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louisupdates · 6 months

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The Habit He Can’t Break, 1/4

IQ 123 | Gordon Masson | 9.11.2023

Usually, when an act completes a world tour, they come off the road for an extended period to rest, record new material, and then typically two or three years later, the wheels are set in motion for an album, released, promo, and tour dates.

Louis Tomlinson did not get that memo.

His first solo tour ran late due to the pandemic restrictions, meaning that by the time it concluded in September 2022, his second album, Faith in the Future, was scheduled to drop and tickets for the associated tour were ready to go on sale.

“This tour went on sale late October or November - basically a year in advance,” explains agent, Holly Rowland, who represents Tomlinson alongside Alex Hardee, internationally, while Wasserman Music colleagues, Marty Diamond and Ash Mowry-Lewis do likewise for North America.

Despite that quick turnaround between tours, Rowland reports that ticket sales for the current tour are going very well indeed. “The first leg went through Scandinavia before doing the Baltics and Eastern Europe – Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece – places that most people, especially arena-level acts, don’t really go. And the second leg, which is more mainland Europe, started 2 October.”

The tour is big. Very big for just a second outing in his own name.

Between May and July this year, Tomlinson played 39 dates in the US and Canada across a mix of amphitheaters, arenas, pavilions, and stadiums. In August, he returned to Europe, where he currently is in the midst of another 39 dates in arenas across the continent and the UK, which will take him to 18 November. Then, in early 2024, the Faith in the Future tour goes to Australia for two outdoor dates in Melbourne and Brisbane, before he takes the show to the country’s biggest indoor venue, the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney.

And, as IQ went to press, Louis Tomlinson released dates for a return to Latin America in May 2024 for a mix of indoor and outdoor shows, including stadia, across Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay.

“We’re going to Australia and part of Asia early next year,” states artist manager Matt Vines of London-based Seven 7 Management. We then go into Latin America in May and June. And then we’ll handpick a selection of festivals next summer, before we draw the line on the campaign at the end of the summer.”

Rowland comments, “The tour before obviously was a Covid tour where the dates had to be chopped and changed. The positive aspect of that was that we were able to upgrade venues where that made sense. But it was really nice to start from scratch on this tour to make sure the routing was all going in the right direction.”

Back to You

Playing a major role in shifting that ticketing inventory is a network of promoters also enjoying Tomlinsons rising star.

“On this tour, it’s mainly Live Nation – we use a lot of the One Direction promoter,” explains Rowland. “But for Greece, we used Honeycomb Live, Charmenko did Romania, 8 Days A Week promoted the three shows in the Baltics, All Things Live did Finland, Fource are doing Orague, it’s Gadget in Switzerland, Atelier in Luxembourg, and when we get to the UK, it’s SJM, and MCD in Ireland.”

With a total of 39 European dates, Rowland split the outing into separate legs, scheduling a break after Scandinavia, the Balkans, Baltics, and Athens, Greece, and another after mainland Europe, ending in Zürich, Switzerland.

“It’s a perfect ratio, if I do say so myself,” she laughs. “It was right to split it up – 39 dates is a long, long tour, especially with the American tour throughout the summer being 11 weeks! We made sure to schedule days off, for everyone to recharge their batteries.”

In Spain, Nacho Córdoba at Live Nation promoted Tomlinson’s shows in Bilbao, Madrid, and Barcelona, and reports sell-outs at each of the arenas involved.

“When Louis was last here, it was three days before the pandemic shut everything down in Spain. In fact, I think he played the final show before the market closed because of Covid.,” says Córdoba.

“Last year, Louis organized his Away From Home Festival in Fuengirola, and that also sold out, so we know he has a big following in Spain, and we also know that Spanish fans are super loyal. So, on this tour we sold out 7,000 tickets at Bilbao Arena Miribilla, 13,600 tickets at Wizink in Madrid, and 11,200 at Palau St Jordi in Barcelona.”

