#when i was getting the screenshots for that last post i was. struck by inspiration.

[defendglobe]

[ingravinoveritas]

So al was asking ppl to ask her questions as her Fridays are so dull while her partner doing a play. Doesn't she find when she wiv michael it dull cos usually shows it or the other way round and then the bird one I found interesting cos since when have we seen Ms be protective over Al we haven't seen him speak or defend his relationship of what the journalists or ppl say about his relationship of what was said on weds where she defended it and and put a insta story about it we all know he loud but protective I think if he had to choose to protect or save someone it would be david hands down not al

What ur thoughts love to hear ur take on this

(Grouping together for ease of answering. @hyperfixating-rn-brb's Ask is referring to the last screenshot.)

So, I saw this as it was happening on Friday, and...yeah. I'm not sure what the impetus behind this random Insta AMA was (perhaps PR suggesting that Anna do something to counter her rash of recent off-putting social media posts?), but whatever the reason, choices™ were definitely made with some of (well, most of) her answers.

I think what struck me about the ones in these screenshots is how they’re lowkey insulting to Michael, but all in different ways (and not overtly, but passive-aggressively, as hyperfixating-rn-brb mentioned). It also seems odd that AL is currently in London, one of the most dynamic and attraction-filled cities imaginable, yet acting as if there is nothing to do on a Friday night. (Because Michael (and/or Georgia) aren't there to entertain her, I guess?)

Leaving that aside, the entire way this happened was just strange. A lot of the questions felt very boilerplate ("Are you currently reading anything?" "Who is your biggest inspiration?") and almost like they were planned in advance (I think at least one actually was from someone AL knows personally, IIRC), yet interspersed with enough "wacky" questions to give the impression of it being this spontaneous Q&A thing.

As for the answers in the screenshots above, I saw people on Twitter getting outraged over the "girly" question on Saturday, but predictably for all the wrong reasons. In particular, I noticed people once again blaming Michael/David shippers for it, but just from the wording alone, my feeling was that whoever sent in this question did not seem to be a shipper at all. "Girly" has a very specific, borderline homophobic connotation to it (akin to someone asking Anna if she "acts dykey" around Georgia), and while I know English is not her first language, I don't think that meaning is something AL would have missed.

So, no, it's certainly not a great or appropriate question by any means. But the bigger issue, at least in my opinion, wasn't so much "Why would someone ask this?", but rather "Why would she post this?" Because Anna is a grown woman who could have very easily just ignored this question altogether. Instead, she chose to draw attention to it, and to react in much the same way as her "vagueblogging" from the other day. It was as if the purpose in sharing it was to show people what she has to "put up with"--either from the fans or from Michael or both.

That's the other piece of this--that she shared this question with seemingly no regard for how it makes Michael look, or whether it would or could be embarrassing to him. It immediately made me think of this tweet from Michael two years ago, where he chose to answer a question in such a way as to deliberately not embarrass David (further explanation can be found here). It's something that seems so small but means so much, and that you'd think would happen effortlessly for someone you love. So the contrast of that to Anna posting this was striking to me, and it was further compounded by her answer to the "favorite bird" question.

Again, it's almost unsurprising at this point. Anna has previously made unflattering comparisons between Michael and Cousin Itt, a Hobbit, and Hagrid--among others--and now we can add a cockatiel to this list. What’s weird is that the question itself had nothing to do with Michael, so there was absolutely no reason to bring him into it...and yet. It felt like name dropping for the sake of name dropping, which just seems like a weird thing to do when she's been dating him for five years now. Did she think we forgot? That we needed a reminder? Whatever the reason, this definitely seemed like such a strange choice, and another instance of passive-aggressively putting him down under the pretense of a compliment.

(A note about the "protective" part, as I noticed that was particularly mentioned in this Ask. I would agree that there are a lot more overt/visible instances of Michael being protective of David--many of which I have talked about on my blog--than of Anna. That does not mean I don't think he is protective of her, however, but that there is a distinction between the two. It is possible to be protective of someone out of a sense of responsibility and obligation, and those are not necessarily bad things. But it's very different to being protective of someone not because you feel like you have to be protective, but because you want to be. Interpret that how you will...)

Finally, I just need to mention that one of the questions AL was asked was about Georgia ("Is Georgia secretly holding you hostage?"), and what I have hardly seen anyone talking about is that Georgia reshared that Insta story a short while later...and added a song called "I'm Trapped"...

I just...was this meant to be shady on Georgia's part? Who, exactly, is "trapped" here? The subtext and potential implications can go in so many directions here that it's hard to know where to start, but...yeah. The optics of Georgia resharing this story and adding that song in the middle of AL's Insta Q&A were and are questionable/cringey/unintentionally hilarious on multiple levels.

So yes, that is my take on the events of Friday night. As I've said before and will again, I know I could be totally off the mark here, so I'd love to hear from my followers as to what you think. Thank you for writing in! x

[wolfpup026]

Weekend WIP Game

Thanks @cha-melodius for the tag! This was super fun!

WIP List: I've got 3 and they're all Mobius lol. First one is just a screenshot painting, it's actually further along but I wanted to show an earlier stage of my process. Second is a frame for an animatic that's a crossover of Loki with Jujutsu Kaisen. Super random crossover choice but I just really love the new opening theme for that show. Last one I posted a while ago, it's the watch ad illustration which I haven't made any progress on since last time.

Which WIP is your most complex? Definitely the animatic, I'm trying to do 16 frames and some have multiple characters and complicated backgrounds.

Do any of your WIPs involve you using a technique/style that you haven't used before? What inspired you to try it? Nothing that different, though the animatic will have some frames of characters from really high and low angles, which will be tough for me.

Which WIP do you expect will take you the longest? Again the animatic lol

Which WIP are you finding the most enjoyable to create? Maybe number 1 because it's the most relaxing, with screenshot paintings I don't need to think as much.

Do you have a favourite character to draw/stitch/paint/depict? Are they in many of your WIP projects? I think that's evident from these WIPs hahah

Which WIP do you experience the most self-doubt about. Why? Number 3 because I want to do it in a painted style, but I don't have an exact lighting reference for what I want to do. Lighting is always hard for me when I don't have exact references.

Have any of your WIPs been struck by the curse of creator's block? Not often, once I've started a WIP it's because I have an idea for how I want it to look and can keep chipping away at it. If I get artblock it's when I can't think of anything to start next.

Do any of your WIPs contain characters outside the main ship? How are you finding creating those? For the animatic I'm planning to include some other characters: B-15, O.B., Casey, and Brad! It'll be my first time drawing most of them and I'm looking forward to it.

What emotions are you hoping to convey through your WIPs? Haven't thought about this too much, for 2 and 3 I'm just hoping they'll look cool hahah. And 1 is sadness (hopefully this is evident if you recognize the screenshot it's from)

Are there any features/details you are finding challenging in your WIPs? Mobius' hair in number 1 is hard since I'm trying to render it realistically.

Which WIP has the most complex shading/colouring? It'll be 3 but I haven't started that yet.

Which WIP has the most complex background? Definitely 2.

Which WIP do you have the highest expectations for? 2 I'm hoping will be really neat, but I think it also has the highest chance to not work out.

Do you dream about any of your WIPs? I haven't, but I wish I did!

Do any of your WIPs have particular complexities that your other art doesn't? Not that I can think of

Are any of your WIPs commissions? No, I don't do commissions because they stress me out, I want to draw whatever I'm most interested in the moment and not have any obligations.

Do you have a character that is more difficult to draw/stitch/paint/depict? Are they in many of your WIP projects? Female characters are harder for me to draw, because I don't do it very often. B-15 will be in WIP number 2!

Tell us one thing we don't know about one or more of your WIPs. Can't think of anything interesting for a specific WIP, but I've got a list of potential future ideas for Lokius drawings and it's currently 23 items long. 😂

Not going to tag anyone specific, but if any creators want to do this I'd love to hear about your WIPs! The writer version of these questions is in @cha-melodius's post here.

[captainaikus]

Ohhh okay that’s a relief. No worries I’m not going anywhere!!! 😊😊 Just don’t forget to take breaks between all the hectic and busy stuff too okay?? I’m sure you’ll do great on your test 😤😤. AND YES YOURE TAKING BREAKS THATS AWESOME YOU ABSOLUTELY DESERVE THEM!!!! Ooooo which psychological horror movies if I may ask? Oh? 👀 Yandere Nagi you say?? 👀👀👀

I’ve been working on that surprise for you!!! I wanna edit it a bunch and make sure it’s as perfect as I can get it to be. Because half the time I either post my works at 4 am in the morning after speed writing after inspiration hit me or I look over it once and get tired halfway through the second time and just hit post adhjgfjjhhgfgghh 💀💀.

Thank youuuuu!!!! I was debating on which to pick of the thousand screenshots from my camera roll 😭😭. Very hard decision he looks gorgeous in literally every angle and lighting and scene like SIR??? I also changed the theme of my blog in honor of the first episode of the second season finally being released!! Tell me what you think 🥰. Surprisingly I haven’t made a single post abt the first episode yet because I’ve just been on a rebloging spree since it first came out. LET ME TELL YOU RN BELLE THE ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTIONS I WENT THROUGH YESTERDAY AND LAST WEEK IT FELT LIKE MY BRAIN WAS ETERNALLY VIBRATING WITH EXCITEMENT ADHJHFGJHVCKK. Anyways ✨. I’m gonna be making sooooo many TR posts soon just you wait as soon as my energy goes down a bit enough for me to type abt it my entire page is gonna be full of TR ashkjfgkkfffjkgf you’ve been warned 😭😭💀. Remember to take breaks and drink water and eat snacks love!!! *sends many virtual*

- ✨ anon

*sigh of relief* my test was alright T.T Its news to everyone that I'm taking a break — and its also giving off the impression that i am a workaholic which isn't wrong... So i watched psycho and vertigo by alfred hitchcock... yes. i am THAT old (the shower scene in psycho is so iconic not to mention everyone was on a bates motel high) And yes. Yandere Nagi — based on another movie I watched (this one is pretty old too) but. the more i think about it... the more hotter the story is getting in my head. This might be a mini series tho — cause the storyline is damn complicated and i wanna take my time with it, write it well and then post it on my ao3. Ooohh I know that feeling !! Half the time I'm looking like a maniac typing away at 3 in the morning cause that's when my inspo kicks in and then i land up with less sleep. smh— You have me on the edge of my seat *wipes of sweat* but please take your time and don't rush !! And honestly? same with me too. I write things, don't feel like beta reading it. *reads it later* How do people even like this? o.o AND. I. ADORE. YOUR BLOG THEME!! Ahh !! Sunflowers!! And i lowkey think that everyone is starting to like kazutora but at the same time with the kind of character development he has? 100% deserves the thirst and I think i just got struck with an idea for him... *notes down*

Look at me creating work for myself — *sending hugs back*

[jinxed-thylacine]

Intro post lessgo

Hey! I'm Jinx! I'm a 20 year old disabled artist who's currently taking a college theater class, and intends to get an associates degree in general studies (after which I plan to go to a different college and get a bachelors in biology, then go to med school). Please read this before interacting/following, it's incredibly important to how I'm planning to run this blog.

I'll be active here when I'm hyperfixated on Sonic, which the Sonic 3 trailer shot me headfirst into lmao

Other blogs:

@jinxedshapeshifter - personal/furry art blog. I post pretty randomly there.

@jinxed-ninjago - my Ninjago blog. I'm only really active there when I'm hyperfixated on Ninjago.

@jinxed-sinner - my Hellaverse blog. I post a lot of Hazbin Hotel analysis there, and like my Ninjago blog I'm active there when I'm hyperfixated on Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss.

I have a few Sonic AUs that I've been developing too (mostly surrounding Espilver because why not):

Heroes of War AU - A Sonic Forces AU where instead of the war against Eggman lasting 6 months, it lasted 9 years. Six years into the war, Knuckles lets Charmy join in an assault on Eggman's forces, leading to Charmy losing his leg in an explosion. *This AU is loosely based on the song Hero of War by Rise Against. Basically I listened to it once on a car ride and was like "huh. Inspiration has struck"

Writing the Future AU - A fancomic I've been developing based on a dream I had where Espio and Silver were the last survivors of a zombie apocalypse, and Silver was infected but essentially harmless. This eventually evolved into an IDW specific AU (although I guess IDW AUs aren't necessarily IDW specific at this point lol), where Sonic and Silver failed to get rid of the Metal Virus. Espio fled to Restoration HQ, where he hunkered down for his own safety, and Silver ended up infected about a week before the comic starts but is still pretty much himself. I have the information up on @writingthefuture-sonicau, the blog I made for the comic (it's the only post on the blog rip). The first page is mostly sketched but my focus has been elsewhere so I haven't worked on it in months lol

I have some other vague AU concepts but those are the ones I mostly focus on, and if I ever talk about them they'll have their own tags. In addition to those, I have tons of little stories and ideas floating around my brain!

I draw a lot and occasionally dabble in animation. I'm out of practice with Sonic-styled stuff, but my icon was drawn by me of my OC Archer in the style of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. Here's the full drawing/fake screenshot:

(I made him out of pettiness towards people who get upset over certain types of fan characters. You know the ones I'm talking about. Anyway Archer is my son and I would die for him. Here's his current reference lol)

Please also note that I am NOT spoiler free when it comes to new Sonic content! All spoilers will be tagged but I do tend to post spoilers.

If you want to support my art or anything, I have a Ko-Fi! I mostly sell character designs and bases, but I have some other stuff available too!

[katnissmellarkkk]

Summary: At the Seventy-Fourth Reaping for The Hunger Games, volunteering is outlawed, thanks to a tribute four years prior. Because of this, when Katniss’ sister Prim’s name is chosen from the bowl, there’s nothing she can do but hope that Peeta Mellark, past victor and now Prim’s mentor, can somehow bring her sister home alive. (Obviously heavy on Everlark.) 

AN: Hi! I don’t really have a big author’s note or anything--at least, I don’t think I do? We’ll see how long this trails on--but this is one of the fics I’ve been working on for a while. It’s multi-chaptered so there’s gonna be a lot more coming in the future, but this first chapter is honestly a little similar to the original book, with some (significant) deviations here and there, but after this first chapter, this story becomes extremely different from canon. I gotta thank, obviously, @rosegardeninwinter​ for a). making me my pretty lil banner and for b). reading the million, unpolished, unedited screenshots of my drafts that I’m sure ya’ll got tired of really quick. And also for encouraging me to write this in the first place. And also, I gotta thank everyone who liked and reblogged the lil story edit I posted months ago for this concept. It really encouraged me to write this concept out. (I’m talking about this edit right here if you forgot or never saw x). Okay, anyways, I’m talking too much but thank you! Also link to this story on AO3 [x].

Chapter One :

I stare out into the sky, introspective, as I wait for familiar footsteps to approach. The footfalls of my hunting partner, my friend even, Gale, still remain absent, despite our longstanding agreement to hunt on Reaping Day, no matter how hot it is, or how scarce the game, or how worried we may be deep inside.

Of course, how could a couple kids from the Seam not worry about Reaping Day? At least a slight bit, deep down?

Reaping Day. The day that decides the almost absolute fate of a lucky—as our assigned escort, straight from the Capitol itself, so proudly proclaims—boy and girl.

We're District Twelve. The smallest and one of the poorest districts in the country of Panem. There's an almost guarantee that whoever gets their name picked from the reaping bowl, even the strongest eighteen-year-old boy in the district, will have an almost sure fate of death. Likely before the number of tributes drops below twenty.

Tributes from our district almost never fare well inside the arena.

Almost never.

We have had a few winners in history, two of which are still around, but a few out of seventy-three games isn't inspiring much hope in anyone today.

The wind breezes against my arms, prickling the hair at the back of my neck, and I'm struck by the memory of being out here, in the forbidden territory of the woods, outside our district limits, when I was just a kid. When my dad was the one hunting and I was just along for the ride. Just along because I wanted to be with him. When I used to blindly trust him and my mother, when I thought he'd live forever, when I was too young to truly grasp the concept of the Hunger Games. When I was too young to truly grasp the concept of the world in which we live.

When I was eleven my every illusion was shattered violently. Almost as violently as the death in which my father must have endured, underground in those mines, as they exploded.

I remember hearing the alarm at school, blaring so cacophonously over the speakers that it shook the schoolrooms themselves. I remember blindly grappling through the scurrying bodies of my classmates, until I found my way to my little sister, Primrose. Her room was completely empty, but she still remained, sitting behind her desk with small folded hands, waiting for my arrival with excessive patience.

I'd always coached her on what we'd do, if there ever should be a mine accident. I made sure she knew the drill, just as I knew it. Like the back of my hand. Like a prayer or a lullaby. I could recite it in my sleep. Because my father had just as sternly instilled it into me.

