#so it feels fitting that the first piece of art I’ve ever publicly posted is of it

[beemae]

f!Rylan and my hunter for WTS’s 4 year anniversary event!

[minisoysquares]

As fun as the events and ideas you posted about 19days would be, wouldn’t it also just bring in more negative stuff - like fandom in general has become a field of land mines and I fear that something that’s supposed to fun will turn into some sort of battle. Like how some people get extremely heated over any other ships outside of their fave ship and they cannot possibly have other ships except theirs, etc. The last thing anyone wants is for content creators to be targeted simply for making something they thought would be fun

(This ask and answer is about this post.)

First of all thank you so much for addressing such a big and valid concern. I agree that that has indeed happened in certain fandoms - I can say I've been in the thick of it and witnessed quite the warfare - but in others it has also brought fans and readers and content creators together even closer and tighter in a wonderful thriving community.

I have the feeling this'll get quite long so please proceed under the cut with that in mind.

I believe all things are potential harbingers of both discord and harmony. There will always be people who feel entitled and who want - even demand! the audacity! - authors and artists to create for their ships and their ships alone. And there will also always be people who can appreciate the writing and the art without judgemental treatment regarding the pairings/characters depicted, no matter their preferences.

All of that happens and will continue to happen, whether we go forward with these events or not. And yet authors will still write what they want to write, artists will still draw what they want to draw, graphic designers will still make the edits they want to make as well. What we could do, in this small and close knit fandom, is take in our hands this powerful rich opportunity and try our best to make a model of positivity out of it.

In these events, there would be no bashing or shaming allowed. The content created would be to be enjoyed by those who are attracted to it, and those who do not have a taste for that fanwork in particular would be asked to remain respectful. (As it should always be.) There would be no ship wars in these spaces. Discourse, hate-speech or anti-behaviour would not be tolerated by the moderators of the event.

Creators who indulged in it would be immediately disqualified. Any unnecessary commentary or complaints from the audience would be deleted and reported as spam. Anyone instigating conflict would be only painting a target on their back, really. Because most of us - I dare say - are only here to appreciate the brilliant artwork and fanfiction woven and crafted by the talented people who share it with us.

If it came to it and it escalated, this hellsite has several tools that can be put to use to that regard. Accounts could be blocked and/or even reported. They wouldn't be able to interact with the blogs created to run these events from then on. We would be able to create a black list and post it publicly so everyone else who wished to could simply block those unruly pesky accounts and remain at peace and free to enjoy themselves to their utmost.

Let us not forget that this is all fiction and it's all for fun. Everyone's allowed to have their own opinion, likes and dislikes. There simply is no need to step on anyone else and their interests to elevate them.

Let's exemplify, for the sake of clarity:

Do I personally ship A with B? Imagine I do not. I do not search for it. If I come across it? I scroll past it. Once or twice, I may even like - and even reblog - if it happens to catch my attention and it's well written/drawn! (I have tags along the lines of 'I don't ship it but' and 'look at this beautiful art' or 'drown in the power of these words.')

It's so easy to interact amongst ourselves without coming with pitchforks at one another. Know what actually needs effort? Being a meanie and a party popper! Who in their right mind wastes their time on things they don't care for? Dum dums, that's who! Of course, we're all dummies at times... and that's okay! Let's just not harass people or crash their fun while we're at it!

If nothing else: you wouldn't like if others did this or that to you, therefore don't do it to others. It's a simple concept to grasp.

Very important: in these events, every single piece would be explicitly and properly tagged and warned for right at the very top of each post, so there would be absolutely no excuses for anyone being nasty.

We would just have to be open to the experience. Enjoy our ships and let other enjoy theirs. We do not have to all like the same thing. That would be just boring. But we can cohabitate devoid of trouble in fandom. Each one of us just has to be respectful. No need to even be nice. No one has to compliment something they don't like. They also don't have to step on what others do.

Don't like a ship/character/theme? Don't read stories focused on it. Don't put down authors who write it or readers who enjoy it. Same for art. No need to shout about how awful it is just for the simple reason that it does not fit into your personal shipping preferences. It can still be still be a tasty and wonderfully baked cake, it's just that you're not fond of vanilla or strawberries. It's okay. There are all kinds of cake for everyone's tastes!

Further examples: If a ship happens to be a NOTP for me or I don't care for the character(s)? I filter the tags. All of them. Any and every tag I can think of. It's very easy to protect ourselves on Tumblr from content we do not wish to see. (My own list is huge and just as effective.) Filtering is incredibly important.

So go ahead and filter out the ships you can do without! Filter out porte-manteaux like Tianshan, Zhanyi, Qiucheng, Tianxi, Tianyi, Lishan, Litian, Liyi, Shantou, Polydays, (...) Filter out any ship tag that doesn't strike your fancy like Q x MGS, HC x JY's mom, (...) Filter out characters that aren't your cuppa tea like HT, HT's dad, SL, JY's mom, XH, (...)

Make it safe for yourself and for others. That way you won't rage at the sight of your NOTP, won't feel the compulsive need to trash the people who ship it, no one is hurt and everyone is happy!

There are many steps we could follow to prevent rotten eggs in our coop. And many more actions we could take to throw them out if need be. I firmly believe, however, that if we're all of the same mind everything would go well and with very few bumps along the way.

If we only ever feared the possible negative consequences of our actions, never taking the risk for the possible positive ones, we'd never get anything done. I say let's not let our beloved fandom stagnate or dry out. Let's incentivate and motivate and inspire! Let's share! Let's have fun!

Think of it in these terms: it wouldn't be a competition at all but rather a charity event. Performers and spectators coming together for a common good, raising content and spreading joy! There would be no winners or losers or prizes. What would matter would be good old-fashioned participation, both by providing content and/or consuming it.

It could also a good way to get people to express themselves more. Many content consumers tend to lurk or keep to themselves even if they like the content posts. (I used to be one myself and only a couple months ago started to come out of my shell.) I myself advocate for reblogging instead of liking - if you have to choose one or the other, I mean, why not do both? - and leaving a word on every single post I like and/or reblog. Sometimes I go nuts commenting, sometimes I leave a small note in the tags.

It doesn't matter how. Even if you're shy or introverted (*raises hand*) or don't know what to say I guarantee a single emoticon or a string of disordered letters symbolising incoherence will make the creator's day all the same. Getting feedback is so important and motivational for creators and also a great way for fandom members to keep in touch and support each other.

Additionally, if a person would like more of a certain type of content here are some healthy actions they could take: a) commission a creator and pay for it if they can; b) politely make a suggestion to a creator with an open ask box; c) post a prompt publicly for possible interested creators to use; d) do it yourself and share it with others!

This turned out into more of a "behavioural guidelines" thing than I'd have liked. I am not in any way whatsoever telling anyone what to do. This is what I do, and it works wonders for me. I stay completely out of toxic arguments and in on all the goodies. I'm able to fully enjoy my fandoms. And isn't that what we all want?

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with me. And I apologise for the long rant!

Of course, this is only my personal stance on the issue. I did go for a survey first exactly for this end, to get their opinions on the subject and see if it would be worth a shot. I shall hope many other people will think as I do, but I will wholly respect those who don't.

[indiaalphawhiskey]

I respectfully disagree with your last post (as an author). I’ve been in this fandom for 6 years and noticed it’s a little bit toxic when it comes to certain issues that should be normal and obvious to anyone.

I don’t get the “I choose the people I want to take criticism from” part. Ok, so why posting your work on a public page for independent writers where every subscriber will be able to read it and comment on it? Just send it to the people whose opinion matters to you and have a discussion about your work with them. If you post your work on a public page made specifically for independent writers, you are automatically posting it for everyone on that site. And every person has opinions on things and feels invited to express it if that particular thing is public and comments are open (I’m talking about respectful opinions, not slurs and offending someone).

If it was only for you and the people you actually want to get feedback from then wouldn’t it be easier to create an “élite” group where you read your work and then discuss it together? Because your post sends a very negative and exclusionary message to people that are reading your work for the first time or without knowing you as an author. It really seems like you are saying “dear readers, your opinion doesn’t matter to me so unless it’s positive I don’t want to hear it because this fanfic was written for me and this list of people.” Then don’t post it. But why making people feel excluded or bad because they did something normal just because they didn’t know it wasn’t written “for them” as you said in your post. And constructive criticism is just an opinion too as long as it doesn’t contain vulgarities, you don’t have to listen to it. Other’s opinion shouldn’t change the way you feel about your work but you also shouldn’t make them feel uncomfortable and bad for expressing it in a respectful way on a public page.

I know that authors on AO3 aren’t paid and that’s just for fun, but that’s what every page like AO3 is about: putting your work out there for other people to read with the possibility to express their personal opinion in a respectful way (I mean, you CAN disable the comments). Why making it public and then complaining and making other people feel bad for expressing their opinion on it? It’s not a diary or a personal Instagram profile.

So, first off, thank you for saying you respectfully disagree with me. I appreciate that you’re trying to be polite. 

There are many different ways I can answer this ask, because there’s a lot to discuss here, however, I’m exhausted by this conversation and have tackled it many times before, so I’ll link things when I see fit and get straight to the point.

My question for you is this: What is the purpose of you posting negative  (even though well-worded, polite, and tactful) unsolicited comments on a person’s fanfic? Why do you do it?

That’s not a rhetorical question, I really want you to think about the answer, because, for something to be called “constructive criticism” (which is specifically what we’re discussing here, versus the opposite “destructive” criticism) there has to be a point beyond just the fact that “it’s a public forum” and therefore, you feel entitled to express your opinion, whatever it may be. (That reasoning, btw, is called entitlement. No one said you weren’t allowed to have an opinion, but if you’re saying it to the author with no constructive, bettering purpose behind it, then at worst, your intent is to hurt them, which is just mean, no matter how politely you word it, and at best, you’re saying your opinions and preference take precedent over the author’s own.)

There are three reasons that I assume one can have when posting constructive criticism on work/art:

1. You want to help make them be a better writer, both now and in the future. 

I, and other fellow authors, explain why this doesn’t work here and here, and there are more posts about it like this one, if you need to hear it from voices that are not from the Larry fandom (which I assume you do, since you said this is a little bit toxic here particularly.) 

I encourage you to read all those posts, to get a better explanation in context, but the gist of them is this: for something to be truly constructive (synonym: helpful), the source, the timing, and the tact is key. Let me demonstrate: There is a difference between telling a friend while shopping, “I wouldn’t buy that dress, it’s not the most flattering on you,” and saying, while you’re out at a club, “Oh, that dress isn’t the most flattering on you, I wouldn’t wear it again.” -- Both are honest, worded politely, and both will achieve the same outcome: she will not wear the dress again -- but only one of them will cause undue stress, embarrassment, and self-consciousness (under the guise of being helpful), and that is all due to tact and timing. At the store, she can change into something else, and won’t assume you think she looks awful the entire day while you’re out. At the club, the damage is done, there is nothing she can do to change it, and you’ve just ruined her night.

The same goes for writing. I have seen people gracefully and willingly rewrite their entire first drafts based on astute and even harsh comments on their work, by their betas. I have never seen someone take down a fic and edit it based on a piece of constructive criticism given by a stranger on AO3. What I have seen based on that scenario, is people taking that criticism to heart and reflecting on whether or not they ever want to write again, because when they made themselves vulnerable, some people looked at it as an opportunity to ask for what would cater best to their own tastes, instead of appreciating the work as a true product of the author’s personal feelings and experiences. That results in less writers for the fandom, less content, and a whole lot of undue discouragement which is not something we want (nor is it actually constructive).

2. You want to engage the author in a deeper discussion of their work.

This is in direct answer to this part of your ask:

It really seems like you are saying “dear readers, your opinion doesn’t matter to me so unless it’s positive I don’t want to hear it because this fanfic was written for me and this list of people.”

You feel passionate (both positively and negatively) about my work? That’s lovely. I say, start a discussion with me. Ask me questions. Learn why I made those decisions. A discussion starts with an invitation to have a conversation (two ways, you say something, I say something, rinse repeat). It doesn’t start with “I didn’t like” or “This could have been better if”, and it certainly doesn’t start in a public forum, like the comments on AO3, where the writer runs the risk of looking like a defensive asshole. 

But India, you say, what if I don’t have the means to have a private conversation/the writer doesn’t have tumblr/they’ve long since been inactive in the fandom? The answers are, respectively: leave a polite comment asking if they’re willing to discuss, if they are willing to discuss, leave a polite comment asking how to contact them, and if they’re no longer active, find other friends with which to discuss your feelings in private.

But India, that seems like so much work. It is, flat out. But if you really felt that strongly about something I wrote, you would make that effort to understand it. Otherwise, why not just walk away?

3. You don’t know better.

I found this part of your ask extremely interesting:

“But why making people feel excluded or bad because they did something normal just because they didn’t know it wasn’t written “for them” as you said in your post.”

The reason I found it interesting is because it means that there are people who assume that all work that is public was made for them, to suit their tastes, which is, frankly, a bizarre way to consume art. I do not go into The Louvre, look at the Mona Lisa and say “I don’t see the hype, it’s not something I would hang in my living room.” I look at it and think “What does this piece say about Da Vinci and his life? What has this brought to the world? How has this helped people/art/culture?”

(No, I am in no way comparing my talents to Da Vinci, I am not delusional. But, I don’t think my work deserves any less thought than that of a professional artist, simply because I’m an amateur and it’s on the internet and not in a gallery, and you have the superpower of anonymity.) You asked me what the point was in posting my work publicly if I didn’t want to hear every single person’s personal (negative) take on it, and the answer is this: I post what I write publicly, because I hope it helps someone. I hope my thoughts, feelings, experiences, loneliness validate someone, entertain them, help them through a tough time, bring them comfort. I post because I want to invite people to lose themselves alongside me, heal alongside me, dream alongside me. 

(Notice how I said “someone” and not “everyone”. How I said “someone” and not “an élite group that discusses my work”, because yes, I do hope that my work positively impacts someone outside of my betas, my friend group. Does that mean someone can leave negative comments on my work? Yes. But should they? That’s a different question.)

I know my work won’t be a positive experience for every single person, but my goal was never to be relevant to every single person. So, my question is, if I’m not relevant to you personally -- if my work doesn’t touch you personally, heal you personally, entertain you personally, why not just walk away and find something that does? Who does your negative opinion really help? How is it constructive? What is its purpose? Why do you do it?

I will apologize for this, though: I spoke on behalf of all writers, and maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have been clear that though many writers feel this way, not all do. There are some, such as, I assume, yourself, who do view negative comments on AO3 as constructive, whether or not they are solicited, and I’m sorry to have spoken on behalf of you. However, I do still stand by this, though: it is much better to be kind than be right, and that definitely goes for comments on fic.

[genaleah]

ANSWERING WILDCARD QUESTIONS

For the first time in about a year maybe??? Some of these might be even older than that.

Yes, it is Korka! I definitely want her involved, she’s a wonderful character and there is a *lot* of fun paranormal stuff going on in this setting that she can help them research. Also, I’d just love for her and Nelson to become friends!