Already looking forward to Tomlinson “and his fantastic team” returning on the next tour, Córdoba believes it will be important to see what happens with the next album – and Tomlinson’s expectations – before making any plans.

“The most important thing is to keep the fans happy and keep the momentum building with Louis,” he states. “I am a big fan of the arenas, because the atmosphere at his shows was incredible. So, rather than look at going bigger, it might be a case of looking at other arenas in other markets. Whatever he does, we cannot wait to have Louis back in Spain.”

Stefan Wyss at Gadget abc Entertainment in Switzerland promoted Tomlinson when he visited Zurich’s Hallenstadion on 23 October and explains that he previously played the city’s Halle 622 venue on the first tour.

Recalling the debut solo outing, Wyss tells IQ, “At first, we announced a mid-size theatre club show, 1,800-capacity, but it sold out instantly. Then we moved it to Halle 62, which is 3-500-cap and that also sold out immediately, so it was a really big success.

“They’ve invested a lot in the production of this current tour, and it’s doing really strong numbers, so that’s why we decided to go to the arena this time around, where we set a mid-size capacity of 7,000, which is good for a small market like Switzerland, especially because he’s coming back just one year later and playing a much bigger show.”

Wyss adds, “He’s kept the ticket prices reasonable – and he never wants to do any gold circle or VIP tickets. I think that’s why he’s so close to his fans, because it’s not about maximising profits. Another reason for his success is that in addition to attracting a mainstream audience, he’s also getting the music lovers because he’s just a very good songwriter and has brilliant songs.”

Wyss also notes that with many young fans typically arriving the day before the concert, the responsibility to look after them is extended. “We set up toilets, we have security overnight, we give water away. It’s part of the organization that we will take care of the fans.”

Fresh from announcing 12 dates across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay, promoter Fabiano Lima De Queiroz at Move Concerts reports that Tomlinson will visit a mix of arenas, as well as stadiums in Santiago, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires, during his May tour.

“Our first tour with Louis was supposed to be in 2020 and we’d booked half arenas everywhere – 5,000–6,000 capacities,” he informs IQ. “Louis was one of those acts who connected very well with the fans during the pandemic, so when we shifted the dates, first to 2021, and then to 2022, we ended up selling out and having to upgrade in certain metropolitan markets.”

2/4, 3/4, 4/4

#iq magazine #louis tomlinson #louis press #9.11.2023

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dailytomlinson · 6 months

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Faith In The Future Tour (Behind The Scenes) for IQ

Full interview with Matt Vines, tour promoters, agents and more people involved in the making of the tour under the cut:

Usually, when an act completes a world tour they come off the road for an extended period to rest, record new material, and then typically two or three years later the wheels are set in motion for an album release, promo, and tour dates. Louis Tomlinson did not get that memo. His first solo tour ran late due to the pandemic restrictions, meaning that by the time it concluded in September 2022, his second album, Faith In The Future, was scheduled to drop and tickets for the associated tour were ready to go on sale.

“This tour went on sale last October or November ‒ basically a year in advance,” explains agent Holly Rowland, who represents Tomlinson, alongside Alex Hardee, internationally, while Wasserman Music colleagues Marty Diamond and Ash Mowry-Lewis do likewise for North America.

Despite that quick turnaround between tours, Rowland reports that ticket sales for the current tour are going very well indeed. “The first leg went through Scandinavia before doing the Baltics and Eastern Europe ‒ Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece ‒ places that most people, especially arena-level acts, don’t really go. And the second leg, which is more mainland Europe, started on 2 October.”

The tour is big. Very big for just a second outing in his own name.

Between May and July this year, Tomlinson played 39 dates in the US and Canada across a mix of amphitheaters, arenas, pavilions, and stadiums. In August, he returned to Europe, where he is currently in the midst of another 39 dates in arenas across the continent and the UK, which will take him to 18 November. Then, in early 2024, the Faith In The Future tour goes to Australia for two outdoor dates in Melbourne and Brisbane, before he takes the show to the country’s biggest indoor venue, the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney.