I wove my way through the chaos of bodies and white-hot panic, towing Prim only inches behind me by the hand, as the kids from town lingered in the hallways, their classic, bright blue eyes large and their voices all quivering, and as the kids from the Seam dutifully made their way to the nearest exits, hoping and praying and begging silently that it wasn't their parent who had been hurt. Hoping the accident hadn't taken what was typically the sole provider in most households, here in the poorest section, in the most impoverished district.

Prim and I must have not hoped hard enough, because we learned almost immediately upon finding our mother, who was now immobilized with grief, her characteristic gentle smile eviscerated and in it's place, a blank stare, void of any life at all, that our every fear from hearing that alarm were coming true.

My mom was supposed to get a job. She was supposed to find a way to provide for us, to take care of her two daughters, who were grieving her husband just as much as she was.

But instead she lay in bed day after day. On the good mornings, maybe if Prim begged and pleaded, she'd move to a chair, in front of the fireplace and stare at the flames with the same vacant expression that had replaced the loving, kind woman who'd raised us.

The money from the government, the minuscule amount of money given to keep us afloat until our mother found work, ran out. The meat our father had hunted, the plants he'd saved, ran out. The food we had the small luxury of sometimes buying—or more times than not, trading for—quickly ran out.

And our mother still did absolutely nothing.

I take a deep breath now and try to force myself to forgive her. Forgive her for not being strong enough to keep going, forgive her for not caring enough about her own children to keep them alive in the face of her grief, forgive her for being so in love that losing my father had almost killed her too.

I know it's what my father would want. And I know it's something I can't let myself do. Because if I let her off the hook, it's like saying it's okay that she almost let Prim wither away to nothing. Forget me. I will never forgive her for almost taking my little sister away from me.

Our mother did absolutely nothing until Prim's ribs were prominent, until my stomach was nearly hallow, until our cheekbones were so blatantly obvious you could count them from down the road.

And all my fears, all my resolve, to keep the three of us together as a family, went out the window. There was nothing left to do, but wait for me and Prim to be taken to the Community Home, with the other orphans or kids from unsafe families. Kids who still remained too thin, who's eyes told stories no ear wanted to hear, who still wore bruises upon their skin like freckles from the sun, who looked nearly worse than the corpses I encountered every winter, while walking from the Seam to town. Those corpses were the unlucky ones who'd actually starved to death, who had sat down to merely rest, because they had no substance to carry them any further, and somehow never got back up.

On that day, at eleven years old, living in the Community Home sounded no worse than living with the immobilized shell that had once been my mother. My resolve to hold out until my birthday, until I could get the tesserae that would feed my family for an entire year, was shattered by the harsh raindrops pelting me from the grey, unforgiving sky.

I vaguely heard the baker's wife, the mean-spirited woman, with her deeply embittered, hostile blue eyes that somehow seemed black, scream at me, calling me names, shooing me from her property.

I'd simply wanted to rummage her trashcan, so desperate for any small morsel to take back to Prim, any motivation to take even another step forward, when I felt her rough and calloused hands shove me away.

I toppled over, my legs already weak and shaky from lack of nutrition and substance. My depleted form laid on the ground, my eyes bleary from exhaustion and the shivering wind and rain.

The witch went back inside the bakery as I scarcely conjured up the will to sit upright. I was beyond done. The fighting to even gain a fraction of my mother's awareness, to get something, anything, to feed myself and my starving sister, to even stand up, became overwhelming and I felt the last bit of my resolve crumble from deep inside.

Let them come and take me and Prim to the Community Home. I don't care any longer. Let them come.

Out of the corner of my eye, a boy exited out the same backdoor the witch had gone through. He was carrying a bag of trash in his hands and my famished mind focused on that first, focused on what could be inside the contents of that bag, on what a baker could potentially be throwing away, before I realized the boy was in my year at school. I knew him, or at least, I knew his face. But he stuck with the other blonde-haired, fair-skinned town kids and I didn't even remember his name in that moment.

In hindsight, that's absolutely hysterical now.

But he evaporated as soon as he'd appeared and I closed my eyes and let the rain drown me, hoping perhaps I could be swallowed up within the downpour itself. Hoping that perhaps I'd never have to face the reality that I was out of options and I had nothing of subsidence to take home.

But then I heard a clatter and a clang and the sound of a scream. It was her, the witch. She was screaming and calling someone names my own mother had never even uttered in my lifetime.

I mentally prepared myself for her to come back outside, to drive me away with a stick or a knife. Or possibly even a hot, scorching prong.

But it wasn't the witch. It was the boy, the one from my year. The one I thought went back inside after taking out the trash, that I believed didn't even notice me before.

He was carrying bread. Two loaves, in fact. The crusts were black and burned and the welt across his face told me, without a doubt, that he was the target of the witch's insults. That he was the victim of whatever clanging noise I heard.

And though I was the one starving to death, I didn't envy him having her for a mother.

I remember vividly, the most crystal clear image I have of this day, the boy checking and making sure the witch's attention had been claimed elsewhere. And then, without even glancing in my direction, he tossed one loaf of bread to my feet. Seconds later, the other followed.

He didn't hesitate to head back inside after that, and I've spent more time in these last four years than I'd more than likely care to admit, wondering what possessed him to commit such an act of kindness. No one was kind for free, I'd learned by that point.

And yet, as I shook myself forcefully out of my stupor, and carried the loaves back to my house at the edge of the Seam, I had no explanation for his simple act. I had no basis to explain why he would help me, when no one else ever had.

The next day, I saw him at school. I passed by him in the hallway, and saw his eye had now blackened, his cheek welted, but somehow he still managed a joyous smile. He didn't notice me then. He was surrounded by his friends. Like always, he was surrounded by a constant crowd.

He is, after all, one of the most charming and sweet people Panem's ever known.

Later that day, when I was about to walk home with Prim, who was excitedly chattering about the leftover bread awaiting us on the kitchen table, the bread I'd brought home the night prior that had filled our stomachs for the first time in months, I caught the boy looking in our direction. My grey Seam eyes met his baby blues for a microsecond, before he looked away. I snapped my gaze downwards too, embarrassed, when I caught sight of a dandelion.

It was that moment that a bell went off in my head. That I saw how I could survive, how Prim could survive. How, through the things my dad had taught me, I could keep me and my sister alive.

After that day, I could never stop associating the boy with the bread, the one who gave me hope, with the dandelion that reminded me I wasn't doomed.

I never stopped associating him with his simple act of kindness, even when he became famous for some much less appreciable acts.

And I never stopped kicking myself for failing to thank him, for saving my life and my family's life, before he was whisked away, to a land far from Twelve, called the Capitol. When he later returned, now a part of a much more elite social class, thanking him for his kindness became even less of a possibility.

A girl from the Seam had no business seeking out a boy from Victor's Village. Even if I did have the guts.

Though he isn't exactly in good company here in Twelve, seeing as the only other person who holds the same title is a drunken, middle-aged man who can barely form a coherent sentence most days and lives like a hermit by his own volition.

My thoughts are interrupted by the quiet—almost as quiet as mine, but not quite—steps of Gale.

"You're late," I state without turning around, pulling the cheese from my pocket. "You're lucky Prim's cheese held up under the sun."

But Gale pulls something even more impressive from behind his back. "This will probably go nice with it," he says and I almost gasp.

Fresh bread is so rare in our district, generally reserved for the Peacekeepers and perhaps a merchant who is having a good day. Here in the Seam, fresh bread from the bakery is as common as new school shoes.

Gale updates me on his day as we split the bread and cheese and have our own version of a small feast. He'd gotten to the woods early, while I had been still at home, and shot a squirrel to which he traded for the bread.

"The baker really went for that?" I ask in disbelief. The baker was a subdued, large man, who resembled all three of his sons quietly strongly, and was one of my dad's best customers. Sometimes I think he still trades with me and Gale out of respect to my dad's memory, but a simple squirrel for a loaf of fresh bread isn't common.

"I think he was feeling generous this morning," Gale suggests a little snidely, his bitterness leaking through. "Besides. It's not like the Mellark's need the money they ask for bread. They could easily skim off their precious son and he'd probably never notice."

Gale has a special affinity for hating anyone and anything associated even minimally with the Capitol. He was lost his father in the same mine explosion I lost mine in. But whereas I don't let myself get too worked up over the inequities between the town and the Seam, and especially between us all and the victors, Gale takes a special pride in fuming over the things he cannot change.

I don't mind listening usually, since neither of us can speak our minds in public or even within our own homes, out of fear small ears will pick up on our words and repeat them elsewhere. But today, I just don't have the energy to be a sounding board.

Instead I take a segue towards a slightly different topic, but one, without a doubt, weighing on both our minds. "Prim has been having nightmares of the reaping," I murmur solemnly. "She's convinced they're going to call her name."

Gale shook his head, his demeanor becoming more subdued now. "Least Prim's name is only in there once, Catnip. Rory had to take tesserae this year."

I nod silently at that admission, knowing what it must have cost him to even allow his little brother to take additional risks of being called. Knowing it meant his family of five must be even more hungry than he leads on.

We don't say much more after that, only lingering in the woods long enough to catch some additional game from what I've already collected, and hurry back to town to trade.

As we walk back to the Seam, having divided up our goods evenly, Gale murmurs suddenly, "I might be able to stomach the idea of Rory's name being in that bowl six times if we were still allowed to volunteer."

I bypass his words the best I can. I don't want to think about what Gale must be going through, making himself sick with worry, not for himself but for a sibling in which he considers himself responsible for. And, as it happens once in a lucky moon, I feel grateful that my tesserae is still sufficient for a family of three, and I don't have to worry about Prim the same way. Her one entry pales in comparison to the thousands that are piled in that bowl.

Still, the silence between us as we walk is deafening and I can't take it any longer as we come closer to my house. "At least then, you'd get to see the Capitol," I say lightly, as a means to brighten his mood, even just a little.

At that, Gale rewards me with a humorless smirk. "Generous of the president, isn't it? To allow us district people to experience the great Capitol firsthand while they slaughter our family."

And it's true. Just a few years ago, it was allowed to volunteer as tribute in the place of whoever's name got chosen, as long as you were the same gender and between twelve and eighteen on Reaping Day.

But four years ago, when a twelve-year-old boy volunteered for his seventeen-year-old brother, an outrage sparked across the entire country. People are never happy, in any district, to see a twelve-year-old be chosen for the games. They're the youngest, the smallest, the most innocent, and never in history had a single one made it past the Final Fifteen in the games.

So when one volunteered, the country wasn't pleased in the slightest. However, like always, the anger was contained by Peacekeepers in a matter of weeks, and promises came pouring out from the Capitol that a change would be made after the games that year to ensure never again would this situation occur.

And it never again could. Because three days after the Seventieth Hunger Games, President Snow announced that all volunteering, from that point forward, was officially banned.

This new law is even more ironic when you realize that the twelve-year-old volunteer from that year became the youngest victor in the entire history of the games.

Still, I suppose the president was feeling generous that day, and he threw in a bonus treat for us in the districts. Now when someone is chosen from the reaping bowl, though their fate is sealed definitively when their name is uttered, they get to choose one family member to take on the train ride to the Capitol with them, to get a special viewing of the games with the mentors and the sponsors and the past victors, to get to experience the wonder that is the mysterious Candy Capitol firsthand.

However, when all is said and done, twenty-three family members must ride the train home alone to their districts, with their loved one in a casket beside them. The thought chills me to the bone and I shiver as me and Gale wish each other good luck. We probably won't see each other again until it's time for the customary dinner we all try to put on with our neighbors to celebrate, even minimally, that we've survived another year unchosen.

Prim is already wearing my first reaping outfit when I enter the house, though it is a bit large on her. She's slimmer than even I was at Twelve, despite her having months on me when I attended my first reaping.

I get ready quickly, if only because I want to spend time with her before we have to go. I protect Prim in every way I can but I'm powerless against the reaping.

Still, she's only entered once and that's as safe as anyone can get from being chosen. It's almost unheard in the Seam to be that safe from the games.

But my sister never did appear like she fit in here anyway. Her golden blonde hair and sky blue eyes resemble the merchants, not the Seam, and her and our mother stick out like sore thumbs next to our neighbors.

Our mom is restless now, busying herself with preparing the food for our small feast tonight and braiding Prim's hair and then mine.

I still haven't fully forgiven her for leaving us when we needed her most, but I also can't imagine how difficult it must be to have to send both your children off to be potentially chosen for an absolute death. And I let her hug me as I guide Prim out the door.

Attendance is mandatory for all in the district, but the ones viable for being chosen and those just watching don't typically enter together.

I guide Prim by hand into town, the walk feeling longer than it did with Gale. Perhaps it's the trembling twelve-year-old I'm towing, or perhaps I'm more afraid than I'm even admitting to myself.

After all, unlike my sister, I have twenty slips with my name splayed across this year. It's not as a bad as someone like Gale, who has forty-four chances of being called. But it's not as safe as the kids from town, who likely only have to worry about a handful of slips with their names.

Its not that they're rich by any standard, but they get by better than those in the Seam. Even if they're hungry, they're not at risk of starving, and no one is going to sign up for tesserae unless there is no alternative.

A year ago, my mother let it slip once over dinner, just out of the blue really, that my father had always sworn no child of his would be in need of tesserae.

I shake my head, as if to physically rid myself of the reminder. I don't want to dwell on what my father would feel if he were here. I don't want to be reminded how different things would be if he hadn't died.

I help Prim sign in and then drop her off, as gently as I can, with the other girls her age. At the last minute, she pulls on my hand, yanking me back to her with surprising force.

"Prim, I have to go stand with the sixteens," I say as she leans up and kisses my cheek.

"I just wanted to say I love you," she whispers softly, her big blue eyes so terrified, and then she steps back into the crowd of twelves surrounding her.

I sigh softly and give her what I hope is a reassuring smile. She truly is the best of our parents. Kind, smart, level-headed. She's funny and resourceful too, even if she can't take hunting animals herself.

She is the only person I'm certain that I love. And just about the only thing that keeps me going most days.

As I make my way to the sixteens, straightening my mother's dress on my hips, I check the clock. Only five minutes before we start. Before our lovely Capitol escort, Effie Trinket, reads off two names in her distinctive, afflicted accent. Before two kids know they're never coming home again.

This place isn't much. But it is all we've ever known, and no one wishes to leave it.

As more people crowd in, I begin to pick up an excited buzz in the girls surrounding me. Already knowing what I'll see, I crane my neck just the same, to peer up at the stage ahead.

Sure enough, I see exactly what I knew I would.

There's four chairs set up on the stage. One for Effie Trinket, because no one from the Capitol could ever bear to stand for more than three minutes at a time and she must have a seat to relax in before she calls out the names and sends two of us—a lucky boy and girl, as she says it—to the slaughter.

One of the other chairs is occupied by Mayor Undersee. A man who looks like he's been beaten down by life too many times as it is and would rather be anywhere but here. His daughter is my age. She sits with me at lunch, since Gale is two grades ahead of me and we rarely see each other at school. We make polite small talk but other than that, I barely know anything about her, and by association, her father.

However, it's neither of them that's stirring up the buzz within the crowd—admittedly, more so with the female portion of the crowd—and it's definitely not Haymitch Abernathy, who's stumbling on stage right at this moment. He managed to win the Fiftieth Hunger Games and I still can't imagine how. He's a paunchy man my mother's age and he's never sober, on the rare time he's even seen in public. Today is no exception, as he flops onto a chair gruffly, and murmurs something unintelligible with his eyes closed.

No, the murmuring, the now batting eyes and coy smiles, the soft vibrato still traveling within the crowd, are all because of the last guest of honor, walking upon the stage right behind his old mentor.

Peeta Mellark.

Winner of the Seventieth Hunger Games. Youngest ever. District Twelve's first and last volunteer. The twelve-year-old that changed the rules for the entire country.

The youngest mass murderer in history of Panem.

And now one of it's most beloved celebrities.

Peeta is smart—brilliantly smart—and he's always been charismatic. Even at twelve, he had the Capitol audience, as well as every single soul watching on television at home, eating out of the palm of his hand.

It doesn't hurt that at sixteen, he's become quite a looker. His blonde curls, his blue eyes, those long lashes and bubblegum pink lips. His fair, perfect skin that has not a blemish in sight. His toned, muscular body and devastatingly genuine smile that no one can help but fall in love with.

He's also the boy who saved my life. The one who committed the simple act of kindness, knowing it would cost him, to help me.

I never thanked him. And now I never can, as I'm sure he has zero memory of me. After everything else that's happened to him since, after the last four years of living as a Capitol darling, as one of the country's most cherished victors, he'd never remember the starving eleven-year-old he threw some burned bread to in a rainstorm.

But I remember him. I don't know if it's what he did for me that day or what he did for his brother only a matter of weeks later, but something about Peeta Mellark crawled under my skin four years ago and ever since, I've never been able to completely shake the feeling I get inside upon seeing him.

