#and like do they (celebs) have to explicitly say they just want to be left alone in order to be treated respectfully/normally?

[p-redux]

Weekly Summary October 20, 2023

Hi peeps, lots of stuff happened this week, so I'm going to do my weekly summary instead of individual posts or answering individual Asks. This is a LONG one, so grab a drink, and dive right in for: Ringgate, Sam and the City, and Sam and open letter and follow up statement. Also, starting tomorrow, I'll be off for the weekend, my man surprised me with a trip away to the beach before the weather starts to cool down.

Anyhooo, let's start off with something light. #ringgate. For different reasons some fans get verklempt when Sam wears jewelry, and panties definitely get twisted or wet, depending on who you are, when Sam dons RINGS. Sam wore the 2 rings he's been wearing lately during his appearance on Jimmy Fallon a few days ago. Sidenote: Samshine is EXTRA Samshiny is in this pic. Say what you want about him, but the man is BEAUTIFUL 👇

So, of course, Extreme Shippers are convinced Sam is "finally" wearing his wedding rings because he's married to Cait. Um, one small problem, Caitriona Mary Balfe is already married to Tony McGill. Some Non-Shippers get excited to see him wear rings because maybe it makes them think of when Sam WILL get married. There is something about a man wearing rings. I find it sexy as well. But, alas, these rings are on the right hand and Scottish people wear wedding rings on the left hand. Also, Sam's definitely NOT married to anyone since we've seen him linked to several women lately.

For the people who had doubts the copper looking ring is an Oura ring, it definitely is. Here is what the two rings most likely are. The silver one I'm told by some of the Team is 👇

And here is the Oura ring he's wearing, most likely in Rose Gold. It's basically a ring with a computer in it to keep track of physical stuff, the way a fitbit or Apple watch does. Seems EXACTLY like something Sam would wear 👇 So, let's put #ringgate to rest now, please.

On to WHERE in New York had Sam been hiding. Everyone thought he had left and that his recent appearance on Jimmy Fallon had been taped earlier, until we saw THIS fan pic with him. 👇

My New York sources said he had not been seen at his usual hotel The Crosby. I'm putting out the name now just because EVERYONE knows that's where he stays in New York. He used to stay at The Bowery Hotel, but the last few years it's been The Crosby. None of the usual pic and autograph hounds got pics with him, so we assumed he wasn't staying there. All those hounds have contacts at the different hotels and restaurants frequented by celebs, so they would have been alerted to Sam staying there. Soooooo, if he wasn't at The Crosby, BUT he was in New York, THEN the possibilities are. He's aware too many fans know he stays at The Crosby, so he's switched hotels. Or he decided to rent an Airbnb instead. Or he stayed with friends. Or he does have a lady friend in New York, like some think, and he stayed with her. Who knows...but I'm sure we will find out...

Onto more serious matters. I'll preface this by saying I have made it a policy on my blog to NOT talk about anything political and to also not talk about any world events happening, which are upsetting. This blog is my escape from real life. So, I want to continue on that path. But I'm making an exception this time because based on the DMs an Anon Asks I'm getting there is some confusion as to why Sam posted this message on his social media. I just want to give people some clarity on it. And them move on. So, Sam posted this. 👇

It was in response to Sam and other mostly UK celebrities signing an open letter asking Israel to cease fire on Gaza, and explicitly claiming Pro-Palestine sentiments. If you click below, you will find an article on it and then keep scrolling down and you can read the actual letter. That's the letter Sam signed. A few days later, he clarified his feelings and regretted signing it because it doesn't represent fully what he meant. 👇

Here's the thing the history of Israel/Palestine is LONG and COMPLICATED. And most people haven't done enough research to know it fully. Most people go by sound bytes they see as they scroll social media. Or they give in to confirmation bias based on their political party, nationality, ethnicity, religion, affiliations etc.

I'm not going to get into the specifics because all of the information is easily accessible if anyone TAKES THE TIME TO RESEARCH AND READ THE HISTORY, both of Israel and Palestine...with an OPEN MIND.

The reason Sam got himself in trouble with signing the open letter and then the subsequent damage control message is that he didn't take the time to do his research. In extremely simplistic terms: Most of the UK, and in fact, most of Europe has traditionally been Pro-Palestine (except for European Jews, of course). The U.S. has traditionally been Pro-Israel and are allies. Up until recently that is. Due to the divisiveness in the US since the Trump era, Conservatives (Republicans) in the country became even more Pro-Israel, which then meant Liberals (Democrats) had to be the opposite. The rhetoric that Israel was the oppressor and Palestine was the oppressed grew louder. You had to pick one or the other. You couldn't take a step back and look at the history of the Jews being oppressed pretty much since Moses kept trying to get back to The Promised Land aka modern day Israel and Palestine. Or the Palestinians also being oppressed and their lands shrinking year by year.

The Jews have always been fucked over throughout history. And the Palestinians have always been fucked over, but especially since 1948 when modern day Israel was created. So, then, TERROR GROUP, Hamas decides, we're gonna fuck you over, Israel, REALLY BADLY, and engaged in some of the worst atrocities in recent times. No matter what anyone's beliefs are, when you saw what Hamas did (I'm not going to write the details because it's a horror show we all already know about) EVERYONE in the world should have said "Not today, Satan, not today," and DENOUNCED their savagery.

Hamas is NOT the Palestinian people, Hamas' ONLY goal is to terrorize and destroy. First the Jews, then their allies. Look up in the sky if you're in the US, one day a missile will be coming your way if they aren't stopped. After Hamas committed their savagery, Israel, understandably attacked back. They defended themselves from TERRORISTS trying to literally annihilate them. That was NOT the time to chant Free Palestine or write Free Palestine open letters. Just like after the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement came to the forefront in the US, but you had people countering "All Lives Matter!" Yes, all lives matter, but RIGHT NOW we're focusing on Black Lives, ya dopes. Breast Cancer awareness month. But what about Lung Cancer, Colon Cancer, they're important too?! Yes, but JFC, FOCUS people. Should Palestine be free from Israeli occupation, should they have more land? OF COURSE. But when the world SAW what Hamas did to HUMAN BEINGS, regardless of nationality or religion, the ONLY thing that should have been chanted is "DESTROY HAMAS." Hamas fucked things up for Palestinians, not just Israelis. And because of Hamas' actions, now Palestine is getting destroyed by Israel. And then Hamas will counter attack. And it will go on and on. There should be NO sides. There should only be ONE side, the HUMAN side.

So, when celebs seemingly "pick" a side, especially without considering the repercussions, they will get pushback. I love Sam and he's a good man, but he missed the mark on this one. Not through malice, but rather, naivete and ignorance. By cosigning that letter he didn't realize he wasn't simply signing a Pro-Palestine letter, he was simultaneously signing an Anti-Israel letter, Anti-Jews letter. And the reality is he alienated his Jewish fans, his more US conservative fans, his more centrist fans, assorted other fans...and I'm just going to state facts...he forgot WHO runs Hollywood, has always run Hollywood, and will always run Hollywood, including people who run Starz, as well as WHO are some of his agents, and publicists, hence the "better late than never" damage control quasi apology.

If you're wondering about MY stance: I feel badly for the Palestinian people and I feel badly for the Israeli people. There, that wasn't so hard to say, right? You CAN be Pro-Palestine AND Pro-Israel aka Pro-Humans. In the end, ALL HUMANS want the SAME basic things: food, clean water, shelter, safety and peace for their loved ones. To pick sides is to say that one set of people is more important than the other. And that can't be true. It isn't true. I pick the Human Side. Simple as that.

*big long sigh* Okay, peeps, you can leave comments, but I'm not going to answer them because I'm TIRED now. Also any hate comments, antiSemitic or antiPalestineMuslim comments and they will be deleted, and you will be blocked.

I'll check in later today. And then I'll be off until Sunday evening. Of course, still feel free to DM me and send Asks. I'll answer when I can.

Peace, people, PEACE.

[aermageddon]

I'm curious, do you think baekhyun was shading anyone when he said 'don't make too many celeb friends' as advice on star diary the other day? i thought he just meant like in general but i'm seeing lots of speculations it could be taehyung or ravi shade and idk?

baekhyun never says anything without 100% having an agenda behind it. like right off the bat I want you to know that - as a baekhyun stan - he is completely aware of the way his fans take every word he says and cling on to it and he is also aware that the deeper meaning behind what he says will be probably analyzed by most fans. out of every member he's the one that most often uses that power to set a public narrative/turn an opinion around/do damage control/speak on another public matter he very well can't do explicitly. working in pr and stanning baekhyun is a full time job cause most times i am left reeling thinking about why he said it and how he intended that to work over his audience lol.

anyway all that prelude is to say yes I think when baekhyun said "don't make too many celebrity friends" he was shading the industry but not targeting one idol specifically. I think he did it for two reasons: the main explicit message and the subtextual hidden one.

my guess is the main explicit one is obvious which is: he gave a 16 year old idol who has just started out her career a very wise and common sense piece of advice she actually really needs to remember if she wants to make it in this industry for the long run. I think it came out of a genuine place of caring because people will try to get to you in order to further their own agendas. and since being predatory towards young female idols is so prevalent that advice is twice as important for eunchae

my guess for the subtext hidden message in his very pointed comment probably has to do with a) the way sm mediaplay has been trying to smear exo's image since the lawsuit and how most if not all celeb friends who appear to be close to them didn't lift a finger to defend them, b) the whole bts book bullshit and armys once again jumping to talk shit about exo when no names were dropped - if you remember I already talked about how bts and exo were actually friendly back in the day until bts decided to capitalize on the self victimizing narrative and let their fandom paint exo and other idols as their bullies, and c) to a less probable extent kai's enlistment and the whole ravi thing. i'm less convinced on this last point because we simply can't know how much ravi's situation influenced kai's plus they haven't been as close as the fans want to think they were years ago. kai has said multiple times his only idol friend outside exo is taemin as recently as two months ago so i don't really buy that even though exols seem to think baekhyun was 100% shading ravi which imo is dumb and doesn't really do anything for kai.

but to the people saying it's not that deep or that baekhyun didn't mean anything by it I can tell you right now. baekhyun always always means something by what he says and everything he says is intentional because he's a messy bitch who loves drama but also because he's almost uncomfortably good at shaping his fandom's opinion/view of things

[not-so-rosyyy]

bye, stan twt.

Look, I’m a simple girl. I wake up in the morning, stare into space for a minute (or five), drink my coffee, shower and get ready for work. Then go out and do what needs to be done for the rest of the day.

Occasionally, I’d open that little bird app and get up to speed about silly topics and news from some strangers people I want to be updated on. My favorite celebs, musicians, movies, tv shows, etc. All of pop culture, basically.

Alas, stan twitter is where pop culture talk mostly are.

And so like any good fan, I tried to follow stan accounts dedicated to people and topics I’m interested in. I thought, ah...finally, a place where I can indulge in, admittedly, some guilty pleasures of mine. It was good at first. The updates were fast, the jokes were funny, and there’s an interesting mix of people and somehow-thought-provoking takes expressed in 280 characters or less.

But you know how they say most good things never last? Yeah, I guess that’s true on stan twitter.

Because I soon learned how extremely exhausting and mentally damaging being on there was.

There was always drama. Drama, drama, drama. And over the most ridiculous things, too. Everyday, there were fan wars, juvenile arguments and generally just shitty takes either from troll accounts, immature stans (who shouldn’t have been allowed to have access there, tbh) and worse...from random real-life people who don’t think twice or take a minute to google shit before tweeting.

Man, I just wanted to stan in peace. Can’t a girl just stan in peace?

So, I convinced myself to spend less and less time there. It was tough, but after a few months, I finally got around to deleting my stan account. Not to say I’m free from mental illness now because I was able to quit that cesspool of a community (’coz I still am very much depressed and a wee bit loony, thank you very much) but at least I’m staying away from that and keeping myself from getting more deranged.

I still have my priv, but I only follow friends there and I only tweet about my boring life, so...

Anyway, that’s the reason I’m here now reviving this old Tumblr. I can’t quit following my faves and engaging in pop culture talks, so I’m just gonna have to move and camp here because, even though I know the weird ones are also spreading their crazies here, at least I won’t get to see them or their circle on my dashboard if I don’t explicitly follow them.

See? That’s the only thing I need to keep what little sanity I have left. Stay away from annoying people. Told you I’m a simple girl.

[gottan]

If something is clearly a private moment and the people in the photo did not consent to having it taken (turned away, not posing or looking at the photographer and possibly even unaware it is being taken), even if it's in public, we SHOULD NOT REPOST it or give the picture taker (possibly even a stalker) any attention. It is a violation of privacy.

There's plenty of content that is given to fans already. Don't rationalize scummy behavior as "well it's already posted so I'll do it too" and make it more widespread.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

tramway coaches i guess

i meant to reply to @sudrian-railways-enthusiast about these tags in the comments but somehow my response spiralled into a full-blown post on HCs for minor coach characters

"the old ones with nothing to lose... and Henrietta"

So, I hesitated on how to word that section! Because my first thought had been that the coaches that were more reckless and "awkward" were very likely to be elderly coaches relegated to workmen's services, as that seems to basically be the last leg of the life journey for them... assuming they get that far. In other words, IRL some of those coaches are janky but since they're usually quite old that's not much surprise. In sentient vehicle world, I like to think they're cranky, they've come down a long way in the world (unwashed laborers! eurgh!!), they probably have some Emotions, and what they don't have left are any fucks to give.

But I also knew Henrietta had definitely done some Unauthorized Creeping About, so I had been planning to make a special mention of her all along. But when it came down to writing that sentence, it was awkward. She's a special case! Because she does seem to literally fit the profile I wrote above... but she's not that type. For one thing, she has far from "nothing" to lose! She may primarily transport workers to and from the quarry but for her it's not a last lonely stopgap before the scrapyard; she has a home, friends; she's loved; she does all sorts of special jobs; she and Toby are multi-generational local celebs and they are in no disgrace or danger.

Hannah... hahaha(nnah)... I admit, I wrote that post not wanting to touch her. She gives me a fair bit of trouble in headcanons because you would think that if Henrietta still had a sister after all this time there would be a lot of explanation and backstory and probably angst to unpack? Like what?? Where did she come from??? I agree, just looking at TVS the best explanation is that Hannah was scrounged up and refurbished largely as a backup for Henrietta (and omg, the ISSUES with that dynamic???? this hasty hot-blooded creature as the frustrated understudy? but they both survived the scrapper's torch, so that makes it... okay? but also, not? hmmm...)

If we try to combine TVS and RWS, though (as I do!), I feel we need to do something else with Hannah. Because there is no way to reconcile Victoria's existence if Sodor owns Hannah? Like I'm not one to think that everything on this disaster-gay-energy of a railway has to be matchy-matchy but it's almost cruel for them to have been like, "Ahhhh, yes. Henrietta needs some help. Where shall we get it? ... *crickets* ... Well, we'll kick that can down the road and see what comes up." Completely ignoring Henrietta's underused and clearly bored SISTER just chilling on a seldom-used siding.