And, as IQ went to press, Tomlinson released dates for a return to Latin America in May 2024 for a mix of indoor and outdoor shows, including stadia, across Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay.

“We’re going to Australia and part of Asia early next year,” states artist manager Matt Vines of London-based Seven 7 Management. “We then go into Latin America in May and June. And then we’ll handpick a selection of festivals next summer, before we draw the line on the campaign at the end of the summer.”

Rowland comments, “The tour before obviously was Covid tour where the date had to be chopped and changed. The positive aspect of that was that we were able to upgrade venues where that made sense. But it was really nice to start from scratch on this tour to make sure the routing was all going in the right direction.” She reports, “We’ve done nearly 16,000 tickets in Amsterdam, and 14,000 in Paris, which I think just underlines his credibility as an artist and his growing reputation among fans.”

Playing a major role in shifting that ticketing inventory is a network of promoters also enjoying Tomlinson’s rising star.

“On this tour, it’s mainly Live Nation ‒ we use a lot of the One Direction promoter,” explains Rowland. “But for Greece, we used Honeycomb Live, Charmenko did Romania, 8 Days A Week promoted the three shows in the Baltics, All Things Live did Finland, Fource are doing Prague, it’s Gadget in Switzerland, Atelier in Luxembourg, and when we get to the UK, it’s SJM, and MCD in Ireland.”

With a total of 39 European dates, Rowland split the outing into separate legs, scheduling a break after Scandinavia, the Balkans, Baltics and Athens, Greece and another after mainland Europe ending in Zurich, Switzerland.

“It's a perfect ratio, if I do say so myself,” she laughs. “It was right to split it up ‒ 39 dates in a long, long tour, especially with the American tour throughout the summer being 11 weeks! We made sure to schedule days off, for everyone to recharge their batteries.”

In Spain, Nacho Córdoba at Live Nation promoted Tomlinson’s shows in Bilbao, Madrid, and Barcelona and reports sell-outs at each of the arenas involved.

“When Louis was last here, it was three days before the pandemic shut everything down in Spain. In fact, I think he played the final show before the market closed because of Covid,” says Córdoba.

“Last year, Louis organised his Away From Home festival in Fuengirola, and that also sold out, so we know he has a big following in Spain, and we also know that Spanish fans are super loyal. So, on this tour we sold out 7,000 tickets at Bilbao Arena Miribilla, 13,600 tickets at WiZink in Madrid, and 11,200 at Palau St Jordi in Barcelona.”

Already looking forward to Tomlinson “and his fantastic team” returning on the next tour, Córdoba believes it will be important to see what happens with the next album ‒ and Tomlinson’s expectations ‒ before making any plans.

Recalling that debut solo outing, Wyss tells IQ, “At first, we announced a mid-size theatre club show, 1,800-capacity, but it sold out instantly. Then we moved it to Halle 622, which it 3,500-cap, and that also sold out immediately, so it was a really big success.

Wyss adds, “He’s kept the ticket prices reasonable ‒ and he never wants to do any gold circle or VIP tickets. I think that’s why he’s so close to his fans, because it’s not about maximising profits. Another reason for his success is that in addition to attracting a mainstream audience, he’s also getting music lovers because he’s just a very good songwriter and has brilliant songs.”

Fresh from announcing 12 dates across Argentina, Brazil (x 3), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Pery, Paraguay, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay, promoter Fabiano Lime de Queiroz at Move Concerts reports that Tomlinson will visit a mix of arenas, as well as stadiums in Santiago, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires during his May tour.

“Our first tour with Louis was supposed to be in 2020 and we’d booked half arenas everywhere ‒ 5,000-6,000 capacities,” he informs IQ. “Louis was one of those acts who connected very well with the fans during the pandemic, so when we shifted dates, first to 2021, and then to 2022, we ended up selling out and having to upgrade in certain metropolitan markets.”

