#one of these pics is from 2012 and one is from last year

[regardingjenmish]

Mark Sheppard does not carry around a 13 year old photo of him kissing Jim Beaver for y’all to forget about his little gay character

[gurenkurosen]

some of that old art i said i was gonna post. these ones are of Sylphia, an old character i dont do much with anymore (not that i do much with any of them, to be fair...)

[britishchick09]

a new pic of senpai from facebook! ;D

[srldesigns6277]

.

[antiporn-activist]

A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/instagram-child-influencers.html

Seeking social media stardom for their underage daughters, mothers post images of them on Instagram. The accounts draw men sexually attracted to children, and they sometimes pay to see more.

Feb. 22, 2024

By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller

The ominous messages began arriving in Elissa’s inbox early last year.

“You sell pics of your underage daughter to pedophiles,” read one. “You’re such a naughty sick mom, you’re just as sick as us pedophiles,” read another. “I will make your life hell for you and your daughter.”

Elissa has been running her daughter’s Instagram account since 2020, when the girl was 11 and too young to have her own. Photos show a bright, bubbly girl modeling evening dresses, high-end workout gear and dance leotards. She has more than 100,000 followers, some so enthusiastic about her posts that they pay $9.99 a month for more photos.

Over the years, Elissa has fielded all kinds of criticism and knows full well that some people think she is exploiting her daughter. She has even gotten used to receiving creepy messages, but these — from “Instamodelfan” — were extreme. “I think they’re all pedophiles,” she said of the many online followers obsessed with her daughter and other young girls.

Elissa and her daughter inhabit the world of Instagram influencers whose accounts are managed by their parents. Although the site prohibits children under 13, parents can open so-called mom-run accounts for them, and they can live on even when the girls become teenagers.

But what often starts as a parent’s effort to jump-start a child’s modeling career, or win favors from clothing brands, can quickly descend into a dark underworld dominated by adult men, many of whom openly admit on other platforms to being sexually attracted to children, an investigation by The New York Times found. 

For this investigation, the reporters analyzed 2.1 million Instagram posts, monitored months of online chats of professed pedophiles and interviewed over 100 people, including parents and children.

Thousands of accounts examined by The Times offer disturbing insights into how social media is reshaping childhood, especially for girls, with direct parental encouragement and involvement. Some parents are the driving force behind the sale of photos, exclusive chat sessions and even the girls’ worn leotards and cheer outfits to mostly unknown followers. The most devoted customers spend thousands of dollars nurturing the underage relationships.

The large audiences boosted by men can benefit the families, The Times found. The bigger followings look impressive to brands and bolster chances of getting discounts, products and other financial incentives, and the accounts themselves are rewarded by Instagram’s algorithm with greater visibility on the platform, which in turn attracts more followers.

One calculation performed by an audience demographics firm found 32 million connections to male followers among the 5,000 accounts examined by The Times.

Interacting with the men opens the door to abuse. Some flatter, bully and blackmail girls and their parents to get racier and racier images. The Times monitored separate exchanges on Telegram, the messaging app, where men openly fantasize about sexually abusing the children they follow on Instagram and extol the platform for making the images so readily available.

“It’s like a candy store 😍😍😍,” one of them wrote. “God bless instamoms 🙌,” wrote another.

The troubling interactions on Instagram come as social media companies increasingly dominate the cultural landscape and the internet is seen as a career path of its own.

Nearly one in three preteens lists influencing as a career goal, and 11 percent of those born in Generation Z, between 1997 and 2012, describe themselves as influencers. The so-called creator economy surpasses $250 billion worldwide, according to Goldman Sachs, with U.S. brands spending more than $5 billion a year on influencers.

Health and technology experts have recently cautioned that social media presents a “profound risk of harm” for girls. Constant comparisons to their peers and face-altering filters are driving negative feelings of self-worth and promoting objectification of their bodies, researchers found.

But the pursuit of online fame, particularly through Instagram, has supercharged the often toxic phenomenon, The Times found, encouraging parents to commodify their children’s images. Some of the child influencers earn six-figure incomes, according to interviews.

“I really don’t want my child exploited on the internet,” said Kaelyn, a mother in Melbourne, Australia, who like Elissa and many other parents interviewed by The Times agreed to be identified only by a middle name to protect the privacy of her child.

“But she’s been doing this so long now,” she said. “Her numbers are so big. What do we do? Just stop it and walk away?”

In investigating this growing and unregulated ecosystem, The Times analyzed 2.1 million Instagram posts, monitored months of online chats of professed pedophiles and reviewed thousands of pages of police reports and court documents.

Reporters also interviewed more than 100 people, including parents in the United States and three other countries, their children, child safety experts, tech company employees and followers of the accounts, some of whom were convicted sex offenders.

This is how The Times found its sample of 5,000 mom-run accounts.

The accounts range from dancers whose mothers diligently cull men from the ranks of followers, to girls in skimpy bikinis whose parents actively encourage male admirers and sell them special photo sets. While there are some mom-run accounts for boys, they are the exception.

Some girls on Instagram use their social media clout to get little more than clothing discounts; others receive gifts from Amazon wish lists, or money through Cash App; and still others earn thousands of dollars a month by selling subscriptions with exclusive content.

In interviews and online comments, parents said that their children enjoyed being on social media or that it was important for a future career. But some expressed misgivings. Kaelyn, whose daughter is now 17, said she worried that a childhood spent sporting bikinis online for adult men had scarred her.

“She’s written herself off and decided that the only way she’s going to have a future is to make a mint on OnlyFans,” she said, referring to a website that allows users to sell adult content to subscribers. “She has way more than that to offer.”

She warned mothers not to make their children social media influencers. “With the wisdom and knowledge I have now, if I could go back, I definitely wouldn’t do it,” she said. “I’ve been stupidly, naïvely, feeding a pack of monsters, and the regret is huge.”

Account owners who report explicit images or potential predators to Instagram are typically met with silence or indifference, and those who block many abusers have seen their own accounts’ ability to use certain features limited, according to the interviews and documents. In the course of eight months, The Times made over 50 reports of its own about questionable material and received only one response.

Meta, Instagram’s parent company, found that 500,000 child Instagram accounts had “inappropriate” interactions every day, according to an internal study in 2020 quoted in legal proceedings.

In a statement to The Times, Andy Stone, a Meta spokesman, said that parents were responsible for the accounts and their content and could delete them anytime.

“Anyone on Instagram can control who is able to tag, mention or message them, as well as who can comment on their account,” Mr. Stone added, noting a feature that allows parents to ban comments with certain words. “On top of that, we prevent accounts exhibiting potentially suspicious behavior from using our monetization tools, and we plan to limit such accounts from accessing subscription content.”

Influencers use TikTok, too, but Instagram is easier for parents to navigate and better suited to the kinds of photos that brands want. It is also home to a longstanding network of parents and brands that predated TikTok.

From time to time, Instagram removes child-influencer accounts for unspecified reasons or because people flag them as inappropriate, The Times found. In extreme cases, parents and photographers have been arrested or convicted of child exploitation, but barring evidence of illegal images, most of the activity does not draw the attention of law enforcement.

Like many parents, Elissa, who received the threatening messages about her daughter’s photos, said she protected her daughter by handling the account exclusively herself. Ultimately, she concluded, the Instagram community is dominated by “disgusting creeps,” but she nonetheless keeps the account up and running. Shutting it down, she said, would be “giving in to bullies.”

The account’s risks became apparent last spring when the person messaging her threatened to report her to the police and others unless she completed “a small task.” When she did not respond, the person emailed the girl’s school, saying Elissa sold “naughty” pictures to pedophiles.

Days later, the girl tearfully explained to her mother that school officials had questioned her about the Instagram account. They showed her images that her mother had posted — one of the girl in hot pants and fishnets, another in a leotard and sweatshirt.

Elissa had reported the blackmail to the local sheriff, but school officials only dropped the matter after an emotional interrogation of the girl.

“I was crying,” the girl said in an interview. “I was just scared. I didn’t understand what was going on.”

‘Walking Advertising’

In today’s creator economy, companies often turn to social media influencers to attract new customers. Giants like Kim Kardashian, who has 364 million followers on Instagram, have turned the phenomenon into a big business.

Young girls strive to do the same.

In the dance and gymnastics worlds, teens and preteens jockey to become brand ambassadors for products and apparel. They don bikinis in Instagram posts, walk runways in youth fashion shows and offer paid subscriptions to videos showing the everyday goings-on of children seeking internet fame.

“We costumed somebody for ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ thinking that would be huge P.R., but we ended up finding out the bigger return on investment is these microinfluencers,” she said. “We have parents that will spend thousands of dollars to buy styles that no one else will have. That’s our best market.”

The most successful girls can demand $3,000 from their sponsors for a single post on Instagram, but monetary gain can be elusive for others, who receive free or discounted clothes in exchange for their posts and have to pay for their own hairstyling and makeup, among other costs. Even youth fashion shows, including events in New York that coincide but are not affiliated with New York Fashion Week, charge the girls to participate and charge their parents to attend.

In interviews, parents defended spending the money to promote their daughters’ influencer ambitions, describing them as extracurricular activities that build confidence, develop friendships and create social media résumés that will follow them into adulthood.

“It’s like a little security blanket,” said a New Jersey mother whose mom-run account has led to paid modeling jobs for her daughter and invitations to work with sought-after choreographers. “She can help pay for college if she does it right,” she said.

A mother in Alabama said parents couldn’t ignore the reality of this new economy.

“Social media is the way of our future, and I feel like they’ll be behind if they don’t know what’s going on,” the mother said. “You can’t do anything without it now.”

One 12-year-old girl in Maryland, who spoke with The Times alongside her mother, described the thrill of seeing other girls she knows wear a brand she represents in Instagram posts.

“People are actually being influenced by me,” she said.

In 2022, Instagram launched paid subscriptions, which allows followers to pay a monthly fee for exclusive content and access. The rules don’t allow subscriptions for anyone under 18, but the mom-run accounts sidestep that restriction. The Times found dozens that charged from 99 cents to $19.99. At the highest price, parents offered “ask me anything” chat sessions and behind-the-scenes photos.

Child safety experts warn the subscriptions and other features could lead to unhealthy interactions, with men believing they have a special connection to the girls and the girls believing they must meet the men’s needs.

