#i wrote this sometime in 2019 sometime in the summer spring i think

[amoebacore]

a for-fun recording but i wanted to share it! <3

Ants crawl around in my veins Eating away at my brains I caught a glimpse of the blood on your floor And I can see you have ‘em too Who knew this wasn't a mirror But a window with something obscure Now I've stared too hard and I’m afraid The glass will shatter in my face Standing in a room full of holograms Uncanny vernacular Speaking in whirlwinds Vibrant and curious eyes Meet and transparent Skin is now perceived

Do you see these trees like me? Existing in the same reality With violet skies, dewdrop eyes And daffodils in our throats

Tell me my dear with your many colors to choose Do you like how I look? And if you’d like I could trip and fall Head first into you

Said if you’d like Here I go Colliding into you

[highsocietyhq]

HSHQ'S TIMELINE !

which of these mains do you guys remember ? highsocietyhq or haisocietyhq or vikrp or chambordrp... hshq has had many forms over the years !

chambordrp was originally created by admin m sometime around 2014 ? 2015 ? admin j joined the admin team and for a while the group set at chateau chambord, france was just one group among many #royal rp or #rich kids rp groups. chambordrp had to be closed due to low activity but pretty soon admin m opened it again and some of the oldest members rejoined. chambordrp was revamped into vikrp in 2016 ( ? ).

vikrp set in iceland lasted for 6ish months maybe before closing... and then reopening again. i don't remember properly. around this time i ( admin e ) was part of the admin team and admin evy joined the team a bit before vikrp was revamped into haisocietyhq. admin m had gone awol at this time.

haisocietyhq set in shangHAI was when things started to shift from petty drama to something a bit bigger. i think in shanghai we added monarchs ? or maybe that was already in vik, but anyways, in shanghai people actually applied for monarchs. i think dukes and duchesses were a new addition.

then we wanted to move from shanghai to 'a greek island'. but we had a problem: the constant url change was a problem. we couldn't change the url every time we moved, that would cause confusion in the tags. 'highsocietyhq' was already taken by a closed group. what a shame ! but then i figured i'd lose nothing by sending an im to the url's owner and hallelujah ! the owner actually saw the im and was kind enough to give the url to us !!!!! that was amazing. and random. so that's the story behind our url. in shanghai we had our first plot drop/event hybrid when there was an earthquake and i think the hotel suffered some damages.

the greek island plotline was pretty chill until it wasn't. the invasion was pretty wild and i was in summer 2018. when i think back on it, i think it's one our most successful events in terms of character development and engagement. people wrote a lot and it was insanely interactive.

oslo follower the greek island. i have to admit i don't remember much from the oslo period. the plotdrops that i wrote back then were surprisingly frequent though and it was cool that people were really into developing the major plotlines !

dubai followed oslo shortly after nye if i remember correctly. i don't remember the excuse for the move. it wasn't anything major. dubai was fun and different. the big city vibe was fun.

dubai lasted for 8 months and then, in september of 2019, came phuket ! phuket was a lot chiller. i remember us planning all sorts of shocking plot twists. one was a flood and a complete power failure. that never happened. one idea was having them get stranded on a cruise ship.

mar del plata still feels like a fever dream. we moved to mar del plata in august 2020. i swear i always forget we were there. the only thing i remember from this era is the hike/earthquake event. we wanted drama and since we had failed to deliver the flood/power failure/dramatic pd this was really needed !

in april 2021 came tokyo ! i personally enjoyed big city backdrops a lot more so i liked tokyo a lot. i also remember being very pleased with the grapics if i may say so myself. tokyo lasted for a long time and rae won the points game that allowed her to pick like 5 possible locations for a future location change.

i don't remember them all but on the list were regina and casablanca. and we planned to make the regina era really brief and it was supposed to be a quirky comedic era. but you know us ! we don't know how to keep up with a schedule lmao. i think the regina sidequest lasted from spring of '22 and ended in august '22 when we moved to spain for that long event.

the spain was supposed to be a month long thing that would end in an invasion. but the dash was fairly quiet, the admin team was busy af and it just wouldn't happen. the invasion, as you all probably remember, came a year late lmaoooo

we really hoped that the invasion would have been something akin to the one in 2019 but you know, times had changed, people didn't have 8 hours to spend on the computer. the invasion was still a fun extreme event and i'm so glad it succeeded as well as it did because there was room for failure.

after the invasion we finally made it to casablanca where we had planned to end up almost 1,5 years prior lmaoo

and now it's been almost 10 years of a silly little royals group and 8 years of hshq. i genuinely think it's so damn remarkable how far we've come especially considering how the average lifespan of an rp group is like some months. admining this group has been such a privilege !!! thank you !!!

[epersonae]

13,10,20,26 for the more writing asks!

10. what is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

this one has a weirdly complicated answer, in that this fic had two long periods where it was untouched before posting, and technically it was never finished. But: from right here the view goes on forever was mostly written in the spring and summer of 2019, got sidelined by first falling in love and then the creativity crash of the pandemic, had one tiny bit added to it in I think July 2020, and I started posted it in October 2021.

This is one of the last pieces of the series that Ryn and I wrote together, what we informally called "the beach epilogue", that rounds out the longest piece of that series. It is the origin of my first tattoo, even though we never got to write the part of the fic wherein the tattoo itself appears, and when I posted it after Ryn died, I included one of our engagement photos where you can see it on both of us.

13. a fandom you’re thinking about writing for

I still kinda want the extremely fucked up Star Trek fic that lives in my head about Marla McGivers, aka Khan's wife who dies sometime between the original Space Seed episode in TOS and Wrath of Khan. I'm 50/50 on whether it ends up being canon-divergent, because it's from her POV, and that makes it a Bad Ending fic, which is not usually my jam.

I watched the episode and the movie in the spring of 2021 for the first time after getting divorce and BOY HOWDY do I have thoughts about how they wrote Khan and emotional manipulation. It was going to be an exploration of some trauma stuff that ironically got pushed aside by actual new trauma.

20. in what year did you publish your first fic?

2017! This month is seven years since I started writing and posting fic!

26. are you able to write with other people around?

Usually; prepandemic, and when I was commuting to an office, I was a coffeeshop writing girlie, but now it's not so much part of my routine. A few times I've written while hanging out with friends, and that's nice if potentially distracting.

[✍️ more fic writer asks]

[9w1ft]

ever since the jaylor break up, i've been seeing a lot of swifties become receptive to gaylorism subtly — for instance, they're more willing to accept when songs radiate queer vibes and they're hopping on the "boyfriend taylor" trend even though that's kind of our joke 🤣 as much as it annoys me a little to see swifties act like they're the pioneers of something us gaylors, kaylors, and related sub communities have come up for years now, i would hate to gatekeep it as that'd create an obstacle in their path to actual gaylorism, you know?

oh dear im sorry anon i went on a free-form tangent that i’m pretty sure isn’t aligned with your ask but i’m gonna keep it anyway because i wrote a lot 😆

i know what you mean about the attitudes and i do agree that sometimes it can feel annoying to see people lift things from tumblr, for example, and then these people get credited for the idea by their peers and they don’t correct or cite sources, which can be awkward

and sometimes i will see people reinvent the wheel when the answers are already available and written better here by all of us.. and i want to be like! come here!! there are some incredible things for you to find here!! you know? i know these feelings can often come off as gatekeeping, and, because i don’t really have any big issue with things spreading like folklore because that can become a haze to hide in, i do agree with you that it’s best not to try to micromanage things in general.

here’s the tangent… your ask made me think about how there were similar patterns to this in spring-early summer 2019, as lover promo was rolling out and it (the promo) was markedly optically gayer than rep. i remember seeing an incredible heel turn from some otherwise notoriously hostile swifties, where suddenly they were like yeah maybe taylor is bi, etc. i also remember there being a whole new generation of wide eyed gaylors on tumblr at the time—because taylor was still here—and so many were in my inbox and my friends inboxes asking and researching and it was all good and fun for the most part..

so i will say this from the perspective of someone that has experienced mass onboarding in the past and has seen how it can and cannot work

contemporarily speaking, kaylors can’t really gatekeep gaylorism. because we’re kinda already gatekept from gaylorism by Gaylorism tastemakers. lowercase g gaylorism exists in concept but i think that as it currently stands, it’s actually a pretty on-rails ride that is curated by some that would seek to influence their own worldview onto gaylorism subtly, that positions an onboarding to their benefit. and i don’t think it’s something always done with strategic intentions.. humans tend to want to tell and guide others to what they believe is right, and strive for an environment that works for them as opposed to against them, it’s human nature in a way.. still, Gaylorism presents gaylorism as something objective but, it’s actually done pretty subjectively, imo.

and i haven’t minded standing on the periphery as a kaylor because, one, i think that it’s better in some cases to gatekeep (or keep niche) parts of kaylor because, given it is true, taylor and karlie probably don’t want it going full-on mainstream. at least not right now. so i might see rumors or theories that make up stuff or use incorrect dates or just in general takes that feel so wrong and needing correction but i try to accept it existing as a way for lots of otherwise clever people to be distracted from seeing what kaylors see.

and also, i think it’s best for people interested in kaylor to come to conclusions on the basis of their own research, and at times be incorrect, yes, but for it to be first and foremost something people come to believe of their own volition. because if it’s directed under one tent pole then weird interpersonal dynamics can happen, as is the nature of fandom.. id rather a thousand people have all different slightly incorrect understandings of kaylor but an understanding that is unified by and grounded in love for taylor and karlie, than a thousand people have the same understanding of kaylor but for people’s feelings to be defined by one single source.

and separately, i worry about trying to make kaylor too approachable or to not gatekeep (maybe the word isn’t “not gatekeep” maybe the word is “overshare”) certain ideas because of the sensitivity of the subject matter. if kaylor gets too mainstream then you get a huge wave of people and statistically some of them will inevitably be people that are into kaylor not for the girls but because its the trendy thing to do. that can lead to a disconnect wherein people engage with kaylor as an endeavor for us to analyze and not an idea that is grounded in the lives of real people. and that disconnect can produce frenzied behavior…

sorry i don’t have a good way to tie these feelings together into one conclusion but basically, i don’t think we as kaylors can really gatekeep gaylorism but i think that’s fine and i also think that at times kaylor might benefit from holding back a little and maybe that difference is because of what each thing has as an end game, maybe. if that makes sense.. yeah.

i think what i mean to point out is, i think there has been an influx in people who see gaylorism as a concept without orchestrators, for better or for worse. the word gaylorism didn’t exist even three years ago, and nobody new seems to know why or think about it. for better or for worse.

