get you five seasons of a hit reality show …  how did Harry Styles slip through the juggernaut?

“Family,” answers Ben Winston. “It comes from his mom, Anne. She brought him and his sister up incredibly well. Harry would choose boring over exciting … There is more chance of me going to Mars next week than there is of Harry having some sort of addiction.”

We’re in Television City, Hollywood. Winston, 35, the Emmy-winning executive producer of TheLate Late Show With James Corden, abandons his desk and retreats to a nearby sofa to discuss his good friend. More than a friend, Styles became an unlikely family member – after he became perhaps the world’s most surprising houseguest.

Their friendship was forged in the early stages of One D’s success, when the band debuted on The X Factor. Winston, then a filmmaker and production partner with Corden, asked for a meeting, and instantly hit it off with the group. He became a friendly mentor to Styles, though the friendship was soon tested. Styles had just moved out of his family home in Cheshire, an inconvenient three hours north of London. He found a home he liked near the Winstons in Hampstead Heath. The new house needed two weeks of work. Styles asked if he could briefly move in with Winston and his wife, Meredith. “She agreed,” Winston says, “but only for two weeks.”

Styles parked his mattress in the Winstons’ attic. “Two weeks later and he hadn’t bought his house yet,” continues Winston. “It wasn’t going through. Then he said, ‘I’m going to stay until Christmas, if you don’t mind.’ Then Christmas came, and …”

For the next 20 months, one of the most desired stars on the planet slept on a small mattress in an attic. The only other bit of house-dressing was the acoustic guitar that would rattle into the Winstons’ bedroom. While fans gathered at the empty house where he didn’t live, Styles lived incognito with a couple 12 years his senior. The Winstons’ Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, with a strong family emphasis, helped keep him sane.

“Those 20 months were when they went from being on a reality show, X Factor, to being the biggest-selling artists in the world,” recalls Winston. “That period of time, he was living with us in the most mundane suburban situation. No one ever found out, really. Even when we went out for a meal, it’s such a sweet family neighborhood, no one dreamed it was actually him. But he made our house a home. And when he moved out, we were gutted.”

Styles jauntily appears at the Late Late office. He’s clearly a regular visitor, and he and Winston have a brotherly shorthand.

“Leaving Saturday?” asks Winston.

“Yeah, gotta buy a cactus for my friend’s birthday,” says Styles.

“My dad might be on your flight,” says Winston.

“The 8:50? That’d be sick.”

Winston continues the tales from the attic. “So we had this joke. Meri and I would like to see the girls that you would come back with to the house. That was always what we enjoyed, because we’d be in bed like an old couple. We’d have our spot cream on our faces and we’d be in our pajamas and the door would go off. The stairwell was right outside our door, so we’d wait to see if Harry was coming home alone or with people.”

“I was alone,” notes Styles. “I was scared of Meri.”

“He wasn’t always alone,” corrects Winston, “but it was exciting seeing the array of A-listers that would come up and sleep in the attic. Or he’d come and lounge with us. We’d never discuss business. He would act as if he hadn’t come back from playing to 80,000 people three nights in a row in Rio de Janeiro.”

“Let’s go to the beach,” says Styles, pulling the Range Rover onto a fog-soaked Pacific Coast Highway. Last night was his tequila-fueled birthday party, filled with friends and karaoke and a surprise drop-in from Adele. He’s now officially 23. “And not too hung over,” he notes.

Styles finds a spot at a sushi place up the coast. As he passes through the busy dining room, a businessman turns, recognizing him with a face that says: My kids love this guy! I ask Styles what he hears most from the parents of young fans. “They say, ‘I see your cardboard face every fucking day.’ ” He laughs. “I think they want me to apologize.”

The subject today is relationships. While Styles says he still feels like a newcomer to all that, a handful of love affairs have deeply affected him. The images and stolen moments tumble extravagantly through the new songs: And promises are broken like a stitch is … I got splinters in my knuckles crawling ‘cross the floor/Couldn’t take you home to mother in a skirt that short/But I think that’s what I like about it … I see you gave him my old T-shirt, more of what was once mine … That black notebook, you sense, is filled with this stuff.

