#woody allen mention

[double-features]

CINEMA NERD - MAX COOPERMAN x READER

≽^• ˕ • ྀི≼ ------ max cooperman x gn!reader

SUMMARY : when a film nerd gets invited to the movies by their cutie patootie best friend, sparks fly. reader geeks out over the movie related stuff and max just falls more in love with them. <3

WARNINGS : none!!

GENRE : fluff fluff fluff SO MUCH fluff

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Thank God for Jake being the number one wingman. Without him, Max would have never even gotten close to wooing you..

That wasn't actually the case. At least, not yet. Max was only on step.. uh.. whatever, of his plan to have you fall head over heels with him. Having grown up going to all the same schools, he had always known you as 'that one person in that one class', but when you guys both hit high school, that's when it all changed.

You became hot, and he was just a boy! He couldn't help it at all. Max, the usually dorky and overly confident wannabe fighter, and you, who somehow became the prettiest person he had ever seen in just the span of a summer break, only became a duo after the handiwork of his best man.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

“You see that kid over there? Brown hair, slightly chubby, dorky shirt.. That's Max. He really likes you.”

“Pardon?”

“You should talk to him, he's a bit weird at times, but he's sweet.”

“..Okay?”

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

To this day, Jake still won't tell Max what he said to make you change your mind on him. Because after that day, you and him became inseparable. Whatever Jake said, it sparked a beautiful friendship between the two of you. Friendship, nothing more.

He learned everything about you, from the smallest details to every interest you had; the way you carried yourself and were so unashamed to be open around him made him feel special. He had seen you interact with your own friends before, but seeing you so up close and personal on a daily basis made him feel like one lucky son of a gun.

In fact, you even seemed to hang out with your original group of companions and started hanging out with his little group more; him, Jake, Baja.. And now, you.

Oftentimes you two would hang out at his house; that boy was rich, and his parents were barely ever home. Today was no different, you two were just curled up on one of the sofas, watching whatever shitty MMA movie Max picked out. You couldn't complain, there was something really heartwarming about him geeking out over his dorky interests.

There was a comfortable silence between you guys, until it was broken by Max speaking over the television. “Dude, you know what would be so awesome!?”

To which, you responded with the same amount of enthusiasm as he did, “What would be awesome?!”

“If we went on a movie date... I saw a trailer for this movie the other day.. It's that one new Woody Allen movie.”

That made you immediately perk up, but not the fact that he was finally asking you out on a date after all this time; no, because of the idea. “DUDE.. You might be onto something. Woody Allen is a sick director, he's made some real gems before. In my opinion, he is wildly brilliant in his abilities to dir--”

“So.. wait, just to be clear, is that a yes?”

“A yes to what?”

“Going on a date with me?” There was his awkward aura radiating off of him in that very moment. As much as he loved you rambling, he need an answer. He seriously hoped you to realize that this was an actual romantic date, and not just some hangout between friends.

Note, he still didn't know that you knew about him being totally enamored with you. So, in his mind, him asking you out on a date would be some big revelation for you to figure out he liked you.

“Well, obviously.”

“I mean, like, an actual date.”

“I knew what you meant, Cooperman.” You giggled and playfully rolled her eyes, the noise made Max's heart skip so many beats that he didn't know how he was still alive. Your unintentional cuteness was going to be the death of him one day.

He stared. You stared back. “And you're fine with that? Because I really like you and if you aren't actually serious about this I want to kn-”

“Oh! I already knew that.”

“You did?” And just like that, his heart felt like it dropped all the way to his stomach, while his face turned a noticeable shade of red out of embarrassment. Was he really that obvious? “How?”

“Jake told me, silly goose! Before we were even friends, he approached me and was like 'hey, my friend Max really likes you, you should talk to him', so I did. And I really don't regret it.”

So That's what Jake said.

“And you like me back?”

“Obviously I wouldn't have hung out with you so much if I didn't. And, obviously I wouldn't have agreed to a date if I don't like you back. You're really dense sometimes, you know that?”

“Holy shit!”

Just then, he started planning out every aspect of the date in his head. From what he would say to the subtle moves he would make during the movie, what he would wear and what snacks he would buy.. He needed this to be perfect! “So.. Meet me at the movie theater later? Around 7? That's when the movie's showing.”

“Of course! See you then!” You hopped up from the sofa and leaned down to press a soft kiss to his cheek, one to prove how absolutely serious you were about the date. You lingered by the couch for a couple seconds to gage his reaction, and proudly sauntered away once the heat rose to the place your lips were just seconds prior.

Woah. Max would either have to thank Jake for this later, or curse him out for being so straightforward about his feelings for you. Either way, it worked out well, so it would likely be the aforementioned.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

7 PM sharp, Max was already there. Actually, he arrived almost ten minutes before, just to give himself time to mentally prepare for the date.

At first, the dorky boy was going to go all out. Suit and tie and everything.. But then he called Jake, who laughed in his face and told him that he didn't need to try so hard; that you already liked him anyways. There was no need to try and impress you when you were already enamored with him.

So instead, he went with a pair of jorts and a brand new tee he had bought just for tonight. Just a plain white one, no cheesy print on it like usual. It was just the right amount of casual, not trying too hard, still being himself, but also not completely lazy. In his hand, he had a couple of hand picked dandelions, did he know that they were just weeds? Not at all. Plus, he didn't have time or money to buy you a real bouquet. It's the thought that counts!

When you arrived, you were met with the sight of him nervously swaying on the heels of his feet, looking around in every direction to search for you. When he saw you, he was in immediate awe. You were always so effortlessly good looking that it drove him insane, “Y/N! You look.. woah.”

Max was the one who would have this totally hot babe on his shoulder, nobody else, he pulled you. That was an absurd idea. Now, all he had to do was not make a fool out of himself, ask you out on a couple more dates, and finally be able to call you his own; easy enough, right? He caught himself staring for a bit too long and snapped back into reality once that thought kicked in, in an attempt to fix his mistake, he held out the sad little bouquet of dandelions.

You took them with a goofy grin plastered to your face, the way your eyes scanned over them with a seemingly ecstatic demeanor made him feel like he did something right.

Which, to you, he was already doing this entire thing right by taking you; the biggest film nerd ever, to the movie theaters. He knew you aspired to go into film when you graduated, and he really did pick the best possible option for a location to ask you out to, whether intentional or not. “Thanks, Max!”

“Anything for you, baby.”

Good God. There were so many things he wished he could've said in that moment, but instead he landed on quite possibly the worst option of the bunch. Just as he was about to fix himself, you cut him off with a squeaky chortle. “Baby?”

“Sorry, it slipped out, I didn't mean to,”

“Dude, no worries, I kinda like it.”

There was no denying the uncharacteristic behavior from him, truly, he didn't want to make a single mistake on this date. All the cocky dorkiness was replaced with a nervousness like no other. “Hell yeah! Noted! Soo, babe.. baby.. uhh, sweet cheeks, hot stuff, angel, babydoll--”

“Pushing it, Cooperman. You can only be so much of a Casanova.”

“--right, so, wanna watch that movie now? Trailers should be starting soon.”

You gave him a goofy grin, and he felt his heart flutter. Everything you did made him gravitate to you even more, even if you didn't even realize how absolutely precious you were to him. “Sounds awesome!”

With the confirmation, Max took that as his chance to (not so) subtly reach for your hand, lacing your fingers with his own as he confidently walked the two of you lovebirds inside. He was proud to show off a smoke show like you, he didn't even know how he managed to bag someone as angelic as his cinema nerd best friend.

Hand in hand, the two entered and were met with the overwhelming aroma of buttered popcorn, along with the smiling faces of ushers. A true movie paradise, you could practically break out into some big musical number over the feeling of being back in the theater after what felt like forever. Your eyes darted all over to look at the posters, subconsciously gripping onto the palm you held onto-- Max, on the other hand, was more focused on you and gauging your reactions.

He was totally doing this again one day. He was certain this is what love felt like, God, he had it bad for you. Max led you to the ticket booth and released the warmth he held onto, as much as he didn't want to, and instead leaned over the counter and whispered as if it were some massive secret what they were seeing. While he got to business, you began to wander around and look at the upcoming movie posters.

“Hey, so, between you and me.. You see that smokin' hot babe over there? What would be the best seats in the theater that are still open? I need them to have the best movie experience.”

The tired man who looked no older than thirty unamusedly eyed up where he gestured, and was met with a very awestruck version of you. Young love. You were so out of Max's league, yet here he was, getting the perfect date for you. “Depends on what you want to see.”

“That one Woody Allen movie that just came out. Y'know? I think it's called like.. Christina.. Vicky.. Paris? Or something like that. I don't know, man! I just saw a trailer and wanted to use it as an excuse to take her on a date!!” Max didn't even realize it himself, but this was probably the most panicked he had been over an event since.. like, forever!

“Jesus, calm down. Vicky Cristina Barcelona. There's a few good seats in the middle, you can either claim row F or row G. Take your pick.”

“F. I think.” Max reached into his pocket and pulled out some spare money he had so he could just pay and get it over with, so he could get to the date; he slid over a couple hundred dollars. “Keep the change.”

“Holy-! Overkill man! It was twenty dollars!”

“Keep it dude!”

