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iamonlyperson · 6 months ago

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THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

YouTuber Markiplier Got Passes From Everyone in Hollywood — So, He Made a Hit His Way

Podcast adaptation 'The Edge of Sleep' from New Regency spent the weekend on Amazon Prime Video's most watched TV chart, but, as the YouTuber and team reveals, it didn't get there through traditional channels.

In 2019, 'The Edge of Sleep', the latest offering from Mark Fischbach, known to his 37 million YouTube subscribers as Markiplier, was pitched to every major platform in Hollywood.

By then, 'The Edge of Sleep' was already a popular podcast. In fact, it quickly became the biggest genre narrative podcast of all time, with some 6 million downloads and counting. And for the television adaptation, Markiplier would be reprising his role as a night watchman, who attempts to survive a mysterious global crisis where anyone who goes to sleep dies. The podcast’s creators, Jake Emanuel and Willie Block, were on board to write and run the TV version, and Longlegs producer Brian Kavanaugh Jones was attached to produce. There would be six episodes, made on a relative shoestring budget, served up to a rapt audience that Markiplier has cultivated for more than a decade with a channel primarily focused on Let’s Play videos.

Curtis, who’s represented Markiplier for eight years, wasn’t particularly surprised by the deluge of nos. As he tells it, Hollywood has never been willing to take his client seriously. The feedback? “Oh, the YouTuber? No, thanks.’ Just totally dismissive,” he says via Zoom, insisting the entire reason that they did 'The Edge of Sleep' as a QCODE-produced podcast first was because they wanted something to be able to show skittish buyers when they ultimately shopped the TV adaptation. It was also the reason that Curtis, whose client roster over the years has included Rami Malek and Veep‘s Timothy Simons, urged Markiplier to do his second podcast, Distractible, an unscripted offering featuring him and a few buddies.

“I went to Mark three years ago and I said, ‘Hey, look, I’m not getting a lot of love and respect for you in the market, you should do a podcast because I know you can build one of the biggest podcasts in the world. And at that point, I think traditional Hollywood will say, “Oh wow, you just knocked out Joe Rogan from No. 1 on Spotify. Let’s pay attention,”’” says Curtis. “And then he did that, and people still didn’t care. It’s been seven years now of trying to get traditional Hollywood to pay attention.” (For the record, Spotify did, allegedly inking an eight-figure dealfor him to host video episodes of Distractible and other podcasts.)

Markiplier is considerably more diplomatic. “I’m trying to show people [in Hollywood] that there is a different way, but at the same time, I do understand the mistrust of some creators,” he tells THR, acknowledging it was daunting to leap from his own videos to large-scale productions, with crews in the hundreds, even for him, who had scaled up gradually. “A YouTuber going into that is used to doing everything themself, so to learn to both collaborate with others and to let go a little and trust those who are experts in their department, it’s tough — especially when you have a distributor or some production company overseeing it or paying for it who wants to have input. It’s hard, and YouTubers can be very egotistical.” (Though he was simply an actor-for-hire and not a creative engine on Edge of Sleep, Markiplier still managed to butt heads with his producers, including the time he insisted upon licensing and editing in a different opening theme song, which he ultimately did with his own money.)

Most in Markiplier’s situation would have cut their losses and moved on. He hardly needs Hollywood, after all. But he didn’t generate nearly 17 billion video views by doing what others would do. “And I have a desire to prove myself and prove that I can play at other people’s games just as well as they can,” he says. So, he and the team, which also includes Oddfellows’ Chris Ferguson and director Corey Adams, among others, decided to forgo the traditional route. Markiplier agreed to put up a portion of the financing, and figure out a distribution strategy later. On Kavanaugh Jones’ recommendation, New Regency was recruited to come aboard as the studio and foot the remainder of the bill.

So, with COVID-19 still raging, the cast and crew decamped to Vancouver in the summer of 2021. The shoot lasted 25 days across 35 different locations, a triumph given the protocols in place at the time. According to New Regency’s chairman and CEO Yariv Milchan, it was a bet worth taking. “New Regency has a history of recognizing potential where others haven’t. Projects like The Revenant and Bohemian Rhapsody had been overlooked for years, yet we saw their value and brought them to life,” he says via email, adding: “With The Edge of Sleep, we saw a different potential in the unique combination of the largely untapped creativity from Markiplier and his dedicated fanbase, along with the success of the original QCODE podcast. We were inspired by the challenge to create, together with Markiplier and QCODE, a series at the right budget while embracing innovative marketing approaches.” (Though everybody’s staying mum on said budget, it’s said to be a small fraction of a typical prestige drama.)

In 2023, with a nearly completed series, they took it out once more. This time, they did so with the first episode available for potential buyers to preview. Again, they were greeted with a succession of passes. Curtis, who’s also an executive producer on the project, isn’t even sure they bothered to open the link and sample it. “It was the same thing, ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ And that’s the point at which 99.9 percent of Hollywood quits, it’s over,” he says. “But we knew, with Mark, you have this special ingredient that people truly undervalue — and he’s a complete genius in marketing to his fans.”

He was confident that Markiplier could and would activate his audience. After all, he’d seen him do it many times before. A few years back, for instance, Markiplier had a YouTube channel called Unus Annus (“One Year” in Latin), where he posted a new video every day for a year, culminating in a 12-hour live stream on day 365 that ended with him deleting the entire channel. At one point, Curtis says there were 1.3 million concurrent viewers watching; and, in 24 hours, he says Markiplier managed to sell $19 million of merchandise. “And that was something that we couldn’t pay people to write about or talk about. No one cared,” says Curtis, who acknowledges he has a chip on his shoulder on his client’s behalf. “I mean, there’s less than 50 people in the entire world who could do that. We’re talking, like, Taylor Swift, Kardashian type stuff.”

Last month, Hollywood finally got its taste for Markiplier’s power. Over on YouTube, his platform of choice, he released a video announcing that Edge of Sleep would be coming out in a matter of weeks. That video, which didn’t even tell people where they could watch the series, racked up 3.5 million views. Then, on Oct. 18, the full season dropped on Amazon Prime Video via the Prime Video Direct content submission portal — or, technically, it was uploaded a few days before, for quality control. Almost instantly, and without any real promotion, it had broken into the Prime Video’s Top 10, where it remained, hovering around No. 6 or 7 through the weekend.

By Friday, a trailer dropped on both QCODE and New Regency’s social media, and Prime Video posted a clip on its social channels. A paid media buy launched that day, too. Later that evening, Markiplier called an “Emergency Meeting” of his fans, which turned into him hosting a three-hour livestream, during which he urged everyone to tune in and rate the series, as his goal now is to stay on the Top 10 TV chart for 30 days. In success, there will be a second season, and ideally distribution outside the U.S. According to the Amazon site, Content providers to Prime Video Direct receive 50 percent of net revenue for titles that are available to buy or rent. By Sunday, 1.2 million had checked out the livestream video just to hear him field questions about the making of the series, his first foray into scripted and dramatic TV. (He talked, too, about Iron Lung, a bloody film that he acts in and directs, for which he’s currently seeking a theatrical distributor.)

The irony of its success over on Prime Video, one of many platforms that passed on Edge of Sleep when it came through the traditional channels, is not lost on Markiplier or his rep. “We definitely want to break glass,” Curtis says. “We want people to pay attention to the fact that this guy who was told no over and over again is so powerful that he can launch a TV show to great success on his own.”

#markiplier #the edge of sleep #the hollywood reporter

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danswideslit · 1 year ago

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slime video analysed thru horror with a queer pov

kay it gets its own post because im stil aaa bout it

This is just what I remember/was able to brush up on, since I studied this in 2019, so if anything is outdated I apologise, feel free to correct me, I love to learn!!

also I realized it has all become a lil rambly as I couldn’t contain my excitement soz

So this is my essay on the parallels of queerness in the horror genre and how DanAndPhilCRAFTS - Slime (2024) could be analysed in this light, especially given the creators’ personal history with the topic.

Among the classic tropes of the horror genre, is the topic of losing ones innocence.

Most emphasised is the loss of ones virginity, as a synonym for the innocence, although the innocence as such has many forms. As mentioned in Scream (1996), you may not survive if you have sex, if you drink/do drugs, or if you claim to “be right back” or in other ways investigate to satisfy your own curiosity.

The parallels to the christian church and societal norms are already obvious. If you deviate from the path of purity, it will lead to death and suffering. The only way to survive the night, is to stay pure. Do not be tempted by mere curiosities, for they will be the death of you, essentially.

In the same light, Baphomet is most often portrayed with characteristics from both the male and female human anatomy, and can be used as a metaphor for the inherent evil of gender expressions beyond the societal norm.

In the same light, monsters in various movies are often shown with a deviance in gender and/or sexuality. This role of ‘sexual outsider’ has, for years, been a symbolism that queer people have connected with. The has only further skewed the ‘stay pure’ narrative, as it brings on an ambience of kill or be killed. An either/or of sorts. But it has also made monsters and villains walk the line between sexy and terrifying, which naturally leads people to be enticed. We are sexual creatures afterall.

Often the monsters have an aura of masculine energy, as they make people cower, and the stereotypical jocks abandon their hardcore exterior. This, on one hand birthed the “the boyfriend is the killer” trope, but it also gave way for diving into morality, how many crimes can a villain get away with, as long as the character resonates with the audience.