Even as I type this, I realize we could just say that Hannah's disposition is Too Much to handle that gig full-time—Toby seems stressed out whenever he has to go near her for even a day or two. But for my money, I like to ID Hannah as the Upwell and Wisbech coach No. 8, the one who appeared in Titfield Thunderbolt! It definitely seems consistent with her "hasty" and adrenaline-seeking character! Also, remember that canonically Toby and Henrietta (and Elsie! I am categorically against Elsie Erasure 😤) are from an Upwell-and-Wisbech-esque line but explicitly NOT from that one. In other words, it facilitates the two sisters having always worked separately back on the mainland, which seems to fit the rather distant relationship they have in the show.

This also facilitates, in this timeline, Hannah being preserved but not owned by the North Western. That helps me a lot so far as her coexistence with Victoria. In this headcanon I'd say that the North Western put off the issue of Toby's overloaded train for as long as possible because they were trying to buy Hannah. Finally they could put it off no longer and, anyway, it was clear that Hannah's railway (I haven't decided which heritage line she works, but it's one of them) wasn't going to part with her. This makes more sense to me than the explanation in the book that? the North Western? couldn't afford a single new coach no matter how pressing the need?? but they could afford to restore a converted garden house into running condition (not really any cheaper I reckon)??? And then at the end FC3 is showing off the train like it's an attraction??? I dunno, I don't buy any of it, the NWR is doing plenty well enough to get any coach they want. That they put it off because they wanted Hannah works for me. And Victoria wasn't some convenient random find; she was probably on FC3's radar for a while and was the Next Best Option for some local vintage flavor.

That said, you can still rescue the Hannah episodes, too, by saying sometimes she is loaned to the NWR. And since she only works about 25 days a year and never breaks 10 mph otherwise, you'd better believe she makes the most of her spells on Sodor! Yee-haw! C'mon, Jim-boy, is this really as fast as you can go?????????

Bonus: If Hannah had been preserved after Titfield Thunderbolt as planned... perhaps she's appeared in some movies since?... she's a career actress. Throw in a little diva-with-a-heart-of-gold energy and just, honestly, I'm loving this.

As for Victoria... okay, so it seems to me that, immediately prior to being withdrawn from service on the Ffarquhar, she DOES fit my profile for "unhappy, ornery coach, disgusted at how far she's fallen in the world, who might act out." Think about it—she had been sent away from Albert and Helena (that had already been her first "demotion," mind you—but she seems to have been very happy with her little found family in that era), sent over to the No-Where Railway, is in exile now on the most godforsaken western line on this barbarous island? She doesn't know how Albert and Helena are, the early N.W.R. is a mess, there's no tourism, she's reduced to having 'Coffee Pots' play pass-the-parcel with her as smelly miners and masons and construction workers grind dirt and ash into her upholstery and make a ruin of her floors, and with each new bit of grime it seems any hope she has of ever being wanted back home grows dimmer—

So, maybe she acted out? I mean yes, she seems very sweet, and I'm sure by nature she is, but these are also the exact sort of circumstances I'd predict "truck-like behavior."

She had to have been withdrawn before 1925, or else Thomas should have recognized her, so that was relatively early, and maybe she was one of the first picks to be replaced once the railway started getting their grubby paws on a few better coaches—because she had gotten into the habit of being a bit of a pill.

I know, I know that when Chris Awdry had Edward say "Don't I know you from somewhere?" that he meant to imply the answer was "yes, from their mutual Furness days." But the F.R. timeline actually works out such that these two probably never worked the same line. So I, guilt-free, prefer to interpret it as Edward vaguely recognizes her, and it takes him another minute or two for him to realize that it's from their early Sodor days.

So then he keeps his mouth shut and never brings it up again. Because it would be a very Edward thing, to a) remember that she had gotten a bad reputation on the island, and to b) realize that he's probably the only other living thing that would know this, and c) to reckon that after 75 years off the rails, she has more than paid the price for any difficulty she once gave, and that she deserves the chance to make a fresh start.

Which, obviously, Victoria grabbed onto it with all six wheels and never let go. She is clearly a homebody by nature so, now that she knows that this is the only home she has, it makes sense to me that any brief "I'm going to make my problems everyone's problem" phase is long over.

Still... imagine how pleased Henrietta and Elsie were, after containing their Creeping About tendencies for a while, feeling that this pleasant newcomer would crimp their style, to discover... haha no worries. She is perfectly prepared to keep their secrets. She may even chip in a trick or two of her own...

[bisluthq]

Please don’t kill me, I’m only a casual fan, but I don’t agree with the sediment that they’re on the same page of marriage because singing those songs = embarrassing them. Writing music about someone will always be sweet, but at the same time, it’s not going to truly represent reality. For e.g Kelly Clarkson sung, “he never asks for money...” Turns out her husband and is greedy, and now divorcing her and contesting her prenup because he wants her money.

Taylor use to want to marry Calvin once upon a time, we know this because her DM’s leaked, and she thought, “he was the one.” I doubt her and Calvin spoke about it, or if they did, she was blindsided by lust, and he must’ve not take her seriously.

Paper Rings isn’t the, “we are married song” I always took it as, “I really love you, and want to settle with you.” Type of song, it’s a hint of, “I love you so much, and even if you don’t have much, I’ll marry you with a paper ring.” This makes sense because in another song the lyric is, “he better lock it down, cause good ones never stay.” He still hasn’t popped the Q, but she’s hinting that he should.

“Give you a child” doesn’t mean much either. Any woman in love with their partner naturally thinks they’re the one and will most likely want to have kids with them. Doesn’t make them married, it just sounds like, “I love you so much, we can have children.” She’s done this before, “we can have 10 kids and teach them how to dream” however the line goes. Music is music.

I don’t personally know Joe, but he doesn’t give me marriage-settling down vibes personally. Just my observation. A new working actor who was in school for years, and finally rushed into a small amount of fame, and now dating a big pop star, only at age 25. It’s been several years now, but if he gets married and had kids now, that’s going to back-ride his career a little. None of his friends are married either and it’s psychological fact that men feel more ready to settle down when their friends do. In American culture it’s most likely to settle down earlier but Brits usually do, more so in their 30s. If his career was established like Taylor and he went through what Taylor has already completed and experienced he probably would. He just gives me young adult vibes, even though he is 30. You can still love someone unbelievably but still not feel ready yet.

It happened with other celebs, either long engagements, or long relationships then it abruptly ended. I remember Vanessa saying, “I don’t care about marriage” then Austin left, but around that time she then changed her mind and said she thought about it.

Anyways sorry for the long write up. Nothing is factual, but offering a different perspective.

Ehhhh there’s a lot wrong with this take lmao but obvi you’re entitled to your opinions. Firstly Joe does have married friends lmao he’s friends with a married couple who have kids and his best friend’s engaged and like the rest of his close friends are all in serious relationships, even his industry friends.

Secondly again there’s a difference between singing a positive take that you believe at the time - like Rep songs - and explicitly saying “give you a child” and insisting to McCartney that’s an autobiographical line. If he doesn’t want that bro she’s CRAZY dude not just positive thinking like legit fucking insane and pathetic. Starlight is a FANFIC retelling of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy’s love story - she’s never said “oh it’s about me” because it isn’t, and THEY HAD 10 KIDS DUDE. But that’s what she said about peace, she said it’s very autobiographical. Out of NOWHERE.

Thirdly the DMs with Camila aren’t necessarily accurate because there are issues with them (like part of it is a SS with her writing in the bubble like it’s not the same as like the Twitter ones from Tay’s hack) but even if they are like why the fuck do you think Calvin wasn’t keen lmao like he was babysitting her cats and he didn’t seem stoked at the relationship ending AT ALL like I think he was expecting it to be forever too?

Finally idk none of us know these people but like stalking them extensively your take doesn’t really stack which makes sense because if I tried to offer thoughts on like idk Dua and Anwar I’m sure hardcore stans would disagree. But we’re all entitled to headcanons and whatnot and maybe Taylor is just a needy pathetic bitch - idk why his friends and family like her that much then tho.

[writing-fool]

mlqc | let’s hit rewind

What kind of videos would the MLQC guys make if they were YouTubers? I think this is a youtube!au, but to be fair, Kiro probably has a YouTube channel in canon. See it as you will? I won’t really talk about their life outside of YT/internet so you can decide for yourself whether this is an AU or not, and whether they’re a full-time YouTuber or not.

As always, enjoy, and requests are open!

Love,

R.

Warning(s): none

Victor

Victor probably has a cooking channel

scratch that. he absolutely starts as one of those Aesthetic™ cooking channels like Cooking tree, HANSE, Sweet The MI or Nino’s Home.

his channel is called Souvenir because he’s not THAT original you can’t expect everything from a man, people. 

he starts off doing these voiceless cooking videos, but after a voice and face reveal at 2 million followers where he cooks something for his followers as a thanks...well, who wouldn’t want more of that sultry voice and glorious face

currently has about 4 million subscribers

Victor’s channel is kind of comparable to Junskitchen, a rather relaxed, casual atmosphere combined with exquisite, refined cuisine

if he feels like it, he does a voice-over, otherwise he just puts calm jazz, blues or r&b over his cooking

HAS done an ASMR special. low-key dislikes the video because he has to whisper voice-overs but people LOVE it

likes making all kinds of foods, but his channel features quite a lot of sweet foods and desserts because a certain dummy has a sweet tooth

a pretty popular feature during quarantine is Cooking w/ Sou, essentially a live stream where Sou (aka Victor) cooks a whole three-course meal while talking to and instructing his followers

his subscribers notice that he doesn’t really need editing to look clean during cooking because his technique is IMMACULATE

by the end, he’s made a themed dinner for two...which always raises a question mark

is Sou single? does he have a roommate? a girlfriend? a kid? WHAT?

after getting your explicit permission, Victor addresses the situation in one of his recent Q&As

“Why do I always make dinner for two? I have a fiancée, she edits my videos in her spare time. She works as a producer. *you wave your hand over the lens* Dummy.” he breezes over it like it’s no big deal even though he’s a tad nervous about exposing something personal like this

his fans blow up the internet, baffled but not entirely surprised that someone like Sou isn’t a bachelor

of course, some leave hate under the video honestly, people who do this to celebs who start dating are HORRIBLE

most subscribers are super supportive of your relationship and thank you for the editing that makes Souvenir such a well put-together channel...also did he seriously call his fiancée a dummy? such a tsundere!

sometimes, you’ll (well, your hands...we’re keeping a bit of privacy here) even be in the end shot of videos, munching away at the carefully plated food

one day, Sou will be making a video titled Wedding Cake.

Lucien

Lucien’s channel LucidLight is a tad bit all over the place

he’s a man of many talents, and his channel reflects just that

i’m not saying it’s a disorganized channel, because the theme is very much there - the uniform theme in Luci’s content is a cozy background, a cup of tea and a soothing thumbnail

i mean that content-wise, his subscribers don’t really know what they’re going to get next...he has a slightly similar style to the YouTuber simon plant 

his content varies from interesting science theories to poetry reading sessions to ASMR to painting/sketching to cooking and much, much more

he has an heavenly soothing, smooth voice. it’s his trademark since Lucien doesn’t show his face on camera. ever. 

doesn’t have a TON of subs, because his channel is a bit of a niche thing, but I’d say he has 1,2 million subscribers and 400k followers on his added ‘business’ Instagram

he holds a lot of live streams on Instagram/YouTube (i know Moments exists in the game, but that’s more like a Facebook or Twitter kind of app...) and is always shown with just his torso and neck in frame. the lives usually include some poetry reading and generally just having a nice, relaxing chat with his followers. they can last up to 5 hours at once, and YOU know it’s because he doesn’t need sleep like a normal human being, but his fans are still asking questions about his timezone

his subscribers are strangely fascinated by his mysterious, gentle nature and also incredibly obsessed with his large, elegant hands

his ASMR videos are often roleplays of Librarian Lucien or Professor Lucien explaining to people why their rest is important

other times, they include soft affirmations, positive whispers, finger fluttering, hair touching and maybe kissing sounds...

Lucien paints a lot too, although he works primarily with ink and pencil sketches. you’ll find a watercolour or oil painting somewhere, but they’re not his most prominent media

his art videos are usually silent, although he might say something once in a while. there’s always some type of solo instrumental music playing in the background.

he does educational videos about biology and universe theories, but will also have reading sessions about scientific books

not intentionally secretive about your relationship, but he’s not one to mention it either

the first time you appeared on screen was when he was doing another live stream. he’s in his office talking about a play, when you come padding in to bid him goodnight.

“Yes, indeed. Laura’s glass menagerie, as the play suggests, is a symbol of fragility. Laura herself is very frail, but her favourite—”

“Good night, darling.” your soft voice rings through the room. viewers see Lucien’s torso turning a little bit, a hand on his shoulder and a curtain hair appearing from the top of the screen. his hand moves, presumably to cup the person’s cheek, before a soft kiss is heard through the mic. “Sleep tight, my love,” he murmurs.

“Ah. Laura’s favourite glass figurine is the unicorn, which...”

people are in uproar, but Lucien is a strong-willed man who refuses to explicitly announce the nature of his relationship.

his subscribers stop asking after a while, because it really isn’t any of their business, and they now know Lucien’s a taken man

you kind of appear on live streams accidentally a couple more times, but nothing’s really changed about Lucien’s content

the only thing he WILL say, and this is purely to give you credit, is “Ah. The background instrumentals in my art videos are played live. Yes, my lover’s very talented.”

you guys are the mysterious, talented, soft-voiced power couple of YouTube

Gavin

Gavin’s channel probably starts as a joint channel with you, something like Rachel and Jun

it’s relatively obvious from the start that Gavin from Birds&Cops is in a relationship, since you guys have a vlogging-style channel

your channel is filled with gym vlogs, travel vlogs to other countries and a lot of self-defence and sport at home videos. 

you guys also post a lot of funny vlogs talking about your day, going on fun dates, of course food vlogs in restaurants, all that stuff...

you often sit down and talk about your life, and maybe you’ll even do a mukbang during it for someone so fit, Gavin does eat a lot of food. 