[plethoraworldatlas]

A Reutersinvestigation published Friday revealed that the Pentagon ran a "clandestine operation" aimed at discrediting China's coronavirus vaccines and treatments, a campaign that U.S. public health experts and others condemned as a cynical ploy that endangered lives for political purposes.

According to Reuters, the Pentagon's secretive campaign was designed to counter what the U.S. "perceived as China's growing influence in the Philippines," a country that was ravaged by Covid-19. The virus, which killed millions of people globally, was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019.

The campaign reportedly began in the spring of 2020 and was terminated in the middle of 2021 after it had expanded beyond Southeast Asia to Central Asia and the Middle East. U.S. officials involved in the effort worked "to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other lifesaving aid that was being supplied by China" using "phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos," Reuters found.

"Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits, and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines—China's Sinovac inoculation," the news agency added. "Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus—Tagalog for China is the virus."

One tweet that Reuters described as "typical" exclaimed that "COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don't trust China!"

Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine who previously worked as a military physician, told Reuters that he was "extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would" conduct such an operation.

"I don't think it's defensible," Lucey added.

Others expressed outrage on social media. Justin Sandefur, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, called the Pentagon's campaign "truly shameful" and lamented that "we were literally ready to let people die to avoid giving China a PR win."

"That 'pork in the vaccine' nonsense you saw on Facebook was U.S. taxpayer-funded," Sandefur wrote.

Reuters reported that a "key part" of the Pentagon's strategy was to "amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China's shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law."

"Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China's vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day," the agency noted.

One senior U.S. military officer whom Reuters described as directly involved with the propaganda campaign in Southeast Asia told the outlet that "we didn't do a good job sharing vaccines with partners," so "what was left to us was to throw shade on China's." The U.S. and other rich countries repeatedly obstructed efforts to lift vaccine patents to more widely distribute coronavirus shots.

Pressed by Reuters, the Pentagon acknowledged that the U.S. military launched a propaganda effort attacking the efficacy of China's vaccine.

World Health Organization (WHO) guidance released in June 2022 stated that China's Sinovac vaccine is "safe and effective for all individuals aged 18 and above."

"A large phase 3 trial in Brazil showed that two doses, administered at an interval of 14 days, had an efficacy of 51% against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, 100% against severe COVID-19, and 100% against hospitalization starting 14 days after receiving the second dose," the WHO said.

Reuters reported that some within the U.S. State Department objected to the Pentagon's effort to promote skepticism about China's vaccine, arguing that a "health crisis was the wrong time to instill fear or anger through a psychological operation."

"But in 2019, before Covid surfaced in full force, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order that later paved the way for the launch of the U.S. military propaganda campaign," Reuters observed. "The order elevated the Pentagon's competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the State Department when conducting psyops against those adversaries."

[pcttrailsidereader]

Dangers of Hiking the PCT Loom as the 2021 Season Approaches

This is an excerpt of a story from the San Francisco Chronicle that appeared in the February 21st issue.  I do find that there are increasing numbers of hikers populating the PCT whose backpacking and wilderness experience is very thin while the dangers remain the same (perhaps even greater with the addition of forest fire).

By Gregory Thomas

As the spring hiking season approaches, veterans of California’s trail community are urging long-distance backpackers to take extra precautions to avoid catastrophe. Looming over the season is the unceasing threat of the coronavirus as well as a tragic snow-related death last year on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Trail authorities are chiefly concerned that inexperienced hikers, seduced by the prospect of a life-changing adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and the natural beauty of the John Muir Trail (JMT), may be venturing unprepared into dangerous situations in the remote wilderness.

Whereas older generations of outdoors enthusiasts likely built their skills and experience under the guidance of seasoned mentors, younger hikers seem prone to digging for trail expertise in internet blogs and social media. Hundreds of thousands of through-hikers coalesce around hubs on Facebook to discuss strategy and gear. But the vibe of comment threads can turn macho or hostile, and the information exchanged isn’t always sound.

“A lot of the voices (in online trail groups) are great, but some have been historically dismissive of safety,” said Jack Haskel, trail information manager at the Pacific Crest Trail Association, which issues long-distance permits to PCT hikers on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service. “Something we’ve been talking about as a long-distance hiking community for years now is, how do we build a community of alumni who stick around and offer their insights to new generations of hikers?”

Through-hiking the 2,660-mile PCT, which spans mountain ranges between Mexico and Canada, is a six-month commitment to self-sufficiency in the woods. The highly popular JMT, which extends from Yosemite Valley 217 miles south to Mount Whitney, overlaps with hazardous sections of the PCT in the High Sierra.

“This is not a beginner experience, but a lot of people hike the JMT as their first through-hike,” said Inga Aksamit, of Sonoma, who administers several JMT groups on Facebook. She says JMT permits, which become available online each morning for spring and summer hiking dates, are getting snapped up within a minute or two. “That’s really concerning to me,” she said.

The two trails, once the byways of fringe dirtbaggers, now draw tens of thousands of nature lovers to California’s mountains each year. Many aspire to follow in the footsteps of Cheryl Strayed, whose 2012 hiking memoir, “Wild,” became a best-seller and popular film, or re-create the spectacular nature photos of their favorite Instagram influencers.

Last year, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic prompted the Forest Service to stop issuing long-distance PCT permits partway through the season. But many hikers proceeded anyway, sparking vitriolic debate and shaming in the online groups where hikers congregate. This year, permits are back on — the trail association anticipates a return to pre-pandemic levels of about 7,900 permits even as international hikers are expected to stay home.

The potential for hikers to carry the virus into the 30-some-odd remote mountain towns strung along the PCT users is a theme of many social media discussions this year.

“It’s not just the risk in the wilderness this year,” Haskel said. “We’re worried about our trail communities.”

No one keeps precise statistics on trail deaths, injuries and rescues, but there have been at least 15 fatalities on the PCT since the early 1980s. The top causes are drownings at river-crossings and falls. In 2019, a 67-year-old man hiking alone died on the trail near Mather Pass after apparently slipping on a small patch of ice and hitting his head on a rock.

June is regarded as the most treacherous month to be on the trails. That’s typically the peak of seasonal snowmelt in the High Sierra, when summer’s heat flushes torrents of water through alpine streambeds that hikers must ford. Two female through-hikers drowned in Sierra river crossings in July 2017 following a winter of unusually high snowfall.

With so much new interest in long-distance treks, administrators like Aksamit feel more compelled to issue words of warning.

“I sound the alarm on posts that we get on June entries to caution solo hikers against tackling stream crossings on their own,” Aksamit said. “People think we’re fear-mongers sometimes, but a lot of people just don’t know what they’re getting into.”

An unlikely mentor has emerged this year. Doug Laher, a medical association executive from Fort Worth, Texas, has never set foot on the PCT or JMT. But last year, 11 days into his PCT adventure, Laher’s 22-year-old son, Trevor, slipped on an icy slope in the San Jacinto Mountains, near Palm Springs, and fell to his death.

The tragedy rippled through the trail community, in part because Trevor was a strong young man who appeared to be prepared for the hazards of high-mountain hiking. But also because Doug Laher has since accumulated a deep knowledge of trail dangers and spoken about his son’s death in painful detail on the culture’s niche podcasts and online forums.

“Most days I drift, merely existing in a world when everyone else is living,” Laher wrote. “But this helps: the idea that Trevor’s death didn’t happen in vain. There must be something good that rises from our tragedy.”

Trevor’s fateful trek appears to be sinking in as a cautionary tale. Doug Laher says he has received hundreds, if not thousands, of emails and Facebook comments from grateful hikers.

One came from Claire Stam, 24, of Jackson, Wyo., who hiked most of the PCT last year.

Trevor Laher’s death occurred two months before Stam’s hike began, and she had read an early account of the episode. After five months on the trail, Stam and her partner had put the bulk of the trek behind them when they encountered deep snow in Washington’s Cascade Range, 30 miles shy of the trail’s end at the Canadian border. While standing in a blizzard and considering whether to push on, Trevor’s story flashed into her mind. She and her partner decided to call off their hike and go home.

“I was so devastated,” Stam said. “Part of me thought I could do it if I really focused. But then I thought, Trevor probably thought the same thing. I knew that if he had a second chance, he would have made the decision that I made.”

Doug Laher’s message to through-hikers is straightforward: Do your research, carry appropriate gear and know how to use it, read the trail conditions and be prepared to abandon your hike. But to hikers who have in many cases dreamed about the PCT for years and rearranged their lives for the trek, turning away from a rushing river or snowy ridge can feel like chickening out.

“Sometimes through-hikers don’t know where to distinguish the line between discomfort and danger,” Stam said.

Still, Doug Laher intends to continue reaching out to hikers. “I’ve found my new purpose in life,” he said. “If I can influence a hiker’s decisions to be more safe, that’s a win.”

[kotsume]

my observations as a content creator :) warning: it’s long

if you’re reading this, don’t think too deeply about what i wrote - it’s just my analysis of fan blogs and some fandoms (so it’s all from my perspective). do what you want with this information, and feel free to lmk what you think ;) 

*i tried to include as many anime-applicable blogs as i could remember*

multifandom reblog blogs (ones who track a tag):

@/allanimanga: lots of original content every day. does not reblog from tag anymore bc most members who had that job are inactive. i’m an admin and i’ve been told not to worry about reblogging from the tag, and just make content. has member privilege abuse from certain users; normally you make content for the blog and you get to reblog your stuff over in a 1:1 ratio, but they will just use the blog to promote themselves without contributing. it’s really sad but there’s nothing we can do bc most of the time it’s an admin.

@/animacia: was debating whether or not to put this one. reblogs mainstream anime (sailor moon, studio ghibli) and has a tag, but the tag itself does not seem to be actively used as the most recent post can see tagged for this blog dates back to june 2019 (more than a year ago). it’s an active blog regardless of slow tag activity. 

@/animationsource: active, but very picky? idk man they either do or don’t reblog your stuff. it’s a hit or miss with them. seems to have member privilege abuse/preference (explained up there). not too sure if they have a queue or just reblog sporadically.

@/anisource: active. seems to run on a large, backlogged queue bc their tag is full of stuff that has yet to be reblogged. edits will probably take a while to be reblogged, but they’ll eventually get there! 

@/dailyanime: new blog, but from what i’ve experienced, they will queue it, and your post will be reblogged in 1-3 days (it probably depends on how much is in their queue).

@/fyanimegifs: will reblog your stuff, but they have a very slow queue.

@/graphicsources: not really active; spontaneous at best. don’t count on them to reblog your stuff. 

@/fyeahshoujo: not really active, but not completely inactive.

@/fysportsanime & @/sportsanimedaily: active. seems to have a backlogged queue, but just wait and you’ll be reblogged! it will take some time because there are lots of posts.