Thank you! I love him a lot, and it’s fun to picture him interacting with the other guys. They’d all make for some interesting uncle figures, but they might not be that great in terms of role models.

OHOHO. Devilish laugh. That’s a wonderful idea, and a good way to keep him occupied at some point. He’s a great character, but he’s incredibly powerful, and I want these dudes to solve their own problems whenever possible. 

A good question! I don’t remember most of my dreams, but there’s usually a consistent look to the vivid ones. Lots of water, mountains, creeks, and high, winding roads. There are also a lot of buildings that are closely integrated with nature, even though I have almost never seen construction like that. 

I had not, but now I have! Here’s a trailer, for anyone else that missed it:

https://youtu.be/33HXHaaagsw

I really like these new models! I’m looking forward to watching a playthrough when that’s available. Just like with Rhombus of Ruin, I don’t think I’ll be able to play this one myself.

DOUBLE FINE, I WISH TO SPEAK WITH YOU- no, I’m kidding! I think great minds think alike. But I’m really excited to learn more about that character and possibly involve them in this whole au eventually. 

I’ve actually tried to avoid almost any info about Psychonauts 2 so I can go in mostly-blind, and a lot of the characters are vague to me. It’s fun to look forward to, but it’s also a little harrowing because I don’t know how to anticipate for it!

N...NO..... I NEED TO... Honestly those are old enough that it might be a good idea for me to re-make them, as well as the playing cards I made for the mega playlist cover. I think it’d be nice to remake them as vectors... that might make for a nice art stream sometime. I’ll mention publicly if I start doing that, and sharing any of these conceptual Wildcards arts when they’re done. 

And if you’re just curious about what the tarot cards for the other characters are going to be, it’s this:

Eddie: Judgement, The Magician, The Emperor

Manny: Death, Justice, The World

Sam: The Chariot, The Tower, Strength

Max: The Devil, Wheel of Fortune, Joker

Although! I may actually give the Moon card to Max instead of the Devil, and replace the missing card from Nelson’s selection with the High Priestess?  🤔  I’ll decide when I get to it.

Could be! I’ve flip-flopped occasionally on if I want the split-a-cab gang to participate much in the story. I think they deserve a break, and splitting an apartment in New York seems like a good situation for the four of them.

Oh boy, that must be so disorienting for him. The Psychonauts deal with a lot of hippy-dippy weirdness in a seemingly organized way, but it seems like they’re not as paranoid about safety as a real federal organization would be. Not necessarily a good thing, considering one of their camp counselors went AWOL one day, and the head of the Psychonauts got kidnapped the next. They kinda need to get their act together.

Fun fact, in one of the earlier drafts of Chapter 3 I was actually going to make Nelson get scanned by the equivalent of a metal-detector for malevolent thoughts at the door and get really spooked by it, but I decided against it.

YEAH IT’S ON THE LIST

Honestly, a big bulk of the plot in this just regards characters having to face their mental health struggles... via facing it as literal internal demons, unstable powers, etc.  It’s going to take a little while for any of Eddie’s teammates to realize how MUCH he has going on under the surface because he does a pretty good job of hiding it. “Needing to help others above ever helping themselves” is a hard issue to notice if you’re not looking for it. But it’s a guarantee that once they find out he needs help, they’ll give it; whether that’s making sure he’s not working himself too hard, or fighting off demonic cultists. Care comes in many forms.

SHE NEEDS TO REST.... POOR SYBIL (on the upside, they don’t TECHNICALLY work there, so she might be fine most of the time.)

Strong Bad isn’t a Psychonaut! He’s just a vlogger and a petty (psychic) criminal. It’s honestly not very different from canon.

Free Country, USA is a smalltown hotbed of psychic activity. Nearly everyone there has some mild capacity for supernatural powers, but nobody really notices or cares. Strong Bad just pops the tops off of cold ones and.... sometimes alters reality, a tiny bit. But mostly just in regards to media. The cartoons, comics, etc, that he invents and talks about have a tendency to suddenly voip into existence and nobody knows how. I swear, there’s actually a line of him saying something to this effect, but I can’t find it anywhere.  Don’t worry about it! Nobody in town is ever going to do anything truly nefarious with their powers, so it’s not a high priority on the Psychonauts’ radar, just a weird footnote.

The only reason Homestar is an actual agent is because he seems like exactly the kind of guy to sign up for a job like that on accident and then stick with it. And he’s a talented telekinetic! None of his other friends know about his job or notice his absences.

And just for fun, here’s some weird instances of psychic overpowering that happened in the cartoon:

---

(Poor Strong Sad)

I’ve actually answered this one before! BAM  Pretty sure all of it is still accurate.

Nelson: He sees floating sheets of paper containing notes, questions, etc. Anything that he wants to know more about regarding that person. The notes are subject to edits, cross-outs, ripped pages, etc.

Guybrush: He sees the item that the person is carrying that he wants most. As he gets to know people better, he sees them for their useful skills first.

Manny: His view of most living people is not very kind...

The people he’s closest to will eventually look a lot less garish. More like a flattering, camera-ready versions of themselves.

Eddie: Sickass sketch drawings that look like they belong in the margins of a composition book. The illustrations improve as he gets a better picture of where they’d fit in the internal lore of his mental world.

Sam: A lot like Nelson; Sam pictures case files, though his are a bit more in-depth.

Max: Max’s visions of people are highly personal and uncomfortable for those who witness them. He sees Nelson as a puzzle with a piece missing. Guybrush is a ripped up voodoo doll. Manny is a forgotten ofrenda. Eddie is a powder keg with a long, lit fuse. Sam is Sam, but he’s the wrong one.

I also got two questions that were pretty big subjects, or that I didn’t want to repeat, so I’m gonna cover them pretty broadly:

REGARDING [X] CHARACTER OR SERIES INCLUDED IN THE AU

Sure, I support it! I’ve gotten this question a few times in regards to things that I haven’t had time to delve into yet, or I’m not interested in, so I’m not going to include it into the AU myself. But if you want to explore an idea like that, feel free! This AU is pretty dang collaborative.

My main focus is just on the main 6 properties: Psychonauts, Puzzle Agent, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Brutal Legend, and Sam & Max.

But my general rule of thumb for “characters that exist somewhere within the background of this story” are any other properties owned by Telltale, Lucasarts, or Double Fine. And considering all of the licensed games that Telltale was getting into before it kicked the bucket, that includes some really weird characters, even up to the Venture Bros. I loved that series, but I’m not really interested in doing anything with them for this story! Partly for my sanity, the canon I’ve picked are already a lot of content to play with. 

ASSORTED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WILDCARD AU DISCORD

There’s no particular criteria needed to join the discord, and it’s not strictly on a need-to-know basis! Because it’s been a long while since anyone has joined, I've been hesitant about adding new people in... But I‘ve decided to try sending invitations again! Everyone who had asked about it in the past will be getting a ping by me in about a day or so, since I want to double-check if you’re still interested. If you’ve been nervous to ask you can reply to this post or message me privately.

Some things to keep in mind before asking or accepting the invite:

If you’re not a friend or a follower I recognize, I will likely double-check your tumblr along with some other current members before sending the invite. 

Here’s the Rules page, so you know what to expect before you join: 

Be Mindful - Respect other people's boundaries, don't do or say things that would cross the line. If your behavior makes other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe, I will remove you from the chat. In most cases I will try to resolve things with you and offer a chance to do better, but that will depend on the severity of the situation. And if you have any concerns regarding another member of the chat, you can contact me privately.

Health Boundaries - While discussions of mental health do occasionally pop up, do not rely on the chat for help. None of us are equipped to handle serious mental health concerns, and it will only cause distress for everyone. Please seek real help if it is needed! If you rely on people beyond the point that they have asked you to stop, I will remove you from the chat.

NSFW - Generally speaking, try to keep NSFW talk to a minimum. Swearing and humor is fine, but don't get too explicit please! Discussions should usually keep to a PG-13 / occasional R, but no NC-17.

Spoilers & Censorship - Please use the spoiler function to hide story spoilers, as well as discussions and graphic depictions of gore/excessive blood/body horror/severe psychological horror. Include a content warning so that people know what they could potentially be seeing when they click on the censored content. If the spoilered content is the subject of a back-and-forth discussion, please use another warning when you are switching to a different spoilered topic. (Note that these rules were added to the chat later, so be careful when using the search function or back reading.)

The canon series involved with the Wildcard AU are Psychonauts, Puzzle Agent, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Brutal Legend, and Sam & Max. Please be mindful of story spoilers!

Channel Organization - Also be mindful of which channel you're in and move a discussion over if need be! That way they don't get too clogged with unrelated info.

Creative Criticism - When it comes to writing, art, or character creation; try to be open to suggestions from others! Nearly all of the creative work in the chat is collaborative, so input from others is important! Creative criticism is not the same as judgement, and is not a personal attack.

Have fun! - Discussions move quickly in this chat! Don't feel bad if you ever need to step back, whether it's because of the speed or a disinterest in whatever current topic we're focusing on. If you ever want to come back, we're happy to have you and can give quick explanations if you feel out of the loop! :thumbsup:

We’re a group of approx. a half dozen to a dozen people, either posting very very quickly in a span of a few hours or barely anything for a few days. We’ve been in an activity uptick lately and there’s about a year and half of back content, too. If it’s hard to keep up on, not that interesting to read through, or you just have a hard time gelling with the group that's already there, there’s no shame in just lurking or dipping out if you need to.

We also talk a lot about Psychonauts OCs, so anticipate that.

[ourstarscollided]

jatp fanworks appreciation - day 1 (writers)

motivation - so in true me fashion and my aversion to brevity, i've made three (3) posts (see also artists, gifs/edits) to celebrate the wonderful people in this fandom who have made my jatp tumblr experience what it is; a community of people who simply shout into the void about their love of a ghost band and their fearless female leader. i've enjoyed simply being on the sidelines admiring everyone's love for the show, but i thought this would be a good time to really show my appreciation for all these wonderful people, because if i've learned anything from this pandemic, it's that there is NEVER a wrong time to tell someone that they are simply ✨the best✨.

disclaimer: i don't interact with most of these people personally and i simply absorb their content from afar and scream about how wonderful they are in the tags.

This list kind of became a fic rec, so if you're looking for some wonderful fics to read (or reread), I've also included my favs from the author here as well.

Okay this is gonna get a little long so please bear with me. But I just wanted to preamble this by saying that the fanfiction written by the jatp fandom is what resparked my love for reading fiction after about 3-4 years of not reading for leisure (be an adult they said. it'll be fun they said.). So I'm really grateful for that? I don't interact with a lot of people, just because it makes me a little anxious, but I will constantly yell about your content in the tags as if I were on a set of bleachers with a megaphone.

I also know there are so many wonderful fic writers out there (on Tumblr and not on Tumblr) that make amazing pieces of work, and this is just a tiny peek into that, and is not at all conclusive.

Without further ado here are some writers who live rent free in my head, in alphabetical order, so feel free to just skip to your name to avoid my rambling:

@bluefirewrites -> your Merry Ex-Mas fic had me on the edge of my seat every single time you updated. I am so in love with how you wrote the characters into this and at how many words you churned out for this fic. This was filled with so much adventure, and it was really welcome during a time when the world wasn't allowed to travel. And I simply love all the other drabbles and fics you write, but I especially enjoy the hilarity of Ray Molina, Crime Scene Photographer and Matchmaker.

@captainkippen -> I'm pretty sure Love Drunk was one of the first fics I ever read in this fandom. Your stories and your writing feel so goddamn real and I find myself so immersed in the worlds that you've created. I have reread most of your jatp fics and I still manage to find myself stupidly grinning at my phone each time. Your stories flow so easily and are such perfect characterizations of the characters we know from the show, but elevated to fit into your verse. I cannot say enough how wonderful your writing is and how talented you are!! (also a slight nudge that I am still very much following along with The Key and the Crown and I hope you continue it!)

@catty-words -> Your???? Exhaustive??? Music??? Lists???? The amount of work and dedication and microanalyzing that you put into pulling out every detail from each scene is so admirable. You not only manage to find the details, but you also give us EVIDENCE via your intricately selected gifs. You could've just put the video of the performance, but no, you take your time to find that specific 1 second shot to emphasize your point. And your little fics that you sometimes throw out into the world? They're so beautiful, and so fun to read and I enjoy them so much! (I am STILL screaming about this band's a snack) Thank you for validating my yelling in the tags, and for feeding my hyperfixation to this show. (I'm sad these lists are ending soon, but it's about the journey ya know?)

@lydias--stiles -> I don't even know what to say here because I've yelled so much about your fics that I feel like there's really nothing else to yell. Your Road Trip AU was also one of the first ones I read in this fandom, and really just made me go absolutely feral. Pretty sure I absorbed the rest of your fics in an ungodly amount of time and I just simply think you are incredibly skilled and talented. Every time you post a new fic I always wonder what it's like to be in your head because the ideas you come up with are so unique and so well thought out. Thank you for all the art you create for this show, I will constantly be in awe of you. (Special shoutout to the 5+1 fic that became a 31 chapter monster)

@pearlcaddy -> This list would not be complete if I didn't mention you. First of all, thank you for suggesting this wonderful week, it has been so lovely to see so much love being spread around today. Secondly, I never thought I'd find myself reading a Buffy or a Wizarding World crossover fic, considering I know nothing about those two things. And yet I found myself on various nights after work at 3 in the morning just silently screaming and/or crying into my phone. Your writing is so insane. Your world building is so insane. Your banter/dialogue is insane. The way you capture the love between Julie/Luke in different universes is so perfect. Thank you for gifting us these beautiful pieces of art, and I hope you know that you have at least made one person (me) a very happy reader. I also really admire your dedication to "this will only be a oneshot", only to write like 4 other POVs for it. (Special shoutout to 100 Bad Days)

@ruzek-halstead -> Literally every single fic you have written lives rent free in my head. The way you've managed to build this universe of different Julies and Lukes, and each one still captures the essence of them is astounding. You've extended their characters beyond what we know from the show and I am just in awe of everything you write. Please know that dead of night is both triggering to me and yet the most hilarious thing I have read. (Special shoutout to the Fake Dating Christmas AU and of course the Cinderella Story AU)

@serendipitee -> Your stories and your writing are absolutely magical. I think Write It Down was one of the first multi-chapter fics that I followed super closely and whenever you updated, I would literally drop what I was doing and read it instantly. You have such a way of building the plot and the characters for all of your fics and drabbles, and making the reader just want more. Please know that I am so obsessed with Oh, She Waltzed With the Dead and I cannot wait to see where you take the story!

@sunsetcurbed -> I have no words for your writing. I am simply in awe every time I read something from you. The way you've got down Alex and Willie's voice to a tee is so crazy good. You write their characters and their stories with such grace and care, especially with how you approach the topic of mental health. Thank you for all the research you do and for also writing in your own experiences. I literally binged the Princes Diaries AU during work and lost a good half day to it, and I regret nothing because that fic left me in SHAMBLES. I secretly adore the way you say you're going to keep a fic short, and end up writing an insane amount of words for it. (I have not yet left my obligated long-ass comment on Chapter 4 of the College AU yet because I am still processing the fate/destiny concept.)