I break my gaze away, refusing to stare at the boy, who I will always accredit as the one who saved my life. I venomously refuse to gawk at him, like every other girl in the district.

He rarely comes out of his house when he's home here in Twelve, and I know the overzealous amount of attention he receives just by going to his parents' bakery has to be at least a part of the reason. Unlike Haymitch, who has lost his clout and his appeal with age and with deterioration, Peeta has only gained more and more notoriety as the years pass by.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in Twelve, outside of a few outliers like Gale perhaps, who'd say a negative word about Peeta Mellark.

Of course, rumors about his random and long stretches spent in the Capitol itself are always floating around, no matter what time of year it is, but they don't affect his public persona or anyone's opinion of him. He is, after all, the most valuable figure Twelve has and perhaps the only thing we can take any pride in.

Effie Trinket steps up to the microphone just as I turn my head away from the stage. "Welcome!" She greets, so vivaciously, so brightly, I can't imagine it even resonates in her head that she's just moments away from announcing two of our impending funerals. "Welcome, everyone! To the reaping for the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games!"

I can't even bear to listen as she prattles on, with too much confidence and dignity for someone dressed in every neon color known to man, speaking in such a peculiar accent, with a thickly painted face that is so blatantly visible to the every eye here today, even in the back row. Doesn't she realize how ridiculous she is to us? Doesn't she realize how wrong it is to preach about the morals and disciplines of the Capitol, in such a prideful voice, when they're the ones about to murder us for entertainment, and in repentance for a long over war that only a few elders can still remember?

As I advert my eyes, my gaze travels once again to the back of the stage, and I'm more than a little surprised to see Peeta Mellark with a similar expression as mine. He, too, is shifting his eyes elsewhere, away from his own escort, looking sick to his stomach.

Of course, it still can't be easy for him, even with his own games four years in the past. He was a literal child when he volunteered and it's fact that he didn't understand what he was getting himself into when he took his brother's place that fateful day. His innocence was stolen as soon as the countdown ended and talk still circulates, even in the Hob, that he wakes up screaming most nights, calling out the names of fallen tributes. Though those words are not given much weight in the Seam, as we all know, people get bored in this tiny district and bored people begin to spew lies whenever encouraged.

Effie continues, in a long overdone mantra, one I could recite in my sleep, the same one she spews every year, that two kids from every district must be chosen to battle to the death in a new and invigorating—one of her favorite words—arena, in order to pay for the blood shed during the rebellion and war, in order to ensure we'll never again even think to rebel.

It would almost be easier to swallow, this whole charade, if the people sent from the strange land of the Capitol would just be honest and blunt with us. If they'd just admit that they see us as lesser than, as animals or beasts of some sort, as less than human beings. It'd be easier if the Capitol spokespeople would just outright say, "we'll take your children, we'll starve your district, we'll ruin your homes, we'll broadcast the deaths of those you love most, all to keep you too powerless to fight. In order to make sure you never are able to stand strong, we have to kick your legs out from under you first."

Instead of being honest though, Effie Trinket is reiterating the Treaty Of Treason, in a tone so serious that it takes all the self-control possible to stop several boys standing in the fourteens from bursting out laughing. Her accent and a serious tone do not mesh well together.

Once she's done though, my heart automatically skips a beat. Because, after four years of standing in this square, I know exactly what's coming. "Ladies first!" Effie announces and I feel a bead of sweat glide down my forehead, both from anxiety and from the overload of heat. Reapings always take place in the start of the hottest month of the year.

Standing in my mother's well-crafted dress, one of the most luxurious pieces of clothing we own, only makes my perspiration worsen, as the dress was clearly made to keep the wearer as warm as possible.

Our district escort makes her way over the bowl containing the names of every girl eligible to be picked in the entire district and I feel myself take in a breath involuntarily.

There's twenty chances she's going to call out my name. Twenty chances I'll be sent to an almost imminent death. Twenty chances Prim will grow into her teen years, and later adulthood, without a sister.

The gut-churning fear I'd repressed all morning, in that moment, overtakes my entire being, curling up like a ball in the pit of my stomach, as I do my best to listen on baited breath, somehow expecting to hear my own name spoken through the raucous microphone for all to hear.

Don't be me, I whisper inside my head, more fearful than I'd ever admit out loud. Don't be me. Please, don't be me.

And, as it turns out, it's not me.

Instead it's the name I never in a million years thought I'd hear. The name I believed to be so safe I didn't even allow myself to worry about her.

"Primrose Everdeen!"

[tswiftdaily]

In the 2010s, she went from country superstar to pop titan and broke records with chart-topping albums and blockbuster tours. Now Swift is using her industry clout to fight for artists’ rights and foster the musical community she wished she had coming up.

One evening in late-October, before she performed at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Taylor Swift’s dressing room became -- as it often does -- an impromptu summit of music’s biggest names. Swift was there to take part in the American Cancer Society’s annual We Can Survive concert alongside Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Camila Cabello and others, and a few of the artists on the lineup came by to visit.

Eilish, along with her mother and her brother/collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, popped in to say hello -- the first time she and Swift had met. Later, Swift joined the exclusive club of people who have seen Marshmello without his signature helmet when the EDM star and his manager stopped by.

“Two dudes walked in -- I didn’t know which one was him,” recalls Swift a few weeks later, sitting on a lounge chair in the backyard of a private Beverly Hills residence following a photo shoot. Her momentary confusion turned into a pang of envy. “It’s really smart! Because he’s got a life, and he can get a house that doesn’t have to have a paparazzi-proof entrance.” She stops to adjust her gray sweatshirt dress and lets out a clipped laugh.

Swift, who will celebrate her 30th birthday on Dec. 13, has been impossibly famous for nearly half of her lifetime. She was 16 when she released her self-titled debut album in 2006, and 20 when her second album, Fearless, won the Grammy Award for album of the year in 2010, making her the youngest artist to ever receive the honor. As the decade comes to a close, Swift is one of the most accomplished musical acts of all time: 37.3 million albums sold, according to Nielsen Music; 95 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 (including five No. 1s); 23 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; 10 Grammys; and five world tours.

She also finishes the decade in a totally different realm of the music world from where she started. Swift’s crossover from country to pop -- hinted at on 2012’s Red and fully embraced on 2014’s 1989 -- reflected a mainstream era in which genres were blended with little abandon, where artists with roots in country, folk and trap music could join forces without anyone raising eyebrows. (See: Swift’s top 20 hit “End Game,” from 2017’s reputation, which featured Ed Sheeran and Future.)

Swift’s new album, Lover, released in August, is both a warm break from the darkness of reputation -- which was created during a wave of negative press generated by Swift’s public clash with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West -- as well as an amalgam of all her stylistic explorations through the years, from dreamy synth-pop to hushed country. “The skies were opening up in my life,” says Swift of the album, which garnered three Grammy nominations, including song of the year for the title track.

She recorded Lover after the Reputation Stadium Tour broke the record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour late last year. In 2020, Swift will embark on Lover Fest, a run of stadium dates that will feature a hand-picked lineup of artists (as yet unannounced) and allow Swift more time off from the road. “This is a year where I have to be there for my family -- there’s a lot of question marks throughout the next year, so I wanted to make sure that I could go home,” says Swift, likely referencing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, which inspired the Lover heart-wrencher “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

Now, however, Swift finds herself in a different highly publicized dispute. This time it’s with Scott Borchetta, the head of her former label, Big Machine Records, and Scooter Braun, the manager-mogul whose Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group and its master recordings, which include Swift’s six pre-Lover albums, in June. Upon news of the sale, Swift wrote in a Tumblr post that it was her “worst case scenario,” accusing Braun of “bullying” her throughout her career due to his connections with West. She maintains today that she was never given the opportunity to buy her masters outright. (On Tumblr, she wrote that she was offered the chance to “earn” back the masters to one of her albums for each new album she turned in if she re-signed with Big Machine; Borchetta disputed this characterization, saying she had the opportunity to acquire her masters in exchange for re-signing with the label for a “length of time” -- 10 more years, according to screenshots of legal documents posted on the Big Machine website.)

Swift has said that she intends to rerecord her first six albums next year -- starting next November, when she says she’s contractually able to -- in order to regain control of her recordings. But the back-and-forth appears to be nowhere near over: Last month, Swift alleged that Borchetta and Braun were blocking her from performing her past hits at the American Music Awards or using them in an upcoming Netflix documentary -- claims Big Machine characterized as “false information” in a response that did not get into specifics. (Swift ultimately performed the medley she had planned.) In the weeks following this interview, Braun said he was open to “all possibilities” in finding a “resolution,” and Billboard sources say that includes negotiating a sale. Swift remains interested in buying her masters, though the price could be a sticking point, given her rerecording plans, the control she has over the licensing of her music for film and TV, and the market growth since Braun’s acquisition.

However it plays out, the battle over her masters is the latest in a series of moves that has turned Swift into something of an advocate for artists’ rights -- and made her a cause that everyone from Halsey to Elizabeth Warren has rallied behind. From 2014 to 2017, Swift withheld her catalog from Spotify to protest the streaming company’s compensation rates, saying in a 2014 interview, “There should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.” In 2015, ahead of the launch of Apple Music, Swift wrote an open letter criticizing Apple for its plan to not pay royalties during the three-month free trial it was set to offer listeners; the company announced a new policy within 24 hours. Most recently, when she signed a new global deal with Universal Music Group in 2018, Swift (who is now on Republic Records) said one of the conditions of her contract was that UMG share proceeds from any sale of its Spotify equity with its roster of artists -- and make them nonrecoupable against those artists’ earnings.

During a wide-ranging conversation, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade expresses hope that she can help make the lives of creators a little easier in the years to come -- and a belief that her behind-the-scenes strides will be as integral to her legacy as her biggest singles. “New artists and producers and writers need work, and they need to be likable and get booked in sessions, and they can’t make noise -- but if I can, then I’m going to,” promises Swift. This is where being impossibly famous can be a very good thing. “I know that it seems like I’m very loud about this,” she says, “but it’s because someone has to be.”

While watching some of your performances this year -- like Saturday Night Live and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert -- I was struck by how focused you seemed, like there were no distractions getting in the way of what you were trying to say.

That’s a really wonderful way of looking at this phase of my life and my music. I’ve spent a lot of time recalibrating my life to make it feel manageable. Because there were some years there where I felt like I didn’t quite know what exactly to give people and what to hold back, what to share and what to protect. I think a lot of people go through that, especially in the last decade. I broke through pre-social media, and then there was this phase where social media felt fun and casual and quirky and safe. And then it got to the point where everyone has to evaluate their relationship with social media. So I decided that the best thing I have to offer people is my music. I’m not really here to influence their fashion or their social lives. That has bled through into the live part of what I do.

Meanwhile, you’ve found a way to interact with your fans in this very pure way -- on your Tumblr page.

Tumblr is the last place on the internet where I feel like I can still make a joke because it feels small, like a neighborhood rather than an entire continent. We can kid around -- they literally drag me. It’s fun. That’s a real comfort zone for me. And just like anything else, I need breaks from it sometimes. But when I do participate in that space, it’s always in a very inside-joke, friend vibe. Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.

You’ve spoken in recent interviews about the general expectations you’ve faced, using phrases like “They’ve wanted to see this” and “They hated me for this.” Who is “they”? Is it social media or disparaging think pieces or --

It’s sort of an amalgamation of all of it. People who aren’t active fans of your music, who like one song but love to hear who has been canceled on Twitter. I’ve had several upheavals of somehow not being what I should be. And this happens to women in music way more than men. That’s why I get so many phone calls from new artists out of the blue -- like, “Hey, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, I’m freaking out, can I talk to you?” And the answer is always yes! I’m talking about more than 20 people who have randomly reached out to me. I take it as a compliment because it means that they see what has happened over the course of my career, over and over again.

Did you have someone like that to reach out to?

Not really, because my career has existed in lots of different neighborhoods of music. I had so many mentors in country music. Faith Hill was wonderful. She would reach out to me and invite me over and take me on tour, and I knew that I could talk to her. Crossing over to pop is a completely different world. Country music is a real community, and in pop I didn’t see that community as much. Now there is a bit of one between the girls in pop -- we all have each other’s numbers and text each other -- but when I first started out in pop it was very much you versus you versus you. We didn’t have a network, which is weird because we can help each other through these moments when you just feel completely isolated.

Do you feel like those barriers are actively being broken down now?

God, I hope so. I also hope people can call it out, [like] if you see a Grammy prediction article, and it’s just two women’s faces next to each other and feels a bit gratuitous. No one’s going to start out being perfectly educated on the intricacies of gender politics. The key is that people are trying to learn, and that’s great. No one’s going to get it perfect, but, God, please try.

At this point, who is your sounding board, creatively and professionally?

From a creative standpoint, I’ve been writing alone a lot more. I’m good with being alone, with thinking alone. When I come up with a marketing idea for the Lover tour, the album launch, the merch, I’ll go right to my management company that I’ve put together. I think a team is the best way to be managed. Just from my experience, I don’t think that this overarching, one-person-handles-my-career thing was ever going to work for me. Because that person ends up kind of being me who comes up with most of the ideas, and then I have an amazing team that facilitates those ideas.

The behind-the-scenes work is different for every phase of my career that I’m in. Putting together the festival shows that we’re doing for Lover is completely different than putting together the Reputation Stadium Tour. Putting together the reputation launch was so different than putting together the 1989 launch. So we really do attack things case by case, where the creative first informs everything else.

You’ve spoken before about how meaningful the reputation tour’s success was. What did it represent?

That tour was something that I wanted to immortalize in the Netflix special that we did because the album was a story, but it almost was like a story that wasn’t fully realized until you saw it live. It was so cool to hear people leaving the show being like, “I understand it now. I fully get it now.” There are a lot of red herrings and bait-and-switches in the choices that I’ll make with albums, because I want people to go and explore the body of work. You can never express how you feel over the course of an album in a single, so why try?

That seems especially true of your last three albums or so.

“Shake It Off” is nothing like the rest of 1989. It’s almost like I feel so much pressure with a first single that I don’t want the first single to be something that makes you feel like you’ve figured out what I’ve made on the rest of the project. I still truly believe in albums, whatever form you consume them in -- if you want to stream them or buy them or listen to them on vinyl. And I don’t think that makes me a staunch purist. I think that that is a strong feeling throughout the music industry. We’re running really fast toward a singles industry, but you got to believe in something. I still believe that albums are important.

The music industry has become increasingly global during the past decade. Is reaching new markets something you think about?

Yeah, and I’m always trying to learn. I’m learning from everyone. I’m learning when I go see Bruce Springsteen or Madonna do a theater show. And I’m learning from new artists who are coming out right now, just seeing what they’re doing and thinking, “That’s really cool.” You need to keep your influences broad and wide-ranging, and my favorite people who make music have always done that. I got to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Cats movie, and Andrew will walk through the door and be like, “I’ve just seen this amazing thing on TikTok!” And I’m like, “You are it! You are it!” Because you cannot look at what quote-unquote “the kids are doing” and roll your eyes. You have to learn.

Have you explored TikTok at all?

I only see them when they’re posted to Tumblr, but I love them! I think that they’re hilarious and amazing. Andrew says that they’ve made musicals cool again, because there’s a huge musical facet to TikTok. [He’s] like, “Any way we can do that is good.”

How do you see your involvement in the business side of your career progressing in the next decade? You seem like someone who could eventually start a label or be more hands-on with signing artists.

I do think about it every once in a while, but if I was going to do it, I would need to do it with all of my energy. I know how important that is, when you’ve got someone else’s career in your hands, and I know how it feels when someone isn’t generous.

You’ve served as an ambassador of sorts for artists, especially recently -- staring down streaming services over payouts, increasing public awareness about the terms of record deals.

We have a long way to go. I think that we’re working off of an antiquated contractual system. We’re galloping toward a new industry but not thinking about recalibrating financial structures and compensation rates, taking care of producers and writers.

We need to think about how we handle master recordings, because this isn’t it. When I stood up and talked about this, I saw a lot of fans saying, “Wait, the creators of this work do not own their work, ever?” I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, “This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal -- not as a renegotiation ploy -- and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.” God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me.

Thankfully, there’s power in writing your music. Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use “Shake It Off” in some advertisement or “Blank Space” in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.

Do you know how long that rerecording process will take?

I don’t know! But it’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine. When I created [these songs], I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.

Ten years ago, on the brink of the 2010s, you were about to turn 20. What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time?

Oh, God -- I wouldn’t give myself any advice. I would have done everything exactly the same way. Because even the really tough things I’ve gone through taught me things that I never would have learned any other way. I really appreciate my experience, the ups and downs. And maybe that seems ridiculously Zen, but … I’ve got my friends, who like me for the right reasons. I’ve got my family. I’ve got my boyfriend. I’ve got my fans. I’ve got my cats.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Billboard Woman of the Decade Taylor Swift: 'I Do Want My Music to Live On'

By: Jason Lipshutz for Billboard Magazine Date: December 14th issue

In the 2010s, she went from country superstar to pop titan and broke records with chart-topping albums and blockbuster tours. Now Swift is using her industry clout to fight for artists’ rights and foster the musical community she wished she had coming up.