This is demonstrated in Jennifers Body (2009) which was, at first, marketed to the male audience, making the monster Jennifer an attractive young woman, essentially getting the film marked as “Twilight for boys” by film critic Robert Ebert.

The ratings, however, were lackluster and claimed the movie was neither funny nor scary and thus was unsuccessful. Jennifer wasn’t “as hot as you’d hope she’d be” and essentially the “lesbians-for-the-male-gaze” marketing to boys 17+ failed.

However, many women and young girls between 17-25 saw the character of Jennifer as empowering and resonated with the film. My theory is that the men did not like being the victim, being killed my something that they are supposed to be worse than. But the women saw a strength in the conflict between what is essentially two sides of the same existence - on one hand the rage of the injustice and gender inequality, and on the other hand Needy, who follows every character trope connected to the “last girl standing.” Except even she is tainted in the end, killing Jennifer and losing her innocence. (more talk about innocence, murder/virginity bla bla bla, okay but this essay aint about that)

All this plays a role in how the queerness of DanAndPhilCRAFTS - slime (2024) can be interpreted. Throughout all four installments of the narrative, Dan is seen being guided by Phil and scolded when he doesn’t do it right. Phil seems not at all surprised when Dans glitter face turns satanic, and by the third video, Phil hands the control over as he gives himself away.

Essentially, the indoctrination of Dans role in Phils devotion is cult-like. Cults are often hidden behind a facade of “found family” before the true behind-the-scenes terror is revealed. Dan is evidently comfortable in letting a more experienced person guide the way, despite his own hesitance. He knows that he cant do this halfway.

also the idea of Phil rising from the dead, during Easter… Jesus Christ, where would we even begin (lol)

But beyond that symbolism, It is the hesitance in Dans nature that seems to point to the “purity being tainted” horror trope. Phils devotion to Him is evident, but Dan seems more so to be devoted to Phil. A follower. Believing whatever Phil believes to be true. A Billy and Stu, Scream situation, if you will. The subtext of two lovers and the blurred lines of love and death, which has been analysed and discussed a whole while by smarter people than me.

Dans hesitance to follow Phil guiding him to the other (queer) side. The penetrative stab and the menacing disarray of emotions on Dans face afterwards. This was anything but a selfish act, but he gave into the curiosity, he is not the last survivor, he has joined Him. This ritual was giving into love, without trying to contain, rationalise, or diminish any part of it.

(Kind of how like dan, selfproclaimidly, would still be a ‘Daniel in denial’ if Phil hadn’t come into his life, because Phil ‘led him astray’ but he’s very okay with it and he has embraced it, and he’s happier giving in instead of fighting it?? Too far??)

#dan #phil #dan and phil #dnp #daniel howell #amazingphil #danandphil #dan howell #dandandphilgames #danandphilcrafts

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seoul-bros · 5 months ago

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Jikook Week 49 Complete (12/11-19/11/2024)

Their 49th week in the military is now complete. Today we are looking back at this week in 2019. On the 12/11, BTS headed to Helsinki to film the Winter Package 2020.

After arriving in Helsinki, they started filming with some friendly competitions and the formation of the teams that would explore the city together later. JK was paired with Namjoon, J-Hope, Jin and Jimin were the second team and Tae and Suga were the last team.

They then set about making snow globes each of which would be gifted later to another member whose name they had drawn from a Christmas sack. Here are the finished items.

Day Two - Their second day began with a shoot in the rain. I know this series of posts is all about Jikook but can we stop a moment to appreciate the peak fineness of Kim Namjoon here?

Deep breath while energetically fanning my face & back to Jikook.

What strikes me as I watch the filming of the Winter Package is that Jikook are rarely put in the same sub-unit for photos. If you just saw the pictures without the video you would never have a clue how behind the scenes they can always be found together.

In the first shoot we see them talking about how JK is filming what eventually became GCF Helsinki.

The 2nd location was a ski resort, and there, they are accompanying each others shoots and giggling as they dance together in the snow.

This was the first time JK had ever been to a ski resort...

....but it certainly wasn't the last.

That evening they wrote letters to ARMY. After a very long day filming, and being the beautiful soul that he is JK's emotions spilled out of him as he read his own extremely heartfelt letter. Jimin, JHope and Joon tried to make him feel better first by hugging him and second by changing the focus away from him to more comic things.

Day Three The next day BTS took the ferry to Suomenlinna for another photoshoot. Jimin was stunning with his grey hair and a long red coat.

Jungkook was also pleased to have his human hot water bottle on hand to warm up his hands.

This was followed by unit shoots at the hotel & on the magical night streets of Helsinki.

Day 4 was set aside for unit activities. JK and RM went to shoot at a park by the sea. Jimin went to a local market with Jin and JHope where he bought himself a fetching new winter hat.

Their last activity was an exchange of gifts in the local park. Presents were distributed as follows: Jk to Tae, Tae to RM, RM to Jin, Jin to Jimin, Jimin to Suga, Suga to JK, JHope to JHope.

On 16/11 BTS arrived back in Seoul. A busy but enjoyable few days for everyone concerned.

Winter Package Part 1, Part 2

Post Date: 19/11/2024

#jikook #bts in 2019 #bts in the military #jimin #jungkook #BTS winter package 2020 #bts in helsinki

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beastieclub · 2 years ago

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in every video that's been coming out lately about stalls and changes in the U.S. economy, there's this incredibly charged silence in all of them.

for example, i was watching a video on what happened to cause the decline of 'mid-budget films'. all sorts of factors were discussed, from the streaming wars, to corporate consolidation, to low attendance in theaters. all true, yet... low attendance in theaters is attributed to streaming, market pressures, and big names not pulling people in- also true.

but not once was the fact that 1,140,278 people in the U.S. alone have died since 2023 mentioned.

there are 1,140,278 less people to fill those theater seats than there were in 2019. That is 1,140,278 less people making, shipping, and selling our goods. that is 1,140,278 less people taking their earnings home and spending what little they have left on those goods, the only thing keeping our manchild-ran economy from crumbling into recession.

our workforce decreased by 1,140,278 less people because you KNOW it was the working class, out there dying for everyone else. our workforce decreased by 1,140,278 less people due to one cause alone.

but no one says it. no one factors it in. countless thinkpieces, videos, news segments, conversations overheard in packed restaurants full of maskless, spitting faces about how our economy is crumbling under its own weight because of the internet, because of countless natural disasters battering our country from all sides, because of global trade, because of anything but the factor that we lost 1,140,278 people to preventable causes.

this 1,140,278 people, gone from our lives, and this doesn't even begin to touch the number of people permanently disabled, unable to work. but that number is far bigger than we can reliably calculate. more than we could begin to process.

this, by the way, is the number for the U.S. only. the country i live in, who ranks second worldwide in deaths per million due to this one cause.

and after three years of this constant, ongoing mass dying, we don't say its name. there's an eerie silence around it, a gaping hole we dare not touch. lest we violate some sort of social rule, heaven forbid. we spit on the deaths of those 1,140,278 people every time we forget, and every time we let our government get away with not protecting or caring about its people.

tell me, when was the last time you acknowledged COVID?

#covid19 #heavy stuff #im just. angry #grieving #and offput by this eerie hole in the discussion of. anything #those were all people with fucking lives.#edit: added a paragraph acknowledging how many are left not dead but disabled #as that is a huge part of this too

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hughesybear · 2 months ago

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the Swedish Canucks (or at least Petey) call MP3 a nickname that translates to “the sandwich” in Swedish

when Marcus Pettersson did his media availability after signing his extension he was asked a question in Swedish about nicknames and answered this:

“Some guys call me MP. It’s a little hard to call me Mackan. I tried to say, you can call me Mackan in English, it would be ‘sandwich’. So maybe I’ll go with that.”

Mackan is a Swedish nickname for Marcus (it was also Markus Näslund’s nickname in Sweden) and the word also translates to “the sandwich”; here’s a video of Petey calling MP3 “Mackan”

“I know Mackan a little bit since we played together at the World Championships once (2019). No, but you said everything, right away when he comes in and he gets on the ice, smart plays all the time, always trying to find a way, so he is easy to play with.” (machine translated)

so now we know that at least the Peteys have a way of distinguishing between themselves. everyone else (aka out-of-market commentators) just has to suffer

#eagerly awaiting to see what any Swede will call MP3 when asked about him in English #marcus pettersson #elias pettersson #peteys #vancouver canucks #nhl #auriel:media #auriel:text #auriel:video

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ohgaylor · 1 year ago

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In 2006, the year Taylor Swift released her first single, a closeted country singer named Chely Wright, then 35, held a 9-millimeter pistol to her mouth. Queer identity was still taboo enough in mainstream America that speaking about her love for another woman would have spelled the end of a country music career. But in suppressing her identity, Ms. Wright had risked her life.

In 2010, she came out to the public, releasing a confessional memoir, “Like Me,” in which she wrote that country music was characterized by culturally enforced closeting, where queer stars would be seen as unworthy of investment unless they lied about their lives. “Country music,” she wrote, “is like the military — don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The culture in which Ms. Wright picked up that gun — the same one in which Ms. Swift first became a star — was stunningly different from today’s. It’s dizzying to think about the strides that have been made in Americans’ acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community over the past decade: marriage equality, queer themes dominating teen entertainment, anti-discrimination laws in housing and, for now, in the workplace. But in recent years, a steady drip of now-out stars — Cara Delevingne, Colton Haynes, Elliot Page, Kristen Stewart, Raven-Symoné and Sam Smith among them — have disclosed that they had been encouraged to suppress their queerness in order to market projects or remain bankable.