“In Santiago, for instance, we’d sold out two full arenas of 13,000 cap, but then the government declared that for mass gatherings the numbers needed to be limited to 10,000 people.”

Rather than let fans down, Move added a third date, which again ended up selling out. “I remember being on a night plane from Miami, while Matt Vines was flying in from Dallas, and we were both using the aircraft wi-fi to negotiate via text for that third show,” says Queiroz. “It was an interesting way to confirm putting the third date on sale, just three days before the actual show!”

He adds, “We’re taking a big bet on this tour when it comes to the number of cities and the capacities of the venues, but we’re hoping for the best and we’ve gone out strong. We feel that the artist is in a good moment and that the latest album has just created more interest, so we’re looking forward to when he arrives in May.”

Further north, Ocesa will prompte three dates in Mexico, including a stadium show at the F1 circuit, Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, deepening Tomlinson’s footprint in that crucial North America market.

Meanwhile, in Tomlinson’s homeland, Jack Downling at SJM is promoting seven UK dates in November at arenas in Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, Brighton, Cardiff, London, and Birmingham, which will round out the European leg of the tour.

“SJM has done every show Louis has been involved with, including all the One Direction arena and stadium shows,” notes Dowling, adding that on the first tour, the London show was originally pencilled in as a Roundhouse, then two Roundhouse shows, before finally being upgraded to Wembley Arena.

“This time, The O2 arena show in London will be sold out, while all the others have passed the expectations of where we wanted to be on this tour. In fact, when the UK dates were announced, it ranked as the fourth most engaged tour on social media in SJM’s history ‒ his fans are just nuts.”

But Downling also reports that the fanbase for Tomlinson is expanding. “The demographics are pulling not just from pop but also from indie rock now.”

Downling adds, “Louis really looks after his fans. On the last tour they did a deal with Greggs {bakery chain} to give free food to the people waiting in line, as some of them camped out for days in advance.”

Ensuring his fans are looked after properly is the number-one priority in Tomlinson’s live career.

Noting that Tomlinson’s audience comprises mainly young women and girls, Rowland reveals that, at the artists’s insistence, a safety team has been added to the tour to ensure everyone that attends his shows is looked after. “Thry manage all the safety within the shows for the fans,” she explains. “They came in for the Wembley show last year and have been with us ever since ‒ they’ve been beneficial to the running of the tour.”

“When he played in South America, some of his fans were camping outside for a month. So we have a responsibility to look after them. Coming to a show should be a safe space, it’s where they find joy, and we have a responsibility to protect that.”

Manager Vines comments, “One issue we came up against almost all last year was crushing and fans passing out. We adopted a system where we could communicate with fans, who could hold up a mobile phone with a flashing red-and-white sign if they were in trouble but then we’d see them all popping up.”

“I don’t know whether some of that was a hangover of the pandemic where fans just weren’t used to being in venues. But we experienced a number of situations where hydration and temperatures in venues became an issue. I know Billie Eilish went through similar issues.”

With Tomlinson determined to meet a duty of care towards his fans, Vines says that the team now sends a “considerable advance package” to promoters ahead of their tour dates. “Our safety team goes into venues in the morning and basically ensures that a number of different things are in place ‒ making sure that water is given to the fans, where the water comes from, and at what points in the show it happens.”

And on the crushing phenomena, he reports, “We’ve worked out how many fans it’s safe to have without a secondary barrier. So we instruct promoters to have certain barriers in place to relieve that pressure and avoid crushing.”

He adds, “I get detailed incident reports after each show, which lets myself and my management team know exactly what happened, and so far on this tour, we haven’t had any issues with crushing or hydration, which is fantastic.”

