#just say you want to jump on the bandwagon on being a hater all the time

[epickiya722]

It's a damn shame that someone will post "this is one of the greatest anime fights I have ever seen", an opinion that caters to how they feel and assholes will go "um, actually" as if to argue it like it's a fact.

Disrespectfully, shut the fuck up.

It's how they feel!

I have seen anime videos where a guy gets into talking about a fight and will say "this is my favorite fight" or "greatest fight I seen" and not once have I felt the urge to go in the comments and dispute. Mostly because I enjoy that person enjoys something and took the time out to post a video about it. I may not have seen the anime, popular or not, I'm just here for the entertainment and passion you're sharing.

[not-goldy]

Watching Harry fans come out and say they are done hating on Louis, cause life is too short, is wild. I mean admitting you were an ass who hated someone out of jealousy or just not liking him cause of shippers is pretty bold cause you know your ass is about to get torn up, but its sad it took death to admit you hated him for no reason and you feel like crap now for also hating on Liam for no reason too. I mean you do you and clean your conscious, but note to yourself, if you can't give a real reason why you "HATE" someone in the first place, maybe its time to stop following trends and stop jumping on hate bandwagons cause everyone else is for hit tweets, cause this is what it came down to. I been seeing this all day. People who hated Liam, sobbing and throwing their guts up out of guilt. Yeah, saying you wanted him to D word and when it happens isn't what you thought you'd feel. What a damn shame. People in this fandom need to take notes. Kinda like those tkk who left after Paris and them leaks and started apologizing to Jimin for hating him. Or some admitting they downplayed GCF on purpose, when they saw it all along. Imagine how that makes JIkook feel. Its never too late to admit you were wrong and hated Jimin for selfish reasons, but its just plain sad it took "REAL" proof of Tae's relationship being leaked for you to get it, when all along you could just see with your own eyes TK was never real and Jimin was not the villain you always thought he was. Maybe one day more will wake up. You figured AYS and Military would have done that. If anything to understand Jimin is not the reason their favs aren't dating. Its simply cause they don't freaking want too and aren't into each other like that. Simple as that. Same for the 1D haters. Said one thing, now suffering from guilt. This is why you don't follow others.

This message you shared is so important

Like Jimin said, be a good human.

That's all. That's the message.

Liam, Liam was in a mental hell and those people held flame throwers. You never know what people are going through

May he rest in peace 🕊️

[onceuponalegendbg-rwby]

I think it's because people just see an easy designated punching bag online and view it's supposed "shittiness" as carte blanche to mistreat anyone who dares to not be part of that mob. We've seen it happen many times over the years.

Star Wars. Sonic the Hedgehog. RWBY. If there's a punching bag available, people will do everything they can to justify punching it.

A lot of people enjoy being cruel, but they hate being seen as cruel. So when an opportunity pops up where they can be as awful as possible because "the person/group/thing deserves it"? They just jump on it like hyenas to bloody carcasses. And then they get to pretend it's all justified to be an asshole because they're "on the right side", and will get protected and praised for their cruelty until it's not the socially acceptable thing to do anymore, or they just jumped onto the next bandwagon/fad for them to be an asshole about. Then they'll just go "Oh I'm so sorry, it wasn't that bad, can you just ignore and pretend I wasn't an absolute asshole that probably hurt you immensely? KTHXBAI. Oh and if you dare to call me out, I'll call you thin-skinned and sensitive but I'm just a victim UwU"

And the reality is that even IF this thing or media had a deserved bad reputation, more often than not that STILL doesn't justify being cruel about it. But a lot of people WANT to be cruel about it.

You are definitely not wrong. And it's gets so exhausting after a while, especially if you engage with that group, but even if you don't just seeing all the hate can wear you down after so long of seeing the same complaint (valid or not) over and over and over. Whether the piece of media deserves it or not, it just becomes redundant after a certain point.

It's hard to fight the urge to fight back, to not defend something you cherish so deeply, because you know the other person wants to get you riled up, they want act like they've got some make believe moral high ground because they're "objectively" right about how this piece of media should be perceived.

As I said in my original post, it's okay to not like something but that doesn't mean you have to make that vitriolic disdain your entire personality. More people need to figure out the ancient and therapeutic art of "Disengage if You Don't Like."

Now this also isn't to say we can't criticize media. As much as I love RWBY and will always defend it from its haters, I have my fair share of complaints about how certain elements were handled, mostly in the first four Volumes and especially in V4 itself. However, do those criticisms I have derail my overall feelings toward this show? No. Not at all. But I've already spoken at length about my feelings so I'm not going to repeat myself again here.

[flightlessinsect]

The way some tom stans - or haters pretending to be stans - love to catastrophize the opinions of losers on social media needs to be studied. Because why did I see an anon on one blog say they "contacted tom's publicist" to tell them to do something about the "R&J pr disaster"?

Have y'all never followed any celebrity before? What disaster? The "disaster" of having multiple days of supportive crowds cheering at the end of each show? The "disaster" of multiple glowing reviews about the show from people who watched it - you know, people whose opinions ACTUALLY matter because they paid money to see the show? The "disaster" of the smiles on the cast's faces when they see the crowds waiting for them outside? No? Oh so you mean the "disaster" of random racists with 12 followers and a purchased blue checkmark and random tom haters who are jumping on the bandwagon to continue hating on him? The ones you guys CONTINUE to elevate by talking about them, engaging with their nonsense, or sending their tweets to active blogs... to do what, exactly? To coddle you and give you virtual hugs and comfort? To say "yeah I agree, tom is totes racist actually" because you are actually a hater but too much of a coward to hate directly?

Focus on the real people with real faces that the cast see cheering for them night after night. If you are being genuine, and the cast's mental health is your "concern", trust that they most likely know not to read that shit anymore. They probably have people filtering the actual reviews to them. If their physical safety is your "concern", trust that they have enough security to take care of them. If you are being honest-to-god "concerned" about tom's reputation, trust that you are blowing things way out of proportion. Tom gets tweets like those everyday and has been for years and he is just fine and dandy. Still getting work, still well-loved by people who actually know him, and still richer than any of us will ever be. Believe me when I say many many many many celebrities have had worse "scandals" and are still completely fine. Even the ones that are being called out right now on that block list will barely feel a dent in their reputations. As much as we like to pretend we're getting better, we still live in a celebrity-obsessed society.

Also, do take the time to consider that the silence of the production, of other cast members, and of Fran herself may be something that is happening on purpose. They see each other every day, work very (very) closely together, and surely have had discussions on how this whole thing will be handled.

Lastly, take the time to also consider that maybe you don't care about what Fran is going through at all and you just want tom to "do something about it" because you think it will give you moral superiority as his stan. OR you don't care about what Fran is going through at all and you just want to use this to fuel your hate boner for tom. Because trust me, the fans who DO care about everyone in the cast.. they are highlighting, retweeting, reblogging the glowing reviews and supportive posts and stories. They are posting pictures of Fran smiling on stage or at the stage door. They are talking about her talents, her stage presence, her beauty, her chemistry with tom. What they are NOT doing is posting hate tweets on their blogs so more people can see them.