@/animangascenery & @/otomokatsuhiro (#oldanimeedit - changes url from time to time? that’s why i included the tag they track): inactive unless a member looks at the tag. in that case, they will most likely reblog the tagged post. typically mass reblogs/queues from the tag every once in a while. 

@/bbelcher & @/fyeahmovies: will reblog ghibli and makoto shinkai stuff. bonus points if you have added a text description to gifs. 80% dependable.

@/filmgifs, @/filmtv, @/stream, @/movie-gifs, etc. (basically big reblog fansites that aren’t anime-oriented, but do reblog mainstream anime movies): 90% chance they will not reblog anything from you if there is no text description. add text descriptions to studio ghibli/makoto shinkai film gifs and make it pretty! use text gradients!! that will increase your chances of being reblogged by them. they don’t reblog seasonal anime.

a note: many creators use tags as a way of reaching a broader audience. it's really helpful for smaller blogs who would like to share their content to others, but do not have the means/numbers to do so. just bc some people don't utilize tags to their full potential, it doesn't mean it isn't useful, so pls don’t try to act superior to those who want more exposure. everyone deserves a chance at getting the attention they deserve for their hard work!

studio ghibli reblog blogs:

@/ghiblisdaily: great. amazing. i love them!! will reblog from you 99.9% of the time. probably the most reliable ghibli blog as of right now. uploads original content

@/fyghibli: used to be good at reblogging from tag, but has gone kind of inactive. i think they’re becoming more active again, but it’s very sporadic.

@/kikisdeliveryservices: they track a variety of studio ghibli related tags, and they do reblog a lot, but i don’t think they’re as consistent as ghiblisdaily. lots of original content.  

@/oh-totoro: not really active, but when they are (and they reblog from you), your activity skyrockets.

@/dailyghibli: not active.

@/daily-ghibli: sometimes active, a little wishy-washy. they seem to be reblogging a little bit more consistently now?

@/princessghibli: not active, but reblogs here and there.

@/ghibligif: a new blog, but decently active. will reblog post from their tracked tag within a day. lots of original content.  

main point: there are many studio ghibli blogs (wayyyy more than i’ve listed here), but only around 3-4 active ones. choose your tags with what you think will give you the best exposure bc if you have too much, tumblr will go “fuck you” and not show your post at all :)

random anime fandoms:

i’ll really only be including ones i’m in, or know a bit about.

haikyuu, bnha, kny, yoi: healthy and very active. content for these fandoms do well even if they’re not in season. has multiple active fan blogs (except for yoi tho - they’re all inactive for the most part).

noragami, ohshc, ons, snk, tg, swnku: active fandoms. edits will do moderately well bc most people have seen these. 

popular sports anime (knb, free, dna, tsurune? idk i don’t watch much sports anime): they do okay. i rarely see any new sports anime edits beside haikyuu, but people do love their sports anime. has active sports fan blogs.

pokemon & sailor moon: old but gold. lots of people love these anime bc it’s part of their childhood. still very popular amongst tumblr users.

violet evergarden: does moderately well. @/fyeahvioletevergarden will reblog your stuff if you choose to tag them (big boost)! with the new movie coming up soon, there may be a resurgence in activity, but the most recent movie did not have much content made for it, so that hope may be crushed.

tpn: not very active, but with the new season coming up soon, there will be a resurgence in activity.

ditf: kind of dead, but lots of people love zero two. edits do moderately well.

sao: dead. absolutely dead. i thought there would be some activity bc it’s in season right now, but no, it’s a dead fandom. low key sao sucks tho. idek where the plot is going; i’m just hoping for an end.

hxh, one piece, fma, code geass: i’m not in it, but i think they do okay bc they have a large following, just not as well as haikyuu or bnha (but they’re still very popular). it depends on your blog demographic tho.

mp100, opm, bsd, given: kind of medium-tier fandoms. not as prevalent as haikyuu or bnha, but there are still edits being made for these anime. they don’t really have any active fan blogs (besides given i think) bc none of them are airing rn.

makoto shinkai & studio ghibli films: they do great! everybody loves good scenery, and the films are very well known and loved by all!

some seasonal anime (spring/summer 2020)

fruits basket: well this reboot blew up and overshadowed everything in it’s path. tbh only edits posted on the first day of the new episode do well. it’s a very competitive fandom for creators. 

kaguya sama love is war: first season was good, edits did well. second season drifted off into the shadow of fruits basket. relatively obscure fandom for how popular it is amongst people (non-creators). 

tower of god: popular with creators. now that it’s not airing, no one gifs it. respective fan blog is doing its best with content from the manhwa.

fugou keiji balance unlimited: people were simping even before the first ep came out, and then the anime went on hiatus for a few months. now that it’s started to air again, everyone acts like it never existed in the first place... was a good fandom up until the hiatus and now it will probably take a while to recover.

god of high school: nonexistent even tho it’s a popular pick this season (summer 2020). in the shadow of fruits basket.

deca-dence, bna, great pretender, kakushigoto, the misfit at demon king academy, rent-a-girlfriend: *sigh* didn’t see much of it on my dash. lesser-watched seasonal anime in comparison to fruits basket and tower of god (all relative to tumblr). there are gifs being made, but you have to follow the right blogs.

main point: if there’s any seasonal anime paired up against fruits basket at the same time, fruits basket will win and the former will be left in the dust.

[recurring-polynya]

Fanfic Round-up 2020

Look, the upshot is this:

This was up ever-so-slightly from my 2019 number of 266787, although I keep trying to talk myself out of considering this as an accomplishment, since about half that was Call Me Back, most of which was written in 2019. Then again, the 2019 number was inflated somewhat by having two copies of Portions for Foxes, so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Word counts are such a hugely subjective thing. This feels like an enormous number to me, but a lot of people get much higher, and I can’t ever manage to impress anyone irl with this number.

Furthermore, this year was extremely taxing on my mental health, something I didn’t fully appreciate until about a week ago, so I suppose there’s something to be said for hanging in there. Anyway, here’s a short summary of everything I wrote this year, in case you missed it, and at the bottom I’ll list my over-ambitious goals for 2021.

Call Me Back When the War is Over. This is probably the best thing I have ever written. It’s very long and it’s funny and heartfelt and it has illustrations and I have no idea how I finished it in a fugue of bad anti-depressant reactions. It’s a Soul Society slice-of-life story about Rukia passing her Lieutenants’ Exam while trying to sort out her feelings for Squad Six’s two top men.  I will never top it, a thing I feel sad about sometimes.

Rukia and Renji Flagrantly Misuse Valuable Gotei-13 Field Equipment (for Science!) (explicit!) I wrote a bodyswap porno. It’s 1000% cuter and sweeter than you might expect, I do not actually know how to write smut.

Any Proposal You Can Walk Away From A short one about Rukia and Renji getting engaged. I posted this in the early days of the pandemic to cheer myself up.

The Beast You've Made of Me (explicit!) Wow, more porn! I really started out the year on... something.

There is No Bankai in Football A very silly story about Byakuya being forced to attend a kiddy football game so Rukia and Renji can go to brunch. Anyone who has ever complimented my world-building should be forced to read this and despair.

Signs of Spring A story about Byakuya being an ass.

A Party without Cake is Just a Meeting  Yes, I wrote a story about Orihime and Renji making a Bake-Off style showstopper for their own birthday, what of it?

To Her Exacting Specifications  Another sappy Uncle B story. (If you’re into these, I made them into a series for easy perusal)

don't tell me that we've grown (for having loved a little while) I wrote an IkkaYumi story, for a request. It was really hard, but I think it turned out pretty good! I really don’t know how to describe it other than “polynya writes an IkkaYumi story.” It’s about houseplants and fist fights.

Squad Six is Jerks and other Stories I offered to take requests for drabbles on Renji’s birthday and it was a terrible idea! I overtaxed myself and burnt myself out really badly! Anyway, the results are here. I always think they’re bad until I go back and read them and there’s actually some pretty good stuff in here. It’s the very definition of “a mixed bag”-- there’s weightlifting stories, AUs, angst, horniness, and a restaurant review of a Waffle House, courtesy of Squad 3.

a little in love now and then  This started off as a prompt and never should have gone more than 1k words, and yet I fell in love with it and it’s still going. This is the first write-as-you-go story I have ever done and I’m extremely proud that I’m still on track with it. It’s probably not as good as my Heart is a Muscle stories, but it certainly has some good bits, and I’m proud of it for what it is.

Goals for 2021

I guess 250k words is sort of a benchmark now, so I guess I’ll try to hit that again.

Finish a little in love. There is... a lot... left to go.

Finish the next story in The Heart is a Muscle, which I utterly stalled out on this summer. (I have ~40k of it written, but I’m not sure how much of it needs to be thrown directly into the garbage. It was never supposed to be this long in the first place. They never are.)

Finish either my Squad 11 Self-Care story or my Last Days in Inuzuri story

Write another adult one

Stretch goal: Write something that’s... not Bleach?? Maybe?? Can I do it?

I’m writing a cute New Year’s story right now that I have every expectation of posting on time, so you can look forward to that.

Anyway, thank you, everyone for all your support and generous comments! Your encouragement has meant the world to me, and thanks for sticking with me!

[gstqaobc]

CBC THE ROYAL FASCINATOR

Friday, April 09, 2021

Hello, royal watchers and all those intrigued by what’s going on inside the House of Windsor. This is your biweekly dose of royal news and analysis. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this delivered to your inbox.

Janet DavisonRoyal Expert

Prince Philip’s life of duty

(Adrian Dennis/Getty Images)

For so many years, Prince Philip was at Queen Elizabeth’s side — or walking just behind — deeply devoted in his duty as consort to the woman who is now the longest-reigning monarch in British history.

But the Duke of Edinburgh, who died this morning aged 99 at Windsor Castle, was seen by many as having his own role in helping an institution steeped in tradition try to find its way toward the future.

Much of that began nearly 70 years ago, after the former sailor who gave up a successful naval career saw his wife ascend the throne.

“What Prince Philip did was help modernize the monarchy in the 1950s,” Michael Jackson, president of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada, said in an interview this morning.

“It was still a very tradition-bound institution…. We can credit Prince Philip, with the Queen’s full support, of course, with modernizing [its] finances, protocols, how Buckingham Palace was run … its outreach to the Commonwealth.”

Philip pushed to have Elizabeth’s coronation televised in 1953, an idea she did not wholeheartedly welcome at first.

“He was the modern person,” John Fraser, author of The Secret of the Crown: Canada’s Affair with Royalty, said in an interview this morning. “He was in touch with real people, non-royal people, and so he always had the instinct to reach out. He understood both the dark side of the media presence as well as the necessity of it.”

Fraser credits Philip’s profoundly unsettled early years, after he was “born in poverty and insecurity,” with how he looked toward the future of the Royal Family, and the monarchy.