@tangledstarlight -> Gahh. Rosie. Please. This is going to sound a little repetitive considering I just screamed at you last night, but now I guess I will just have to publicly confess my adoration for you!!! Thank you for being my first online friend in a very long time, and for putting up with me yelling at you about everything (and also nothing at the same time). I can't believe all it took was one message about your Royals AU for you to post it, but I will gladly take that credit any day. You are so so so incredibly talented with your writing, and your ability to transport me to another world while I read your fics is unparalleled. I adore the way you can come up with a new story to write every day, and then proceed to throw it into your pot of other WIPs. I am so so so so lucky to have gotten to know you and am incredibly grateful that I now have someone to cry about everything with 🧡 (If you read anything from Rosie, you need to read her Seasons/Long Distance Juke "friendship" fic and the Reggie x Photography oneshot that made me bawl my eyes out.)

@thedeathdeelers -> No thoughts. Just soulmates. Jk jk, you know I love your Reggie x Ray x Carlos fics, and I will scream in the tags about it until the day I get more of those fics from you. This is lowkey a threat, but wrapped in kindness. You are so wonderful to see on my dash (albeit scary at times because of the sheer amount of headcanons and theories running through your head), but you radiate such positive energy that it's impossible to not want to jump in and scream about soulmates with you.

Some special mentions to fics that also live rent free in my head:

@sunsetsandcurves wrote a Willex Cruise Ship AU inspired by a Simple Plan song and it’s something I never knew I needed until I read it. 

@phantom-curve wrote a Juke fic based off of Coney Island and I would just like to say, yes, it did shatter me. (Here’s the fluff sequel that makes up for it though)

@unsaidjulie wrote the Juke dog fic of my dreams and I simply cannot express how much I want the Molina’s to have a dog now. 

@pawprinterfanfic managed to get me incredibly invested in a Star Wars AU even though I know absolutely nothing about Star Wars. I just know that I would die for two (2) space boys. 

@sanssssastark  your Later universe made me realize that I do very much want there to be more mature content for this fandom (and you constantly deliver).

@theobligatedklutz wrote a Tangled Willex AU that makes me screech every time there’s an update. Just read it.

@alexthedrummerboy your talent knows no bounds when it comes to your Social Media AU. Also she’s written ORIGINAL songs for Alex and Willie?!?!?! 

@gennified has this really wonderful modern take on pride and prejudice for Willex and I’m so obsessed with how much miscommunication there is.

@bananaleaves okay, I just found your Tumblr today, and I know you don’t know me in any capacity, but allow me to scream about THIS FIC RIGHT HERE. If anyone in this fandom is to read ANYTHING, it’s this fic. This was one of the best things I’ve read in a long time and absolutely wrecked me. Please just read this.

This turned out WAY longer than it was supposed to, and I’m SO SORRY. (I also tried to make sure I got everyone’s pronouns right, so PLEASE let me know if they’re wrong!) A final sincere thank you to everyone in this fandom who writes. Your talent knows no bounds. Gonna stop talking now before this becomes an essay....

[tysonrunningfox]

Ripped: Epilogue

Last year, the day after Thanksgiving on vacation in London, I went on a Jack the Ripper tour, thinking it would be a fun, goofy adventure, but instead it planted the seeds for the first time I ever made plot work on purpose.  This has been so much fun and I’m so grateful for how involved so many of you lovely people has been, it has made something that I took on with a lot of personal rigor doable.  

Ao3

“You were short on rent.  Again,” Snotlout leans against the doorframe of Hiccup and Astrid’s shared bedroom, arms crossed, and Astrid rolls her eyes, pausing halfway through trying to tie Hiccup’s tie to answer him. 

“No, I’m not, I told you I’m not paying for half of your NFL package.” 

“You watch it too!”  He insists and she pats Hiccup on the chest, wordlessly assuring him that she’ll be back focused on his nervous expression soon. 

“That’s because you sit on the remote,” she reminds him, “I’m not paying for it.”

“You look like an adult,” Snotlout changes the subject, gesturing to Hiccup’s new khakis and dress shirt under a borrowed blazer.  The tie is proving more difficult, but she’ll figure it out.  “Where’d you get the jacket?” 

“Astrid,” he says, voice pinched as he adjusts the sleeves, looking over her shoulder into the mirror she’d salvaged from her apartment that’s still propped against her bookcase, which is stocked with the overflow that wouldn’t fit in the office when they combined libraries.  He touches his hair and a piece at the back pops straight out. 

“Why did Astrid have a men’s blazer?”  Snotlout laughs, “unless it’s a woman’s—”

“Tuff and I are the same size, ok?”  She glares at him, “shut the door on your way out.  Please.”  She adds the last word to make it happen faster, even if her voice isn’t polite enough to let it carry any weight. 

“Quickie before the interview—”

“Shut the door.”  She smiles, patronizing and not letting it reach her eyes, “or you’ll see something you don’t want to see.” 

“Guess it’s my last chance to say good luck,” Snotlout directs that at Hiccup, “you’re going to kill it—”

“Snotlout!”  Astrid takes a pillow off of the bed and throws it at him, hitting him squarely in the face, “shut the damn door!” 

“I’m keeping the pillow until I get the twenty bucks,” Snotlout waves the pillow that he barely caught in the air before shutting the door, mouthing ‘good luck’ at Hiccup through the gap. 

“Then I’ll buy a new pillow,” Astrid doesn’t care if he heard her last dig and she refocuses on Hiccup, adjusting the untied tie under his collar, “he’s right, you’re going to do great.” 

He smiles, cheeks tight under the beard that’s thankfully finally filling out, especially since he decided he’s determined to keep it during his job search.  She gets his motive and is frankly a little jealous that he can stop shaving and suddenly he won’t look like the suspect whose picture spent weeks all over the news while she’s stuck with a baseball cap and a glare to not look like the student temporarily presumed missing in association with the same case.  He’s lucky that it’s starting to look good, official, aging him a few years in a way that makes his green eyes more vulnerable as he catches her hands, tugging them away from the tie she’s been tangling more than knotting. 

“I look like I’m wearing a costume,” he gestures at himself and she tilts his chin down to force eye contact. 

“Aren’t you?”  She points at the top hat hanging on the side post of the headboard with her chin, “you aren’t exactly in your natural state.” 

“I knew I should have rented a tux,” he jokes, voice shaky along its edges, almost fluttering, “gone full white tie with the hat and a monocle.” 

“Maybe I’d have better luck tying a white tie.” 

“It’s fine,” he pulls the tie off entirely, throwing it on the bed and running a frustrated hand through the hair they just got done trying to comb.  He instantly looks more like himself and she sighs, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. 

“You’re right, it’s the historical society, not a bank.” 

“Yeah, at least a bank would have to google my name to learn about that time I was framed for murder, I’m sure everyone at the historical society was following the case independently.”  He laughs, sitting on the edge of the bed, face in his hands.  “Thousands of blogs and websites and comment threads with advice about how to dress for an interview and how to introduce yourself, but there’s not a single Buzzfeed list about how to conduct yourself after being wrongly and publicly accused of serial murder?  That seems like an irresponsible knowledge gap.” 

“Maybe you can write something up,” she sits down next to him, wishing there was something real she could do to help.  “Look, Hiccup, they wouldn’t have scheduled an interview if they didn’t think you could do the job.” 

“Or maybe they just want gory details,” he says before groaning, sitting up straight and squinting his eyes shut for a second, “you’re right.  I know you’re right.  Somehow filling in the non-existent work experience on my resume with claims that I’m a self-starter and quick-learner made them call me.” 

“I think it had more to do with the cover letter,” she rolls her eyes, out of gentle reminders after a week of his mounting anxiety, “I don’t think most applicants make a case for a building to be declared historically significant before they’ve even been interviewed.” 

“Gruff’s should be preserved,” he insists, “especially since Tuff took out the drop ceiling and found that art deco pressed tin—”

“Hiccup.” 

“And not only is it one of the last authentic speakeasies we have left, since they tore down the building on third, and even there the drug store using the space tiled over the original wallpaper—”

She kisses him to cut him off, laughing and wrapping her arms around his neck when he keeps trying to make his point, mumbling about hidden cabinets against her lips.  It takes a minute, but he relaxes with a sigh, hand sliding to her lower back to pull her closer, thumb dragging slow and sweet against her spine.  His muffled sound of disappointment when she tries to pull back keeps her there another second, dropping two soft pecks on his lips before anchoring him with her hands on his cheeks and looking seriously into his eyes. 

“Save it for your interview, ok?” 

“Save the kissing for my interview?”  He grins, lopsided and relaxed, at least momentarily.  “I thought I was moving on from my sordid past, prostituting myself in the alleys for a few bucks.” 

“Save your lectures on old buildings for your interview,” she kisses his forehead and stands up, offering him her hand and pulling him to his feet, “I can’t think of any audience more primed to hear them than the Berk Historical Society.” 

“You know, Tuff did manage to turn a profit this month,” Hiccup’s eyes flicker unsure, “bartending is a viable trade, it’s going to be around as long as people numb their feelings with alcohol.” 

“But historically significant buildings won’t if someone doesn’t start advocating for their wallpaper,” she reminds him why the job appealed to him in the first place and he sighs. 

“And if they just want to talk about Grimborn?”  He refers to the original killer but points to recent memory with his tone and she thinks for a second before picking up the hat and offering it to him. 

“Give them a tour.   Prove that you know more about this city than anyone else.” 

“I don’t need the hat to do that,” he sets it on her head with that crooked smile, “plus, it just makes me think about you now and I don’t need the extra distraction.” 

“You should probably get going,” she checks the time, pushing him gently towards the door before he can invent any other reasons to delay. 

“Right,” he leaves the room and she pauses to put the hat back on its unofficial headboard hook before following.  Hiccup is standing in the middle of the living room with the TV remote in hand, paused mid-step to watch something. 

“…recent events, it was decided that the apartment complex at 324 Harbor Road would be converted into low income housing, however when renovation began in the second-floor apartment where Grimmel Grisly’s last murder recently occurred, a possible clue to a much more famous murder at the location was discovered.” 

Hiccup looks at her, eyebrows raised as the anchor continues. 

“…possible forensic evidence found at the Elizabeth Smith crime scene could potentially reveal the true identity of Berk’s most famous outlaw, Viggo Grimborn, The Harbor Street Killer.  We have an expert here to discuss the—”

The TV screen turns black and Hiccup tosses the remote onto the couch, where it bounces off of a throw pillow and onto the floor. 

“You don’t want to watch that?”  She cocks her head, his suddenly self-assured, almost peaceful smile catching her off guard. 

“I like the mystery,” he repeats the words that infuriated her when a nuisance from another era stood in a courtyard and shouted them.  “So, I’ve got to go convince a room full of architecture nerds that I’d really love to help them save some of the old buildings that Berk has left, especially if they pay me.  Wish me luck.” 

“You don’t need it,” she insists, “you’re going to do great.  I love you.” 

He stands up a little straighter when she says it, like he always does, and she believes her own assurance even more. 

“Cool, I’ll call you when I’m done.”  He points at the TV and whispers, conspiratorial tone lighter than she would have expected, “don’t go solving Grimborn without me, ok?” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

[tswiftdaily]

New Reputation: Taylor Swift shares intel on TS7, fan theories, and her next era

Snakes begone. The 29-year-old superstar is back with a new album and a new outlook on life. We go inside the pop monarch's latest chapter.

THE PALM TREES ARRIVED IN FEBRUARY, seven in all, set against a pastel blue backdrop with superimposed stars. It appeared that a new Taylor Swift era was upon us — that the old happy-go-lucky Taylor was not, in fact, dead. Or did it? It wasonly an Instagram photo, just one more picture in an infinite content scroll. But it also came from a pop star known for prodigious hint-dropping, whose fans turn every piece of info into an online archaeological dig.

As expected, the summery post sent Swifties sifting through each detail with a fine-tooth comb. What did the trees symbolize? An overdue vacation? A recently purchased beach house? A secret palm-frond collection? Or maybe, as many surmised, it was new music. One Twitter user predicted that the number of stars in the background of the photo hinted at a single drop: “There’s about 60/61 [stars]️. There’s 61 days until April 26, FRIDAY, a SINGLE RELEASE day!” Another said it was the unofficial announcement of her next LP: “Okay so in this picture there are 4 palm trees on the left (4 country albums). There are two palm trees on the right (2 pop albums). There is one large palm tree in the middle. This represents her new album.” These may sound like ludicrous conspiracy theories — for the record, they were mostly correct — but they fit firmly within the Taylor Swift Musical Universe (it’s like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but with more guitars and fewer Stan Lee cameos).

“I posted that the day that I finished the seventh album,” says Swift about the photo. “I couldn’t expect [my fans] to know that. I figured they’d figure it out later, but a lot of their theories were actually correct. Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for ‘Delicate’ by painting my nails those [pastel] colors.”

It’s now April, and the 29-year-old pop star is in a Los Angeles photo studio, giving her first sit-down magazine interview in three years. She wants to discuss the art of placing hints inside her work, as well as the upcoming record, which she recorded as soon as she finished the Reputation Tour. She’s also keen on detailing her own obsessions, talking up the TV shows, books, and songs that help shape her outlook on life.

Over the past 13 years, Swift has perfected the pop culture feedback loop: She shares updates about her life and drops hints about new music, which fans then gobble up and re-promote with their own theories, which Swift then re-shares on her Tumblr or incorporates into future clues. It’s like a T-Swift-built Escher staircase of personal memories and moments that tease what’s next. “I’ve trained them to be that way,” she says of her fans’ astute detective work. Swift is a pop culture fanatic herself (see: the jean jacket she’s wearing on the EW cover) and has an innate understanding of the lengths her audience will go to be a part of the original creation. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”

Through this approach, Swift has designed the ultimate artistic scavenger hunt — and it’s easy to get swept up in its drama, even if you don’t listen to her music. Her moments aren’t always hidden, either. Sometimes Swift highlights aspects of her world just so fans feel like they’re on the journey with her. Like the time in March 2018 when pop singer Hayley Kiyoko was accused of shading Swift after mentioning her name during an interview. On Tumblr, Swift re-shared a fan’s post, adding commentary that defended Kiyoko, which immediately dispelled any conflicts between the two artists; Swift’s post subsequently received more than 29,000 notes. Four months later, she invited Kiyoko on stage during the Reputation Tour to sing her hit “Curious.” Kiyoko returned the favor when she had Swift join her that December at a benefit on behalf of the LGBTQ organization the Ally Coalition to perform “Delicate.” Fans of both artists were elated by the mutual support.

The feedback loop also extends outside of music. In October 2018, Swift broke her silence about politics by publicly endorsing two candidates for office in her adopted state of Tennessee, while encouraging her followers to register to vote. She kept up the civic momentum through Election Day when she asked fans to post selfies after voting; Swift then eagerly re-promoted her favorites on Instagram stories.