“Alright. Damn. Enjoy your movie, I guess. Maybe don't be so nervous. You'll do fine.” Advice from a (usually) underpaid movie theater worker. Funny, Max went into this believing it would all be easy. But now? Now that he was actually on a date.. with you? He couldn't help but make a fool of himself.

But then he went back over to you and saw those big eyes of yours admiring a poster, and God, that mushy feeling returned. “You ready babe?”

“Maaaax!! We should see Burn After Reading after it comes out. It had Brad Pitt in it! And it's from the same dude who made Fargo! It'll be totally worth the watch,”

“Of course we can!” His response came before he even had the chance to think about it. “But, uh, are you ready or no? I just bought the tickets. I'll buy you whatever snacks you want.”

“Awe, thanks Max. I am. Some twizzlers sound nice. Ooh! And maybe some popcorn!”

Pure admiration in his eyes, he planted a hand on the small of your back and led you two to the concessions. He couldn't have been any more in love with you..

“Whatever you want, baby.”

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≽^• ˕ • ྀི≼ ------ reblogs & likes are always appreciated, keeps me motivated to continue creating :)

A/N : sorry for keeping you guys waiting for so long, finally got back to writing now that i dont have a pile up of missing work. i really like max yall

[phefics]

Alr not a request or anything but a very specific questions bc I'm confused, on ur blog aesthetic the first pic is a chick holding a sign saying "Woody Allen die bitch" what's that for bc I like his movies and idk about any scandals and idk if u chose that just bc of the aesthetic or that plus the fact that u don't like him and pls explain bc my ass is confused 😃

oh my god anon do u genuinely not know?? i'm not trying to be an asshole but i thought this was extremely common knowledge. the person in that photo is one of my favorite singers, ethel cain, and she has a shirt that says that so ppl started bringing those signs to her shows.

woody allen has a LOT of controversies around him but mostly the fact that he married his step-daughter, soon-yi previn, and has multiple SA allegations, specifically by his adopted daughter. you can read a vanity fair article about it here and a nyt article here.

[oyesteryells]

i just realized that when Hugh said he "looks like a celebrity" it didnt just mean Humongosaur, it also meant the fact he was a parody of Woody Allen... bruh..

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

In the final installment of honorable mentions, Woody Allen leads all directors with eight entries: Play It Again Sam, Alice, Shadows and Fog, Another Woman, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Small Time Crooks, Scoop, and Vicky Christina Barcelona.

[whitegownsandflowercrowns]

I’m reading the lawsuit now. I’m not sure. How can I tell if it’s legit vs lies?

Genuine thanks for this question and not just immediately assuming that she's lying.

Look, at the end of the day, none of us were there. The only people that know what truly went down are the people that were on that set (which is true of any lawsuit), but here's what's really convincing me.

First things first, Baldoni hired Melissa Nathan back in August to run his public relations (and this article even mentions the allegations that he made Lively uncomfortable). Nathan worked for Johnny Depp during his defamation trial against Amber Heard, and it has been found that a technique called "astroturfing" was used against Heard on social media during this trial. Astroturfing is defined as "the deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public." Basically, artificially creating hate or hype for a public figure but making it seem organic. If you remember the Depp/Heard trial, you remember how much social media seemed to turn against her. If you remember this summer, you remember how much social media seemed to turn against Blake Lively. The fact that the same public relations team was on the other side of both alleged smear campaigns is a red flag.

Second, the text messages that have been released between Baldoni and the PR team are, in my opinion, incredibly damning. One member of the team, Jennifer Abel, texted Nathan "I think you guys need to be tough and show the strength of what you guys can do in these scenarios. He wants to feel like she can be buried." Nathan responded "Of course - but you know when we send over documents we can't send over the work we will or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble. We can't write we will destroy her. Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands. You know we can bury anyone." Right below are some screenshots from the New York Times article:

Later texts also involve praise for this article

Now, is it possible that all of these texts have been faked? Of course. But they are also lengthy (I did not include all of them here) and considering what I mentioned above, unlikely.

Thirdly, I'm just considering who has more to gain from this. I will admit my own bias here - I've never bought the idea that women by and large make allegations to become rich or famous or to gain sympathy. Amber Heard is probably still one of the most hated women on the planet. Name five of Bill Cosby's accusers off of the top of your head.

But what does each party have to gain? If Baldoni loses this case and is found in the public eye to have sexually harassed the women on the set of It Ends With Us, that's probably the end of his career. As far as I know, he doesn't have the industry goodwill that Roman Polanski or Woody Allen or even Johnny Depp do, and he will most likely start losing acting and directing roles. If he wins, and the public decides that Lively is lying, his career won't be destroyed. It will almost certainly have been set back, and there will always be people who'll look at him differently, but overall he should be fine. He may even gain a new fanbase.

If Lively loses this case and is found to have been lying, her career is tarnished forever. She will undoubtedly be known as the "next Amber Heard," and she will lose out on acting roles. The taint may even carry over to her husband. If she wins, and the public decides that Baldoni did in fact sexually harass women on set, she will probably be fine. Like Baldoni, there will always be people who'll believe that she was lying, but she'll be overall fine. However, it's important to note that she had a third option: to not pursue this at all. If she chooses not to pursue legal action against Baldoni, both of their careers remain unimpacted. While there would still have been a negative public perception of her, it probably would have blown over eventually. A lawsuit and possible trial is much more permanent in people's memories. So to me, the fact that she's choosing to pursue this knowing what the outcome of her losing would be speaks volumes.

Finally, the fact that her lawsuit states that other women on set were harassed and felt uncomfortable. Again, could be a lie, but that is a lie that is very easy to disprove. And if the women who worked on this set testify that they never felt uncomfortable, that will permanently damage her case. It just feels like too much of a risk to play with if you're lying.

Of course, don't just take my word for it - do your own research, seek out differing opinions, etc. but those are my views. I hope they helped in some way!

[olderthannetfic]

really stupid post that was like "you can't tell neil gaiman will be a sex pest from his books so don't shame people but you can tell jkr will be a terf from her books" that mentions the "mannish hands" insult. and i just want to wonder like, how few books from before the last 10 years these people read if they really think that it's some skeleton key to future terfdom as opposed to a fairly common way then (and still!) to call women ugly. like, plenty of authors who have since come out as pro-trans rights have stuff in their books. if you need a creator whose works reveal something about the terrible person they ended up being, there are no shortage of them (might i suggest woody allen?) but j.k. rowling is just always such a stretch. nothing she has in there isn't like incredibly common in other children's fantasy, and what sets her apart is that she dug in her heels rather than try to do better in the future. but there's also just the fact that while she might have held transphobic beliefs in the way a lot of straight cis liberals did in the early 2000s, she herself has made it clear that her interest in this grew over time over the past few years. in other words, she was radicalized and relatively recently. i'm not sure how the harry potter books can reveal something that started happening around a decade after she published the last one.

(also, from what i understand, there IS stuff in gaiman's books you can read that way if you want to. but i don't think doing really bad faith readings of everyone's books is going to make us better at identifying future rapists or bigots)

--

[kvetchlandia]

Mariel Hemingway, Woody Allen, Michael Murphy and Anne Bryne, Screenshot from Allen's "Manhattan" 1979

I don't generally go to Woody Allen for political advice, but with the horrors of American political reality increasing by the day; with His Imperial Highness, Generalissimo, Field Marshall, Dear Leader, Duce and Defender of the Cult, Trump I, increasingly wreaking havoc on the pathetic remains of American civil society; with the government more and more resembling an autocracy ruled by dictate rather than by law and with the literal beginnings of Trump's brownshirts, the racist, antisemitic and violently reactionary Jan 6 putschist wannabes pardoned by their leader and ready to do battle for him on the streets, I keep flashing on Germany in 1932, when the nazis could still have been stopped had the Communists and Social Democrats ended their short-sighted political squabbling and joined together to fight their common enemy, the nazis. They didn't, and we all know the history that followed, a history in which most of my family died in murder camps, through starvation and illness in ghettos or from being shot by einsatzgruppen death squads. This is where Woody Allen comes in. In his 1979 film, Manhattan, there's a tiny yet brilliant little piece of dialogue during which Allen's character, Isaac Davis, mentions the only appropriate way to interact with nazis.

Isaac Davis: Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? Y'know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together, y'know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them. Party Guest: There is this devastating satirical piece on that on the Op Ed page of the Times, it is devastating. Isaac Davis: Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point.

[youremyheaven]

The Severity, Spirituality and Stoicism of Saturnians ✊🏼🧎‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️

I will be criticizing Saturnian men throughout this post, if you don't like that, stop reading right now <3

Saturn is the planet of karma, justice, discipline, and order. In Claire's video about Saturnian men, she observed that "in Saturnian men you will find an exact duality contained here in breaking rules and doing strange stunts, pranks and having outbursts etc but also paradoxically find themselves submitting to ideologies, cults, political parties, motivational affirmations etc"

I feel like I touched upon this a bit in my first post about Saturn and in this post I'd like to go into different manifestations of this tendency along with some other things I've observed with Saturnian men.

Timothee Chalamet, UBP Moon

Full disclosure, I've never liked him lmao,, I think the hype he gets is undeserved and 90% bc of the fact that there is a dearth of young charismatic actors in Hollywood.