“I have reservations about a child feeling like they have to satisfy either adults in their orbit or strangers who are asking something from them,” said Sally Theran, a professor at Wellesley College and clinical psychologist who studies online relationships. “It’s really hard to give consent to that when your frontal lobe isn’t fully developed.”

Instagram isn’t alone in the subscription business. Some parents promote other platforms on their mom-run accounts. One of them, Brand Army, caters to adult influencers but also has “junior channel” parent-run subscriptions ranging from free to $250 monthly.

“Message me anytime. You will have more opportunities for buying and receiving super exclusive content😘,” read a description for a $25 subscription to a minor’s account. For $100 a month, subscribers can get “live interactive video chats,” unlimited direct messages and a mention on the girl’s Instagram story.

The Times subscribed to several accounts to glean what content is being offered and how much money is being made. On one account, 141 subscribers liked a photo only available to those who paid $100 monthly, indicating over $14,000 in subscription revenue.

Some of the descriptions also highlight the revealing nature of photos. One account for a child around 14 years old encouraged new sign-ups at the end of last year by branding the days between Christmas and New Year’s as “Bikini Week.” An account for a 17-year-old girl advertised that she wasn’t wearing underwear in a workout photo set and, as a result, the images were “uh … a lot spicier than usual.”

The girl’s “Elite VIP” subscription costs $250 a month.

Brand Army’s founder, Ramon Mendez, said that junior-channel users were a minority on his platform and that moderating their pages had grown so problematic that he discontinued new sign-ups.

“We’ve removed thousands of pieces of content,” he said. “The parents’ behavior is just disgusting. We don’t want to be part of it.”

‘The Wealth of the Wicked’

“You are so sexy,” read one comment on an image of a 5-year-old girl in a ruffled bikini. “Those two little things look great thru ur top,” said another on a video of a girl dancing in a white cropped shirt, who months later posted pictures of her 11th birthday party.

For many mom-run accounts, comments from men — admiring, suggestive or explicit — are a recurring scourge to be eradicated, or an inescapable fact of life to be ignored. For others, they are a source to be tapped.

“The first thing I do when I wake up and the last thing I do when I go to bed is block accounts,” said Lynn, the mother of a 6-year-old girl in Florida who has about 3,000 followers from the dance world.

Another mother, Gail from Texas, described being desensitized to the men’s messages. “I don’t have as much of an emotional response anymore,” she said. “It’s weird to be so numb to that, but the quantity is just astounding.”

Meta does not provide public information about who uses Instagram, so The Times analyzed data from the audience firms Modash and HypeAuditor, which estimate follower demographics based on their own algorithms.

The proportion of male followers varied greatly in The Times’s sample, according to the estimates. Many accounts had a few thousand followers who were mostly female. But while men accounted for about 35 percent of the audience overall, their presence grew dramatically as accounts became more popular. Many with more than 100,000 followers had a male audience of over 75 percent, and a few of them over 90 percent, the analysis showed.

To be sure, not all men following the accounts have bad intentions. Some are grandparents and fathers of the young influencers. Many have inoffensive profiles and simply post compliments or greetings, and mothers react appreciatively.

“In responding or even hitting ‘like’ on it, it boosts your algorithm,” said a mother in Florida whose 16-year-old daughter has been an Instagram influencer for six years. “We tried shutting comments off at one point, and some of the brands didn’t like that.”

Brands that feature children from mom-run accounts face similar challenges.

Dean Stockton, who runs a small clothing company in Florida called Original Hippie, often features girls from the Instagram accounts, who earn a commission when customers use personalized discount codes. After initially deleting many male followers, he now sees them as a way to grow the account and give it a wider audience because the platform rewards large followings.

“The Bible says, ‘The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous,’” he said. “So sometimes you got to use the things of this world to get you to where you need to be, as long as it’s not harming anybody.”

Mr. Stockton said he deleted male followers who were disrespectful or sexual in their interactions. An examination by The Times of the three dozen brands that are popular among mom-run accounts found inappropriate, predatory or pornographic followers in almost all of the brands’ accounts, including Original Hippie.

Many of the men posted pornography, or their bios included sexual language and emojis that child protection experts say pedophiles can use to signal interest in children. For instance, one follower of a children’s dance wear brand described himself as a “thong & anl sx lover.” A user named “sexy_69nazi” followed a children’s apparel company and exclusively posted pornography.

Chixit, a brand selling swimwear and other clothing, describes itself as “an International Sorority,” but business records show that it was run by Philip Russo, who advertised himself as a tutor operating out of his home in the Hudson Valley of New York. Other websites registered to Mr. Russo’s email are a tutoring business and inactive domain names describing sex with animals.

After The Times reached out to Mr. Russo, the website for his tutoring business went offline. He did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment.

‘Girls Become a Currency’

The vast world of child-influencer followers on Instagram includes men who have been charged with or convicted of sex crimes, and those who engage in forums off platform where child sexual abuse imagery, including of girls on Instagram, is shared.

The Times traced the account of one follower, who goes by the moniker “jizzquizz,” to a man named Joshua V. Rubel, 39. He was convicted in 2008 of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl and is listed on the New Jersey sex offender registry. (Instagram’s policy bars sex offenders from using the platform, and the company said it removed two accounts after The Times pointed them out.)

Another account belongs to Daniel Duane Huver, a man in Lansing, Mich., who told law enforcement in 2018 that he had “top fan status” on girls’ pages, a designation bestowed by Instagram’s sister company, Facebook. The police searched Mr. Huver’s cellphone after it was confiscated by his probation officer and found hundreds of images and videos of children, including many considered inappropriate and sexually suggestive and two believed to be illegal (showing minors engaged in explicit acts.)

Mr. Huver told officers he was sexually attracted to children and masturbated to images of them, according to police records. He was charged with possession of child sexual abuse material, but the prosecutor in Eaton County later dropped charges, citing insufficient evidence because of the poor quality of the imagery.

Mr. Rubel did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Huver said that the police mischaracterized his words and that the lack of prosecution was evidence he had done nothing wrong.

In monitoring multiple Telegram chat rooms, The Times found men who treat children’s Instagram pages and subscription services as menus to satisfy their fantasies. They trade information about parents considered receptive to producing and selling “private sets” of images.

A group with more than 4,000 members was highly organized, with an F.A.Q. page and a Google sheet that tracked nearly 700 children, identifying them by hashtags to help members find them within the long chat history. The group’s logo showed a child’s hand in an adult hand.

The Times asked the Canadian Center for Child Protection, an organization that monitors online child exploitation, to review links and other potentially illegal material posted by the Telegram groups and elsewhere. The center identified child sexual abuse imagery involving multiple underage Instagram models from around the world, as well as sexualized videos of others, including a preteen girl wearing a thong and a young teenager raising her dress to show her bikini bottom.

Men in these groups frequently praise the advent of Instagram as a golden age for child exploitation.

“I’m so glad for these new moms pimping their daughters out,” wrote one of them. “And there’s an infinite supply of it — literally just refresh your Instagram Explore page there’s fresh preteens.”

A small group of men go even further and cultivate business and patronage relationships with mothers.

One man posts videos and photos on Instagram of girls thanking him for shopping sprees, gifts like iPhones and iPads, and cash. If he does not receive a message of gratitude quickly, he sometimes shames the mother and daughter on his private Instagram account.

Another makes recommendations about increasing visibility by using specific hashtags and photographers. But two mothers said they became suspicious, and stopped working with the man, after he suggested they make certain their daughters’ nipples and other private areas could be detected through their outfits.

A third man tried to persuade a mother to sell her daughter’s used leotards because many men, including himself, were “collectors,” according to a recording of the conversation.

“In retrospect I feel like such a stupid mom, but I’m not stupid,” said a mother of a young gymnast, who dealt with similar men before she realized they were predators and received threatening messages from several of them. “I didn’t understand what grooming was.”

Sometimes the men flirt or try to develop virtual romances with mothers, offer to protect them and become possessive and angry if they interact with other men.

“It’s almost like the girls become a currency,” said the gymnast’s mother, who did not want to be named.

This feeling of ownership and jealousy can drive attempts at blackmail, The Times found.

Instamodelfan, who sent threatening messages to Elissa, sent blackmail threats to at least five other mom-run accounts. When one mother responded, he demanded that she sexually abuse her child and send him photos and videos, emails to the mother show. She refused and contacted law enforcement.

The Times communicated with a person identified on Telegram as Instamodelfan who said that he lashed out at the mothers because he believed other men got illegal images of children and he wanted them for himself.

Reporters also received information from an anonymous tipster, who they later found was linked to the blackmailer, indicating that some parents had produced explicit imagery of their daughters.

The Canadian center reviewed the imagery and said it included illegal nude photos of two girls. One girl’s mother said she was shaken to learn of the photos and did not know who could have made them. The other girl, now 17, said in an interview that the photos were for her and a girlfriend and that she told law enforcement that they had been stolen.

Others images either were borderline illegal, were too poor quality to be conclusive or were digitally altered, the center said.

Several mothers who had been identified by the tipster said they reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, they said, had conducted an investigation. The F.B.I. declined to comment.

Ultimately, the gymnast’s mother said, a federal agent told them to stop talking to men online.

“They told everyone to get off Instagram,” she said. “‘You’re in over your head. Get off.’ That’s what they told us.”

‘My Limit of Pedophiles’

Meta failed to act on multiple reports made by parents and even restricted those who tried to police their own followers, according to interviews and materials provided by the parents.

If parents block too many followers’ accounts in a day, Meta curtails their ability to block or follow others, they said.

“I remember being told, like, I’ve reached my limit,” said a mother of two dancers in Arizona who declined to be named. “Like what? I reached my limit of pedophiles for today. OK, great.”

Mr. Stone, the Meta spokesman, said “there are lots of reasons an account might face limitations or restrictions based the account’s activity,” and therefore it was difficult to know why parents encountered these problems.

Ms. Pastore of LA Dance Designs said it was “very much overdue” for Instagram to add the ability to filter by age and sex to help identify suspicious followers. “If you’re starting to gain a following, there needs to be some sort of way to control it,” she said.

Even some egregious violations led to no action by Meta.

One parent reported a photo of erect male genitalia sent in a direct message. Another reported an account that reposted children’s photos with explicit captions. A third reported a user who propositioned her child for sex, offering $65,000 for “an hour” with the girl.