One evening in late October, before she performed at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Taylor Swift’s dressing room became - as it often does - an impromptu summit of music’s biggest names. Swift was there to take part in the American Cancer Society’s annual We Can Survive concert alongside Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Camila Cabello and others, and a few of the artists on the lineup came by to visit.

Eilish, along with her mother and her brother/collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, popped in to say hello - the first time she and Swift had met. Later, Swift joined the exclusive club of people who have seen Marshmello without his signature helmet when the EDM star and his manager stopped by.

“Two dudes walked in - I didn’t know which one was him,” recalls Swift a few weeks later, sitting on a lounge chair in the backyard of a private Beverly Hills residence following a photo shoot. Her momentary confusion turned into a pang of envy. “It’s really smart! Because he’s got a life, and he can get a house that doesn’t have to have a paparazzi-proof entrance.” She stops to adjust her gray sweatshirt dress and lets out a clipped laugh.

Swift, who will celebrate her 30th birthday on Dec. 13, has been impossibly famous for nearly half of her lifetime. She was 16 when she released her self-titled debut album in 2006, and 20 when her second album, Fearless, won the Grammy Award for album of the year in 2010, making her the youngest artist to ever receive the honor. As the decade comes to a close, Swift is one of the most accomplished musical acts of all time: 37.3 million albums sold, according to Nielsen Music; 95 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 (including five No. 1s); 23 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; 10 Grammys; and five world tours.

She also finishes the decade in a totally different realm of the music world from where she started. Swift’s crossover from country to pop - hinted at on 2012’s Red and fully embraced on 2014’s 1989 - reflected a mainstream era in which genres were blended with little abandon, where artists with roots in country, folk and trap music could join forces without anyone raising eyebrows. (See: Swift’s top 20 hit “End Game,” from 2017’s reputation, which featured Ed Sheeran and Future.)

Swift’s new album, Lover, released in August, is both a warm break from the darkness of reputation - which was created during a wave of negative press generated by Swift’s public clash with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West - as well as an amalgam of all her stylistic explorations through the years, from dreamy synth-pop to hushed country. “The skies were opening up in my life,” says Swift of the album, which garnered three Grammy nominations, including song of the year for the title track.

She recorded Lover after the Reputation Stadium Tour broke the record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour late last year. In 2020, Swift will embark on Lover Fest, a run of stadium dates that will feature a hand-picked lineup of artists (as yet unannounced) and allow Swift more time off from the road. “This is a year where I have to be there for my family - there’s a lot of question marks throughout the next year, so I wanted to make sure that I could go home,” says Swift, likely referencing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, which inspired the Lover heart-wrencher “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

Now, however, Swift finds herself in a different highly publicized dispute. This time it’s with Scott Borchetta, the head of her former label, Big Machine Records, and Scooter Braun, the manager-mogul whose Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group and its master recordings, which include Swift’s six pre-Lover albums, in June. Upon news of the sale, Swift wrote in a Tumblr post that it was her “worst case scenario,” accusing Braun of “bullying” her throughout her career due to his connections with West. She maintains today that she was never given the opportunity to buy her masters outright. (On Tumblr, she wrote that she was offered the chance to “earn” back the masters to one of her albums for each new album she turned in if she re-signed with Big Machine; Borchetta disputed this characterization, saying she had the opportunity to acquire her masters in exchange for re-signing with the label for a “length of time” - 10 more years, according to screenshots of legal documents posted on the Big Machine website.)

Swift has said that she intends to rerecord her first six albums next year, starting next November, when she says she’s contractually able to - in order to regain control of her recordings. But the back-and-forth appears to be nowhere near over: Last month, Swift alleged that Borchetta and Braun were blocking her from performing her past hits at the American Music Awards or using them in an upcoming Netflix documentary - claims Big Machine characterized as “false information” in a response that did not get into specifics. (Swift ultimately performed the medley she had planned.) In the weeks following this interview, Braun said he was open to “all possibilities” in finding a “resolution,” and Billboard sources say that includes negotiating a sale. Swift remains interested in buying her masters, though the price could be a sticking point, given her rerecording plans, the control she has over the licensing of her music for film and TV, and the market growth since Braun’s acquisition.

However it plays out, the battle over her masters is the latest in a series of moves that has turned Swift into something of an advocate for artists’ rights, and made her a cause that everyone from Halsey to Elizabeth Warren has rallied behind. From 2014 to 2017, Swift withheld her catalog from Spotify to protest the streaming company’s compensation rates, saying in a 2014 interview, “There should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.” In 2015, ahead of the launch of Apple Music, Swift wrote an open letter criticizing Apple for its plan to not pay royalties during the three-month free trial it was set to offer listeners; the company announced a new policy within 24 hours. Most recently, when she signed a new global deal with Universal Music Group in 2018, Swift (who is now on Republic Records) said one of the conditions of her contract was that UMG share proceeds from any sale of its Spotify equity with its roster of artists - and make them non-recoupable against those artists’ earnings.

During a wide-ranging conversation, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade expresses hope that she can help make the lives of creators a little easier in the years to come - and a belief that her behind-the-scenes strides will be as integral to her legacy as her biggest singles. “New artists and producers and writers need work, and they need to be likable and get booked in sessions, and they can’t make noise - but if I can, then I’m going to,” promises Swift. This is where being impossibly famous can be a very good thing. “I know that it seems like I’m very loud about this,” she says, “but it’s because someone has to be.”

While watching some of your performances this year - like SNL and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert - I was struck by how focused you seemed, like there were no distractions getting in the way of what you were trying to say. That’s a really wonderful way of looking at this phase of my life and my music. I’ve spent a lot of time re-calibrating my life to make it feel manageable. Because there were some years there where I felt like I didn’t quite know what exactly to give people and what to hold back, what to share and what to protect. I think a lot of people go through that, especially in the last decade. I broke through pre-social media, and then there was this phase where social media felt fun and casual and quirky and safe. And then it got to the point where everyone has to evaluate their relationship with social media. So I decided that the best thing I have to offer people is my music. I’m not really here to influence their fashion or their social lives. That has bled through into the live part of what I do.

Meanwhile, you’ve found a way to interact with your fans in this very pure way - on your Tumblr page. Tumblr is the last place on the internet where I feel like I can still make a joke because it feels small, like a neighborhood rather than an entire continent. We can kid around - they literally drag me. It’s fun. That’s a real comfort zone for me. And just like anything else, I need breaks from it sometimes. But when I do participate in that space, it’s always in a very inside-joke, friend vibe. Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.

You’ve spoken in recent interviews about the general expectations you’ve faced, using phrases like “They’ve wanted to see this” and “They hated me for this.” Who is “they”? Is it social media or disparaging think pieces or... It’s sort of an amalgamation of all of it. People who aren’t active fans of your music, who like one song but love to hear who has been canceled on Twitter. I’ve had several upheavals of somehow not being what I should be. And this happens to women in music way more than men. That’s why I get so many phone calls from new artists out of the blue - like, “Hey, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, I’m freaking out, can I talk to you?” And the answer is always yes! I’m talking about more than 20 people who have randomly reached out to me. I take it as a compliment because it means that they see what has happened over the course of my career, over and over again.

Did you have someone like that to reach out to? Not really, because my career has existed in lots of different neighborhoods of music. I had so many mentors in country music. Faith Hill was wonderful. She would reach out to me and invite me over and take me on tour, and I knew that I could talk to her. Crossing over to pop is a completely different world. Country music is a real community, and in pop I didn’t see that community as much. Now there is a bit of one between the girls in pop - we all have each other’s numbers and text each other - but when I first started out in pop it was very much you versus you versus you. We didn’t have a network, which is weird because we can help each other through these moments when you just feel completely isolated.

Do you feel like those barriers are actively being broken down now? God, I hope so. I also hope people can call it out, [like] if you see a Grammy prediction article, and it’s just two women’s faces next to each other and feels a bit gratuitous. No one’s going to start out being perfectly educated on the intricacies of gender politics. The key is that people are trying to learn, and that’s great. No one’s going to get it perfect, but, God, please try.

At this point, who is your sounding board, creatively and professionally From a creative standpoint, I’ve been writing alone a lot more. I’m good with being alone, with thinking alone. When I come up with a marketing idea for the Lover tour, the album launch, the merch, I’ll go right to my management company that I’ve put together. I think a team is the best way to be managed. Just from my experience, I don’t think that this overarching, one-person-handles-my-career thing was ever going to work for me. Because that person ends up kind of being me who comes up with most of the ideas, and then I have an amazing team that facilitates those ideas. The behind-the-scenes work is different for every phase of my career that I’m in. Putting together the festival shows that we’re doing for Lover is completely different than putting together the Reputation Stadium Tour. Putting together the reputation launch was so different than putting together the 1989 launch. So we really do attack things case by case, where the creative first informs everything else.

You’ve spoken before about how meaningful the reputation tour’s success was. What did it represent? That tour was something that I wanted to immortalize in the Netflix special that we did because the album was a story, but it almost was like a story that wasn’t fully realized until you saw it live. It was so cool to hear people leaving the show being like, “I understand it now. I fully get it now.” There are a lot of red herrings and bait-and-switches in the choices that I’ll make with albums, because I want people to go and explore the body of work. You can never express how you feel over the course of an album in a single, so why try?

That seems especially true of your last three albums or so. “Shake It Off” is nothing like the rest of 1989. It’s almost like I feel so much pressure with a first single that I don’t want the first single to be something that makes you feel like you’ve figured out what I’ve made on the rest of the project. I still truly believe in albums, whatever form you consume them in - if you want to stream them or buy them or listen to them on vinyl. And I don’t think that makes me a staunch purist. I think that that is a strong feeling throughout the music industry. We’re running really fast toward a singles industry, but you got to believe in something. I still believe that albums are important.

The music industry has become increasingly global during the past decade. Is reaching new markets something you think about? Yeah, and I’m always trying to learn. I’m learning from everyone. I’m learning when I go see Bruce Springsteen or Madonna do a theater show. And I’m learning from new artists who are coming out right now, just seeing what they’re doing and thinking, “That’s really cool.” You need to keep your influences broad and wide-ranging, and my favorite people who make music have always done that. I got to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Cats movie, and Andrew will walk through the door and be like, “I’ve just seen this amazing thing on TikTok!” And I’m like, “You are it! You are it!” Because you cannot look at what quote-unquote “the kids are doing” and roll your eyes. You have to learn.

Have you explored TikTok at all? I only see them when they’re posted to Tumblr, but I love them! I think that they’re hilarious and amazing. Andrew says that they’ve made musicals cool again, because there’s a huge musical facet to TikTok. [He’s] like, “Any way we can do that is good.”

How do you see your involvement in the business side of your career progressing in the next decade? You seem like someone who could eventually start a label or be more hands-on with signing artists. I do think about it every once in a while, but if I was going to do it, I would need to do it with all of my energy. I know how important that is, when you’ve got someone else’s career in your hands, and I know how it feels when someone isn’t generous.

You’ve served as an ambassador of sorts for artists, especially recently - staring down streaming services over payouts, increasing public awareness about the terms of record deals. We have a long way to go. I think that we’re working off of an antiquated contractual system. We’re galloping toward a new industry but not thinking about re-calibrating financial structures and compensation rates, taking care of producers and writers. We need to think about how we handle master recordings, because this isn’t it. When I stood up and talked about this, I saw a lot of fans saying, “Wait, the creators of this work do not own their work, ever?” I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, “This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal - not as a renegotiation ploy - and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.” God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me. Thankfully, there’s power in writing your music. Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use “Shake It Off” in some advertisement or “Blank Space” in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.

Do you know how long that rerecording process will take? I don’t know! But it’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine. When I created [these songs], I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.

Ten years ago, on the brink of the 2010s, you were about to turn 20. What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time? Oh, God - I wouldn’t give myself any advice. I would have done everything exactly the same way. Because even the really tough things I’ve gone through taught me things that I never would have learned any other way. I really appreciate my experience, the ups and downs. And maybe that seems ridiculously Zen, but... I’ve got my friends, who like me for the right reasons. I’ve got my family. I’ve got my boyfriend. I’ve got my fans. I’ve got my cats.

Taylor Swift Discusses 'The Man' & 'It's Nice To Have a Friend' In Cover Story Outtakes

Billboard // by Jason Lipshutz // December 12th 2019

During her cover story interview for Billboard’s Women In Music issue, Taylor Swift discussed several aspects of her mega-selling seventh studio album Lover, including its creation after a personal “recalibrating” period, her stripped-down performances of its songs and her plans to showcase the full-length live with her Lover Fest shows next year. In two moments from the extended conversation that did not make the print story, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade also touched upon two of the album’s highlights, which double as a pair of the more interesting songs in her discography: “The Man” and “It’s Nice To Have A Friend.” 

“The Man” imagines how Swift’s experience as a person, artist and figure within the music industry would have been different had she been a man, highlighting how much harder women have to work in order to succeed (“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can / Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man,” she sings in the chorus). The song has become a fan favorite since the release of Lover, and Swift recently opened a career-spanning medley with the song at the 2019 American Music Awards.

When asked about “The Man,” Swift pointed out specific double standards that exist in everyday life and explained why she wanted to turn that frustration into a pop single. Read Swift’s full thoughts on “The Man” below:

“It was a song that I wrote from my personal experience, but also from a general experience that I’ve heard from women in all parts of our industry. And I think that, the more we can talk about it in a song like that, the better off we’ll be in a place to call it out when it’s happening. So many of these things are ingrained in even women, these perceptions, and it’s really about re-training your own brain to be less critical of women when we are not criticizing men for the same things. So many things that men do, you know, can be phoned-in that cannot be phoned-in for us. We have to really — God, we have to curate and cater everything, but we have to make it look like an accident. Because if we make a mistake, that’s our fault, but if we strategize so that we won’t make a mistake, we’re calculating.

“There is a bit of a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t thing happening in music, and that’s why when I can, like, sit and talk and be like ‘Yeah, this sucks for me too,’ that feels good. When I go online and hear the stories of my fans talking about their experience in the working world, or even at school — the more we talk about it, the better off we’ll be. And I wanted to make it catchy for a reason — so that it would get stuck in people’s heads, [so] they would end up with a song about gender inequality stuck in their heads. And for me, that’s a good day.”

Meanwhile, the penultimate song on Lover, “It’s Nice To Have A Friend,” sounds unlike anything in Swift’s catalog thanks to its elliptical structure, lullaby-like tone and incorporation of steel drums and brass. When asked about the song, Swift talked about experimenting with her songwriting, as well as capturing a different angle of the emotional themes at the heart of Lover. Read Swift’s full thoughts on “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” below:

“It was fun to write a song that was just verses, because my whole body and soul wants to make a chorus — every time I sit down to write a song, I’m like, ‘Okay, chorus time, let’s get the chorus done.’ But with that song, it was more of like a poem, and a story and a vibe and a feeling of... I love metaphors that kind of have more than one meaning, and I think I loved the idea that, on an album called Lover, we all want love, we all want to find somebody to see our sights with and hear things with and experience things with.

“But at the end of the day we’ve been searching for that since we were kids! When you had a friend when you were nine years old, and that friend was all you talked about, and you wanted to have sleepovers and you wanted to walk down the street together and sit there drawing pictures together or be silent together, or be talking all night. We’re just looking for that, but endless sparks, as adults.”

Read the full Taylor Swift cover story here, and click here for more info on Billboard’s 2019 Women In Music event, during which Swift will be presented with the first-ever Woman of the Decade award.

[link to this tweet]

Was there ever a part of you that was like, “Oh shit, I like this darker vibe, let’s go even further down that path?” I really Loved Reputation because it felt like a rock opera, or a musical, doing it live. Doing that stadium show was so fun because it was so theatrical and so exciting to perform that, because it’s really cathartic! But I have to follow whatever direction my life is going in emotionally... The skies were opening up in my life. That’s what happened. But in a way that felt like a pink sky, a pink and purple sky, after a storm, and now it looks even more beautiful because it looked so stormy before. And that’s just like, I couldn't stop writing. I’ve never had an album with 18 songs on it before, and a lot of what I do is based on intuition. So, you know, I try not to overthink it. Who knows, there may be another dark album. I plan on doing lots of experimentation over the course of my career. Who knows? But it was a blast, I really loved it.

I mean, look, a Taylor Swift screamo album? I’ll be first in line. I’m so happy to hear that, because I think you might be the only one. Ha! I have a terrible scream. It’s obnoxious.