But anywayyys, Timmy Tim first attracted controversy for working with Woody Allen even though he's since expressed regret for it or whatever,, then he received flak for having sex in a pool during the height of the pandemic and manyyyy blinds about him giving women chlamydia 💀💀started making the rounds and he was lowkey exposed for being a whore

Then last year he drew criticism for smoking indoors at a Beyonce concert (where smoking is prohibited) and he's literally talking to Kylie and blowing smoke ??? at the same time?? which is sooo filthy?? who tf does that??

His silence on the Armie Hammer issue and pretty much all issues lol have also been criticized. Everybody thought he'd be some woke liberal activist but he's just been dead quiet and pretty self absorbed the whole time. He loves to lap attention and give absolutely nothing in return to the community.

The thing with Saturn however is that, bad behaviour does not go unpunished. Timmy Tim has been getting A LOT of flak and the total rose tinted obsession people had with him is slowly fading (even tho he still has legions of fans). People are now starting to see his true colors.

But anyway, this is a very minor issue compared to all the other Saturnians I'm going to mention next.

Jeffrey Epstein, UBP Moon, Anuradha Rising

I'm assuming most of you are familiar with sex offender Epstein. He has trafficked thousands of underage girls over the course of decades and to satiate numerous high profile paedophiles.

He committed suicide while in prison. One thing about Saturn is that, if you stray, are immoral, unfair, undisciplined, corrupt, foul, evil etc it WILL punish you. The truth is Saturnians know deep down that what they're doing IS wrong, they're not like Moon dominants who are completely convinced their corrupt evil idea is a "good" one. Saturnians know full well what they're doing and they do it anyway and they suffer its consequences.

Inviting Saturn's wrath upon oneself is basically how these natives find "balance", they feel like they get away with too much and they're constantly pushing their limits to see how far they can go before this wrath comes for them.

Epstein had been doing this for decades without much consequence, working with extremely high profile people including politicians and royalty. Eventually, he was caught and the truth of his immorality was exposed for all to see AND he ended his own life.

Salvador Dali- UBP Moon

Dali was known for being an eccentric and a weirdo and you can say that the way he pushed his boundaries as an artist is a more "positive" manifestation of Saturnian individuals and their need to test limits.

However, Dali was also a pretty messed up guy

Dali admitted on several occasions to having sadomasochistic tendencies. As a child he enjoyed throwing himself down the stairs, explaining that “The pain was insignificant, the pleasure was immense”. Shockingly, he once pushed his childhood friend off of a 15-foot bridge – as his friend lay injured, Dali apparently sat calmly eating cherries.

Pleasure and pain seemed intimately entwined. Dali wanted both. One other childhood incident of note included a wounded bat. It was kept in Dali's washhouse hideaway and stayed there overnight. When Dali returned to it was being devoured by a mass of ants. He impulsively bit into the seething mass delirious with pleasure. 

I had briefly mentioned how Saturnians tend to be sadomasochistic in my previous post about Saturn and these examples just confirm it further.

When he is an adolescent a girl falls desperately in love with him. He kisses and caresses her so as to excite her as much as possible, but refuses to go further. He resolves to keep this up for five years (he calls it his ‘five-year plan’), enjoying her humiliation and the sense of power it gives him. He frequently tells her that at the end of the five years he will desert her, and when the time comes he does so.

When he first meets his future wife, Gala, he is greatly tempted to push her off a precipice. He is aware that there is something that she wants him to do to her, and after their first kiss the confession is made:

I threw back Gala's head, pulling it by the hair, and trembling with complete hysteria, I commanded: ‘Now tell me what you want me to do with you! But tell me slowly, looking me in the eye, with the crudest, the most ferociously erotic words that can make both of us feel the greatest shame!’ Then Gala, transforming the last glimmer of her expression of pleasure into the hard light of her own tyranny, answered: ‘I want you to kill me!’

He is somewhat disappointed by this demand, since it is merely what he wanted to do already. He contemplates throwing her off the bell-tower of the Cathedral of Toledo, but refrains from doing so.

George Orwell once described Dali this way:

"The two qualities that Dali unquestionably possesses are a gift for drawing and an atrocious egoism."

Art historian and critic Brian Sewell has also claimed that Dali once asked him to lie naked in front of one of his sculptures and masturbate whilst he watched.

He was also obsessed with Hitler in a perverse way.

While the vast majority of the Surrealist group professed far-Left political leanings, Dali kept curiously quiet during his early career, before being kicked out of the group for being a Nazi sympathiser, which he denied. Dali went on to make artwork addressing the Hitler, including “The Enigma of Hitler” (above) and “Hitler Masturbating”, once detailing that he “often dreamed of Hitler as a woman” and that the Nazi dictator “turned [him] on”.

He was a big old fascist who also supported the Spanish dictator Franco which made Picasso stop talking to him for the rest of his life. Orwell who fought in the Spanish civil war called Dali a "disgusting human being".

At age six, Dalí writes in his autobiography, he pre-meditated a "terrible kick" to his three-year-old sister's head "as though it had been a ball." Not simply childish not-knowing-better, this baseless cruelty continued as Dalí got older.

Here is an article that says more about his shitty behaviour.

Here is another article about his fcked up relationship with his sister

Saturn never fails to punish tho. It will let you fck up but punishment is imminent.

Dali died in his 80s, almost penniless, completely alone, as he had driven all his friends off decades prior, his wife had already passed and he was seriously ill and bedridden. He used button to call his nurse and one day that button short circuited and set him/the bed on fire. He suffered second and third degree burns all over his body. He lived for another four years in severe pain before passing away.

Just because you go a whole lifetime avoiding punishment, does not mean it isn't coming. People who suffer in old age have it the worst because you suffer 100x more

Dali was a Saturn defying narcissistic, violent, abusive person and guess what Saturn did? It saved it all up for the very end and left him without any kind of mercy. Friendless, penniless, bedridden, in excruciating pain, FOR YEARS until he finally died.

Saturn punishes you/is a harsh teacher because it wants you to uphold the Saturnian qualities of virtue, justice, fairness, doing your duty etc, you may never see the rewards of your good actions, so it may feel like a waste of time to keep being so principled but if you decide to just do whatever and disobey, you best believe Saturn will come through with that wrath. You have to keep being virtuous and morally upright even if you don't see yourself being "rewarded" for it. No one may recognise your goodness but keep being good anyway.

Alexander Graham Bell, Venus in UBP in 2h, Saturn in Shatabhisha in 1h

He is the guy who invented the telephone but he was also a very controversial deaf educator in his time.

Bell's father was a teacher of the deaf. His method of teaching the deaf was coined "Visible Speech." Bell's mother was deaf/hearing impaired and he would often speak to her by placing his mouth close to her forehead, believing the vibrations from his voice would help her distinguish speech more clearly.

Although he married a deaf woman, a former speech pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell strongly opposed intermarriage among congenitally deaf people. Bell feared "contamination" of the human race by the propagation of deaf people even though most deaf people statistically are born to hearing parents.

Bell applied his study of eugenics to his goal of preventing the creation of a deaf race and presented his paper Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race to the National Academy of Sciences in 1883.4

Bell stated, "Those who believe as I do, that the production of a defective race of human beings would be a great calamity to the world, will examine carefully the causes that will lead to the intermarriage of the deaf with the object of applying a remedy."

In this paper, he proposed to reduce the number of the deaf by discouraging deaf-mute to deaf-mute marriages, advocating speech reading and articulation training for an oral-only method of education, removing the use of deaf teachers and sign language from the classroom.

Suggestions were made to enact legislation to prevent the intermarriage of deaf-mute people or forbidding marriage between families that have more than one deaf-mute member. His preventative strategies for deaf marriage included removing barriers to communication and interaction with the hearing world.

I feel like Saturnians often have a tendency to subconsciously make things harder for themselves and for others. Getting things easy is not Saturn's style. And this can manifest in sooooo many different ways. Bell grew up with a father who taught deaf people/children, his mother was deaf, he married a deaf woman YET he believed that they did not deserve to have separate schools that used communication tools specifically designed for them to make their lives easier. He spent his entire life working with deaf people but still somehow did not want things to be easier for them???

Steve Jobs, UBP moon

He had a pretty stellar reputation for being a major asshole. He was an extremely difficult person to work with and often terrorised his employees and was a toxic vile asshole to the women he dated.

Jobs was given up for adoption by his parents and later in life, he abandoned his girlfriend and baby after he got her pregnant.

His daughter Lisa later said that her mother felt uncomfortable leaving her with Steve alone after an incident in which he questioned and teased the then-nine-year-old Brennan-Jobs about her sexual attractions and proclivities.

Once, as Jobs groped his wife and pretended to be having sex with her, he demanded that Lisa stay in the room, calling it a "family moment."

It is well known that Steve Jobs was really good at conceptualizing things and coming up with ideas (touch screen phones, macbooks, iMacs etc) but he lacked the technical expertise to build anything. His partner, Steve Wozniak was the actual brains behind all of the creations to put it simply.

Early in his career, Jobs worked for the game developing company Atari who promised him a bonus of $5000 for developing a game called Breakout. Jobs did not have the know-how to execute this, so he made his friend Wozniak who worked at a different company stay up all night for 4 nights to design this whole ass game. He gave him $350 for it and told him he was giving him half of what the company paid him. Wozniak only found out much later that Steve basically stole his ideas, used him AND gave him a paltry sum as compensation.