In response to those three reports, Meta said either that the communications did not violate “community guidelines” or that its staff did not have time to review them. In other cases, Meta told parents that it relied on its “technology” to determine the content was “probably” not a violation.

Separately, The Times found comments that included links to sites identified by the Canadian center as trading illegal, nude imagery of children. None of those reports received a response from Meta.

Former Meta trust and safety employees described an organization overwhelmed despite knowing about the problem for years.

“You hear, ‘I reported this account, it was harassing my daughter, why is he back?’” said a former investigator for the company who requested anonymity. “There are not enough people, resources and systems to tackle all of it.”

In recent years, conspiracy theories like QAnon, which claims Democratic politicians are trafficking children, have led to an excess of unfounded reports that have muddled the evaluation of child abuse tips, three former Meta trust and safety employees said.

A 2020 document that surfaced in a lawsuit described child safety as a “non-goal” at Meta. “If we do something here, cool,” the document said. “But if we do nothing at all, that’s fine too.” The lawsuit was brought against Meta and other companies claiming damage from using social media. Lawyers for the plaintiffs declined to provide more information about the document.

In documents from 2018 included in a separate lawsuit making similar claims of harm, a top Facebook executive told Instagram’s chief executive that unless changes were made, Facebook and Instagram were “basically massive ‘victim discovery services,’” an allusion to the considerable evidence of abuse on the platforms.

Mr. Stone, the Meta spokesman, disputed the suggestion that the trust team was understaffed and underfunded, saying that 40,000 employees worked on safety and security and that the company had invested $20 billion in such efforts since 2016. He also referred to a previous statement about the lawsuits, saying they “mischaracterize our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”

In addition, he noted that Meta reported more suspected child abuse imagery to the authorities than any other company each year. In December, it announced plans to encrypt its messaging services, which would reduce the reports.

‘It’s All Over Instagram’

Experts in child protection and development say young people should never be made to have negative feelings about their bodies. But clothing that is appropriate in a gym or dance competition may take on an unintended meaning when shared online.

Children’s dance attire regularly features strappy bra tops, sheer fabric and bikini bottoms, and popular cheer outfits combine sports bras with little skirts — part of a long-term trend toward more revealing clothing for girls.

“In the dance world we’re in, they’re half naked all the time and their legs are in the air,” said a mother in Massachusetts who declined to be named. “And if you’re not used to seeing that, maybe it’s different.”

Lynn, whose granddaughter in Texas is an ambassador for a cheerleading brand, said there was no logic to the reactions her posts received. Photos of the girl’s feet attract the most extreme comments, she said. “You can’t stop weird people, I guess.”

Still, many of the would-be influencers suffer. In some instances criticism of the posts, and accompanying bullying, becomes so severe that mothers turn to home-schooling.

“She got slaughtered all through primary school,” said Kaelyn, the mother in Melbourne. “Children were telling her, ‘We can’t play with you because my mom said too many perverts follow you on the internet.’”

In the United States, parents have substantial leeway in making decisions about their children. But people who suspect illegal behavior on Instagram quickly discover that the authorities are overwhelmed and typically focus on the clearest-cut cases.

Even the most unsettling images of sexualized child influencers tend to fall into a legal gray area. To meet the federal definition of so-called child pornography, the law generally requires a “lascivious exhibition” of the anal or genital area, though courts have found the requirement can be met without nudity or sheer clothing.

There have been criminal prosecutions against parents accused in child sexual abuse cases.

In Louisiana last year, a mother was arrested and charged with working with a photographer to produce illegal images of her daughter in a thong bikini. In Texas, a mother was sentenced to 32 years in prison in December for producing nude photos of her 8-year-old daughter with the same photographer. And in North Carolina, a mother is awaiting trial on charges that she took her 15-year-old daughter to a photographer who sexually abused her and she failed to get medical help when the girl tried to kill herself, according to court documents.

Still, those prosecutions are rare, and some male followers of the mom-run accounts openly welcome the windfall.

“As long as this stuff legally exists, I just enjoy it :),” one of them wrote on Telegram.

“Exactly,” another responded. “It’s all over Instagram.”

[chiarrara]

the authentic 2011 indie kid playlist

"real 2011 pandora radio recreation: the songs that always played on my hypercurated matt and kim radio, is this it radio, and pumped up kicks radio a.k.a. the authentic 2009-2012 indie kid playlist (ft. my actual authentic 2011 facebook profile pic)"

including full liner notes (typed out below the cut for readability):

- for @justrustandstardust <3

Daylight - Matt and Kim: one of the most iconic songs of my teenage years. I feel like me and Michael based our life off this song. Matt and Kim is one of the bases for the radio stations I picked for this playlist (the ones I listened to constantly). There will be more Matt and Kim on this playlist, but not enough. You really should listen to this whole album (this will not be the last time I say this)

Kids - MGMT: everyone knows electric feel. I picked the underrated classics I was obsessed with after I loved electric feel

Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros: a staple. so silly, but so iconic

Midnight City - M83: the first of the songs that I only listened to on Pandora & never learned the names/artists. also, became car commercial songs. banger

Is This It - The Strokes: you simply must listen to this album. half of it is on the playlist, but still you must. This album is the second base of a radio station.

Automatic Stop - The Strokes: listen, there's gonna be a lot of Strokes on this playlist. I fell in love with them listening to this radio station.

Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second - STRFKR: the second of the Pandora exclusives. why is it named that? so iconin

Float On - Modest Mouse: as classic as classics get

Hard to Explain - The Strokes: I found this album at the library and picked it up based on the album art alone. this was back when I got all my music from the library & burned cds onto my computer to make mix cds, listen in windows media player, or upload to my ipod nano

Flourescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys: we're in the pre "AM" era! their back catalog is so fucking good, and this is one of the best examples of that. I love this song

Soma - The Strokes: it's gonna be a lot of Strokes. trust me, it's authentic to the experience

Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand: ICONIC BANGER.

Breezeblocks - alt-J: (so groovy) another Pandora exclusive. mainstay on the channel. like these songs would play every 30 mins & I loved it

Song For No One - Miike Snow: ah! Miike Snow my beloved! never listened outside of Pandora for some reason but SO iconic. they were so popular

Loud Pipes - Ratatat: the beat just gets into your body with these ones

Shut Up and Let Me Go - The Ting Tings: Icons! defined the era. watch the music video.

1901 - Phoenix: we played this and the next Phoenix song so. fucking. much. goin hey hey hey hey hey hey hey!

40 Day Dream - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros: when you thought of indie, this is what you thought of

Skinny Love - Bon Iver: jk jk this is what you thought of. This was hipster before it got picked up by Hot Topic

Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare - Matt and Kim: full volume, windows down, 100 mph screaming <3 (I love this song sm)

Intro - The xx: another Pandora exclusive car commercial song but listen, I was obsessed. hearing these songs again is like waking up dormant genes

Lisztomainia - Phoenix: this song and 1901 are a bonded pair. do not separate.

Lessons Learned - Matt and Kim: it was so impossible to pick from this album it's all so good. let it turn your love into a coming of age movie

Sleeping Lessons - The Shins: The SHINS bro THE SHINS. every indie movie had the Shins on their soundtrack. They're so good.

Here (In Your Arms) - Hellogoodbye: listen I didn't want to pick their most popular song but it's so definitive I had to. I saw them live like 4 times. This album is so important to me. All my love songs for my 13 yr old relationship came from this album

Crystalised - The xx: not a listening session would go by that I wouldn't hear this song

All My Friends - LCD Sound System: he's so good

Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend: THIS ALBUM IS SUMMER 2011. it was one of 2 or 3 go to CDs in my first car. I listened to it over and over and over again. it always brings me back to my ugly brown 2001 Chevy Malibu outside Michael's house, or driving down to the lake. I seriously couldn't pick songs from this album it's all one big song to me. formative. what else can i say.

Time to Pretend - MGMT: I'm feeling rough I'm feeling wrong in the time of my life. underrated classic

Cough Syrup - Young the Giant: a late addition but I know every word

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear: THE Pandora radio song. I would listen just to hear this song eventually

We Used to Vacation - Cold War Kids: One of my favorite bands ever. Their first two albums were on repeat. This song is my favorite. It just rips something out of me

Rhinemaidens - The Envy Corps: The Envy Corps have made their entrance! I've seen them more than Hellogoodbye. The epitomal hipsters. and some of the best music of all time. They're absolutely foundational. (listen to the album!)

Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People: The third and final base for a radio station is this song. That's how much I listened to it. One of those songs that just got into my bones. Forever favorite song it never gets old. also, listen to the album. so good

Animal - Miike Snow: the Miike Snow song. One of the first songs I ever discovered on Pandora <3

Young Folks - Peter Bjorn and John: iconic. I don't know what to say

The High Road - Broken Bells: Michael was on the hs radio station senior year & he played this whole EP straight one day

Call It What You Want - Foster the People: BANGER ("what's your style and who do you listen to" WHO CARES <3)

Walking On A Dream - Empire Of The Sun: I did not know the name of this song or the band or even recognize the cover art but I know this song. They put them in car commercials because they're good

What You Know - Two Door Cinema Club: this and the other two door cinema club song came up all the time. bops.

A-Punk - Vampire Weekend: (ay! ay! ay! ay!) most iconic riff of all time! can't understand a damn word but I was screaming them anyway (100mph)

Rill Rill - Sleigh Bells: (Pandora Exclusive!) iconic! can't help but groove to this song. the mood of this song is so representative of this lane of music

Something Good Can Work - Two Door Cinema Club: the opening to this song gets me so hype! I know you'll like this song

Dragon Queen - Yeah Yeah Yeahs: you know Heads Will Roll but did you know this underrated banger? they're awesome, their other songs should get more attention

Don't Slow Down - Matt and Kim: 100mph dancing like a maniac lol look I should not have been allowed behind the wheel of a car. Don't slow down (listen to the album!)