“I do think those early years were the single biggest factor in his life and how he approached life,” said Fraser. “I think he never assumed things would last forever because he didn’t make any assumptions like that, and I think he certainly assumed the monarchy wouldn’t survive if it didn’t reach out more to the constituency that it had to serve.”

Fraser met Philip, and recalled him as a man who would revel in asking questions and challenging others.

“He was — charming is not the word I would use — but he was an invigorating person to speak to.”

Jackson, who was Saskatchewan’s chief of protocol from 1980 until 2005, met Philip during four visits to the province — three with the Queen and one on his own — and remembered a man with “a great sense of humour.”

“Sometimes people found him a bit abrasive, a bit abrupt, but that’s the way he was,” said Jackson.

“He was a straight shooter and he complemented the Queen beautifully because the Queen is a very soft-spoken, more laid-back person. Prince Philip really spoke his mind and occasionally made jokes and … put everyone at ease. I found him very refreshing, good to work with.”

With Philip’s death, there is an inevitable sadness for the Queen, and inevitable concern for how she will cope with the passing of her husband of more than 73 years.

Both Fraser and Jackson say the Queen will carry on, with Jackson noting “That’s the way she is. She’s a very strong person” with a deep religious faith that will sustain her.

“She’ll do her duty,” said Fraser. “And I think that’s the big lesson of him. He did his duty.”

For a full obituary of Prince Philip, click here.

For photos from Prince Philip's royal career, click here.

Family dysfunction

When Philip Mountbatten married Princess Elizabeth in 1947, the family he was joining was in marked contrast to the fractured one he had known in his youth. His parents' marriage broke down and offered him nothing like the nuclear family arrangement (mom, dad and two kids) that Elizabeth had known throughout her childhood. "In marrying the Queen, [Philip] gained that sort of stable home life that he didn't have when he was younger," royal author and historian Carolyn Harris has said in an interview. Philip's parents were Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg, a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Philip was born a prince of both Greece and Denmark on June 10, 1921, on the dining room table at Mon Repos, a villa that was the summer home for the Greek royals on the island of Corfu. He was the last of five children — his four older siblings were all girls. At the time, he was sixth in line to the Greek throne. But life in Greece didn't last long. His father, a professional soldier, was exiled from Greece in 1922 as his uncle, King Constantine I, was forced to abdicate. Philip's family fled, with the story being that Philip was nestled into an orange box as the family was evacuated from Greece on a Royal Navy ship. They eventually made their way to Paris. Philip's childhood took a "dysfunctional turn," author Sally Bedell Smith wrote in her book, Elizabeth The Queen, when he was sent by his parents at the age of eight to England for boarding school. The family eventually broke down. Philip's mother, who was born deaf, was ill periodically, diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in a sanitarium in Switzerland. His father went off with his mistress to Monte Carlo, where he died in 1944. Philip was left to be brought up in the U.K. by his mother's family, shuffled among various relatives and boarding schools throughout his youth. He didn't see or have any word from his mother between the summer of 1932 and the spring of 1937. "It's simply what happened," Philip said matter-of-factly in an excerpt from a book by Philip Eade, Young Prince Philip, Turbulent Early Years, published in the Telegraph. "The family broke up. My mother was ill, my sisters were married, my father was in the south of France. I just had to get on with it. You do. One does." As life went on, there really was no father to guide, consult or do anything else a father can do for his child. Several other close relatives died in his early years, including his favourite sister, Cecile, and her family in a plane crash in 1937. The following year, the 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, his uncle and guardian, died of bone cancer. That left the marquess's younger brother, Louis Mountbatten, to bring up Philip. His family ties also extended into Germany. Three of his sisters were married to German princes involved in the Nazi party. Cecile and her husband, Don, had just joined the Nazi party before they died. Those family alliances had a visible repercussion when Philip and Elizabeth were married in 1947. "His sisters were not invited to the wedding as they were married to German princes who had been involved in the Nazi party during World War Two," Harris said. Philip's mother, Princess Alice, however, was at the wedding, and in her later years, came to live at Buckingham Palace. Alice had her own moment in the cultural conscience in 2019, as an episode during the third season of the Netflix drama, The Crown, focused on her. "She's just the most extraordinary character," Crown creator Peter Morgan told Vanity Fair. She set up charities for Greek refugees and later established a nursing order of Greek Orthodox nuns. During the Second World War, while her son was serving with the Royal Navy and her German sons-in-law fought for the Nazis, she was hiding Jews in Athens. As much as there was the distance between Philip and his mother in his younger years, there was a closeness later. Alice came to live at Buckingham Palace in 1967. Alice died at the palace in 1969 and was interred in the royal crypt at Windsor Castle. In 1988, her remains were transferred, as she had wished, to the church of St. Mary Magdalene in east Jerusalem. In a 1994 visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Philip planted a tree in his mother's honour and visited her gravesite. "I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special," Philip said during his visit. "She was a person with deep religious faith and she would have considered it to be a totally human action to fellow human beings in distress."

No stranger to Canada

(Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)

Prince Philip's last visit to Canada was a short one in 2013 — on his own, without the Queen — to present a ceremonial flag to the Royal Canadian Regiment's 3rd Battalion. It came as something of a surprise. Philip had experienced a few health scares in the 18 months prior. So overseas travel was not necessarily a given for the Duke of Edinburgh at the time. But given Philip's feisty personality, dedication to his role and some of the interests he showed over the years, his return to Canada — he made more than 70 visits or stopovers between 1950 and 2013 — may not really have been a complete surprise. The 2013 trip was billed as a private working visit and was only a few days long. But while he was here, he was finally able to pick up the insignias he had been awarded as companion of the Order of Canada and commander of the Order of Military Merit from David Johnston, then Canada's governor general.

To read more about Philip’s time in Canada, click here.

Royally quotable

“He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know.”

— Queen Elizabeth, publicly acknowledging Prince Philip’s importance to her during a speech on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997.

To read more on what Philip meant to the Queen, click here.

Remembering Prince Philip

Royal Fascinator readers are welcome to share their thoughts on the passing of Prince Philip, and any memories they may have of meeting him over the years. We’ll include some in the next edition of the newsletter.

I’m always happy to hear from you. Send your ideas, comments, feedback and notes to

royalfascinator@cbc.ca

. Problems with the newsletter? Please let me know about any typos, errors or glitches.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿

[mercuryonparklane]

An attempt at objectivity on the topic of Tayliz/a summary: Part 2

(Kind of...)

I’ve been busy with irl stuff the last week, so I haven’t been posting much lately. I finally have a day where I have nothing else to do and I’ve been considering making a post about where I currently stand on Tayliz/Gaylor in general for a while, so I thought now would be a good time to do that.

Disclaimer: I don’t know any of these people personally and this is all my own interpretation of publicly available information. I apologize for the length of this post...

I’ve been a Taylor fan since 2006 and a Gaylor since at least early 2009 when I was posting fanfics on LiveJournal (I stopped writing rpf a long time ago, btw). I’ve been in and out of the Gaylor fandom since then. I’ve created and deleted multiple blogs/accounts in the past 12+ years. I was mostly active between 2009 and 2015, but I did a lot of lurking during that time and only engaged when I felt I had something to contribute. 2015/2016 was a crazy time and I was going through some of my own stuff, so I stopped following Gaylor as closely for a while. I listened to reputation and Lover, I read the Gaylor theories, made a couple comments, and moved along. When folklore was released it drew me back in.

I created this blog in September 2020, before I even had an inkling that Liz might be more than just another name that has been thrown into the potential exes list, along with Claire C. and Kellie (I don’t believe either of those two had anything beyond friendship with Taylor). I had never looked into it too much because it seemed like there was not as much information as there was for the main 3 (Emily, Dianna, and Karlie). Now, after researching Tayliz for 5 months, I believe there is at least as much, if not more, to go on as there is for the main 3.

As for Taymily, I believe that, at the very least, Taylor had a massive crush on Emily. I don’t like to get too in-depth about that because there is a very suspect age gap. I’m not saying that those things don’t happen, but I will reiterate my statement from an earlier post that I am not comfortable essentially accusing someone of committing a crime when all that can be deciphered is that Taylor seemed to really care about her. I do think there are multiple songs about Emily.

I also believe that Taylor did date Dianna and possibly had some kind of relationship with Karlie. I think both of these possible relationships are long over at this point. Taylor may have been looking back on those relationships (along with others) in her last few albums. 

I still personally think it is possible that Taylor is a lesbian, but there are reasons to think she might be bi and I understand why people think that she is. I don’t really talk about the guys Taylor may have dated, but I will say that, to me, all of the boyfriends she had after high school seem like beards. I could be wrong, of course. There are way too many signs that she is queer for me to not think that she is at least bi.

There have always been sapphic themes in Taylor’s music, even in early songs like “Me And Britney” and “Angelina”. Her entire discography is littered with sapphic themes. In recent years, she has seemed to hint at being some form of queer in other ways as well. This has all been examined by others, so I won’t get into that in this post.

Anyway, on to Tayliz…

There is some compelling “circumstantial evidence” suggesting that there may have been something beyond friendship between Tayliz (a lot of this was covered in my first post and all of the information has been mentioned at some point on my blog):

They met multiple times between December 2006 and February 2009, when Liz first performed with Taylor, but it is hard to tell how well they knew each other at that time. Based on the information available, I actually think they might have even been close, or at least friendly, before Liz was hired, but I could be wrong.

The “official” story is that Liz met Taylor at a meet and greet in December 2006 and again in July 2007. She asked if she could sing for Taylor and Taylor gave her advice, including suggesting that she enter a talent contest and that she should move to Nashville. Some accounts say that Liz sang for Taylor in her dressing room, but I have never found a source for this part of the story.

Taylor wrote the following sentence about Liz in her blog on February 5, 2008, after performing on the competition show that Liz was a contestant on: “It sounds strange, but there was always something different about her that stuck out in my mind”. That is super suspect to me...

Taylor was the only musician to perform on the show, btw (although they did have the touring cast of HSM on the next week). Taylor allegedly said, during the interview portion of her appearance, that she knew Liz and that Liz had gone to “all” of her shows and meet and greets… whatever that means.

According to Liz, she moved to Nashville in June 2008 and sometime within the next 6 months she received a call to audition as a backup singer, but did not know for which artist she was auditioning. I feel like it would be an incredible coincidence that Taylor suggested she move to Nashville two years earlier, they met multiple times after that, and randomly Liz got a call to audition for Taylor without knowing it was for her within 6 months of moving there. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too skeptical, but it seems almost more of a reach to say that Taylor didn’t somehow have a hand in her getting that audition.