Before Apple went public, Jobs refused to give any major shares to the many many developers and engineers who played a crucial role in pioneering the company. Wozniak gave those employees HIS shares so that they could make a profit when the company went public.

I'm not going to detail all the ways he tormented his employees and staff. You can google it.

Eventually, Saturn's karma started kicking in and Jobs was fired from the company he founded and for 10 years, he had to stay away from Apple. This experience humbled him a bit.

Apple really suffered in his absence and they brough him back in 1997 and we all know the kind of groundbreaking work he did in the next decade there. (hint: iphones, ipods etc)

In 2011, he found out he had terminal pancreatic cancer and resigned from his position and died 6 weeks later.

He refused to get surgery and chemo and chose "alternate treatments" until his disease had progressed so far that, there was no saving him.

He would eat a single thing and only that for weeks. Like apples. He'd eat only apples for three weeks. He was convinced that made him superior to everyone else and that it made him have no body odour, so he never showered either. This made it really hard for others to be around him.

Now back to his daughter, he was incredibly abusive to Lisa. She said she was forced to move home over 13 times before age seven as her mother struggled to pay the bills through a series of cleaning positions, while Jobs, then already a multi-millionaire, refused to help.

During one visit she innocently asked if she could be given his Porsche after learning the flashy vehicle had a scratch and needed to be replaced. His scowling response shocked Lisa, then aged seven.

“‘Absolutely not,’ he said in such a sour, biting way that I knew I’d made a mistake,” she remembers. “I understood that perhaps it wasn't true, the myth of the scratch: maybe he didn’t buy new ones. By that time I knew he was not generous with money, or food, or words; the idea of the Porsches had seemed like one glorious exception. I wished I could take it back. We pulled up to the house and he turned off the engine. Before I made a move to get out he turned to face me.

“‘You’re not getting anything,’” he said. “‘You understand? Nothing. You’re getting nothing.’ Did he mean about the car, something else, bigger? I didn’t know. His voice hurt—sharp, in my chest.” (an excerpt from her memoir 'Small Fry')

Saturn may delay punishment but it will punish and whether or not you learn from it, is up to you. Some individuals are not very malleable and they suffer the most. They make the same mistake over and over again and never learn. Steve died of any entirely preventable disease but he refused treatment. He was in excruciating pain towards his end and was completely bedridden. He expressed regret about not having gotten treatment sooner but :/

It's really scary how your karma catches up with you. Its the worst when it comes for you and leaves you with no time to remedy anything, so you just suffer agony knowing there is nothing you can do.

Woody Allen- Anuradha stellium (Sun, Mercury & Jupiter)

He molested his step daughter Dylan Farrow and is currently married to his former step daughter from the same marriage Soon Yi.

There has been a lot of misinformation regarding him molesting Dylan as a child even though the fact that he is literally married to one of his stepdaughters should be reason enough to suspect him

 Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.

 Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police. Instead, he took one from someone hired by his legal team. The Connecticut state police refused to accept the test as evidence. The state attorney, Frank Maco, says that Mia was never asked to take a lie-detector test during the investigation.

(Here is a link to the full article)

But again, Saturn's karmic lessons come through. Numerous actors have refused to work with Allen, he has been publicly condemned, lost all his reputation during #MeToo Actors such as Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth, and Mira Sorvino have recently apologized for accepting roles in Allen’s films, while many of his most avid fans have turned against him.

Johnny Cash, Rahu in UBP in 1h

Johnny was a drug addict and very abusive to his first wife. He creepily pursued June Carter while he was still married and despite her rejecting him MANY times, he did not give up. She was in a financially unfortunate position and he gave her the opportunity of touring with him, which she had to take up to make ends meet and finally in front of a live audience, he proposes marriage to her and basically forces her to say yes.

They remained married for 50 years and died within a year of each other so idk if they had a happy marriage or a troubled one but the Saturnian persistence was coming thru.

Cash's whole life is super Saturnian. His career came to a standstill in the 70s after a stellar decade long run in the 1960s, all throughout which he was abusing drugs.

In the early 1980s, Cash had eye surgery, broke several ribs, and damaged a kneecap, all on separate occasions, and again became addicted to pills. He was hospitalized in 1983 with internal bleeding that almost killed him. Upon regaining strength, he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic and remained clean until his death.

In 1994, after a looooong period of zero hits and chart play. He collabed with Rick Rubin (the GOAT) and then released a number of successful albums until he passed away in 2003 and from 1997 onwards he had been struggling with autonomic neuropathy and was frequently hospitalized.

Its interesting to me how between 1954 to 1973, Cash was undergoing his Saturn mahadasha and this period brought him enormous success and also made him completely addicted to substances. In 1965, he started a forest fire that burned off 500 acres of forest land and killed 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. When confronted about it, he said "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards".

From 1973-1990, he was undergoing his Mercury dasha, and this was a very low period in his career as he suffered major setbacks.

As he's sobering up at the Carter's family ranch, he's walking along a path. One of their ostriches is standing in the path. Well Cash thinks to himself "Hell if I'm moving" and tries to move it, so the bird starts trying to headbutt/peck at him, so he swings a punch at the bird, it responds by splitting his goddamn abdomen open with it's talon, from top to bottom. (he said the only thing that stopped the talon was it got stuck on his leather belt and couldn't go further). So he's laying on the ground, and grabs a branch (or an old fence post, can't remember) and starts beating it from the ground until it runs away.

Its interesting how his major highs in life were during his Saturn MD (He has Saturn in Uttarashada in 11h) and his biggest blows came during his Mercury MD (he does have Mercury in Shatabhisha in 12h 😬).

Mercury is not an inherently difficult dasha the way Saturn is. But what we sow, we shall reap. Saturn gives you 19 years to get your shit together and if you don't really learn during this period, it gets on your ass long after that. Jennie from Blackpink ended her Saturn MD in 2019 and some of her career's biggest moments have come since then but so have the controversies (she's currently in her Mercury MD) and it's as though the lingering after effects of the Saturn dasha really dictates how we experience our Mercury dasha.

Winston Churchill, Anuradha Sun

In 1943 in Bengal, over 3 million people died due to starvation and Churchill was directly responsible for this.

Churchill deliberately ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers and even to top up European stockpiles, meant for yet-to-be-liberated Greeks and Yugoslavs (all of this happened during WW2 for context)

He basically said, this is none of my business. Even though millions of Indian soldiers fought for the British during WW2 and were British subjects until India gained independence in 1947. Also btw India was the biggest contributor to the Empire's GDP. they looted and plundered us and left us to starve, basically.

In the book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, written by Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill was quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. 😡🤬😠he was a racist imperialist pig to say the least.

Some people are Churchill defenders and genuinely believe that the Bengal famine was a necessary sacrifice to win the war, and that those who critiqued him were unfair and had little insight about WWII. Aka: the colonized are expendable in a war between essentially imperialist, genocidal and fascist states. And they can kiss my ass.

To Indians, Churchill is a Hitler-like figure and rightfully so.

"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Winston Churchill to Peel commission in 1937. 

Here is a thread that elaborates the many fcked up things he did.

When I talk about how cruel, brutal and callous Saturnian men can be, this is what I mean. Saturn restricts, limits and binds. This can easily mean Saturnians subject themselves and others to unnecessary rules, restrictions and limits.

Steve Jobs thought he was superior to others bc he only ate one type of food for weeks and months. Just because someone has discipline, does not automatically mean its good to have it. Free range parents can suck because they dont protect you or shelter you but disciplinarian parents also suck. Both Jupiter and Saturn struggle to learn "balance".

An unevolved Saturnian will be stingy af, very partial, biased and ill mannered. They act like cave men.

Churchill struggled with his mental health his whole life. He referred to it his “black dog:” fits of melancholia that followed Churchill throughout his life and often left him bedridden, suicidal and unshakably depressed for months at a time. It may sound cruel to say poor mental health is "karma" for his actions. (He also suffered 7 strokes and the final one, killed him). But the ways in which we are punished are often not materially obvious??? We may see terrible people thrive but often they are really suffering on the inside. Saturn often punishes by depriving you of peace of mind :/

Thomas Alva Edison, Anuradha Rising

In 1884, Nikola Tesla moved to New York City to meet Edison, who was famous for his low-voltage, direct-current electricity. Tesla believed the higher-voltage alternating current electricity was superior and suggested creating an AC-powered motor, but Edison claimed it was too dangerous. Instead, Edison promised the recent immigrant $50,000 (over $1 million today) if he could improve upon his DC generators, or “dynamos.”

After toiling for several months and making significant advances, he returned for his reward, only for Edison to say, “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” Tesla quit—but the bullying didn’t stop there.

George Westinghouse had purchased Tesla’s patents and became the pioneering force behind AC power and its widespread implementation. Edison, who was ideologically and financially invested in his own DC power, began a publicity campaign against AC power. The campaign was ruthless; he wanted to prove that the high voltage of AC power was too dangerous for public use, so he and his cohorts began publicly electrocuting animals—stray dogs and cats, cattle and horses, and even, notoriously, “Topsy” the elephant. (you can hate me for pointing out how unevolved Saturnians abuse animals all you want but it will not stop it from being true<333)

The story gets worse. Edison was asked whether electrocution was a humane method of execution. In reply, he claimed that with Westinghouse’s AC power, it was indeed a humane and reliable execution. Westinghouse of course tried to prevent such an association, but Harold Brown, one of Edison’s employees, was hired by the state of New York to build the first electric chair. Obviously, he used AC power.