[musette22]

Hi! Sorry to drag on the topic but I just wanted to send a quick message regarding the recent wave of people being rude about Chris. A vast majority of what I’ve seen has been about the roles he’s in and not him as a person/actor, and while this sentiment doesn’t negate the fact that the unnecessary hate isn’t okay, it’ll probably subside soon as he has quite a few projects lined up from well-respected directors like Celine Song. Ik what I’m saying ultimately doesn’t mean much, but people on social media like to jump on bandwagons and Red One is getting particularly scrutinized because of the current discourse surrounding those type of big-budget movies (same thing happened with the new Deadpool). At the end of the day, he’s long proven his capabilities as an actor, the average person has a positive opinion of him, and he’s out there living a healthy and happy and successful life—which is more than people who spend their time sending hate on social media can say.

Anyways, I hope you have a good day, Minnie 🫶 and thank you for being a place where people can congregate to talk about these things. With the amount of interaction present, your blog honestly feels like a forum that you put effort into admining (ad-Minnie-ing? Lol), and just know ur efforts are appreciated. You’re a pillar of the stucky fandom. Merry Christmas!

Hi there, sweetheart! First of all, thank you so much for your message and apologies for taking a few days to reply! A very Merry Christmas to you too, I hope your Christmas day (if you celebrate) was lovely and full of good food and laughter! 💓

I think your message is very thoughtful and well-worded, so thank you for that! I hadn't really considered that yet, but it makes a lot of sense for the wave of criticism to stem mostly from the scrutiny Red One is under. While I agree we don't need necessarily need more movies like that, this is hardly the only one, and I feel like it's also a little unfair to pile the blame on one particular actor, but what do I know 🤷🏻‍♀️ In any case, these things usually come in waves, and you make a very good point about the average person having a positive opinion of him. This kind of hater can be loud, but they're almost always a minority. I'm sure it'll blow over again soon too, with time and also with Chris's upcoming movies being of a different variety than the likes of Deadpool/Red One, like you say.

And thank you so much for your kind words about my blog, too! 🫶🏼 I'm so so happy to hear you appreciate this space so much, and I LOVE the term ad-Minnie-ing, I'm keeping that one l, if you don't mind 😂 I sometimes struggle a little to answer messages in a timely fashion because life just gets so busy, but I appreciate every single one, and I love discussing these boys with you all so much that!! It's a lot of fun, honestly 🥰 So anyway, thank you again for being lovely, and Happy Holidays to you, darling! ❤️

[yourlocalderp]

A very long and angry essay that will put my head on a guillotine but who cares.

Now before I start, to anyone I may offend or anger in this, I just want to say that I don't care. Call me evil, say I'm bad, announce me the Tumblr fun police, whatever just keep it to yourselves. (Don't actually, I'm bored. Write paragraphs about me on TikTok and slander my name please.)

Also, I'm going to be brutally honest in this, with my genuine feelings out there for the world to hear. If you don't want to read a bunch of words written by a mentally ill teenager who just hates something in the world, then feel free to move on with your life. For all those who don't want to leave/ are actually interested/ readying their pitchforks, then do I have a treat for you.

Now, onto my actual topic. The Marjorine Scotch headcannon fucking sucks and makes no sense.

Let me tell you why.

First of all, it came out of nowhere. She appeared in one episode, and everyone decided "Hey, let's get rid of Butter's and put Marjorine instead mhm mhm definitely a good idea!" Y'all flocked to Marjorine quick as fuck, and I bet a rat ass some of you don't even like her and just want to jump on that bandwagon of the random ass uprise of a character which is a COSTUME of a literal existing character.

Second of all, you all act as if she's been here the whole time. She hasn't, it's BUTTERS who was here, not Marjorine. I keep seeing replies on comments asking why Butters is always replaced with Marjorine going "Well Butters and Marjorine are the same people blah blah blah" as if those same repliers wouldn't go "Marjorine>>>>Butters" like what happened to the "same person" mindset you had before hm? Anyways Butters>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Marjorine like there is no doubt about it if you argue you're wrong and a hypocrite. Third of all, why Butters? Isn't he the most misogynistic, hater of all women, had an episode where he stuck his wee wee out to prove a point, kind of boy? Why suddenly all that is thrown out of the window for some girly girl MaRjOrInE with an unhealthy obsession with hello kitty? He didn't even enjoy being a girl for fucks sake he threw off his wig the moment he stepped his ass out of the girl's slumber party. (Btw feel free to correct me with this part because I refuse to watch the Marjorine episode out of spite.) Why not Wendy with Wendyl? She seemed pretty chill with being a guy. What about Princess fucking Kenny.

Topic 4. Princess Kenny and why she'd make more sense for a fandom to headcannon as mtf.

Maybe it's just because I'm bias to her, or magical girls in general, but why DO I never see anyone headcannon Kenny as anything other than genderfluid? Why does Butters, who dressed as a girl for ONE EPISODE, get the mtf hammer, but Kenny, whom basically EVERYONE called a girl for A LITERAL ARC FOR SOUTH PARK and A FUCKING GAME. Is it because you find Butters more, I don't know, feminine?

Disclaimer, this is where I start going into conspiracy type of shit. Don't take it too seriously because it really ISN'T that serious, but just an FYI, I mean it all.

This brings me to this point; I have a strong belief that some Marjorine people only do the Marjorine headcannon because they see Butters as more girly. Y'all know the ship Bunny? Y'all know how people usually see Kenny as "the man" of the ship? (Yes, I've seen people say that in Youtube comments. Get help.) Well, this makes Butters "the woman" of the ship now doesn't it. Yes, that's right. I'm accusing.

SOME

Take that word in.

SOME

People who ship fucking Kenjorine as to make them your average "UwU boy" and "Mf alpha demon thing who smokes like 30 cigars an hour" but it's straight and Marjorine is your petit anime girl and Kenny looks like he came out of one of those yaoi mangas from back in the day. Like, why is Marj always this cutesy kawaii girl like at least make her crazy?? (And sapphic. Don't be shy, why not make sapphic bunny with Princess Kenny and Marjorine? Then I can at least stomach SOME Marj content.)

I also think Kenjorine is just an excuse to make a gay ship straight. The number of comments I see that go "Omg!!11!!1 I love Kenjorine because it fits soOoOOOoO well with Kenny's character cause he's SO StRaIgHt>.<<<<<<" is annoying. Imagine that with Creek. I know it's a bad comparison with Creek since both boys are gay, but Kenny and Butters don't have confirmed sexualities, maybe Kenny does like dudes, we'll never know. All I'm saying is that why is it that y'all get so pressed when someone turns the "uke" of the ship (Like tweek or butters, lord have mercy i'm going to cry a river.) into a woman, you're only mad about one? (Aka Tweek ones, which is understandable.) At least the Creek people have gotten past that phase of feminizing Tweek to the point he's not even proportionally accurate, the Bunny fandom though.....

Speaking of Kenjorine once again, can you kenjorine motherfuckers get out of the Bunny tag on tiktok? I can't scroll 5 tiktoks without seeing Marj's face and it's gotten to the point that I just had to mention this in here. Y'all have a tag with over 40 million views go use that, after all isn't Kenjorine the "superior" ship to you guys? (After people see this, I bet multiple kenjorine tiktoks are going to appear in the bunny tag and I'll go into a deep depression because I just can't enjoy Butters x Kenny anymore.)