Gavin’s channel didn’t blow up right away, because vlogging channels aren’t exactly unique, and he looks like the typical ‘straight boy with a girlfriend’

but he started gaining followers after people noticed how cute and blushy he acts, and how incredibly respectful and caring he is towards you

one of the most popular videos is Boyfriend Does My Makeup and it’s adorable. Gavin’s handling your face with so much care, and comments like “I know what this is, I’ve watched you do it many times.” or “Babe, does it hurt? Should I be more gentle? I’m sorry...my hands are rough.” make everyone SWOON

toxic masculinity left the chat. Gavin loves taking care of you in any way, whether it’s getting pads, chocolate and hot packs during your period or braiding your hair

in those yoga/celebrity fitness routine challenges, subs get to see Gavin in a tight singlet and sweatpants/shorts, and it’s HOLY

you’re very much aware of the attention Gavin receives from female fans, and how lucky you are to have found such a sweet partner

Gavin will usually see this type of comment while scrolling and will turn to you and go “Babe, you know I’m the lucky one here, right?”

anyways, a feature that you do to show fans the extent of Gavin’s sweet personality is Pranking My Boyfriend, where you set up the camera for a harmless prank like pretending to have a nightmare (similar to channels like Farina Jo)

that particular video was so fun to shoot, because it ended up with Gavin softly singing a lullaby to calm you down in his arms

“Baby, wake up. I’m here, you’re safe.” Gavin knows how to deal with panicking people, but he hates this prank afterwards because ‘he didn’t like seeing you in pain’

fans squealed. Birds&Cops gained like 50k subs through that video. the channel’s currently at 999k subscribers

overall, it’s just a really lovely, family-friendly channel

Kiro

Kiro knows his way around the web, alright?

not even just as Key, but he’s had a YouTube channel since the age of 15

his channel, CtrlAltChips is a hit with many people of many, many ages

he streams gaming sessions on Twitch and posts them on his YouTube channel afterwards

other content includes (primarily) covers & original songs, simple talking videos, thrifting & fashion videos, mukbangs and candid dance videos in a studio

think of chloe moriondo, doddleoddle, Victor the Drum Destroyer and Cat Strat

alternatively, for the ARMYs here, think of Jeon Jungkook as a YouTuber

Kiro has about 18 million subscribers, which is A LOT, but he’s been on YouTube for 7 years and he’s made a name for himself as a super likeable and bubbly guy with an angelic voice and killer moves

you’d think he’s just a cute boy when he sings acoustic covers, but his dance moves suggest that he’s not THAT cute

also how does he stay so fit with all those snack mukbangs?

he has a segment named In Our Kloset where he talks about social issues (because our boy uses his platform for good) around the world while customizing (not just pins. we’re talking patches, sewing, painting, embroidery) thrifted clothing to his liking. at the end he holds a little fashion show with his new outfits

after a while, you’ll see many of his outfits in giveaways or on sale for charity. Kiro tries to give back to his fans as much as he can, and how better than by sharing a piece of his unique clothing with them?

a great singer and performer. has held actual concerts before and has an actual music career (author-nim leaves it up to you readers to decide whether this is his idol career or some other musical project)

keeps his private life PRIVATE. he knows how the internet works, and he knows there’s no way he can keep your relationship a secret forever, but he’s not about to expose it to the world because of that reason

keeps tabs on information or rumours regarding you and makes them vanish

he’s simultaneously the most open and the most secretive out of the four boys. his fans know his favourite colour, what type of underwear he wears (trunks. Kiro wears trunks.), his birthday,...

but they know nothing about his past, his location, his close social circle or his family (teeechnically he’s an orphan but ig we’re talking about his mentor here. the blood of the covenant blah blah blah...y’know?). Kiro protects his loved ones fiercely

for someone who’s kept so secret, you’re actually really involved in Kiro’s virtual persona. you’re usually behind the camera during his In Our Kloset videos and are in charge of extra research regarding topics so he doesn’t spread any misinformation 

you also give pointers during filming (of course, these bits are edited out) because Kiro tends to trail off and get distracted when sewing

another way you’re involved is setting up the food during mukbangs. you have a great sense of aesthetics, so all of his videos in general will go through you.

while you like being low-key in Kiro’s life, you don’t want him to feel like he has to protect you from all the hate. 

he doesn’t particularly love keeping you a secret either, and it makes him feel guilty because he doesn’t want you to think he’s ashamed of you. he could never be.

you guys give it a good chat over how you’re going to announce it, and he just ends up making a video titled Miss Chips where the two of you sit down and talk to the camera

“Hello my little chips! Uhm, as you can see, there’s someone sitting next to me today. Maybe you already guessed from the title, but this is...my girlfriend, Miss Chips,” cue the cute jazz hands in your direction, “We’ve been dating for a long, loooong time, right, Miss Chips?”

“I just wanted to share this with you guys, since it felt wrong to keep such an important person in my life private. I hope you’re all kind to her, because I love her dearly, even to the point of giving up my snacks...so it’s serious.”

it really is that serious, hm?

Hope you enjoyed reading! 

[tasloveskk]

Some folklore thoughts 💭🌲✨🏳️‍🌈 

Part 1

 I’m going to take it song by song while also tracking key themes in red! Please also feel free to add in your thoughts in the comments, I’m curious to see what else people think folklore is about...

folklore

‘folklore’ is defined as “a body of popular myths or beliefs relating to a particular place, activity, or group of people.” or, by Steve from Taylor’s IC,”the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth.” Taylor herself in her introduction/prologue says  “A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold.”

the 1

- firstly, it’s the best opening track she’s ever had! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

- “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit” = sounds to me like a conversation you have with an ex, like someone is saying “yeah I’m doing great, I’m dating/doing ‘x’” the first time they run into their ex in a while.

-“I thought I saw you at the bus stop” has BIG “this city screams your name” energy but is also very clever by Taylor because Miss Karlie Kloss is ALWAYS on advertisements on bus stops/literal buses around the globe 🚌

- “I hit the Sunday matinee” to me seems like an inside thing, because obviously as the world biggest pop star, if taylor is going to go to the theatre or cinema, she’ll pick the least busy and most filled with older people which would be the Sunday matinee.

- “you know the greatest films of all time were never made” —> the greatest love stories never get told? happen behind the scenes? There’s something deeper here but I’m still forming the cohesive idea!

- “if you wanted me you really should’ve showed” = showed up or showed for the world, either way Taylor wanted KK to chose her not Josh so they could work but that didn’t happen so now she’s left to wonder.

- “roaring twenties” evokes two clear images for me! 1. They were both in their 20s for the entiretyof their relationship, the best years were spent together and 2. The Roaring 20s were a time of independence, pushing boundaries and breaking the rules of prohibition - which is basically what Taylor and Karlie were doing behind the scenes.

- “if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you” = let’s say, ONLY FOR ARGUMENTS SAKE, that Taylor really IS with Toe, that still means that this song is her yearning for someone else who she always loves more AND had to lose at some point. Looking at her past beards “relationships”, there are only two plausible options - Joe (which seems unlikely seeing as they’re still “together”) or CH who she supposedly wrote “you would’ve been the one if you were a better man” about. Either way doesn’t seem like it fits. However, if you look at it as Karlie is the 1, it becomes clear - it would’ve been fun being best friends and lovers for ever baking cookies and dancing around the kitchen, it would’ve been forever if Karlie hadn’t “married” jerk, it would’ve been her and it still is. 💗

- “in my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone” & “I know that I went psycho on the phone, I never leave well enough alone” are about the same moment with the same person = she didn’t leave well enough alone because she kept writing about Karlie and re-engaging us Kaylors as well as I’m sure, she kept up with seeing Karlie or keeping tabs on her to the point where it forced someone to reach out to the other.... she can’t apologise or defend her actions because you can’t explain the things you do for true love.

- “I have this dream you’re doing cool shit” aka starting a podcast, expanding businesses, making headway as an entrepreneur and being a highly-paid and respected international model? Seems straight forward 👀

- “you meet some woman on the Internet and take her home” = 1. Karlie is specifically interested in tech and the internet, it is literally her entire business and 2. if Karlie and Tay did break up, then because Karlie is actually NOT married to Josh, she hooked up with someone she met through the internet somehow (probs social media not an app) and Taylor found out this is probably a snarky comment about that from a jealous ex. Could possibly also be about the dream mentioned above. 💔🔐

- “another day waking up alone” = lost her lover, sleeps alone? Bold claim on opening tack.

- “persist and resist” = very famous feminist saying, civil rights/political echo?

- “the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different, would everything be different today” = this what if mentality continues through the album but personally, I think this is about Kissgate.

- “Rosé flowing with your chosen family” = repeats later, your chosen family could refer to Karlie’s group of friends like Derek and Jourdan etc.

- “would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me” = flipped perspective, wishes Karlie chose her.

- “dragging up the grave another time” = firstly, THAT pin on her EW jacket now makes more sense. second, Taylor has written about Karlie for 4 straight albums now, she hasn’t let their love story die even if they did.

-

cardigan

- “brand new phone” = this is not some story, this is current reality. Taylor hides behind era-specific language and imagery in some other songs but this one is clearly about here and now, and her.

- “sensual politics” to me stands out because only really here and in TLGAD is politics explicitly mentioned and sensual politics to me screams sleeping with someone for political gain or with political connections which certainly sounds like someone...

- “when you’re young, they assume you know nothing” = sounds to me like a lot like a) love story and b) “you don’t know you’re gay, it’s just a PHASE! you’ll grow out of it!” 🏳️‍🌈

- “chase 2 girls, lose the one” = supposedly, when KK and TS met, Taylor was still in love/entangled with Dianna so perhaps she’s reflecting on making the wrong choice?

- CIWYW links: my baby’s high above the whole scene—> heartbeat on the high line, tidbit:as is clear in both Lover & 1989 New York is a sacred place for TS and KK’s love story, the high line is a) a beautiful NYC icon and b) right in between the girls’ two places...

- as mentioned, miss Karlie ELIZABETH Kloss was the brand model for Levi’s and definitely has worn some sequins and black lipstick on cobblestones sooooo.... 🤷🏼‍♀️

- “you drew stars around my scars” = see Drake’s birthday party and the infamous third Polaroid mystery 👀

- “stepping on the last train” could mean one of two things to me; 1. The last resort for KK was marrying J*sh or 2. the last train could represent some goodbye the girls had where KK chose something/someone else over Taylor.

- “peter losing Wendy” is such an interesting metaphor on so many levels but specifically, Wendy loses Peter because she wakes up (from nearly dying but nvm) and grows up and stops believing in Neverland and magic, basically Wendy loses an attachment to Peter because her reality shifts and that’s what gets remembered especially in the Disney version of the story. HOWEVER, the opposite is also true meaning Peter Pan loses Wendy because he can never co-exist with her again, he can never grow up or bring her back to Neverland without either killing her or ruining her. So this idea that someone wanted to change the ending from peter losing Wendy because he had to do what was best for her because he loved her echoes as Karlie didn’t want to marry Jerk or hurt Taylor but had to in order to protect her. Right? 😅

- “leaving like a father, running like water” = Taylor’s parents got divorced and there’s SOME thoughts Scott left the house and Taylor lives with her Mom in Nashville in her teen years.

- “I knew everything when I was young” - Taylor has always know she was LGBT+ 🌈 and also, baby VSFS vibes because as we all know, “we were both young when I first saw you...” send tweet.

- “I knew you’d come back to me” hopefully, HOPEFULLY foreshadows the girls being together/coming out soon !!!!!!! 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

- music video wise, I’ll do a break down soon.

TLGAD

- ‘Rebekkah’ refers to the previous owner of Taylor’s Watch Hill, RI house, Rebekah Harkness. She was a divorcee until marrying Standard Oil heir William (aka Bill) Hale Harkness, a new-money dynasty was formed in this time from their profit. There are MANY wild, whimsical stories about ‘Betty’ (which is obviously an extended metaphor of folklore)  that this song tries to re-create/recapture.  

- Taylor is also known as ‘Becky’ due to the popular meme so this is quite literally a play on her own character as well as the previous inhabitants of the house.

- St Louis is not only Rebekkah’s hometown, but also Karlie Elizabeth Kloss’. 

- “the wedding was charming, if a little gouche” seems like a direct shot fired at Karlie’s woodsy photoshoot of 2018 😂😂(ironically, folklore’s key aesthetic is the woods!!)

- “it must’ve been her fault his heart gave out” refers explicitly to William dying of a heart attack in the house, but subtly I feel like this is a dig at the media who constantly blame women for things they cannot control, as they have done with Taylor too many times to even count. 

- “who knows if she never showed up, what could’ve been” seems like Taylor is stuck thinking about what may have happened for her and Karlie if things had been different, see the 1. 

- “she/I had a marvellous time ruining everything” is such an incredibly provoking lyric on two fronts, 1. obviously taylor buying her RI house had a massive impact on an otherwise sleepy holiday town that is now more famous for Taylor’s july 4 parties than anything else and 2. seems introspective or personal, as if the things that ruined everything for Karlie and Taylor were the best and most marvellous parts of their relationship (big sur, kissgate etc.) 

- “flew in all her bitch pack friends from the city” is not only about the friends and celebs Rebekkah was notorious for hosting but also Taylor’s ‘bitches and model’ girl gang circa 2015 which includes one Karlie Kloss. 

- “blew through the money on the boys and the ballet” refers to Rebekkah’s love of wasting her fortune on things, including a ballet company that went under not long after she created it BUT also refers to Taylor paying so many boys to be her beards and PR stunts whilst also spending her money on a certain ex-Ballerina. Also remember her AMA’s performance of Lover/ bts of Shake It Off? 😉😉😉

- “50 years is a long time” - 50 seems deliberate, a bit of a reach but note it WAS the 50th anniversary of Stonewall last year. 🏳️‍🌈

-  “free of women with madness, their men and bad habits and THEN IT WAS BOUGHT BY ME.” - this clearly shows that ALL the songs are being narrated by Taylor, some of the lyrics are about her, some are about these fictional or fantastical characters she’s created but there is her truth behind all of them too. 

- “the loudest woman this town has ever seen” = Taylor is undoubtedly the most famous woman in the town who regualrly causes uproar there (see the Sea Wall debacle and the Taylor Swift Tax)

- in all, the two famed women owner’s of Holiday House have many overlaps and are forever intertwined. 

exile

- “i can see you standing honey with his arms around your body” as the opening line is LOUD. to me, feels like this is about ALL those staged photos of Josh and Karlie uncomfortable/fake as hell on social media. 

- “laughing but the joke’s not funny at all” is something we’ve all thought about Karlie’s marriage before and is about that moment where if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry at the situation. 

- “it took you 5 whole minutes to pack up ... holding all this love out here in the hall” to me is about someone moving out of a shared home, like Karlie from Taylor’s NYC apartment, after a break up or fight. We know it is MORE than likely that the girls’ broke up, for a while or for good, in 2017/18. 

- “I think I’ve seen this film before, and didn’t like the ending” is a lot like “Cause cruelty wins in the movies, I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you” / “All of my heroes die all alone.” which makes me truly believe that delicate > the archer > exile are all the progression of the same love story.  ❤️

- “now I’m in exile seeing you out” = both of them have lost their home, exiled from the relationship.