All I Want - LCD Sound System: he's just really good idk

That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings: we were obsessed with them. this song was everywhere

Story Problem - The Envy Corps: for the longest time I didn't know any names to Envy Corps songs because I mostly listened to them live, on a mix cd, or someone else was playing them. so i always got surprised by each song like, oh! I love this one! to be honest I still don't know the titles lol but every song is so damn iconic. at the concerts they would split the audience in half and have half of us do the "dada dada dadada da da da" part and the other half do the "oooooh wa oh wa oh" so you were singing your part throught the end of the song while they played. it was so magical <3

All Time Lows - Hellogoodbye: underrated banger. this album is like the definitive electronic indie sound of the mid-aughts

Somebody Told Me - The Killers: incredible song, incredible band. mainstay. they're so much more than Mr. Brightside

(starting the list over bc of tumblr's character limits. add 50)

Reptilia - The Strokes

Someday - The Strokes

Under Cover of Darkness - The Strokes: listen, this is accurate to how often they would play on that station. just Strokes back to back. and I loved it. their discography is just that deep. they don't miss.

Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes: had to get some Whte Stripes in here. had to.

New Slang - The Shins: this song and Caring Is Creepy just, so iconic. they're so good

The World At Large - Modest Mouse: gonna float on maybe would you understand. ah ah ah ah ah ah aah (dashboard by modest mouse should also be on here but i couldn't find a spot for it :( played all the time) my thoughts were so loud I couldn't hear my mouth <3<3<3

Black Balloon - The Kills: does anyone remember the kills? I wanted to be them so bad. this was the era of iconic indie duos (ting tings, matt & kim, white stripes, she & him...)

When Did Your Heart Go Missing - Rooney: one hit wonders, my beloved

I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You - Black Kids: I'm convinced no one listened to this song but us. that's not true, and thank god cuase it's such a bop but we felt like we were in on a secret or something. the true 2010 hipster experience lol

Kid Gloves - The Envy Corps: I would literally put this song on a t work and walk around like I was a manic pixie dream girl in an indie movie. unironically amazing song tho (listen to the ep)

Henrietta - The Fratellis: there should have been four more of their songs on here. broke my heart to cut them

Phantom Limb - The Shins: I don't think I've said listen to the album on this one yet. the way this song just vibrates in you

Naive - The Kooks: another underrepresented band. She Moves In Her Own Way, Ooh La, Seaside!? all staples. I mean... if you need another album to listen to... im just sayin

Finer Feelings - Spoon: a bop. fun song <3

Mardy Bum - Arctic Monkeys: this was my first Arctic Monkeys song <3<3<3 forever. the coda is everything. god I love this song

Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine: listen, the original song by The Postal Service is so so so good and we listened to it just as much as this cover. this cover had us in a chokehold. go listen to the original tho. and the whole Postal Service album I promise it's so fundamental

Janglin - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros: the last of the three iconic ES&TMZs songs. This is like the progenitor of Stomp Clap corporate indie. everyone wanted to be them

Tighten Up - The Black Keys: the opening base notes on this song make me go feral. there should be way more Black Keys on here but if you have to pick one this is an easy choice.

Last Nite - The Strokes: the most iconic Strokes song. try not to scraem the first words. you can't. Last Night!

Australia - The Shins: time to put ear covers on! just makes me smile :)

All These Things That I've Done - The Killers: got us screaming "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" (are we human or are we dancers is also the killers. icons of the era)

Two Weeks In Hawaii - Hellogoodbye: I felt so bad when your mom caught us eating ice cream in your room at three in the morning. the best parts of my adolescence consolidated in this incredible song. the first of this type of album closing song to deeply affect me (followed by only in dreams by weezer in college). coming back to this album was part of me coming out of my depression last summer. my inner child just lives here, and I love her so much <3

A Certain Romance - Artctic Monkeys: I don't know, this song just gives me warm feelings. I know every shape of this song. I'm pretty sure it's about how America is a cultural wasteland lol. over there there's friends of mine, what can I say I've known em for a long long time, and it might over step the line, but you just cannot get angry in the same way, no not in the same way.

Daylight Outro (Remix) - Matt and Kim: back where we started. thx for listening <3

[trixieeatingpinecones]

Back after 11 years

Hey check it out, we're back. Most importantly, I fixed the embedded Browser Trixie. If anyone sees something malfunctioning on here, let me know.

I've got 3 submissions going back to 2012, and I've seen some other new Trixcone pics here and there in the last decade.

There also seem to be some pictures lost to time, unfortunately.

The one from the last post seems to no longer exist and is from a blog that I can't track down any info about. If anyone can even point me to the artist, it would be nice to try to track them down. Usually I save local backups, but I think I forgot to archive some of these blog ones.

One of the submitted posts links here http://ask-twilight-and-trixie.tumblr.com/post/17433781144. This artist seems to have scrubbed their pony content from the internet, but if this pic still exists somewhere I'd love to have it documented. I've tracked them down and might ask them at some point, but I wouldn't want anyone else to bother them about it.

A couple of the posts on this blog were auto-detected by Tumblr as NSFW. I've posted submissions from a wide range of crude/lewd/fetish, but I don't think anything I've posted here was ever raunchy enough to get taken down. I've appealed the ones I've found, but don't really wanna scour through every post on my backend to see which ones show the flag.

Anyway, submissions should still be open, so toss up a pic, ask your artist friends, draw something yourself, and I'll do everything I can to sufficiently credit the artists and link back to whatever URLs they would like to highlight.

Meanwhile, I might scrape through Derpibooru and post some of the stuff that's shown up there since my hiatus.

she hungers

[httpsyoungho]

when i first heard ‘what makes you beautiful’ for the first time all the way back in 2012, my 9-10 year old self was hooked. from that day on i was like a super fan of one direction. i remember getting ‘up all night’ for my birthday that same year, binge watching the video diaries they made during their x-factor days, watching anything and everything pertaining to those boys. i saved up allowance money to buy ‘take me home’, bought the unofficial books from book fairs at school, posters, shirts, drinking cups, etc. anything that had them on it, i was begging my mom to buy it. i remember getting our moment for christmas and it was the first real perfume that i’ve ever gotten. over the years, more and more memorabilia entered my little collection some of which i still own and hold near and dear to my heart today like those perfume bottles and my tickets to the ‘this is us’ movie. my bedroom had handmade art of liam and zayn’s tattoos, quotes they’ve said, lyrics, photos of the boys that i would use up all my mom’s printer ink to print, etc. i ran three separate fan accounts; one on instagram, one on tumblr and one on twitter. it was a full time job posting about them. i was a big niall and louis girl, my profile pics were always flower crown edits of them, my bios were either lyric quotes or just something they’ve said in interviews, etc.

i was never the girl that got to see them perform live but it was something that even as a little girl i wished for, every tour they announced, i wished that i’d win a radio contest, sweepstakes or just get tickets by some stroke of luck.

to say that the members of one direction meant and still mean so much to me is an understatement. i grew up with them, they sort of raised me. i remember crying when zayn left in 2015. i was unfortunately apart of that large bit of directioners that had twitter beef with naughty boy. i remember being there when it was announced louis was going to be a dad and the whole “conchobar” name incident. i remember exactly where i was when i read the hiatus news that eventually became a disbandment. the tears of shed for these 5 lads was insane.

so when i found out that liam had passed away i was and still am distraught. i never knew him personally, never met him, never had any interaction with the guy except when he replied to a question of mine on a tiktok live i believe it was. i have cried on and off for the past two days. it’s difficult to listen or even look at anything pertaining to one direction without feeling such an overwhelming amount of sadness. i’ve had old mutuals that have reactivated their fan accounts reach out and we’ve just cried about this together. i understand that the man he became wasn’t ideal and that he greatly needed help but he still meant so much to me and other people. he was bombarded with hate in the last moments of his life and i just wished he knew that he was loved and people will always have love for him.

i always thought this was something that i would have to think about until i was in my 60s. i never in my early twenties thought i’d ever hear about a member of one direction passing away.

i honestly hope that his family, friends and his son, bear, are doing okay during this time. loss is something that we don’t really expect or know how to process especially when it’s so sudden like this. everyone closest to him are definitely in my thoughts and prayers right now.

fly high, liam 🕊️

[austinslounge]

This may be a wild take but I kinda feel from last night, these two are already broken up. I think this was just a ploy to get the media off their backs about their break up. It's giving JLO and Ben Affleck. A ploy to buy some time.

I mean, how convenient that after not seeing them together for over a month and everyone speculating. Speculation that Kaia herself started with her actions. Page 6 (of all sources) says "there is no trouble in paradise" and then BAM! A paparazzi walk. Paparazzi that was called specifically by someone's PR team to make sure these two were seen together. No one else was at that show. Paul and Gracie are the new Austin and Kaia. And there were no pics of them leaving. It was Gracie's concert and nothing.

They don't look any different than they have all summer. But the fact Austin came straight from set to stand around at the concert. A concert he would never go to willingly. He only went to be seen with Kaia after the show. It's all to planned for it to not be on purpose.

I still think these two are done and a break up announcement will come in the coming months. Nothing about last night changed anyone's mind. Other then some of Austin's fans side eye him for still doing this with Kaia. Which I understand their frustration. I love Austin and I'm not going anywhere. But I can understand why people may need a small break. It is disappointing.

This may be a wild take but I kinda feel from last night, these two are already broken up. I think this was just a ploy to get the media off their backs about their break up. It's giving JLO and Ben Affleck. A ploy to buy some time.

This. ☝

I'm sorry, but Austin and Kaia aren't fooling anyone anymore. They certainly aren't fooling me. I can make excuses or suspend disbelief for a little while, but when I see a consistent pattern like I've been seeing this year, I'm sorry, but I can't ignore the fact that they haven't looked happy together in almost a year.

Nobody is buying it anymore:

Not only is it giving Ben & JLo, but it's giving Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart. Idk if anyone else out there was a huge Twi-hard like me back in the day lol, but I used to follow Rob and Kristen's relationship back then because I loved the Twilight films and I was a fan. I didn't ship them, but I just liked them as actors and followed their relationship.

Well, after the affair that Kristen had with her Snow White director (Rupert Sanders) in July 2012, she and Rob stuck it out for almost nearly a year, and even still did pap strolls together looking miserable until they finally called it quits in May of 2013.

Look at how they were still getting papped though in late April right before their breakup:

Look at the caption for the Daily mail. Sound familiar?? 😏

I'm saying all of this to say, that these celeb breakups may take longer to be official, or may take a while to get formally announced to the public.

Many times, there's always the denial of breakup rumors or several pap strolls of the couple together showing a united front before the actual breakup. Look at Ben and Jen.

I still think these two are done and a break up announcement will come in the coming months. Nothing about last night changed anyone's mind.

Oh a breakup is definitely coming. We just don't know when. But I totally agree w/you.