Anyways, last point I'm about to make before I wrap things up, you know those crappy edits of South Park oc's in South Park? That's what Marjorine feels like. She doesn't fit in, she's too "perfect" or whatever, she basically has no flaws to me. Every time I see a Marj headcannon thing, it's always along the lines of: "Marjorine. (insert age). Gets bullied by Eric but stands up to him or whatever like a girlboss yada yada. Epic bf (and it's just Kenny on steroids). Hello kitty enthusiast. (insert a bunch of facts I do not give a shit about)" Like damn girl what about your PARENTS??? Would your parents APPROVE of this? I don't fucking think so, I doubt they'd not ground Butters for even thinking about being trans.

That wraps up everything I have to say so far, maybe I'll come by to update this, maybe not. Either way, here's some final thoughts, as well as my contradictions to every reason I know of why people use the Marjorine headcanon because I'm petty and angry that I keep seeing her.

"She looked happy as a girl!" Did you watch the episode, or did you just see what you wanted to see? He was happy because he was being ACCEPTED. That doesn't mean he liked being a GIRL.

"He wore a skirt that one time!" What happened to "Clothes have no gender?" There's a difference between dressing in "the opposite gender's" clothing, and actually being the opposite gender. If I wore a tuxedo, does that make me a man? No. I'd like to dress up as the genderbent version of myself, but I'm still not a guy. Therefore, this argument is fucking stupid and goes against a lot of shit that people are saying.

"He likes hello kitty!" Again, liking hello kitty doesn't mean you're a girl or something, you're not suddenly a boy if you play Valorant or whatnot, and you are most certainly not a girl just because you play something inherently "girly."

"She's just a girl!!!" He's Butters, get over it. Just plain old simple Butters, leave him be. You people are like the mfs in the exact episode Marjorine was in. You aren't happy with how he was before; you want him to change just to make yourselves happy. Remind you of something in the episode? Where Marjorine cried in the bathroom because no one liked her, and the only reason the people did was they gave her a makeover and made her more girly? You're all just reenacting that episode but pretending that Butters would be happy with it.

Final words

Princess Kenny is better. Also if y'all are gonna type angry paragraphs about me, please send them to me so I can argue with a wall cause it's pretty damn entertaining. I'll even do the courtesy of ranking your insults/comebacks out of 10. I'm so fucking tired of seeing this bitch everywhere it's driving me to the brink of insanity. I know I'm weird and crazy but the Marjorine Stotch headcannon is like a leech in my brain and I can't get that mf out I want her gone she's a genuine thorn to my spine. Out of the courtesy of my own heart, I must say. This fandom truly made me lose all respect I had for a character, and this character wasn't even relevant to anything. She's useless, brings nothing to the plot, and should've stayed a one-time joke. Everyone who says otherwise like "Marjorine is SooOOoOooOO much better" needs a reality check. This isn't fucking "girl power" to you this is the removal of a character for a fandom oc.

Bunny supremacy, stop putting Kenjorine into it's tag, get the fuck out my ship you have your own tag, bye.

[agustdiv1ne]

hey feel free to ignore this if u don't wanna answer but i was curious, as a writer, how are/were u feeling ab the google docs ai situation? im actually not too sure whats going on to be *very* honest but i also am not a writer..

hello nonnie!! this is an interesting question that i have somewhat long-winded response to (under the cut!)

first off, i am an ai hater. i straight up just don't like it. and no one come at me with the "you just hate change and new tech!!" bs. no, i love seeing new tech — it's super exciting — but not when it's being pioneered by greedy companies. not when these companies using artists' original work that they have put tons of time and effort into to train their system.

furthermore, i don't think it's regulated enough for how much it's beginning to be utilized, and there's so many legal grey areas that are very concerning to me. look at chatgpt and how the company is scraping data from sites like ao3, taking people's original, copyrighted works and using them to train their ai with no consequences. it sucks, honestly. i'm dissapointed (but not surprised) that google has jumped on the "ai is the future!!1!1!!!!" bandwagon. it's nfts all over again.

google has claimed that they are only using public data to train their ai — but cmon, it's google, a multi billion dollar company that can basically get away with anything. remember how they sold users personal data to third party companies when they claimed they didn't, got sued, and then basically got off with only a little slap on the wrist? who's to say that they didn't sneak a loophole into the agreement we all mindlessly check yes on when we start using google drive? none of us know, and most of us don't understand enough legal terminology to figure that out.

personally, i won't be using any ai features when i write because at that point it's not my work; it's the the work of millions of other writers whose stuff was stolen. i don't care if emily from ohio wants to read about jungkook with a certain trope because she can't find it anywhere. like, idk, get a little creative. write it yourself or find someone who will, rather than relying on this tech that's fucking over artists left and right.

(all of this applies to tiktok's ai filters and stuff too. i don't fuck with those either.)

this is just my two cents on the issue, don't take it as fact!! i know i don't speak for other and i'm not trying to. if other writers and artists would like to add their opinion, feel free!

tldr: fuck ai, fuck google for jumping on the bandwagon, and i wouldn't touch ai features with a ten-foot pole

[kythed]

“you can hear it in the silence” - a collection of conversations between you and futakuchi kenji. 

1. april 14th, 7:56pm.

“it’s terribly boring, isn’t it?” the voice comes from right near your ear. you start, turning to see a young guy dressed in jeans, a tee, and a baseball cap, slouchy and messy in the most attractive and purposeful way. “the movie, I mean.”

you turn your eyes back towards the screen — some spanish neo-noir retelling of the same old “sexpot femme fatale turned domestic by a dashing hero with a horse” plotline. “yeah, it is. I only came so my film major friends would finally respect me.”

“that’s valid,” he whispers with a snort. an older man sitting beside him shushes him. “I only came so I could make fun of the people who only came to impress their film major friends.”

“oh, ouch,” you say, grinning. “way to attack like 90% of the foreign film audience.” 

“I’d say it’s something more like 97%, actually,” he says, briefly glancing at the movie. the dark haired, sultry love interest is batting her lashes at the brooding protagonist, nightgown slipping off her shoulder. “the remaining 3% is horny teenagers who can’t yet figure out how to erase their search history.” 

despite being in the middle of a crowded theater, you laugh, giggle echoing off the walls. several people turn around to shoot you dirty looks, and you immediately clap an apologetic over your mouth. oops.

“I’m kenji futakuchi,” your seat-neighbor whispers, extending a hand. “unprofessional film critic, engineering major, and thai tea hater. I’m willing to take you out for boba on our first date, but if you order thai tea it will also be our last.” 

“bold of you to assume we’ll even have a first date,” you say, shaking his hand with another quiet laugh. 

“oh, we will,” he says with what can only be described as a bona fide smirk. “I saw the way you were looking at me earlier.” 

before you can respond, the curmudgeonly old man beside kenji leans over and scowls. “if you kids want to keep flirting, do so outside. some of us are here for cultural enrichment.” 

kenji glances at you, face spelling out mischief. “you heard the man. shall we?” 

for a moment, you consider saying no. but then reason kicks into gear and you stand up, dusting popcorn off your lap. “we shall.” 

(discovery number one: your hand fits perfectly in his.)

2. may 2nd, 11:17am. 

“you know, this actually isn’t so bad.” kenji takes another cautious sip. “still can’t hold a candle to jasmine.”

“I respect that,” you say, offering him a taste of your drink. “I feel like everyone who hates thai tea is just jumping on the bandwagon. it’s pretty decent.”