- “I can see you staring honey, like he’s just your understudy” has a lot to unpack. Firstly, see this photo. Second, as a beard, Joe is quite literally Karlie’s understudy - stepping in only to fill a public void or play her part when she can’t. 

- “like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” is basically this tweet

- “second, third and hundredth chances” - hopefully this means the girls WILL be together again soon!!! 

- “those eyes add insult to injury” - Taylor has often made explcit reference to her lover’s eyes, but this could also mean the eyes of the public on her every move and relationship not allowing her to properly grapple with break ups. 👁️

-  “i’m not your problem anymore, so who am i offending?” - homophobes love to say wlw or mlm relationships “offend” them or their beliefs, so who could taylor be offending if she’s publicly in a straight relationship? 

- “you were my crown”, Taylor was/is Karlie’s princess, if Karlie is gone, Taylor doesn’t feel like she’s a princess anymore. Likewise, Karlie is Taylor’s sunshine which makes the moody, misty, dark aesthetics all the more relevant to this album. 

- “so I’m leaving out the side door’ - this side door? the other side of the door?

- “all of this time, we always walked a very thin line” between outing themselves and being happy? 

- “I gave so many signs” - Taylor has queercoded EVERY album since her self-titled, she has been dropping hints and signs for years that she is LGBT+ so it must be exhausting to have to keep hiding who she loves. This is repeated so many times - it means a lot. 

- written with William Bowery who nobody can quite identify, but Karlie and Taylor have been to the Bowery many times together and William is mentioned earlier in TLGAD

- this whole song is a duet, a two-sided conversation between lovers - her and karlie both without each other. 

my tears ricochet

- Track 5 is, as per usual, deeply confessional, personal, emotive and moving. 😿😿

- there are lots of theories and layers to this masterpiece of a song, including that it’s in reference to big machine. I personally think every single song of Taylor’s is made up of layers that reflect multiple things in her life and experience so plausibly it can be about multiple things all at once including Sco** and Scumbag as well as Karlie, who was under Scumbag’s management for the majority of the decade. Another theory which with every new listen I think is more and more possible is that this is alternating between Taylor and Karlie’s perspectives. 

- ‘if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too” whoever is associated with Taylor will ALWAYS be dragged down with her. If she’s being attacked, they will be too. Big 2016 energy. 

- “even on my worst day, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me?” could be directed at a lover, or at Big Machine, or even the public for all the shit they’ve said about Taylor over the years. 

- “I swear I loved you ‘till my dying day” seems a lot like the 1, as well as could be about the music and the label she helped build. 

- “I didn’t have it within myself to go with grace.” Taylor was LOUD about her split from Big Machine, she called them out (rightly) and made noise which is not a ‘graceful’ split. 

- “you’re the hero flying around saving face” very easily is about S+S jackasses but deeper than that, while Taylor was under immense attack and criticism, everyone who actually like her music pretended suddenly to hate it and her to stay ‘cool’ 

- “cause if I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?” this lyric becomes especially important in the final verse but essentially those who publicly distanced themself from Taylor still showed up when she was thriving again and/or because they actually truly loved her *uhmm karlie uhmm* 

- “cursing my name, wishing I stayed” either at Big Machine or with Karlie/Taylor. 

- “some to make a diamond ring” > firstly we still have never understood the ring image from the LWYMMD and ME! videos, it is entirely possible this is a continuation of that same symbol/image. Second, I think this hints to Karlie getting ‘engaged’ while still being with Taylor, the rock for the ring in the song was found by the two people gathering stones after all. 

- “you know i didn't want to have to haunt you” both Taylor and Karlie have big reputations all over the world that follow them everywhere. For either one, they will always be haunted by reminders of each other. 

- “you wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me” - on the Big Machine side, Taylor made the label professional and big, she is literally the sole reason it succeeded in the music industry so she handed Sco** his fortune and reputation which he still had when he sold her music to Scumbag and got into a very dirty bed with him. From the Karlie side, many people have noted that not only does she wear her black cartier necklace, which is assumed to be from Taylor, but to her ‘wedding’ wore a necklace she’d worn before with Taylor. 

- “when I’d fight you’d tell me I was brave” could refer to Sco** encouraging her in 2016 to defend herself. Could refer to Karlie supporting her behind the scenes. 

- ‘and I can go anywhere I want, just not home” seems like a continuation from exile, as in she’s lost the place she called home because her lover is no longer there but could also mean she can’t go back to her other albums and the house (see the lover music video) that they created as her musical home.

- “you will still miss me in your bones” could be about Sco** losing his money and label without her there to physically support and carry it or about the fact that the love Taylor and Karlie had is so ingrained it’s in their bones forever. 

- “and i still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky” this lyric has a lot of possible interpretations (i’ve seen one about cursing out God?) but i think it’s similar to “asking the traffic lights if i’ll be alright” as in, it’s Taylor asking the universe to help her make sense of things. 

- “when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies” suggests a) sco** + scumbag is still haunted by the music they stole from Taylor because it was literally the backbone of the business which is now practically worthless and b) that Karlie is kept awake by the songs Taylor has written for and about her over the years which again were stolen away by the jackasses at Big Machine.  

- “you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same” again, same idea - big machine will never be profitable without her/while they hold her masters hostage. BUT Karlie wise, breaking up with Taylor broke her too? 

- this is where the song changes. it shifts from Taylor’s story to someone else’s, personally I think Karlie. 

- “you turned into your worst fears” as in she settled for the money and sold her values off by marrying Josh. Also, Karlie was under Scumbag’s management for years (part of Taylor’s hatred of him was him keeping the girls’ from doing as they pleased) so by being completely controlled by him, she turned into this completely fake person. Contrast 2014/15 Karlie with 2017/18 Karlie and it so much more all about PR and money. 

- “you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain, crossing out the good years” - sco** and scumbag have made so many false excuses for their behaviour and completely erased the good relationship between the Swifts and sco**. Not sure yet what the Karlie side is here but it’s here somewhere. 

- in conclusion, this is about Big Machine and Karlie. As the first song Taylor wrote for the album, I think it’s clear just how incredibly multi-faceted this album is. ☕☕☕

mirrorball

- first off, we can never forget about this and this look from both girls. ✨✨

- “I’ll to show you every version of yourself tonight”, the public and the private sides to them both. this is big glass closet energy in my opinion 

- “and when I break it’s in a million pieces” is so personal and heartbreaking. 2016 and Kaylor breakup vibes. I cannot elaborate at this time. 

- “when no one is around my dear” = the secrecy, forbidden love motif returns and again, if she’s in a hetero relationship, what’s to hide? 

- “you’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes”, Just an fyi, Karlie, a giraffe, is 6′2″, Taylor is 5′10″ -- thats a big difference. 🦒🦒🦒

-  “i know they said the end is near” = end of the relationship or the end of hiding it, either way, it’s a romantic last private moment together, swaying as the room burns down. 

- “i can change everything about me to fit in” = Taylor when she was starting out was forced to create this all innocent, american-girl image of herself. She has had to hide herself to succeed, as she said in Miss Americana, she was muzzled. 

- “you are not like the regulars, the masquerade revelers” = Karlie is different to everyone else, or any other ex, ‘masquerade’ implies masked or hidden figures at a party, very Love Story 

- “and the called off the circus, burned the disco down” = the ‘circus’ could be the media/public, or all the illusions Taylor has cast in order to appear straight. The ‘disco’, and Taylor is the ‘mirror ball’ to her lover means that this isolated existence of just the two of them. 

- “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything” for now, she’s still closeted, she’s still trying to have the best of everything. 

- “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why” believer in everything working out perhaps, or perhaps believing it’s better if she’s in the closet and it’s only the two of them. 

- “never been a natural” = she has completely created herself through years off trying to be what people want, not who she naturally is. 

seven

- “picture me” implies this is retrospective of Taylor, she’s reflecting on her childhood/youth. 

- “I hit my peak at Seven” could either refer to the age 7 or album 7, ‘Lover’ which many critics argued was her best work. 

- “Over the creek I was too scared to jump in” = fear of jumping is something Taylor has discussed in many songs but this is different, the creek represents something she fears will drown her.

- “High in the sky with Pennsylvania under me” = obviously, Taylor was born and raised in rural PA, so this truly is a childhood memory unearthed and explored. It’s personal to Taylor, it’s her story. 👏🏼

- “Are there still beautiful things?”  Recognizing the world isn’t all daisies and rainbows 

- “cross your heart, don’t tell no other” = again, secret keeping and hiding something is a big queer image, ‘cross your heart’ is a quite childish phrase but it’s adult equivalent in Taylor’s world is an NDA, ie swearing people to secrecy is something she's always known... 🔐

- “Although i can’t recall your face, I still got love for you” = this childhood love has faded with time to memories, this girl simultaneously forgotten and remembered. 

- “Your braids like a pattern” = definitely about a girl (1996 rural Pennsylvania was not the kind of place where boys had braids), specific use of YOUR pronoun not ‘my’ or ‘our’ suggesting again it’s about a girl. Very obviously about a first girl crush. 🌈 

- “passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long” = firstly, reference to Neruda’s poem Taylor used in the red prologue. second, folksongs change slightly from generation to generation but the heart/melody remains the same meaning that in Taylor’s mind, the story of her first girl love has changed but it’s still the same song/story all the years later. also, clearly a reminder of the setting of the song and the album as a whole being folklore. 💛

- “your dad is always mad and that must be why” feels a lot like Love Story and forbidden love, also again rural Pennsylvania in the mid-1990s was not the most liberal place so I can imagine a lot of homophobic ideas that perforated Taylor’s childhood.

- “I think you should come live with me” is such an innocent image of someone in love and wanting to just fix things by bringing them home, it also is like a baby gay version of uhauling 

- “we could be pirates” = pirates are not just a childhood image/motif but also one historically seen as gay, gangs of pirates often had ‘mateolage’ agreements that basically were like widow’s benefits. See John Swann. ☠️

- “you won’t have to cry, or hide in the closet.” = I think this one is explicitly clear but just to be sure, Taylor could’ve said “hide when he lost it, hide if you wanted, hide in the woods too” etc. Read this for a full understanding of why it such a LOUD image to use.  It is VERY DELIBERATE PEOPLE. 🌈🌈🌈

- “just like a folk song, our love will be passed on” = different from the first bridge but deliberate again. Their story, aka Taylor liking girls from a young age will always be talked about, AND their love lives in this song she wrote.

- “picture me in the weeds before I learned civility” = again, given the homophobic attitude, ‘civility’ and straightness should be read as the same so Taylor is saying when she was a child, free in the grass and herself, she wants to always be. 

- “I used to scream ferociously any time I wanted” = she wasn’t muzzled as a child, she could say and be who she wanted, screaming it aloud for everyone to hear but that changed as she grew up. 

- “pack your dolls and a sweater, we’ll move to India forever” = ‘dolls’ again would imply it’s two girls running away together and India is this exocitc far off place to a child, a place where they can be together without anyone knowing them or controlling them. 

August

- Karlie Kloss is born in August. Karlie Kloss posted yesterday about being a Leo (an August born). August belongs to Karlie Kloss. 🦁♌

- “rust on your door” = image of something well-worn, perhaps someone who’s been here too a few times before?

- “whispers of are you sure?” = obviously there is the sexual connotation, but beyond that, what if it’s about Taylor and Karlie going public etc. 

- “never have I ever before” = see above but also the game ‘never have I ever’ evokes youthfulness and sounds almost like a reminder of a fun night with friends. 

- “I can see us lost in the memory” = implies they’re still together, losing themself in the memory together

- “I can see us twisted in bedsheets” = again, sexual imagery but also the intimacy of sharing a bed with the person you love after sex 

- “Like a bottle of wine” = matures the song a bit, the youthfulness of earlier is now more adult. 21 is America’s drinking age, 20s were mentioned early etc. 🍷

- “Cause you were never mine” = the whole of Taylor and Karlie’s relationship, Karlie has publically been dating Josh so she was never solely Taylor’s. 

- “Will you call when you’re back at school?” = Karlie attended NYU in 2015, the height of Kaylor. 

- “back when we were still changing for the better” = instead of changing to adapt/survive or keep up appearances. 

- “wanting was enough” = wanting Karlie without labels was enough, rather than having to go public etc. Many have said for a long time that Karlie and Taylor fought about coming out or not. 

- “cancel plans in case you would call” = sounds like a very love-sick Taylor Swift thing to do. Also waiting on a lover’s call when they constantly are travelling like both Karlie and Taylor do makes sense. ☎️

- “so much for summer love” = cruel summer echo? Summer 2015 was again, peak Kaylor so this could be a specific reference to that period

- “Do you remember? Remember when I pulled up and said ‘get in the car’” another specific reference, comes up again later in Betty, clearly is something personal. 

- “Back when I was still living for the hope of it all” = back as in the past when everything was happening, hope of it all being the hope they’d still end up together. 

TO SUM UP PART 1:

BENEATH ALL FICTION OR MYTH IS FACT & FEELING. Taylor is no longer hiding. Yes, some of these songs are about stories and people not her but there is so much of herself and her own story layered in too. PAY ATTENTION!!! Obviously, these are just my opinions, I’m not Taylor so I cannot know exactly what these songs are about but I think, after years of analyzing her music, these images/themes and deliberate word choice are well-versed in this part of the fandom. It is entirely possible this is the beginning of Taylor’s full, public coming out journey. 

I’ll be back with Part 2 tomorrow.  Stay Tuned!