The execution—the first use of the electric chair—took place on August 6, 1890. AC power proved neither reliable nor humane. The first, 17-second-long charge failed to kill the man, an alleged axe murderer; after waiting for the generator to recharge and amping up the voltage, the next charge at last brought an end to the horrible, 8-minute long ordeal. Westinghouse, disgusted, reportedly said, “They would have done better with an axe.”

For his last two years, a series of ailments caused his health to decline even more until he lapsed into a coma and died at the age of 84.

Bo Burnham, Venus/Jupiter/Ketu in Pushya and Anuradha Rising

He does have a reputation for being a dick but I wanted to mention him because I think his sense of humour is VERY Saturnian. He has this tendency to humble his audience and its super Saturncoded to me. Like his whole shtick is serving you with a reality check in a slightly condescending way which is extremely Saturnian.

He often makes "ironically" misogynistic jokes or whatever and its laced with that Saturnian bitterness except he's slightly self aware I guess.

Aziz Ansari, Venus & Mars in UBP and Jupiter in Anuradha

Tbh other than the fact that his stand up comedy routines are hella lame, I dont really have much dirt on him.

However, he did sexually assault a woman in 2018 and nobody has heard much from him since tbh. I guess its an example of "instant karma".

Mads Mikkelsen, Anuradha Sun conjunct Ketu

Mads aka the man who made a career out of playing the bad guy

This isn't about Mads but about his most well known role, playing Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal imo is very very Saturncoded

 He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel Hannibal, he "prefers to eat the rude". Hopkins described Lecter as the "Robin Hood of killers", who kills "the terminally rude".

Saturnians are either extremely refined or very unkempt. There is no in-between. You can always tell when someone has an imbalanced Saturn influence based on how disorderly, messy and chaotic they are.

In the novel Red Dragon, the protagonist, Will Graham, says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham says "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, (👀) but he does not exhibit any of the other criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responded, "he's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell."

Hannibal embodies the disciplined, orderly conduct of an evolved Saturnian along with the cruelty and harshness of it.

Charlie Puth, Anuradha Sun & Mars

half of this guy's discography is about how he hates women from LA. He literally has one song called "Nothing But Trouble (Instagram Models)" and it's just about how instagram models make problems. He has another song called "L.A. Girls" about how women in LA are fungible. It's like yeah maybe instagram models do suck but no one made you date them??? 

These are lyrics from the song LA Girls:

"There was Nikki, Nicole, Tiffany, and Heather But there's only room for you in my world But you say that I changed like the east coast weather How the hell did I get caught up? Messin' with these LA girls"

When I tell you the Madonna-Whore complex runs DEEP with Saturnian men. They will fool around with you and think of YOU as "cheap" for doing so and fall for the girl who never gives it up. The double standards of Saturnians are 🤮🤢

They will get frisky and frivolous with you and judge you for it :/

Woody Harrelson, Pushya Sun, Anuradha Moon

When I think of unkempt Saturnians, I think Woody Harrelson lmao

While filming in London in 2002, Harrelson found himself at a bar when two women approached him. According to the actor, the women asked if he wanted to "take a walk on the wild side." To which Harrelson replied, "I guess I do." A third woman joined in the fun, and the foursome returned to Harrelson's accommodations and enjoyed what the outlet described as "whatever-happened-next." Unfortunately for the Rampart star, "a paparazzo was able to snap a photo that soon hit the tabloids." The worst part — his then-girlfriend and future-wife Laura Louie saw these photos in the press. This "led to a good bit of groveling on Harrelson's part," and the couple worked past the incident.

I think I have noticed about manyyyy Saturnian men is that they often have enabler wives who put up with their shit + encourage it. Steve Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell was like that. Steve was such a perfectionist that he did not even buy furniture for their house and yk what?? she was okay with that lol and they remained married until his death even though literally everybody who has ever known him describes him as an asshole.

Woody Allen's still married to Soon Yi who is also entirely defensive about him. Same goes for Harrelson's wife I guess. How on earth does someone work past a foursome??? wtf

"I used to go to bars and fight the guys I thought were bullies. I've got scars everywhere," he revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. His fighting ways continued even after becoming a famous actor. Like when he once punched a reporter and claimed he thought the photographer was a zombie. 

Saturnians never beating the abusive rumours 😩

On a different note, I've noticed how many Saturnian musicians make sad boy music with a ✨spiritual essence ✨

Sufjan Stevens is a UBP Moon

This is from a 2015 interview:

"I still describe myself as a Christian, and my love of God and my relationship with God is fundamental, but its manifestations in my life and the practices of it are constantly changing. I find incredible freedom in my faith. Yes, the kingdom of Christianity and the Church has been one of the most destructive forces in history, and there are levels of bastardization of religious beliefs. But the unique thing about Christianity is that it is so amorphous and not reductive to culture or place or anything. It's extremely malleable."

Tamino, UBP Moon

He said in an interview:

"We like to look at religious texts from all over the world, [and] they always share a lot of similarities. That's not because they necessarily influenced each other, it's more that our inherent experience as humans comes out through storytelling. It's awesome. So that's something that's really interesting: the story that we need to tell. And the stories that we tell will always survive longest. I think it sort of gives them a higher truth, a metaphysical truth, which makes religion quite beautiful to me. You don't have to necessarily believe in every little thing that's described in a book. I'm not a practicing believer—not in the classical sense. But I do have faith. I think a lot of people have faith without realizing [it]. Even waking up and starting your day, we all have like these little acts of fate throughout our lives without even noticing."

Hozier- Anuradha Moon

Faith is a big theme in their work and their lives and I feel like they are some evolved Saturnian men who have embraced the stoic spirituality of Saturn and poured it into their creativity.

In one interview, Hozier described Quakerism as a doctrine which taught him during childhood “to look for the God in each person” and “the spark of the divine that’s in every individual.” In particular, Hozier seeks this spark in his lover.

Its interesting to me how all 3 of them use religious metaphors often to speak of love because the ultimate form of love is devotion and Saturnians who have transcended the grips of limitations imposed by Saturn understand this more than anybody. They know what its like to love like their life depends on it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pushya Sun

Many Saturnians love to talk about working hard and kicking ass. Arnold is one of them, although I will say his preachiness comes from his Punarvasu stellium lmao

Arnold is a good example of a man who has worked very very hard and abided by every Saturnian principle to climb the ladder to the top. Yet he cheated on his wife with his housekeeper. He however did not deny paternity of the son he fathered with her. He has also expressed his regret about cheating and how he lost his marriage.

Kim Kardashian, UBP Moon

She came under fire for her comments about "get your ass up and do the work" but honestly it's just Saturnian tough love

Kim is a good example of someone who has turned every single setback into a career opportunity. She is a true hustler. Obviously she's extremely privileged yada yada yada but she was Paris Hilton's assistant at one point and was at the bottom of the ladder. In 20 years she's built a fortune for herself and her family. Like, if it were Kourtney in Kim's place 🤡they wouldn't be where they are rn. Kim is a worker and its hard to deny that.

Rose- UBP Moon

In her interview with Vogue Australia, she said:

“I ended up fighting for my life, training for my life. Because I couldn’t accept the fact that I’d just be cut and sent back, so I had no time to slack off. I remember I took every minute and every second to work on my craft so that I [could] make it,” 

“When I got [to Korea], I was like, ‘This is quite intense,’” she said of the early period of training. “I notice[d] that there [were] 12 other girls who had been training day and night for about five years. And I had just gotten there.” She feared that if she didn’t catch up to the other she would be cut and sent back to Australia, where she’d already told her school friends that she was dropping out to work on her music. "

“I [had] left and I didn’t want to fly back [to Australia] without having achieved anything,” she said of her worry at the time. “And I think it was a good drive. Just the fact that I had flown all the way from Australia gave me more strength [and] determination to strive.”

Hardworking Saturnians ✊🏼🙏🏼🧎‍♀️making the most of that Saturnian determination and reaping its rewards OOF

[markrosewater]

Hi Mark, a long time ago you mentioned a story about (I think) Woody Allen casting for an role similar to a noted actress and, having trouble finding one, eventually just went "well, why not just use that actress?". Can you recall the details? I'm having to use that anecdote at work a lot and I wish I could remember who you mentioned...

The story is they were casting for a Woody Allen film (Crimes & Misdemeanors, I believe) and one of the parts was listed as "a Daryl Hannah-like actress". Daryl Hannah saw this and said to her agent, "Can you get me this part? I'm a Daryl Hannah-like actress." Her agent submitted her and she got the part.

[i-prefer-the-fictional-world]

Hi I'm the Anon that mentioned Blake's link to Allen and Weinstein

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/blake-lively-woody-allen-cafe-society-working-907665/

https://betches.com/blake-lively-controversies-plantation-wedding-harvey-weinstein/

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/12/27/how-blake-lively-once-complicated-her-advocacy-against-hollywood-predators/

The issue is people are not willing to see that she did not simply have empathy for the victims excusing her behavior saying "there is no perfect victim" not realizing how dangerous that isAnd saying her career could ruin don't you think the multiple actors and actresses supported the victims were also risking their career by speaking up?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41580010.amp

And now even though there are rumors it is interesting to note that even "reportedly" Taylor is also distancing herself from Blake.