This practice of sharing and re-sharing and sharing again is why listeners consider Swift one of the world’s most accessible pop stars, someone willing to not only interact with her audience but invite them to secret listening sessions, or make the occasional surprise visit to their wedding or prom. It’s a symbiotic relationship, one that, as Swift tells EW, helped her dig out of the darker era of reputation. “It’s definitely the fans that made that tonal shift in the way I was feeling,” she says. “Songwriters need to communicate, and part of communicating correctly is when you put out a message that is understood the way you meant it. reputation was interesting because I’d never before had an album that wasn’t fully understood until it was seen live. When it first came out everyone thought it was just going to be angry; upon listening to the whole thing they realized it’s actually about love and friendship, and finding out what your priorities are.”

Then, during the Reputation Tour, she had an epiphany: that despite the caricature that she thought had been created of her, there were many people who saw what others had simply refused to. “I would look out into the audience and I’d see these amazing, thoughtful, caring, wonderful, empathetic people,” she says. “So often with our takedown culture, talking s— about a celebrity is basically the same as talking s— about the new iPhone. So when I go and I meet fans, I see that they actually see me as a flesh-and-blood human being. That — as contrived as it may sound — changed [me] completely, assigning humanity to my life.”

At tour’s end, she channeled that positive energy into the studio, recording the new album in just under three months. But the fast pace won’t mean a short LP. Swift confirmed that her seventh record (she hasn’t announced a title yet; the working nickname among fans is TS7) will include more songs than any of her previous releases. “I try not to go into making an album with any expectation,” she says. “I started to write so much that I knew immediately it would probably be bigger.”

The project will also feature a mix of old and new collaborators (on the candy-coated lead single “ME!” Swift brought in Panic! At the Disco frontman Brendon Urie and coproducer Joel Little, both of whom she had never worked with), but she is unsurprisingly coy about doling out much more information, as if doing so would break the carefully honed T-Swiftian feedback loop. “There’s a lot of a lot on this album,” she says. “I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing…. You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.” There’s also, she adds, some “really, really, really, really sad songs,” but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”

She gives us one more clue: The true distinction between TS7 and reputation is in the delivery. “This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”

The past month has seen a deluge of Swift activity, from the release of the new single to dropping more hints in interviews about the record and its title, which is apparently hidden somewhere inside the “ME!” music video (current fan guesses include Kaleidoscope and Daisy). But if the Easter eggs from the pop star seem like a business-as-usual routine, she says this album does indeed mark a new era of her life, where she’s been better able to prioritize what’s important to her.

“Our priorities can get messed up existing in a society that puts a currency on curating the way people see your life,” she says. “Social media has given people a way to express their art. I use it to connect with fans. But on the downside you feel like there are 3 trillion new invisible hoops that you have to jump through, and you feel like you’ll never be able to jump through them all correctly. I — along with a lot of my friends and fans — am trying to figure out how to navigate living my life and not just curating what I want people to think living my life is. I’m not always able to maintain a balance, and I think that’s important for everyone to know about. We’re always learning, and that’s something that I also had to learn — that I’ve got to be brave enough to learn. Learning in public is so humiliating sometimes…. Do I feel more balanced in my life than I ever have before? Um, probably yeah. But is that permanent? No. And I think being okay with that has put me in a bit of a better position.” Strong words to live by, to quote, to re-share, to tweet back to her, and see if she’ll respond.

(x)

[path-of-my-childhood]

New Reputation: Taylor Swift shares intel on TS7, fan theories, and her next era

By: Alex Suskind for Entertainment Weekly Date: May 9th 2019

Snakes begone. The 29-year-old superstar is back with a new album and a new outlook on life. We go inside the pop monarch's latest chapter.

THE PALM TREES ARRIVED IN FEBRUARY, seven in all, set against a pastel blue backdrop with superimposed stars. It appeared that a new Taylor Swift era was upon us — that the old happy-go-lucky Taylor was not, in fact, dead. Or did it? It was only an Instagram photo, just one more picture in an infinite content scroll. But it also came from a pop star known for prodigious hint-dropping, whose fans turn every piece of info into an online archaeological dig.

As expected, the summery post sent Swifties sifting through each detail with a fine-tooth comb. What did the trees symbolize? An overdue vacation? A recently purchased beach house? A secret palm-frond collection? Or maybe, as many surmised, it was new music. One Twitter user predicted that the number of stars in the background of the photo hinted at a single drop: “There’s about 60/61 [stars]️. There’s 61 days until April 26, FRIDAY, a SINGLE RELEASE day!” Another said it was the unofficial announcement of her next LP: “Okay so in this picture there are 4 palm trees on the left (4 country albums). There are two palm trees on the right (2 pop albums). There is one large palm tree in the middle. This represents her new album.” These may sound like ludicrous conspiracy theories — for the record, they were mostly correct — but they fit firmly within the Taylor Swift Musical Universe (it’s like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but with more guitars and fewer Stan Lee cameos).

“I posted that the day that I finished the seventh album,” says Swift about the photo. “I couldn’t expect [my fans] to know that. I figured they’d figure it out later, but a lot of their theories were actually correct. Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for ‘Delicate’ by painting my nails those [pastel] colors.”

It’s now April, and the 29-year-old pop star is in a Los Angeles photo studio, giving her first sit-down magazine interview in three years. She wants to discuss the art of placing hints inside her work, as well as the upcoming record, which she recorded as soon as she finished the Reputation Tour. She’s also keen on detailing her own obsessions, talking up the TV shows, books, and songs that help shape her outlook on life.

Over the past 13 years, Swift has perfected the pop culture feedback loop: She shares updates about her life and drops hints about new music, which fans then gobble up and re-promote with their own theories, which Swift then re-shares on her Tumblr or incorporates into future clues. It’s like a T-Swift-built Escher staircase of personal memories and moments that tease what’s next. “I’ve trained them to be that way,” she says of her fans’ astute detective work. Swift is a pop culture fanatic herself (see: the jean jacket she’s wearing on the EW cover) and has an innate understanding of the lengths her audience will go to be a part of the original creation. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”

Through this approach, Swift has designed the ultimate artistic scavenger hunt — and it’s easy to get swept up in its drama, even if you don’t listen to her music. Her moments aren’t always hidden, either. Sometimes Swift highlights aspects of her world just so fans feel like they’re on the journey with her. Like the time in March 2018 when pop singer Hayley Kiyoko was accused of shading Swift after mentioning her name during an interview. On Tumblr, Swift re-shared a fan’s post, adding commentary that defended Kiyoko, which immediately dispelled any conflicts between the two artists; Swift’s post subsequently received more than 29,000 notes. Four months later, she invited Kiyoko on stage during the Reputation Tour to sing her hit “Curious.” Kiyoko returned the favor when she had Swift join her that December at a benefit on behalf of the LGBTQ organization the Ally Coalition to perform “Delicate.” Fans of both artists were elated by the mutual support.

The feedback loop also extends outside of music. In October 2018, Swift broke her silence about politics by publicly endorsing two candidates for office in her adopted state of Tennessee, while encouraging her followers to register to vote. She kept up the civic momentum through Election Day when she asked fans to post selfies after voting; Swift then eagerly re-promoted her favorites on Instagram stories.

This practice of sharing and re-sharing and sharing again is why listeners consider Swift one of the world’s most accessible pop stars, someone willing to not only interact with her audience but invite them to secret listening sessions, or make the occasional surprise visit to their wedding or prom. It’s a symbiotic relationship, one that, as Swift tells EW, helped her dig out of the darker era of reputation. “It’s definitely the fans that made that tonal shift in the way I was feeling,” she says. “Songwriters need to communicate, and part of communicating correctly is when you put out a message that is understood the way you meant it. reputation was interesting because I’d never before had an album that wasn’t fully understood until it was seen live. When it first came out everyone thought it was just going to be angry; upon listening to the whole thing they realized it’s actually about love and friendship, and finding out what your priorities are.”

Then, during the Reputation Tour, she had an epiphany: that despite the caricature that she thought had been created of her, there were many people who saw what others had simply refused to. “I would look out into the audience and I’d see these amazing, thoughtful, caring, wonderful, empathetic people,” she says. “So often with our takedown culture, talking s— about a celebrity is basically the same as talking s— about the new iPhone. So when I go and I meet fans, I see that they actually see me as a flesh-and-blood human being. That — as contrived as it may sound — changed [me] completely, assigning humanity to my life.”

At tour’s end, she channeled that positive energy into the studio, recording the new album in just under three months. But the fast pace won’t mean a short LP. Swift confirmed that her seventh record (she hasn’t announced a title yet; the working nickname among fans is TS7) will include more songs than any of her previous releases. “I try not to go into making an album with any expectation,” she says. “I started to write so much that I knew immediately it would probably be bigger.”

The project will also feature a mix of old and new collaborators (on the candy-coated lead single “ME!” Swift brought in Panic! At the Disco frontman Brendon Urie and coproducer Joel Little, both of whom she had never worked with), but she is unsurprisingly coy about doling out much more information, as if doing so would break the carefully honed T-Swiftian feedback loop. “There’s a lot of a lot on this album,” she says. “I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing…. You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.” There’s also, she adds, some “really, really, really, really sad songs,” but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”

She gives us one more clue: The true distinction between TS7 and reputation is in the delivery. “This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”

The past month has seen a deluge of Swift activity, from the release of the new single to dropping more hints in interviews about the record and its title, which is apparently hidden somewhere inside the “ME!” music video (current fan guesses include Kaleidoscope and Daisy). But if the Easter eggs from the pop star seem like a business-as-usual routine, she says this album does indeed mark a new era of her life, where she’s been better able to prioritize what’s important to her.

“Our priorities can get messed up existing in a society that puts a currency on curating the way people see your life,” she says. “Social media has given people a way to express their art. I use it to connect with fans. But on the downside you feel like there are 3 trillion new invisible hoops that you have to jump through, and you feel like you’ll never be able to jump through them all correctly. I — along with a lot of my friends and fans — am trying to figure out how to navigate living my life and not just curating what I want people to think living my life is. I’m not always able to maintain a balance, and I think that’s important for everyone to know about. We’re always learning, and that’s something that I also had to learn — that I’ve got to be brave enough to learn. Learning in public is so humiliating sometimes… Do I feel more balanced in my life than I ever have before? Um, probably yeah. But is that permanent? No. And I think being okay with that has put me in a bit of a better position.” Strong words to live by, to quote, to re-share, to tweet back to her, and see if she’ll respond.

You can read the original article HERE.

[kaleid-tay-scope]

New Reputation: Taylor Swift shares intel on TS7, fan theories, and her next era

Snakes begone. The 29-year-old superstar is back with a new album and a new outlook on life. We go inside the pop monarch's latest chapter.

Alex Suskind

May 09, 2019 at 12:00 PM EDT

Peggy Sirota for EW

THE PALM TREES ARRIVED IN FEBRUARY, seven in all, set against a pastel blue backdrop with superimposed stars. It appeared that a new Taylor Swift era was upon us — that the old happy-go-lucky Taylor was not, in fact, dead. Or did it? It was only an Instagram photo, just one more picture in an infinite content scroll. But it also came from a pop star known for prodigious hint-dropping, whose fans turn every piece of info into an online archaeological dig.

As expected, the summery post sent Swifties sifting through each detail with a fine-tooth comb. What did the trees symbolize? An overdue vacation? A recently purchased beach house? A secret palm-frond collection? Or maybe, as many surmised, it was new music. One Twitter user predicted that the number of stars in the background of the photo hinted at a single drop: “There’s about 60/61 [stars]️. There’s 61 days until April 26, FRIDAY, a SINGLE RELEASE day!” Another said it was the unofficial announcement of her next LP: “Okay so in this picture there are 4 palm trees on the left (4 country albums). There are two palm trees on the right (2 pop albums). There is one large palm tree in the middle. This represents her new album.” These may sound like ludicrous conspiracy theories — for the record, they were mostly correct — but they fit firmly within the Taylor Swift Musical Universe (it’s like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but with more guitars and fewer Stan Lee cameos).

“I posted that the day that I finished the seventh album,” says Swift about the photo. “I couldn’t expect [my fans] to know that. I figured they’d figure it out later, but a lot of their theories were actually correct. Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for ‘Delicate’ by painting my nails those [pastel] colors.”

It’s now April, and the 29-year-old pop star is in a Los Angeles photo studio, giving her first sit-down magazine interview in three years. She wants to discuss the art of placing hints inside her work, as well as the upcoming record, which she recorded as soon as she finished the Reputation Tour. She’s also keen on detailing her own obsessions, talking up the TV shows, books, and songs that help shape her outlook on life.

Over the past 13 years, Swift has perfected the pop culture feedback loop: She shares updates about her life and drops hints about new music, which fans then gobble up and re-promote with their own theories, which Swift then re-shares on her Tumblr or incorporates into future clues. It’s like a T-Swift-built Escher staircase of personal memories and moments that tease what’s next. “I’ve trained them to be that way,” she says of her fans’ astute detective work. Swift is a pop culture fanatic herself (see: the jean jacket she’s wearing on the EW cover) and has an innate understanding of the lengths her audience will go to be a part of the original creation. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”

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Through this approach, Swift has designed the ultimate artistic scavenger hunt — and it’s easy to get swept up in its drama, even if you don’t listen to her music. Her moments aren’t always hidden, either. Sometimes Swift highlights aspects of her world just so fans feel like they’re on the journey with her. Like the time in March 2018 when pop singer Hayley Kiyoko was accused of shading Swift after mentioning her name during an interview. On Tumblr, Swift re-shared a fan’s post, adding commentary that defended Kiyoko, which immediately dispelled any conflicts between the two artists; Swift’s post subsequently received more than 29,000 notes. Four months later, she invited Kiyoko on stage during the Reputation Tour to sing her hit “Curious.” Kiyoko returned the favor when she had Swift join her that December at a benefit on behalf of the LGBTQ organization the Ally Coalition to perform “Delicate.” Fans of both artists were elated by the mutual support.

The feedback loop also extends outside of music. In October 2018, Swift broke her silence about politics by publicly endorsing two candidates for office in her adopted state of Tennessee, while encouraging her followers to register to vote. She kept up the civic momentum through Election Day when she asked fans to post selfies after voting; Swift then eagerly re-promoted her favorites on Instagram stories.

This practice of sharing and re-sharing and sharing again is why listeners consider Swift one of the world’s most accessible pop stars, someone willing to not only interact with her audience but invite them to secret listening sessions, or make the occasional surprise visit to their wedding or prom. It’s a symbiotic relationship, one that, as Swift tells EW, helped her dig out of the darker era of reputation. “It’s definitely the fans that made that tonal shift in the way I was feeling,” she says. “Songwriters need to communicate, and part of communicating correctly is when you put out a message that is understood the way you meant it. reputation was interesting because I’d never before had an album that wasn’t fully understood until it was seen live. When it first came out everyone thought it was just going to be angry; upon listening to the whole thing they realized it’s actually about love and friendship, and finding out what your priorities are.”