“you’re pretty decent,” he says petulantly, snatching your tea and replacing it with his own. 

you roll your eyes. “your comebacks suck. still can’t believe I agreed to go out with you.” 

kenji feigns a look of surprise. “oh, are we going out? I thought this was a platonic thing.” 

you send a pointed look at his hand resting on your thigh, his thumb rubbing light circles in your skin. 

kenji follows your gaze and suppresses a smile, shrugging. “friends do that.” 

it’s a cool spring day, the air smelling of his cologne — vanilla, coffee, and burnt orange — and the eucalyptus growing in front of the cafe. the sunshine is fresh and pale, casting a glowy halo over kenji’s brunette mess of hair. he smiles rather angelically, as if he knows exactly what you’re thinking. 

“and do friends do this?” you say softly, leaning forward so your nose is just centimeters from his. 

kenji gulps, adam’s apple bobbing painfully in his throat. his voice cracks with his next words. “y-yeah. I do this with my buddies all the time. no homo.” 

you slowly bring your hand up to cup his jaw, letting your eyes linger on his lips before glancing back up and smiling. “oh, good. ‘cause I do this with my girls all the time, too. full homo.” 

“yeah?”

“mhm,” you purr, trying to channel some of that femme fatale energy, leaning even closer so you can feel his warm breath on your mouth — and then you pull away with a cackle, leaving kenji blinking down at you with reproach.

“women are so cruel,” he sighs wistfully, fanning his shirt and running a hand through his hair. 

“sorry,” you chirp, not sorry at all. “I don’t kiss on the first date.” 

“you don’t kiss on the first date?” kenji repeats. “so what’s the timeline — we hold hands today, and then you let me hug you next week, and then we kiss in a month, and then in like fifty years we finally fu—” 

“kenji!” you say, whipping around. you’re scandalized. there’s a family with primary school aged kids sitting at the other table, shrieking with laughter and bouncing around like pinballs on a boba-fueled sugar high. “keep it PG.” 

“I wasn’t gonna say anything bad,” kenji complains. “I was just gonna say that in fifty years we finally, uh… furbish the condo we purchase together.” 

“sure you were,” you say, and kenji just laughs. there’s something in the way he looks at you… something soft and affectionate that makes you think he might actually intend to stick around for fifty years. it scares you a little — but in a good way. 

later that day, when kenji drops you off at your front porch, you lean forward again. usually you keep your word, but today’s an exception. 

(discovery number two: he tastes like colgate and thai tea.)

3. august 21st, 8:02am. 

“what the hell,” you cough, squinting through the smoke. you can barely hear yourself over the shrill beeping of the fire alarm resounding around your apartment. “kenji?”

kenji emerges from behind the fridge, nonchalantly leaning on the wall with a nervous smile. “hey, baby. sleep well?”

“don’t you ‘hey, baby’ me, mister,” you say, marching forward, fanning the smoke away with your oversized sleep shirt. (well, technically it’s his shirt, and that’s why it’s oversized. it fits perfectly fine on him.) “what in the world did you do?” 

“why is it that when something goes wrong you always automatically blame me?” he complains, coughing. 

“because it’s always your fault,” you say, gently but firmly pushing him aside to reveal, sitting innocently on the counter… a smoking toaster with two pieces of bread (burnt nearly completely black) resting in the slots. oh lord. “kenji. babe. darling.”

“ooh, keep going, please,” kenji coos, yelping when you lightly pinch his elbow. “hey!” 

he’s about to retaliate before you double over in laughter, holding onto the edge of the kitchen counter for support. you choke out giggles between breaths, hardly able to keep balance. “you — (wheeze) — you nearly burnt down the kitchen — (wheeze) — trying to make toast?” 

“it’s not as easy as it looks,” kenji insists, gingerly picking the slices of bread (although they’re more like crackers now) out from the toaster. “I’m sorry that I wanted to do something nice for my beautiful girlfriend. and I’m sorry that the only thing I could handle was toast and coffee. well, technically just coffee, I guess.” 

he picks up a mug from the counter and offers it to you. “it might be kinda cold now. sorry. I tried.”

he’s so earnest and adorable and lovely in that moment — standing in the middle of the clouded kitchen in just mismatched socks and an old pair of boxers, holding the coffee out for you to see — that you can hardly contain yourself. 

“god, I love you,” you say without thinking, the last word catching in your throat as you look up. oh. oops. kenji’s staring at you, unblinking, big brown eyes filled with… surprise? “I mean, I meant —”

“you love me?” 

“I, uh,” you falter. this isn’t you; you’re supposed to be the calm and collected one. “this isn’t how I wanted to say it, but—”

“but you do, right? you love me?” kenji sets the mug back down and pulls you in by the waist, grinning broadly and resting his forehead against yours. your heart is pulsing erratically, but a smile big enough to match his somehow finds its way onto your face. you nod, and kenji immediately kisses you hard, tangling his fingers in the back of your hair. 

“I love you,” he says breathlessly after finally parting. you feel the uncomfortable warmth of your face and the swollenness of your lips... but you can’t quite bring yourself to care. “I love you a lot.” 

“you love me so much that you even tried to make me toast,” you laugh. “and you brought me cold coffee in my second favorite mug.” 

“no, wait,” says kenji, glancing back towards said mug. “that’s your favorite mug.”

“no, my favorite is the green one with the—”

“—with the orange flowers,” kenji groans in realization, slapping a limp, penitent hand to his cheek. “I’m a failure of a boyfriend. I deserve to go to boyfriend jail.” 

“you do,” you agree, nodding solemnly. “but lucky for you, I have a get-out-of-jail-free card right here.”

“oh?” says kenji, a devilish smile quirking up the corners of his lips. 

you hum and offer him your clenched fist, like you’re about to place something in his palm. but when he extends his own outstretched hand, you interlace your fingers with his instead. “yep. right here.” 

“you think you’re so clever,” kenji sighs, nonetheless bringing your hand up to press a brief kiss to your knuckles. 

“I do.” you shuffle towards the counter to take a sip of the coffee — sure enough, it’s cold. (but he still made it exactly the way you like it.) “c’mon. breakfast.” 

(discovery number three: burnt toast doesn’t taste so bad when you eat it with someone you love.)

4. november 1st, 10:38pm.

the commute across town from your university to your apartment is on the longer side, around forty minutes. it feels even longer late at night, though, on your way home from your part time job. 

the subway rattles on its tracks as it slows to rest at a stop (but not yours) and a handful of sleepy passengers stumble out, swinging briefcases and pulling their scarves a little tighter. you stifle a yawn, slumping back into your seat. 

“you okay?” 

you smile. ever since you got hired a couple months ago, kenji’s insisted on coming to “pick you up” from work to take the train back with you, even though he works all the way across town. (he’ll probably stay the night — he has a drawer full of his things at your place these days, complete with a dozen wrinkled t-shirts, old soccer shorts, and a bundle of irreparably tangled chargers. he hasn’t bothered to bring his own shampoo over yet, though, claiming that “yours smells so nice and fruity” and “men’s shampoo just smells like nondescript testosterone and insecurity.” he’s right of course, but all the same, you’d rather he not use up all of yours.) 

“yeah, I’m okay,” you sigh, taking his hand and feeling him begin to rub circles on your palm. you close your eyes. “just tired.” 

“hi ‘okay-just-tired,’ I’m dad,” kenji says slyly, and you open one incredulous eye. 

“did you really…?”