Why Taylor Swift's Lover Fest Will Be Her Next Big Step

Billboard // by Jason Lipshutz // December 11th 2019 - [Excerpt]

On why she chose to put together Lover fest: “I haven’t really done festivals in years - not since I was a teenager. That’s something that [the fans] don’t expect from me, so that’s why I wanted to do it. I want to challenge myself with new things and at the same time keep giving my fans something to connect to.”

[pixiedst]

Dance With Me 02 // KYG

Request from @lost-midnight-flower​​

Hiii can I request a got7 fic? Maybe something along the lines of meeting the guys at a fan meeting or something and one of them falling head over heals with the reader? That seems pretty cute to me, is that weird? If you choose to write this, you can pick which member you want to write about ^^ have a great day/evening ahead!

Genre: Fluff Pairing: Reader x Yugyeom Rating: PG-13 Warnings: None Description: Dance studio owner Y/N meets Yugyeom at a fan sign. Word Count: 3,694

Index // Part One // Part Three // Part Four

”I’m gonna be honest, I enjoyed the bunny ears,” Yugyeom says and takes her copy of the album to sign.

“Hilarious,” Y/N says. “Turn to the next page.”

He does as he’s told and finds a beige envelope with a glittery, red heart sticker sealing it. He lifts it and scoffs. “How radiant.”

“If you don’t want it, I’ll-“, but before her fingers can reach it, he pulls away.

“No way! I wanna know more about you! I am not losing this chance.”

Y/N tries to keep a straight face, but she can tell from Yugyeom’s laugh that her cheeks are red enough to betray her. He’s different today. Bolder. She looks at the fans next to her. Can they hear them? They seem busy enough with their conversations.

She likes this, though. It’s a different side to him. Before she can say anything else, the staff orders her to move. As she gathers her things, she glances back at Yugyeom one last time to flash a smile.

He winks.

-

Dear Yugyeom,

Here is the letter you asked for.

Yours, Y/N

Yugyeom stifles a laugh and reads further.

Okay, I’m kidding. I’m writing this after watching your beautifully entitled V-Live “OLOLOLO”. Mark noticed my comment and asked for me: what have you been up to lately? It inspired me to write this.

Do you wanna know why I started dancing? I watched Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses as a kid. I wanted to travel to a secret land where I could dance with magical statues to classical music by instruments that played themselves. Needless to say, when I found out none of that was real, I was devastated.

But what kept most of that fantasy a reality was the dancing. My parents understood how much I wanted to be a dancer and enrolled me in ballet class. I was horrible, hated it immensely, and my dream of becoming a princess withered.

Years passed, and they let me enroll in a hip hop dance class, and that’s where I found my rhythm. My body was comfortable with the music, and I was satisfied with the setting. I knew I wanted to be a professional dancer.

But my parents’ understanding ended there. It thrilled them to have a daughter who could dance, but they felt that choosing it as a career was impractical. After years of begging, proving my worth through recitals and gold medals, they never changed their minds.

I graduated with a business degree. They wanted me to start a business, so I did. I started my studio. They tried to get angry, but they knew they had no reason to be. I did what they wanted me to do, and with the skills I learned, I added my own twist. I never broke a rule. 

Until now, they’re unhappy with my decision, but they’re less angry. I think that’s all right. I still meet with them every few weeks because I love them despite the sacrifices they forced me to make. But looking back, it’s safe to say they were good for me. With my level of skill before university, I wouldn’t have been able to get into any of the performing arts schools. I only joined the dance team in my school and used that experience to start my studio. Not a bad deal.

You might be wondering why I’m telling you all this. That V-Live struck a chord in me. Bambam said to not be ashamed, so here I am, shamelessly presenting my life story to you.

Here’s my social media if you want to see me dance. This is a huge step for me, but I think this is a good way for me to let go of doubts and embrace the unknown instead.

Instagram: @dancingseoul

YouTube: Dancing Seoul Studio

Thank you again for inspiring me to be where I am now. You’re the best.

Yours, Y/N

Yugyeom’s mind races. He’s only met this person three times, but despite the brief interactions, she trusted him enough with this personal story. There is nothing more he wants for her but success. He wants to see her studio run out of slots for enrollments. He wants millions of people to subscribe to her YouTube channel. It’s what she deserves. Life is too cruel to keep that from her.

He checks her Instagram. It’s cute. Majority of the posts are dance videos and pictures of the studio, but she slides in a few selfies now and then. Their family is small, but she looks happy. He smiles. He likes seeing her happy.

He stops on a selfie from two years ago. She barely aged. The only difference is her hair, which in this photo shows a light brown shade and a fringe. Cute. He taps twice and continues to scroll.

Within a few more photos down, he freezes.

Wait. Did he...

He hurries back up, a scream locked in his throat. His muscles tense, and his breathing goes rigid. Why can’t he find it? He’s back in the recent ones. Did he miss it again? He scrolls back down, slower this time, but the pace is almost killing him. She must have seen the notification by now.

When he finally finds it, he taps on the heart and drops his phone on the bed. He sighs. There’s no use. He’ll have to explain himself next time they meet. 

Maybe they can pretend it never happened, but based on their brief interactions and the way she writes her letters, that’s highly unlikely. Typical. Just another person in his life to tease him indefinitely.

He smiles. For the members, it’s nothing new. But for Y/N? Maybe it won’t be so bad.

-

How to React to Your Idol Liking Your Instagram Photo: A Tutorial With Y/N

Drop your phone on the floor

Scramble to check your phone is okay

Scream in your pillow

Cry (optional)

Take a screenshot to preserve the memory

She frowns. He liked that photo? Why did she even upload it? What was she thinking? Her hair was a mess, and she was sweating like she’d been in a sauna. And the angle? She can’t even process how embarrassing her selfie skills were two years ago. She taps on the three dots and hovers her thumb over the “Archive” button. 

What if he did like it, though? Maybe he thought she looked… pretty. She scoffs. That’s ridiculous. She’s not terrible looking, but she could never compare to the girls he must see every day. Twice literally works in the same building as him. He can’t possibly look at her and think she’s pretty. 

But she is open to possibilities. Sometimes. Only this time.

Y/N smiles. She exits the app and places her phone on the bedside table. The thought rings in her mind, and she can’t help but bury her face is her pillow. Wouldn’t it be nice, though?

Wouldn’t it be nice if Kim Yugyeom found her pretty?

-

“Is it her?” Bambam asks.

“No,” Yugyeom replies, and flashes a smile at the fan in front of him and accepts a stuffed toy.

So, his secret is out. The members caught on and have been playing telephone throughout the event. Yugyeom just has to suffer from being seated in the middle this time. 

“Is it her?” Bambam asks, not even looking away from his next fan.

“No, but she’s almost here.”

Bambam laughs as he allows the fan to place a scarf around his neck. Yugyeom wishes nothing more than to run away and never come back. His members are extra smiley and observing each fan who comes their way, trying to figure out which of them was able to steal the maknae’s heart. 

Oh, God, please keep it subtle, he prays. 

And there she is. His breath hitches, and he blinks a few times to avoid making a complete fool of himself.

“Hello,” His voice cracks. 

So much for subtle.

Bambam and Youngjae laugh, and the girls they’re talking to join in. Fantastic.

He clears his throat and repeats himself. “Hello.”

Y/N smiles. “Did you drink enough water today? You don’t want your voice to crack like that again.”

He can feel Bambam and Youngjae solve the puzzle. It’s only a matter of time before the information leaks to the rest.

“No letter today, sorry. I figured the previous one already showed a lot. I don’t even know what to say anymore,” she says.

He pulls the album closer to him and signs. “That’s okay. I really enjoyed reading it. I got to know you a little better.”

Y/N presses her lips together before she leans in to reply, “You seem to have enjoyed my Instagram, too.”

Yugyeom laughs and pink rises in his cheeks. “I’m sorry about that. I was just going through your dance videos and accidentally pressed like on your selfie. You’re a really talented dancer, though! I’m impressed!”

Nice save. That was a nice save, right?

“Nice save.” So it was not. “But thank you for the compliment. I wasn’t sure about that selfie, though.”

“I thought you looked cute,” he says. She looks away shyly. “But really, though. You’re an incredible dancer. I hope your studio gets the recognition it deserves.”

-

“I’m so tired,” Jia says and slides to the floor as the rest of the team gather their things.

Areum ties her hair and wipes the sweat around her neck. “Me too. I’m so glad it’s Saturday. I can stay up all night watching Luna’s Hotel.”

“New drama?” Y/N asks.

“Mhm! It’s my second one this week!” she replies.

How she finished yet another drama, Y/N has no idea. It’s surprising enough that she has the energy to teach dance despite barely getting any sleep. Sunhee, on the other hand, has been slowing down. Apparently, she’s been getting into GOT7.

None of them know about Y/N’s interest in the group. If anything, the members themselves are the only ones who do. Nobody else is aware of his influence on her career, and she prefers to keep it that way. She doesn’t want them to think she’s weird and obsessed.

“If they’re just gonna show off their relationship every two seconds, they might as well get married,” Sunhee grumbles as she stares at her phone.

“I know. It’s all they ever post about. We get it. They’re dating,” Jia says.

“Who’s dating?” Y/N asks.

Sunhee turns her phone and reveals the screen. Y/N leans in to get a better view. It’s a picture of Hyuna and Dawn. His hand is on her waist, and she’s kissing his cheek while he looks at the camera with a slightly tucked chin and close-lipped smile. It’s a cute picture.

“What’s wrong with them dating?”

“It’s disrespectful to the fans!” Areum says.

“How is falling in love disrespectful?”

Jia scoffs. “Typical of you to say that, really. Listen. Celebrities exist to entertain, meaning the audience can form emotional attachments to them. Dating someone completely destroys that bond they formed with their fans. It’s disrespectful for that sole reason. Do you get it?”

Y/N wishes she could reply with, “Typical of you to say that, really,” but stops herself. Maybe she should just agree. What’s the point of disagreeing when it will only leave her out of the group even more? It’s funny how she’s technically the boss, yet they treat her like another colleague. Where is the respect?

Part of it is her fault, though. She can’t be too restricting, and she is desperate to keep them with her. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she needs them. Sure, she wants a circle of friends, but she also needs them for her business. What would she do without them?

But she cannot let them win this time. She just can’t agree with them.

“I understand that there’s a bond between celebrities and their fans, but they don’t just exist to entertain. They’re more than just faces on a screen. They’re human beings, and the fans are only falling in love with a small portion of their real selves. You see how much training they have to go through just to debut. They have to be as close to perfect as possible because they’ll be in front of hundreds of cameras. What I’m saying is that underneath all that perfection, they are regular people who fall in love too. Being a celebrity doesn’t take that away.”

Sunhee shakes her head. “I bet you haven’t fallen in love with an idol before.” Her voice wavers. How pathetic. “It’s like chasing a cloud. You just look at them from afar, and that’s all you can do.” She sighs. “You wouldn’t understand.”

They pick up their things and head to the door. Jia leaves last and says, “See you on Monday, Boss.”

Y/N only responds with a nod and a weak smile.

Jia called her ‘boss’. If only she felt worthy of the title. She sighs and takes their place on the floor and closes her eyes. She could really use another surprise live. Anything GOT7 always made her feel better.

She walks to the speakers and plugs her phone before clicking on shuffle and running to the center of the room.

When the music begins, it’s like the rhythm is beating for her. Y/N always had to think before she spoke, analyze every word the rest of the world said, but in this room, there is no language but the movement of her body. There is no law but the music running through her veins. As she dances to the beat, her feet and legs and knees scream at her to rest, but she doesn’t listen. Moments like these are precious to her. This is her territory. This is home.

A knock on the door puts her off balance. She groans. Everybody knows not to interrupt her when she’s dancing. Did someone forget something? There doesn’t seem to be anything left behind. She rushes to her phone and pauses the music. She grabs a towel and wipes her sweat before she reaches for the door. 

“Listen, we’re clo-” But her voice gets trapped. 

Standing before her is none other than Kim Yugyeom.

-

Y/N doesn’t know what to do. She has dealt with defending her dream to her family, lost relationships because no one believed in her, and handled three difficult-to-please girls for two years. She got through those hurdles without a scratch, but as she stands before Yugyeom, her throat is dry and her knees buckle. 

Her fantasies could never live up to this. Not enough fan fiction prepared her for this moment, and frankly, she’s not sure if there is anything in the world to do that. This is her idol, her hero, the entire reason she has her studio today—the very studio he’s in. Well, sort of in. He’s only at the door frame, and this must be the moment she steps aside to let him in, but her body remains still. 

“Hello,” he says, his voice low. “I don’t really want to be seen right now. Can I come in?”

Like a hypnotist’s snap, she blinks and regains control of her senses. She quickly nods and steps aside, still unable to find her words. 

Yugyeom seems to be doing just fine. He walks around the room like a tourist in a museum and gapes at every little thing she’s sure the JYP building has and more. After admiring the speakers, he turns around and faces her. 

“Do you mind if I…” He unzips a few inches of his hoodie and meets her eyes, a quiet permission to take it off. 

She nods and almost chokes when her eyes land on his arms. He’s wearing a muscle tee today. Her heart beats louder than the speakers on maximum volume. He places the hoodie on a bench against the wall, and even that is enough to make her breathing go rigid. Everything he does is so godlike, she doesn’t know if she’s worthy of this front-row seat.

“So… how did you find my studio?”

“The address is on your Instagram.” 

Of course. Heat rises in her cheeks. Given she’s already humiliated herself, maybe she should create a list of them to slap herself in the face with when this is all over. 

“Right,” She rubs the back of her neck. “What are you doing here then? Do you need a place to practice or something?” 

He shakes his head and walks to her. “I wanted to see you.” 

Y/N is sure he can hear her heartbeat. “You… you wanted to see me?” 

He nods. “I really like talking to you, and I thought since we barely got the chance to know each other through the fan signs, maybe we could step outside of those and become real friends. You seem like a really interesting person, and I want to get to know you more.”

What’s with the sudden confession? Her entire face must be red right now. With his eyebrows raised and a small smile forming, he’s definitely having fun with her reaction. She takes a step back in hopes of the distance giving her space to breathe. 

But why would he want to be friends with her? She’s just a low-rate dancer with a small studio. What could he find interesting about her? She scans his face, and he lowers his eyebrows, but his smile never fades. He’s not kidding.

“All right,” she says and takes a step forward. “But we have to keep this a secret. If my friends find out, I’ll never see the end of their complaints.” 

She hates to admit it, but she almost regrets saying that. Being friends with Kim Yugyeom could be the turning point in their relationship. She can almost imagine it. They would pay more attention, listen to everything she has to say without disregarding it, and they might even like her. They’d listen to her stories about Yugyeom behind the scenes and whine. They’d be jealous of her. How enthralling is that? To have someone be jealous of her for once…

Did she really think all that in a few seconds? She sighs and lowers her head. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” she mutters and meets his eyes again. “It’s best if no one finds out. I don’t want to risk having my entire life change.” 

“I get it.” He looks at the speakers on his left before turning back to her. “You were dancing to Teenager.” 

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I was. I should be home by now, but I was feeling a bit stressed and needed to get it off my chest.”

He walks to the speakers and picks up her phone. “This might be a weird question, but can I see you dance?” When she doesn’t reply, he adds, “I want to see the Y/N I heard so much about. By ‘heard’, I mean ‘read’.” 

She walks toward him. “Weren’t you just on my Instagram? You could see me dance there.”

He laughs. “Yeah, but you mostly post your students’ performances. And on Youtube, too. You don’t give yourself enough screen time. I wanna see you.” 

The light just above him shines on his skin, and the shadows sharpen his features. His black muscle tee and jeans give off the illusion that his skin is paler, he almost looks like a vampire. A sexy dancing vampire. There is something about him that’s so captivating. 

Y/N was never good with words. Dancing was always easier. She’s sure he can agree, and that’s when it hits her. Maybe he does have a reason to want to be her friend. He found someone he could relate to. 

“Sit down. I’ll show you something no one’s seen yet.” His smile rises to the ends of his cheeks. “Consider yourself lucky.”

“I’m very lucky.” 

“Now this isn’t finished yet. It’s supposed to be for two people, and I haven’t choreographed the entire song or the boy’s part. What you’re about to see is completely raw and unfixed. It might not be pretty.” 

“I’m sure it’ll be beautiful.”

I am Yours by Andy Grammer fills the room, and her body moves in an instant. She thought she’d be nervous dancing in front of her idol, but it’s the very reason the confidence surges through her. She follows every beat with her feet, with her arms, with her whole being until she sinks into the melody.

You know I need you Like you’re oxygen Be my atmosphere Let me breathe you in So I can try to tell you I love you

She twirls under an imaginary hand, which her mind immediately portrays as Yugyeom’s. Her heart soars at the image, and it pushes her further. Her body is tired, but she can’t find the energy to stop. 

Still can’t believe it when you say you’re mine and I am yours, I am yours

With one final spin, she halts and meets his eyes. 