Then, during the Reputation Tour, she had an epiphany: that despite the caricature that she thought had been created of her, there were many people who saw what others had simply refused to. “I would look out into the audience and I’d see these amazing, thoughtful, caring, wonderful, empathetic people,” she says. “So often with our takedown culture, talking s— about a celebrity is basically the same as talking s— about the new iPhone. So when I go and I meet fans, I see that they actually see me as a flesh-and-blood human being. That — as contrived as it may sound — changed [me] completely, assigning humanity to my life.”

At tour’s end, she channeled that positive energy into the studio, recording the new album in just under three months. But the fast pace won’t mean a short LP. Swift confirmed that her seventh record (she hasn’t announced a title yet; the working nickname among fans is TS7) will include more songs than any of her previous releases. “I try not to go into making an album with any expectation,” she says. “I started to write so much that I knew immediately it would probably be bigger.”

The project will also feature a mix of old and new collaborators (on the candy-coated lead single “ME!” Swift brought in Panic! At the Disco frontman Brendon Urie and coproducer Joel Little, both of whom she had never worked with), but she is unsurprisingly coy about doling out much more information, as if doing so would break the carefully honed T-Swiftian feedback loop. “There’s a lot of a lot on this album,” she says. “I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing…. You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.” There’s also, she adds, some “really, really, really, really sad songs,” but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”

She gives us one more clue: The true distinction between TS7 and reputation is in the delivery. “This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”

The past month has seen a deluge of Swift activity, from the release of the new single to dropping more hints in interviews about the record and its title, which is apparently hidden somewhere inside the “ME!” music video (current fan guesses include Kaleidoscope and Daisy). But if the Easter eggs from the pop star seem like a business-as-usual routine, she says this album does indeed mark a new era of her life, where she’s been better able to prioritize what’s important to her.

“Our priorities can get messed up existing in a society that puts a currency on curating the way people see your life,” she says. “Social media has given people a way to express their art. I use it to connect with fans. But on the downside you feel like there are 3 trillion new invisible hoops that you have to jump through, and you feel like you’ll never be able to jump through them all correctly. I — along with a lot of my friends and fans — am trying to figure out how to navigate living my life and not just curating what I want people to think living my life is. I’m not always able to maintain a balance, and I think that’s important for everyone to know about. We’re always learning, and that’s something that I also had to learn — that I’ve got to be brave enough to learn. Learning in public is so humiliating sometimes…. Do I feel more balanced in my life than I ever have before? Um, probably yeah. But is that permanent? No. And I think being okay with that has put me in a bit of a better position.” Strong words to live by, to quote, to re-share, to tweet back to her, and see if she’ll respond.

[mywild]

New Reputation: Taylor Swift shares intel on TS7, fan theories, and her next era

THE PALM TREES ARRIVED IN FEBRUARY, seven in all, set against a pastel blue backdrop with superimposed stars. It appeared that a new Taylor Swift era was upon us — that the old happy-go-lucky Taylor was not, in fact, dead. Or did it? It wasonly an Instagram photo, just one more picture in an infinite content scroll. But it also came from a pop star known for prodigious hint-dropping, whose fans turn every piece of info into an online archaeological dig.

As expected, the summery post sent Swifties sifting through each detail with a fine-tooth comb. What did the trees symbolize? An overdue vacation? A recently purchased beach house? A secret palm-frond collection? Or maybe, as many surmised, it was new music. One Twitter user predicted that the number of stars in the background of the photo hinted at a single drop: “There’s about 60/61 [stars]️. There’s 61 days until April 26, FRIDAY, a SINGLE RELEASE day!” Another said it was the unofficial announcement of her next LP: “Okay so in this picture there are 4 palm trees on the left (4 country albums). There are two palm trees on the right (2 pop albums). There is one large palm tree in the middle. This represents her new album.” These may sound like ludicrous conspiracy theories — for the record, they were mostly correct — but they fit firmly within the Taylor Swift Musical Universe (it’s like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but with more guitars and fewer Stan Lee cameos).

“I posted that the day that I finished the seventh album,” says Swift about the photo. “I couldn’t expect [my fans] to know that. I figured they’d figure it out later, but a lot of their theories were actually correct. Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for ‘Delicate’ by painting my nails those [pastel] colors.”

It’s now April, and the 29-year-old pop star is in a Los Angeles photo studio, giving her first sit-down magazine interview in three years. She wants to discuss the art of placing hints inside her work, as well as the upcoming record, which she recorded as soon as she finished the Reputation Tour. She’s also keen on detailing her own obsessions, talking up the TV shows, books, and songs that help shape her outlook on life.

Over the past 13 years, Swift has perfected the pop culture feedback loop: She shares updates about her life and drops hints about new music, which fans then gobble up and re-promote with their own theories, which Swift then re-shares on her Tumblr or incorporates into future clues. It’s like a T-Swift-built Escher staircase of personal memories and moments that tease what’s next. “I’ve trained them to be that way,” she says of her fans’ astute detective work. Swift is a pop culture fanatic herself (see: the jean jacket she’s wearing on the EW cover) and has an innate understanding of the lengths her audience will go to be a part of the original creation. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”

Through this approach, Swift has designed the ultimate artistic scavenger hunt — and it’s easy to get swept up in its drama, even if you don’t listen to her music. Her moments aren’t always hidden, either. Sometimes Swift highlights aspects of her world just so fans feel like they’re on the journey with her. Like the time in March 2018 when pop singer Hayley Kiyoko was accused of shading Swift after mentioning her name during an interview. On Tumblr, Swift re-shared a fan’s post, adding commentary that defended Kiyoko, which immediately dispelled any conflicts between the two artists; Swift’s post subsequently received more than 29,000 notes. Four months later, she invited Kiyoko on stage during the Reputation Tour to sing her hit “Curious.” Kiyoko returned the favor when she had Swift join her that December at a benefit on behalf of the LGBTQ organization the Ally Coalition to perform “Delicate.” Fans of both artists were elated by the mutual support.

The feedback loop also extends outside of music. In October 2018, Swift broke her silence about politics by publicly endorsing two candidates for office in her adopted state of Tennessee, while encouraging her followers to register to vote. She kept up the civic momentum through Election Day when she asked fans to post selfies after voting; Swift then eagerly re-promoted her favorites on Instagram stories.

This practice of sharing and re-sharing and sharing again is why listeners consider Swift one of the world’s most accessible pop stars, someone willing to not only interact with her audience but invite them to secret listening sessions, or make the occasional surprise visit to their wedding or prom. It’s a symbiotic relationship, one that, as Swift tells EW, helped her dig out of the darker era of reputation. “It’s definitely the fans that made that tonal shift in the way I was feeling,” she says. “Songwriters need to communicate, and part of communicating correctly is when you put out a message that is understood the way you meant it. reputation was interesting because I’d never before had an album that wasn’t fully understood until it was seen live. When it first came out everyone thought it was just going to be angry; upon listening to the whole thing they realized it’s actually about love and friendship, and finding out what your priorities are.”

Then, during the Reputation Tour, she had an epiphany: that despite the caricature that she thought had been created of her, there were many people who saw what others had simply refused to. “I would look out into the audience and I’d see these amazing, thoughtful, caring, wonderful, empathetic people,” she says. “So often with our takedown culture, talking s— about a celebrity is basically the same as talking s— about the new iPhone. So when I go and I meet fans, I see that they actually see me as a flesh-and-blood human being. That — as contrived as it may sound — changed [me] completely, assigning humanity to my life.”

At tour’s end, she channeled that positive energy into the studio, recording the new album in just under three months. But the fast pace won’t mean a short LP. Swift confirmed that her seventh record (she hasn’t announced a title yet; the working nickname among fans is TS7) will include more songs than any of her previous releases. “I try not to go into making an album with any expectation,” she says. “I started to write so much that I knew immediately it would probably be bigger.”

The project will also feature a mix of old and new collaborators (on the candy-coated lead single “ME!” Swift brought in Panic! At the Disco frontman Brendon Urie and coproducer Joel Little, both of whom she had never worked with), but she is unsurprisingly coy about doling out much more information, as if doing so would break the carefully honed T-Swiftian feedback loop. “There’s a lot of a lot on this album,” she says. “I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing…. You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.” There’s also, she adds, some “really, really, really, really sad songs,” but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”

She gives us one more clue: The true distinction between TS7 and reputation is in the delivery. “This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”

The past month has seen a deluge of Swift activity, from the release of the new single to dropping more hints in interviews about the record and its title, which is apparently hidden somewhere inside the “ME!” music video (current fan guesses include Kaleidoscope and Daisy). But if the Easter eggs from the pop star seem like a business-as-usual routine, she says this album does indeed mark a new era of her life, where she’s been better able to prioritize what’s important to her.

“Our priorities can get messed up existing in a society that puts a currency on curating the way people see your life,” she says. “Social media has given people a way to express their art. I use it to connect with fans. But on the downside you feel like there are 3 trillion new invisible hoops that you have to jump through, and you feel like you’ll never be able to jump through them all correctly. I — along with a lot of my friends and fans — am trying to figure out how to navigate living my life and not just curating what I want people to think living my life is. I’m not always able to maintain a balance, and I think that’s important for everyone to know about. We’re always learning, and that’s something that I also had to learn — that I’ve got to be brave enough to learn. Learning in public is so humiliating sometimes…. Do I feel more balanced in my life than I ever have before? Um, probably yeah. But is that permanent? No. And I think being okay with that has put me in a bit of a better position.” Strong words to live by, to quote, to re-share, to tweet back to her, and see if she’ll respond.

-Taylor Swift for Entertainment Weekly (x)

[makistar2018]

Peggy Sirota for EW

New Reputation: Taylor Swift shares intel on TS7, fan theories, and her next era

Snakes begone. The 29-year-old superstar is back with a new album and a new outlook on life. We go inside the pop monarch's latest chapter.

By Alex Suskind May 09, 2019

THE PALM TREES ARRIVED IN FEBRUARY, seven in all, set against a pastel blue backdrop with superimposed stars. It appeared that a new Taylor Swift era was upon us — that the old happy-go-lucky Taylor was not, in fact, dead. Or did it? It wasonly an Instagram photo, just one more picture in an infinite content scroll. But it also came from a pop star known for prodigious hint-dropping, whose fans turn every piece of info into an online archaeological dig.

As expected, the summery post sent Swifties sifting through each detail with a fine-tooth comb. What did the trees symbolize? An overdue vacation? A recently purchased beach house? A secret palm-frond collection? Or maybe, as many surmised, it was new music. One Twitter user predicted that the number of stars in the background of the photo hinted at a single drop: “There’s about 60/61 [stars]️. There’s 61 days until April 26, FRIDAY, a SINGLE RELEASE day!” Another said it was the unofficial announcement of her next LP: “Okay so in this picture there are 4 palm trees on the left (4 country albums). There are two palm trees on the right (2 pop albums). There is one large palm tree in the middle. This represents her new album.” These may sound like ludicrous conspiracy theories — for the record, they were mostly correct — but they fit firmly within the Taylor Swift Musical Universe (it’s like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but with more guitars and fewer Stan Lee cameos).

“I posted that the day that I finished the seventh album,” says Swift about the photo. “I couldn’t expect [my fans] to know that. I figured they’d figure it out later, but a lot of their theories were actually correct. Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for ‘Delicate’ by painting my nails those [pastel] colors.”

It’s now April, and the 29-year-old pop star is in a Los Angeles photo studio, giving her first sit-down magazine interview in three years. She wants to discuss the art of placing hints inside her work, as well as the upcoming record, which she recorded as soon as she finished the Reputation Tour. She’s also keen on detailing her own obsessions, talking up the TV shows, books, and songs that help shape her outlook on life.

Over the past 13 years, Swift has perfected the pop culture feedback loop: She shares updates about her life and drops hints about new music, which fans then gobble up and re-promote with their own theories, which Swift then re-shares on her Tumblr or incorporates into future clues. It’s like a T-Swift-built Escher staircase of personal memories and moments that tease what’s next. “I’ve trained them to be that way,” she says of her fans’ astute detective work. Swift is a pop culture fanatic herself (see: the jean jacket she’s wearing on the EW cover) and has an innate understanding of the lengths her audience will go to be a part of the original creation. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”

Through this approach, Swift has designed the ultimate artistic scavenger hunt — and it’s easy to get swept up in its drama, even if you don’t listen to her music. Her moments aren’t always hidden, either. Sometimes Swift highlights aspects of her world just so fans feel like they’re on the journey with her. Like the time in March 2018 when pop singer Hayley Kiyoko was accused of shading Swift after mentioning her name during an interview. On Tumblr, Swift re-shared a fan’s post, adding commentary that defended Kiyoko, which immediately dispelled any conflicts between the two artists; Swift’s post subsequently received more than 29,000 notes. Four months later, she invited Kiyoko on stage during the Reputation Tour to sing her hit “Curious.” Kiyoko returned the favor when she had Swift join her that December at a benefit on behalf of the LGBTQ organization the Ally Coalition to perform “Delicate.” Fans of both artists were elated by the mutual support.

The feedback loop also extends outside of music. In October 2018, Swift broke her silence about politics by publicly endorsing two candidates for office in her adopted state of Tennessee, while encouraging her followers to register to vote. She kept up the civic momentum through Election Day when she asked fans to post selfies after voting; Swift then eagerly re-promoted her favorites on Instagram stories.

This practice of sharing and re-sharing and sharing again is why listeners consider Swift one of the world’s most accessible pop stars, someone willing to not only interact with her audience but invite them to secret listening sessions, or make the occasional surprise visit to their wedding or prom. It’s a symbiotic relationship, one that, as Swift tells EW, helped her dig out of the darker era of reputation. “It’s definitely the fans that made that tonal shift in the way I was feeling,” she says. “Songwriters need to communicate, and part of communicating correctly is when you put out a message that is understood the way you meant it. reputation was interesting because I’d never before had an album that wasn’t fully understood until it was seen live. When it first came out everyone thought it was just going to be angry; upon listening to the whole thing they realized it’s actually about love and friendship, and finding out what your priorities are.”

Then, during the Reputation Tour, she had an epiphany: that despite the caricature that she thought had been created of her, there were many people who saw what others had simply refused to. “I would look out into the audience and I’d see these amazing, thoughtful, caring, wonderful, empathetic people,” she says. “So often with our takedown culture, talking s— about a celebrity is basically the same as talking s— about the new iPhone. So when I go and I meet fans, I see that they actually see me as a flesh-and-blood human being. That — as contrived as it may sound — changed [me] completely, assigning humanity to my life.”

At tour’s end, she channeled that positive energy into the studio, recording the new album in just under three months. But the fast pace won’t mean a short LP. Swift confirmed that her seventh record (she hasn’t announced a title yet; the working nickname among fans is TS7) will include more songs than any of her previous releases. “I try not to go into making an album with any expectation,” she says. “I started to write so much that I knew immediately it would probably be bigger.”