The culture of country music hasn’t changed so much that homophobia is gone. Just this past summer, Adam Mac, an openly gay country artist, was shamed out of playing at a festival in his hometown because of his sexual orientation. In September, the singer Maren Morris stepped away from country music; she said she did so in part because of the industry’s lingering anti-queerness. If country music hasn’t changed enough, what’s to say that the larger entertainment industry — and, by extension, our broader culture — has?

Periodically, I return to a video, recorded by a shaky hand more than a decade ago, of Ms. Wright answering questions at a Borders bookstore about her coming out. She likens closeted stardom to a blender, an “insane” and “inhumane” heteronormative machine in which queer artists are chewed to bits.

“It’s going to keep going,” Ms. Wright says, “until someone who has something to lose stands up and just says ‘I’m gay.’ Somebody big.” She continues: “We need our heroes.”

What if someone had already tried, at least once, to change the culture by becoming such a hero? What if, because our culture had yet to come to terms with homophobia, it wasn’t ready for her?

What if that hero’s name was Taylor Alison Swift?

In the world of Taylor Swift, the start of a new “era” means the release of new art (an album and the paratexts — music videos, promotional ephemera, narratives — that supplement it) and a wholesale remaking of the aesthetics that will accompany its promotion, release and memorializing. In recent years, Ms. Swift has dominated pop culture to such a degree that these transformations often end up altering American culture in the process.

In 2019, she was set to release a new album, “Lover,” the first since she left Big Machine Records, her old Nashville-based label, which she has since said limited her creative freedom. The aesthetic of what would be known as the “Lover Era” emerged as rainbows, butterflies and pastel shades of blue, purple and pink, colors that subtly evoke the bisexual pride flag.

On April 26, Lesbian Visibility Day, Ms. Swift released the album’s lead single, “ME!,” in which she sings about self-love and self-acceptance. She co-directed a campy music video to accompany it, which she would later describe as depicting “everything that makes me, me.” It features Ms. Swift dancing at a pride parade, dripping in rainbow paint and turning down a man’s marriage proposal in exchange for a … pussy cat.

At the end of June, the L.G.B.T.Q. community would celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. On June 14, Ms. Swift released the video for her attempt at a pride anthem, “You Need to Calm Down,” in which she and an army of queer celebrities from across generations — the “Queer Eye” hosts, Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Porter, Hayley Kiyoko, to name a few — resist homophobia by living openly. Ms. Swift sings that outrage against queer visibility is a waste of time and energy: “Why are you mad, when you could be GLAAD?”

The video ends with a plea: “Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally.” Many, in the press and otherwise, saw the video as, at best, a misguided attempt at allyship and, at worst, a straight woman co-opting queer aesthetics and narratives to promote a commercial product.

Then, Ms. Swift performed “Shake It Off” as a surprise for patrons at the Stonewall Inn. Rumors — that were, perhaps, little more than fantasies — swirled in the queerer corners of her fandom, stoked by a suggestive post by the fashion designer Christian Siriano. Would Ms. Swift attend New York City’s WorldPride march on June 30? Would she wear a dress spun from a rainbow? Would she give a speech? If she did, what would she declare about herself?

The Sunday of the march, those fantasies stopped. She announced that the music executive Scooter Braun, who she described as an “incessant, manipulative” bully, had purchased her masters, the lucrative original recordings of her work.

Ms. Swift’s “Lover” was the first record that she created with nearly unchecked creative freedom. Lacking her old label’s constraints, she specifically chose to feature activism for and the aesthetics of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in her confessional, self-expressive art. Even before the sale of her masters, she appeared to be stepping into a new identity — not just an aesthetic — that was distinct from that associated with her past six albums.

When looking back on the artifacts of the months before that album’s release, any close reader of Ms. Swift has a choice. We can consider the album’s aesthetics and activism as performative allyship, as they were largely considered to be at the time. Or we can ask a question, knowing full well that we may never learn the answer: What if the “Lover Era” was merely Ms. Swift’s attempt to douse her work — and herself — in rainbows, as so many baby queers feel compelled to do as they come out to the world?

There’s no way of knowing what could have happened if Ms. Swift’s masters hadn’t been sold. All we know is what happened next. In early August, Ms. Swift posted a rainbow-glazed photo of a series of friendship bracelets, one of which says “PROUD” with beads in the color of the bisexual pride flag. Queer people recognize that this word, deployed this way, typically means that someone is proud of their own identity. But the public did not widely view this as Ms. Swift’s coming out.

Then, Vogue released an interview with Ms. Swift that had been conducted in early June. When discussing her motivations for releasing “You Need to Calm Down,” Ms. Swift said, “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male.” She continued: “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of.” That statement suggests that Ms. Swift did not, in early June, consider herself part of the L.G.B.T.Q. community; it does not illuminate whether that is because she was a straight, cis ally or because she was stuck in the shadowy, solitary recesses of the closet.

On Aug. 22, Ms. Swift publicly committed herself to the as-of-then-unproven project of rerecording and rereleasing her first six albums. The next day, she finally released “Lover,” which raises more questions than it answers. Why does she have to keep secrets just to keep her muse, as all her fans still sing-scream on “Cruel Summer”? About what are the “hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you,” in her chronicle of self-doubt, “The Archer,” if not her identity? And what could the album’s closing words, which come at the conclusion of “Daylight,” a song about stepping out of a 20-year darkness and choosing to “let it go,” possibly signal?

I want to be defined by the things that I love,

Not the things I hate,

Not the things that I’m afraid of, I’m afraid of,

Not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night,

I just think that,

You are what you love.

The first time I viewed “Lover” through the prism of queerness, I felt delirious, almost insane. I kept wondering whether what I was perceiving in her work was truly there or if it was merely a mirage, born of earnest projection.

My longtime reading of Ms. Swift’s celebrity — like that of a majority of her fan base — had been stuck in the lingering assumptions left by a period that began more than a decade and a half ago, when a girl with an overexaggerated twang, Shirley Temple curls and Georgia stars in her eyes became famous. Then, she presented as all that was to be expected of a young starlet: attractive yet virginal, knowing yet naïve, not talented enough to be formidable, not commanding enough to be threatening, confessional, eager to please. Her songs earnestly depicted the fantasies of a girl raised in a traditional culture: high school crushes and backwoods drives, princelings and wedding rings, declarations of love that climax only in a kiss — ideally in the pouring rain.

When Ms. Swift was trying to sell albums in that late-2000s media environment, her songwriting didn’t match the image of a sex object, the usual role reserved for female celebrities in our culture. Instead, the story the public told about her was that she laundered her affection to a litter of promising grown men, in exchange for songwriting inspiration. A young Ms. Swift contributed to this narrative by hiding easy-to-decode clues in liner notes that suggested a certain someone was her songs’ inspiration (“SAM SAM SAM SAM SAM SAM,” “ADAM,” “TAY”) or calling out an ex-boyfriend on the “Ellen” show and “Saturday Night Live.” Despite the expansive storytelling in Ms. Swift’s early records, her public image often cast a man’s interest as her greatest ambition.

As Ms. Swift’s career progressed, she began to remake that image: changing her style and presentation, leaving country music for pop and moving from Nashville to New York. By 2019, her celebrity no longer reflected traditional culture; it had instead become a girlboss-y mirror for another dominant culture — that of white, cosmopolitan, neoliberal America.

But in every incarnation, the public has largely seen those songs — especially those for which she doesn’t directly state her inspiration — as cantos about her most recent heterosexual love, whether that idea is substantiated by evidence or not. A large portion of her base still relishes debating what might have happened with the gentleman caller who supposedly inspired her latest album. Feverish discussions of her escapades with the latest yassified London Boy or mustachioed Mr. Americana fuel the tabloid press — and, embarrassingly, much of traditional media — that courts fan engagement by relentlessly, unquestioningly chronicling Ms. Swift’s love life.

Even in 2023, public discussion about the romantic entanglements of Ms. Swift, 34, presumes that the right man will “finally” mean the end of her persistent husbandlessness and childlessness. Whatever you make of Ms. Swift’s extracurricular activities involving a certain football star (romance for the ages? strategic brand partnership? performance art for entertainment’s sake?), the public’s obsession with the relationship has been attention-grabbing, if not lucrative, for all parties, while reinforcing a story that America has long loved to tell about Ms. Swift, and by extension, itself.

Because Ms. Swift hasn’t undeniably subverted our culture’s traditional expectations, she has managed, in an increasingly fractured cultural environment, to simultaneously capture two dominant cultures — traditional and cosmopolitan. To maintain the stranglehold she has on pop culture, Ms. Swift must continue to tell a story that those audiences expect to consume; she falls in love with a man or she gets revenge. As a result, her confessional songs languish in a place of presumed stasis; even as their meaning has grown deeper and their craft more intricate, a substantial portion of her audience’s understanding of them remains wedded to the same old narratives.