I am yours. 

She doesn’t know what he’s thinking. There is no expression on his face. His gaze is completely fixed on hers, and it almost glows under the lights. His breathing is quick like he was the one dancing. 

“What-” She tries to catch her breath, but she can’t tell if her struggle is from the dance. “What do you think?”

He swallows and licks his lips. “I’m thinking…” Y/N grips the hem of her shirt. “I want to be your partner.”

Her eyes almost pop out of their sockets. “What?” 

He gets up and walks straight to her like time is running out. “I wanna dance to this with you. You haven’t finished the choreography, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“And you said you needed a partner. A boy. Well, I’m available, and I want the part.”

“But Yug-”

He takes her hands, and her body freezes. “Dance with me.” 

She shivers under his touch, but she makes her decision. With her heart and mind racing at once, she nods and says, “Okay.”

-

Part Three

[sugasgrowl]

Writing Tag Game

I was tagged by the wonderful @ditzymax! I tag @gukslut @prolixitae @dark-muse-iris @underthejoon @honeymoonjin @angelguk and @btssavedmylifeblr (if you’re feeling up to it)

What is your ideal setting for focusing on your writing?

Truthfully, I don’t really care? As long as I am alone and my brain is in the generous writing mood, I can write (whether it be in a public place or in my bedroom). I’ve written I don’t even know how much for Duplicitous in public, and I most definitely wrote When Darkness Falls in the middle of the Union at my college with countless other students around me lmaoooo I don’t really care most of the time. 

What is your favourite genre to write?

Listen.....angst has a special place in my heart LMFAO I like hurting myself and inflicting pain on readers, what can I say. I love writing deeper emotions and conflicts.

Do you prefer to write on paper or digitally?

DIGITALLY. I write way too slow by hand, and I’m an impatient bitch. 

It’s the middle of the night and you suddenly wake up with an idea. What do you do?

(Nothing wakes me up in the middle of the night because when I sleep I turn into a corpse, so I’ll answer this question as if I was struck with a new idea at 2am when I’m awake and alone.) 

I try to feel it out and decide how far I can take the idea. Most often, I can only come up with a few scenes, but not a fully fleshed out plot. However, if I can put together a whole entire plot, I either text the whole idea out to a friend (usually @daegutown god bless her soul) and screenshot everything to save to a photo album titled FICS, orrrr I immediately jump up and start writing it. It’s totally dependent on where my brain is at the time and if it’s feeling generous enough to give me motivation to get my ideas out there.  

Who is your favourite person to write about?

It depends on the plot, I think. Usually I get more excited about this ONE particular scene in whatever story I’m writing and the excitement stems from how well the character/idol fits the role I want them to play. For example, in Duplicitous, I had the idea of some terrible shit happening to Jungkook and Nari having to do whatever she had to do to save his life (spoilers for future chapters, oops). It isn’t the fact that it’s Jungkook specifically, it’s just that the scene itself will be so emotionally charged.

Do you like making your own characters, or do you usually write about real people?

I usually write fanfiction, so...a combination of both? We as fanfiction authors don’t know the people personally, if the subject is a real person, so we either have to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know with assumptions, or we have to just use their appearances as vessels for whatever idea we have. In my time as a fanfic author, I’ve written a lot of reader insert, and that is difficult to do well due to keeping things so open ended and ambiguous. My only real named OC is Oh Nari from Duplicitous, and I have to say...for me personally, named characters are way more fun.  

Have you ever written a book/story with more than 15 chapters (100k words)?

No, unfortunately. The most I’ve gotten for one story is around 65k for all of Duplicitous, and I haven’t been able to do much with it because of the headspace I’ve been in for the last little while. I would love to actually finish it in all its glory one of these days, though. 

How often do you get ideas?

I get ideas for short scenes way too often. Almost every day. But so few can be built up to something worth reading, and even fewer inspire me enough to actually write them. 

Do you ever get an idea that you really like, but just can’t seem to finish?

Everything in my Google Docs Graveyard, pretty much. It’s always really disappointing and makes me super sad when I don’t feel like I can finish one and post it. I have probably ten at the very least sitting half finished (or less) in my docs, some that have been sitting there for two years. One has been sitting there since 2016. 

What is your least favourite plot?

Personally, with k-pop, I have to agree with Max and say that my least favorite is idol!verse fics. Not because I dislike the trope (I actually adore the ones that are written well), but because I think it’s really hard to do well and I think it’s hard to write it in a way that can really come off as...realistic? I don’t want to say “realistic” because it’s fanfiction and none of this shit is really realistic in the grand scheme of things, but I guess I just mean it’s hard to make it into a mature story with natural/realistic conflicts. (I may have just stuck my foot in my mouth, but I’m not sure how to word what I’m trying to say lmfao!) 

oh god and don’t get me STARTED on high school aus. Just...why? Why. I don’t get it. I understand incorporating it for flashbacks or to show how characters’ relationships grow, but I will never understand the desire to put grown men back in high school. Then again, I’m, like, a grown up. So that’s probably why slgskjdfhgls

[artificialqueens]

Strange Love (1/?) (Biadore) - passion--victim

AN: Would like to send a big thank you to @aurora-blackheart & Veronica for the support & beta-ing! Female pronouns are used when they are in drag and male pronouns out of drag. This was supposed to be a one-shot but it probably won’t be.

Her ass pressed into the cold concrete dressing room floor, the loud music of Mickey’s blaring through the closed door. Her hands trembled as she pushed back her blue hair and started on her brows, Of course he wasn’t there, she thought to herself. Adore didn’t expect him to come after everything that went down but that didn’t change the fact everything had been chosen so he could be there. While she was so proud of this new album, fuck it hurt. Everything reminded her of the moments of ecstasy, comfort, and love that they had spent together. Fuck. She took a long drag of her half-finished blunt, willing herself to forget it all.

–

They started off so easy. Not a light fuck between friends but there was an inherent understanding that when apart they did whatever. In the beginning, it worked perfectly, Adore was free to take (consensual) advantage of whatever trade she found after her shows or in the bars and then when their schedules managed to line up they would spend their time in bed, on the couch or in the shower. Fucking, yes but also just existing together. It was the still moments after they had both cum when they lay intertwined that Danny loved the most. It was in those moments when they were coming down where their eyes did all the talking and that Danny knew how much he loved the older man.

It wasn’t when Danny had to muffle Roy’s name as he climaxed in another man but when he found himself turning down trade in favour of masturbating to an old dick pick that he knew he was in trouble. So he did what any self-respecting twenty-something would; he found more and more creative reasons to fly to where Roy was performing. At first, it was a convenient layover,’

“Danny, not that I’m complaining but since when is Barcelona on the way home from London?” Roy quipped when Danny showed up at his dressing room door one night.

He shrugged sheepishly and embraced his other half in a tight hug.

–

Fuck. His other fucking half. If she was in a better mood than she would have fully admitted that he was her better half. Somehow he always knew what to say, and while he could read Adore to filth, he never did. His door was always wide and his arms open. He could make him laugh for days but somehow he also grounded him. Made him feel wanted and whole.

“John” she yelled.

“What?”

“Pour me another one”

–

So he got more creative; layovers, saying his manager fucked up booking the flights  and ‘accidently; leaving drag accessories in Bianca’s kit until finally one day he said “fuck it” owned up to how he felt, well okay, partly.

“Bitch I’m here cause I wanna be. You got a problem with that?”

“Come here pussyface.”

They never had the much needed conversation but it didn’t matter they were spending almost every night together, save only for work engagements and nights spent on a red-eye to see each other. Danny had always known how kind and generous Roy was as a friend (and in bed) but to be the recipient of his full affection was something else all together. He was always picking up a necklace or a shirt or a treat for him; never missing a scheduled Facetime call or an opportunity to shower Danny with compliments privately (or publicly). Even though they never put a name on whatever they had, they quickly settled into the most domestic arrangement either of them had experienced in a long time. When together, and when Bianca didn’t need to make morning talk show appearances, they found themselves waking up in the comfort of the other’s arms and morning wood pressed into the other’s thigh and neither Roy nor himself needing or wanting any more space between them. It was in these moments that Danny really got to see how much Roy loved him, how he trusted him to lower his guard and to just exist and be. Nights were spent exploring aspects of whatever new city they were in; and exploring new parts of each other whenever the mood hit them. When apart, they texted each other that their respective flight landed safe, dodged whatever potential trade they encountered at their solo gigs and made sure to Facetime when planned.

He didn’t set out to write another album. But fuck, lately he didn’t even need to smoke to find the words. Drawing inspiration from moments of ecstasy and comfort in his arms, his album took flight and in a direction it had never been before. He wasn’t mad about it either. He wanted everyone to know, indirectly through his lyrics, how happy he was. While he knew he had to leave it vague enough as to not identify his fellow queen, he poured his soul into each and every one of those songs. Treasuring the moments when he could fully let go, head in his lap, and share them with his love. He wasn’t always the most eloquent speaker but it was in his songs that he was able to express what he meant. And with songs called “Always,” “Hidden Kisses” and “End Game,” it wasn’t hard to figure out. Apart, when inspiration struck, instead of turning to social media Danny began sending videos of verses directly to Roy who more than compensated him when they were together once again. The hard part of this album turned out to be finding a release date that worked for both their schedules. They went back and forth suggesting dates, each one being shot down for a concert, a flight on the other side of the world or a previous work obligation. Suddenly they were looking at almost a year down the road.

“Well this isn’t going to work,” Roy said.

“Yanx what about…”

“Nope. At this rate I’ll be dead before it’s released”.

“Alright you old fucker what do think then?”

“I’ll just cancel this tour stop” he says pointing at the calendar. “I’ll be there.”

“Really? I know how important your work ethic is.”

“You want me there?”

“More than anything Willow,” he said, cupping his chin and pulling him into a tender kiss. “More than pizza,” he laughed.

“Then I won’t miss it for the world.”

—

Leave it to Roy to ruin pizza for me she thought. She pulls at the blue wig, trying to tease it into more of a punk mess, as she racks her brain for what went wrong. One minute it was cuddles and stealing kisses in shadowy corners of bars and the sex, oh god the fucking sex was everything. She didn’t understand how it could mean nothing to him. Tears gathered in the corner of her eye, threatening to rain down her perfectly beaten face.

“Fuck.” She took a deep breath, she wasn’t going to let him ruin this for her. She had put in too many hours pouring her heart into each track. She was so goddam proud of it and if he couldn’t see that and be there for her. Well fuck him. Even though fucking him got him in this mess in the first place.

—

He always thought he’d be the one to fuck it up. And maybe he did. But his heart felt a lot more heavy and broken than guilty. When fans started tagging her that Roy was with another man he didn’t give it another thought. Bitch, the internet be crazy he thought. When someone shouted, “Show Bianca who’s boss, I can’t believe she left you!” at her show one night she cursed that motherfucker out, he didn’t know shit.

But she would be lying if it didn’t stick in her head after a younger fan offhandedly commented post-show that “she seemed so unfazed, ‘specially since Bianca said yes.”

“Yes?” she said making a face, “to what? More dick?”

“Uhhh…” the fan faltered

“The ring, one dick for life ammirite?” her friend said, going for a clumsy high five despite the fact that he was clearly drunk.

What the fuck? Adore thought but she brushed off the interaction, making her way outside to smoke a joint.

She would be lying if she didn’t think about sleeping with the dude who gave her a light. But she was with Roy, and she trusted him even if her mind was spinning.

Replaying their last conversation and scrolling through their texts (he hadn’t responded to her last few messages which was giving her pause) had filled the next few nights after her show. So who could blame her when she chose clubs and friends’ shows over sleepless nights thinking about if him.

Alaska’s shows were always a good time especially when a new promoter was trying to woo her (and her friends) with free booze. Adore, now exceptionally tired and irritated by the comments on Instagram was taking full advantage of all the goodies. She was teetering the line between not cute and full on messy when she got two picture texts from Dela.

Dela: ??

Dela: U ok?

Dela: Love you!! Don’t get too drunk k?

Dela: We can go get fucked this weekend

Head already spinning from the alcohol she opened the first image to find a screenshot of a snapchat of Roy from behind. He was arm and arm with another guy, completed relaxed head tucked into his shoulder. The snap read

“@thebiancadelrio and his boo! They got engaged last week! 💎💍 #onedickforlife #sucker”

Adore felt weak. No, it couldn’t be she thought as she swiped to the second photo Dela sent. Also a snap, except this time Roy was in a loose hug with a man in medical scrubs. “Bitchin with @thebiancadelrio” was scribbled in bold red at the top. But that wasn’t what caught Adore’s attention. It was the small understated text in the bottom left corner that said @KyleVittar congrats 👨‍❤️‍👨

Adore’s stomach dropped and her heart began to seethe. Kyle. His fucking ex. What the fuck. And suddenly, even though she had done a line and more shots than she could count, it became clear. The missed FaceTime calls, the unanswered texts. The fucking trip home that he cancelled last week. It hit her swiftly. So she did the only thing she could think of, block him on both Instagram and Twitter, and hit up Alaska for another line.

–

Two blunts and four tequila shots later, her face was finished. And sure she wasn’t fully there anymore, but wasn’t that the point? Somewhere between shot two and three her trembling lips turned to a scowl and her brow became furrowed.

“Adore is this the final set list?” a PA asked.

“Yeah, no wait.” She grabbed the list and hastily added another song to the end of her first act. “Now it’s good”

“Okay, thanks. You’re going to be ready to go in 15?”

“Sure dude,” she said as she downed another shot trying to forget the pit in her stomach and the roar of anger in the back of her throat.

–

When she walked on stage she was greeted by a packed club, some of her sisters who were there supporting her and many screaming fans.

“Who’s ready to party!!” she yelled, temporarily forgetting the emptiness.

The crowd went wild, ready for her new music.

“Well guess what motherfuckers I got some songs for ya. This first one is a banger, hope you like it”

She had chosen this particular song to start to show because it was one of three songs on the new release that wasn’t about him. Plus it was a bop if she could say so herself. Letting the alcohol take over her soul she danced about the stage. And if she stumbled (literally) or almost fell, her fans were nice enough to brush it off and continue to cheer her on.

“Glad you bitchasses liked that. I don’t really wanna sing any of the other songs so howdoyouguysthinkaboutmejustrepeatingthat all. Night. Long?” she yelled into the mike. After repeating it (twice) she noticed her fans were kind of done with it, to put it nicely.

“Okay okay I get it. Next. On to the next. Might cry. But here we go, this one is called Always.” She pulled the mike away from her face and in a small voice, one very unlike herself, she said “I hate when Always has an expiration date,” and then she began to sing.

After that she sang two other songs from her new album. Her voice cracking a little more at each one as she pushed down the hurt and anger that had enveloped the last few weeks.

“All right motherfuckers, one more in this set. It’s not from my album but it might as well be,” she said raising her glass for another swig before beginning.

There were a few murmurs from the crowd as some tried to figure out what exactly she meant.

The opening lines were messy and rough and she let the song take over

Everybody wants to know

If we fucked on the bathroom sink

How your hands felt in my hair

If we were high on amphetamines

“The first time,” she interjected, “was so. fucked. up.”

And everybody wants to hear

How we chain-smoked until three

And how you laughed when you said my name

And how you gripped my hips so mean

“That fucking fucker!” she yelled.

We wrote a story in the fog on the windows that night

But the ending is the same every damn time, no, no, no

We wrote a story in the fog on the windows that night

But the ending is the same every damn time

She screamed the last line, blinking back tears. She couldn’t believe him. Tonight was supposed to be a celebration of her album, a celebration of them.

“Guess what? Even the pretty boys lie. Even the fucking old ones.”

They think I’m insane, they think my lover is strange

But I don’t have to fucking tell them anything, anything

And I’m gonna write it all down, and I’m gonna sing it on stage

But I don’t have to fucking tell you anything, anything

That’s the beauty of a secret

You know you’re supposed to keep it

That’s the beauty of a secret, oh oh oh

That’s the beauty of a secret

You know you’re supposed to keep it

But I don’t have to fucking tell you anything,

Everybody’s waiting up to hear if I dare speak your name

Put it deep beneath the track, like the hole you left in me

And everybody wants to know ‘bout how it felt to hear you scream

They know you walk like you’re a god, they can’t believe I made you weak

As she belted out the last line she knelt on the ground, miming how Bianca got (unofficially) crowned by Jinx and Shangela. “Fucking done,” could be vaguely heard through the cheers of her crowd.

She finished the song screaming, tears racing down her face. Sure it was punk, but it was also the most real she had felt in a while. She dropped the mic, walking off the stage. So much for celebrating a finished album, she thought. Finding the same hard spot on the concrete floor of the dressing room she reapplied her mug and downed what was left of the tequila. Somehow she managed to be upright and present enough, just enough, barely enough most would say, to sing in the second act, to thank the fans for coming and when the show was over, to make her way into the club to celebrate with old and new friends alike. This time, she knew that if drunk her was horny she was going to fix that. Fuck Roy. Fuck Bianca. He wasn’t the only big dick that wanted her. And with that thought she placed a sloppy kiss on some guy with a cute ass.