The project will also feature a mix of old and new collaborators (on the candy-coated lead single “ME!” Swift brought in Panic! At the Disco frontman Brendon Urie and coproducer Joel Little, both of whom she had never worked with), but she is unsurprisingly coy about doling out much more information, as if doing so would break the carefully honed T-Swiftian feedback loop. “There’s a lot of a lot on this album,” she says. “I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing…. You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.” There’s also, she adds, some “really, really, really, really sad songs,” but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”

She gives us one more clue: The true distinction between TS7 and reputation is in the delivery. “This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”

The past month has seen a deluge of Swift activity, from the release of the new single to dropping more hints in interviews about the record and its title, which is apparently hidden somewhere inside the “ME!” music video (current fan guesses include Kaleidoscope and Daisy). But if the Easter eggs from the pop star seem like a business-as-usual routine, she says this album does indeed mark a new era of her life, where she’s been better able to prioritize what’s important to her.

“Our priorities can get messed up existing in a society that puts a currency on curating the way people see your life,” she says. “Social media has given people a way to express their art. I use it to connect with fans. But on the downside you feel like there are 3 trillion new invisible hoops that you have to jump through, and you feel like you’ll never be able to jump through them all correctly. I — along with a lot of my friends and fans — am trying to figure out how to navigate living my life and not just curating what I want people to think living my life is. I’m not always able to maintain a balance, and I think that’s important for everyone to know about. We’re always learning, and that’s something that I also had to learn — that I’ve got to be brave enough to learn. Learning in public is so humiliating sometimes…. Do I feel more balanced in my life than I ever have before? Um, probably yeah. But is that permanent? No. And I think being okay with that has put me in a bit of a better position.” Strong words to live by, to quote, to re-share, to tweet back to her, and see if she’ll respond.

Entertainment Weekly

[rootfauna]

A Handmaiden’s Tale. Specifically, Mine.

I’e been debating on whether or not to make this post for a while now, and I’ve decided that the benefits of saying my piece outweigh any hate I’ll get for this. It’s really long but I have no more fucks to give. 

I am so, so, sick of the trend in radical feminism of calling women who aren’t radical feminists “cocksuckers” “wastes of time” “dick riders” “sellouts” “cowards” and “handmaidens”. Anti feminist women and liberal feminist women can be incredibly annoying and have made me want to put my head through a wall, and I honestly can’t blame anyone for making a snide remark about them here or there. But I absolutely cannot wrap my mind around the fact that a group of women who supposedly A) understands the misogyny of using a woman’s (real of hypothetical) sexual interactions with a man as an insult against her, B) acknowledges the realities of female socialization in a patriarchal society and C) understands the potential dangerous outcomes of a woman speaking up against misogyny, can go around unabashedly talking about women this way. Every time I scroll through my dash I’ll come across at least one post lamenting how young girls are indoctrinated into believing their worth lies in their beauty, femininity, and (hetero)sexuality. Why then, do I see so much vitriol directed at the ones who believed it? 

The last time I spoke about this I was accused of ‘making it all about myself’ because I shared a snippet of my personal experience. Well, I’m about to share more than a snippet. Yet this isn’t about me, and I will be the first one to tell you that I am nowhere near unique in this sense. So I guess this is actually the experience of thousands and thousands of women, this is just how it happened to me:

To start with, y’all need to understand where I grew up. If the ‘y’all’ wasn’t a big enough clue, I grew up in bumfuck nowhere USA. Here’s another fact that’s vital to my story: I was born in 1991. That fact, coupled with my geographic location, meant that when I started school in 1996, corporal punishment was still legal (to be carried out by the principal) and up until around that time my mother could still legally sign documents as “mrs” *insert my father’s name*. 

Growing up in this environment meant that gender roles were highly enforced around me and that at an early age I saw deviance from them met with hatred and scorn. I could name plenty of examples, but really, haven’t we all seen that? Even the respectable women who dared not be housewives never rose to a more prominent position than a teacher, bank clerk, or selling Mary Kay. Before the age of about 10 I have absolutely no memory of seeing a woman in a position of skill and power beyond these things except for Terry Irwin on tv. It might be noted that I grew up wanting to be a zookeeper. I don’t remember the first time I heard the word “feminist” but from my earliest recollection it was not a good word. Then, as today in my neck of the woods, “feminist” is an insult. I can remember sitting in the back seat of the car listening to my father and his friend ranting about something they heard on the radio about how “the feminists” (word spat out like tobacco juice) were ruining something or other. It was clear to me that whatever these feminists were, they were bad. 

Things really kicked into gear once I got into middle school. What had been a vague concept in the back of my mind was now pulled to the front of the classroom. I distinctly remember sitting in 7th grade biology and learning about the inherent differences between male and female brains. The teacher explained how our brains were wired differently, and that male brains were designed so that logical and analytical thought came naturally to them, but expressing emotion and communicating did not. This, the teacher said, is why men often erupt into fits of anger rather than say how they feel. On the other hand, female brains were designed to have ease of communication, and to be more aware of our own emotions and those of others. They were not designed for quick, logical, rational thinking. Don’t get me wrong; it was never taught to me that women were incapable of logical, rational, thinking, just that we were biologically at a disadvantage to men in that regard. I tried (like other girls in the class) to have some pride in my lady-brain. I’m wired to be better at something than a boy! Ha! Though it was around this time I began to shift my focus away from scientific pursuits and towards the arts. 7th grade was also the beginning of outright public sexual harassment that no adult seemed to give a shit about. There was “thong Thursday”, for example. We 12-13 year old girls were encouraged by the boys to wear thongs and lean over so that they could see the tops of them, or to wear our jeans low enough for them to peek over. This happened openly in the halls, but never once addressed by the adults. And woe to any girl who spoke out about it. That much feared “feminist!” accusation could be hurled at her, and she’d be publicly humiliated and mocked, and no one would dare help her lest they be feminist by association. There was also ‘grab-ass Wednesday’ which makes absolutely no sense but is exactly what you’re thinking. 

The official school lesson on male and female brains resurfaced again, this time in 10th grade sociology class. This time in addition to the physical differences in the brains, we learned about inherent differences in behavior and societal roles. It was honestly something taken straight from some MRA’s drivel; men evolved to be the Strong Hunter Protector of the species, brain different, this why big words make man ANGRY he hit you because his brain can’t make his mouth talk feelings he want to BREED. Woman want BABY lots of emotions need man to protec blah blah blah. To us at this point, all of this was objective fact. Also at this point, the effects and impact of female socialization were starting to become disgustingly apparent. Around this time the security officer at the school was fired for ‘having sex’ with a fourteen year old freshman. It was so SCANDALOUS because...what a SLUT! It would not occur to me until YEARS later that maybe sex between a 14 year old girl and the adult male security officer hired to protect her was...uh, rape. As high school continued, so did the development of our female anti-feminism. I’ve seen radfems on here discuss how men are socialized to think that their thoughts and emotions are objective fact, but I’ve never seen it pointed out that women are socialized to believe so, too. As interactions with boys became more frequent their attention became more and more prized. When a boy said “you’re beautiful” or “you’re not like the other girls” or “you’re smart” it was seen as a pure and shining compliment, a shining nugget of truth. If a girl said the same thing? You never knew, she could just be two-faced, she would change her mind in a matter of seconds, or just be on her period. Of course, we began to strive to receive more compliments from boys because what teenager DOESN’T want to be respected and valued by their peers? 

By the end of high school several of my peers were married and/or had a baby already. I had intended to go to school for journalism, but in a sudden fit of either teenage rebellion or wisdom, I took the plunge into working with animals. This saw me moving about a thousand miles away from my home town, my parents, friends, and all forms of social support. As it turns out, animal training and handling, particularly dog training and handling, is an incredibly male dominated field. Even compared to my previous life experience, it was extremely misogynistic. I found myself working long shifts at night, often with only male coworkers who were near universally older, larger, and stronger than I was. Here, I was expected to laugh it off when one of them said that if the world were about to end, the first thing he’d do was rape me. Or when my boss joked about raping me. Or when one of them (more or less out of nowhere) said that he didn’t think there would ever be a female president because “when I think “president” I think “man””. I did what I was supposed to do and took some satisfaction in their approval despite my first, suppressed, twinge of discomfort. In a strange city, in a strange area of the country, sleeping during the day and working long hours, I had little elsewhere to look for friendship and social interaction. So I made friends. Long night shifts with no one else to talk to and little else to do will do that to people. Of course, I wasn’t the ONLY woman at my place of work. I was friendly with the other women but the lifelong effects of being socialized to view women as inferior kept any of us from growing too close to each other. After all, despite growing up elsewhere they had similar upbringings. When they weren’t present the men openly chatted about who they thought the woman had slept with, how smelly her vagina must be, what her nipples probably looked like, and I held my tongue still under the delusion that if I was Good and Not Like the Other Girls, they wouldn’t speak like that about me behind my back. Feminism was only mentioned to mock women, or, more importantly, to bring up how the the country was sexist against men. The men lamented about how “in this country a man can’t be raped I guess” and “female special privileges” and “the DRAFT” and I believed them, because I didn’t have much of a reason or incentive not to. Women were viewed and treated as walking cries of rape unless they laughed when groped. 

I called one of these male friends one night, in tears. My kitten, a tiny little thing named Ginkgo, had escaped from my apartment and I pleaded with him to help me search for her. He came over and we searched in vain for her. I was heartbroken, sobbing, and desperate for comfort and when the hug I was given became lustful I tried to refuse. He argued that I had woken him up in the middle of the night to come all the way to my home to look for a lost kitten; I owed it to him. That it wasn’t fair for me to refuse him and that it was selfish of me to expect compassion and company for nothing in return. And at that time in my life, I believed him. It was only fair. Afterwards, alone in my apartment, I was confronted with the reality that the only reason anyone would ever show me compassion, love, or kindness was because I was female and therefore potential sex. At the time, I was beginning to realize I was asexual (though it would be many years before I had a word for it). It was like I had been shown that my worth, my worthiness of love and life, and all my achievements were housed in my sensuality and sexuality. And I didn’t posses either. Dark times, I tell ya. Of course, there was no chance of me seeking sympathy from any female friends or acquaintances for what took place. Years later when a man in a bar shoved his finger inside me and I smashed a beer mug over his head I was berated by my female companions for overreacting and ruining the night. Further blows to any sense of being anything other than “woman” came in the form, ironically, of my achievements. I excelled at dog handling, particularly scent detection and received many an award for it, each time being told by my male peers that the only reason I received it was because I was a woman. I took my awards with a pinch of shame, believing I had taken it from a more deserving man. 

 It was around this time I first dipped my toes in the shallow end of feminism. I got a Tumblr! I was about 23. The internet wasn’t too big a thing when I was growing up and I got my first social media account when I was 17, the year I moved out. Until I logged onto the blue hell site, I didn’t use the internet outside of facebook (with only my irl friends there to form an echo chamber) and looking up definitions of words. Now, for the first time, I discovered that feminism wasn’t taboo everywhere. Fascinating! Of course, the “feminism” I found was pretty much identical to the patriarchal world I lived in, just with more lipstick. But it was a step. Secret radfem blog? Shit, I had a secret libfem blog and was still terrified of being found out by people I knew. I had good reason, too. When I tried to, very tentatively, voice some opinions that were not male-approved, I was met with swift and immediate backlash. I mentioned to a male coworker that I didn’t want children, which ended with him screaming at me to go out and have a hysterectomy right now if I really didn’t want any because I was being stupid and of course I wasn’t serious otherwise I’d just rip my uterus out. Or when I voiced concern over that one politician that said women should be forced to deliver stillbirths naturally because that’s what happened on his farm and was publicly berated for being a crybaby and a little girl, freaking out over ‘one weird fluke’. Still, I grew more and more interested in feminism. I spent a year deeeep in the libbiest-of libfem glitter-choked hells until one fateful day: I saw a study that proved there was no such thing as brainsex. 

My entire perception of reality was irreparably shattered. Over the course of a few days, I was forced to realize that I had been lied to my entire life. I had been lied to by my teachers and the adults in my life as a kid, I was forced to realize how deeply sexist and inappropriate the boys at schools were being, that I was taught in school to excuse male violence as not their fault, that no one ever owed anyone sex, that what my coworkers and ‘friends’ were saying was blatantly false and not ok, that I was just as capable of pursuing a scientific field as a man, to realize just how much the most important people in my life really hated me. And I was forced to confront the fact that I had backed myself into a corner, cut off any escape routes, and that I relied on the acceptance of these men for my safety and job security. That made the next few years......uncomfortable. And yet, bit by bit, little by little, I’ve pulled myself away from that world and set up a new life for myself. I’ve said goodbye to a lot of people. I’ve hurt a lot. I’ve cringed a lot. The antifeminist keyboard smashing seen on radfem posts is something I could have (and probably would have) typed myself back then, safe in the conviction that I was right. 

“No one held a gun to your head and forced you to be an antifeminist” I’ve been told. That’s true, I guess. At nine, after riding my bike to the one small library in town I could have checked out a book by Dworkin (whom I’d never heard of) from the feminist section (which may or may not have existed) instead of Animorphs. I could have walked around shouting “hey, anyone want to be a feminist so I can see how it’s done?” to try and find someone to look up to. I could have, upon getting internet in my late teens, immediately googled “how to be a feminist”, but I didn’t so my bad. Certainly there were girls who grew up in similar circumstances who were always feminists, and certainly there are women who grew up with outlets for feminism that are antifeminist, but I feel my story is a much more common one and in the end at least I made it. I think most radfems have had a libfem phase and I think most of us would cringe at it, but in so many ways I’m grateful for it. Not only did it introduce me to the movement that would change my life, but it was inviting and welcoming. I cannot, and DO NOT want to imagine what would have happened if, seeking to find voice for my discomfort, I had come across radical feminism first and saw the words that were beginning to cut so deeply echoed by the women who claimed to be for women. Cocksucker. Waste of time. Stupid. Coward. Being told I ‘lapped it all up’. The thought of it really makes me uncomfortable, and I think the only message it all would have sent was “Your entire world is against you and hates you but also you wanted it and it’s your fault.”. 

I see radfems speak often about non western women and how they face and view sexism. It’s quite universally accepted that non western women are acutely aware of biological sex and wouldn’t stand for this gemgender floridesexual nonsense and that’s lauded as a sort of....kinship I guess. When I see radfems speak about non western women in this way, I feel they have a sense of kinship with them, like they’re one of the radfem crowd. I wonder, however, what the women who grew up and lived in those environments would really think about everything radical feminism stands for? Surely some would agree completely, but how often do you see women in these situations agree that rape is sometimes (or always) the girl’s fault? Or that women should not be educated? Are they still our sisters, or cock sucking cowards? And is the extension of sisterhood dependent on their hypothetical ability to, if they hold these beliefs, listen to what feminists have to say and change their minds to agree? Let’s say the woman in your gifsets is presented with these resources and never changes her mind. What then? Even still I've seen it said that anti feminist women will never change so there’s no point in trying. I see libfems pointing to non western cultures with ‘other’ genders and saying ‘see? see? THEY agree with me! They’d agree with liberal feminism!’ and I see radfems pointing to non western women and saying ‘see? see? THEY agree with me! They’d agree with radical feminism!’ and I can’t help but see these cultures and women within them being pressed into an ideal of one argument or the other purely for internet posturing. 