“My first proper girlfriend,” he remembers, “used to have one of those laughs. There was also a little bit of mystery with her because she didn’t go to our school. I just worshipped the ground she walked on. And she knew, probably to a fault, a little. That was a tough one. I was 15.

“She used to live an hour and a half away on the train, and I worked in a bakery for three years. I’d finish on Saturdays at 4:30 and it was a 4:42 train, and if I missed it there wasn’t one for another hour or two. So I’d finish and sprint to the train station. Spent 70 percent of my wages on train tickets. Later, I’d remember her perfume. Little things. I smell that perfume all the time. I’ll be in a lift or a reception and say to someone, ‘Alien, right?’ And sometimes they’re impressed and sometimes they’re a little creeped out. ‘Stop smelling me.'”

If Styles hadn’t yet adapted to global social-media attention, he was tested in 2012, when he met Taylor Swift at an awards show. Their second date, a walk in Central Park, was caught by paparazzi. Suddenly the couple were global news. They broke up the next month, reportedly after a rocky Caribbean vacation; the romance was said to have ended with at least one broken heart.

The relationship is a subject he’s famously avoided discussing. “I gotta pee first. This might be a long one,” he says. He rises to head to the bathroom, then adds, “Actually, you can say, ‘He went for a pee and never came back.’ ”

He returns a couple of minutes later. “Thought I’d let you stew for a while,” he says, laughing, then takes a gulp of green juice. He was surprised, he says, when photos from Central Park rocketed around the world. “When I see photos from that day,” he says, “I think: Relationships are hard, at any age. And adding in that you don’t really understand exactly how it works when you’re 18, trying to navigate all that stuff didn’t make it easier. I mean, you’re a little bit awkward to begin with. You’re on a date with someone you really like. It should be that simple, right? It was a learning experience for sure. But at the heart of it – I just wanted it to be a normal date.”

He’s well aware that at least two of Swift’s songs – “Out of the Woods” and “Style” – are considered to be about their romance. (“You’ve got that long hair slicked back, white T-shirt,” she sang in “Style.”) “I mean, I don’t know if they’re about me or not …” he says, attempting gallant discretion, “but the issue is, she’s so good, they’re bloody everywhere.” He smiles. “I write from my experiences; everyone does that. I’m lucky if everything [we went through] helped create those songs. That’s what hits your heart. That’s the stuff that’s hardest to say, and it’s the stuff I talk least about. That’s the part that’s about the two people. I’m never going to tell anybody everything.” (Fans wondered whether “Perfect,” a song Styles co-wrote for One Direction, might have been about Swift: “And if you like cameras flashing every time we go out/And if you’re looking for someone to write your breakup songs about/Baby, I’m perfect.”)

Was he able to tell her that he admired the songs? “Yes and no,” he says after a long pause. “She doesn’t need me to tell her they’re great. They’re great songs … It’s the most amazing unspoken dialogue ever.”

Is there anything he’d want to say to Swift today? “Maybe this is where you write down that I left!” He laughs, and looks off. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “Certain things don’t work out. There’s a lot of things that can be right, and it’s still wrong. In writing songs about stuff like that, I like tipping a hat to the time together. You’re celebrating the fact it was powerful and made you feel something, rather than ‘this didn’t work out, and that’s bad.’ And if you run into that person, maybe it’s awkward, maybe you have to get drunk … but you shared something. Meeting someone new, sharing those experiences, it’s the best shit ever. So thank you.”

He notes a more recent relationship, possibly over now, but significant for the past few years. (Styles has often been spotted with Kendall Jenner, but he won’t confirm that’s who he’s talking about.) “She’s a huge part of the album,” says Styles. “Sometimes you want to tip the hat, and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap …  and hope they know it’s just for them.”

In late February 2016, Styles landed a plum part in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming World War II epic, Dunkirk. In Nolan, Styles found a director equally interested in mystery. “The movie is so ambitious,” he says. “Some of the stuff they’re doing in this movie is insane. And it was hard, man, physically really tough, but I love acting. I love playing someone else. I’d sleep really well at night, then get up and continue drowning.”