I love Austin and I'm not going anywhere. But I can understand why people may need a small break. It is disappointing.

I truly do love Austin too. 😩 That's the only reason why I'm even trying to understand this. It really hurts my heart that he almost seems depressed in this situationship that he has going on with Kaia rn. Even in pictures taken by locals he looks depressed with her. No excitement or joy whatsoever.

I'm not going anywhere either girl, I'm going to still stick it out with Austin, but I really do understand why some fans have chosen to check out of the fandom, or are disappointed in Austin. I get it. It's definitely frustrating. Especially when we know he can do so much better. 😔

[dawnofdiscovery]

Heya People! How are you? I'm here to recommend some Tmnt fanfics! (Mainly crossover because that's what I'm looking for the most, I don't know if I'll do this correctly)

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ Crossover 🐢

the question is violence and the answer is pizza by @shoppingcartshells

Summary :

Another one of those crossover stories, wherein the 2012 turtles are all grown up and the 2018 turtles are troubled teens determined to give them gray scales

Chapters: 32 ( not yet finished )

Tots and Interdimensional Space Portals

I don't know if the author has Tumblr but if so please tell me

Summary :

In a last-ditch effort to save his brother when faced with a possibly life-ending weapon, Leonardo threw himself in front of Michelangelo to protect him from the oncoming blast of an advanced Kraang device, not expecting to walk away from the shot unharmed. What Leo hadn’t anticipated happening was being thrown into an opening portal and sent halfway across the multiverse only to be found by four familiar but much younger turtles.

Chapters: 24 ( not yet finished )

The Last Ronin Becomes a Discord Admin by @melonpalooza

Summary :

The Last Ronin survives the fight with Oroku Hiroto. He didn't expect that. He no longer can hear his brothers, and it makes him just a little bit lonely. One day, he finds an old laptop left behind by his late brother. On it is a single messaging platform, filled to the brim with other turtles from other dimensions. They were just like his brothers, yet so different…

Why did his brother make such an invention? For what purpose did he intend for it? And why do these kids keep trying to get him to open up?

Chapters: 44 ( not yet finished )

( The Last Ronin Becomes a Discord Admin also crossovers with other fanfics )

Ghost in the Shell by @bluepeachstudios

Summary :

In one universe, 2003 Donatello disappears from his brother's lives, which leads to the Shredder's takeover and the death of the remaining turtles.

In another, 2003 Donatello appears, and spends 10 years trying to find a way home. Then he sees something he can't imagine; an alternate version of him, Splinter, and his brothers, seeking shelter in the sewers.

Chapters: 31 ( concluded )

( Ghost in the Shell also crossovers with other fanfics )

Double Rainbow (Beyond Space and Time) by @alicat54c @bluepeachstudios

Summary :

When Ultimate Draco sends the turtles across time and space, Splinter meets four little turtles and decides to take them home with him. The boys are delighted by their new little sisters.

Tmnt 2003 xover with Empathy is Learned

Chapters: 20 ( concluded )

Purple Squared by @alicat54c @bluepeachstudios

Summary :

Ghost finds Dannie and his little brothers wandering alone in the sewers after the death of their Splinter, and takes them home with him.

Crossover of Ghost in the Shell by AmevelloBlue and A Different Eldest Brother by alicat54c

Chapters: 20 ( not yet finished )

Connect Four

I don't know if the author has Tumblr but if so please tell me

Summary :

In which a fight goes wrong, but doesn't go catastrophically wrong, and the 2003!turtles find themselves in the Rise Universe. A lot of fluff and family bonding follows.

Two Souls by @virgilisspidey

Summary :

Leo was never lonely.

Sure he has his pops and his brothers and his best friend sister April, but he also has someone else he's known almost all his life.

He's a mutant turtle too, and for some reason, only he can see him.

It's alright, it's not like he wanted to share him anyways.

A rewrite of some of the episodes where 2012 Leo is connected to Rise Leo's soul and acts like a weird imaginary friend

[Part of the Mama Leo Series.]

Cross Dimension Kidnapping (with pics)

by @aealzx

Summary :

After spending some time harassing John Bishop's successor, keeping her from progressing with interdimensional experiments, a message is sent to Raphael (03) claiming that Agent Augustine has custody of his three brothers. Except Don is there watching the video message with him, and only one of the three mutant turtles shown on screen are related to them.

Originally posted on tumblr, short chapter format

Chapters: 27 ( not yet finished )

shaking the latch

I don't know if the author has Tumblr but if so please tell me

Summary :

Yoshi was getting quite tired of running, honestly.

Only a few months out of Draxum's lab, Rise!Splinter finds himself once again among strangers who nevertheless look suspiciously familiar

Chapters: 10 ( not yet finished )

Too Many Turtles by @dysfunctional-doodle

Summary :

In universe 2003, Donnie tries to experiment with the inter dimensional gun the 1987 turtles had given him. Instead, he accidentally creates a multiversal chat room for many different versions of his brothers, and counting.

It certainly makes life…interesting.

TLDR: multiverse group chat between most iterations of the turtles. Starts with 2003, 2012 and 2018 but more are added as I go. 50% plot and 50% chaos.

*now includes the 87 and mutant mayhem boys!*

Chapters: 24 ( not yet finished )

Wedding Bells and Magic Portals by @melonpalooza

Summary :

It had been ten years since they had lost Splinter, the patriarch of their family. But now the Hamato Clan was celebrating new beginnings, including a marriage and the upcoming birth of the next generation. Things never go to plan, though, and the Hamato brothers find themselves in an alternate dimension. Again. Oh, sewer apples.

Chapters: 7 ( concluded )

interdimensional minecraft

( I hope that one day it will return )

Summary :

Another crossover chatfic between the tmnt universes where they teach other how to be a healthy family, except its only some of them, and none of them know its their siblings from another universe, let alone know their acting as a family therapist for each other.

Chapters: 12 ( not yet finished )

Well, I think that's it for now 🤔 I have a few more but as I haven't read them yet I don't know if I should post them or not, I know that some of the ones above are already very well known, but there's no reason not to give them more love, right? Then that's it! Maybe I'll update more when I read the ones I saved (or maybe if some of you want to see it anyway)

( please let me know if you have any errors )

Bye Bye Manos ☄️🐢

[hsonlyangel]

Hi friends💕 I haven’t been on this blog for over 4 years (!!) but in light of recent events, I didn’t know where else to turn.

I can’t emphasize what a key role One Direction played in shaping my teen years. My first exposure to fan fiction was with 1D fics and oh boy did that open up a can of worms. I still have a Pinterest board from 2012 with everything from cute pics of the boys to unhinged (borderline incoherent) imagines. In tenth grade, I bought school supplies with Liam’s face on it because I was a Liam girlie before Harry *gasp*. I saw This Is Us in theaters and the Teenage Dirtbag sequence permanently altered my brain chemistry (seriously, give it a rewatch). When the Best Song Ever music video came out, I tortured my little brother by playing it on loop. I sat in shocked silence in my sociology class as news broke of Zayn leaving the band. My college roommate indulged me as I lost my mind over the release of the carpool karaoke video. I’m approaching 30 now but all of these memories are *so* fresh in my mind.

Although I don’t listen to them as much as I did a decade ago, when I need a pick me up or dose of teenage nostalgia, I throw on 1D. On Wednesday, I needed some cheering up so I put on some of their music and it helped, as always. The last song I listened to was Love You Goodbye and then I planned to go about my errands as usual. About 15 minutes later, in the middle of a bookstore, I got a text from my mom saying Liam had passed away. It felt like the world stopped. Getting back in the car to drive home, 1D came back on the queue and grief hit me like a Mack truck. Less than an hour before, I had been happily singing along to their music and now Liam’s just…gone? It doesn’t feel real. None of my friends were ever Directioners so I don’t really have an outlet for this grief. Which brings me here.

I’m not on social media much anymore for my mental health, but I knew that Tumblr was one of the only places where I would feel seen and understood in the aftermath of this loss. I was caught off guard by the depths of my grief and I just can’t stop crying. I see deep cuts of the band in their early days and the throwbacks that used to make me laugh now make me weep. The songs that got me through some of the most difficult times in my life will never be experienced the same way. I couldn’t afford 1D tickets while they were touring but a tiny part of me was hoping one day I could see them on a reunion tour in honor of my inner teen. I keep vacillating between denial and devastation and the whole situation is still so surreal.

Even though it’s under heartbreaking circumstances, it’s been so validating and heartwarming to see members of this community coming back and reminiscing, being open about their grief, and supporting one another. It’s hard to describe how deeply this hurts to people outside of the Directioner bubble, but I know y’all get it. I don’t know how to begin processing this but I’m gonna try.

Sending so much love and strength to everyone affected by this. You are not alone❤️

[howlingmoonrise]

tagged by the fantastic @sunriseverse! thanks sunny!! 💖

under the cut because this one is long

1. why did you choose your url?

i wanted a new fandom penname and at the time adjective + noun names were a thing. i fiddled with several different variations, tried and failed to acquire kaleidoscopicmoonrise at the time (it's mine now!!), and landed on this one. i wanted something a little spooky, especially since soul eater was my fandom at the time - though it doesn't feel like it now that my icon is a lot more sane-looking lmfao

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them.

uh. yeah. a stupid amount (like 30+?), so i'm definitely not naming them all. most active are obviously this howl blog, my main blog @commandersya, this one for danny phantom and gravity falls stuff, @howlingspacegoo gets some activity every now and then when venom stuff resurfaces, and some others i use for reblogging specific reference stuff. most of the rest are for fandom events i've run in the past.

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

since like 2011-2012. i've seen it all.

4. do you have a queue tag?

lmao absolutely not. i don't use the queue function, though on occasion i'll schedule posts to space them out when i'm going through a tag in order not to reblog all of it at once, or for specific dates like halloween

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

this one was for soul eater writing purposes. tumblr in general was because my cousin dragged me into it and then i realized there was a lot of bandom stuff in here (i was really into black veil brides for my first year or two on tumblr)

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

i broke ties with the soul eater fandom in a not great way and wanted to change my icon. yoi provided the perfect yuri expression with the kind of benevolent dictator smile i really like, despite that not being the original intent for it when the animators drew it ✊😔

7. why did you choose your header?

i had to check my header real quick lmfao. jason todd is just an excellent blorbo and when a good artist draws him.... 👀👀👀

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

oh gods. probably my dracula/barbie fic at nearly 3.5k notes. where's that ben affleck cigarrette pic when you need it. alternatively some ancient black veil brides photo/gif on my main blog.