“I really did,” kenji says, puffing up his chest. “you walked right into it.” 

you groan and fall on top of him dramatically, burying your face in his thick fleece jacket. “I’m too dead for this. I’m like frankenstein before he was reanimated — just a bunch of limbs and organs in a useless, fleshy pile.”

“technically, he’s frankenstein’s monster,” says kenji, petting your hair absentmindedly. “frankenstein’s the name of the doctor. cute literary allusion, though.” 

“do you ever shut up?” your voice comes out muffled by kenji’s coat, but not at all devoid of its intended irritation. 

“occasionally,” he says as you lift your head. he pulls you closer with one arm until you’re practically sharing a seat, legs interlocked, your temple resting on his shoulder and his chin nestled in your hair. “when I’m sleeping. when I’m eating — well, sometimes. sometimes I talk with my mouth full.”

“yeah, I’ve borne witness to that,” you say, wrinkling your nose. you’ve tried to improve kenji’s table manners countless times (especially in light of your family’s thanksgiving dinner soon approaching), but it’s all been in vain. most likely because he enjoys seeing you get worked up about his not using a coaster, etc. “disgusting.”  

“when I’m concentrating on physics,” he continues, as if he hadn’t heard you. “when I’m in the library. when I’m kissing pretty girls.” 

he bends down and tries to give you a peck, but you gasp and dodge it. “girls? plural? you’re out here kissing pretty girls other than me?”

“when I’m kissing one specific pretty girl,” kenji corrects himself, grinning. 

you feel your own grin stretch across your face. “and which pretty girl is that?”

“my pretty girl,” he says smugly, looking incredibly pleased with himself. 

you scoff. “corny.” 

“you like it.” 

you chew on your inner cheek, trying and failing to suppress your smile. “you know I do.” 

the train’s speakers crackle alive, a cool automated voice emanating from their unseen perches: “approaching hiwamari station. projected arrival in: 1 minute.” 

“alright, time to wake up, sleeping beauty,” kenji huffs, lugging you onto your feet. you hang limp in his arms like a rag doll, unwilling to bear your own weight. “you are perfectly capable of standing. shape up before I alert the authorities, you hooligan.” 

“hmm,” you groan, finally arighting yourself with some difficulty. you want to ask where in the world he learned the word ‘hooligan,’ but your brain can hardly afford you even the most basic cognition right now. “it’s too late, and my knees hurt, and I’m tired, and I saw an ad for that new vietnamese place at the last station, and now I want banh mi. but I can’t have banh mi because there’s none on this side of town, and that irritates me.” you take a deep breath. “also, I’m cold.” 

kenji laughs and slips a loose arm around your waist as the doors slide open, gently guiding you down onto the platform. the night air bites at your skin, painting goosebumps in its wake. you’re about ready to just sit down on the ground and curl into a frustrated, exhausted ball when he crouches down, fingers straightening and smoothing the lapels of your coat. “well, I can’t really help with the sore knees and the hankering for banh mi part, but I’m pretty sure you’re cold because you’ve had your buttons undone this entire time. dummy.” 

he buttons your jacket quickly and deftly, careful to avoid pinching you in the process. a particular kind of warmth bubbles up in your chest at his concentrated expression — kenji likes to maintain his effortless, reckless reputation, but when it comes down to the bare bones of it all, he’s still the type of guy who’ll button his girlfriend’s coat for her. on the walk from the subway to your apartment, his arm doesn’t leave your body once, keeping you close to his side and shielded from the wind. 

“I’m not a dummy.”

“sure, dummy.”

(discovery number four: body heat — specifically, kenji futakuchi’s body heat — is by far the most effective way to stay warm.)

5. december 23rd, 12:01pm. 

“who’s your best friend?” the question pops into your mind and out of your mouth almost instantaneously. kenji, who’s lounging on the sofa next to you, turns, eyebrows furrowed. there’s a small douglas fir in the corner of the room, minimally decked with what ornaments you could “diy” from around the house: snowflakes made of sticky notes, bedazzled plastic utensils, etc. several small packages have been haphazardly tossed around the tree’s base, yours neatly wrapped in red tissue paper and string, kenji’s covered in newspaper and excessive scotch tape. (he tried. maybe not his best, but he tried.) 

“depends,” he says, turning off his phone and tossing it onto the carpet. “what’s your definition of best friend?” 

“you know,” you say, helplessly splaying your fingers. “monica and rachel. frodo and sam. taylor swift and karlie kloss.” 

“hold on,” kenji says, holding up a hand. “didn’t taylor swift and karlie kloss have a falling out?” 

“yeah, but for the sake of the argument,” you insist. you narrow your eyes. “wait. how do you know about that?” 

“you talk about it every time you listen to that one album, which is at least once a month,” kenji says with a grin. “probably more like twice, actually.”

“oh.” you flush, making a mental note to use earbuds more often. “anyways. answer the question.”

“wait, but you just gave me a bunch of examples,” kenji complains. he glances briefly out the window, which is iced over like a sugar cookie, obscuring the snowscape outside. mariah plays faintly in the background, jingling and whistle tones echoing through the halls. “you didn’t define anything.” 

“a best friend,” you begin, faltering and taking a moment to think. a best friend… what is a best friend, really? you frown for a moment before smiling brightly. “a best friend is a commitment. it’s when you commit to being there for somebody when they need you. and it’s when you commit to finding that person when you need them, too.” 

kenji lets out a low whistle. “okay then, socrates.”

“it wasn’t that deep,” you say with a laugh. “so. who’s yours?”

kenji grins boyishly, face lighting up like a christmas tree topper. “easy. you’re my best friend.” 

oh. you weren’t expecting that. your chest gives an involuntary little thump of pleasure. “me? what about kamasaki?”

“mmm,” kenji muses, counting on his fingers. “he’s, like, my fourth best friend. maybe third on a good day. but you’re the one I go to first.” 

you have the sudden urge to wrap your limbs around him like a koala and never let go; only your dignity keeps you from tackling him right then and there. you clear your throat, praying he can’t hear your thoughts — he’d never let you live it down. “you’re mine, too.” 

kenji doesn’t respond, just smiles and rolls off the couch onto the floor with a thud, spreading out on the carpet like a seastar. the silence doesn’t bother you, though — silence (what little you can get of it) is comfortable with you two. plus, it’s never really silent. there’s always something there, something very undefinable but very real. 

(discovery number five: you are in love.)

[legionnaireslover]

And so the "Great Shift" begins!

Gator must be pretty frustrated lately that BC doesn't seem to be LISTENING to ANYTHING the Haters have been saying about him dumping his wife and disowning their children.

So, now Gator is just warming up to idea that BC is supposedly not only a "victim" of a narcissistic Sophie, but actually was drawn to her because his MOTHER, Wanda was also a NARCISSIST!

According to this new "theory" BC won't dump Sophie because he was originally a victim of WANDA'S NARCISSISM, so he submits to Sophie the way he used to defer to his mother.

BUT, wait, there's MORE!

He also has a "side"piece who is an "empathetic" person (what do you want to bet Gator imagines this to be... AELTRI?!!!?) but who is often mistreated, by BC, in a narcissistic fashion the same way his mother and Sophie treats him!

Oh, WOW!

B-b-but, I thought Sophie has NEVER lived with BC (according to Haters), has no relationship with him and BC is ALWAYS sending "signals" to the Haters that he despises Sophie! So how is that "going above and beyond" for these narcissistic women who dominate his life?!?