When Styles returned to L.A., an idea landed. The idea was: Get out of Dodge. Styles called his manager, Jeffrey Azoff, and explained he wanted to finish the album outside London or L.A., a place where the band could focus and coalesce. Four days after returning from the movie, they were on their way to Port Antonio on Jamaica’s remote north coast. At Geejam, Styles and his entire band were able to live together, turning the studio compound into something like a Caribbean version of Big Pink. They occupied a two-story villa filled with instruments, hung out at the tree-house-like Bush Bar, and had access to the gorgeous studio on-site. Many mornings began with a swim in the deserted cove just down the hill.

Life in Jamaica was 10 percent beach party and 90 percent musical expedition. It was the perfect rite of passage for a musician looking to explode the past and launch a future. The anxiety of what’s next slipped away. Layers of feeling emerged that had never made it past One Direction’s group songwriting sessions, often with pop craftsmen who polished the songs after Styles had left. He didn’t feel stifled in One D, he says, as much as interrupted. “We were touring all the time,” he recalls. “I wrote more as we went, especially on the last two albums.” There are songs from that period he loves, he says, like “Olivia” and “Stockholm Syndrome,” along with the earlier song “Happily.” “But I think it was tough to really delve in and find out who you are as a writer when you’re just kind of dipping your toe each time. We didn’t get the six months to see what kind of shit you can work with. To have time to live with a song, see what you love as a fan, chip at it, hone it and go for that  … it’s heaven.”

The more vulnerable the song, he learned, the better. “The one subject that hits the hardest is love,” he says, “whether it’s platonic, romantic, loving it, gaining it, losing it  …  it always hits you hardest. I don’t think people want to hear me talk about going to bars, and how great everything is. The champagne popping  …  who wants to hear about it? I don’t want to hear my favorite artists talk about all the amazing shit they get to do. I want to hear, ‘How did you feel when you were alone in that hotel room, because you chose to be alone?'”

To wind down in Jamaica, Styles and Rowland, the guitarist, began a daily Netflix obsession with sugary romantic comedies. Houseworkers would sometimes leave at night and return the next morning to see Styles blearily removing himself from a long string of rom-coms. He declares himself an expert on Nicholas Sparks, whom he now calls “Nicky Spee.” After almost two months, the band left the island with a bounty of songs and stories. Like the time Styles ended up drunk and wet from the ocean, toasting everybody, wearing a dress he’d traded with someone’s girlfriend. “I don’t remember the toast,” he says, “but I remember the feeling.”

Christmas 2016. Harry Styles was parked outside his childhood home, sitting next to his father. They were listening to his album. After lunch at a pub, they had driven down their old street and landed in front of the family home. Staring out at the house where Styles grew up listening to his father’s copy of The Dark Side of the Moon, there was much to consider. It was a long way he’d traveled in those fast few years since “Isn’t She Lovely.” He’d previously played the new album for his mother, on a stool, in the living room, on cheap speakers. She’d cried hearing “Sign of the Times.” Now he sat with his father – who liked the new song “Carolina” best – both having come full circle.

Styles is moved as he describes how he felt. We’re sitting in Corden’s empty office, talking over a few last subjects before he returns to England. “I think, as a parent, especially with the band stuff, it was such a roller coaster,” he says. “I feel like they were always thinking, ‘OK, this ride could stop at any point and we’re going to have to be there when it does.’ There was something about playing the album and how happy I was that told them, ‘If all I get is to make this music, I’m content. If I’m never on that big ride again, I’m happy and proud of it.’

“I always said, at the very beginning, all I wanted was to be the granddad with the best stories …  and the best shelf of artifacts and bits and trinkets.”

Tomorrow night he’ll hop a flight back to England. Rehearsals await. Album-cover choices need to be made. He grabs his black notebook and turns back for a moment before disappearing down the hallway, into the future.

“How am I going to be mysterious,” he asks, only half-joking, “when I’ve been this honest with you?”