But if interpretations of Ms. Swift’s art often languish in stasis, so do the millions upon millions of people who love to play with the dollhouse she has constructed for them. Her dominance in pop culture and the success of her business have given her the rare ability to influence not only her industry but also the worldview of a substantial portion of America. How might her industry, our culture and we, ourselves, change if we made space for Ms. Swift to burn that dollhouse to the ground?

Anyone considering the whole of Ms. Swift’s artistry — the way that her brilliantly calculated celebrity mixes with her soul-baring art — can find discrepancies between the story that underpins her celebrity and the one captured by her songs. One such gap can be found in her “Lover” era. Others appear alongside “dropped hairpins,” or the covert ways someone can signal queer identity to those in the know while leaving others comfortable in their ignorance. Ms. Swift dropped hairpins before “Lover” and has continued to do so since.

Sometimes, Ms. Swift communicates through explicit sartorial choices — hair the colors of the bisexual pride flag or a recurring motif of rainbow dresses. She frequently depicts herself as trapped in glass closets or, well, in regular closets. She drops hairpins on tour as well, paying tribute to the Serpentine Dance of the lesbian artist Loie Fuller during the Reputation Tour or referencing “The Ladder,” one of the earliest lesbian publications in the United States, in her Eras Tour visuals.

During the Eras Tour, Ms. Swift traps her past selves — including those from her “Lover” era — in glass closets.

Dropped hairpins also appear in Ms. Swift’s songwriting. Sometimes, the description of a muse — the subject of her song, or to whom she sings — seems to fit only a woman, as it does in “It’s Nice to Have a Friend,” “Maroon” or “Hits Different.” Sometimes she suggests a female muse through unfulfilled rhyme schemes, as she does in “The Very First Night,” when she sings “didn’t read the note on the Polaroid picture / they don’t know how much I miss you” (“her,” instead of that pesky little “you,” would rhyme). Her songwriting also noticeably alludes to poets whose muses the historical record incorrectly cast as men — Emily Dickinson chief among them — as if to suggest the same fate awaits her art. Stunningly, she even explicitly refers to dropping hairpins, not once, but twice, on two separate albums.

In isolation, a single dropped hairpin is perhaps meaningless or accidental, but considered together, they’re the unfurling of a ballerina bun after a long performance. Those dropped hairpins began to appear in Ms. Swift’s artistry long before queer identity was undeniably marketable to mainstream America. They suggest to queer people that she is one of us. They also suggest that her art may be far more complex than the eclipsing nature of her celebrity may allow, even now.

Since at least her “Lover” era, Ms. Swift has explicitly encouraged her fans to read into the coded messages (which she calls “Easter eggs”) she leaves in music videos, social media posts and interviews with traditional media outlets, but a majority of those fans largely ignore or discount the dropped hairpins that might hint at queer identity. For them, acknowledging even the possibility that Ms. Swift could be queer would irrevocably alter the way they connect with her celebrity, the true product they’re consuming.

There is such public devotion to the traditional narrative Ms. Swift embodies because American culture enshrines male power. In her sweeping essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” the lesbian feminist poet Adrienne Rich identified the way that male power cramps, hinders or devalues women’s creativity. All of the sexist undertones with which Ms. Swift’s work can be discussed (often, even, by fans) flow from compulsory heterosexuality, or the way patriarchy draws power from the presumption that women naturally desire men. She must write about men she surely loves or be unbankable; she must marry and bear children or remain a child herself; she must look like, in her words, a “sexy baby” or be undesirable, “a monster on the hill.”

A woman who loves women is most certainly a monster to a society that prizes male power. She can fulfill none of the functions that a traditional culture imagines — wife, mother, maid, mistress, whore — so she has few places in the historical record. The Sapphic possibility of her work is ignored, censored or lost to time. If there is queerness earnestly implied in Ms. Swift’s work, then it’s no wonder that it, like that of so many other artists before her, is so often rendered invisible in the public imagination.

While Ms. Swift’s songs, largely written from her own perspective, cannot always conform to the idea of a woman our culture expects, her celebrity can. That separation, between Swift the songwriter and Swift the star, allows Ms. Swift to press against the golden birdcage in which she has found herself. She can write about women’s complexity in her confessional songs, but if ever she chooses not to publicly comply with the dominant culture’s fantasy, she will remain uncategorizable, and therefore, unsellable.

Her star — as bright as it is now — would surely dim.

Whether she is conscious of it or not, Ms. Swift signals to queer people — in the language we use to communicate with one another — that she has some affinity for queer identity. There are some queer people who would say that through this sort of signaling, she has already come out, at least to us. But what about coming out in a language the rest of the public will understand?

The difference between any person coming out and a celebrity doing so is the difference between a toy mallet and a sledgehammer. It’s reasonable for celebrities to be reticent; by coming out, they potentially invite death threats, a dogged tabloid press that will track their lovers instead of their beards, the excavation of their past lives, a torrent of public criticism and the implosion of their careers. In a culture of compulsory heterosexuality, to stop lying — by omission or otherwise — is to risk everything.

American culture still expects that stars are cis and straight until they confess themselves guilty. So, when our culture imagines a celebrity’s coming out, it expects an Ellen-style announcement that will submerge the past life in phoenix fire and rebirth the celebrity in a new image. In an ideal culture, wearing a bracelet that says “PROUD,” waving a pride flag onstage, placing a rainbow in album artwork or suggestively answering fan questions on Instagram would be enough. But our current reality expects a supernova.

Because of that expectation, stars end up trapped behind glass, which is reinforced by the tabloid press’s subtle social control. That press shapes the public’s expectations of others’ identities, even when those identities are chasms away from reality. Celebrities who master this press environment — Ms. Swift included — can bolster their business, but in doing so, they reinforce a heteronormative culture that obsesses over pregnancy, women’s bodies and their relationships with men.

That environment is at odds with the American movement for L.G.B.T.Q. equality, which still has fights to win — most pressingly, enshrining trans rights and squashing nonsensical culture wars. But lately I’ve heard many of my young queer contemporaries — and the occasional star — wonder whether the movement has come far enough to dispense with the often messy, often uncomfortable process of coming out, over and over again.

That questioning speaks to an earnest conundrum that queer people confront regularly: Do we live in this world, or the world to which we ought to aspire?

Living in aspiration means ignoring the convention of coming out in favor of just … existing. This is easier for those who can pass as cis and straight if need be, those who are so wealthy or white that the burden of hiding falls to others and those who live in accepting urban enclaves. This is a queer life without friction; coming out in a way straight people can see is no longer a prerequisite for acceptance, fulfillment and equality.

This aspiration is tremendous, but in our current culture, it is available only to a privileged few. Should such an inequality of access to aspiration become the accepted state of affairs, it would leave those who can’t hide to face society’s cruelest actors without the backing of a vocal, activated community. So every queer person who takes issue with the idea that we must come out ought to ask a simple question — what do we owe one another?

If coming out is primarily supposed to be an act of self-actualization, to form our own identities, then we owe one another nothing. This posture recognizes that the act of coming out implicitly reinforces straight and cis identities as default, which is not worth the rewards of outness.

But if coming out is supposed to be a radical act of resistance that seeks to change the way our society imagines people to be, then undeniable visibility is essential to make space for those without power. In this posture, queer people who can live in aspiration owe those who cannot a real world in which our expansive views of love and gender aren’t merely tolerated but celebrated. We have no choice but to actively, vocally press against the world we’re in, until no one is stuck in it.

And so just for a little while longer, we need our heroes.

But if queer people spend all of our time holding out for a guiding light, we might forgo a more pressing question that if answered, just might inch all of us a bit closer to aspiration. The next time heroes appear, are we ready to receive them?

It takes neither a genius nor a radical to see queerness implied by Ms. Swift’s work. But figuring out how to talk about it before the star labels herself is another matter. Right now, those who do so must inject our perceptions with caveats and doubt or pretend we cannot see it (a lie!) — implicitly acquiescing to convention’s constraints in the name of solidarity.

Lying is familiar to queer people; we teach ourselves to do it from an early age, shrouding our identities from others, and ourselves. It’s not without good reason. To maintain the safety (and sometimes the comfort) of the closet, we lie to others, and, most crucially, we allow others to believe lies about us, seeing us as something other than ourselves. Lying is doubly familiar to those of us who are women. To reduce friction, so many of us still shrink life to its barest version in the name of honor or safety, rendering our lives incomplete, our minds lobotomized and our identities unexplored.

By maintaining a culture of lying about what we, uniquely, have the knowledge and experience to see, we commit ourselves to a vow of silence. That vow may protect someone’s safety, but when it is applied to works of culture, it stymies our ability to receive art that has the potential to change or disrupt us. As those with queer identity amass the power of commonplaceness, it’s worth questioning whether the purpose of one of the last great taboos that constrains us befits its cost.

In every case, is the best form of solidarity still silence?

I know that discussing the potential of a star’s queerness before a formal declaration of identity feels, to some, too salacious and gossip-fueled to be worthy of discussion. They might point to the viciousness of the discourse around “queerbaiting” (in which I have participated); to the harm caused by the tabloid press’s dalliances with outing; and, most crucially, to the real material sacrifices that queer stars make to come out, again and again, as reasons to stay silent.