[aleatoryw]

hey. let's have a quick chat about cults and specifically online cults and specifically that one online cult that’s everywhere now.

q anon is starting to make its way to instagram and "wellness" & "lifestyle" communities, leaving behind some of the militaristic and explicitly evangelical pieces of its lore to focus on "saving the children" and "unity" and "purpose". I'm sure most of you already know how dangerous q stuff is, but I think a lot of people don't realize how online cults can work. they recruit in the same way as in person ones do, promising community and purpose, but rather than desperately isolating you from your family and friends to gain control over you, it's often more passive. the things you say and believe are so toxic and out there, you end up isolating yourself.

and I've seen well meaning, left leaning friends share q anon related posts! these posts aren't about q anymore, they're about ending child trafficking! about "waking up" to the idea that a large portion of the country is involved in abuse! which if you don't pay close attention to facts, fits neatly next to the MeToo movement. fits neatly with critique of big corporations having no morals and being willing to harm children. fits neatly with true stories about celebs and billionaires abusing young women.

wellness spaces are primed for this. they're already pretty subject to anti science misinformation, like anti vax or fake supplements or using clean living to prevent c0vid. they often center around one guiding figure who's seen as a guru and trusted absolutely. add in the fact that more people than ever are very isolated right now and you have a fun little cocktail of new people getting into conspiracy - influencers, models, lifestyle/diet/yoga/fitness gurus, spiritual advisors - young white women who aren't that into politics. they just know it's stressful, and prefer to tune it out by scrolling Instagram.

some of the new q doesn't want you to support trump. it wants you to "walk away" from politics altogether. ie, don't vote. it wants you to help spread misinformation about the election and public figures to sow confusion. some of these people are sincere, while others are grifters trying to attract a larger audience, but either way, be on your guard. think about who created the post, who spread it to you, and why. don’t assume you are too savvy to be swayed by this stuff!

some other stuff to watch out for

if you find yourself spending all your free time in the same spaces, talking to the same people, researching the same topic, and that’s not something you normally do

if people you normally respect and agree with, especially in your offline life, are saying your new ideas are weird and not true... and this feels like a personal attack

if the people you spend time with online are trying to get you to convert your friends and family

if there is a lot of discussion about “trusting in a plan”, about a future time when “everything” will be neatly wrapped up and over, about how everything going wrong links back to the same source and if we defeat that one source everything will be good again (this is evangelical rapture doomsday stuff btw)

if you’re getting told you can’t trust any form of media outside the group

if you feel like you need to lie to your friends about the TRUE meaning of what you’re doing, instead leading them in with a toned down version

if you feel like you’ve gained access to the goddamn secrets of the universe and only this elite group “gets it”

if you’re stressed out all the time except for when you spend time with this group or in these spaces

obviously not all of these are bad. sometimes you learn how something works and your understanding of society expands and you want to tell someone. being on the left in america means giving a lot of the media a slightly wary eye. but these are signs to look out for.

speaking of which, sources! personally i find this stuff really fascinating in a morbid way, so there are some decently long podcasts and videos included as well as articles.

quick article explaining the basic tenets of q

quick article connecting conspiracies like q and cults

long-ish video explaining the psychology of doomsday conspiracy cults - i promise it’s worth it

medium length podcast episode explaining where q came from and who likely controls it from a tech angle

i haven’t started it yet, but Conspirituality is about this specific issue

short podcast about the recent connection between q and wellness

short article about how q came to instagram

short article about how and why people have got sucked into q

season 2 of the dream does a deep dive into the cult of wellness

[littlehollyleaf]

Oh my God, your tags on that Dean/Cas Ten/Rose parallel post were exactly what I was feeling scrolling down it. I was also in the minority of DW fandom that couldn't stand that ship (although I loved Rose and read/wrote a ton of fic about her) and I resent that the Destiel hell I've been plunged in for 6 weeks has made me have to reevaluate it(/consider several times how I would have felt if, eg, Jack had somehow created a duplicate Dean to get with Cas in the finale)

HELLO fellow minority non shipper! (did we, in fact, bond over this already??)

UGH though, I had not considered how I'd feel if Dean got a duplicate Cas instead of the real one like happened to Rose...

(though, indecently, way way way back in the day, like S04 or S05, I read an AWESOME FIC where exactly that happened- Cas died helping save the world and Dean was heartbroken and left Sam to be alone for a bit, then he was investigating a case where wishes came true or something and 'Cas' appeared in his hotel room, and they... you know, were intimate and stuffs... only after a bit they both realised he wasn't the real Cas just a fabrication created by the MotW, cos he was Dean's deepest wish/desire... Dean then resented him for a bit, but fake!Cas ended up helping Dean solve the case and faught against his MotW creator, giving Dean just enough time to tell him that he cared for fake!Cas as himself as opposed to just cos he reminded him of real Cas before fake!Cas poofed into nothing once MotW was dead...... it was, you know, ANGSTY AS HELL, but that's my jam :P In the end the experience kinda, helped Dean deal with Cas' death and move on I think...)

ANYWAY. While I disliked the ship and was thus personally chill with Rose ending up in her separate world with Ten2 cos it finally removed her from the narrative (though I was DEVASTATED over the associated end to Donna's story D':), I always felt bad for v the shippers cos it seemed like it would be very unsatisfying for them? Cos (unlike the explicitly and gloriously angsty fic above) it was largely presented as this Happy Ending for Rose? Except, it wasn't? Cos she didn't actually get to be with the Doctor. He was genuinely someone ELSE - not an exact clone, but a blend of the Doc and Donna. So... he wasn't the man she loved? OR, if you do read the relationship as reciprocated, the man who loved her... though he had the memory of loving her I guess (or at least the memory of almost telling her he loved her in an emotionally charged situation where he was saying goodbye to her forever - which I personally will continue to read as being therefore not necessarily meaning he genuinely full on loved her romantically, just that he felt compelled to say it in that moment, so there!).

...there is that last shot of Rose turning to the disappearing TARDIS that maybe suggests her future with Ten2 is not necessarily gonna be completely happy cos it's actually the Real Doctor she'll always be pining after. So maybe many/most shippers DID take it as an angsty/tragic end for both The Doc AND Rose and enjoyed it as such? ...but idk...the show seemed to me to be mostly pushing the idea that it was tragic for the Doc but Satisfying (or bittersweet at least) for Rose, so... *shrug*

Certainly if Dean had ended up with a fake!Cas (like in the above fic but forever, or a duplicate created by Jack like you suggest or a memory!Cas in Heaven or something) and presented it in the same way as Rose/Ten2 I... would NOT have liked it!

...honestly tho the whole deancas-dr/rose thing is just WILD to me.

Cos I was arguing, so LOUDLY and for YEARS, through Drs 9 and 10, that the relationship was one-sided on Rose's side (heck I even felt like Nine kissing her kinda VALIDATED that reading, cos it was him giving her what she wanted to save her and as a last act before he maybe died forever), and while no one ever told me I was crazy or delusional for said reading/option, the sheer widespread assumption that the truth was otherwise def made me an Outsider (I remember watching one of those filler tv shows listing the best / most popular Romantic Moments in tv, cos it was on before whatever else I was about to watch- and it had, like, a love confession scene from The Office and a wedding from a soap and stuff, but we got to #1 and it was fucking Dr and Rose being separated, with the fact they were a mutual romance not even being QUESTIONED and a bunch of random celebs gushing over how painfully romantic the moment was and why they loved it, and I was mentally flipping tables!!).

So yeah - spent pretty much all of the Dr/Rose saga feeling defensive and like my reading/opinion of the relationship was being unfairly dismissed/ignored/not even considered.

Then forward to deancas and, lol, I spend my time feeling EXACTLY THE SAME... but this time I'm actually reading/embracing pretty much the same kind of subtext I was refusing/denying before?? But the widespread assumption is still once again against me?? (with the added bonus of my reading being literally labelled 'delusional' this time).

So yah, two ships that parallel each other that I happen to have been massively emotionally connected to for years and I just... Did Not Win with either of them :P Cos the one I hated was understood and celebrated as explicit canon and the one I loved was never understood as explicit canon (and still isn't I assume) and was often mocked/derided. AND YET it's turned out much of the text for both of them turned out pretty similar...

...wild :P

(of note - even when arguing against Dr/Rose I never denied Rose romantically loved, or crushed on, him, even before her 'I love you', that much was always undeniable to me... and yet even now there are MANY people claiming Cas' final 'I love you' wasn't romantic? ...the parallel really does highlight the prevailing heteronormativity huh?)

[wordsturnintostories]

show me your rosettes, baby (g)

summary: The world tour is over and the Bangtan Boys finally get their well-deserved break. When Namjoon suddenly can’t find Jimin anywhere, things take an unexpected and pretty unbelievable turn. “Kim Namjoon!” “Hyung. How common is it for people to turn into cats?” word count: 4.2k note: super long and hopefully super good. ✨

masterlist | moodboard masterlist

[ prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven ]

Namjoon can’t say that he dislikes being a cat owner. He dislikes Jimin attacking his nose at five am. He dislikes not being able to fall asleep again for half an hour because the little one has a spurt of energy and apparently needs to let it out on Namjoon, who is not the only hyung available (cause Yoongi is still sleeping down the hall) but the more alive candidate. He doesn’t dislike the little paws hitting his cheeks when he groans, trying to bury his face in the pillow because it’s still dark outside, Jimin, please let me sleep, just for a bit. He likes the softness when Jimin yawns, turning around and plopping down to snuggle into Namjoon’s throat. The little paws bunch up Namjoon’s shirt and finally, there’s peace, just peace until the cycle starts again and everything is wet thanks to the tongue roaming his face.

It’s not easy to live with a cat that doesn’t let you use the bathroom alone and that cries outside the door until you let it in (he swears Jimin usually only has abandonment issues when Hoseok is away). Namjoon can’t dislike it, because even if he can’t see Jimin in the kitchen just after receiving a phone call about the confirmation for his request to meet Bang Sihyuk today, finding the little one mewling back in the dry bathtub, surrounded by shampoo bottles, is pretty hilarious. At least he didn’t get stuck in the space between the wardrobe and the wall again, Namjoon thinks and shakes his head at Jimin’s need to be held and coddled and touched from several sides at the same time.

“How did you even get there, baby?”

Namjoon hears the endearment slipping out before he can stop it and waves himself off. Jimin won’t remember (hopefully). On second thought, Jimin probably won’t even mind being called baby, so the weirdness of it all doesn’t even matter.

“Strap yourself in for a ride, hyung,” Jackson’s voicemail warns (a little late for that, Namjoon huffs to himself), and by the way that the other rapper lists helpful tips and advice with a husky voice he makes it sound he’s been ripped out of sleep very suddenly. Like an unforeseen realization of all the things he’d missed to say while he was over at Namjoon's had disturbed his sleep and like he was afraid he’d forget them if he went back to sleep. Namjoon snorts but continues listening. “Jimin is going to be a lot more honest now, and I’m not talking about simple stuff. As a leopard, he's just a baby, so everything he really needs, he’ll ask for it. No holding back. Don’t be shocked when you discover a totally different Jimin. The raw Jimin.” It sounds menacing, but Namjoon looks to the cub, scarfing down a whole can of tuna without a second thought. He can live with that. If this is the raw Jimin, then it’s fine. Namjoon believes that the members are already so close that they know almost everything there is about each other.

He takes that thought back after five minutes of trying to coax a shaking Jimin into Tannie’s old transport box that’s been sitting and collecting dust on Taehyung’s wardrobe for a while now. One would think that all the time the dog hadn’t been in there would have been long enough to make the scent disappear but according to Jimin, that’s not true (if the scent even is the issue here, who knows). When the doorbell rings (this time Namjoon knows it’s Sejin because the manager insisted on not letting Namjoon take public transportation to the agency building), Namjoon panics, stuffs one of Hoseok’s pillows into the plastic box and watches Jimin do a complete 180 and snuggle into the fuzzy fluff with a warm purr. Crisis averted. The rapper still isn’t sure whether (or rather, what) to tell their manager and wills himself to refer to the leopard cub as a stray cat he found, hoping that the invented backstory will stick with Sejin (it does somehow, but Namjoon suspects it’s thanks to the missing collar on Jimin’s neck, not the rambled story Namjoon’s pulling out of his ass). He wants to talk to Sihyuk about it all first. Just to be safe. Sejin, proving over and over what a blessing he is, just nods, and hugs Namjoon like they always do after not seeing each other for a long time. (Namjoon knows it’s only been a couple of days, but with all the stuff that’s happened, he really feels like a month has passed in the meantime, and holds on so long that Sejin gives him a suspicious look. Not his fault. Namjoon needs some love and all the hyungs are gone, Yoongi included because he’s in the studio and that’s almost as good as gone.)

The former dog box turned cat box finds a safe place on the backseat of the silver car, right behind Namjoon. The rapper throws a look through the slits in the side before putting a Koya blanket over it. Jimin’s eyes are closed, he’s peacefully kneading the pillow. Reassured, Namjoon takes a place in the passenger seat, relieved to find that one of his two worries of the day has been put on hold.

The ride in Sejin’s car is nice and Namjoon’s anxiety slips away before he notices, drowned in the soft humming of the motor and the vivid images of Seoul’s passing cityscape outside of the passenger seat’s window. t’s easy to start a conversation and Namjoon comes across a genuine smile on his own lips.

“Did you already take time off, hyung? Our break isn’t very long this time. Did you get to do what you had planned out for your wife and kids?”

The conversation goes here and there, like the streets Namjoon knows Sejin has to take to get to his family and friends outside of Seoul. It has a calming effect to think about things so far away, removes the rapper from the moment. He appreciates the sensation of distance. Distance from music, distance from himself, distance from his own circling thoughts. The sweat on his hands dries off, his vibrating leg comes to rest. Talking to Sejin and hearing his stories feels normal, like kind of honest and connection-inducing conversation he often wishes he could have with fans. He feels impressed by what a good father Sejin manages to be despite his demanding job and tells him so. There are many people that Namjoon finds inspiring, but no many of them get so personal with him like this. Namjoon almost forgets about all the stress of the morning.

Sejin doesn’t prod during the car ride either, despite checking out the cat box through the rearview mirror, probably accepting that he’d find out what was going on soon enough. After all, Namjoon had explicitly requested that their manager be present for a part of the meeting as well.

Completely lost in thought and the soft lofi hiphop playlist Sejin enjoys listening to (what a cool guy, honestly), Namjoon slides his hands into his coat’s pockets. Just to be ripped out of the serenity of his daydream by the sharp, cold slide of a foreign object in there. He pulls his hand away immediately and stiffens, eyes wide. Sejin looks but returns his focus to the streets when Namjoon shrugs it off. After the initial reaction of shock, Namjoon tries to think back of all the things he’s put in his pockets today. His phone. Left pocket. Keys, also left pocket. A tiny bag with dried shrimp, for Jimin in case he gets hungry. Left pocket. Then what the hell is inside his right pocket?

Clueless but curious, he lets his fingers slide back in, with the same caution Hoseok uses when doing the laundry and emptying the member’s jeans pockets (he’s been wary ever since someone had left a fake spider in there, as if no one would know it’s you Jungkook, you dumbass, it’s your pants, really great prank). Like before, the cold object presses against Namjoon’s skin, sending an icy shiver across his back like a vicious warning. He understands that it’s paper from the flat surface and feels over it when suddenly, warmth pulses where he’s touching as if he’s been accepted to touch. Not knowing what he’s dealing with here, he carefully pulls out the paper, coming face-to-face with the grey business card from the day before. How did it get in here!? I didn’t even touch it this morning. It’s true, Namjoon had left the card in his jeans yesterday, and had left the jeans in the laundry basket at home, so how did the card get into his coat? Has Jimin maybe-? No. As unsettling as it sounds, he is convinced Jimin didn’t have the capacity to do something like that yet. Once again Namjoon is reminded of the sheer weirdness of the situation and how he seems to not have any say in how this scenario will unfold. Magic. It’s disappointing how his mind-voice seems more stressed than excited over the fact that magic is real, and active in his life. He really hopes Bang Sihyuk will know what to do.