Production manager Craig Sherwood is impressed by the way the tour has pivoted to protect the ‘Louies’. “The welfare officers are vital for the young girls who are aged from, I guess, 14 upwards. They can get dehydrated and malnourished pretty quickly if they are camping out for days, so it’s important that we look out for their wellbeing,” says Sherwood.

Citing the extremes that the Louies will put themselves through in an effort to secure themselves prime positions at the front of the stage, Sherwood recalls, “The first show on our US tour was in February, and it was freezing, but we found out that girls had been camping out on the pavement for five days. It’s crazy, as we know these young girls are coming from all over the world to see Louis.”

However, Tomlinson’s connection with those fans is evident in the level of merchandise sales at each show. “It’s a huge part of our business,” says Vines. “In America, we averaged about $36 a head, and it’s not much shy of that in Europe ‒ we’ve set a few national records in terms of spend per head. But we spend a lot of time on merch plans, and we do venue-specific drops and give it a lot of care and attention, as it’s a really important element of Louis’ business.”

Making sure that the Faith In The Future tour delivers Tomlinson to his growing legion of fans, PM Sherwoord’s long association with artist manager Vines made him the obvious choice when the artist first began his solo career.

“I remember doing a lot of promo dates around the UK and US before we started touring properly,” says Sherwood of his work with Tomlinson. “In fact, one of the first shows I remember doing with Louis was in Madrid when he played in a stadium, and I could see it was a taste of things to come.”

The partnership between Sherwood and Vines is crucial.

“In terms of the show growing, our biggest challenge is keeping costs down, because we’re extremely cautious on ticket pricing,” says Vines. “We don’t do dynamic pricing, we don’t do platinium ticketing, we don’t do paid VIPs, we don’t increase ticket prices on aisle seats ‒ all those tricks that everyone does that most fans don’t know about: we don’t do any of those.”

“So, when it comes to the production side of things, we need to be incredibly careful. But I’ve been working with Craig for a decade, and he knows the importance of trying to keep costs as low as possible. For instance, we’ll run the show virtually a number of times so Louis can watch it with the show designer, Tom Taylor, make comments and tweak things. Then we’ll go into pre-production. But we try to do as much in virtual reality as possible before we take it into the physical world.”

Sherwood states, “Basically, we started out with two or three trucks, but now we’re up to nine, and things seem to be getting bigger day by day.”

Thankfully, Sherwood has amassed a vastly experienced crew over the years, allowing them to handle even the most unexpected scenarios. “I’ve been touring since the dawn of time, but the core crew I work with now have been together since about 2010, and I trust them implicitly, so I leave it up to them who they hire, as long as they think I’m going to like them, and they’ll get along with everyone. So far, it has worked well,” Sherwood reports.

And that veteran crew has dealt with some terrifying weather extremes on the current tour, including a show at Red Rocks in Colorado where the audience were subjected to a freak storm with golf ball-sized hailstones injuring dozens of people.

Elsewhere, the crew has had to act quickly when the threat of high winds in Nashville caused problems on that outdoor run. “We didn’t want the video screens blowing about above the heads of the band, so it must have been amusing for the audience to see us taking them down,” Sherwood reports.

Indoors in Europe, the environment has been more controllable. The production itself involves an A-stage set 180 degrees across the barricades, although Sherwood says that on occasion a catwalk is also used by the performers.

“It’s a great lighting show and fantastic for audio, as we have a phenomenal front-of-house sound engineer ‒ John Delf from Edge Studios ‒ who makes life very easy for the rest of us,” says Sherwood. He also namechecks Barrie Pitt (monitor engineer), Oli Crump (audio system designer), Tom Taylor (lighting designer), Sam Kenyon (lighting technical director), and Torin Arnold (stage manager), while he praises Solo-Tech for supplying the sound, and Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) for taking charge of lighting video, and rigging equipment.

Indeed, CSE has ten personnel out with the Faith In The Future tour. “We have eight screens on the road ‒ six on stage plus two IMAGS that we use wherever appropriate,” the company’s Haydn Cruickshank tells IQ.