I share many of these reservations. But the stories that dominate our collective imagination shape what our culture permits artists and their audiences to say and be. Every time an artist signals queerness and that transmission falls on deaf ears, that signal dies. Recognizing the possibility of queerness — while being conscious of the difference between possibility and certainty — keeps that signal alive.

So, whatever you make of Ms. Swift’s sexual orientation or gender identity (something that is knowable, perhaps, only to her) or the exact identity of her muses (something better left a mystery), choosing to acknowledge the Sapphic possibility of her work has the potential to cut an audience that is too often constrained by history, expectation and capital loose from the burdens of our culture.

To start, consider what Ms. Swift wrote in the liner notes of her 2017 album, “reputation”: “When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test.”

Listen to her. At the very least, resist the urge to assume that when Ms. Swift calls the object of her affection “you” in a song, she’s talking about a man with whom she’s been photographed. Just that simple choice opens up a world of Swiftian wordplay. She often plays with pronouns, trading “you” and “him” so that only someone looking for a distinction between two characters might find one. Turns of phrase often contain double or even triple meanings. Her work is a feast laid specifically for the close listener.

Choosing to read closely can also train the mind to resist the image of an unmarried woman that compulsory heterosexuality expects. And even if it is only her audience who points at rainbows, reading Ms. Swift’s work as queer is still worthwhile, for it undermines the assumption that queer identity impedes pop superstardom, paving the way for an out artist to have the success Ms. Swift has.

After all, would it truly be better to wait to talk about any of this for 50, 60, 70 years, until Ms. Swift whispers her life story to a biographer? Or for a century or more, when Ms. Swift’s grandniece donates her diaries to some academic library, for scholars to pore over? To ensure that mea culpas come only when Ms. Swift’s bones have turned to dust and fragments of her songs float away on memory’s summer breeze?

I think not. And so, I must say, as loudly as I can, “I can see you,” even if I risk foolishness for doing so.

I remember the first time I knew I had seen Taylor Alison Swift break free from the trap of stardom. I wasn’t sitting in a crowded stadium in the pouring rain or cuddled up in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn. I was watching a grainy, crackling livestream of the Eras Tour, captured on a fan’s phone.

It’s late at night, the beginning of her acoustic set of surprise songs, this time performed in a yellow dress. She begins playing “Hits Different.” It’s a new song, full of puns, double entendres and wordplay, that toys with the glittering identities in which Ms. Swift indulges.

She’s rushing, as if stopping, even for a second, will cause her to lose her nerve. She stumbles at the bridge, pauses and starts again; the queen of bridges will not mess this up, not tonight.

There it is, at the bridge’s end: “Bet I could still melt your world; argumentative, antithetical dream girl.” An undeniable declaration of love to a woman. As soon as those words leave her lips, she lets out a whoop, pacing around the stage with a grin that cannot be contained.

For a moment, Ms. Swift was out of the woods she had created for herself as a teenager, floating above the trees. The future was within reach; she would, and will, soon take back the rest of her words, her reputation, her name. Maybe the world would see her, maybe it wouldn’t.

But on that stage, she found herself. I was there. Through a fuzzy fancam, I saw it.

And somehow, that was everything.

#ooooh my word this was BREATHTAKING and so well-said #because coming out is in fact a very delicate thing #full article here for the tumblr crowd!#taylor swift #articles #new york times #gaylor swift #gaylor #lover #chely wright

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brf-rumortrackinganon · 2 months ago

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I don't know if this is your royal cup of tea, RTA but there's a long article in the Times of London about Prince Andrew and Fergie's finances as part of an upcoming book late this year on the Duke & Duchess of York. It makes for a interesting read to say the least. Apologies as I do not know how to archive it to your preferences. "Prince Andrew’s finances: my four-year quest to uncover the truth" by Andrew Lownie for The Times.

Thanks. I prefer archive.org links because they're more easily accessible. Web Archive (archive.ph, etc. links get blocked by a lot of security software).

Archived Link

This is but the tip of the iceberg of the York family business activities, because the whole family works together: not just Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York, his ex-wife, but also their daughters Princess Beatrice, 36, and Princess Eugenie, 34. Both daughters have long been involved in supporting their father’s financial schemes. In November last year, for example, one of Andrew’s business deals in Japan involved a public appearance from Eugenie at a Tokyo event run by Innovate for 1,000 Japanese businessmen. This involvement with their father goes back much further: Andrew often took his daughters on special representative trips and had them join Pitch@Palace events.

and

Until March 2019, Andrew, one of whose courtesy titles is Earl of Inverness, had a 40 per cent stake in a firm based in the British Virgin Islands called Inverness Asset Management, which was ultimately owned by Rowland’s Blackfish Capital Management. His name on the relevant documentation is Andrew Inverness. Andrew has long operated through such names, offshore and nominee accounts (a financial arrangement where a third party holds assets on behalf of the actual owner) and a succession of companies not required to provide full accounts, making it difficult to examine his business activities.

and

The King may be concerned by the optics of a non-working and discredited member of his family continuing to live in such magnificence — he is keen to move Andrew to the smaller Frogmore Cottage — but there is little he can do as long as his younger brother follows the terms of his lease for Royal Lodge. Andrew was granted this lease by the Crown Estates in 2003 after the death of the Queen Mother, who lived in the lodge. This too was controversial, because it was not offered on the open market. The public narrative about Andrew is that the former Falklands hero now spends a lonely life trapped in Royal Lodge, going for horse rides in Windsor Great Park and playing video games and golf. But the reality is rather different. According to one source, he has continued his business activities with recent trips to the Middle East and Switzerland. The King can only hope there are no further scandals to emerge and the press and public soon lose interest in his brother. On present evidence, that is very unlikely.

#yorkies #brf #show me the money

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thebroccolination · 8 days ago

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THE EX-MORNING Q23 - FILMING HAS OFFICIALLY WRAPPED!!! (EPISODE 1 AIRS MAY 22nd)

- SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! -

[source: @.kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk_kiat on Instagram]

As unbelievable as it feels to type it, KristSingto's comeback series has at last finished filming! At 23 Qs, "The Ex-Morning" is set to begin airing on Thursday, May 22nd, for ten episodes.

Just as a speed-run refresher for anyone joining, KristSingto debuted together in 2016 as the leads in GMMTV's first proper BL series, "SOTUS," and continued as a branded khuujin ("imaginary couple") while doing joint and solo projects until late 2022, when Singto began a temporary freelance career, and then he rejoined GMMTV officially in January of 2024, a few months before GMMTV announced "The Ex-Morning" in April of 2024. According to Aof, Singto called him at some point in 2023 and asked for a series for him and Krist, so Aof and Jojo collaborated to create an original concept for them.

And now we're only a little over a month from seeing that concept realized into a full series. :')

OKAY SO! Q23 was a lot, so let's dive in. :D

First off, we had Aou, Earn, and Jamie all check in:

Those of us who clocked Q22 as a potential proposal location had our eyes out for signs of a wedding in Q23, and that led to some extremely amusing shenanigans between the fans and the crew.

This already felt very promising.

Then we got these photos of who do very much appear to be wedding guests and a traditional band:

[source: Facebook]

This is all pretty solid, right? Well. Then this Instagram story popped up and caused absolute mayhem:

First of all, a bride and a groom? And what's "YK"??? I was at work, so I didn't give either of those things much thought, just went along with my day still assuming we were all happily basking in the forthcoming marriage ceremony of Pathapi and Tamtawan.

Then I got a message telling me the fandom was melting down and the crew were teasing them saying it wasn't their wedding, they were just guests. :)))))

Also, apparently that same account first posted that photo with the emoji of two men kissing, then quickly deleted it and re-uploaded the version above.

I imagine the crew were like, "Let's be gremlins," and frankly, I applaud that sort of sinister shenanigan.

Not to be tricked, though, fans began the kind of detective work that should both impress and intimidate:

Now, if you're like me, you probably zoomed in and thought, "I can't see anything," and moved on.

But if you look even more closely, you'll notice two salient details:

The PT of "Pathapi" and "Tamtawan" on the left, and their photo on the right. Also, can we discuss, in detail, how intimate that PT looks? Because damn.

So that was it, right?

I mean, that's quite enough to go by, right? To know it's their wedding? (Plus, y'know, the fact that Peraya would chop the Grammy building down with a very big axe if they used KristSingto's comeback series to marry off a different couple.)

WELL.

Fans also spotted Singto in the background of one of Jamie's videos wearing what seems to be a wedding garland.

Explained in this magnificent post by @thaifanfests:

Floral garlands, generally known as phuang malai (พวงมาลัย) symbolize respect and luck across Thai culture. Garlands and other forms of floral art were historically used in various royal and religious ceremonies and are traditionally made with fresh flowers. Garlands are handmade, with the garland highly symbolic of the patience and attention needed for the threading process. Today, you can find markets and stalls that sell garlands of all shapes, sizes, and arrangement types across Thailand. Some of the flowers used for phuang malai include jasmine, champaca, orchids, marigolds, and gardenias.

So fans were content at that point that they'd been trolled by an endearing crew of gremlins and a repeat of "Ossan's Love: Love or Dead" (2019) wasn't in the making. (In which the movie did marry off a different couple. A straight couple no less. Of brand new characters. They made up for it in 2023 by having Maki and Haruta's actual wedding in the sequel series, but ooooh was I mad for those three and a half years in the middle there.)