Hi Anon. It is so not pleasant to see you again.

First of all the hollywood report link you sent me is the wrong link. This is the right link.

Second the quote is about Harvey Weinstein not Woody Allen.

Third I knew. I knew, I knew I KNEW that, that quote you sent me, that Blake said 'that was not my experience with him" was taken out of context and guess what? It was.

Blake did technically say those words but she also said that

"I think that if people hear these stories... I do believe in humanity enough to think that this wouldn't have just continued"

And

"I never heard any stories like this - I never heard anything specific - but it's devastating to hear"

And

"As important as it is to remain furious about this, it's important to also say that this exists everywhere so remember to look everywhere. This isn't a single incident. This cannot happen, this should not happen, and it happens in every single industry."

She also talks about how sexual assault is normalised and she has had plenty of things happen to her, like say if a director grabbed her butt she wouldn't think it was sexual assault even though it was. She talks about how important it is that we are furious about sexual assault and that we stay furious and that we don't just focus on these few stories but on humanity as a whole.

Honestly reading this article makes me sympathize with Blake even more.

I am not surprised that the ant* Blake camp is taking that one singular line out of context and are just running with it. Because that line implies that Blake doesn't actually believe Harvey Weinstein's victims when it's absolutely not true.

The reason I believed from the start that, that specific quote was taken out of context is because it's normal for reporter to ask 'this person has done these awful things, have they done something like this to you?' and it's normal for person responding to say 'no that wasn't my experience but I believe the allegations against that person.'

I haven't actually looked that much into Blake so when people said that she likes Weinstein I didn't go fact checking if it was true or not, because even if she does I was still very much going to Believe her. But from what I've read it doesn't seem like she's all that fond of him.

Anon I'm going to take a guess as to what happened here. You got sucked into tiktok/youtube wormhole of drama bait anti Blake content where no one does their due diligence and everyone is just looking for anything and everything they can find to use against Blake. So when I asked for source about the Woody Allen quote you went looking for a credible source and found the betches article which was published in January 2025 after this "drama" started which tries to take the quote out of context from a 2017 article when the allegations against Weinstein were first made. The betches article also regurgitates all of the smear campaign talking points because they even come to the actual point. I think you don't like Blake Lively and you went looking for "valid" reasons to justify how you feel.

The 2017 article is titled - Balke Lively on Harvey Weinstein claims : "it's devastating to hear". Gee I wonder why. Also the terrible Flaa interview where they talk about liking Weinstein's work was from 2016, the allegation against him became well known in 2017. And even though she does not say in these exact words it's very clear to me that Blake Lively wishes that allegations against him would have come out/became well known sooner.

And finally about Taylor Swift. I've been a Swiftie long enough to know better than to believe 'Taylor hates her friends!!!' headlines. I'm going to talk about that in detail later but Baldoni's team does not want Swifties on Blake's side hence these rumors. But let's pretend for a second that it's actually true and Taylor is keeping her distance from Blake. What does that prove? Amber Heard has talked about how the smear campaign against her affected her friendships and how her close friends who stood by her started keeping their distance from her because of how the media portrayed her. And then you see something similar happening to Blake Lively and think hmm Blake is clearly the problem here? Are you serious?

I'm not going to respond to asks like these anymore because they are just a massive waste of time. Anon I hope you have a terrible day for wasting my time.

[brian-in-finance]

Instagram

•••••

•••••

WHAT THE STARS ARE SAYING

Check out why so many famed actors use Backstage

Trusted since 1960

Founded in 1960, Backstage has a storied history of serving the entertainment industry. For over 60 years Backstage has served as a casting resource and news source for actors, performers, directors, producers, agents, and casting directors.

Over that time, Backstage Magazine has also appeared on numerous TV shows, such as “Mad Men,” “Entourage,” “Glee,” “Oprah,” NBC's “Today” show, Comedy Central's “@Midnight”, NY1's “On Stage,” and “Saturday Night Live,” as well as multiple mentions on shows like “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” “Girls,” and appearances in films such as “13 Going on 30,” the Farrelly brothers' “Stuck on You” and Spike Lee's “Girl 6,” and even a mention in Woody Allen's short-story collection “Mere Anarchy” and Augusten Burroughs' novel “Sellevision” – and Backstage has received accolades from multiple Academy Award-, Emmy-, and Tony-winning actors and directors. (Plus, the hit musical “The Last Five Years” even includes Backstage in its lyrics: “Here's a headshot guy and a new Backstage / Where you're right for something on every page.”)

CAITRÍONA BALFE

ACTRESS

"I still get Backstage emails 'cause I still subscribe to Backstage. [Backstage is) kind of the Bible in the beginning, which is amazing. Samuel French and Backstage go hand in hand, you know? You go there for your plays when you're in classes, and then you get your Backstage."

Backstage 1

•••••

Brian’s Note: The following story originally appeared in April 2015. Most recent update is December 2020.

The Gorgeous Determination of Caitríona Balfe

Caitríona Balfe is on the move. That's been true most of her adult life— especially the 10 years she was modeling for Victoria's Secret, Dolce & Gabbana, and others—but as she sits on the rooftop patio of a West Hollywood hotel in mid-March, she mentions that she's pulling up stakes from Los Angeles.

"It just feels silly to have an empty place for 10 months until I figure out what I'm doing with my life," the Irish-born actor says. "I've rented the same place for the last four years and now I have to give it up." Her apartment is being razed to put in condos, but her departure from L.A. is extra poignant considering this is the city where Balfe journeyed when she decided to put aside that successful modeling career and focus on the vocation she'd always wanted: acting.

Photo: Luc-Richard Elie

"I've moved so much since I was 18," she says. "I mean, l've lived so many places. New York, I lived in for almost eight years [while modeling], and that's been the longest of anywhere since I left Ireland. But L.A. is where I came and said, 'OK, this is what I wanna do with my life.' "

She refuses to think of her move as a permanent one, though. "I'll be back," she declares, "but it feels really sad. My little apartment, it's got so many memories."

Balfe's sadness is no doubt mitigated by the fact that part of her need to move is due to the precipitous rise in her fortunes. She'll soon be flying to Scotland to shoot the second season of "Outlander," which returns to Starz April 4 to conclude Season 1.

When last we saw Balfe's Claire, the resourceful British nurse who comes home after World War |I only to be inexplicably teleported into the 18th-century Highlands, she was half-naked with a knife to her breast. Don't worry: Claire will get out of that scrape, but more perils await-to say nothing of the emerging multi-era romantic triangle developing between her, the Scottish warrior Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), and her 20th-century husband, Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies), who wonders where she's gone.

Based on the much-beloved Diana Gabaldon novels and developed for television by "Battlestar Galactica" rebooter Ronald D. Moore, "Outlander" is an ostensibly lush period-piece-within-a-period-piece drama that's consistently richer and thornier than its romance-novel trappings suggest. And much of the credit goes to Balfe, who had managed small parts in films such as “Super 8” and “Now You See Me” before landing the central role in this adaptation.

In person, Balfe is far less imposing than the steely Claire, who has to weather the dangers of being a woman in sexist, violent Scotland in the 1740s. Cast late in the preproduction of “Outlander”—Moore has mentioned in interviews how hard it was to find the right Claire—she didn’t have time to consider what the role would do to her life. “I’m so bad on social media," she confesses on this warm afternoon, nestled underneath a cabana. "I had set up an account on Twitter maybe a year or so before I got this job and had, I thought, a lot of followers — 250 or something, and most of them are my friends. Within about a month or two, it was thousands of people — and my phone, I didn't know how to turn off the alerts, so it was just going all the time. That was the beginning of the awareness."

Growing up in the small Irish community of Monaghan, Balfe had considered acting from an early age. ("I was devastated that I wasn't a child actor," she says, smiling. But after traveling to Dublin to study theater, she changed course once she received an offer to model. It wasn't a secret passion of hers, but who turns down a trip to Paris? "My parents felt that I should finish college," Balfe recalls, "but l'm slightly headstrong, so l took their advice and I completely ignored it."

Over the next decade, she lived in France, Italy, Germany, and Japan, her modeling inexperience hardly a detriment. "You'd be amazed how little information or training goes into it," she says. "When I first arrived in Paris, I was told to take a bus to the office. I left my suitcase — I barely spoke any French — and someone took me across the street, helped me buy a Carte Orange. They printed out five addresses that I had to go to that day, and then they sent me off." She still remembers at 18 riding the subway alongside 16-year-old aspiring Russian models, who knew no French or English, homesick and sobbing their eyes out. "That was just the way it was," says Balfe. "You become pretty tough. When I went to Japan, it was similar: They would drive you to their castings, but the minute you got a job, it would be like, 'Here's an address, here's a map. Good luck.' They don't have signposts in English in Japan, so the map and the address are not always very helpful."

Hear Balfe recount her early misadventures in modeling and you can't help but think of Claire, who's equally thrown to the wolves once she arrives in the 18th century amid people wary of the English in general and assertive women in particular. "Honestly, l've been in so many situations in my life where you just are completely displaced," Balfe says. “You have to adapt very quickly and figure it out. I definitely think that informs Claire a lot. It helped me understand her."