Liz already seemed very comfortable around Taylor in that picture with George Strait taken on the day of her first show with the band in February 2009.

At the one-off shows after Liz joined the band, there was a little skit between Taylor, Liz, and Grant during YBWM, where Grant played the love interest and Liz played the “Cheer Captain”. There was even a talking bit. During the Australia one-off shows, there was a talking bit before F&A where Taylor introduced Liz and they had a little conversation that ended similarly to the one Taylor has with the interviewer during the Fearless Tour. After this, they rarely interacted on stage. 

Taylor seemed to allow Liz’s input during the auditions for the Fearless Tour dancers, two months after she joined the band, and Taylor ended up hiring two of her friends.

Liz went with Taylor to visit Abigail at her university in Kansas two months after joining the band.

Taylor took Liz with her to see Britney Spears’ Circus Tour show in Chicago right after the Kansas trip.

Taylor said in an interview for Oprah’s website, released in May 2009, that Australia and Lawrence, KS were her two favorite places to visit, which just so happen to be two of the places she had recently been with Liz.

The fact that they shared a hotel room in London a few months after Liz joined the band. Caitlin, who had been in the band for a while at that point, and her mom were both there for that trip. Maybe Taylor was just happy to be able to hang out with another woman around her age. It seems strange, but it could be a completely platonic situation.

Taylor and the band, including Liz, recorded a cover of “American Girl” by Tom Petty (one of Liz’s favorite artists) in front of the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon in May 2009. The secret message for “Sparks Fly” is “Portland, Oregon” and she mentions the Rose Garden in “The Lucky One”.

Taylor mentions going to dinner with Liz, seemingly just the two of them, in her vlog from May 29, 2009, which was around Liz’s birthday (May 27).

The amount of Liz content in the vlogs. Plus, the choice to put the line “I like where you sleep, when you sleep next to me” right before showing Liz sleeping on a couch (this was the trip where they shared a hotel room, which does make that fact more suspect, imo) and including the song “She (For Liz)” in another vlog, in which she dedicates a whole section to Liz’s habit of falling asleep “All. The. Time.”

In fact, in both of those vlogs, which were posted a year apart from each other (May 2009 and April 2010), Taylor wears a black dot shirt, in clips that include only her and Liz, that is similar to the one she wore in the IKYWT mv. 

Honestly, just go watch the video she made for Emily and then watch the vlogs after Liz joined the band… I just get a similar vibe in the clips she chose to include of both women.

They went to a Paramore concert together the weekend before Taylor hosted SNL in November 2009. At the concert, they were filmed by other attendees dancing next to each other on the balcony. One of the songs they were filmed dancing to is “That’s What You Get” and Taylor asked Hayley to perform that song with her (and the band, including Liz) at one of the Nashville shows on the SN Tour in 2011. In November 2019, Liz released her own song called “That’s What You Get” that sounds like it could be the opposite side of the relationship much of Red is about (and a couple other Taylor songs from other albums).

In Taylor’s Glamour interview published on 10/5/2010, she mentions that she designed the two guest rooms at her Nashville condo with Caitlin and Liz in mind. 

After tweeting about attending the Katy P. concert in Dublin with Taylor (and Grant and Caitlin) someone asked Liz what her favorite KP song was and she responded “Thinking Of You”. This is suspect because at the time Liz did have a bf, but she may have just liked the song and didn’t necessarily relate to it personally.

There are tweets from people who are either not really well-known or aren’t in the industry at all that mention Taylor and Liz hanging out outside of touring. They are mentioned together in quite a few tweets actually. They seemed to have a good number of mutual friends during that time (spring/summer 2009-fall 2012). After Liz left the band, Taylor stopped hanging out with most of those people, while Liz continues to maintain some of those friendships to this day. This could be explained by the fact that Taylor began spending less time in Nashville.

One such friend is the photographer who Taylor hired for Red. She is actually a longtime friend of Liz. Supposedly she took some photos of Liz that Taylor saw and Taylor hired her after that. There are some pictures from Taylor’s Red photoshoot that are similar to Liz’s photos.

There are rumors that Liz was fired, but the “official” story is that she left to pursue her own music.

Liz did not wish Taylor a happy birthday on twitter in 2012, which she had done in previous years. She did not tweet @ or mention Taylor for almost a year. Taylor didn’t respond to any of her tweets or mention her until October 2014.

Some of the songs Liz released in late 2012/early 2013 have similar lyrics/themes to Taylor’s music and may be about Taylor.

The lyric video for Liz’s song STFU&HM includes polaroid pictures with the song’s lyrics written on them and neon signs, which is basically the 1989 aesthetic. The actual mv has some potential parallels to the IKYWT mv. (side note: Liz specified in an interview that the kind of “sour candy” she is singing about in the song is Watermelon Sour Patch, which Taylor mentioned in the June 2008 issue of Teen Vogue was something that she “couldn’t live without”)

The love interest wears a key necklace in the STFU&HM mv and Taylor wears one in the IKYWT mv.

The bridge of IKYWT is very similar to lyrics from a song by Patty Griffin called “Nobody’s Crying”. Liz once said that Patty is her favorite singer (this was when she was still in Taylor’s band) and has mentioned her and that particular song multiple times over the years. Side note: Taylor mentioned last year that another one of Patty’s songs was the inspiration for “betty”.

Liz played the other woman in the mv for TSOU and in the photoshoot for SN. At the end of the mv for her song “H8U”, Liz interrupts her love interest’s wedding and kisses his tall, blonde, curly haired bride.

This one could be a crazy coincidence, but Liz recorded the backing vocals on a song called “Dear John” that was written by the backup dancer who came out to Taylor during the Fearless Tour. Btw, by no means am I saying DJ is about Liz because that would make zero sense.

Liz’s birthday is on one of the board games in the “Lover” mv that reference “Cruel Summer”. Most people think CS is about Karlie and that makes sense, but it also seems to reference “Love Story”, which was potentially written sometime around when Taylor performed on the show Liz was a contestant on. I don’t know if LS is about Liz and I am not trying to claim that, but it is interesting. Even if it’s not, they performed that song together a lot and Liz helped out with the onstage costume change during that song. CS could be about her experiences with both Liz and Karlie. Or it could just be about Karlie and the date in the “Lover” mv has nothing to do with Liz’s birthday.

In “the 1” and “dorothea”, Taylor potentially references Liz’s song “Never Know” and by reference, I mean that she essentially uses the exact same lyrics: “I guess you never know, you never know” = “I guess you never know, never know” and “I guess I’ll never know” = literally just the same line. Not to mention in “dorothea” Taylor also sings “Do you ever stop and think about me?” and in NK Liz sings “I wonder if you think about me” right before the line “I guess I’ll never know”. I am not saying that either of those songs are about Liz, but it is interesting, especially since Liz tweeted about “the 1”, which was the thing that really sent me on my deep dive into Tayliz.

The “cardigan” looks like the cardigan she wears in the first vlog she included Liz in. It could be nothing, but it is interesting because I have a theory that Liz is the first woman she had a “relationship” with and that “cardigan” is about Liz, Dianna, Karlie, and possibly some other women she might have dated/been with.

These are just some of the highlights and are more focused on the facts as opposed to some of my more tinfoil hat, fun, crack theory stuff or just some of the things that are loosely related to Liz or might involve a little (or a lot of) reaching to connect them to her.

Everything I have mentioned could just be a series of strange coincidences, even though there appears to be quite a few of them. Whether anything ever happened between them or it was just one of those intense, romantic friendships that some women tend to have, I don’t really know. Based on what I have seen, I tend to think there was something going on there beyond friendship, but possibly it was never anything official.

Liz seemed to have a boyfriend most of the time that Tayliz were working together/hanging out, which is one of the main things that makes me question my own theory. Of course, it is always possible that she had something with Taylor, while she also had a boyfriend. There are many reasons for that (poly, closeted, etc.), so that does not exclude the idea that she may have actually been involved with two people at one time and one of those people could have been Taylor.

If they were together in some capacity, while Liz also had a boyfriend, it could explain the messy relationship that Taylor seemed to write about during that time. I think it is possible that Emily was just a crush and Liz was her first actual experience with another woman where the feelings were reciprocated to some degree. OR they could have just been really good friends and I am utterly, completely wrong. 

Maybe Taylor is just a straight girl, who doesn’t realize that she’s been sending signals that she is queer for years. Whenever that thought crosses my mind, I think about all of the things she has said and done that imply she may not be straight and I just can’t help thinking that it is intentional. I don’t think she is queerbaiting or unintentionally signaling that she might be queer. I think she is queer and has dropped multiple hints to suggest that over the years.

Anyway… Liz has a bf right now and seems to be in a good place, so let’s let her be, please. I hope we get some more new music from her soon.

As far as researching Tayliz goes, I’ll probably keep looking into it when I have time, but at this point I think I have seen pretty much all there is to see (of the content available online currently). I’ll be waiting for the songs from Taylor’s “vault” to drop to see if there are any potential connections there (at least in the “vault” songs for Fearless, Speak Now, and Red).

In conclusion (TL;DR)...

My personal opinion is that there is enough “circumstantial evidence” to include Liz on the list of Taylor potential exes. For me the Gaylor timeline looks something like this:

(Fair Warning: this is all total speculation based on song lyrics and other information that is publicly available)

Summer 2006-December 2007: Taylor develops a crush on Emily. Emily possibly finds out somehow and it doesn’t go over well (OR it does). She is fired from the band AND maybe she is paid off to pursue other interests…

2008/2009- Spring (Summer? Fall?) 2012: Taylor has an on/off relationship with Liz, while Liz also dates men. The relationship may have even started developing as early as the first time they supposedly met back in December 2006, but Taylor definitely was feeling something by the time she posted that blog in February 2008. It’s complicated and non-exclusive. Maybe Taylor wanted more of a commitment and maybe there were promises made that things could/would change, but they never did. By the time she started hanging out with Dianna she was ready to move on. So, she ended things in March/April… but still met up with Liz a couple times after (possibly as friends). 

Taylor may have also dated Julianne H. at some point in 2008/2009.

Spring 2012-Fall 2013 (?): Taylor has an on/off relationship with Dianna that may have ended, in part, due to interference from Taylor’s team. Maybe it is the one relationship with a woman that could have actually developed into something more concrete, but maybe that also scared Taylor a bit.

Winter 2013/Early 2014-Fall 2016: Taylor has an on/off relationship with Karlie, while Karlie is also involved with Josh (hence my comment about how CS could be about her experiences with both Liz and Karlie because they may have been similar circumstances, where sometimes they were single and other times they had a serious bf). 