I’m very disheartened to see the movement which once seemed so academic and helpful to me seeming to become a ‘cool girls’ club. Sisterhood, compassion, and help, but only for women who think the way we do. Others are there to be mocked. It’s eerily similar to the way we laughed at the ‘other’ girls in high school, completely full of ourselves and thinking we were so much better. 

When I think of anti feminist women, I see the little girl being told men were prone to violence instead of talking because that’s how they were built, I see the girl being called a whore for being raped by someone she was told to trust, and I see the women pitted against each other, who have never had a feminist role model, and the girls who harbor a strange feeling of discontent and isolation they can’t articulate. I don’t see wastes of time. 

If you’re still reading, thank you. 

[theamazingsallyhogan]

Let’s talk about ReBoot: The Guardian Code. I had this big plan to write up a long essay about whether an audience can separate behind the scenes drama from a piece of art. After all, we as the audience aren’t supposed to know about any of that stuff. It was going to be awesome. I’d keep calling the show “Guardian Code” and then at the end say “Guardian Code” was perfectly average Canadian kids TV but it wasn’t ReBoot.

I was going to talk about why that was the case and what it means about remakes in general. Some nostalgia talk was going to be thrown in there. Probably would have made an easy Ready Player One joke. I’d delve deep into ReBoot’s place in pop culture and that a Robot Chicken sketch is really the only proof anyone outside hardcore fans remember it.

...

These days though I try not to just drag shows. It’s way too easy to write 800 words why a given episode of say, Power Rangers Ninja Steel, is terrible. Although once you’ve been writing reviews like that for four years it gets old. So instead I try to break down what a “bad episode” means for the franchise or just TV as a whole. It’s less me dunking on a show and more trying to figure out why it ended up the way it did. After all, no one sets out to make a bad episode of TV… right?

Season 1: Episode 10 of ReBoot: The Guardian Code, “Mainframe Mayhem” purports to be a tribute to classic ReBoot. Several voice actors return, they recreate the old sets, and even toss in a few catchphrases. In the lead up to this episode I had a pretty good idea what it would be like.

They wouldn’t resolve “The Hunt” cliffhanger of season four. The characters would make a few pandering references. There would be an attempt to make it seem like The Guardian Code is somehow in the continuity of the original ReBoot (which it would bungle.) The whole “Users as Gods” thing would be forgotten or glossed over.

All of that happened. Was it awful? I mean, yeah. Bob delivering his monologue from the old intro is incredibly ham-fisted. The lines about Hexadecimal not seeing Megabyte in a long time try to acknowledge season four maybe happened at one point but don’t fit. The intriguing idea of Bob, Dot, and Enzo basically meeting their gods is treated as just another wacky day at the diner. But that was expected.

It was a way to try and placate the hardcore fans so The Guardian Codeproducers could have a talking point in interviews about how “this isn’t just a reboot of ReBoot.”

I was prepared for that.

What the summaries and leaks didn’t reveal was that The Guardian Codecharacters and Bob would go inside a game. Okay, cool. Nice little throwback. The problem is that we see the User who’s playing this game and it’s… a  thirty year old neckbeard living in his mother’s basement surrounded by classic ReBoot merchandise. There’s a poster for ReBoot: The Ride. The first art book. He even has a giant statue of Mike the TV.

This guy has been waiting for the old Mainframe to come back online. Yeah, somehow the Mainframe from the old series is locked in a cabinet in the new Guardians lair. I won’t even bother talking about the implications that has for the original series and how it doesn’t jive with what we saw in the third season. There’s something bigger to tackle here.

“And mom said all this time in the basement was wasted.”

That’s an actual line from the episode as the "User" gains the upper hand in the game. His whole life revolves around ReBoot, so much so he still lives in his moms basement. This is where the original idea for my essay fell apart. How do you defend something that so blatantly mocks not just fans of ReBoot but fan culture in general?

I can see where this came from. Ever since the summary for The Guardian Code was released fans were in an uproar. Many went to extreme lengths to make their displeasure known. A lot of it went too far.

No matter how much you don’t like how your favorite franchise is handled, endlessly posting on social media about it and publicly insulting the people making the show is a waste of time. I can imagine discussions in The Guardian Code creative team offices now.

“Why can’t they understand TV is a complex business and we couldn’t sell the show they wanted? Why can’t they just leave us alone? This show isn’t for them.”

That’s a very generous reading of it but hey, not trying to dunk on anyone here. They had an IP and wanted to make a show. I get that. Getting anything made in this business is incredibly difficult. Slapping the name ReBoot on it meant it was more likely to get sold. Sure, fine, it’s understandable.

“And mom said all this time in the basement was wasted.”

This is where any sympathy fades away from the creative team. If this User character hadn’t been included I could have understood (but still not been a fan of) why ReBoot: The Guardian Code ended up the way it did.

A fat nerd living in his mom’s basement is an old stereotype that’s long been played out. By utilizing it the creative team seems to speak directly to its loyal audience and say,

“This is what we think of you.”

It wasn’t necessary. They didn’t have to stoop to the level of making fun of fans, even the ones who take their passion for the franchise too far. A good series shouldn’t engage in that kind of petty dialogue with its audience. It should rise above it.

If ReBoot: The Guardian Code did have something to say about fans that are too devoted to media? If it had been a meta commentary on reboots in general and fan reactions to them? That could have had some merit, especially if it had the clever writing of the old series. Instead we got…

“And mom said all this time in the basement was wasted.”

That doesn’t even sound like something a human being would say. It’s a caricature the creators of this show painted to disregard any negative feedback of The Guardian Code.  When fans would rightly point out, “this sounds nothing like the ReBoot I love”, “it looks like a bad Code Lyokoknockoff”, or “hey, you guys endlessly promised us the original show would return. What gives?” this is the image they went for.

A fat guy who has no life.

The User character in “Mainframe Mayhem” slaps the audience in the face at the same moment it’s trying to bestow them a gift from on high with the return of the old characters and voice cast. It makes even the genuinely delightful moment of Enzo tackling Bob feel tainted.

“Here’s your references, nerds. Now get back to your basement,” it says. That’s not only a horrible message for its older fans but also for its new younger ones.

This is why ReBoot: The Guardian Code doesn’t work as a reboot of ReBootor even as perfectly average Canadian kids TV. It could have been a series that, while saddled with the name of a known IP, strived to be more than what zealous hardcore fans portrayed it as. It could have been fun on its own, divorced from its roots.

That’s the show I would have been fine with. I wouldn’t have been a fan but it could have led to an interesting discussion.

“And mom said all this time in the basement was wasted.”

I can’t separate the series from the behind the scenes drama because it actively parades it for everyone to see. It stoops to the level of the hardcore overzealous fans it attempts to make fun of. In that, “Mainframe Mayhem” is one of the worst episodes of television I’ve ever seen.

[faerieenergy]

A Life Set for Me

Hello adorable people! I’m sharing one of my first writings publicly that I wrote where I tried to create a painting with words. Let me know what you think (with gentle kindness)! I'm going to share a recent post I shared with my friends and speak about it more in depth. I wanted to weave together different ideas into one patchwork of writing. Although I do meander a bit, think of it as a lovely sketch, that I've taken time to think about, and all the visuals, smells, tastes, and sounds embedded in each and every moment. In my attempt to create a smooth flowing narrative using a random assortment of joyous things, there may be parts that aren't as perfect as they could be when connecting the sections, however, I will try my best to paint words onto a page in a manner that aims upwards towards beauty and encompasses the written word as a beautiful painting. Here is what I shared:"A friend asked me what is the life that I want to set for me. I thought about the most delightful things I could and here is what I came up with: A place to enjoy nature, the blossoms of fruits, the deep enjoyment of psychology, creating music that moves, to be engrossed in an orchestra, to delight at and invoke classical beauty, to be light and feel warmth and lightness in my being everyday, to float amongst the stars, to be immersed in classic novels and literature, to be moved by stories, to be in the good company of a hot cup of tea, a few birds and daffodils, the crunchiness of snow during winter, being able to gaze at the ocean, to feel the breeze beneath me while lying in a hammock, to hear the giggles of children as they run and play, to cuddle with innocent sweet cats, sing the melodies of life, be up early enough to witness the morning dew, be taken away into the past where I can explore ancient civilizations, and understand the deeper mythological symbols that appear in our dreams." We were discussing how sometimes in life, you have to determine your own path, even if others have set one out for you that they would like you to do. Sometimes, others want the best for us, but because they do not know us deeply, they may only suggest things that on the surface seem like the best choices. But because we know ourselves best, we are the best person to make that choice. I've recently felt that we've forgotten about who we are as human beings. We have always been surrounded by the natural world and it is this world that can uplift us, inspire us and make us feel at peace. After all, without Mother Nature, we could not exist. In a quest to earn as much money as possible at an unsustainable pace, I have seen people really suffer greatly, myself included. Before the coronavirus hit, I was a cog in a machine, and I let so much time pass me by without a chance to stop and smell the flowers. When I was working at my job, I always felt unhappy, but never understood why. More recently, I realized that it was because I lacked creativity in my work. I needed to be creative to feel sane. It's a weird thing to think about but after I watched an online lecture about creativity in which it was said that "creative people who aren't creative will wither and die", I realized that's exactly how I felt. For creative people, being creative is like being able to lift your head above the water while you're swimming to take a breath of air. Being restrained from doing so is like swimming with no oxygen and leaving you gasping for your breath. We literally need it to survive. I thought about what my ideal life would look like. I wanted to be surrounded by nature and have a chance to see the blossoming of fruits. Recently, I grew oyster mushrooms from a kit and it was quite amazing to see them double in size everyday. There is a type of magic in that and it happened quite quickly. Being able to see a flower open or a fruit grow right in front of your eyes is magical. I'm currently delving into the depths of psychology. Before I discovered psychology lectures online, I didn't realize how much of an impact knowing psychology could have on a person's life. It's one of the most important things we should know our whole lives. As a creative, I've had trouble fitting into the real world, so to speak, so I felt lost for a very long time. When I discovered that I am the way I am due to my personality type, everything became clear to me. I'm currently reading about Carl Jung, a psychoanalyst from Switzerland and his impact on the field of psychology. While Freud is most famous for being the father of psychoanalysis, he split from Jung due to a difference in beliefs - Freud focusing more on his belief that everything was due to sexually repressed memories and roles, whilst Jung believed that the human mind went a lot deeper and was more complex. What's interesting to note is that Jung infused an element of spirituality to his studies and said that understanding this spiritual side is important to psychology. And I don't mean that in a sort of religious, dogmatic way. What I mean is there are somethings we do not understand as human beings and there are things outside our knowledge that nevertheless are truths, but they are truths in a different way than scientific truths. One of his discoveries was the concept of the collective unconscious. When we dream, the dreams represent symbolic meanings as opposed to literal meanings and the dream is how our conscious mind connects with our unconscious mind. Every person has an unconscious mind that only becomes active while we sleep. The collective unconscious is what all human beings share, all the way from our ancestors to the people who haven't been born yet. We share a common collective unconscious of symbols, myths, and universal truths. Psychologists have been studying this and I found this concept in particular very interesting and surreal. For example, someone dreams of something and they wake up, and look up the dream to see if anyone else has experienced the same thing. Often times, they find that such a dream is already documented in a culture's myths, although the person was never exposed to such a myth in the first place. How could this happen? Likewise, cultures all over the world have developed similar myths and stories, even if they had no contact with each other, so it wasn't because of cultural influence. Yet, how could this happen? I began to get very interested and curious in this phenomenon. The most recent thing I read on this topic was the fact that creativity comes from the collective unconscious, so I began to think...is my creativity something that is wired into my DNA? Something that imprinted in humans' brains that go back millenia? Just like our human brains evolved from lizard brains and other animals, we still retain elements of those brains, on an emotional level, even if our consciousness has evolved. I also wanted to be in a space where I could create music that moves. Recently, Ennio Morricone passed away, and I couldn't help but revisit his performance of "Gabriel's Oboe". It is truly one of the most sublime and poignant pieces to have ever been composed. Music has an ability to move us, to change our lives and make us better men and women. My hope is to be able to create transformative music that transcends and uplifts us. After watching the performance of this piece, I watched the movie "The Mission", where "Gabriel's Oboe" plays a central theme. After I watched the movie, I was so overcome with emotion. The piece gained a deeper meaning for me after I watched it because it provided context of the story behind the song.  Everything in that movie was so symbolic and deep, and I could see at a very deep level what it means to be human. Being able to create music and be engrossed in an orchestra is one of the highest forms of art that I can imagine. Orchestral music has been one of my biggest passions all my life. It was a place that I could go to make friends, work in harmony with others, and learn from our conductor. This involved being pushed, being disciplined, and overcoming our own personal difficulties. It is not easy but it's worth it. In addition to music, the art that has been passed down for thousands of years by our ancestors shows the ideals of civilization, as those long ago experienced it. Classical beauty, has inherent value and that value is derived from goodness, truth, and timelessness. There is a reason why it is so pleasing to look at Venutian paintings. I've wanted to delight in and invoke classical beauty for the rest of my life because I believe by striving to be elegant and refining oneself as a journey towards self-realization, we can become our ideals and these ideals are what inspire other people towards the greater good and to be the best version of themselves. They benefit us, our family, our community and the entire world. Not only of they are inherent personal value, they add real economic value to our cities. Who wouldn't want to be lounging right near a fountain with beautiful Greek goddesses in a grand plaza with Roman neo-classical buildings nearby? Imagine yourself in the ancient city of Kyoto, Japan or the Forbidden City in China, surrounded by  the splendor and symbolic carvings that are part of these buildings. These works of art connect us to the past and provide meaning to our lives. One of the things that brings me the most joy is to be light and feel warmth and lightness in my being everyday. For far too long, I've avoided this because I felt that I need to work hard and do the grind in order to be financially and career-wise successful. But I realized that the solution is a lot simpler than we think and sometimes, it's right in front of our eyes. I noticed that when people are light, they spark lightness in the people around them. Because life can sometimes be difficult to bear, we need a light of hope in at least one person around us. Feeling the lightness and warmth makes everything a lot easier. I haven't done this too much before, but I'd like to float amongst the stars more. Looking up at the sky is marvelous and awe-inspiring. Human beings were inspired by the galaxies up above, something of profound mystery yet wanted to learn more about the cosmos. Everything from our navigation of the seas to astronomy rests upon what we witness in that swirl of stars. The best kind of joy to experience is to wrap yourself up in a blanket or sleeping bag and go witness the constellations on a cool night with clear skies. There you can see yourself among the stars and each tiny shimmer of light as a sun in a far away galaxy. I admit that I haven't caught up to be the most widely-read in classic works, but it is something I look forward to the rest of my life. I love curling up with a good book to read. It's like the movie Alice in Wonderland, you go through a portal and get transported to a new, sometimes whimsical world to explore. Reading for pleasure is one of the most delightful things in life. Immersing yourself in a book is like walking through a painting that has layers and layers of depth to it, carefully crafted and expertly woven together. I realize that many people, in fact, I would say most people do not like pleasure reading or reading in general, and I see that as a little bit of a pity because there are just somethings you cannot easily understand through a short explanation or overview. Thankfully we have audiobooks now that we can tune into when doing chores and other errands but I think the act of reading a book is special in and of itself. To be immersed in classic novels and literature is to be exposed to some really interesting stories and profound ideas. I don't mean just works of fiction but also works of non-fiction that have really changed humanity. You really have to think about the genius involved from the people that produced these types of works. One of the things books are very good for, are to immerse yourself in their world. Like books, movies, films and video games are also forms of narrative that impacts us in a profound, meaningful way. To be moved by stories means that you have experienced something deep and meaningful, perhaps a universal truth that has resonated with you. I recently came across a quote that was quite intriguing to me, "the most personal story is the most universal story". Recently, I have been watching a TV show, SKAM France, a series about the lives of teenagers. SKAM, which means "shame" in Norweigan and where the show originally originated from seeks to break taboos. What is very interesting is that each season focuses on a different main character and a social issue. Combining French cinematic filmmaking with beautifully written storylines masterfully told is something I have not seen in years. I don't remember the last time I experienced such a beautiful set of stories that made me feel compassionate and helped me understand the plight of different issues in a most lighthearted, exquisite way. One of the best things in life is to enjoy the simple things. If I could teleport anywhere in order to be anywhere at anytime, I would choose to reside in the country or in a village where I could relax and where time moves slowly. I would love to be in the good company of a hot cup of tea, a few birds and daffodils as they are some of the most delightful and simple things I could imagine! Tea leaves, freshly picked, in an assortment of flavors from strawberry to mint to orange while watching nearby birds fluttering, taking time to catch worms and eat seeds, and gazing at the yellow sunshine of daffodils is how I'd like to spend a bright early morning. During the wintertime, when it snows, the entire landscape is blanketed with a glistening, pure, white layer of radiance. When you wake up in December and see tiny snowflakes that accumulate amongst the trees and on the grass, you feel magical, like a child who experiences joy for the first time. It is only when you go outside, with your snow boots on, fluffy scarf wrapped warmly around your neck and layered underneath a thick coat and pants that you step out onto the horizon. The crunchiness of snow during winter echoes as you take that first step into the tiny crystals underneath foot. You can smell the crisp, cool air of winter, with a scent of pine trees and burning logs in fireplaces off into the distance. I'd love to sit perched on a rock, on a cliffside, looking into the deep blue sea. Being able to gaze at the ocean, surrounded by sunlight and clear blue skies and puffy white clouds is an ideal vacation spot for me. Places like Santorini, where the city is a mix of blue and white, its royal blue domed roofs and windows, its whitewashed buildings and pebble-lined steps are idyllic and tranquil, nestled up high on a mountain, inviting you to discover its mysteries while you gaze at the blue Aegean sea below. It reminds me of childhood, a time when things were carefree, and can still be, where we played amongst our friends, when we were naive and innocent. To feel the breeze beneath me while lying in a hammock, was to experience a kind of freedom where we could run around on the morning dew grass with just our bare feet and experience total relaxation. It was a place of solitude and and comfort, the hammock enveloping you as you looked up into the sky and started to daydream. It is delightful to hear the giggles of children as they run and play, whether they are playing with dolls, trucks, a violin or wanting to slide down the stairs on a mattress. Their ability to be easily amused and their boundless energy reminds us all that we must not forget the inner child within ourselves. As we enter adult life, it is easy to forget who we once were as children, but important to cultivate that inner child as a lifelong process. Our fascination with young animals and baby animals are most endearing. As a child, my family adopted a kitten, a calico, a tiny girl that had white mitten paws, an orange tabby front leg and a black front leg. She was beautifully colored, in a patchwork of orange, white and black, with a white tip to her tail. To cuddle with innocent sweet cats, such as my kitten was one of my most treasured memories growing up. Within time, she grew up to be a small adult cat, but not without being a silly kitten, who chased after ping pong balls, snuggled in blankets for nap time and mewed in her high-pitched voice. What my cat taught me was that an animal could have her own soul, her own independent mind and thinking and despite humans' attempts to train her, she consciously chose to ignore our requests when called and made decisions for herself. It is important to celebrate important moments and sing the melodies of life, and I believe there is nothing more powerful than a large choir creating a transformative, ethereal experience. One of the best performances of this is the Angel City Chorale singing "Baba Yetu" on America's Got Talent. Baba Yetu, or the Lord's Prayer in Swahili, is an orchestral-choral piece composed by Christopher Tin and well-known in the video game music world. Every time I listen to it, there is a very warm sense of beauty, uplifting spirit, and honoring of ancient ancestors. To be awakened by light and to be up early enough to witness the morning dew, is to witness a beautiful transformation of Mother Nature from her sleep into a goddess that awakens with the healing powers of water that sprinkle all over the endless stretch of grasslands that are the foundation of our homes. It is the beginning of life, as each new day brings new hope and as the sun rises slowly in the distant, we get to experience the beautiful transformation of dark purple to pink to orange to yellow. One of the things I'm most fascinated by is the mysteries that surround ancient civilizations. Even though we have legends passed down to us, there is an element that the ancient peoples lived with that we do not fully understand. In 2014, I went to Anhui, China to see the famed Emperor Mountain, the site many ancient Chinese philosophers and painters went to in order to be inspired. If you have seen Chinese paintings of the mountains surrounded by beauty and mists, that is where they went. As I rode the gondola to the top of the mountain, I felt surreally transported into an ancient world. The clouds were soon below us and the wind at the top of the mountain was strong. During this trip, I visited the mysterious Chinese grottos. There were about 36 grottos constructed, all man-made, hand-chiseled. What was mysterious was that these grottos were not recorded anywhere in local history books and modern archaelogists do not understand what their purposes were. They found very few items for daily living in these grottos so they concluded it must not have been a type of shelter. Perhaps it was a place of religious significance or a place for soldiers to hide in case the city was to be invaded? Although these grottos were discovered in 1993, when I visited in 2014, they still did not know the purpose of these grottoes. What was most intriguing was that these man-made caves were carved in such a way that they were supported by "H" beams and that was before the discovery of modern mathematics and physics. How did they know how much to carve out of stone so that the inside of the mountain would not collapse? Due to mysteries like these, I thought that if I could be taken away into the past where I can explore ancient civilizations, I could discover an essence of life and ancient wisdom only possessed by people of the past. After I learned about the collective unconscious, I began to wonder more about it since it intrigued me very much. I wanted to understand the deeper mythological symbols that appear in our dreams because there were things I was experiencing in life that I did not really understand. As of late, I have been keeping track of my dreams and writing them down to gain an understanding. Although many people may assume that dreams are nothing but a random occurrence of events, I do not believe that to be so, based on the readings I have been doing so far. Even Jung, Freud and neurobiologist/psychologist Pierre Janet have done research on dreams to show that they present a symbolic meaning in our lives, and that the unconscious exists, although we still do not understand it very well. And this is the aspect of psychology that really intrigues me. It is a path I will continue down, to study depth psychology, because I believe it holds the key to so many things in our life that we need to unlock to connect with our true souls. Thank you for reading my painting with words. Much love xoxo