–

The next morning he stumbled out of bed, almost face-planting on his bright pink wig.

“Fuck.” He rubbed his eyes which produced a concoction of various eyeshadows on his hands. He groggily made his way to the bathroom to deal with the only thing he felt capable of handling - his bladder. As he opened the door he came face to ass with whoever he brought back last night.

“Fuck, you going?” he asked, not bothering to wait for an answer he closed the door and staggered back to bed but not before swiping his phone off the nightstand.

He scrolled through his Instagram, snap and text notifications until one caught his eye:

Willow💕: What the fuck pussyface? 

[chac-ozai]

A cut straight out of a ficlet I wrote for @ryu-no-joou​ about Modern AU Chac’s struggle with a falling out with his best friend Teldryn. 

What the hell, why not post it? 

Jealousy

“Chac Ozai went from being “Single” to “In a relationship””

Teldryn scrolled passed it in a hyperactive haze, the big heart symbol beside Chac's name link caught his attention, and he scrolled up. His heart dropped, what the fuck is this? For the first time in weeks Teldryn clicked on his best friend's FB page and was amazed at what he'd missed by unfollowing him a few months ago. There where dozens of pictures of him taken by someone else, a bright smile on his face; there was some of him posing on someone's old car, of Chac climbing a tree shirtless, of him asleep on someone's couch with a giant lizard resting on his bare chest.

“Who...the...fuck.” Teldryn started to sweat, something in his heart squeezing at the sight. He was jacked up tonight, it was no different than the rest of his days lately, but the next set of pictures sent Teldryn's mind spiraling downward. Chac was hugging on a man taller than him, he had well-defined muscles and a ashen-brown mohawk. His best friend looked enamored with this unnamed person, and a fire started in Teldryn's gut.

From one picture to the next Teldryn paced up and down his apartment, Junie following him dutifully. The guy had no facebook profile, and he looked WAY older than Chac; what the fuck?! When he scrolled passed a picture of Chac kissing the rough-looking guy he saw that both Sirius and Vorstag had “liked” the image, Vorstag had a comment below- “You both look happy! I'm glad you decided to get serious.”

…..”Serious”?? How did he not know about this guy? This blatant ripoff? In a fit, Teldryn scrolled through until he found Sirius on his contacts, messaging him a long block of text after taking a screenshot of Chac kissing the stranger.

He sent it as an attachment, and underneath- “Who the fuck is this guy? I find it dsisturbing that Chac would keep this infomartion for me, how long has this been going on? I ahv been busy and so that means everyone can just cut me out of the loop? Wha'ts his name? Where did they meet? Chac must be going mad for dating a man that old. What the fuck”

Teldryn was smoking a cigarette furiously in his bathroom by the time Sirius bothered texting him back, the guy on the other end was fucking pissed and it showed clearly through the tenor of his text. Sirius wanted to complain directly to his husband but they where both at their jobs, choosing to just screenshot the incoherent text and send it to his husband. Oh, he had something to say to Tel for this.

“If you had bothered to talk to Chac at any point in the past few months you'd have known he's dating a new man. Guess what he got done with crying over your dumb ass. He's happy for the first time since YOU chose the fuckin powder over your best mate. What the fuck do you have to say anyway, you don't love him and you damn well don't want to date him. I bet youre high right now. When you're sober you won't give a shit. Leave Chac alone.”

Teldryn suddenly felt like hitting his head against something, it was a rush of energy and painful emotions that struck him deep. He was going to destroy his fancy new phone but decided to attempt a coherent text back, threateningly.

“Give me his name. What's his fucking name.”

Sirius got nervous. Teldryn had been very unstable the last he saw him and he hated the idea of him getting involved in Chac's love life again. “Why, Teldryn? Planning on committing a murder? You jealous Chac isnt crying over you anymore?”

Teldryn never sent a text back. Sirius was irrationally worried and had projected these ideas to Vorstag, wanting to find a way to keep Chac safe. Neither of them knew the proper route to take, and for the married couple Teldryn had once again seemed to disappear from their lives. Months went by.

~~

Chac was filled with an energy he hadn't known in a long time; music flowed from him at his live show like it had been once when he was inspired by love. He felt as if it was back to the way it was, his eyes bright and shining for the crowd of fans who had rejoiced the return of their local musician. Chac was offered a drink by a fan and he sipped at it, a high five going out to the fan who had long sought his return. These early summer months, warmth on the breeze and music in his heart, Chac was feeling perfect right where he was.

“I've been working on a song for a little while now, It's my first time trying it out but I want to dedicate it to someone very important to me in the audience somewhere. He doesn't know I've been working on this, but you know who you are and I guarantee every word in it's for you, babe.” Chac got comfortable on his stool and prepped his violin, tapping his foot on a variety of pedals until a long came to life. He scanned the crowd and saw Gage was sitting by himself with a worried smile on his face.

What was that boy planning? Porter thought to himself. Chac swayed as he began to play his violin, coming to life in a dramatic Orbison vibe.

“Walking, spend a lot of time walking

That's what people do, getting over you

Smiling, did you see me smiling?

The whole act's just for you

What else can I do?

People say I'm better off alone, So I'm trying, trying, trying

Oh please, if you see me cry

I apologize, I'm a little crazy, crazy crazy”

Gage had no idea what to do with himself, tears welled up in his eyes before he even had a chance to man up. He picked up his shirt and covered his nose and his mouth, eyes locked with Chac's. He knows they've had a rough patch, but the soul that Chac's voice projected towards him was too much to bear. Chac's singing mouth was smiling as he saw Gage crying like a baby in that corner, could see his big strong boyfriend reduced to a puddle by the sound of his voice.

“Please, if you change your mind

I won't change mine

So i'm trying trying trying

I'm on my knees, I'm on my knees!

I know you're over me

and it's driving me crazy, crazy, crazy”

These lyrics where meant for him. Every word Chac cried out was a direct message from his heart to the Dunmer's. Teldryn was sure of this as he watched from far away enough that the musician wouldn't see him.Was this what he was doing, calling out in a fit of passion to him week after week at these shows, and Teldryn hadn't been there to hear it? Not sober but coming down, Teldryn's mohawk cruised through the crowds of young people like a shark's fin as he flanked the stage. He was looking for a better view, but was pushed to the back as the song crescendos into nothingness, followed by a roar of applause.

“Thank you. That was a rough one.” Chac placed his violin down and opened his arms up, walking through the crowd and towards the lonely table where Gage sat wiping up his tears. Teldryn's hawk eyes locked on the sight of Chac going to hug the man he'd seen in the pictures and despised. The older man had his face buried into Chac's shoulder, both of their arms looped around each other and hugging tightly. For the first time, Gage wasn't ashamed of the public display; he was however..ashamed of everything else.

“I'm sorry, baby.” Gage choked out, his voice ragged.

“I forgive you. Love you.” Chac kissed his right eyelid and left for the stage again, his heart feeling renewed.

Teldryn could have killed the man with his glare. From a dozen paces back and over a sea of shorter folk, Teldryn glowered at the man Chac claimed to be in a relationship with. Charlatan! He receded into the depths and got another drink to calm his nerves, listening to Chac fall back on the old songs he used to listen to every weekend night in the past.

People recognized him there, and that was obviously so- Teldryn was at almost every single show Chac performed in the past years, only recently having given up his place as his helper. He thought about the lyrics Chac sang out, begging for a change of heart..that he wasn't over him. Fuck that being about what's-his-face over there, that big crybaby. Teldryn's heart shook in his chest at the memories of these concerts, how Chac had promised Teldryn once upon a time that every love song had Teldryn at it's center.

The concert was over before Teldryn could decide what to do with himself; he was a few drinks in and had just enough chutzpah to make his entrance; yes. He came here for a reason and that was to see Chac, screw the other guy being there. Chac made his grand exit speech and was folding up his equipment with the help of Gage when Teldryn fixed his lapels and strode up to the scene.

“Just when I thought I'd never see you again,” Teldryn spoke, his voice proud and so unique. “Fabulous performance, Chac. As always.”

Both men turned from their work to look at the tall Dunmer, Chac's every feature went stark with shock-

“Teldryn! Holy shit, since when have you been back?!” Chac felt awkward but opened his arms for the hug that Teldryn went for, stunning red eyes casting a quick glare at the older man beside them.

“Not long, not long.” Teldryn sighed, holding onto that hug long enough to raise an eyebrow. “Couldn't come back home and not say hi!”

Chac pulled away and looked to Gage immediately, who wasn't smiling but looking at the very gay-looking Dunmer with a mysterious expression. “So, uh, Teldryn. This is my ...friend, PG.” He stammers, opening a palm towards Gage.

Obviously, Gage wasn't going to touch him. He did a nod, his features dark. “Feel like I've seen'ya around.” Gage comments, Teldryn chilled to think that Chac was dating a southern guy.

“..Uh, Teldryn is featured in a lot of the advertisements around Times Square..maybe that's it.”

“Come now, Chac. Don't introduce me like that. How do you do,” Teldryn extended his hand, glaring at Gage- “Chac and I go miles back. He's my best friend.”

“Huh.” Gage reached out and practically crushed Tel's hand in his own “Best friend? Strange, I haven't heard of you at all since the time I've been dating Chac.”

“...dating?” Teldryn feigned surprise, he slapped Chac on the back and the musician was utterly red-faced. “Well there's a twist and a half! Why don't I buy you two a drink and maybe we can do a spot of catching up?”

Chac was so torn, he hadn't seen Teldryn in person for so long he'd forgotten how he looked, how the very air that clung around him seemed to just be so taken by his presence. Gage had noticed it too, he was glowering at the thought of this dandy stranger wanting to reconnect with Chac. What was going on here?

Chac was going to say no. He should have, but by god when Teldryn looked at him with a smile that could warm hell over, he couldn't help but say yes. “Yeah, I'd like that. PG, how about you? Do you mind?”

Hell yeah, he minded. Porter had a killer headache kicking in from all the tears he'd shed before, but now he had to sit around and keep Chac happy while he caught up with this supermodel?”

The three of them sat down, Chac in the middle with his drink. Porter immediately went to scan his phone, he wasn't looking at anything in particular but he'd be damned if he wasn't listening to every little thing the two of them shared. Chac held Gage's hand, but everything else was affixed to Teldryn as he told a grand story about Hollywood.

“-and then I opened the door to the set medic and saw him trying to fish the shoe out of his ass before the director came back from break.”

“PPFTTT HAHAHA!” Chac howled, hard enough to spill his damn drink on his knee. Teldryn seemed so kind to offer him a napkin before Gage could reach them, Chac reaching up and wiping a tiny tear away from his eye. Teldryn was making him laugh nonstop, maybe it was the anxiety of finally seeing Tel again or just forgetting how fucking hilarious he always was, but he could not get himself to stop giggling. Long minutes went by before the bar was closing up, and Teldryn had exactly what he wanted.

“Well it was bloody grand to see you again, I'm home for good so if you're in the area...”

“Yeah, Tel. That sounds good. Maybe we can chill with Sirius and Vorstag again, get the whole gang together.”

“Whatever you want.” Tel went in and did it, he gave Chac a kiss on the cheek before heading off, Gage staring daggers at the beautiful Dunmer as he left the bar. They still had more packing to do and Porter was simply floored by what just happened; Chac was never like that until tonight. A giggling, soppy mess.

“Known each other long, I take it.”

“uh..Yeah, 7 years. He's been in and out of the friend group as of late, last I heard of him he was doing commercials in Hollywood.”

“Yup, heard that. He mentioned it maybe 5 times. You guys ever...ya know, date?”

Chac could immediately see where Gage was coming from after that comment. Shit, was he really that giddy around Teldryn?

“No! No, he's straight. I think he's dating a Nigerian model right now.”

“Hell, He coulda fooled me.” Gage didn't feel his heart hurt any less by the statement, but he kept it down.

“Yeah, people say that. He's just uh, very British...um, enough about him, eh? Let's get back home and get to sleep.”

“Uh huh. You're the boss.” Gage said flatly. He had some digging to do tonight, even if it meant making a dumb FB profile to do it.

[katiewattsart]

29/10/19 : TEDDY BOYS. HAUL GIRLS. #1

What are they? 

Teddy Boy: (in the 1950s) a young man of a subculture characterised by a style of dress based on Edwardian fashion (typically with drainpipe trousers, bootlace tie, and hair slicked up in a quiff) and a liking for rock-and-roll music.

Haul Girl: A girl or women who makes a haul video.

The revolution will not be televised. 

The tv shows you what it wants to show you.

Television tells us what the people who run the TV stations want us to know. But social media today sometimes provides an alternative.

Subculture - Under/Beneath 

We are looking today at youth and subcultures… their historicity and their contexts, and where we are with what might be called subcultures and youth cultures today.

GUIDE TO THE CULTS

A genuine piece from the mirror in the 1980s.

Sex Pistols : This is one of the most infamous moments on television. Today it seems tame, but in 1976 this was enough to get the presenter fired.

Like Duchamp's 'ready mades' - manufactured objects which qualified as art because he chose to call them such, the most unremarkable and inappropriate items - a pin, a plastic clothes peg, a television component, a razor blade, a tampon - could be brought within the province of punk (un)fashion...

Dick Hebdige - Subculture: The Meaning of Style

Hebdige’s book has long been consider the authorative text on subculture.

In the book he discusses the ready made aesthetics of punk. Punk was the first reaction to the developing politics of Thatcher and Reagan… here a refusal to take part in business as normal led to music that sounded amateur and fresh… the opposite of the progressive rock that had dominated the mid 1970s and early 80′s. 

Vivienne Westwood

Objects borrowed from the most sordid of contexts found a place in punks' ensembles; lavatory chains were draped in graceful arcs across chests in plastic bin liners. Safety pins were taken out of their domestic 'utility' context and worn as gruesome ornaments through the cheek, ear or lip...fragments of school uniform (white bri-nylon shirts, school ties) were symbolically defiled (the shirts covered in graffiti, or fake blood; the ties left undone) and juxtaposed against leather drains or shocking pink mohair tops.

Jamie Red and others made zines that could be assembled in this same way, collaging and making work that felt it could have been made in the house, and often was.

Subcultures

Subcultures are tribal, bringing people together to form loose relations outside of the mainstream.

Different subcultures:

Even subcultures have subcultures… specific types of goth (steampunk, lolita) rude boys, K Pop sub genres, grunge punk rock etc

Once about a specific youth culture movement based around the disco music of the 1970s, clubbing subculture developed into rave culture in the late 80s and 90s, and has become a mainstream movement in the last few years. 

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, Mark Leckey, 1999

“Something as trite and throwaway and exploitative as a jeans manufacturer can be taken by a group of people and made into something totemic, and powerful, and life-affirming.”

Subcultures are about a sense of belonging, often to people who feel excluded or disenfranchised from the mainstream.

Cosplay - form of subculture 

The Joker and Harlequin are both characters who live for misrule, and both of them come from characters in the commedia dell’arte.

Harlequin relates directly to Harley Quinn… the Lord of Misrule was the peasant who was given the task of making sure that Xmas revellers got very drunk and very naughty.

The World Turned Upside Down

These characters link back to the ideas of the carnival, a time when the world was turned upside down. Christmas was initialy this kind of festival. People didn’t know if they would make it through the winter, so they made merry whilst they could. In the carnival Kings become Jokers, Jokers became kings. 

Carnival extracts all individuals from non-carnival life, non-carnival states and because there are no hierarchical positions during carnival, ideologies which manifest the mind of individuals cannot exist.

...And finally in a few relatively rare instances, we find an extreme form of revelry in which the participants play-act at being precisely the opposite of what they really are; men act as women, women as men, kings as beggars, servants as masters, acolytes as bishops. In such situations of true orgy, normal life is played in  all manners of sins such as incest, adultery, transvestitism, sacri- lege, and lese-majeste treated as the order of the day...

Edmund R. Leach, Rethinking Anthropology

In Rabelais and His World (1965), Mikhail Bakhtin likens the carnivalesque to the type of activity that often takes place in the carnivals of popular culture. In the carnival, according to Bakhtin, social hierarchies of everyday life—their etiquettes, and normal structures—are turned on their head.

Court jesters become kings, kings become beggars; opposites are mingled (fact and fantasy, heaven and hell).

Drag Cultures

Much in the same way that Madonna, undeniable icon though she is, in no way invented voguing, neither did the queens on RuPaul’s Drag Race invent the concept of "shade", "realness" or any of the other essential sayings liberally adopted wholesale by the internet. But what the show has done is continually provide a potted queer history. Whether it’s through highlighting ball culture, trans activism, gender fluidity, or queens like the legendary Lady Bunny; or simply by allowing the contestants to talk about their lived experience, the show has put an all too rare slice of gay and trans history in American (and the world’s) living rooms and laptops.