Namjoon still stares at the card, surprised when he can’t see any of the letters on it. He turns it around. Nothing. How will I convince Sihyuk what’s going on when I don’t even have proof? And how will I remember what was written on there before? Just before his inner annoyance has a chance to evolve into something greater, the light catches on the grey paper, covering it with a holographic sheen. Against the rapper’s hopes, no letters appear. However, Namjoon watches a trail of paw prints appear as if an invisible miniature cat was walking over it. It’s cute. But it doesn’t help, not really, so Namjoon decides to just deal with it when it’s time, and puts the card back into his pocket.

“What was that?”

“Jackson gave me the card.”

“For that massage place again?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t check it out yet.”

“He’s been really desperate to get a massage with you ever since Taehyung went with Minjae on Celeb Bros. Maybe I should book one for you guys?”

“Do you think I need one?”

“I think you need a lot of things.”

“That’s fair. But I actually think I might really need a massage after this is all done.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah. I have no idea what Bang PDnim can do this time, but I’m a little scared.”

“Don’t worry. We’re with you guys. We’ll take care of it together.”

“Thank you, Sejin-hyung. I appreciate your help a lot, really.”

The manager nods, slowly rolling into the underground garage at the BigHit staff parking area. Together, they get out, grab Jimin who stays quiet, probably placated by the darkness and Hoseok’s scent, and ride the elevator before they get to the hallway with the expensive black leather couch. Namjoon checks his phone for the time, wincing when the group chat still revolves around the cat photo Namjoon had sent before realizing that the little leopard was Jimin. Granted, they hadn’t texted much since then, everyone off to enjoy their days off without the other members, but eventually, they all gravitated back to each other. Namjoon had figured that it would look suspicious if he deleted the picture post-posting and cursed Yoongi for not bothering to help come up with a good excuse as to why a little cat was sleeping on Jimin’s bed during the member’s absence. “No, Jimin didn’t adopt a cat”,  he’d typed on the first night responding to Taehyung’s curious inquiries. Since then, Namjoon had stayed away from the topic, seeing how it only inspires a fountain of fresh questions. Taehyung would surely pout about not receiving an answer, but at least he isn’t Jimin. Jimin’s pout is deadly. Someone steps out of the office and gives Namjoon and Sejin a respectful nod before leaving.

“Do you want me to come in with you right away?”

Namjoon shakes his head, “Please give us a few minutes. I’m sorry for making you wait, hyung.”

“It’s fine, Namjoon-ah. Should I keep an eye on the cat then?”

“Uh, no. I need it. Sorry.”

“Good luck then.”

“Thanks, hyung.”

It’s nice in Sihyuk’s office. Always has been (except for the beginning, when it was filled with stacked boxed of copy paper and ink refill cartilages because the storage room had to have its ceiling and power lines renewed) and always will be. The carpet is soft despite being a typical office carpet with three dozen pairs of feet walking over it every day. It swallows both the disruptive booming of heeled business shoes and the accompanying sense of anxiety about entering a CEO’s office. Both those things seem more than misplaced with a human being like Bang Sihyuk. For all the ten years Namjoon has known him, he’s never been less than caring, never called Namjoon in for a scolding with malevolent intent as other company leaders do. Instead, he almost acts like a substitute father, waiting in his office chair with a bright smile as he sees the rapper enter. Namjoon appreciates it.

The large but elegant floor-to-ceiling fish tank on the one side of the room throws shimmering reflexes of light onto the room. (The fish tank is the jewel of BigHit’s office building and stressed staff is encouraged to take a breather in the lounge room on the other side of the tank.) The water reflexes also fall on a familiar sweater and Namjoon chuckles when he recognizes it as Jimin’s Christmas gift to Sihyuk from last year.

“It’s been a while,” Sihyuk says with half a scolding-eomma face and half a cheeky grin as he wraps his arms around Namjoon and pats him on the back. With all the other company bosses Namjoon has seen, he knows he would feel cornered in an embrace like this. Here, however, in this place of warm mutual vulnerability, the doubts and failures of the past week bubble up slowly (but still faster than he appreciates) and he chooses to swallow them down again lest they fall out in a chaotic, tear-ridden shudder. It would not be frowned upon if he were to cry, but the tears would certainly worry Sihyuk and Namjoon came to seek support and guidance, not sow worries.

“Thanks for making time for me,” Namjoon says quickly, choosing to express not only his gratitude but also his reverence for the man who’s made everything possible, who pulled through despite the odds, despite the forces working against their success and when no one else would. The rows of photos of all the agency's artists and staff and self-drawn sketches and paintings (also by them) on the wall the other side of the room illustrate that incredible story.

“Sure. You know I will always listen to you. It’s important to me.”

“I know.”

“By the way, did you hear that Sana delivered yesterday?”

“No, really?”

It is a surprise to hear that since Namjoon has seen the stylist work during their last tour and she hasn’t given the impression that her baby bump had already been so close to the final showdown. Maybe she was one of those women with a tiny baby belly. All members had taken care of her to the best of their abilities, asking about her wellbeing at regular intervals and sneaking her whatever food her weird cravings made her desire. The perks of being a celebrity with enough touring staff to send someone on a quick grocery run right before a concert. The sweet stylist had always laughed and joked around with them, displaying health and giddiness over the prospect of becoming a mother. Only the gender had not been revealed back then, even despite the constant cute begging. Sana was a precious woman, a good noona, a worthy addition to their team and a cheeky jokester on par with Seokjin and Yoongi.

“How is she?”

“Healthy and happy. She sent photos in the staff chat. It’s a girl. Pretty and precious like her mother.”

Emotions evident on Sihyuk’s face, Namjoon once again smiles at just how close-knit BigHit’s community is - a big, loose family of sorts that had learned to rely on each other.

“I’m happy for her,” Namjoon replies, genuinely feeling fuzzy things in his chest as he taps on the different images on Sihyuk’s phone. “She’s lovely.”

Somewhere in the back, next to a potted plant, a scratch and a mewl disrupt the tender peace between the two men. Namjoon looks up, cheeks almost reddening as he remembers what he’s come for and what’s gonna happen now that Jimin becomes restless in the transport box.

“Did you bring Tannie? Are you looking over him today?”

“Uh,” Namjoon scratches his head, the rehearsed lines of conversation escaping his mind shamelessly, “no. I’ll uh, I’ll- can I let him out?”

“Will he pee on my carpet?”

“Possibly?”

“If you keep an eye on him, it should be fine.”

Namjoon walks over to the box immediately, heart racing with every scratch of Jimin’s claws against the plastic. He opens the door and reaches in carefully until a tiny wet snout presses against his fingers.

“Come on, you baby,” he whispers and grabs the little cub. Jimin doesn’t resist, only shuffles around in Namjoon’s grip until he’s comfortable and able to push down Namjoon’s collar enough to rub his cheeks against the collarbone there. It tickles.

“Who is your little friend over there?”

It’s the one question Namjoon dreads and the only question that truly matters now. He feels himself taking a deep breath.

“I don’t- I don’t know how this happened, but this is Jimin. I’m sorry.”

Sihyuk pauses and places the pen in his hand down with a surprised expression.

“Come again?”

“Our Park Jimin has somehow turned into a cat. Into a baby leopard actually, to be precise, and I don’t know-”

Sihyuk stands up from where he’s been sitting and comes around the desk. Namjoon nervously eyes the other from where he’s standing, not sure what reaction can be expected after throwing such a wild claim in the room. He can feel the blood rushing in his ears and as if Jimin feels his stress, he whimpers a little, short tail shivering against Namjoon’s hand.

“Hi Jimin,” Sihyuk says softly, offering his hand to the cat so it can smell him. But the cub growls, sounding a bit like an electric eraser that’s refusing to run smoothly and his nose bumps into Namjoon’s chest. As if the betrayal doesn’t mean anything (it really doesn’t, not when Jimin looks adorable with his bared fangs), Sihyuk holds a hand before his mouth in surprise. Namjoon doesn’t miss the amused crinkles around his eyes. It triggers liters of hormones to flow through Namjoon’s body, proclaiming relief. He’s relieved that Sihyuk is not mad, no matter how weird this is.

“Maybe he doesn’t like me?”

“Maybe he’s just confused,” Namjoon defends Jimin and as if the thought doesn’t sit right with him, also Sihyuk. As much as everyone is allowed and encouraged to express themselves casually with the CEO, Namjoon feels a little thrown off by Jimin’s sudden behavior.

“No,” Sihyuk scratches his chin, making it difficult to tell whether he’s honestly disappointed or cleverly hiding his amusement until he points at Namjoon, “I think he’s playing favorites. Rude.”

They both laugh then and when Jimin wiggles around again, obviously disinterested in their conversation, Namjoon has mercy (and fear of getting his shirt ripped) and sets the younger down by his feet. The leopard immediately rubs itself against his shins like a normal cat would and Namjoon can’t deny the warmth in his chest. Then, they watch as Jimin hops away, drawn by the fish sashaying through the water.

“How long has he been-“ there’s a soft bump as Jimin runs into the glass and the two men laugh as he complains profusely. “Does he not recognize things?”

“Yoongi-hyung and I don’t think so. We’ve observed him the past days but Jiminie doesn’t even respond to his own name.”

“Really? Jimin, Park Jimin,” Sihyuk tries for himself but all he gets is an excited vocalization, a clicking chatter as Jimin observes the fish with this tony paws pressed against the tank glass. His tail sways, completely rapt with the little animals so close and yet so unreachable. It doesn’t help that they all swim around his figure in a curious but almost teasing manner. Over and over, Jimin yips and comes to discover that the glass won’t let him through, won’t let him enjoy the pleasure of a little chase. Eventually, he tires and begs to be lifted into Namjoon’s lap again, where big hands lavish luxurious scratches on his fur. He curls up with a purr.

Namjoon feels himself calm down considerably, and he returns to his original worries and thoughts.

“Wait, why are you not shocked at all?”

He’s mustering the CEO, who has been relatively calm and rational the whole time and who hadn’t even questioned anything.

“Well, I may or may not know more than you. As I should, leading a company like this.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I can’t tell you much, but that I will take care of Jimin to the best of my abilities and with all resources available.”

Namjoon sits back, relaxes, fingers scratching the tender skin behind Jimin’s ears and he nods. That’s all that matters. That Jimin will be protected and supported no matter what. Even if mystery remains, Namjoon trusts that things will be communicated with him as soon as he needs to know.

“I think someone’s calling you,” Sihyuk says, pointing at Namjoon’s right pocket. Immediately, the younger sticks his hand into it to see who it is - hopefully not one of the members in some sort of emergency situation - only to grasp not his phone but the ominous business card.

“Oh,” his eyes widen. “My phone is not in here. How did you-“

“But I saw something bright in your pocket, like a screen lighting up. What is it, then?”

In Namjoon’s hand, the card looks innocent. Grey but plain, like nothing special. Just an empty piece of paper. Not even the cat paws are on there anymore. Suddenly, a shimmer sent by the water falls on the card and as if it had been a drop, the card’s surface ripples, drawing circles like it’s made of water itself. Like its sole purpose is to give Namjoon a headache. It’s pretty, the prettiest business card he’s ever seen, no question, but it’s scary. Like it wants something from him. Ready to give it away, Namjoon offers the card to his boss.

“Here,” he gestures for him to take it, “Jackson gave me this when he came over yesterday.”

Sihyuk doesn’t seem to be confused by the emptiness of the card, doesn’t seem impressed with the rippling surface, doesn’t seem to become annoyed by the card like Namjoon is. He simply nods.

“And have you called the number yet?”

“Number?”

Namjoon frowns. Which number is Sihyuk referring to?

“The number on the card.”

He holds up the card for Namjoon to look at but all he can see is nothing. Nothing but the taunting blank surface. What is this? Why is this card playing with my mind? And why exactly did Jackson think giving this card to me was a good idea? Am I going crazy? Jimin complains with a squeak when Namjoon grips his fur too much and Namjoon returns to caressing the cub apologetically before looking back to Sihyuk.

“I’m sorry but I don’t see a number on the card.”

“But it’s a business card, right? So it has to have a number. And there is one, clearly.”

When the CEO places the card back on the table, Namjoon allows himself to touch it again. This is so weird. The rapper isn’t sure if the same rules that apply to ordinary business cards also apply to magical business cards, but he guesses that there should be a number on it from a rational point of view. There’s a distinct feeling of absurdness, however, that he can’t get past - as if what he sees and feels are two different things and as if the sensory feedback in his brain cannot merge the two impressions. Although he’s convinced he’s looking at the real card. The strange feeling lingers until he remembers how the first time, the Chinese characters on the card had changed shape right in front of his eyes to make sense in Korean. Maybe they changed for Sihyuk too? Maybe every person sees something else on the card?

“This is so weird.”

“Let’s call them.”

Should we really? I guess there’s no other way to find out who is responsible for this.

The room is stunningly quiet apart from Jimin’s sleepy hiccups, the soft buzzing of the fish tank and the beeps that signal that the call is not yet connected. Unsure about what to expect, Sihyuk and Namjoon hold eye contact. Then, suddenly, a woman’s voice appears on the other side of the phone.

“Welcome, Bang Sihyuk, Kim Namjoon. I am your automated call agent today. We apologize for not being personally available to take your call at the moment. To continue, please choose an option from the menu. Press 1 to access all gathered data about Park Jimin, press 3 to-“

They both look at each other.

“What the hell.”

masterlist | moodboard masterlist

[ prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven ] tags: @xmagicxshopx, @taeshuworld, @justanemptydream, @hoodmeup, @gingerpeachtae

[valeriemperez]

That’s exactly what I thought. Do you know anyone who works 12+ hours a day and then drives home in the dark, only to get up a few hours later? That’s how KJ apa got into that accident. And the crew DEFINITELY should be driven home, they get just as little sleep! Hollywood treats its people like crap.

No argument from me!

Fun fact: Tom Welling dealt with a similar driver situation on Smallville. Shows don’t usually provide drivers to the actors bc of some SAG union thing where if 1 gets a driver then ALL of the main cast members must be provided one. So the rest of the Smallville cast relinquished their rights to a driver so that Tom could have one & it’s likely the Flash cast did the same for Grant.

Aww, that’s really sweet of the cast. And it is hard on the actors (and crew).

What do u think of this caity’s situation? personally i think she was joking but she shouldn’t have said it but i still like her just like ppl still like grant/keiy after they said some problematic things in the past ppl need to learn to not hold celebs to such high standards.

I definitely don’t think she should have used the slur when she’s not part of the community and has no idea who might be upset by its use or not. It may be something she says in her private life, joking with Maisie or other LGBT friends who are fine with it, but that doesn’t translate on a public platform like this. 

I hope she apologizes, but I think it’s up to the individual fan to decide how they feel about it. You can still like and support her, or you can withdraw said support.

Oh yay! thank you for your response about the Magicians :) I look forward to the podcast :)

Hope you like it!