Fall 2016-Present: There are at least a couple potential girlfriends within this timeframe. I lean towards Tily being a thing from at least fall 2016-Summer 2019. I am open to Zaylor and I do find it interesting, but I’m not as sold on that one. I personally do not think Taylor is with Joe nor do I think that Joe is WB.

The straight explanation could be that Taylor gets into really, intensely close friendships with other women and eventually they grow apart and move on with their lives. 

The funny thing is that I remember Taylor once saying something about how after a breakup, she completely cuts that person off. That fits with her relationships (whatever the nature) with Liz, Dianna, and Karlie. With each of these women, Taylor shared a friend group with them, but Taylor seemed most interested in them. She has had a few friendly/cordial interactions with them, but she seems to have completely separated her life from them after their “friendships” ended. In fact, she moved to entirely different cities on opposite sides of the country (and in one case a different country, with a whole ocean in between) after she stopped hanging out with them.

That’s where I stand and it’s not really much different from where I was back in October when I posted my first summary on Tayliz. 

Although, I do have more information now than I did then that leads me to think something was going on. 70% of the time I am convinced they had a relationship beyond friendship and 30% of the time I think they were only ever friends. 99.9% of the time I think I am a clown.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I am inclined to believe that Tayliz is more likely to have had some sort of relationship than Taymily and is slightly less likely to have happened than Swiftgron and Kaylor. Other Gaylors might think they were only coworkers or friends. I’m not out to convince anyone. I am just presenting the information I have found and I don’t mind a friendly discussion/debate if anyone wants to talk about it.

[hklnvgl]

Fan Fic Tag Game 2020

Ao3 Name: dorypop

Fandoms: hm mostly the raven cycle but i’ve also written for all for the game, harry potter and avatar this year

1. Fic that was the hardest to write/you spent the most time on: skinny fleas. i started writing it before summer, but then i had trouble finding aurora’s voice, and then i started writing other stuff that came easier to me so i just kept procrastinating on this one. but it’s literally the only adam & aurora fic currently up on ao3 and i love the idea and the first 2k words, so i just had to write to be able to read it, you know? i had two weeks of leave from work in october and i spent them finishing wips, and even though i needed some more time after that for the finishing touches i really applied myself to this one.

2. Fic you spent the least time on/easiest to write:  the snow is melting (aftg). i honestly had the idea and started typing at a break at work and i didn’t bother to fix plot holes and stuff. i just wrote it in like two days and posted it and moved on with my life.

3. Longest Fic: i’m going to consider all 5 parts in my fifteen years later series as different fics, so it’ll be the miracle came with a pop (52379 words | hp). i didn’t write all that in 2020 but i did finish it this year so let’s say it counts.

4. Shortest Fic:  i don't want to screw this up (536 words | atla). it was a short ficlet born from a tumblr prompt.

5. Fic you were nervous to post: hm so i wrote a kinda quarantine/covid fic back in march and at first it was supposed to be this cute “and they were quarantined together” thing but then my brain started providing unhelpful info and the only way i found to deal with how scary everything felt was to write that. i then got a very angry anon comment which was probably my first ever anon hate? so i’m now a bit ashamed of that fic? but i’m not taking it down bc ao3 is an archive so it’ll stay there. plus i like the title (spring will be spring)

6. How do you choose your titles: oh boy. ok so in summer 2019 i started reading haiku poetry from a very pretty bilingual edition of poems by akutagawa. i just fell in love with the format bc it’s normally very visual and evocative but also super short, so my attention span doesn’t suffer. since then i’ve bought a few more books in the same collection and i dog-ear the pages of the poems that i like or that i think could work as titles while i read them. later, when looking for a title, i sit myself to think what the fic is about and browse those dog-eared poems in search of the perfect one. sometimes i’ll also google “spring+haiku” or something if i can’t find the perfect one. then i just choose a line from the poem. i know it’s a lot of work and probably nobody notices but! it makes me happy!

7. Fave Fic you read: oh i got so many! i bookmark all my fav finished fics

8. Fave Fic you wrote:  in vino veritas (drunk pynch). it looks really similar to what i was picturing in my mind.

9. Fave comment: i appreciate and love all my comments but i especially like the few i’ve got with requests/suggestions of things to possibly include in my fifteen years later series, bc then i get to plan around those things to maybe put them in the text and it’s super fun!

10. Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: i don’t want to rewrite it at all, but one of the aus that i’ve written that i think has space to grow is there is a world (my hogwarts au)

11. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning:

(it’s from part 6 of the fifteen years later series!)

Adam’s phone vibrated in his pocket. It was a text from Harvey.

ronan says to tell u foods ready

Adam snorted. Ronan usually yelled at him to come down.

Adam got up and washed his hands, feeling a pang of shame curl around his ribs. Ronan was probably as freaked out as Adam was, and Adam was here feeling sorry for himself and having a mild anxiety attack while Ronan was braving the fort downstairs. He should be supporting him instead, kissing away the wrinkle he always got between his eyebrows when he worried. This was all Adam’s idea to begin with.

12. What was your goal for your fics this year? Did you meet it?: i didn’t really have a goal? i wasn’t planning on writing so much this year actually! back in january i was only thinking i wanted to finish the miracle came with a pop and then never write long fic ever again, and i’ve mostly succeeded—i just need to think of the installments in my harvey series as separate fics, and i’m good to go!

13. What is your goal for your fics next year?: i have the idea for one more installment for harvey that i’m definitely going to write, and after that i think i might take a break for a while (but maybe i’ll get new ideas?? so i’ll never stop???)

14. Highlight of your fandom year: i’ve met really wonderful people through fandom this year. it’s been hellish and i’ve mostly fled every other social media/platform except from tumblr and ao3, so it’s really wonderful that i still want to come here and talk about fictional stuff

15. Highlight of your personal year: oh well it’s been quite bad? mostly due to covid, sure, but i also had some major things come up back in february and early march that were quite hard, and then i had to learn to live with constant changes of plans. i’ve redecorated my whole room though and it feels really welcoming and cozy so that’s a great thing 2020 has brought.

thank you very much to @creativefiend19 for tagging me!! i’m tagging @ailec-12 @pumpkinpadparadscha & everyone else who feels like doing it!

[cicaklah]

2020 - a year in fic

2020 was a terrible year, of course, but in terms of yer girl cicak writing fic, it was the most bumper year since *checks official records* records began. (Records in this case being 2010 and in the AO3). Ten years on the ao3! What a milestone.

It was a weird year in fic. I started out super obsessed with The Witcher, and was sure this was the second coming of old fashioned big fandoms, and then almost as soon as I started, I promptly lost interest. I like writing it, but I wasn’t really interested in reading it, or rewatching the series. Therefore I just sort of...wandered away, and periodically came back when some really stupid idea grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

These were: look what you made me do - the most popular fic I’ve written in a decade of concentrated fic writing. In which Jaskier is basically Taylor Swift c. 2014, and everyone in fantasy Poland wants to know who inspires all those bangers he keeps churning out, and Geralt has a lot of feelings about turnips and his horse and badly timed goats and also whether Jaskier really has been singing about him this whole time. Contains goatus interruptus and my second favourite OC, Titch Westmoreland, tax collector and enthusiastic shipper.

I wrote a sequel to that called Jas Queen, where Geralt goes to see Jaskier perform his new song cycle, and then gets hella laid in the dressing room by Jaskier in drag as Queen Calanthe. 

Then @nim-lock drew said hella laying and as thanks I wrote vestis virus whatever the latin is wrong, which is Jaskier, rich aesthete, taking advantage of someone stealing Geralt’s clothes to play dressup, which was an excuse to write SEXUAL TENSION, which way too many months later, I consummated in an indentation in the shape of you. 

I continue to not apologise to tswift for anything.

And then out of the blue I decided I wanted to write something stupid and so wrote how an egg makes another egg, which is the best thing I’ve written all year, you should all read it, I am a genius, all praise Meluhha and may she bless us with thick shells and double yolks in 2021. 

Anyway in the spring I got SUPER INTO Star Trek Picard, and by that I mean SUPER INTO Agnes Jurati and into how she got away with murder and shagged Santiago Cabrera, who was extra attractive this year, (and I consolidated that by watching The Musketeers, for which I wrote no fic, but I did think about writing fic for it a LOT). I wrote a small thing called ‘a knife in the country’ expecting it to get jossed within a week, and when it didn’t I went kinda...mad? and wrote a series of interlocking stories that I will collect into a series when I can think of a title. They are: red to port, green to starboard, white to guide the way, not a star in the sky that’s got our name, and nothing to fear from the siren’s call. Of these, nothing to fear from the siren’s call, my Rios manifesto that also doubles as a reflection on 10 years of my own PTSD journey, is my second favourite thing I wrote this year. 

The other thing I did this year was a WIP Amnesty, which I called the Coronavirus Decameron because at heart I am pretentious as balls. I really liked doing that, and will continue it for as long as the coronavirus continues to provide us with Unprecedented Times.

I finished off a Star Trek The Force Awakens cosmic horror story called if there is love at the end of everything that no one read because no one goes here anymore. 

I completed a DS9 erotic farce called ‘I was born like this don’t even gotta try’ which is the closest I’ll probably ever come to writing ABO (where Garak goes into heat, and asks Julian to help, so Julian volunteers his encyclopedic knowledge of holosuite wank programmes, and finally his own arse, to the cause), and then a pet gen project about Bashir’s genetic augmentation from the POV of his mother called all the sinners, saints, that led to people in the comments accusing each other of wanting autistic people to be exterminated, because this is still 2020 after all.

I wrote part 4 of lesbian han solo, it takes a village (but there’s only you and me) a series I will eventually finish at this rate sometime in 2040, where Han and Leia’s daughter is born, and their relationship begins to fail. 

I finished off one of my many, many Star Trek Discovery WIPs from 1st season when the show didn’t make me want to pull my hair out, and rediscovered my deep ashburn feels in someday I’ll love what I can’t find in you, thanks to the eternal cheerleading of @drstrangewillseeyounow. 

I also finished a Modern Raffles story that I started writing in summer 2019 when England won the world cup, that if you know your raffles and your cricket is a work of genius, but mostly went over people’s heads. It is called by the barest of margins and just, this is my third favourite thing I’ve written this year. 

Finally for the decameron, I wrote a hitman story called in every life a little rain about 47 being poisoned and hallucinating/fantasising/remembering Diana wearing fancy shoes and them maybe having a secret relationship, that I am really proud of. 

Outside of the above, I also wrote a tenet fic called never odd or even, where I attempt to fix the film somewhat, and somewhat succeeded. I’m happy with it, even if I thought it would do better in terms of engagement.

All in all I published 68,140 words of fic, most of which was written in 2020. I also wrote about 30,000 words of thesis and 20,000 words of reports for my new job. Overall, I would have written more, but I got a proper job that requires me to do things and use my brain in October, so then lost the ability to sit in front of my computer on an evening. 