9. how many mutuals do you have?

idk but i cherish y'all 💖

10. how many followers do you have?

dunno 😭 they're split across dozens of blogs so i'm not counting them all

11. how many people do you follow?

1.8k+, though i should follow more. my dash has times when it's pretty dead.

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

probably? yes. just remembered the i bit the butte psoh post.

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

however long i'm online on my laptop, more or less. so a sizeable amount of hours

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

LMAO. i was in both voltron and yoi fandoms, writing for and running events for "problematic" ships. take a wild wild guess.

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts?

hate them. 90% of the time it'll make me automatically skip it. for the other 10%, if it has relevant info on the op's original post and that little sentence is on the comments then i might go back and reblog from the op just to get rid of it

16. do you like tag games?

love them!

17. do you like ask games?

see above

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i have uhhh. some. olderthannetfic, nemainofthewater, i think also colubrina for a while there, off the top of my head.

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

if friend crushes count then several ✊😔

20. what is the last song you listened to?

the cramps - goo goo muck

21. what are you currently watching?

i am. so bad at finishing things so like a bajillion shows. the double i might drop despite it having been very very good until like episode 30-something. meet you at the blossom i need to finish like the last two eps. wandee goodday i need to finish four episodes iirc. i was in like episode 5 of century of love. i was on episode... 17? of my journey to you, which if i power through shall be for the antagonist sidepair/trio rather than the main characters. i was also at episode 16 of new life begins, which was fairly good and i do want to continue though i keep forgetting i have that tab open somewhere.

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy?

savoury!

23. what is your current relationship status?

single and ace so not planning on changing that!

24. what is your current obsession?

the spirealm/kaleidoscope of death, and mysterious lotus casebook

25. what are nine albums/ songs you've been listening to lately?

- La P'tite Fumée - Cypher - Brody Dale - Don't Mess With Me - Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster - Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) - The Cramps - What's Inside a Girl - Linkin Park - Heavy is the Crown - Miyavi & PVRIS - Snakes - D-A-D - Sleeping My Day Away - Aerosmith - Dream On

no-pressure tagging! @junemermaid @a-memory-a-distant-echo @snorlaxlovesme @where-the-water-flows @nemainofthewater

[annakie]

Fixing The House, Part Eight: Master of Bathrooms

Part One: I Do Not, In Fact, Have the Power

Part Two: Let’s Spend Lots of Money!

Part Three: All These Things That I’ve Done

Part Four: I Really Want to Stay At My House

A little interlude.

Part Five: Power Down

Part Six: You Will Leave Some Paint

Part Seven: Backwards to go Forwards

Thought a lot the last couple of days about what to start posting about next and I think I'm ready to show y'all the Master Bathroom. Then who knows what else next update.

I was surprised that a house this small (1100 square feet!) had two full baths. That's kind of a lie... the master bathroom shower/tub was uhhhhh... not a full tub? It was truly a size that I had not seen before. I honestly don't know where they would have even gotten the tub. Maybe it was custom built? I'm sure it was from the 60's.

Posted a couple of "Just bought the house" pics above. Let's take a look through the last 21 years of this bathroom and how we got where it is today.

TBH this post is ridiculously long for the smallest room in the house, oh well.

It's not a big bathroom at all. It fit the three things you need for the requirement of full bath, sure, but that's about it. And, of course, everything in it was original to the house built in 1963 or AT BEST it's possible from the 1980's.

It was also, ya know, gross.

I posted this in the previous update but that's the wallpaper I was met with. It had a barebones mirror, and NGL, I did kinda like this lighting? Honestly, it kinda ruled. I miss it a little. That was the only good thing in this room.

It's a bathroom with a window that looks out on the patio, and that window has always been gross and cloudy.

Even today, that window is there, Arturo promises me the new one should be in next week, so I will probably post another pic or two once that comes in.

I think the pics now posted in here are the only ones I have of the original.

With my near-zero budget after buying the house, all I could really afford to do in here was clean it as good as possible, new shower curtain and rug, and slap some fresh paint on it after taking down the wallpaper, which I believe was very easy in here, at least. I don't remember a struggle.

The original color scheme I went with was purple and green, basically to honor my paternal grandmother, who had recently passed and those were her colors.

Oh also put up this very cheap little shelf in lieu of a medicine cabinet.

lol look at that joke of a shower. The showerhead and shower caddy were also new.

A like $5 thrifted little Van Gogh print, the height of sophistication I could afford. (It's actually STILL THERE, RIGHT NOW. I really DO love it.)

Ugh, those green blinds. Hey at least the window was covered with SOMETHING!

I was very, very proud of myself, I put that together and put it up all by myself.

It's still up!

So that's what it looked like late 2003 until 2012.

Around 2005 I started realizing that if took a shower for too long, water started leaking out from the wall under the window under the trim. Yep I'd shower and then the floor would be flooded.

I just stopped taking showers in there.

Honestly the tub ended up being storage. I kept the cats carriers in there so I could get them in there and then get them in their carriers without much problem. Anytime I fostered cats, it became the stray/foster cat room until they trusted me enough to let me pet them.

It was essentially a half-bath for the last like 18 years.

In 2012 when my parents and I did bathroom renovations, things got better!

Ooh, much prettier!

I had been thinking about selling the house so the purple and green were changed to beige, to match the sink. Fixtures all went to brushed nickel, and a much bigger, taller and nicer toilet. Also new towels, rug, etc. Kept the same shower curtain for then, but in the next year or so I changed it.

Accent over the shower, on the small wall by the toilet and on the windowsill was a brownish orange. And kept light green for all the linens.

Yeah the window like I said is still that terrible window, FOR NOW.

Also... did y'all notice anything missing?

LIKE SOMEWHERE TO PLUG IN A HAIRDRYER OR LITERALLY ANYTHING!?! A bathroom... without an outlet. When I had roommates, I'd have to blow dry my hair in front of my vanity in my bedroom. So annoying.

So one of the original like 5 things Arturo was brought in to do, that kicked off everything else was to put an outlet in that bathroom. It's on a wall that isn't as convenient as I'd like it to be, but Arturo has A Technological Reason it has to be there, so I'll take it. With the rewiring, it's also surge protected, so even though it's not as great as I want it, it's a small compromise I can live with.

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I didn't take a single picture of consequence in the master bath in the next 12 years or so. Honestly sometimes I'd go a month or two without even going in there.

For the years when Patchy lived in the master bedroom this was a little extra space for her, but she rarely went in there.

The other purpose it served was the place where I kept the bag of food for the outside cats. Sometimes also extra kitty litter space, overflow medicine, TP etc. space... but all in all it was pretty neglected space for a long time. I'd clean in there once every six months maybe to mostly get rid of dust. I only used it either in the middle of the night, or when Patchy was alive to spend a few extra moments with her while taking a bathroom break.

At one point a few years ago I tried turning on the shower just to see what would happen and I couldn't even get the knobs to move.

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Getting this bathroom fixed up was secondary to the hall bath, since that was the main bath. So when I showed Arturo the bathrooms to see what he thought, I stressed that this one was not important, maybe just if he could get the knobs working and knew why the water would flow out from the wall.

But his price was so good, of course I wanted to get both done.

Since we needed one bathroom to work, and this was the one most fucked up, he started there, as the first project they'd do after the electricity was mostly put back together and working.

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I hadn't even noticed the demo had started (remember most of the work was happening while I was also working, like, my job, even though it's WFH!) and so the first time I walked by the bathroom and saw this I honestly wanted to weep with joy.

The fiberglass... the weird-ass tub... gone. Just a hole where it all was, and a hole in the ground as well. They dug through the cement and dirt underneath to figure out what the hell was wrong with the plumbing.

Welllllllllllllllllllllll... it turns out what the hell was wrong with it was that it wasn't connected to the sewer.

Like... the pipe was just draining right into the ground. And when the ground was saturated, the water crept up into the wall and came out that way!

Arturo told me it was a really good thing I'd stopped using that shower. I'd managed to avoid a dangerous and costly black mold problem.

So, Arturo fixed it and hooked the plumbing back up to the sewer.

He replaced all the piping you see exposed there.

There was no shower pan in the really fucking weird size of that space, so Arturo had to build the new walk-in shower with cement. He made a mold, poured cement both for the little wall and the new floor, and for a few days, we left a fan pointed at it and let it cure.

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Also the reason for that one square out of the accent wall was Arturo wanted to see if there was any wasted space in that intersection where the back of the fridge, the back of the hall bath and the shower/toilet area of the master were all kind of meeting up. Turns out... nope. All the space was used. It got patched, you can't even tell there was a hole there now, you'll see.

You'll also notice there's a curtain on the window. Like I said, I'd found a new shower curtain set I really liked not long after the 2012 renovation. I also picked up the matching rug. And I liked it so much that I bought a second one that my mom made into a curtain for the window! With the extra material, she made a curtain for her own bathroom window.

So it came time to pick out new colors for the bath, I spent a lot of time with my BFF Sherwin Williams Swatch Book. After awhile, I went all in on using the colors from the shower curtain as the colors for the room.

(I also spent a few hours scouring the internet for a backup shower curtain and FINALLY found one on Ebay in great condition. Considering I bought it around 2013 I was thrilled. It's now in the linen closet waiting for the day when this one gets a little rough. It's fine now, remember I'd never even taken a shower while this shower curtain was in the room. I'm still looking for a backup rug. Anyway, back to paint.)

Contented was a shade darker than the curtain, maybe a little greener, but I fell in love with that color and wanted to use a soft green as the standout color, because the tile and wood in the room weren't changing. The Bathroom would be very beige and brown, green would keep it from being too beige and brown.

And I fell in love with Llama Wool the moment I saw it. I know you should never let a color's name influence your decision, it's just what some person at Sherwin-Williams (in this case) decided to call it, but Llamas are sort of a thing with my friend group, and I wanted to use that color as a bit of a tribute to them. It was, again, a shade or two darker than the brown in the shower curtain, but I thought it'd look great.

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I'm not posting pictures until THE REVEAL because of THE DRAMA, okay? I think it'll be worth it.