@eboniangelvibez said:

I’m glad to see that I wasn’t the only one that wasn’t blown away by The Magicians finale. It’s a great show. I loved the season overall, but I found the finale somewhat underwhelming. I’m curious to see what S4 brings.

I’m very curious as well. Also crossing my fingers we get our Penny back.

Does anyone else get a bit jealous when they see SA & EBR at a con doing a panel together & photo op together and wishing that GG & CP would do the same. I mean four seasons & not even a photo shoot, WHY?

I know plenty of people are jealous, but I’m not one of them. Yes, it would be nice if Candice and Grant did more cons together and took pics together with fans etc. But I will happily take my consolation prize of them giving it their all in their scenes, which are written in such a way that you know the show believes in them.

You’ve pointed out specifically why I’m uneasy sometimes about liking Caitlin still. I still like her and KF but DP as a person? Not a fan. It’s the whole thing of separating the person from the art I guess.

Yeah, I get you. It’s hard to decide what to do sometimes. You don’t really need to feel guilty, though, it’s not like you’re actively supporting her by not disliking her character.

now that AJK has left, is there any chance that DP will follow him? she never auditioned and he hired her as a personal favour. KF/CS isn’t part of TF canon & before DP cashed in on her White-Affirmative Action, the role was supposed to go to an older woman who would be an ally of Wellsboard. What do you think? Exit Killer Frost?

I do not think AJK was the sole thread keeping DP on the show, and I’m sure the writers as a whole are attached to her as a person regardless of their lack of passion for her character. So if she goes, I think it’ll be her decision, and given how cheery she always is about the show there’s no way to gauge if she’s planning her exit. 

To those wondering, no. DP didn’t audition to be CS. AJK admitted this as he said he had to let go of an actress that was the “perfect” CS for DP. SV also didn’t audition to be Patty. CP was the only one that auditioned to be Iris West-Allen.

I actually had to re-listen to the interview Kevin did with him to verify this, because I thought something might have been accidentally taken out of context. AJK said, “She came in to read, and I was like ‘I don’t really see Danielle as Caitlin… [Originally] a Maria Bello type… tsk tsk relationship with Cisco… possibly even a love interest for Wells.” But they changed the character to have Danielle. Granted, AJK and Greg both knew her from Eli Stone, which they worked on together, so that’s probably why they wanted to change the role for her. But she did audition first.

BTW, immediately after that, AJK compared seeing Danielle in her KF outfit to “seeing your sister dressed slutty for Halloween.” How did he get away with being so gross for so long?   

I have a theory on why candice unfollowed danielle: what if dp is getting paid more than cp even tho cp is 2nd billed and cp approached her about changing this so they can earn the same amount (since we know how cp feels about that) but dp said no and that’s why when cp spoke about her friendship with caity it made it seem like dp didn’t have her back at work unlike the other cw ladies. thoughts?

We don’t know how much either of them makes, but it is possible. I definitely expect that it had something to do with not feeling supported on set by her costar.

Not to drag this out, lol, but I disagree that DP didn’t know what she was doing. Back before the show even aired, she liked a tweet from SB fan claiming that the fandom already liked Caitlin for Barry better than Iris. I wish I could send screenshots via anon, but the tweet was explicitly pitting Iris and Caitlin against each other. Since she was liking stuff like that from the beginning, I don’t buy that she genuinely didn’t know what she was contributing to.

I remember that tweet, but that’s generic love triangle stuff and she obviously wanted a love triangle. She was probably hoping she’d take off like EBR did, but at that time she didn’t necessarily know EBR’s take-off would lead to KC (who is her friend) being killed off lol. And what I actually meant was she may not have realized at the time that the reason she even had a shot was racism lol. But I agree with you for sure that she was trying to hype up a ship that didn’t exist in the hopes that it would leverage her a better role.

[anissagraces]

Icon requests: open!

Hello everyone

So, while I do have finals coming up, I am in the mood to make icons. I will probably do these during my breaks, so it might take longer to make them (I will make a progress page right here so you can check how far a long I am). 

To request an icon, please:

follow me (you don’t have to follow to use my icons, but I prefer to take requests from people that follow me) 

send in a character or ship or celeb you want an icon of. You can send me screencaps/pictures you like. Please make sure they’re well lit.

Please check my already made icons to see if I haven’t done what you’re asking yet.

send in a ‘style’ you want them in, if necessary (if you don’t specify I’ll make normal square icons with and without textures and doodles)

I always do my icons in these colors (under the cut), so unless you want another color (please send me the hex code if you do), you won’t have to specify color. 

I do pride icons, and usually add the canon ones (like I would add Alec + the gay pride gradient as background), but if you HC a character as let’s say pansexual, you can always ask me to do an extra icon with the pan flag. (I do not change canon identities, meaning I won’t make bisexual icons for explicitly gay characters)

I take requests from shows on this page, except the ‘dropped’ ones. I currently don’t take requests from movies.

Under the cut you’ll find the specific styles I do + the pride gradients I have (I made them myself) that you can request!

colors I always do (I add gradients and textures most of the time): 

pride flag gradients I currenty have:  (left to right: lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, non-binary, pansexual, polysexual and transgender flags)

If you want these gradients, you can just message me and i’ll send you the file :)

‘special’ icon borders: (when requesting you can just say: round border, two stars, stars, hearts, flowers x1, flowers, you can also say in which direction you want them, but if you don’t, I’ll just decide what I think looks best)

[demitgibbs]

Anna Paquin Talks ‘Tricky’ LGBTQ Representation, Understated Queer Roles

Enough with the labels: Anna Paquin just wants LGBTQ people to be people. As star and executive producer of Pop TV’s Flack, Paquin’s celeb-PR spin doctor, Robyn, fascinates because her hyper-controlling nature at work is in sharp contrast to her out-of-control family life. Robyn’s bisexuality is a mere footnote.

It’s 2019. This is the queer-is-human moment Anna Paquin has been waiting for. This explains why, though she plays a lesbian character, she appreciates that her love interest (Holliday Grainger) in her upcoming film Tell It to the Bees, out May 3, eludes any kind of fixed sexual identity.

Openly bisexual herself, Paquin came out in 2010 in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper’s Give a Damn campaign, dedicated to LGBTQ equality. At the time, she was portraying southern heroine Sookie Stackhouse on HBO’s vampire queerfest True Blood; she married her co-star, Stephen Moyer, that same year. (The couple has 6-year-old twins, Poppy and Charlie Moyer.)

But the 36-year-old actress’ precocious career in film and TV goes back decades to her childhood, when, at just 11 years old, she won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Flora McGrath in 1993’s The Piano. Cross-genre roles abounded: Fly Away Home (1996), She’s All That (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and three X-Men films. In 2017, Paquin starred as a detective investigating the disappearance and murder of a trans woman (Sadie O’Neil) on the short-lived drama series Bellevue.

Nearly 10 years later, Paquin still gives a damn – about inclusivity in her work, entertainment as a way to open close-minded minds, and actors who are forced out of the closet in the name of representation.

In Flack, there’s a gay scandal, a trans scandal and a lesbian sex tape, and that’s all within the first three episodes. I mean, this show was made with the LGBTQ community in mind, right?

I mean, not intentionally. It was just made more with, you know, the human race in mind. And that includes all of us (laughs). There’s humor and drama to be found in all of our communities, but, yes, there is definitely something to be had for our LGBTQ community in the world of Flack. Although a lot of people ask me if that was me, because obviously it’s important to me, but that was just always part of the fiber of the show in those episodes, and that was our writers. I wish I could take more credit for that, but I really can’t.

As an actress, are you drawn to stories that tell our stories?

Yes, but I’m also just drawn to really amazing writing, and I think especially when there are stories that are our stories but are also written in a beautiful and eloquent way, that, to me, is a twofer. I mean, I love the fact that Robyn being bisexual just kind of casually drops in; it’s not a thing because it shouldn’t be a thing. And I feel like so many movies and shows, if they have characters who are leading anything other than heteronormative lives, it’s made into a big deal. It really shouldn’t be and isn’t. So I do love that part of the show.

It sounds like you don’t think we’re at a place where LGBTQ characters can simply live within the fabric of the world, and maybe that’s because LGBTQ people can’t just yet either.

Are we? (Laughs) I mean, I think everyone has different experiences. I really think it depends what part of the country you’re in and what kind of community you grow up in. Look, I’m a non-American-born Canadian-Kiwi living in liberal California, so my experience of the world as a bisexual woman is probably incredibly different from someone who lives in – not to single anyone out in particular, but let’s say a less progressive state. So I feel like we still have a ways to go, but we’re obviously going in the right direction.

Where do you stand on the debate that exclusively LGBTQ actors should be playing LGBTQ roles?

In casting all the characters in this show it would never have occurred to us to look at anyone other than trans actors for trans roles. I frankly did not ask the actress who plays Robyn’s ex-girlfriend because I also don’t really think it’s any of my business. What’s tricky around some of that stuff is that, while I think representation of people within our community is incredibly important, I think it’s also putting a lot of pressure on people to come out in a public way that they may or may not be ready to do yet. I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to force people out of the closet, to be like, “Hey, you shouldn’t be playing this role because you’re not gay.” Well, what if that person is but isn’t comfortable coming out? Where does that leave us as far as representation, but also respecting people’s own timeline for their own lives and what they’re comfortable with? I think it’s incredibly complicated.

Was there pressure on you when you came out?

If there was, I certainly didn’t experience any. Everyone in my private life knew. It wasn’t a big deal. But also, things aren’t a big deal if you don’t make a big deal of them.

I’d like to note that your show Bellevue represented the trans community in a very real way. I know you really bonded on the set with actress Sadie O’Neil, who played a trans character.

What an awesome, smart, talented actress and writer and poet. She was incredibly patient with all of us who know less about her community asking quite specific questions as far as how we’re representing the community on the show. Because the script, you can do a good approximation, but if that’s not the life that you have lived then, obviously, you’re not gonna get all of it right. And being patient with the fact that we had taken a good stab at it, but then wanting to actually get it right, was something we were really very grateful for, and we obviously very much deferred to her on a lot of it.

In what ways was the show and being with Sadie on set a teaching moment for you?

It’s one thing to conceptually support all members of our rainbow community, it’s another thing to pretend that you know what somebody else’s life experience is like, and I don’t pretend to know things I don’t know. So, to me, getting more information is something that I just think you can’t have enough of. And the more you know, the more helpful you can be. It literally had never even occurred to me that feminism could exclude trans women. That, to me, just doesn’t make any sense, and that’s a huge deal and kind of blew my mind. You know, these kinds of conversations that end up casually happening because you’re working with them and getting to know them, it’s like, “Wow, I feel a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know that and I’m glad I know that now.”

Does it mean something to you that a role such as Robyn or your role as Dr. Jean in Tell It to the Bees is creating greater visibility for the LGBTQ community?

Absolutely … absolutely! Yes. I think that people learn about people they don’t understand through entertainment. That’s one of our most powerful tools for bringing people out of their own bubble and their own world, because if you see somebody depicted on screen you sort of are emotionally connected to that person and their story and their life, and maybe it can change people’s minds about how they sort of snap-judge other people and their sexual orientation or gender identity or whatever it may be. I think entertainment is a very powerful tool for that, so yeah, it’s very meaningful to me.

When were you first aware that entertainment had that kind of power?

Honestly, not really until I was a grown up because when I was a teenager just, you know, doing my thing and going to school, I wasn’t massively conscious of it. Becoming a parent I think also makes you more aware of that, the cause and effect when your kid watches something and repeats something back that you’re like, “We don’t speak like that.” You get to see a very tiny microcosm of what its effect is, just even on little humans, because they don’t know. But it’s all around us. That’s not to say that all entertainment that I do (laughs) can be watched by all people of all ages, because I do some stuff that is, obviously, very adult-oriented, but it has made me think about what kind of things I put out there into the world.

In Tell It to the Bees, you play your first explicitly queer character in film.

In a film, yes. But my character in (2017’s sci-fi anthology TV series) Electric Dreams was also a lesbian.

Why did it take so long?

It wasn’t really a conscious thing. A lot of times with choices it kind of depends on what material comes your way and when. I hadn’t happened to have a proper lesbian love story of any sort really come my way prior to that. I think I was probably somewhat obvious casting for that (laughs). But it’s a beautiful love story, it’s set in the 1950s in Scotland, my character is adopted, basically got outed as a teenager and left her community under quite traumatic circumstances. (She) falls in love with another outsider, a young mother in the community who is – we don’t ever really put a label on her sexuality, but it’s probably more on the bisexual-to-straight-but-falls-in-love-with-the-human. It’s about what they bring out in each other.

I’m surprised to hear that you haven’t been offered more queer film roles.

I was on a TV show for, like, the entire time surrounding (coming out), so I wasn’t really available to do anything else (laughs). And also, True Blood reps hard on the Pride front.

How aware were you of what True Blood was doing for the LGBTQ community at the time it aired?

Vampires coming out of the coffin: the metaphor was pretty specific! (Laughs) And also just the sexual fluidity of all the vampires. Obviously, we would have to have been living under a rock not to have felt the support and love from the community.

Do you hear from gay fans about Flack on Twitter?

In general, yes. Whenever I’ve done work that has any representation of our community, yes, I always end up hearing really cool, nice feedback from people who are appreciative of conversations being easier to have because they’re happening in the public eye.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2019/04/11/anna-paquin-talks-tricky-lgbtq-representation-understated-queer-roles/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/184109329145

[hotspotsmagazine]

Anna Paquin Talks ‘Tricky’ LGBTQ Representation, Understated Queer Roles

Enough with the labels: Anna Paquin just wants LGBTQ people to be people. As star and executive producer of Pop TV’s Flack, Paquin’s celeb-PR spin doctor, Robyn, fascinates because her hyper-controlling nature at work is in sharp contrast to her out-of-control family life. Robyn’s bisexuality is a mere footnote.

It’s 2019. This is the queer-is-human moment Anna Paquin has been waiting for. This explains why, though she plays a lesbian character, she appreciates that her love interest (Holliday Grainger) in her upcoming film Tell It to the Bees, out May 3, eludes any kind of fixed sexual identity.

Openly bisexual herself, Paquin came out in 2010 in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper’s Give a Damn campaign, dedicated to LGBTQ equality. At the time, she was portraying southern heroine Sookie Stackhouse on HBO’s vampire queerfest True Blood; she married her co-star, Stephen Moyer, that same year. (The couple has 6-year-old twins, Poppy and Charlie Moyer.)

But the 36-year-old actress’ precocious career in film and TV goes back decades to her childhood, when, at just 11 years old, she won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Flora McGrath in 1993’s The Piano. Cross-genre roles abounded: Fly Away Home (1996), She’s All That (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and three X-Men films. In 2017, Paquin starred as a detective investigating the disappearance and murder of a trans woman (Sadie O’Neil) on the short-lived drama series Bellevue.