And now, please join me in having so many feelings about these two pairs of formal shoes beside one another at the temple:

[Oh, this series is gonna make me cryyy.]

Filming continued elsewhere after the wedding and wrapped in what seems to be a pet shop with their cat daughter.

We have a few videos from different angles of the final wrap moment in the clips below, but I took some screenshots for y'all to enjoy as well:

After celebrating, KristSingto took commemorative photos:

And that was it! All that's left now is several weeks of postproduction and promotion, and then we'll officially have Pathapi and Tamtawan as the newest part of KristSingto's legacy. <3

But wait…

There's more. :>

We've also been getting some extra treats from the crew over the past twenty-four hours since filming wrapped, liiiike:

I'm gonna guess those could be flashback sequences to their uni days but I won't be sure until we see the show.

And now, the last assortment of clips! There's a ton in there this time, so have a li'l watch. The first clip is going to be in the series itself, I feel?

As I've said and won't tire of saying, I'm so very proud of them, and I couldn't be happier seeing how happy they are. Not only is it a comeback series, it's the first one I'm going to get to experience since I became a fan of them five years ago. I always knew they'd have another series together, I just thought it would be even farther in the future. It's really special knowing it's so soon, and that it's a series hand-crafted for them.

I know there's some disappointment that it's not airing on a Saturday and that it's ten episodes instead of twelve, but considering the rewrites it underwent in December and the fact that they are a legacy khuujin who had a pivotal role in the industry becoming what it is, I think this series is, more than anything, a love letter to their existing fans who waited for them all these years. They've said as much already. As long as it's a tightly written script worthy of them, I don't mind that it's two episodes shorter than I expected. As I've been saying to friends today, "SOTUS S" would be about eight episodes if you cut all the side couples.

I'm so excited to see this story, mainly because Big, Nuanced Emotions are KristSingto's wheelhouse, and the two of them have grown enormously as actors since the last time they acted opposite each other. They've both said they feel safe with each other, and their trust in one another makes working together easy. I think now that they've both had experience working with others, they probably appreciate that ease of working with each other even more. And I can't wait to see what they've created together. :')

Thank you all for joining me in recapping the past twenty-three filming days of "The Ex-Morning"! I'm hoping once the series begins we can use these posts as a reference to go back and connect the dots to when certain scenes were filmed. It's always fun to figure out the order something was filmed in. :D

I'll still be posting under the "#special reporter kiranokira" tag with all upcoming promotion and sneak peeks, so y'all haven't heard the last of me. :>

(I doubt anyone was under that impression.)

Special reporter Kiranokira out!

#special reporter kiranokira #krist perawat #singto prachaya #kristsingto #the ex morning #the ex morning spoilers #thai bl #thai ql

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mariacallous · 28 days ago

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When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Central America in February on his first official trip abroad, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele made him an unusual offer: El Salvador would receive and detain people deported from the United States, as well as U.S. citizens convicted of crimes. Rubio described Bukele’s proposal as an “extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country” and said on X that it would make the United States safer.

Last weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump took Bukele up on his offer. The White House used an oblique 18th-century law written during wartime to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, violating a federal judge’s ruling to halt the expulsions. The United States reportedly paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the migrants.

The American people must be clear-eyed about the prison system to which their government is sending deported migrants—which, in the worst-case scenario, could one day hold U.S. citizens, too. Although U.S. law prohibits the deportation of U.S. citizens, the Trump administration has shown a repeated proclivity to flout the rules and ignore judicial orders.

El Salvador and its prison system operate under what is known legally as a “state of exception.” In 2022, at Bukele’s request, the Salvadoran legislature authorized an emergency declaration to combat gang violence. The declaration suspended basic due process rights for Salvadorans and foreign nationals whom authorities accuse of being affiliated with gangs. Since then, the police and military have detained at least 85,000 people without judicial warrants, according to El Salvador’s legislature.

El Salvador now has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 2 percent of the population in prison. The country’s prison population has exploded from an already overcrowded 38,000 people at the beginning of Bukele’s administration in 2019 to an estimated 120,000 people today. Most prisoners have not yet been convicted of any crime.

There are still no trial dates for the 85,000 people detained without warrants. If trials do materialize, there is little expectation that they will be fair. Salvadoran authorities announced that they will not prosecute the 85,000 people as individuals; rather, there will be mass trials of more than 900 people. Legal reforms to the criminal justice system passed during the state of exception allow Salvadoran prosecutors to seek sentences of 20 to 40 years in courts presided over by judges whose identities are secret.

Former prisoners have told Cristosal, the human rights organization that I work for, that they were greeted at prison gates by guards who beat them and warned that they would not leave the prison walking.

Despite the Bukele administration’s well-documented human rights abuses, the president’s offer to the United States has the backing of a viral marketing campaign. The government brags about its harsh treatment of prisoners and high incarceration rates online. It has produced high-resolution photos and videos of detainees and prisons that are distributed to the media and used in news reports around the world.

At the center of Bukele’s propaganda is El Salvador’s now infamous megaprison, the Terrorist Confinement Center (known by its Spanish acronym, CECOT), which opened in 2023 and can house up to 40,000 inmates. It is still operating at half its capacity. Government handout images and content from choreographed press visits to CECOT have appeared below many headlines about El Salvador’s state of exception in the international press. Prisoners have shaved heads, tattooed faces, and wear all-white outfits—including white Crocs.

Foreign journalists reporting on the state of exception who fixate on CECOT are likely focusing on the wrong prisoners in the wrong prison. The middle-aged faces and full-body tattoos that appear in the footage from the megaprison suggest that they are gang members who have likely been in prison since well before the state of exception began. (Most Salvadoran gangs abandoned the practice of tattooing their faces years ago.)

In a sample of 1,177 people imprisoned under the state of exception, Cristosal’s researchers found that only 54 had tattoos and only nine of that group were linked to gangs. Of the hundreds of family members of people detained under the state of exception whom Cristosal has interviewed, almost all have been told by prison authorities that their relatives are not being held at CECOT. Prisoners’ relatives were instructed to bring monthly packages of food, medicine, and clothing to older prisons in other parts of the country.

If the bodies of the 85,000 people detained without warrants bear any marks, they are more likely those of scabies and torture rather than tattoos. Testimonies gathered by Cristosal from former prisoners describe horrific overcrowding, disease, and systematic denial of food, clothing, medicine, and basic hygiene in El Salvador’s older prisons.

Cristosal and other human rights organizations have documented credible evidence of sexual assault and rape against women and children detained under the state of exception. The combination of harsh conditions and systematic physical torture has caused the deaths of at least 367 people, according to documentary, photographic, and forensic evidence gathered by Cristosal’s investigators. Salvadoran authorities deny that torture and killings occur in the country’s prisons.

In the majority of those cases, our researchers found that detainees had no criminal records and no evidence of gang tattoos. None had been convicted of any crime at the time of their deaths. According to testimonies of people who knew the deceased, the majority had no links to gangs other than the fact that many have themselves been victims of gang violence. Instead, they were poor, surviving on the margins of the economy—often in centers of gang control that became focal points of the government’s mass roundups. They were farmers, unionists, day laborers, and informal merchants; four were newborn babies born in prison to mothers who were pregnant at the time of their arrests.

Cristosal’s testimonial evidence indicates that the death toll in prisons during the state of exception is likely much higher than 367. But the lack of public information about and transparency within the Salvador penal system obstructs more systematic monitoring. Most family members of prisoners don’t know if their relatives are dead or alive.

El Salvador’s prisons have become a focal point for criminality and corruption involving members of Bukele’s security cabinet. Osiris Luna, the director of the prisons and a Bukele loyalist, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2021 for leading secret meetings in prisons in which the Bukele administration provided gangs with financial incentives and protection from extradition if they kept incidents of violence low. In these illicit dealings, “gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party [Bukele’s party] in upcoming elections,” Treasury wrote in its designation of Luna.

In 2021, the Bukele administration released a high-ranking gang member from maximum security prison, despite the fact that he faced U.S. extradition requests to face terrorism charges in a New York federal court. Treasury also accused Luna of conspiring with his mother “in a scheme to steal and re-sell government purchased staple goods that were originally destined for COVID-19 pandemic relief.” According to an El Faro investigation, Luna employed prison labor to repackage the stolen pandemic aid.

Despite international sanctions and credible allegations of acts corruption, torture, rape, and killings in the prisons under his authority, Luna has thus far been immune from prosecution. His authority over El Salvador’s prisons is unrestrained by judicial oversight.

Cristosal has made multiple requests to Salvadoran courts to order alternatives to pretrial detention for people with physical and mental disabilities, chronic illness, and who are pregnant. In the rare case that courts do order a prisoner’s release, prison authorities often block them from being returned to their families. Relatives fear that may be because the prisoners are no longer alive.

Those families have learned—painfully—that the government institutions mandated to protect them now do the bidding of the president rather than the law.

In El Salvador, it often falls on the mothers, sisters, and wives of the thousands of unjustly imprisoned people to knock on the doors of prisons, courts, or the public defender’s office to demand their freedom. In return, the relatives are threatened with prison themselves. Last year, a coalition of family members of people detained under the state of exception made a two-day march from their coastal villages to Bukele’s house in the capital to demand the right to visit their relatives in prison. They just wanted to know if their loved ones were still alive, they told media.