Thank you to everyone who read my stories and commented in 2020, especially all the hannibal fans who discovered my old works, and anyone who reads even steak don’t cry or the rose of terok nor especially. 

May Meluhha bless us all in 2021.

[angryonabus]

2020 writing meme

Total number of completed stories:  Seven!  Still not that many, but definitely more than any year since 2012.

Total word count: Per AO3, I posted 124,394 words, roughly 60k of which were written in 2019.  Per my writing counter, I wrote 113,119 words, which tracks with how many fucking WIPs I have hanging around..

Fandom Breakdown:  Four for Schitt’s Creek; one each for The Untamed, The Old Guard, and The Half Of It.

Overall Thoughts: Fuck, I missed writing.  Also it turns out that when I don’t try to force myself to focus exclusively on one thing at a time, I’m a lot more productive—being able to bop between five different WIPs and add a few paragraphs to each one means a lot more writing overall.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?  Definitely more - I was in a good groove by December 2019, but even then, I wrote more this year than in any other year EVER. Good work, self!

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? The Untamed was definitely a surprise - I was honestly such a little b about the fandom when my wife + friends were getting into it in 2019, but when I finally caved, I fell hard and fast.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?  I mean, friends & family discount was definitely a learning experience from start to finish - it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written by a very large margin.  Maybe my biggest takeaway is that I am capable of writing longfic? But oh my god, it was AGONIZING to have it hanging over me for so long.  I’m still glad that I waited to start posting until the whole thing was written, though: it kept me motivated (agony is motivational, sometimes) and also meant that I had the opportunity to go back and greatly improve the first few chapters.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? In 2020 I had a goal of 200 words per day, and managed to average just about 300 words per day.  For 2021, I’m going to aim for 250 words per day and see where that gets me.  AND I’M GOING TO FINISH SOME OF MY WIPS, good god, where did they all come from?

From my past year of writing, what was…

My best story of this year: I have literally no idea.  Maybe tell me about yourself?  It was certainly the easiest to write, and it did exactly what I wanted it to do.

My most popular story of this year:  friends & family discount, no question.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I mean, I know it’s the nature of Yuletide, but I was pretty pleased with separate circles in a crowded hall, and I’m a little bummed that it didn’t get more love.

Story with the single sexiest moment: There are some very good moments in later chapters of  friends & family discount, and I’ll always be partial to David’s Katharine Hepburn fantasy in from a free point of view, but ultimately I think that spring/summer collection is probably the winner. 

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:  I don’t think anything I’ve written is particularly wrong OR particularly surprising.  I like what I like!  

...although meilleur à la longue made an anonymous commenter BIG MAD for unspecified reasons, so there’s that.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: not the characters, exactly, but from a free point of view was my way of thinking through the “happy ending” plotline from the SC finale and making it into something that I felt good about.

Hardest story to write: I mean, the obvious answer here is F&FD, but actually parts of spring/summer collection were extremely difficult, mostly because I am the least visual human being alive and writing about fashion was excruciating.  I did it to myself!  And yet.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: There’s a lot of me in everything I write, but doucement, doucement is alarmingly true-to-my-actual-life.

In conclusion:  I enjoy writing, apparently?  Sometimes, at least.  IDK, 2020 sucked, but writing was pretty consistently a good part of it, and I was definitely tremendously grateful for the friendships I’ve made through fandom over the years.

[epersonae]

For ao3 wrapped (writer edition): 3, 11, 24?

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

That would have to be Hungry for love, ready to drown. It's not done, and I still have a lot to do (aka all of episodes 7 through 10), but so far I feel like I've been able to express some things that I feel very deeply about this character and his arc. It's also been a personally rewarding experience, both in terms of thinking about my own life and getting really lovely feedback.

What work took you the longest to write?

When I read the question, I assumed it would be what makes me kind, since I've been working on it since late April, I think?

And then I scrolled down, and in March, a month before I started watching Our Flag Means Death, I posted from right here the view goes on forever, my last The Adventure Zone fic.

Ryn and I started sometime in 2019, as what was supposed to be the last epilogue of The Reckoning Arrives. We wrote most of it then, actually, probably in the spring and summer? Before we started dating, anyway; we wrote one scene (A GODDAMN GRIEF METAPHOR DISCUSSION) in the summer of 2020, and I wrote a little bit of explanation right before posting.

So I guess overall it was two and a half years, and technically we never finished it. We had at least one more scene planned that we never got to write, and if that isn't a goddamn metaphor I don't know what is.

Did you write any gifts this year?

I have not! I wrote a fic of a fic (A secret third thing), and I wrote a fic because @emi--rose inspired me to do something weird (the bad taste in our mouths/the twinkle in your eye), but no actual gifts.

[flirting-with-psychology]

REFLECTIONS Answer the following questions:

What is the single best thing that happened in the past year?

2015:  The beginning of the fall semester when I grew a lot more confidence

2016: Studied abroad

2017: Graduated

2018: Moved into the B Flat

2019: Got a boyfriend

2020: Got a car

2. What is the most challenging thing that happened to you in 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: Getting over Marble maybe

2016: Getting over Hawaii

2017: Making my 4500 film

2018: The music videos I did

2019: Deciding whether to date my now boyfriend

2020: The entire pandemic

3. What thing did you learn the most from this year?

2015: Hawaii and Marble

2016: My film class

2017: Also my film class

2018: My film jobs and internships

2019: Starting a relationship

2020: I guess the pandemic

4. What is the kindest thing you did this year?

2015:  I don’t think I’m the one to ask, you’d have to ask people who perceived kindness

2016: Same

2017: Same

2018: Same

2019: Same

2020: Wore a mask

5. Did you lose any close family member this year?

2015: Nope

2016: No

2017: No

2018: My great aunt died

2019: No close ones, but my grandma’s dementia is getting so bad she doesn’t remember who I am

2020: No

6. Pick three words to describe 2015/16/17/18/19/20.

2015: A learning experience

2016: Single, senior, band

2017: Senior to graduate

2018: Almost an adult

2019: Another year older

2020: Covid, long, stagnant

7. What did you do in 2015/16/17/18/19/20 that you never did before?

2015: Got further than I ever had in my love life

2016: Studied abroad

2017: Moved into a house with roommates

2018: Moved in with male roommates, did an internship

2019: Got a boyfriend

2020: Bought a car

8. Did you keep last year’s resolutions? What were they?

2015: Here we go. Put one happy moment from each day into a jar: YES. Go to the gym regularly: Doing better but still could use improvement. Get a summer job: Yes. Make an effort to eat breakfast: Haha nope. Make an effort to look pretty: About the same as last year. Talk to people more and appear more confident: Yes. Find things to be excited about: Not as much as I want. Find a boyfriend: NOPE. Write more: Not really. Read more: Maybe a little. Have adventures: Some, but not as much as I would like. Initiate things: Yes. Use “I” more: Yes. Be less mean to myself: Yes. Overthink less: No, still working on that. Be proud of myself for trying my best but accept not being perfect: I guess. Take responsibility: More. Be positive and enthusiastic: Still working on it. Carpe diem: Not enough.

2016: I can’t remember lol

2017: I can’t remember what I wrote. Here’s what I’ll do: write my 2018 resolutions so that when I reblog this next year I will know:

2018: Be more adventurous: Maybe? Overthink and strategize less: HA not really. Get a film job: Yes. Eat more vegetables: Maybe a little but still not enough. Go to the gym, like, ever: Yes. Read more: Kinda. Finish my Harry Potter spellbook: Not yet.

2019: Get a boyfriend: Finally did! Be more spontaneous and adventurous: Kinda? Sometimes? Lose weight and eat better: Nope. Read more books: Nope. Finish my Harry Potter spellbook: Not yet. Learn how to work hard: Not really. Spend more time with my friends: Kinda. Love myself, and be someone I love: Not really. Carpe diem: Sometimes. Keep doing the moment calendar and journal: Yes. Earn more money than I spend: Nope. Travel: Yes. Discover new music: Yes. Try new creative things: Yes. Believe in myself: Not really. Learn to be a leader: Nope. Watch more movies: Some. Think about other people: Tried to. Learn how to make mistakes: Kinda.

2020: Get a new job: No. Lose weight and fit into my dresses again: Noope, the opposite. Read more books: A couple. Spend more time with friends: Haha, nope, although I did zoom with them some. Go on dates: Not really. Keep doing the moment calendar and journal: Yes. Try new creative things: Yes, I tried dice making. Take risks even if they cost money: Yes, again the dice making. Make more money than I spend: Actually yes with the stimulus. Make jewelry: Some, and opened and etsy page. Get back to people in a timely manner: So-so. Be more punctual: Nope. Finish my harry potter spellbook and keep up with my character book: Nope. Learn new things: Not enough. Be the kind of person I wish I could be: No. Be more open to ideas: No. Post more pictures online: No. Don’t be such a control freak: Not even a little bit. Worry less about what people think: Kinda. Laugh more: No.

2021 resolutions: Get an interesting job. Get my own apartment. Get a covid vaccine. Lose weight. Keep doing my sticky notes and moment calendar. Be less hard on myself. Survive. 

9. Did you travel to any interesting places in 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: Went to Las Vegas for my birthday and California with the band and Kentucky to see Paul McCartney.

2016: Went to Italy, went on band trips to California and Texas

2017: Went to London with my mom, went to New Orleans for my cousin’s wedding and hooked up with my 6th grade crush, went to Wyoming for the solar eclipse

2018: Went to Las Vegas for a film shoot

2019: Went to Israel

2020: Went to Harry Potter World in Orlando with my boyfriend

10. What would you like to have in 2016/17/18/19/20/21 that you lacked in 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: A BOYFRIEND HAHAHA

2016: Still a boyfriend lmao fml

2017: Still a boyfriend but one that I feel satisfied with. I’m not sure if I’m there with Guacamole. Also he’s not even my boyfriend yet

2018: Still a boyfriend lmao

2019: An interesting job (finally got the boyfriend!)

2020: A job, an apartment, and a vaccine

11. Do you even believe in new year’s resolutions? Why or why not?

2015: I think they are a good idea, for reflection as much as goals.