Did moving to Paris at such a young age teach Balfe that she can cope in any circumstance? "I think I didn't really realize that until many years later," she replies. "I have a great knack of not thinking about things and just going for it. You learn the hard way sometimes that you're able to get through, but sometimes it's quite tough when you're in a situation where you don't know anyone and you're trying to find your way around cities. But if an opportunity presents itself and it seems like a good idea, l'm just like, 'OK, let's do it, then I'll figure it out.'”

The decision to reconnect with her acting ambitions was conducted just as boldly. Ready to quit modeling, she moved to Los Angeles because a writer she was dating lived there. He was the only person she knew, but she had read a Vanity Fair interview with Amy Adams in which she said she trained with Warner Loughlin. "I could walk to that place from my ex-boyfriend's house," she says, "so l was like, 'Well, I'm gonna go there because I can't really drive. I started from scratch. I didn't have any managers, I didn't know any agents, I hadn't acted in almost a decade." But she just kept taking classes, moving from Loughlin to the studios of Sanford Meisner and Judith Weston. "I think when I first got here, I had a nice little air of delusion: 'It's gonna work out,'" she says with a laugh. “You just don't know how."

And then came "Outlander." By email, Moore admits that he didn't know Balfe's work until her audition tape came unsolicited to his office from her agent. Once she was chosen for Claire, he made it clear how demanding the job would be. “I told her in our first meeting that this was going to be an even bigger responsibility and workload than the normal TV lead," he writes. "Because the story was being told from Claire's point of view, Cait was going to be in every scene, every day for months, which is an extraordinary amount of work, far beyond what most actors are ever asked to do."

Moore's warning didn't faze Balfe. Writes Moore, "After she met with the president of Starz... and it was clear that she was going to land the role, I walked her to the elevator and just before the doors closed on her, I said 'Your life is about to change forever,' and she gave me a grin that was both thrilled and slightly nervous. I never saw her hesitate after that."

She's never hesitated before. As Balfe prepares to say goodbye to L.A. (for now, she thinks back to her early days in the city, trying to convince casting directors that she was more than just a model. "I went on many, many, many, many auditions that were Hot Girl No. 2 — you wanna shoot yourself," she says, laughing. "But, you know, I'm very lucky that l was even getting those auditions in the beginning. And it toughens you up. At least for me, to have that fuel to prove people wrong—it definitely spurs me on and makes me wanna work harder." Then she smiles conspiratorially. "And shove it to them."

Backstage 2

Remember… I told her in our first meeting that this was going to be an even bigger responsibility and workload than the normal TV lead. — Ronald D Moore

[terrence-silver]

I saw your reblogged post about overly-involved girldad!Terry, and while I love that, I'll raise you Terry Silver and his adopted (or not) baby sister

After he leaves for the military, his mom and dad took in a kid who needed help. Terry doesn't find out about her until years later and he becomes instantly obsessed. His baby sister is his and his alone. He knows her better than he knows himself and is so grossly intertwined with her every waking move.

How much do we want to bet it does become matrimonial in the end?

Because hey, there's no actual blood relation at hand and it's technically not unethical (not that something being unethical ever stopped Terry before) but he could very well become one of those people out in Los Angeles and Hollywood who have an adopted sibling or family member they marry at one point (in lieu of the grossness of, for example, Soon-Yi Previn and Woody Allen), because, why not? His parents acquired his sister for him and that would be pretty much be the only and closest thing to family we'd ever see him have, so who's to say he cannot? No law against it and even if there was...you throw enough money at a law and it's no longer a law and by extension, no longer a problem. Not to mention his adopted sibling owes him. Owes the generosity of his family. Owes him and them for all the benefits. All the privileges. All the cushy living. All the everything. And since nothing's for free it only stands to reason that they repay him with their devotion and love. And no, nobody can have them but him. Because nobody gave them as much as he did, so, for all Terry's concerned he has literal legal and moral ownership over them; right there, in the documents. There's Silver next to your name and that's a literal chain that attaches you to his side forever. Becomes one of those relationships where you aren't certain if that's Terry Silver's relative you're looking at, a sibling, a once-upon-a time companion and childhood playmate, a significant other, his lover or his wife because if there were any boundaries in place they were blurred a long, long time ago.

Heck, if his parents bring home this person while he's still in the overseas, in the war, he might just show off their picture and introduce them as an arranged marriage fiancée waiting for him back home because that's the way he'd see it, tactically skipping over the part where that's his adopted sister legally speaking; it isn't a loveless thing, no, no. He'd see this no differently from John's affections for Betsy. But, much like his company, his family's money, his wealth --- Terry inherited, or will inherit his spouse-to-be so it's only a given they're his. He just came to be with them differently than ordinary couples. But then again, Terry Silver was never meant to be ordinary, was he?

[fagsex]

i will never be over the twiggy being interviewed by woody allen "whats your view on serious matters / who's your favorite philosopher" little clip like EAT HIM ALIVE GIRL . her years later saying how she was just a young girl (17) and he was intentionally embarrassing her like HE WAS AND YOU KILLED HIM. SAY THAT. not to mention what a dumbass question "whats your view on serious matters" whatttt do you mean. she even says "like what?" and he cant even answer that so he switches over to the ever stupid and purposefully rude "who's your favorite philosopher" and she is honest and admits she doesn't know many, and then flips it back on him so succinctly and politely and looks and sounds so sweet while she does it and he flounders like a fish and says some dumbbbbb shit like "well theyre all good" when you can barely name two that get along with each other lile philosophy isnt a dusty moshpit and then to top it off she giggles. you can hear his ears turn red. ugh i love it so much they should replace the national anthem in schools with that clip from like kindergarten age onwards

[dorksidefiker]

I've mentioned my Black List a few times in the last couple days, and I've decided to ramble about it a bit more about it because I can. The list is actually multi-tierd -- a Black List and a Grey List, if you will. The Grey List tends to be reserved for people who've continued to work with or spoken in open support of people on my Black List. Anyone who works with Roman Polanski or Woody Allen is on the Grey List for the next five years -- I won't spend money or watch new projects of theirs. People fall off the Grey List faster if they express contrition or walk back their idiocy. The harder they cling, the more likely they'll be moved to the Black List. And then there are The Exceptions. Peter David is, for personal reasons, on my Black List (to the best of my knowledge, he's not a monster, but he IS a shithead), with exactly two exceptions: Babylon 5 and the highly unlikely event that Space Cases ever sees a DVD release. I'm not likely to be spending money on either of these properties again, since I have the B5 DVD set, but his contribution to the series is small enough that I'm willing to let it slide. The same is true when it comes to Scarlett Johansson (grey list) and Transformers One. There are two ways off the Black List: Genuine Repentance along side efforts to make amends, and Death. And even then, Death is no guarantee that I'll ever willingly interact with their properties again. No force in the universe is likely to get me reading anything by Marion Zimmer Bradley again, for instance. Gaiman is probably gonna end up in the Not Even In Death pile.

[lindszeppelin]

It's the typical internet response that all men are trash and all women are the victims in the break up.

That is the mentality people have towards Austin and he hasn't done anything wrong. Vanessa and Kaia are not fucking prizes either. In fact, Austin can do better than both of them.

Vanessa is not a nice person. There are many fan encounters of her acting like an entitled asshole. Not to mention her covid comments and she supports Woody Allen. She loves attention and drama. By the time Elvis came out, she was irrelevant. She hasn't done shit in the industry since HSM. So her being known as Austin's ex was giving her the clout she was desperate for.

Kaia is a spoiled nepo baby who seeks out older man. But nobody is ready for that conversation. She's 23 years old and has dated 3 men years older than her. Nobody finds that odd? But Austin is the creep?He was good to Kaia. She's the one who as fucking around with other men and women and being a complete mess.

Austin isn't obligated to put a ring on someone's finger because they've been together a certain amount of time.

Funny how the internet wants to villainize Austin because he likes to commit to a woman long term. That's the point if dating. If it doesn't work both parties will move on. Vanessa moved on very fast from Austin. Austin didn't date again until 2021. Kaia will have a new man by next month.

Anyways, Austin is a humble, good man. That's rare in Hollywood. He'll be known for his acting career. While Kaia will only be known for her messy dating history. Vanessa, it's 2025 no one cares what she's doing.

Totally agreed and well said! And I will just also say that K and V truly have a lot in common when it comes to their personalities...the only difference is that she loved Austin for real in their relationship and he truly loved her in return. But I guess scorned exes will always reveal their true character at some point.

[deadinthefoam]

Hero Worship, Terrible Artists And Thursday

Trigger warning; this blog/essay contains mentions of sexual violence, racism, ableism and homophobia. Please keep yourself safe.

-

Recently, I've had a bit of a detachment phase going on.

Realising that your heroes aren't perfect is a very natural, and important, part of maturing; no matter how well put together somebody's image might be, no person is incapable of making a mistake, or doing something “problematic”. Notes app apologies seem to have become a staple of online culture, when a celebrity's old tweets resurface about some miscellaneous topic, and the swift hammer of chronically online twitter — oops, X — users falls down to determine whether this person is “good”.

Of course, when the topic is serious, concerning racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexual assault etc., I find that saying we should “cancel” these people shows the trivialisation of serious issues in online spaces. Though, I suppose the concept of an angry mob is something that’s been in our society for a long, long time, so it harkens back to our primal instincts of justice. That being said, you can't “cancel” anybody; rich people find their way back to the top and move on 99.9% of the time, and all we can do is watch. This is the hellscape of capitalism (late stage, if we’re going to be specific). And it is frustrating beyond all words, so we have giant campaigns to seek some kind of catharsis, hoping we can get this person beaten with virtual sticks. The internet is often a lawless place, so we create our own type of karma.