Under the state of exception, El Salvador’s prisons have become a system where undesirables are exiled in the model of penal colonies favored by empires and autocrats. Now that Trump has taken Bukele up on his “generous offer,” as Rubio called it, Americans, and the families of migrants who hoped to call the United States home, should prepare to join their Salvadoran counterparts in the deceptive bargain of security in exchange for rights.

All will learn of the horror and isolation of confronting the repressive power of a state that has declared you an enemy. They will learn to count the sleepless nights of not knowing if their loved ones are dead or alive. To stop it, they will have to become unrelenting in both hope and action to safeguard the lives and freedom of their loved ones—disappeared to Bukele’s penal colony, beyond the reach of rule of law, unprotected from corruption, torture, and killing.

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evilbeepthemeep · 1 year ago

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You know after watching James Somerton's dog shit Killing Stalking vid, I don't know how people didn't notice the racism.

He literally just analysed it from a western culture lens and divorced it from the culture it did come from.

As well as refusing to do any research into why it's classed as a romance. Pretending that straight women and the publishers were behind the categorisation of it as a romance. When it was marketed as a Boy's Love manhwa in its native country of South Korea. Meaning the whole point was you are meant to ship the characters together. Plus Boy's Love is a genre for a majority female audience. Who are mostly queer in some way.

He also complained about the sex scenes. Like the sex is there for people to get off to. Because even porn can have artistic merit and be a horror story. Sex and horror go hand in hand after all.

The most egregious thing was him bringing up an interview Koogi did in 2018 while KS was still being serialised to prove it wasn't a love story. Completely ignoring a different interview she did in 2019 once the story was over to confirm Sangwoo loved Bum.

Throughout that god-forsaken video he kept mispronouncing the characters names. Like he kept calling Bum things like bomb and balm while also always calling him Yoonbum, when Yoon is actually his family name and Bum is given name. And forever saying Sangwo instead of Sangwoo unless I'm wrong about that but I doubt it.

His anti Asian racism is so fucking blatant the only reason people didn't fucking say anything because it was hating on a comic that they disliked for being queer in the wrong way.

So if you did like James Somerton and didn't notice the racism, please check your biases. Talk to those of us who are into BL as a genre and actually listen to us when we say it's not straight girls fetishising gay men. It's usually queer people who enjoy our media to be different from what the West has to offer. Most of us aren't white either.

And if you liked the Untamed, I'm sad to break it to you but that was also a BL novel written by a woman who wrote kinky gay sex.

#james somerton #hbomberguy #killing stalking

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ineffable-detective-agency · 1 year ago

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Was Good Omens season 2 set during 2019? Who can say? Maybe Neil Gaiman, but probably not the Amazon Prime marketing department... (?!)

From Aziraphale & Crowley's Timeline of Interconnectedness - released yesterday by Prime Video's YouTube channel.

They're also rather vague about some of the other dates, and scenes from the present day of seasons 1 and 2 are mixed together. I assume this is just weird marketing. Unless it's a Clue? 😅

Edit: Neil says "First time I've seen it and it seems to think Season 1 and Season 2 all happen in 2019, doesn't it?"

I'm going to file this under the "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" category of Good Omens shenanigans...

With thanks to members of the @ineffable-detective-agency for pointing this out!

#ineffable mystery #wibbly wobbly timey wimey #good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens analysis #good omens meta #good omens timeline #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #amazon prime #neil gaiman #good omens clues #good omens fandom

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almostyours · 9 months ago

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click to help palestine. purchase an e-sim for gaza. support gaza municipality funds.

DO • RE • MI • Æ ド • レ • ミ • Æ is the debut japanese album by the south korean trio hiræth, released on july 24, 2021. following their initial japanese showcase on their first tour and the commercial success of HOMURA that served as a theme song to KIMETSU NO YAIBA THE MOVIE: MUGEN TRAIN, MIGHTY DEVIL announced that the group would be "officially" debuting in japan with a creative but ambitious japanese release. the title track served as a promotional single for hiræth's collaboration with the renowned franchise SANRIO, with each member representing three of its most emblematic characters: MY MELODY, KUROMI, and CINNAMOROLL.

the era consisted of two music videos, a month-length tour through japan named after the album, pop-up stores and two cds, titled PHASE ONE and PHASE TWO, featuring a total of twenty tracks, although four hidden track were later revealed on the physical version of PHASE TWO.

PHASE ONE includes ten original tracks by the trio, such as the title track AITAI ☆ TAI and KIMETSU NO YAIBA: MUGEN TRAIN’s HOMURA. PHASE TWO contains ten covers of the members' favorite songs from iconic animes, including tracks from NEON GENESIS EVANGELION, FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD, PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA, and more. physical copies on PHASE TWO included four more additional tracks: three of which are solo covers, and a cover of KIMETSU NO YAIBA’s GURENGE. this cover has been highly anticipated since its performance at a fan convention in 2019. despite the impromptu and silly nature of the performance, it has remained popular among fans and casual listeners, even catching the attention of the anime's production team.

from its inception, this project was considered incredibly ambitious, requiring extensive preparations to legally license the covers and more. additionally, navigating the reactions of anime fans added another layer of complexity. neither the members nor their company anticipated the overwhelming commercial success it achieved. this debut is now hailed as one of the most ambitious, but successful japanese debuts from an act outside of japan.

★ . CD 1. PHASE ONE.

会いたい ☆ たい・ AITAI ☆ TAI, title track

地下・ UNDERGROUND, promoted b-side

COSMIC LOVE

星間飛行・ SEIKAN HIKOU (kaia’s solo)

DISCOTHEQUE (poppy’s solo)

怪物・ MONSTER (yvan’s solo)

LOVE GENERATION

ADAMAS

炎・ HOMURA from kimetsu no yaiba: mugen train

VEIL

★ . CD 2. PHASE TWO.

THE CRUEL ANGEL’S THESIS from neon genesis evangelion

CONNECT from puella magi madoka magica

シルエット・ SILHOUETTE from naruto shippuden

AGAIN from fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood

INFERNO from fire force

エヴリハート・ EVERY HEART from inuyasha

LET IT OUT from fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood

LOST MY MUSIC from haruhi suzumiya no yuutsu

STARMAKER from boku no hero

STYLE from soul eater

★ . CD 2. PHASE TWO, PHYSICAL ONLY.

LOVERS from naruto shippuden (kaia’s solo)

SENTIMENTAL from fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood (poppy’s solo)

CROSSING FIELD from sword art online (yvan’s solo)

紅蓮華・ GURENGE from kimetsu no yaiba

★ . A LOOK INTO PRODUCTION.

the preparations and development for this album and era were, to put it mildly, intimidating. their creative director and manager, VIVI YOO, came up with the idea of releasing a full album with solo tracks to introduce hiræth to the japanese market in a way similar to their official debut in south korea. shortly after, she proposed releasing covers of iconic anime songs. these unconventional ideas initially raised eyebrows, but they soon began to take shape and generate excitement for the release of the album.

UNDERGROUND was initially slated to be the title track of the album, but when the collaboration with SANRIO was being discussed, AITAI ☆ TAI was chosen instead. as a result, UNDERGROUND became a promoted b-side, which ended up being far more popular than the actual title track. this song is frequently mentioned by fans as one of the best japanese tracks from a k-pop group, with its choreography still being loved and talked about to this day.

when their label announced in an article that their japanese full album would include a second cd filled with covers of iconic anime songs, it garnered a lot of attention, both positive and negative.

now you may wonder, is that even legal? of course it is! their covers are legally licensed for distribution, with the original artists and composers receiving a percentage of each sale and stream. these songs don't sound 100% identical to the originals because they decided to start production from scratch. however, some of the original musicians contributed to their version. inspired by amalee’s anime cover albums.

there was one condition to releasing those covers, though: they had to be kept exclusive to japan. international fans couldn't access them unless someone bought the physical album, which caused sales to skyrocket when this was discovered. the songs are likely on youtube, and someone probably has a spotify podcast with all the covers, so it’s not like it matters anyway!

the album consists of two versions:

the first version is the ANGEL ☆ PHASE version, featuring a hardcover photobook with pictures similar to joy's hello and yves' loop. it includes various items such as a random letter to fans in japanese, stickers, a random sænrio-themed pc holder, a poster, two postcards, three photocards, and a papercraft kit to create either my melody, kuromi, or cinnamoroll.

the second is the ÆNGEL ☆ PHASE version, featuring a hardcover photobook with pictures similar to lesserafim's perfect night. it includes the same items as the other version except for the sanrio-themed inclusions. instead, it includes small plush angel wing clips, similar but way smaller to the mechanical ones worn in the concept pictures and the promoted b-side, UNDERGROUND.

★ . A LOOK INTO HIRÆTH X SANRIO.

a collaboration with SANRIO was already being discussed even before the era began. they decided it would be a smart strategy to release the song alongside the album to generate more hype and attention for their debut in japan.

the collaboration with SANRIO, playfully stylized as sænrio for the limited edition merchandise, is similar to nct’s collaboration but instead it focuses on just three characters only. KAIA represented MY MELODY, POPPY represented KUROMI, and YVAN represented CINNAMOROLL. their collaboration featured two pop-up stores in seoul, tokyo and kyoto called the SÆNRIO MARKET, offering exclusive merchandise such as notebooks, stationery sets, uchiwa and lightstick covers, pajama sets, head bands, tote bags, pc holders, plush toys of the members in sanrio style in various sizes, keychains, t-shirts, and more. they also sold savory snacks and delicious drinks.

the characters appeared in the ANGEL ☆ PHASE photobook and in the music video for AITAI ☆ TAI, in scenes alongside the members who represent them, enhancing the song's whimsical and fun feel.