2016: Maybe. Idk

2017: Yeah it’s a good idea

2018: It’s always good to try to better yourself and it gives you motivation to do it

2019: It’s a good idea for goals

2020: It’s good to make goals and remind yourself what to work on

12. Do you believe that 2015/16/17/18/19/20 had an reoccurring theme for you? If so, which theme and why?

2015: No more than any other year really

2016: More like my entire life has a recurring theme of being single af

2017: Not really

2018: Boys I like having girlfriends

2019: Macy’s

2020: Covid

13. Do you feel like 2015/16/17/18/19/20 went by too fast?

2015: No

2016: It went a little fast, especially now that I’m about to graduate

2017: Not really

2018: Not really, but maybe my youth went too fast

2019: It went by too fast for how much I accomplished

2020: It went by way too slow

14. Did you fall in love with any new artists during the year 2015/16/17/18/19/20? List them.

2015: I fell back in love with Taylor Swift

2016: Collabro

2017: Anastasia the Musical cast, and Hamilton is growing on me

2018: A bunch of musicals

2019: My musicals playlist on spotify has Rent, Dear Evan Hansen, Legally Blonde, Galavant, Hamilton, A Star Is Born, Frozen 2

2020: Fell more in love with taylor Swift, and Come From Away

15. Brag about two of your accomplishments in 2015/16/17/18/19/20.

2015: I made a couple cool music videos, and I lost some weight after increasing my gym attendance.

2016: I made a short film, Pancakes, with a full crew. I got straight A’s in the spring.

2017: I graduated and I made another short film

2018: I worked on two film shoots and I got promoted at work

2019: I stayed in touch with friends I made on a film shoot, and I got a boyfriend

2020: Bought a car and was the costume designer for a TV pilot

16. What was your favorite movie that came out this year?

2015: The Martian

2016: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

2017: Coco

2018: A Star Is Born

2019: Rocketman

2020: None of them were really memorable

17. Fill in the blank: In 2016/17/18/19/20/21 I will ____________.

2015: Get the confidence back that I had in the fall

2016: Graduate college

2017: Start looking for film jobs

2018: Find myself

2019: Find a new job

2020: Survive, please

18. If you could fly anywhere in the world in 2016/17/18/19/2021, where would you go?

2015: Italy, and I plan to!

2016: London, and I plan to

2017: Scotland or Ireland, and I don’t have any plans to

2018: Maybe that Israel birthright thing

2019: Maybe Ireland or Amsterdam

2020: Wherever has the least amount of covid. Of course that probably means they wouldn’t let me in

19. What was your biggest regret of 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: Worrying about the future when I had something good rather than just enjoying it

2016: Not trying enough in making friends and making the most out of it

2017: Maybe not getting quite enough out of college

2018: Forgetting or never quite learning how to work hard. That and not asking a cute guy out in time

2019: Not buying that moonstone necklace

2020: Gaining weight

20. Do you think you’ll be having a better 2016/17/18/19/20/21 than 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: I hope so

2016: I hope so

2017: I hope so

2018: I hope so and I think so

2019: I sure hope so

2020: I fucking hope so

21. Did you make any new friends this year? Lose any friends?

2015: I got closer with some friends :)

2016: I made some new band and film friends. One of my friends from freshman year died.

2017: I almost lost a friend but now we seem to be friends again. I also made some new ones

2018: I made some new ones, and kinda stopped being friends with some of my old roommates

2019: I think I got closer to some friends

2020: I met a few online playing among us, and I probably lost my roommates

22. What was the biggest adventure of the last year?

2015: Hawaii, I think

2016: Studying abroad

2017: Moving out and starting to adult

2018: The film shoots

2019: Dating my boyfriend

2020: Harry Potter World

23. Did you get cake on your birthday? Presents? What you wanted?

2015: Yeah I went to Vegas which was cool! Got cake and alcohol and presents

2016: I did not get cake but I got IHOP. I got presents, and the football team won the game that day sending us to the PAC 12 Championship

2017: I got pancakes, presents, and maybe I’m starting to get what I wanted?

2018: I got chocolate mousse and presents and I didn’t even know what I wanted

2019: I got cake and presents including one thing I wanted

2020: I got bundt cake and a few things from my wish list

24. How much did you change this year? What’s different about you?

2015: Not too much has changed but I think I’m prettier, more confident, braver, and value bravery more.

2016: I’m lazier, gained back the weight that I lost last year, and lost some of the confidence from last year. Wow…

2017: I’m not a student anymore

2018: I maybe lost some of my hope in my love life and felt more set in my ways

2019: I don’t have as much FOMO but I’m also getting more frustrated with my life

2020: Gained weight, got more anxiety

CONFESSIONS

Bold the statements that are true (2015) and cross out (2016) and italicize (2017) and I’m running out of formats so CAPS (2018) and *star (2019) and ~tilde (2020)

In the year 2015/2016/2017/2018/2019/2020 I confess that I….

KISSED SOMEONE I HAVE NEVER KISSED BEFORE. ~*DID SOMETHING I REGRET. *Painted a picture. *Dyed my hair. Got a new haircut I thought I’d never get before. Wrote a poem. Graduated from High School. Graduated from College. Applied for Graduate School. RAN A MILE. Ate much healthier. Ended toxic friendships. ~*GAINED A NEW FRIEND. Gained a new best friend. *Visited a foreign country. ~*LIED. ~*HAD A FIGHT WITH MY PARENTS. *HAD A SECRET/KEPT A SECRET. Realized my homosexuality. ~REALIZED MY BISEXUALITY. (OR AT LEAST QUESTIONED IT) Realized my pansexuality. Realized my asexuality. ~*Broke a promise. *Slept under the stars. ~*STAYED UP TILL SUNRISE. ~*PUSHED SOMEONE AWAY. ~*Got in a fight. SLEPT WITH SOMEONE OTHER THAN MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER. ~*ATTENDED A PARTY. Got dumped. Got a new piercing/tattoo. Learned that I wasn’t cis gender. Drank underage/used illegal substances. *ATTENDED A CONCERT. *ATTENDED A MUSICAL. ~*TRAVELED TO ANOTHER CITY. *Broke someone’s heart. *Hiding something from someone. ~*MADE SOMEONE’S DAY. Cheated on a test/homework. Physically cheated on my significant other. ~*Emotionally cheated on my significant other. ~Quit a job. GOT A NEW JOB. Learned to hate someone I thought I never would. Learned to be more patient. Saw the supermoon. ~SAW THE METEOR SHOWER.

[iu-jjang]

[INTERVIEW] Dazed & Confused Korea Special Fall Edition 2019 (Part 1)

Q. Is IU the type of person who is affected by the seasons?

A. I think I am affected by Spring and Autumn. With the atmosphere changing, my heart is more relaxed. I feel exactly like that these days when summer is ending and fall is starting. Experiencing the change in seasons, I am in a daze sometimes and various thoughts come to mind.

Q. How was the photoshoot today? It happened to be a cool autumn weather with old-fashioned Gucci clothes. It somewhat reminds us of Jang Manwol from “Hotel Del Luna”.

A. Did you know? Where the photoshoot took place today was also one of the filming locations for “Hotel Del Luna”. When I came here last time it was really hot, but it's cool today. I felt the change of seasons.

Q. What kind of season was 2019 for IU?

A. I thought at beginning of the year that it will be a busy year because I have planned a lot since last year. But possibly because of the atmosphere of “Hotel Del Luna”, it was more of a relaxed season than expected. I guess I can say I am doing my job smoothly? I was very happy while filming “Hotel Del Luna”. All the people I met while filming were good people. It almost felt unreal. It's really a miracle. It was a fairytale-like 6 months.

Q. Everyone was able to feel the affection of IU towards Jang Manwol and “Hotel Del Luna”. Especially because you personally made an Instagram account for Jang Manwol and posted photos of the drama set.

A. It was a piece of work that felt like all the characters were alive and breathing. Including the actors, all the staff were all so precious. So, with the permission of the production crew, I made the SNS account for Jang Manwol and ran the account with affection. Everyone was having fun, and they were all very cooperative.

Q. The ending of “Hotel Del Luna” received various reactions. In a positive way. As the actor of Jang Man-wol, what do you think of the ending?

A. When I first read the ending, I thought it was a 'sad ending.' And then I thought perhaps it could have a 'happy ending'. I read the script 100 times, crying often while reading it. I worried about which emotions I should show and what feelings not to show. Jang Man-wol and the 'Hotel trio' who had to cross the Bridge to Afterlife are people who had waited for that moment for at least 100 years and up to 1300 years. They were able to experience a life-like life after meeting Goo Chansung (Yeo Jingoo) but they live in a different world from the one Chansung is living in. I thought if they didn't leave because of the happy memories of the few months with Chansung, it would still be a sad ending.

Q. The OST heard in the ending of the final episode was sung by you. Hearing that unreleased song, we were able to experience IU's feelings towards “Hotel Del Luna”. Just from the title alone, to call it 'Happy Ending’...

A. I wrote the lyrics to the song by myself. As a way of me saying 'I, Manwol, would like a happy ending,' when the script for episode 12 came out, I recommended the song to the director and writers to use it as the OST for the final scene. I actually try not to participate in the OST of the dramas I'm in. When they (audience) hear my voice, they think of my image as Singer IU and the emotional lines of the drama can be blurred. I have no plans to release the song. I want to leave it only at the last scene of “Hotel Del Luna”.

Q. The fantasy-like character of Jang Manwol was a logical character coming out of your career as Singer IU and Actor Lee Jieun. One critic said, "Jang Manwol is the crossing point of the Actress Lee Jieun that was quietly growing inside IU and the Singer IU," and Oh Choonghwan the producer of “Hotel Del Luna” said, "I thought if it wasn't IU, let's not produce this drama."

A. When I first got the casting call and went to the meeting with the production staff of “Hotel Del Luna”, the director told me that. He said, "We are going to make the set unique like a surreal space and it will blend in with the image of singer IU shown in music videos. And it has to be someone who can portray a colorful character who shows various hairstyles, makeups, and costumes in one episode; the only person who can do that is IU. Also, I want to project all the images IU has portrayed as an entertainer into the character of Jang Manwol like an assortment of gifts." I actually went to decline the casting, but on the contrary, it gave me confidence to accept the offer. Now I am very grateful that they casted me.

Q. IU itself has become an unique brand. The public will not find it odd when they see you singing a girlish song on a music show back to back with you singing a 1980's Sanwoolim song. Besides that, you have also established yourself as an actress. You are literally one of the few stars in Korea who can do anything and be successful. Do you think that right now is the peak of your career? Or is there more you have in store?

A. Wouldn't it be a peak? (Laugh) These days I keep thinking about back when I was twenty. It was when I was promoting the song 'Every End of the Day,' and I remember the conversation I was having with lyricist Kim Eana then. She asked me "Jieun, what do you want to do in the future?" So I said, "Once this promotion ends, wouldn't it be the end of the idol-like shine?" I thought then that it would be the end of when I could be so popular. But I'm twenty-seven now and being asked by a reporter, "Is this your peak?", so from then I earned 7 years as a bonus. I am really having fun working these days.

cr: daeng516

Translated by dawn_afterglow for IUteamstarcandy