Sounds like Gator FORGOT she has been pounding the "Sophie isn't a part of BC's life" theory every day for the last 7+ years!

As for the other part - Aeltri has been whining constantly that BC MISTREATS har and has narcissistic tendencies, so I suppose it's only natural that Gator finally works that little bit of Aeltri's "victimhood" into the narrative!

This is the obvious "next stage" in the Haters downward spiral. They are getting really ANGRY at BC and want their REVENGE if he doesn't jump on their bandwagon! So he's being shifted to a PERPETRATOR of NARCISSISM as well as being a victim.

Just watch, as time goes on and BC STILL doesn't acquiesce to the Haters demands, they will shift him even further - into the realm of PURE PERPETRATOR! It's all a matter of time.

And this is why we call them Haters!

[simons-purplehoodie]

🧠 (just your fav headcanons in general) & 🤩 for the writing asks 🧡

Hi! I just wanted to say I always see you here on my tumblr and ao3 and you mean the absolute WORLD to me, so I hope you’re having a great week 🥰🥰

🧠 Pick a character, and I’ll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

I think I would be a fake Young Royals fan if I didn’t jump on the good bandwagon of Willhelm being a horse lover, and Simon being either afraid of horses or just a horse hater. I just think it makes so much sense for Willhelm to like horses, maybe it’s because of all the fanfics I’ve read where this is true and it’s just seeped into my mind lmao, but I’m going to go with it. And I also think it’s funny if Simon’s sister and his boyfriend love horses that he would dislike them and they would tease him for it. 😂

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Okay, so my favorite perspective to write from is Wilhelm’s perspective. But my favorite character to write about is Simon. And I know that is a weird contradiction lol. I really enjoy writing about Simon’s character from his or anyone’s pov, but especially it from Wilhelm’s point of view. And also of course I like writing about Wille’s inner thoughts and everything from his perspective as well.

So basically I enjoy writing from Wille’s pov more, but I like writing about Simon from Wille’s pov if that makes sense hahaha

[stevenrogered]

different anon and i completely agree with you!!!

charithra never said edwina was perfect and did acknowledge her shortcomings and about ep 6, kate even though she only had edwina’s best intentions in mind did hurt her (don’t know why this is such a hot topic lol). so i really don’t know why fans act like charithra said kate is a terrible person? i get being protective of your fave but this is too much and very reductive of FORTY min podcast… haters listen to everything charithra said in bad faith, waiting to twist her words to fit their narrative. no matter how “perfectly” she spoke, she was gonna be misunderstood

as you said, charithra never pit 2 characters against each other??  fans are pitting kate & edwina against each other and charithra/simone to justify that hate largely because they can stand edwina’s reaction to being continuously lied to. she’s angry, hurt, betrayed, lashes out and for the first time in her life expresses her true feelings… people just wanted edwina to just be a kathony shipper who's never in conflict with her sister. like i've seen tags on a gifset of edwina praising kate saying "i wish we got thissss" and this is literally FROM the show?? you just ignore 99% of edwina's scenes to make her look like an unsupportive tantrum throwing brat

(just repeating everything you said lol but you’re spot on!)

thanks! i just think if someone is going to jump the bandwagon like that, at least have all the facts instead of hyperfocusing on ONE thing someone said in a 40 minute podcast??? without knowing the context or anything

its the same thing with those bts videos shondaland posts- someone will take a 2 second clip of the cast where charithra is looking at someone who is talking to someone else and not her, or her being by herself and turn it into LOOK HERE'S CONCRETE PROOF THE CAST HATES CHARITHRA AND NO ONE WANTS HER AROUND its insane lol

[ladyofthelake]

(Speaking as a Jared girl)

I find it so hypocritical when Jared fans/stans say that he would be crucified for saying this stuff (and thats true because poor Jared can’t say a damn word without some hater twisting it and trying to make out he’s some kind of monster and I hate it because Jared never ever sets out to hurt and tbh his words are always twisted anyway)

and you know what, all of the above is EXACTLY what Jared fans do to Jensen he IS being crucified right now, he is being judged on every word and action and move he makes, judged against someone you’ve all put on a pedastal (even tho you say Jared has flaws because duh every human does but Jared does not want to be put there) and its okay to make Jensen into an actual villain and spend you days pretending to love Jared when really your joy is hating his best friend and brother I- I just really don’t understand why people spend their time being so toxic. Even if you hate what Jensen said and don’t like him then thats fine no ones forcing you to see it differently but what I am saying is just please don’t be part of the problem or make a situation worse by spreading hate and literally saying he baits s*icide that is such a revolting thing to say and Jared and Jensen would be appalled.

One more thing, its funny no one ever has the balls to say to Jensen to his face if he has upset them when they’re at the con (as far as I’m aware) but thousands of people happy to slander his name on a public social media (and to be clear I feel just as as strongly if not more for Jared when he is hated on because I think he has had more battles to fight with mental health)

but at the end of the day neither of these boys or in fact anyone deserves this amount of toxicity to be spread over an incident which frankly has been blown entirely out of proportion and if people actually watched the clip, would see that but jumping on the hate bandwagon seems to be the thing to do these days. I’m so tired.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift: ‘I was literally about to break’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

[gu-fem]

Is Taylor Swift the Definition of the Modern White Womanhood?

Written by: Julia Zhigaleva

Call me dumb, call me white, but Taylor Swift’s music has been my guilty pleasure for so long that I eventually stopped feeling guilty about it. You guys, I’m not even kidding when I say that I grew up with Taylor Swift – from crying after school to Teardrops on My Guitar when the guy I liked chose to date my best friend over me, to dressing up like hipsters with my friends and partying to 22 in my college years, to taking forever to get over breakups with All Too Well, to lip-syncing to myself in the mirror to Blank Space wearing red lipstick, to trying to convince my significant other why Lover definitely has to one day play at our wedding.

As we grew up with Taylor, she grew up with us – from an overly dramatic teenager occupied with boy drama from the Fearless era, to a hopeless young romantic of Red and 1989, to an unapologetic bitch from Reputation, to folklore’s big sister Taylor who braids your hair and makes sure you don’t repeat the mistakes she made in her youth. To me Taylor Swift has always been the embodiment of the modern white womanhood, which in my opinion is also a secret to her huge commercial success. If you’re a girl and you don’t know a single Taylor Swift song you could relate to, you’re probably lying. 

This to me is also the reason why haters are always gonna hate – if Taylor Swift embodies so much of the modern femininity, the reason behind the overwhelming hatred towards the singer could easily be misogyny. “Overly dramatic, shallow, immature and always playing the victim” – for years Swift has been bullied for loving our loud, singing her heart out and trying to grow up and figure herself out while being one of the most commercially successful artists in the world. Constantly in the public eye, the singer has often been accused of using this public obsession with her private life to promote her music, which was then dismissed as too girly or not worthy of attention – the double standard Swift herself called out in The Man. 

And then we have the Taylor vs Kanye feud, which is honestly on the list of my possible PhD thesis ideas, as this decade-long beef has everything you could possible wish for - race, gender, cyber bullying, mental health, and even Barack Obama. When Kim’s Snapchat stories broke the internet back in 2016, it led to the outbreak of hatred like never before, with dozens of spiteful articles against Taylor appearing online and tons of snake emojis flooding the comments of the singer’s Twitter and Instagram accounts. And that’s when people that are normally impartial to Swift drama jumped in and reminded that not only is the girl completely crazy, but she also never in her life used her privilege to speak up social injustice and remained politically neutral during 2016 election race. Officially canceled and proclaimed dead, Swift was forced into an exile that very few of us believed she would ever recover from. 