Drag Race has brought a subculture into the mainstream. It has brought secret languages into modern parlay.

From RuPaul raising a pair of opera glasses to say archly, “I can’t wait to see how this pans out”, to season four queen Latrice Royale’s “the shaaaaade of it all”, social media’s gif game has been vastly bolstered by nine seasons of this show. A gif reaction needs to encapsulate maximum emotion, drama, and appearance – and the queens on Drag Race have all three in spades. Tumblr couldn’t create gifs fast enough in the early seasons, and the joy of so many strong characters, and sound-bites, means that there is a reaction for absolutely every occasion. Season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio named one of her world tours after her own much-gif’d catchphrase, “Not today Satan”.

Memes and online culture have helped the show become part of the everyday.

Historically, "sissy" has been used as an insult against feminine-seeming men. Ru-Paul’s Drag Race not only reclaims the word – “now sissy that walk” is the phrase said at the top of each catwalk, usually preceding a demonstration of almost gob-smacking creativity – but shows that adopting a truly feminine character requires massive amounts of charisma and self-confidence. The show is wildly popular with women, not simply because of the incredible looks and transformations served by each queen, but because it is a celebration of feminine mystique in all its forms.

It has helped reclaim a sense of agency in an era of toxic masculinity.

The little show that could has turned into a global behemoth, with tours around the world each year, and an annual convention in Los Angeles. Last year, a second US convention launched in New York, while London hosted the first European edition, DragWorld UK, which saw a number of the show’s queens and RuPaul’s right-hand judge, Michelle Visage, holding court. And as fabulous, glamorous and downright funny as the queens are, the real joy came from seeing the response of teenagers to meeting their idols. RuPaul and Visage are giving hope to lost kids around the world, whatever their gender, ethnic background or sexuality. By sharing their stories, the Drag Race contestants are giving comfort and inspiration to viewers, as well as swathes of entertainment.

The show has brought disenfranchised, often hidden cultures into the open. And given people something that not only entertains, but also empowers.

The difference between Drag Race US and Drag Race UK summed up in one perfect tweet…

With RuPaul’s Drag Race UK finally airing on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, it’s got fans realising just how different the two editions of the show are… International fans were subjected to the colourful world of British slang and swear words, leaving dozens bemused about what exactly the UK queens are actually saying…. But in a viral tweet shared by one of the British queens, it’s managed to capture the crucial difference between the US and UK versions of Drag Race.

Sum Ting Wong shared a screenshot of a Facebook post that so beautifully sums up the two shows:

Pink News JOSH MILTON OCTOBER 8, 2019

Drag is culturally derived, and finds its forms based on local customs. In the UK drag has a relationship to Vaudeville and play, which means it does something different to the american show. It is less about the act of putting on a show, and more about the comedic, slightly catty relations that we have come to associate with saturday evening tv here in the UK.

But that doesn’t mean it is mean in itself… it still brings a subculture to a mainstream audience. Remember, if I talked about this with you in the 1990s, I would face prosecution under Section 28

"shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

New Subcultures

‘It's hard not to be struck by the sensation that, emos and metalheads aside, what you might call the 20th-century idea of a youth subculture is now just outmoded. The internet doesn't spawn mass movements, bonded together by a shared taste in music, fashion and ownership of subcultural capital: it spawns brief, microcosmic ones.

In fact, the closest thing to the old model of a subculture I've come across is Helena and the haul girls. Their videos are about conspicuous consumption: a public display of their good taste, carefully assembled with precise attention to detail. When you put it like that they sound remarkably like mods.’

Alexis Petridis 

Marie Antoinette, 2006 (Sofia Copolla) 

[starlightments]

you're one of my favorite authors so i came to you asking for advice on outlining and how you format it! would it be possible to see a post on how you outline, maybe with an example from an old fic of yours like something blue? anything you could give would be really really appreciated!

This is really, really flattering omg!! Thank you so much for reaching out. I’m happy to share some of my old Something Blue outlines, and hopefully you’ll find them to be even a tiny bit helpful! Sorry in advance for how plain and boring they are lol. My outlining technique really isn’t fancy at all! I took some screenshots of the documents, so all of it is going under a read more:

Okay! So! First things first. Once I have a story idea in my head, I’ll make a very broad “skeleton” outline of all the big plot points I want to hit. Not a lot of detail, not a lot of specificity. Just a very basic “road map” so I can see where I’m starting, and where I want to end. 

Once I have a loose grasp of the story’s overall arc, I start making my second-draft outline. This one is usually still pretty vague, but I will start adding specific scene ideas if I have any. I’d say that this second-draft outline is the one that goes through the most changes because this is when I start finding ways to connect my big plot points together, like how to fill in the gaps. What kind of things do these characters need to go through/experience in order to get from point A to point B? I’m always adding/removing/swapping scenes around in this stage, which you can probably tell from the screenshot below. A lot of the scenes I have written in this outline didn’t end up making it into the actual fic. You’ll also notice that my bullet points are now in clumps to help me start organizing how I want to break it up into chapters.

Then when I’m done all my tweaking, I’ll make one final outline. But even though it’s my “final” outline, I still make plenty of changes to it along the way. Nothing has to be concrete! In this last outline, I make a bullet point for every single scene I want to write. The smaller bullet points beneath them are where I get more specific about what I want to happen in the scene/what I want the scene’s function to be in the story -- basically just any piece of info that might be helpful for me to remember as I start writing it out. I also have the bullet points color-coded by chapter, just for organization’s sake. 

And that’s that!! Again, like I’m always saying, these outlines are very fluid. They just act as a guide to keep me on track if I feel like I ever lose sight of the story’s destination. But there have been so many instances where I’m struck with a new scene idea at the very last second, and I’ll need to adjust things as I go, and I think that’s totally normal. Sometimes we inspire ourselves!! But anyway -- this is the method that works best for me. I hope you found it somewhat useful! Feel free to hit me up with follow-up questions, if you have any. Happy writing! I’M ROOTING FOR YOU, PAL!!

[konnichibot]

Questions and answers!

Again tagged by my bestie @therothwoman let’s do this too!

Rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to know better

1. Nickname: Nemo

2. Gender: Cis-female

3. Sign: Taurus

4. Height: 5′2″

5. Time: 9:45 pm

6. Fav band: Not really a band but handles alot of music in RWBY casey lee williams and Jeff williams! I have many faves but the one close to me is caffeine

7. Fav solo artist: Deadmau5 still holds a place in my heart with awesome beats

8. Song stuck in my head: THEY CALL ME CUBAN PETE, I’M THE KING OF THE RHUMBA BEAT, AND WHEN I PLAY THE MARACAS I GO CHIC CHICKY BOOM CHI CHICKY BOOM

9. Movie I last watched: marvel avengers infinity war!

10. Show I last watched: RWBY! Just finished my binge watching and finished up volume 5!

11. When did you create your blog: 2012 I believe.

12. What do you post: mostly awesome fan art, video game screenshots and dank memes to warm my cold dead heart

13. Last thing googled: Vistaprint!

14. Do I have any other blogs: @donutarigato is my art and comics blog!

15. Do you get asks: No 8′)

16. Why did you choose your url:it was inspired from a snippet of happy monster band, when they went to japan and a robot said “konnichiwa” my bro in law went “aww, a “konnichibot” “ and inspiration struck! And it was my love of two things combined into one! Japanese culture and robots!

17. Following: 263 sublime blogs

19. Average hours of sleep: 7-8

20. Lucky number: numbah 5

21. Instruments: I used to play chopsticks (really shitty) on keyboard,

22. What I’m wearing: old christmas pajamas

23. Dream job: full time independent comic artist.

24. Dream trip: Japan! mostly areas around Tokyo like shibuya, shinjuku, akihabara, ikebukuro, harajuku

25. Fav food: pork =Q=

26. Fav song: bipolar nightmare, automatic goosebumps man

27. Nationality: American

28. Last book I read: Life of Vice by @robinenrico, lovely artstyle and overall a nice treasure from Mocca that my friend was able to snag for me!!

29. Currently reading: a short novella with psychedelic art called “the strange library” by Haruki Murakami

30. Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to be in: dragon ball Z, houseki no kuni and ghost in the shell

I’m too tired to tag people so do this up if you’d like!

[evolve2]

Height Headcanons!

We all know that the hunters are some pretty varied characters, height included, so I decided to try and settle their heights using their in game models. No screenshots this time, sorry. I couldn’t get any of the medics to sit still, but the camera positions when playing a character helped me get a rough idea. I’ll be posting my thoughts on why I decided on these heights under the read more!

(I also put a bonus rating on how I rated them on attractiveness)

Hyde, Parnell - 8′0

Torvald (Not including his artillery) - 7′9

Markov - 7′7

Bucket, Crow - 6′2

Lennox - 5′11

Lazarus, Abe - 5′10

Griffin, Maggie - 5′9

Hank, Slim - 5′8

Val, Kala - 5′7

Caira, Sunny, Emet - 5′6

Cabot - 5′5

Jack- 5′4 (He might still grow more, but not much)

The tallest of the hunters is Hyde and Parnell! A developer comment on Parnell tells us that he’s a whopping eight feet tall, and that Hyde is pretty close to his height in game, although Hyde’s wiki says that he’s also eight feet tall! I’ll take their word for it.

Parnell is a big, leading ray of sunshine. He can spearhead anything because not only is he charismatic, he’s also easy to spot thanks to his height. And he knows it! He has a big heart and this deep desire to protect his own, but at the same time, he’s a little sociopathic? His short story makes it seem like he has a bit of a cognitive dissonance between actions and people, and how they react. But that’s for another text post! Solid 8/10 (I love his jawline...)

Hyde is a bit of a weird one for me. I always thought he was a pretty average guy, he definitely struck me as kind of short when I saw his portrait picture, but no! He’s a giant, cockney sociopath. At least he’s lovable. (and that tummy?... I like it.) 6.5/10, I’m not interested in crazy flamers, thank you.

After them is Torvald, Markov, Crow, and Bucket! Torvald is taller by Markov by a few inches, and a few inches shorter than Parnell. I’d say that he’s 7′9, Markov is 7′7, and Bucket is 6′2. What’s up with all these tall guys around here?

Torvald. Oooh boy, yikes. The guy is terrifyingly tall, and has a glare that could make a Blitzer cower. Pretty sure his mechanical legs were modeled closely to his human ones. - 6.5/10 (Guys a bit obsessed and emotionally constipated. But hey, you gotta admire that devotion!)

Markov, the Martian Giant. He’s a genuinely good guy, but his quest to die in battle with glory is probably a red flag. This guy has huge protector vibes but he’s also... got a bit of a death wish. Steel is his language! 8/10 (Love the cybernetics though, and that physique?)

Bucket is HuangCorp repair and maintenance chassis, so he didn’t get to choose his height. He does, however, own it smugly. Nothing like staring down your enemy as you blast him to bits. - 7.5/10 (He’s a robotic AI, not that it’s gonna stop some people, but he’s gonna take a while to adjust to the whole romance and dating a human thing. Plus, he’s a sarcastic jerk and rather spiteful if you wrong him. Don’t get on his bad side. SERIOUSLY.)

Crow is tall, looming kind of guy, even if he doesn’t mean to. It’s just how he holds himself, hunched over, tense, that makes me think he doesn’t like being seen or heard. Too bad he’s pretty tall, though. 8/10. (I want to climb this man like a damn tree. Minus points for having the social awareness of a potato.)

After that we get into more normal territory. No more behemoths, although these ones are still tall by Earth standards. We have Lennox, Griffin, Abe, Lazarus, and Maggie!

Outside of her suit, Lennox strikes me as a tall, strong woman, and she definitely knows it. I can imagine her being rather slim and tall, just a few inches above Crow. She loves using it to her advantage to stare down Jack and pressure others into listening to her. And if that doesn’t work, she still has a four ton mecha to back her up. A conversation with Hank reveals that she is also cramped inside of it, so she must have some height to her. - 7/10 (I can appreciate a nice looking lady, even if she’s a bit on the older side. She’s a bit callous though, and changes out her men frequently. Careful! She knows what she wants)

I think putting Lazarus at 5′10 was a good choice, as he’s imposing enough for it to fit his haughty personality but also small enough he can hide behind the assaults and heal them up. Sneaky and lanky. - 6/10 (He’s not bad looking, but his personality really needs some work. He does prank and joke around, but you can tell his heart lies with thanatology, not romance.)

Maggie also strikes me as someone who’s taller than the average woman. She has long legs and really slim physique, a good contrast to her pet Trapjaw, Daisy. Gotta have some heft to you to be able to direct a dog like that around! - 7/10 (She’s got PTSD, is a bit brooding, but damn if she isn’t pretty and headstrong. She’s got the courage to keep going despite being afraid of the future. You’d have a hard time getting her to open up emotionally.)

Abe is average, but it does piss him off when Parnell likes to rest his arms on his head or make fun of him. Not everyone can be freakishly tall giants from a high-grav world. 7.5/10 (This guy is a charmer and he knows it, voice like honey and words of silver. Unless you want your heart broken, try to steer clear)

Griffin is an average fella, not that he brags or even notices. He’d probably say there’s no point measuring yourself when there’s always gonna be someone taller than you. What matters is how you act! - 6/10 (He’s a hunter through and through, and he’s a bit of a cynical guy due to his fame. If you want to serenade this man, make it good! And whatever you do, don’t mention the movies made of him.)

Slim, aptly named, is a thin, slender and slightly taller than average guy. Whatever he lacks in height he makes up for in fire. He’s seriously scrappy and sassy, big personality when fired up. - 7.5/10 (Slim has PTSD, and he’s a bitter, jaded old man. Watching his best friends die horribly will do that. But if you manage to get this guy to open up, you might just get the most loyal, loving person in the world. Self-esteem issues through the roof.)

Hank is a short-ish guy, more stout than he is tall. I get dwarf vibes from him, but he’s still a human. - 8/10 (He’s a gentleman, has a heart of gold, and despite his slang idioms and hillbilly accent, he’s also a genius. He’s also an open kind of fellow, but he does smoke and is probably looking for a long term relationship rather than a fling)

Val is an average woman, but don’t let that fool you. She’s all hidden muscle and sharp intellect. Her eyes, ears and trigger finger is probably sharper than anyone’s on the team. - 7/10 (She’s a spy man, and no matter how honest she is, that’s still going to be a big part of her. If you pursue a relationship with her, it will be on the run.)

Kala is a scientist first, experiment second, and a normal, human with needs last. She’s pretty average but makes up for her height with the power of SCIENCE! - 7/10 (She’s half monster, it’s not gonna be a pretty end to your relationship. But if you still want to chase this doctor at arms, then you’ll find someone who’s been shunning and smothering their feelings for decades. Soft-spoken and will probably cry when you say I love you.)

Caira is an interesting person, still taller than the average woman. She’s got some good muscle to her too, and her personality is really cheery and peppy. Don’t be fooled by a pretty face, though. She won’t think twice about napalming you if you piss her off. - 8.5/10 (She’s kind of mean and has no problem retaliating physically if it comes down to it. Big brain, big heart, but her high morals can make her come off as holier than thou. High energy kind of girl, and also I mean it when I say she’s smart. She constantly goes off on scientific rants, but that’s still really interesting. I love her. She infodumps just like me.)

Sunny is sunshine mixed with a hurricane. A whirlwind of energy, good vibes, and smiles all around. Engineering genius, but she has a few hidden sides of her that make her seem naive or stupid. She knows full well how the world works, and she’s determined not to let it bring her down. Solid 9/10 (She’s twenty one / twenty, and although that’s kind of young, she can still date. Very cute.)

Emet the medic, designed to be of average height and inspire a caring aura and protective feeling. He’s literally created to keep people calm! Real sweetheart, a little oblivious. - 8/10 for his good side. Bad side? 4/10. (The demon core would probably screw you so roughly you’d be limping for days. Not to mention Emet would probably be really shy in initiating a relationship, he’s sort of a man-child. Get past that, though, and you’ve got a nice, caring bf!)

Cabot is canonly referred to as being short, and I think 5′5 is a good place to put him at. I mean, average males can be pretty tall, so if he’s referred to as short, he’s gotta be noticeably short. - 10/10. (Literally husband material, was married, he’s handsome, he’s got a nice voice, own a ship. Biggest challenge would be trying to woo him.)

Jack is literally tinier than a pea. A rowdy, dirty boy. Scrappy puppy. Jackal at heart, even if he doesn’t know what one is. - No attractiveness rating for this guy, he’s too young! Still a little baby. (But from a young standpoint? Probably 8/10, maybe a nine if I knew what looked like.)

I got kind of off track trying to reason about their heights. They just struck me as fitting at the time.