Arturo brought a sample of the ceramic main shower tile, 89c per really big piece. It was beige, would match the floor OK, and was perfectly neutral. It was great, a place we could get some savings so there'd be more money for important things.

Accent Tile was another big thing for me. I had always, always, always wanted mosaic accent tile in the shower and above the sink. I tried to get my dad to do some during the 2012 renovation but he said no, that was too much work for that weekend. So I was determined to use accent tile I loved.

Arturo had brought me a couple of samples and I'd okayed two of them, but they'd yet to be bought past that. One of them I loved and had marked it for the hall bath, the other I'd thought was fine, and thought I'd put it in the master.

And slowly my mind changed.

First I thought the one I loved would work better with the shower curtain and Llama wool. It was $15 sq/ft, which was definitely on the higher end of the budget, but it was worth it, and putting it in the master would mean we'd just need less of it.

(Arturo said we spent about as much on the main tile as we did 2 pieces of the accent tile lol)

And then Arturo told me I needed to find a tile for the shower floor, and I should go to Home Depot and/or Lowes and find something.

TBH, I spent time on both of their websites, then went to Amazon. I'd been browsing a lot of like, Pinterest and just google results of bathroom renovations and knew I wanted a pebble-style tile for the floor. I couldn't find exactly the right thing to match with the accent tile I adored for the master.

And then I looked on Amazon.

And I fell in love instantly. Without consulting Arturo, I bought five boxes of it at almost $90 a box. I didn't care. I had to have this.

I showed it to Arturo on Monday and he was like "YES. PERFECT. I'm glad you didn't wait, let's get started." Unfortunately only 3 boxes had shown up that day so it was a couple of days delay.

Next was picking out a grout that would work with the wall tile and accent tile and floor tile.

I picked a light beige one, the color of sand, on purpose, hoping it would fit my vision for the shower floor.

I also had to pick out shower fixtures... a showerhead/controls. Arturo suggested something to me, and it aligned with what I also really wanted. It was another place where I decided it was OK to splurge.

The shower was a non-entity to me for so long... I wanted it to be perfect.

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One day, I think it was a Saturday, I walked by the shower as the tile was going up and uh, I noticed that the main tile was going awfully high and realized that the guy installing it had forgotten about the accent tile. The accent was just one stripe around face-high. I stopped him as politely as I could in my slight panic and called Arturo. Also, I just realized, Arturo had yet to create the shelf, which would also include the accent tile.

Luckily, the mud was still fresh on the wall, and only two rows had to come out. The tile could also be salvaged after cleaning off the back. Arturo got there later that day and got the shelf made. A day or two later, the accent tile went on and a few days later, the shower was finished.

Okay enough words... here's the first pic of the finished shower.

Y'all.. I love it so much. SO. MUCH. Rainfall showerhead, a sprayer hose... the floor looks like you're walking on a sandy beach. I literally wanted to weep with joy... idk I might have, when I saw it all together like this the first time.

Still lots to do, but that night was the night I posted the little interlude where I talked about how so much is happening and how I had no time.

When work was done that day, I was so excited to take a shower.

And then my shower curtain rod was now too long, even at the minimum size, since the tile had added like an extra inch.

I wasn't deterred. I went to Home Depot, then Lowe's, then Target trying to find a shower curtain rod I loved to replace the old one. Each place only had shitty cheap rods and none were brushed nickle. So I bought a $7 rod (and a new curtain liner) and a few other things like shelf liner at Target... then went home and ordered a rod I loved on Amazon. When that was done, I took my first shower in the master bath in like 18 years.

And it was fucking MAGICAL. It was like being in a spa. I showered maybe longer than I'd ever showered in my life, definitely the longest I've ever showered in this house.

To me, for the last 20 years, showers were a fucking CHORE that I had to get through. You'll see when I talk about the hall bath more about why. I just absolutely hated showering -- not the getting clean part, obviously, but just being in the shower, either shower, in my house. I wanted to get out ASAP.

I just stood there and was like... I love being in here. This is the most beautiful part of my house right now. I want to stay in here.

I washed my hair twice. I moved my facewash in there to have more to just do in the shower.

It's like going to the spa, every night.

I'd bought new towels, Turkish bathsheets. Huge, soft, absorbent.

Luxury.

Something I never thought I'd associate with my house.

My shower was beautiful. Maybe the first thing I'd ever really associated with that word in this house.

I look forward to my nightly shower now.

I'm using getting to go take it as a reward for finishing this post. :D

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(Oh, oops, I forgot to show you the shelf! Btw, did you notice the COPPER in the backsplash? Have I mentioned I love copper? You have no idea how much I love copper. Just you wait.)

The one thing that I didn't love was that little shower head on the hose. It had nearly no pressure. So I ordered two new sprayer heads, one for each shower. Much better. And this one has a switch you can flip for a high-pressure sprayer hose to help clean the shower/tub easier. Not as sleek, but very worth it.

A few days later I walked by and smelled paint. Peeked in and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

....someone had painted the bathroom.

The Wrong color.

It was painted the same peachy color as the master bedroom, not my Contented green (and no sign of Llama Wool!) Arturo facepalmed and pointed out the right color to his worker.

This is wrong and bad and LOOKS TERRIBLE.

Eventually, it was painted right and I loooooved it.

Also hey, there's the new outlet! See, not that convenient, but livable. I can recharge my toothbrush with the stand on the windowsill, and a hair dryer plugs in there just fine. Way better than none!

The dumb little shelf came out. We literally ran out of the accent tile with ONE MORE TO GO at the edge of the sink. Then our local Lowe's was out of it. And then the one near Arturo's house was out of it. I refreshed the Lowe's website for like two weeks until it was back in stock, and one Saturday ran straight over there, picked up the one tile and a couple of other things I needed, and it sat here in the house a couple more weeks. Just this week it got put on and grouted, lol. SO NOW at least I can show you pics of the sink area, too!

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Beige Turkish hand towel (tbh they are like half the size of a regular towel, I love it.) The same decent cabinet as before but now elevated by its surroundings. Beautiful backsplash keeping the wall safe.

Oh, and that faucet?

My old faucet... the plunger part was broken so it would no longer close and the sink wouldn't hold water. Arutro was all "Oh, I have one in my shed you can just have." So he threw that in for free. It's a Delta! FOR FREE! He even installed it for free.

Y'all, I have so much to say about Arturo, he's amazing.

Now the faucet is chrome and the rest of the bathroom fixtures are brushed nickel, but tbh, I don't care. It works, and it looks nice, and it's a well-respected brand, and it was free. I'm HERE FOR IT.

Also,notice the wall color... I am very content with Contented. It's just the right amount of color against all the beige and brown.

And yes, the medicine cabinet has a place where you can insert your own photo under the glass, and YES I have had that medicine cabinet since 2012 and YES IT STILL HAS THE "Insert your own 8x10 photo here!" paper in it. LIKE I SAID this room was neglected. I am happy to report that I have ordered an art print I like that will be in there in a few days.

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There were a couple of other improvements here. A new overhead light went in, replacing the old overhead light, this one has a fan. Yeah, there was no fan in this bathroom before, lol. And LED lighting. It's much brighter and nicer.

I also got a very basic bidet for both toilets. That just went in a couple of days ago and I am still getting used to it. It's COLD, didn't get a fancy heated one.

One thing we're going to talk about later is the trim and doors and stuff throughout the house. This is the only room that retained the Cream color that I used to have throughout the house as the trim.

You can really see the difference in this pic. Also, Fry!

There's an amusing story about the cream color on the trim that belongs elsewhere, that and the window were the reasons I'd been holding off talking about this room for awhile but, eh, screw it. You can see the windowsill and trim on the floor are that cream, so is the inside of the door. The shelf above the toilet also got painted that color, and it all blends really well I think. I painted the windowsill, door and the cabinet myself.

And yes, the floors need a real good cleaning. They ALL do. There's paint splatters and various other stains all over all the floors. I'm going to tackle all of it at once, when everything is done. No point in having to do it multiple times.

So here's the finished product, all that stuff all done and the Llama Wool color on the accent wall!

This pic I just took tonight, for this post. The bathroom is more or less complete.

I love it. It went from the room non grata to one of my favorite places in the house. And when I post this, I'm off to take a spa-like shower in it before enjoying a dessert and a couple of hours of TV time before bed.

My only regret is that I really wanted to use the Llama Wool color more. I wanted to do the windowsill and trim in that color but Arturo insisted he'd have to buy a different kind of paint for it, which would be an extra expenditure I couldn't justify, especially since we already had the right kind of paint in the old cream color and it also looked great in there. I honestly almost felt bad for having him buy a whole can of paint just for that one tiny accent wall, but I don't regret it! I tried to think of other places in the house it could have been used but... there aren't any, really.

Thank you, btw, for coming along on these extremely long, self-indulgent posts with me. They're largely written so I can look back at this time and marvel and what Arturo and I did, and how a lot of money and work was all worth it. This bathroom is just one course of several of what's to come! There are three (or four) other rooms that I now love just as much as this one. :)

[biscuits-of-bagend]

Andy Murray - The Flowers We'll Remember

I made this playlist halfway through the week, in between victories one and two. It tells me the story of Andy Murray's career as I experienced it, through songs that mean a lot to me, which is to say it might not make much sense to anyone else! So I've included some explanations below.

The title is related to a passage from the Ali Smith novel 'Summer'. It's about a summer day that told the gods it wanted to last forever, which the gods found hilarious.

Halfway Right by Linkin Park - 'I scream at myself when there's nobody left to fight', representing my earliest memories of Andy Murray, which involved a lot of him screaming at himself.

Hard Times by Paramore - Losing to Federer and Nadal and later Djokovic, but jauntily. A young man's losses.

The Heart Never Lies by McFly - 2012 Wimbledon final on-court interview 🥺

Love Forty Down by Frank Turner - I know he was 40-0 up at the end of the Wimbledon final, but functionally going from 40-0 to 40-Adv is basically the same thing 😂

Hold On by Twin Atlantic - back injuries :/ still sort of felt like it would all work out okay though, at least that was my understanding of it I think.

Don't Stop Me Now by Queen - Davis Cup at the end of 2015 through to World Tour Finals at the end of 2016. A euphoric period (ignore any losses to Djokovic in grand slam finals, we don't need to talk about those), but hard to look back on without thinking about what was coming.

Airfield by Enter Shikari - The Hip. Queens 2017 & 2017 Wimbledon QF to Australian Open 2019 'retirement'.