What helps us in our quests, naturally, is the fact that all information can now so easily be dropped into our laps. A quick google search is all you need to find out somebody’s achievements, and their greatest “flops”. Exposé articles and think pieces are ready for us to consume, mull over in silent discomfort, before at the end, there’s the unexplainable dread that we now have to come to a conclusion about all of this, by ourselves; there is no definitive authority on this subject, no great philosophical statement, because, as we are constantly reminded by the snot nosed critics, “art is subjective”. Suddenly, after being metaphorically waved off by the high brows, who declare us too unimaginative to understand the genius of Woody Allen, we now have to decide the morality of a piece of work, or person. We are inexplicably burdened by our love for art.

My mother once told me that “all knowledge is good knowledge”. I don’t really consider my knowing of Johnny Depp’s sexual abuse of his ex-wife to be particularly “good”. My knowledge becomes a dead weight. Clair Dederer, in her book ‘Monsters: What Do We Do With Great Art By Bad People?’ [2023], (which I took quite a few cues and good takeaways from), put it best: “Biography used to be something you sought out, yearned for, actively pursued. Now it falls on your head all day long.”

Because of this, I see that the backlash from fans against a public figure can be more vitriolic than most — these are the people who actively seek out those biographies, and delve deeply into them. Of course, you have the adamant defenders, but there's something oddly heartbreaking about the fury of an ex-fan, who found such value in somebody's work, perhaps deriving a piece of their soul from it, only for the creator to do something they find to be unforgivable.

The most recent of this phenomenon, and possibly the most impactful to me personally, I've found, is the case of Neil Gaiman fans, and how his countless sexual assaults have left much of his audience feeling deeply betrayed. I have seen countless fans, or perhaps ex-fans now, speaking about how his work inspired them, made them feel safe despite the world not wanting them — only to be told that, just like so many other rich, white men, Gaiman took advantage of his power, and inflicted unforgivable trauma on many young women. Discussions of death of the author are rife; separation of art from the artist begins (if it can begin).

Full clarity here — I was never a big fan of Gaiman, not to say that makes me better than anyone who was. I do label myself as a nerd, so perhaps not being very familiar with his works makes me a poser, but I was aware of his significance in comic book culture. He was one of those acclaimed figures that people would talk about online as though he were a modern day God, praising his writing, his activism, and all around “good vibes”. I read “Coraline” once, was vaguely impressed by it, and then moved on. That didn’t make the news of his crimes any less jarring to me; many people who I met through online spaces who were fans of his are absolutely heartbroken, and the backlash felt so personal, so devastated, that in a strange, twisted way, I am intrigued by it.

How can we be so emotionally invested in people we don’t know?

Trust is very rarely a two way street when it comes to the artist you like (though it can be possible). We truly don't know anyone through our screens, no matter how hard we could try to. The outpouring of grief over somebody you don't really know is both something irrational yet rational. You are mourning a person you've only seen a speck of; because artists do put a part of their soul into their work, and if you look for it, you can see it. People grasp that with both hands, find meaning in it, and use it to find strength in themselves. That is something vulnerable, intimate — if you choose to kill the author, after they commit some heinous crime, do you kill a piece of yourself?

What I'm trying to get at here, is that relationships between artists and their audiences are fraught; parasocial, if we're going to use that word (whole nother box of worms). Going back to my first statement, I have been going through a process of carefully detaching myself from the artists I enjoy, so I save myself at least a part of the humiliation and heartbreak in case something awful comes out about them. It's a self preservation tactic based on suspicion, that isn't new. And I am not immune to it. Nobody is.

With great effort, I’ve pulled myself away from Shirley Manson, from Chappell Roan, from Jarvis Cocker, from Anthony Green, from Paramore, from My Chemical Romance (efforts still ongoing here — MCR is a terribly easy band to get attached to). Now I attempt to see things objectively, so I don't have to feverishly hope and pray that none of the artists I love have sexually assaulted a child. I'm aware I sound horrifically cynical.

That being said, the band Thursday from New Jersey will always be perfect to me.

No, no — that's wrong. Hold on.

I know Thursday cannot be perfect, because I will always stand by the philosophy that nothing is perfect. Yet, I have the most trouble detaching myself from this band. It's a bit of a twisted cycle, I will go through phases of completely cutting away any personal strings I have to the artists, and yet inevitably I return.

Probably part of the draw is the golden retriever-like charisma of lead singer Geoff Rickly, who's very vocal on his Instagram stories, and is very open to talking with fans. I'm one of those fans, occasionally asking questions in direct messages, or sharing artwork, though I'm sure I'm incessantly irritating. I find Geoff oddly comforting, as a person I maybe could have been — musically gifted, friendly, and able to make good connections with people. Instead, I sit alone in my small room at university, having dropped most of my musical interests in favour of a law degree that I'm not entirely sure I want to do. And I know I'm young, in comparison, I still have (in my opinion far too much) time left; but the existential dread isn't easy to cope with. I have to make decisions that I feel I am wildly unequipped for, in a world that clearly does not want me. Geoff exudes a kind of warmth and openness, which makes me feel as though maybe I can be as content as him, eventually.

The rest of the band are active on social media, each bringing their own unique personalities. Tucker Rule, the drummer, is the most frequent poster, sharing almost every concert he does (which is a fucking lot, considering his position in LS Dunes as well), as well as a few sweet posts about his family. Stu Richardson, bassist and producer, is relatively quiet, but his few words count just as much as anybody else's, and his handprints are all over their new single's (White Bikes) slick production. I definitely found a sense of safety in the band, after I listened to a podcast between Geoff, Steve Pedulla and Norman Brannon, the two guitarists, and found that queer people in hardcore was, well, something that existed.

And the fandom provides warmth as well; a strange mix of older hardcore guys, and younger, mainly gay and/or trans fans, who create a space which is marginally more accepting than probably every other fandom I've ever been in. Then, just as I was furious about none of my favourite musicians speaking about Palestine, Sudan and the Congo, Geoff Rickly calls on stage almost every night for an end to the genocides in each of those countries, and rags on US imperialism.

It's glorious. It's all I've ever wanted in a band.

It's fucking scary.

Because now, what do I do if these people ever disappoint me? How should I proceed? Should I burn my baseball cap that I got from their website and paid extortionate shipping fees for? Should I toss my Thursday albums in the garbage? The CDs that Geoff so kindly signed, after following their concert in London during summer, I utterly blew my chance to meet him and had a panic induced meltdown in front of their tour bus?

(I still feel embarrassed about that.)

All that pain, all that grief, and hatred, and love — where does it go?

Fuck if I know.

Instead, I'd like to perhaps posit something new. Detaching from your heroes is good; but a full disconnect is usually impossible. Perhaps we should find new things to explore, new ways to fall in love, get heartbroken by, and move on from. This is just the human experience, to love and to lose, and to move onwards; not everybody in the world is going to disappoint you, despite what the cynics may argue. We are not naturally selfish and cruel. Not to bring politics into things, but those traits are normalised under capitalism.

At a point, you realise that the artist who has done something terrible is not one of a kind. They are one of many; sexual assault, in the case of Neil Gaiman, is something that occurs so often among rich, high status, powerful men, that it is normalised. Neil Gaiman seemingly did everything right, he was an ally to the queer community, he was a “feminist” by all accounts, and yet here we are. But I find that putting any more effort into someone like that, who wears the face of a good person, to be tiring and not something anyone should go through.

It will take time, but I feel as though a mild detachment is necessary, for yourself, and the artist, because you can have trust both ways, through a sense of mutual understanding. You don't realise you have something until it's gone, how fandoms mourn their favourite creators when those creators step away from fandom and social media entirely (and for good reason!) and leave us behind; like Alan Moore, Gerard Way or Ryan Ross. Their (public) biographies stop — we are no longer privy to their lives. And who are we to tell these people what they can do? Fame is a terrible thing, most of the time, yet it’s a tragedy that we keep having to learn, every time a young artist passes away.

Funny how it takes somebody dying for us to pull together.

So, I’m going to keep being annoying about Thursday, milk that youthful naivety, until I grow up a little more. I’m going to keep making my silly portraits of band members, because I know the day will come where I will have to put my paintbrush down, and permanently trade it in for a keyboard and court documents. With age, I expect that some things will not affect me as deeply as they do now, and I will understand my idols as I become closer to their age. I will learn to distance myself, with time — but I can still care. It is never a crime to care. Love is a burden I will gladly shoulder for a little while more.

I don’t want to wade into faux deep talk, and get in over my head, so I’ll wrap things up now.

Maybe I've been completely pretentious this entire ramble. Maybe all these words mean fuckall in the grand scheme of things, someone’s surely thinking “we have bigger things to worry about”, and I don’t disagree. So, I'll leave you with this: be kind to yourself, fall in love with new art. When the artists you love disappoint you deeply, scream “fuck you”, with righteous rage and sadness — cry and feel. Write that think piece. Burn a book if you want to.

But do not ever give up on yourself for trusting somebody. You still have love to give to those who better deserve it, and your love is worth so much more than you can ever imagine. Love is neither rational, nor logical, but it is real.