Coming back with her Reputation album, Swift literally reinvented herself, burying her most iconic past selves in the music video for Look What You Made Me Do. But it wasn’t until she put out Miss Americana on Netflix, which, let’s be real, we all watched while being bored at home in quarantine, that Taylor won back over so many of those who turned their backs on her back when the Kim drama happened. In the documentary we get to see the private side of the singer’s life, as well as hear her side of the story on all the scandals that followed her in the past couple of years. Swift confesses that she has always felt pressured to be perfect and unproblematic, which held her from ever taking a political stance, truly speaking her mind, and eventually led her to developing an eating disorder. 

"A nice girl smiles and waves and says thank you. A nice girl doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable with her views. I was so obsessed with not getting in trouble that I’m just not going to do anything that anyone can say something about." – Miss Americana (2020). 

I was sad to see that Taylor’s epic comeback was actually yet another attempt to fit into the image of the exemplary femininity, the new little miss perfect of 2020 - the good girl going bad. We see in the meeting room scene how Swift tries to convince some old white dudes from her management team that taking a public stance against the Republican candidate in Tennessee is the right and important thing to do even if it hurts the Taylor Swift brand. But the truth is, Miss Americana is actually Swift doing damage control after being criticised for being artificially perfect, calculated and politically estranged. If in 2010 good girls curled their hair, skipped lunch and obsessed over cute boys, in 2020 they wear slogan tees, joke about straight white men and have at least one gay friend they can paint their nails with. Yet I wouldn’t dare to accuse Taylor Swift of being hypocritical and self-serving with her recent political activism.

“For someone who’s built their whole belief system on getting people to clap for you, the whole crowd booing is a pretty formative experience.” – Miss Americana (2020)

Taylor confessing that she had based her entire self-image on the constant approval and praise from others, hit too close to home. It made me think that as easy as it would be to point out that the singer who built her entire career upon the society’s conventional idea of femininity, doesn’t get to jump on the bandwagon and call herself a feminist, one cannot in good conscience blame Swift for wanting to fit in, be approved and accepted. In Miss Americana I saw Taylor fighting the losing battle of having to be a 'good girl’ in order to stay relevant and successful, yet being mocked and dismissed for this very conventional femininity of hers. Taylor opening up about her constant pursuit of perfection and need for validation in the world of unreachable standards set for women was perhaps the most vulnerable part of her documentary and it is certainly a struggle many of us can relate to.

Coming from a place of race and class privilege, possessing conventional beauty, and being adorably naive in her attempts to dismantle the patriarchy with the songs like The Man and You Need to Calm Down, still, Taylor Swift is the ultimate white girl that we can’t help but relate to. May she finally find her true self and may we all be lucky enough to be able to do the same.

[yeba]

Hi, I don't know the Mamamoo members' personalities very well. :( How would you describe them? :)

I’m really bad at explaining stuff like this, so if anyone thinks of something I didn’t say or disagree, feel free to add onto the post :)

First thing is they all have HUGE personalities.

🌻 Hwasa:

Hyejin looks tough but her heart and personality are so incredibly soft.

She tends to be the quietest and most softly spoken.

She is quite down to earth and level headed (not to say the other’s aren’t, but she is particularly so), especially when considering her age. Although she tends to be the most serious of all of them, she will still jump on the bandwagon of crazy behavior.

She tends to be very affectionate with the others and can be pretty touchy feel-y. I think she is the most “openly” soft, freely being affectionate whenever she is feeling it without restraint. She will kiss and hug the other members whenever she wants to without care.

She’s so loving and caring for the members, her family, and her fans (and honestly really everyone). She is just a very loving person.

She is also very sensitive and emotional (not in a negative sense).

Hyejin is introverted. She enjoys her alone time and needs it to recharge. Wheein and her are really close, but she still needs her alone time.

She is deeply connected to what she does and the music she makes. Music is her life, and she loves it dearly. She has been pursing the dream of becoming a singer ever since she was a child. It really is her lifeblood. She was written a lot of their songs and dedicates herself to doing so.

She is also very bold. She gives no shits about haters and purposely does things to piss them off (for example, knets complaining about the way she dresses, so she purposely continues to dress that way or dress in a way that would upset them more). She does what she wants, dresses how she wants while giving 0 shits about what negative things people have to say about her. She is unashamed of who she is and strives to be accepted for that, no matter societies expectations of her.

Overall, she comes off with a tough image when you first see her but in reality she is the softest, most loving person out there.

💨 Wheein:

Wheein is generally very energetic, bubbly, bright, and cheerful. Very playful and a huge ball of energy. I swear she’s always bouncing off the walls when she’s comfortable/in a comfortable environment. Also easily excitable.

She often instigates a lot of stuff and is always seems to be playing around. When Yongsun joins in with her or vice versa, they make a chaotic duo.

She is almost always laughing, it seems, and can laugh about anything, no matter how seemingly simple. She does weird things without restraint and continue to do them until she cracks herself up. Along with the ‘always laughing,’ she can be pretty noisy and loud.

That’s not to say she isn’t ever serious. She can be serious when she needs or wants to. When she gets upset about something and is on the verge of tears, she will try to play it off and hide it.

She often puts up this ‘tough’ image with the others (for example Hyejin will be affectionate with her and she will act like she’s annoyed, but she actually loves it).

She is so incredibly soft and caring. She doesn’t always show it in the sense of latching herself to everyone all the time, etc. Along with that, like Byulyi, she sometimes bullies the others to show her affection. She sometimes also acts really flirty with the other members to play around. She thrives on attention from the others and can act bratty (I say with utmost love) when others don’t give her the attention she wants.

Something she often does it share her food with others, especially the staff.

Wheein hasn’t written too many songs, but she is very talented at it nonetheless. She just tends to keep that talent to herself. She is super knowledgeable with music. One time she asked the technicians to polish the bass like it was no big deal and common knowledge.

She’s very quickwitted and really just extremely witty in general.

She HATES being called cute, but she’s just a big ball of cute anyway. She loves acting sexy (and probably cute to an extent) to make fans die inside. I think she once said she loves making moo’s hearts pound, or something along those lines.

She’s really smart and creative. Super talented. Like, it’s almost unbelievable how talented she is at everything. (I guess that’s not really personality, but..)

🌙 Moonbyul:

Byulyi I think tends to be relatively chill, but still pretty energetic and chaotic. I think she would place between Hyejin and Wheein/Yongsun in energy levels.

Her and Hyejin are known as the quietest and more chill members, but she will often begin to play along with Wheesun’s antics or even start antics in the first place. (she just tends to be more quiet like that when she’s around strangers)

Her, Wheein, and Hwasa together are the so-called “Loser Club,” since when the three of them are placed together they get pretty chaotic/they don’t really know what to do with themselves.

She playfully teases the others often. She harasses and annoys the people she loves as a sign of affection (basically she bullies the people she loves to show she loves them). Very touchy feel-y. She will throw herself on people laughing, or just because she wants to (which typically ends up being Yongsun). Along with this, she can be a very chaotic evil from time to time.