[irithyllians]

Get to know me tag game

Tagged by @fithragaer 💕

Tagging: @theravenlyn @nonusphocas @neen @greywatch @renarinkholin @deathvsthemaiden @urlane (I thiiiiink you’ve already done it tho?)

why did you choose your url?

fell in love with irithyll when I played dark souls 3 back in 2016. it’s been my url ever since and whenever I’ve tried to change it, it felt wrong. undead moon worshipping catholics that make horrible decisions are my brand now 😔

any side-blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

orderofskybreakers, for any rebloggy stuff unrelated to ocs.

how long have you been on tumblr?

first made an account in... 2013? joined the mass exodus to twitter for a few years in between. cursed.

do you have a queue tag?

yea, #q

why did you start your blog in the first place?

started this one because I wanted a place to post art and keep an archive of older pieces as well. also wanted to work on talking about ocs publicly. feels less invasive here than twitter.

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

pretty commission from @/elderly-scrolls of del, who lives in my brain rent free.

why did you choose your header?

matched the icon and is a subtle nod to highspren, bc I’m a loud skybreaker fan.

what’s your post with the most notes?

the milfs ❤️❤️❤️ i have no objections, feels fitting.

how many followers do you have?

192, but I think at least 7 of those are porn bots I forgot or couldn’t be bothered to block. usually I hit 100 followers and delete, so I’m a bit 😅

how many people do you follow?

69 (nice). I don’t follow all of the accounts I like because if I follow too many people I get overwhelmed, so some Treasured Followers are being followed in spirit fahsghs.

have you ever made a shitpost?

yes.

how often do you use tumblr every day?

10mins - 2hrs?

did you have a fight/argument with a blog once?

not really? yes, if you count fictional war criminal discourse or disagreements with mutuals.

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this post’?

that REALLY depends... I do voluntary work irl to help with certain Real Issues and don’t always see how screaming on the internet will proactively help, but there are instances where i think it could (eg. listing trustworthy organisations to donate money to, or shutting down misconceptions that are having horrible consequences). if it’s about guilting people, then it’s a hard no.

do you like tag games?

yea!

do you like ask games?

mhm!

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

hm, a few have very popular posts? but idk about tumblr famous. a few mutuals are very well known in their respective fandom circles? OH, I TAKE THAT BACK, @/witchesconstellations and @/cryptcombat are well known for their art and ships (with good reason 🥰)

do you have a crush on a mutual?

no, but tbf I can count on one hand the amount of crushes I’ve had in my life.

[michaeldempsey]

Market Views 4/1/20 - Trump Tea Leaves & The British Reversal

Trump Tea Leaves

Markets are set to open down sharply today after another difficult to watch press conference from Trump. 

Yesterday Trump gave his most sobering press conference of the past few weeks, basically reaching a point where he's willing to publicly admit that COVID-19 is a real problem that isn't easily solvable. In his words he described it as a "painful two weeks" ahead (remember when we were on day 8 of his 15 day plan?). 

He floated the number of ~200,000 expected deaths from COVID-19, and then in pure Trump fashion went on to talk about how this miracle was only possible because he acted so early on the curve to contain deaths, and that otherwise there would have been 1-2 million+ deaths in the US. 

First, I just want to be clear that I categorically disagree that he acted early, but I think we all do. 

Second, and more importantly, there's some interesting signal here to parse within the massive amount of Trump noise. Trump is touting a 200,000 number that relies on fairly strict social distancing measures to be put in place, the type that have been put in place in NY, NJ, WA, and CA, but that haven't in states like Florida. My gut take on this, as it is with many things, is that I don't have faith in Americans to stay the course and social distance in a strict way through April, and likely May as the weather materially turns in the nation and we start to see the Trump administration paint the rosiest version of the picture after what I believe will be a difficult April/May for markets. 

I have a hypothesis that Trump only went sober right now because we've seen relative stabilization within the stock market over a few days (and he wanted to test how the market would react to some more negativity, as he uses the stock market as a barometer for...everything). If we go another level, then perhaps he has a view on what the next wave of jobless claims could look like. Specifically, that the next wave of jobless claims are going to be very bad and potentially send the market back downward, and thus pushing bad news this week may be a way to concentrate the pain a bit more so he can posture heading into the weekend or next week, and perhaps even begin to announce what many are expecting, more stimulus. 

The counterpoint is that Trump would want to push bad news when he knows a near-term good news catalyst is coming, so this could swing both ways.

Last thing I'll say related to all of this is that these projections feel overly optimistic, but alas, I feel that the world is overly optimistic right now across many vectors. Also, it's ironic that we expect deaths to peak on what was formerly our tax day.

Brexiting Herd Immunity

This isn’t really current news, but I’ve been fairly vocal about how much of a disaster the UK was. Speaking from some secondary accounts, by having a basically us vs. the world POV for a week+ span, companies and cultures were materially tested in how to behave as COVID-19 proliferated throughout Europe.

At some point in the future, there should be at a minimum, a great piece of investigative journalism (and likely even a book) that walks through what the hell happened in the UK. We were fairly close to one of the largest A/B tests of outlier event policy we've ever seen and only at the 11th hour did all stakeholders agree that social distancing was the right choice.

The pivot point in this strategy reversal seems to have been the misunderstanding in Britain's models about ventilator usage and importance to stave off deaths via COVID-19. Full summary below from Scott Alexander, but the continual POV from me is the fact that it took them weeks to realize this was a flaw in their model, while the rest of the world began to burn, is insane.

A UK critical care doctor on Reddit wrote a great explanation of their recent debate on coronavirus strategy.

They say that over the past few years, Britain developed a cutting-edge new strategy for dealing with pandemics by building herd immunity. It was actually really novel and exciting and they were anxious to try it out. When the coronavirus came along, the government plugged its spread rate, death rate, etc into the strategy and got the plan Johnson originally announced. This is why he kept talking about how evidence-based it was and how top scientists said this was the best way to do things.

But other pandemics don’t require ventilators the same way as coronavirus does. So the model, which was originally built around flu, didn’t include a term for ventilator shortages. Once someone added that in, the herd immunity strategy went from clever idea to total disaster, and the UK had to perform a disastrous about-face. Something something technocratic hubris vs. complexity of the real world.

Next Order Effects - Concentration of Power

Something I've been thinking a lot as the news has been a steady stream of terribleness has been the next order effects of COVID-19 and a post-COVID world. There are multiple stakeholders here across government (how policies will remain or change), commercial (how will businesses and thus the economy be impacted), and human behavior (how will humans change their behavior, which filters back into commerical and in some ways government).

I’ll probably be writing more on this but something that is happening daily is continual concentration of power for leaders in the world. 

We've now seen world leaders begin to leverage these times to consolidate power and skew checks and balances (most recently in Hungary, but a full breakdown can be read here). It’s interesting to see from the US where we complain about how each party is trying to fit in irrelevant bills at the last minute into our stimulus plan, while criticizing our government for being morons and moving too slow (*raises hand*). At the same time we’re seeing pretty strongly loosened views on the surveillance systems that could be put in place in an effort to understand how we can get the world moving again (like China has supposedly done).

Chamath on his recent podcast with Kara Swisher noted that generally where Americans draw the line on this is with respect to how the organization benefits economically by having this level of power. He talked about how the NSA already has most of this data that we are all actively discussing with regards to whether or not Facebook, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, should be tapped to track individuals for the sake of the country’s health. But the NSA is built to serve the people, while large tech cos are built to serve shareholders.

Other Notes

- I’m surprised that with the current work from home environment, we haven’t seen any material leaks come out yet. This article from The Information made me think more about this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this changes.

- FinTwit sentiment has already come back around. Rule of life: Fade FinTwit.

What I’m Doing

Still short. Waiting for new jobless claims on Thursday. Selling another 1/4 of my VIX longs today.

Art - via Liv