Wetsuit by The Vaccines - so get a hip operation, come on, come on

Get Better by Frank Turner - Bursting back to life/resurfacing in Cincinnati 2019. Also makes me think of 2019 'Resurfacing' documentary even though that didn't come out until later in the year.

Walk by the Foo Fighters - omg I've just realised I was thinking of the US Open 2020 not 2019... welp, timey wimey I guess, insert your preferred moment of watching Andy figure out how to play with his new hip

Mountains by Biffy Clyro - Antwerp 2019

Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody's Doing It) by Bowling For Soup - Pandemic through to 2023, including the post 4am fightback from two sets to love down against Thanasi Kokkinakis (see pics below). Getting old does suck, but Andy was really good at it.

Forever's Not Enough by McFly - "I want to play forever" (Wimbledon 2024)

26 by Paramore - a sad quiet song about hope, ie the only thing I was holding onto during the first half of that match against Nishikori and Daniel, which, lest we forget, was horrible

The Last Song by McFly - from 5 match points down through to breaking back in the second set against the Americans. Just pure fucking magic ✨ (thank you Dan!) ~~Epilogue section~~

Growing Up Beside You by Paolo Nutini - Andy Murray may be 11 years older than me, but so many of my memories of watching him play are tied to memories of times in my life. For example, I watched the 2016 World Tour Finals semi-final against Raonic in my student union, and vaguely remember trying not to show how stressed I was. I'm currently the age he was when he won Wimbledon the first time, so that's not terrifying at all...

The Way I Loved You (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift - I do really like Jannik Sinner but this could sort of be read as an indirect towards him? Although tbf watching post-puke Sinner power through tournaments has been its own kind of awesome. Honestly though, I don't think anyone will ever make me feel as much of a "rollercoaster kind of rush" on a tennis court as Andy Murray did anyway, not even the stress of watching Grigor Dimitrov try to hold a lead ❤️

Wouldn't Change a Thing - I really really wouldn't, and I hope Andy feels the same. Well, I mean, he'd probably choose not to have a hip injury, but you know what I mean 😆

[distantlaughter]

Nico Rosberg and Maro Engel: a non-exhaustive compilation of their friendship over the years

"My friends are all Italian, I grew up with their mentality and get along with it best. But my best friend at school was Maro Engel, who now drives in the DTM. He, his family and another family friend were the only Germans I really had contact with." (2008)

Question: "Nico Rosberg also grew up in Monaco. Did you have much contact? Two German teenagers in a foreign country with the same passion, racing…" Engel: "It was through Nico that I got into racing in the first place. We were in the same class together at school, became best friends very quickly and then also went on vacation together. There, his father Keke bought Nico a go-kart for his birthday and asked my father if he wouldn't like to buy me one, too. That's how the whole thing started." Question: "When was that exactly?" Engel: "That was in 1991." (2008)

What happened subsequently? Maro Engel: After that, we used to have fun, messing around in the mini karts. We then took them back home to Monaco, where I would practise with Nico at weekends. Our parents eventually started up a kart team together, and we contested our first races with the team at around ten years of age. We then went our separate ways from a racing point of view. I competed in junior kart races in Germany and Nico in Italy. (2017)

Becoming a racing driver in Monaco seems to have come naturally. My parents had nothing at all to do with motorsport, my father found it quite interesting and watched it in front of the TV from time to time. I got into it through my friend Nico Rosberg. His father Keke said it would be cool if the boys played kart together. Nico Rosberg is your childhood friend? I was in kindergarten with him. We became close friends very quickly from then on and started karting together. We started on his father's track in Ibiza. Keke had a property there with its own kart track. We were on vacation there together, and Keke gave Nico a kart for his birthday. We are two months apart, Nico's birthday is June 27 and mine is August 27. We were turning six at the time. So your father was under pressure? Yes. Keke asked him if he wouldn't like to give me a vehicle like that, so the kids could do something together - and the parents could enjoy their vacation. That's how it turned out. Nico and I also went to school together in Monaco and later to the English school in Nice. Our friendship lasts until today. My fiancée Steffi gets along excellently with Nico's wife Vivian. (2017)

Nico (1st) and Maro (3rd) on the podium together for the Formula BMW ADAC Championship, Hockenheim, Germany, 5 October 2002. Motorsport Images, xpb images

Nico visiting Maro at the DTM in Hockenheim, 22 October 2011. xpb images

Nico and Maro at the DTM in Hockenheim, 27 April 2012. Imago Images/Hoch Zwei

nicorosberg: 2day 30km roadbike timetrial with MaroEngel, dantheman, juan. Managed 2 win with 40kph!12sec ahead of maro. podium pic attached

nicorosberg: Backgammon with @maroengel. Best game in the world.

Nico, Vivian, Maro, and Maro's wife Stefanie on vacation in Ibiza together, August 2016 (1,2)

Who also cheered loudly was Nico Rosberg. The Formula 1 world champion is currently on an inspirational trip to the USA and was hugely happy for his kindergarten buddy. "I'm very pleased that Maro's perseverance and ambition prevailed. I know these qualities only too well from many backgammon games," Rosberg told Auto Bild Motorsport. "It's great to see that Maro never gave up after his DTM debut in 2008 and has now been rewarded for it. Hopefully many more victories will follow," he said. (2017)

[msclaritea]

Box Office: ‘Civil War’ Starts Off With Impressive $2.9M in Thursday Previews

Alex Garland's controversial movie about the political divide in America easily scored the best preview number ever for A24.

BY PAMELA MCCLINTOCK

APRIL 12, 2024 9:18A

Alex Garland‘s dystopian action movie Civil War has started off its North American box office run with an impressive $2.9 million, a record for indie studio and distributor A24.

The $50 million movie about a divided America is a big swing for A24 as it tries to produce bigger movies, and is its most expensive production to date.

Civil War is tracking to open north of $20 million, although one leading tracking service has a slightly lower range of $19 million to $20 million. As with the preview number, that would be record for A24, beating the $13.6 million opening of A24’s horror pic Hereditary in 2018.

A24 and writer-director Garland held the movie’s world premiere last month at the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival, an ideal venue since many of the attendees are younger adults, the film’s target demo.

Set in the near-future, the story follows a wartime photojournalist (Kirsten Dunst) and her colleagues as they make their way across a hostile and divided United States of America that has been torn apart under the authoritarian rule of a three-term president (Nick Offerman). Yet the film shys away from red state/blue state divisions, and the politics behind the conflict are generally left unexplained, other than to say that one of the president’s first first actions was to disband the FBI in an apparent nod to former President Donald Trump, who has called to “defund” the Bureau.

Civil War‘s timing surely isn’t a coincidence as it hits cinemas amid a contentious election year in which President Biden and former President Trump are once again the leading candidates for their respective parties as Trump seeks to return to the White House

At a SXSW panel following the film’s premiere, Garland said it made sense to release Civil War now, although it’s not as if there is anything new about the contentious political discourse gripping the country.

“I think all of the topics in in [Civil War] have been a part of a huge public debate for years and years. These debates have been growing and growing in volume and awareness, but none of that is secret or unknown to almost anybody,” Garland said. “I thought that everybody understands these terms and, at that point, I just felt compelled to write about it.”

Cailee Spaeny, Jesse Plemons and Wagner Moura also star.

2012–2013: Founding and early years

A24 was founded on August 20, 2012, by film veterans Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges. Katz formerly led the film finance group at Guggenheim Partners, Fenkel was the president, co-founder and partner at Oscilloscope, and Hodges served as "Head of Production and Development" at Big Beach. The name "A24" was inspired by the Italian A24 motorway Katz was driving on when he decided to found the company.

Guggenheim Partners provided the seed money for A24. The company was started to share "movies from a distinctive point of view". In October 2012, Nicolette Aizenberg joined as head of publicity from 42West where she was senior publicity executive.

The company began its distribution of films in 2013. The company's first theatrical release was Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, which had a limited theatrical release. Other 2013 theatrical releases included Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now, and Sally Potter's Ginger & Rosa.

In September 2013, A24 entered a $40 million deal with DirecTV Cinema, where DirecTV Cinema would offer day-and-date releases 30 days prior to a theatrical release by A24; Enemy was the first film to be distributed under the deal. That same year, A24 entered a deal with Amazon Prime, where A24-distributed films would be available on Amazon Instant Video after becoming available on Blu-ray and DVD.

2014–2017: Television and later productions

In May 2015, A24 announced that it would start a television division and began producing the USA Network series Playing House, as well as working to develop a television series that would later become Comrade Detective, produced by Channing Tatum. The company also announced that they would also finance and develop pilots.

In January 2016, Sasha Lloyd joined the company to handle all film, television distribution and business development in the international marketplace. The company, with cooperation from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan & Co. and SunTrust Banks, also raised its line of credit from $50 million to $125 million a month later to build upon its operations. In April, the company acquired all foreign rights to Swiss Army Man, distributing the film in all territories, and partnering with distributors who previously acquired rights to the film, a first for the company. In June, the company, along with Oscilloscope and distributor Honora, joined BitTorrent Now to distribute the work of their portfolio across the ad-supported service.

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Not much time is shown in this universe. All the audience knows is that Evelyn works at a pizza shop. She is shown wearing a ridiculous costume and waving around a sign.

"A24 and writer-director Garland held the movie’s world premiere last month at the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival, an ideal venue since many of the attendees are younger adults, the film’s target demo..."

Penske Media Corporation (PMC /ˈpɛnski/) is an American mass media, publishing, and information services company based in Los Angeles and New York City. It publishes more than 20 digital and print brands, including Variety, Rolling Stone, Women's Wear Daily, Deadline Hollywood, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Boy Genius Report, Robb Report, Artforum, ARTNews, and others. PMC's Chairman and CEO since founding is Jay Penske.

President Trump awards Medal of Freedom to Roger Penske | Fox News Video

In addition to media publications, Penske Media Corporation owns the Life Is Beautiful Music & Art Festival and is a 50 percent stakeholder in South by Southwest. It is also the owner of Dick Clark Productions which includes the award shows Golden Globe Awards, American Music Awards, Streamy Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, and the Billboard Music Awards.

Jay Penske--NACSCAR Heir ARRESTED...and It's A Pisser

@aeltri I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. What was that you told us, recently, about Pizza and Hotdogs?