She’s very flirty, especially with the other members. She is very cheesy and quite suggestive when she is flirting (Yongsun calls her “greasy” because of this). She will often do this to mess with and tease the other members, but she also does this when she is being shy and uncomfortable (she even flirted with a girl dressed up as a ghost who jump scared her to brush it off). She really only seems to be flirty with girls though. When other members flirt with her back (usually Hyejin), she gets super flustered.

She doesn’t instigate being weird and super energetic nearly as much as she instigates trouble, usually harassing others.

I think she tends to be the quickest to get embarrassed.

She can be quite stubborn, especially when it comes to Yongsun.

She also is very soft and checks up on the other members to make sure they are okay - making sure that they drank water or ate enough, switching mics if one is faulty, etc. She is also super affectionate like this with fans - writing letters to them and making sure everyone is okay and healthy. Even with other people she is like this. For example, at award shows and events, waiting back to help another idol walk down the stairs because of their high heels.

She’s extremely modest, earning her the nickname “conservative byul.” She hates wearing revealing clothing (she prefers to dress androgynously at any time). When other’s wear more revealing clothing, she will try to cover them up.

Byulyi is a lyrical genius. She’s written a lot of their songs and all of her raps. She can skillfully write in not only Korean, but Japanese as well (even though she doesn’t know a whole lot of Japanese).

She’s very big about learning to love yourself and be who you are and breaking some ideals and expectations, much like Hyejin.

☀ Yongsun:

Yongsun is also very energetic and bubbly, like Wheein. She’s really a very bright and cheerful person (honestly a personification of the sun, istg). Her and Wheein often radiate so much happiness. She is also very playful and a huge ball of energy. She can be pretty noisy and loud.

Like Wheein, but even more so, she will do crazy/weird things without really a care, but usually until the others tease her for it.

She tries to tune down her energy levels at times since she is the oldest and the leader.

She’s quite gullible, so she is often bullied by the others. Byulyi calls her “Yeba” because of this - yeba is a combination of the words ‘pretty’ and ‘foolish.’

She’s also easily startled and scared. She can be pretty stubborn, especially with Byulyi.

Although she is energetic and playful, she can be ‘motherly’: making sure everyone is okay, checking up on them, and being there to do anything if something is wrong. She tries to make everyone feel better if they aren’t 100%. She will even embarrass herself for the sake of possibly making the other’s being happy to any extent. If she can get even a little smile from one of them, she will happily do it.

Kind of on the same note, she regrets some of the times she was very strict as a leader. Times where she yelled at the other members for things, she feels very regretful over and has cried about it. She worries and thinks a lot about how she approaches the other members now, making sure she approaches each member in a way that they feel comfortable with (e.g. she’s very blunt when it comes to Byulyi, but with Hyejin, she’s very gentle and much less direct).

She tends to be very soft with Hyejin and Wheein and let them do just about anything and anything to her, but she quickly gets irritated with Byulyi.

She has gotten pretty bold over the years. She’s really unapologetic at this point and does whatever she wants. Like Hyejin, she will often do things that knets yell about just to piss them off, like dressing certain ways or not wearing makeup. She really just doesn’t care anymore what people think and just wants to do what she wants.

Yongsun’s written a lot of songs as well, and is also really good at it. She hasn’t written as much as Byulyi, but she’s still contributed quite a bit. For example, she wrote I Love Too (or Never Letting Go in Korean), Star Wind Flower Sun, Hello (her solo), the fan song, and so on.

She’s very hardworking and determined. When she sets her mind to something, there is no stopping her. She works hard to accomplish anything and everything. Very dedicated.

Yongsun has been chasing her dream of becoming a singer, despite the world fighting against her. Her parents were very against it, and she auditioned to some 30-40 companies just to be denied, but she never gave up. She wanted to become a singer, so she never let go of that dream.

🐶 All of them:

They are called ‘beagles’ because of their high levels of energy, especially when all places together.

All of them are hella shy (even painfully so) with strangers but very bubbly with people they are close to. They are all very sweet, caring, and sincere individuals. They also can be very chaotic together.

Although they all are rather playful, they all are still quite serious people. Because of how they tend to be playful and bubbly, people have thought poorly of them, not taking them seriously and thinking they can’t be/aren’t serious. It hurts them with how people act and think of them as that that is all of who they are.

When interacting with fans, all four of them are extremely loving, caring, and gentle. They care so much for everyone - all people, no matter who they are or what they believe. They once wrote, “We love and care so much for all people of every race, sexuality, religion, and gender.”

Adding to the last thing, they are all extremely accepting and inclusive. They are all very open minded and willing to learn from their mistakes.

They all adore their fans with their whole entire beings. So much so that it can be too much at times. 

I mentioned it a bit individually, but all of them are really unapologetic when it comes to who they are. They are who they are and don’t want to be anything else. They don’t like to pretend to be someone else. 

The company has given them quite a bit of freedom as artists and they use that to their advantage. They thrive and put 110% of themselves into it. They show who they are and what they love through their music.

The freedom has allowed them to shine. They got to where they are now because of who they are and their talents, and not because of their company. The fact that they were able to rise from some backwater company to being one of the biggest girl groups in the country, them doing everything on their own and shining only by their talents and love for music, is an absolutely incredible thing. It speaks volumes on who they truly are.

They all thrive on stage and love every minute of it.

It’s weird, they are all so very similar but at the same time so unique and shine individually.

Together they make such a good, strong team. They are always there for each other, hyping each other, taking care of each other, etc. They love each other so much. They are honestly just such a deeply loving, close-knit family.

Of course none of them are always super energetic or serious. What I wrote I really is more of how they act while on camera and what they show to the world.

[llzehs]

Roman Reigns is such a good role model man. The guy has always handled himself with such class, used his public platforms to built his brand, done everything in his power to spread positivity when he has had to endure so much being in this business. No wonder he was built as the face of the WWE. He knew how to handle the position, and he knew how to handle the pressure. WWE performers/wrestlers should learn from him a thing or two bout handling things with class when you are in public spotlight.

I am not saying irrational hate isn’t annoying and these performers are human too, but there are some superstars who just love acting like fools on social media and then backtrack by playing victims. Casual fans who don’t follow them everywhere jump on the bandwagon to defend their favorites without doing any research, and if someone call a superstar out for being ignorant/genuinely criticize their work people love telling them how they are a hater. I know its a trend around to be a blind mark nowadays, but there are still people who like to call out their favorites when they fuck up. They are humans, immune to make mistakes and shouldn’t be excused only because they are superstars. Also they are performers in a public eye who are gonna get judged for their work based on their performance. These WWE performers should do better than engaging themselves in petty wars with fans and be above the irrelevant hate and instead focus on improving their craft. Sometimes they are in the right, but I have seen plenty of times when they are being utter assholes towards someone with a genuine point and unintentionally promote bullying someone for having an opinion over a public art of performance. Using the platform of being famous should be used to promote positive attitude. There are always gonna be haters and idiots, we should teach and show people its possible to be above it all and do what you are built to do. 

Oh, and another prime example of a good role model, Jon Moxley. A perfect case of doing his thing, focusing on his growth as a performer and human being and polishing himself rather than being an arrogant asshole who thinks he’s untouchable. He’s got haters, he was called so many things but he got out of his situation and focused on becoming what he wanted to be. Even now there are people shitting on him left and right but what does he do? Focus on himself and being on the top of the world. When you look back and see how he started, you see nothing but growth and a man becoming a legit hero for people who don’t fit in.