★ . A LOOK INTO AITAI ☆ TAI.

AITAI ☆ TAI served not only as the title track of the DO • RE • MI • Æ era, but also as the song to promote the collaboration between hiræth and SANRIO. the music video is a vibrant and colorful visual experience that complements the song's energetic and upbeat nature. it features various special effects, such as colorful animations, graphics, and the iconic characters MY MELODY, KUROMI, and CINNAMOROLL.

while AITAI ☆ TAI doesn't contribute to the æverse plot-wise, it includes many easter eggs related to the current lore, such as outfits from the ængels of the season era, representations of their colors, fruits, and animals, hidden references to the member’s solo debut, and more. the music video presents hiræth's lore in a fun and accessible way to a new audience.

AITAI ☆ TAI is a celebration of fun, energy, and the unique personalities of the members and SANRIO characters, making it a joyful and visually stimulating experience for viewers. music video inspired by loona’s hula hoop.

★ . A LOOK INTO UNDERGROUND.

as a promoted b-side filmed in tokyo in between promotions, UNDERGROUND's music video is a visually compelling representation of the song's energetic and rebellious spirit, with a strong focus on urban culture and personal expression. the video features dark, moody lighting contrasted with bright neon signs, creating a gritty yet vibrant atmosphere. the fast-paced editing, with quick cuts and transitions, matches the rhythm and intensity of the music.

scenes depict the members navigating through various underground locations like subway tunnels, graffiti-covered alleys, and industrial spaces through mirrors, hinting at a parallel world and emphasizing themes of rebellion, freedom, and self-expression.

angels have theorized that the video starts in CELESTIA, where the members appear tidy, perfect and otherwordly compared to the humans around them, ready to repeat their cycle as flawless angels but yearning for a change. the journey then shifts to TERRA MEDIA and TERRA where it seems that they are free, with underground dancing scenes set in the second plane, hinted at by brief glimpses of a sky with three moons in different phases, while the arcade scenes take place in TERRA, indicated by the crescent moon in the sky.

symbols like graffiti art, pentagrams, chains, and underground trains throughout the video emphasize the struggle and resilience of CELESTIA's doctrine. the ængels of the seasons seem to be on a journey, seeking something or trying to escape from something, but also enjoying their time in foreign cycle.

★ . A LOOK INTO THE ERA.

🌀 you will pretend the songs originally sung by men are sung by women 🌀

it was an incredibly fun era for everyone involved, despite being exhausting due to the extensive preparations and performances required to showcase the album and everything they prepared for it :D

it was fun, yes, but also very scary and intimidating, because what do you mean we are about to enter the japan market with a BANG? and to top if off with some sounds we’ve never tried before?! we are going to flop! what goes on in VIVI’s head?! nothing but ambition and a dream, it seems… but everything turned out well at the end of the day.

this album release was so big it actually costed some good amount of money because of the licenses fees they had to pay. the members actually had to drop some from their own purse because not only they really wanted to sing their favorite songs, but they also believed in not only themselves, but VIVI’s vision, who also invested a lot into the project.

the girls don't typically perform their japanese songs outside japan (though there are exceptions 🙈 be their favorite date tour and they will spoil you!), causing envy among fans who have attended the tour and future dates in japan. these concerts are just… so fun… and with most of the album being instrument heavy, it gives their performances a different vibe compared to their usual shows.

this era was the one that made POPPY salivate at the idea of a rock concept for the group because she realized during recording how well they fit the sound and how fun it was to perform them! unfortunately, miss VIVI hasn't heard her out just yet. 😔

the girls each have two solos on this album: one original song and one cover. their original songs feature special performances during the tour, while the covers usually involve just them and the rock band, hyping up the concert attendees. YVAN and POPPY's performances are typically the most energetic and the ones everyone talks about after a concert. however, KAIA's performances are considered a true gem and are the most acclaimed in japan, where she is affectionately known as THE PRINCESS OF JAPAN.

from PHASE ONE, angels’ favorite tracks are UNDERGROUND, COSMIC LOVE, and VEIL. from PHASE TWO, it’s THE CRUEL ANGEL’S THESIS, INFERNO and LOST MY MUSIC. angels’ agree that YVAN had the best solos out of the three.

ADAMAS was a track that initially didn't resonate with angels as it completely diverged from the group's sound. they were even accused of "trying too hard". however, their perception of it changed dramatically after the first live performance of it. angels now consider the song and its live renditions to be life-changing experiences, highlighting hiræth's remarkable duality.

KAIA was involved in most of the songwriting, and both YVAN and POPPY gained attention for playing instruments in their original songs: POPPY was credited as the guitarist for VEIL, while YVAN was the pianist for LOVE GENERATION. they play these instruments whenever they perform these songs on concert.

some of the concert dates had a special guest, which were usually the original singers or the actual musicians of the songs they’ve covered. soloist LiSA appeared on the last concert of the tour. (she and YVAN were having a loud af high note off! 🏃‍♂️)

KAIA was undoubtedly the face of this era. it marked her return to the japanese market as an idol based in south korea rather than her native country. it was an exhilarating, emotional, and tense time for her, evoking memories of her life before hiræth— a time when she felt unappreciated, both by her family and peers during her days as an AKB48 member. she often pondered this, but never had the courage to have a conversation with her parents. since then, she has wondered if they were ever proud of her accomplishments.

yet at the same time, she secretly hoped her parents (and her former AKB48 family) were seething, as her face and voice were now prominently featured across japan alongside her fellow members. #REVENGE

after the era and their japan tour concluded, KAIA posted a japan vlog on hiræth’s youtube channel, documenting their time together in her country. the video was heartwarming and delightful, perfectly showcasing their friendship and companionship. one memorable segment at an arcade unexpectedly went viral: they won a blender and were more excited about it than they had been about their first win.

although there weren’t any accidents, KAIA drew attention on some tour dates where she appeared exhausted. she explained that she was indeed just that— tired. this led to complaints from angels about their company’s refusal to let them rest, especially after YVAN was unable to participate in a variety show due to sickness a little after KAIA's statement.

TLDR. — a very fun but exhausting era. angels consider this one as one of their best eras. the album did pretty well in terms of charts, sales and views, but i’m not writing how they charted or how much they sold or how many views they got or whatever because i genuinely don’t care about any of that 😭 just know that they did stupid good! anime fans were freaks as always, but pretty women and enbies will always win. their SANRIO collaboration was so cute even non-fans got their hands on their merchandise. KAIA was the face of this era and received plenty of lines on the album. this album made HOMURA move a bit up the charts again. each member has their assigned SANRIO character forever. angels keep saying that UNDERGROUND should have been the title track instead of AITAI ☆ TAI. their japan tour was successful and very talked about, causing their label to release a limited edition dvd and special photobook based on their sold-out tokyo dome concert. and they left japan with a BLENDER!

★ . A LOOK INTO THE PAST & FUTURE.

‘19. they had just debuted and were performing at their fancons. during one of these events, a fan gifted each member a haori from the popular anime KIMETSU NO YAIBA, a series that both KAIA and POPPY are fans of since the release of the manga, and even convinced YVAN to watch the first season with them. spontaneously, they decided to cover the anime's first opening song. the fan-taken video of their performance went viral, with many praising their cover and wishing for an official release. the cover even caught the attention of the anime’s production team and received approval from LiSA herself.

‘20. the year MUGEN TRAIN was going to be released, they were invited to contribute to the movie. they accepted and performed the song HOMURA as a requiem for the character kyojuro rengoku (and YVAN cried because what do you mean rengoku fucking dies?! 😭). this song won the grand prize at the 62nd JAPAN RECORD AWARDS in 2020 and the best theme song category at the 43rd ANIME GRAND PRIX. it debuted at number one on both the ORICON SINGLES CHART and JAPAN HOT 100 chart, charted at number 62 on the BILLBOARD GLOBAL 200, and climbed to number 1 on the BILLBOARD GLOBAL EXCL. US chart.

’21. KAIA released the japanese single SCRAMBLE, a collaboration with the rock group UNSCANDAL, whom she used to listen to and look up to when she was younger. the song achieved immediate success in the japanese market.

‘22. POPPY performed FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST MOBILE’s theme song SPIRAL.

‘23. KAIA was revealed to be the japanese voice actress of NAVIA, character from GENSHIN IMPACT... with POPPY being the korean voice actress and YVAN the chinese one.

‘24. hiræth composed and performed the song WILL that served as the third opening theme song for the anime POKEMON HORIZONS: THE SERIES.

#glasshouseinc #ficnetfairy #fictional kpop idol #fake kpop group #kpop oc #kpop au #fictional idol community #fictional idol group #idol oc #fictional oc community #fictional idol oc #⸺ ＃ æ. ❯ discography.#no styling section again bc i hit 30 pics lawl!#q.#yall see why i said i was doing a little bit too much for this? :sob: im rlly happy with it tho.

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