Nearly 10 years later, Paquin still gives a damn – about inclusivity in her work, entertainment as a way to open close-minded minds, and actors who are forced out of the closet in the name of representation.

In Flack, there’s a gay scandal, a trans scandal and a lesbian sex tape, and that’s all within the first three episodes. I mean, this show was made with the LGBTQ community in mind, right?

I mean, not intentionally. It was just made more with, you know, the human race in mind. And that includes all of us (laughs). There’s humor and drama to be found in all of our communities, but, yes, there is definitely something to be had for our LGBTQ community in the world of Flack. Although a lot of people ask me if that was me, because obviously it’s important to me, but that was just always part of the fiber of the show in those episodes, and that was our writers. I wish I could take more credit for that, but I really can’t.

As an actress, are you drawn to stories that tell our stories?

Yes, but I’m also just drawn to really amazing writing, and I think especially when there are stories that are our stories but are also written in a beautiful and eloquent way, that, to me, is a twofer. I mean, I love the fact that Robyn being bisexual just kind of casually drops in; it’s not a thing because it shouldn’t be a thing. And I feel like so many movies and shows, if they have characters who are leading anything other than heteronormative lives, it’s made into a big deal. It really shouldn’t be and isn’t. So I do love that part of the show.

It sounds like you don’t think we’re at a place where LGBTQ characters can simply live within the fabric of the world, and maybe that’s because LGBTQ people can’t just yet either.

Are we? (Laughs) I mean, I think everyone has different experiences. I really think it depends what part of the country you’re in and what kind of community you grow up in. Look, I’m a non-American-born Canadian-Kiwi living in liberal California, so my experience of the world as a bisexual woman is probably incredibly different from someone who lives in – not to single anyone out in particular, but let’s say a less progressive state. So I feel like we still have a ways to go, but we’re obviously going in the right direction.

Where do you stand on the debate that exclusively LGBTQ actors should be playing LGBTQ roles?

In casting all the characters in this show it would never have occurred to us to look at anyone other than trans actors for trans roles. I frankly did not ask the actress who plays Robyn’s ex-girlfriend because I also don’t really think it’s any of my business. What’s tricky around some of that stuff is that, while I think representation of people within our community is incredibly important, I think it’s also putting a lot of pressure on people to come out in a public way that they may or may not be ready to do yet. I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to force people out of the closet, to be like, “Hey, you shouldn’t be playing this role because you’re not gay.” Well, what if that person is but isn’t comfortable coming out? Where does that leave us as far as representation, but also respecting people’s own timeline for their own lives and what they’re comfortable with? I think it’s incredibly complicated.

Was there pressure on you when you came out?

If there was, I certainly didn’t experience any. Everyone in my private life knew. It wasn’t a big deal. But also, things aren’t a big deal if you don’t make a big deal of them.

I’d like to note that your show Bellevue represented the trans community in a very real way. I know you really bonded on the set with actress Sadie O’Neil, who played a trans character.

What an awesome, smart, talented actress and writer and poet. She was incredibly patient with all of us who know less about her community asking quite specific questions as far as how we’re representing the community on the show. Because the script, you can do a good approximation, but if that’s not the life that you have lived then, obviously, you’re not gonna get all of it right. And being patient with the fact that we had taken a good stab at it, but then wanting to actually get it right, was something we were really very grateful for, and we obviously very much deferred to her on a lot of it.

In what ways was the show and being with Sadie on set a teaching moment for you?

It’s one thing to conceptually support all members of our rainbow community, it’s another thing to pretend that you know what somebody else’s life experience is like, and I don’t pretend to know things I don’t know. So, to me, getting more information is something that I just think you can’t have enough of. And the more you know, the more helpful you can be. It literally had never even occurred to me that feminism could exclude trans women. That, to me, just doesn’t make any sense, and that’s a huge deal and kind of blew my mind. You know, these kinds of conversations that end up casually happening because you’re working with them and getting to know them, it’s like, “Wow, I feel a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know that and I’m glad I know that now.”

Does it mean something to you that a role such as Robyn or your role as Dr. Jean in Tell It to the Bees is creating greater visibility for the LGBTQ community?

Absolutely … absolutely! Yes. I think that people learn about people they don’t understand through entertainment. That’s one of our most powerful tools for bringing people out of their own bubble and their own world, because if you see somebody depicted on screen you sort of are emotionally connected to that person and their story and their life, and maybe it can change people’s minds about how they sort of snap-judge other people and their sexual orientation or gender identity or whatever it may be. I think entertainment is a very powerful tool for that, so yeah, it’s very meaningful to me.

When were you first aware that entertainment had that kind of power?

Honestly, not really until I was a grown up because when I was a teenager just, you know, doing my thing and going to school, I wasn’t massively conscious of it. Becoming a parent I think also makes you more aware of that, the cause and effect when your kid watches something and repeats something back that you’re like, “We don’t speak like that.” You get to see a very tiny microcosm of what its effect is, just even on little humans, because they don’t know. But it’s all around us. That’s not to say that all entertainment that I do (laughs) can be watched by all people of all ages, because I do some stuff that is, obviously, very adult-oriented, but it has made me think about what kind of things I put out there into the world.

In Tell It to the Bees, you play your first explicitly queer character in film.

In a film, yes. But my character in (2017’s sci-fi anthology TV series) Electric Dreams was also a lesbian.

Why did it take so long?

It wasn’t really a conscious thing. A lot of times with choices it kind of depends on what material comes your way and when. I hadn’t happened to have a proper lesbian love story of any sort really come my way prior to that. I think I was probably somewhat obvious casting for that (laughs). But it’s a beautiful love story, it’s set in the 1950s in Scotland, my character is adopted, basically got outed as a teenager and left her community under quite traumatic circumstances. (She) falls in love with another outsider, a young mother in the community who is – we don’t ever really put a label on her sexuality, but it’s probably more on the bisexual-to-straight-but-falls-in-love-with-the-human. It’s about what they bring out in each other.

I’m surprised to hear that you haven’t been offered more queer film roles.

I was on a TV show for, like, the entire time surrounding (coming out), so I wasn’t really available to do anything else (laughs). And also, True Blood reps hard on the Pride front.

How aware were you of what True Blood was doing for the LGBTQ community at the time it aired?

Vampires coming out of the coffin: the metaphor was pretty specific! (Laughs) And also just the sexual fluidity of all the vampires. Obviously, we would have to have been living under a rock not to have felt the support and love from the community.

Do you hear from gay fans about Flack on Twitter?

In general, yes. Whenever I’ve done work that has any representation of our community, yes, I always end up hearing really cool, nice feedback from people who are appreciative of conversations being easier to have because they’re happening in the public eye.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2019/04/11/anna-paquin-talks-tricky-lgbtq-representation-understated-queer-roles/

[cynthiajayusa]

Anna Paquin Talks ‘Tricky’ LGBTQ Representation, Understated Queer Roles

Enough with the labels: Anna Paquin just wants LGBTQ people to be people. As star and executive producer of Pop TV’s Flack, Paquin’s celeb-PR spin doctor, Robyn, fascinates because her hyper-controlling nature at work is in sharp contrast to her out-of-control family life. Robyn’s bisexuality is a mere footnote.

It’s 2019. This is the queer-is-human moment Anna Paquin has been waiting for. This explains why, though she plays a lesbian character, she appreciates that her love interest (Holliday Grainger) in her upcoming film Tell It to the Bees, out May 3, eludes any kind of fixed sexual identity.

Openly bisexual herself, Paquin came out in 2010 in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper’s Give a Damn campaign, dedicated to LGBTQ equality. At the time, she was portraying southern heroine Sookie Stackhouse on HBO’s vampire queerfest True Blood; she married her co-star, Stephen Moyer, that same year. (The couple has 6-year-old twins, Poppy and Charlie Moyer.)

But the 36-year-old actress’ precocious career in film and TV goes back decades to her childhood, when, at just 11 years old, she won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Flora McGrath in 1993’s The Piano. Cross-genre roles abounded: Fly Away Home (1996), She’s All That (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and three X-Men films. In 2017, Paquin starred as a detective investigating the disappearance and murder of a trans woman (Sadie O’Neil) on the short-lived drama series Bellevue.

Nearly 10 years later, Paquin still gives a damn – about inclusivity in her work, entertainment as a way to open close-minded minds, and actors who are forced out of the closet in the name of representation.

In Flack, there’s a gay scandal, a trans scandal and a lesbian sex tape, and that’s all within the first three episodes. I mean, this show was made with the LGBTQ community in mind, right?

I mean, not intentionally. It was just made more with, you know, the human race in mind. And that includes all of us (laughs). There’s humor and drama to be found in all of our communities, but, yes, there is definitely something to be had for our LGBTQ community in the world of Flack. Although a lot of people ask me if that was me, because obviously it’s important to me, but that was just always part of the fiber of the show in those episodes, and that was our writers. I wish I could take more credit for that, but I really can’t.

As an actress, are you drawn to stories that tell our stories?

Yes, but I’m also just drawn to really amazing writing, and I think especially when there are stories that are our stories but are also written in a beautiful and eloquent way, that, to me, is a twofer. I mean, I love the fact that Robyn being bisexual just kind of casually drops in; it’s not a thing because it shouldn’t be a thing. And I feel like so many movies and shows, if they have characters who are leading anything other than heteronormative lives, it’s made into a big deal. It really shouldn’t be and isn’t. So I do love that part of the show.

It sounds like you don’t think we’re at a place where LGBTQ characters can simply live within the fabric of the world, and maybe that’s because LGBTQ people can’t just yet either.

Are we? (Laughs) I mean, I think everyone has different experiences. I really think it depends what part of the country you’re in and what kind of community you grow up in. Look, I’m a non-American-born Canadian-Kiwi living in liberal California, so my experience of the world as a bisexual woman is probably incredibly different from someone who lives in – not to single anyone out in particular, but let’s say a less progressive state. So I feel like we still have a ways to go, but we’re obviously going in the right direction.

Where do you stand on the debate that exclusively LGBTQ actors should be playing LGBTQ roles?

In casting all the characters in this show it would never have occurred to us to look at anyone other than trans actors for trans roles. I frankly did not ask the actress who plays Robyn’s ex-girlfriend because I also don’t really think it’s any of my business. What’s tricky around some of that stuff is that, while I think representation of people within our community is incredibly important, I think it’s also putting a lot of pressure on people to come out in a public way that they may or may not be ready to do yet. I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to force people out of the closet, to be like, “Hey, you shouldn’t be playing this role because you’re not gay.” Well, what if that person is but isn’t comfortable coming out? Where does that leave us as far as representation, but also respecting people’s own timeline for their own lives and what they’re comfortable with? I think it’s incredibly complicated.

Was there pressure on you when you came out?

If there was, I certainly didn’t experience any. Everyone in my private life knew. It wasn’t a big deal. But also, things aren’t a big deal if you don’t make a big deal of them.

I’d like to note that your show Bellevue represented the trans community in a very real way. I know you really bonded on the set with actress Sadie O’Neil, who played a trans character.

What an awesome, smart, talented actress and writer and poet. She was incredibly patient with all of us who know less about her community asking quite specific questions as far as how we’re representing the community on the show. Because the script, you can do a good approximation, but if that’s not the life that you have lived then, obviously, you’re not gonna get all of it right. And being patient with the fact that we had taken a good stab at it, but then wanting to actually get it right, was something we were really very grateful for, and we obviously very much deferred to her on a lot of it.

In what ways was the show and being with Sadie on set a teaching moment for you?

It’s one thing to conceptually support all members of our rainbow community, it’s another thing to pretend that you know what somebody else’s life experience is like, and I don’t pretend to know things I don’t know. So, to me, getting more information is something that I just think you can’t have enough of. And the more you know, the more helpful you can be. It literally had never even occurred to me that feminism could exclude trans women. That, to me, just doesn’t make any sense, and that’s a huge deal and kind of blew my mind. You know, these kinds of conversations that end up casually happening because you’re working with them and getting to know them, it’s like, “Wow, I feel a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know that and I’m glad I know that now.”

Does it mean something to you that a role such as Robyn or your role as Dr. Jean in Tell It to the Bees is creating greater visibility for the LGBTQ community?

Absolutely … absolutely! Yes. I think that people learn about people they don’t understand through entertainment. That’s one of our most powerful tools for bringing people out of their own bubble and their own world, because if you see somebody depicted on screen you sort of are emotionally connected to that person and their story and their life, and maybe it can change people’s minds about how they sort of snap-judge other people and their sexual orientation or gender identity or whatever it may be. I think entertainment is a very powerful tool for that, so yeah, it’s very meaningful to me.

When were you first aware that entertainment had that kind of power?

Honestly, not really until I was a grown up because when I was a teenager just, you know, doing my thing and going to school, I wasn’t massively conscious of it. Becoming a parent I think also makes you more aware of that, the cause and effect when your kid watches something and repeats something back that you’re like, “We don’t speak like that.” You get to see a very tiny microcosm of what its effect is, just even on little humans, because they don’t know. But it’s all around us. That’s not to say that all entertainment that I do (laughs) can be watched by all people of all ages, because I do some stuff that is, obviously, very adult-oriented, but it has made me think about what kind of things I put out there into the world.

In Tell It to the Bees, you play your first explicitly queer character in film.

In a film, yes. But my character in (2017’s sci-fi anthology TV series) Electric Dreams was also a lesbian.

Why did it take so long?

It wasn’t really a conscious thing. A lot of times with choices it kind of depends on what material comes your way and when. I hadn’t happened to have a proper lesbian love story of any sort really come my way prior to that. I think I was probably somewhat obvious casting for that (laughs). But it’s a beautiful love story, it’s set in the 1950s in Scotland, my character is adopted, basically got outed as a teenager and left her community under quite traumatic circumstances. (She) falls in love with another outsider, a young mother in the community who is – we don’t ever really put a label on her sexuality, but it’s probably more on the bisexual-to-straight-but-falls-in-love-with-the-human. It’s about what they bring out in each other.

I’m surprised to hear that you haven’t been offered more queer film roles.

I was on a TV show for, like, the entire time surrounding (coming out), so I wasn’t really available to do anything else (laughs). And also, True Blood reps hard on the Pride front.

How aware were you of what True Blood was doing for the LGBTQ community at the time it aired?

Vampires coming out of the coffin: the metaphor was pretty specific! (Laughs) And also just the sexual fluidity of all the vampires. Obviously, we would have to have been living under a rock not to have felt the support and love from the community.

Do you hear from gay fans about Flack on Twitter?

In general, yes. Whenever I’ve done work that has any representation of our community, yes, I always end up hearing really cool, nice feedback from people who are appreciative of conversations being easier to have because they’re happening in the public eye.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2019/04/11/anna-paquin-talks-tricky-lgbtq-representation-understated-queer-roles/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2019/04/anna-paquin-talks-tricky-lgbtq.html