“We need to tweak the rigging on a daily basis, as we move to different venues, but other than that it’s a fairly smooth process thanks to Craig Sherwood. He is old-school and planned and worked on the production very far in advance, which is a great scenario for all involved. Craig is definitely one of our favourite production managers to work with.”

Garry Lewis at bussing contractors Beat The Street is also a fan of PM Sherwood.

“Craig split the European tour into different runs. So, from Hamburg to Zurich, we had two super high-decker 12-berth buses for the tour party and two 16-berth double-deckers for the crew,” says Lewis. “After the show in Athens, we still have the two super high-deckers, as Louis loves them ‒ he prefers to spend time on the bus, rather than in hotels ‒ but we also have two 12-berth super high-deckers for the crew, as well as another crew 16-berth double-decker.”

Lewis continues, “We’ve worked with Craig for a good few years, and we have a great relationship with him. He plans everything way in advance, so it means it’s all very straightforward for us with no issues. So, we use single drivers for each bus, except on the longer runs or when our drivers are scheduled for prolonged breaks, and then we’ll fly in extra drivers as needed.”

With the production travelling to Australia in early 2024, before shifting to Latin America, Andy Lovell at Freight Minds is gearing up to become involved with Tomlinson once again.

“We did the Central and South America dates on the tour last year, and onto Mexico,” says Lovell. “It was very challenging back then as we were still coming back from Covid, and various systems and infrastructure were in pieces. But it all went well in the end, as we kept an eye on things and worked on it every day to make sure we had solutions to everything that was thrown our way.”

Lovell continues, “Things on this tour kick in early next year for us. Historically, Australian services were quite reliable, as we could use any number of airlines. But post-pandemic, the number of long-haul flights still aren’t as frequent as they were. As a result, the production is being reverse engineered with the budget being worked out before we can see what we can afford to take as freight, and then we try to plan accordingly.”

“Similarly, in Central and South America there are still just a fraction of the flights operating, compared to pre-Covid, so that makes it very challenging. If there aren’t the flights to handle the gear, then you have to start looking at chartering aircraft, or alter your schedule, and that can become very expensive, very fast.”

With everyone working on the artist’s behalf to make sure the tour remains on track, being able to call on such experienced production experts is paying off on a daily basis.

Sherwood notes, “There are a few back-to-back shows over long distances that occasionally mean we don’t arrive at the next venue until 11am, rather than 6am. But we’ve never failed anywhere to open the doors on time, so we know we’re capable of getting things done, even if we have a late start at mid-day.”

Such dilemmas are not lost on agent Rowland. “It’s not so much the routing, it’s more like the timings, because Louis does have two support acts, so the show starts at 7 o’clock, and then when we’re done, we need to load out to get to the next show in good time for loading in the next morning and soundchecks, etc.”

Nonetheless, Sherwood admits that he loves the trickier venues and schedules. “Because I’m a dinosaur, I relish anything that makes things difficult or awkward for us on the production side of things,” he says. “I think everyone on the crew looks forward to challenges and finding the solutions to problems.”

Having amassed millions of fans through his association with One Direction, Tomlinson very much has a ‘pay it forward’ attitude to music and is building a reputation as a champion for emerging talent, wherever he performs.

“He’s a great advocate for alternative music,” says manager Vines. “Louis realises that he’s in an incredibly privileged position in terms of what he can create in terms of awareness. He loves alternative music and indie music, and he understands how hard it is for that music to be heard. But we have this amazing platform where we can put these bands in front of these audiences as a showcase that allows them to build these authentic new audiences. It’s a hude part of his love of music, wanting to help younger bands.”

Rowland agrees. “He took an act called Andrew Cushin ‒ a very new artist ‒ on the road in America with him as his support, and he’s doing the same for Europe. Louis is a fan and is championing his career.”

Indeed, Tomlinson’s A&R skills have knock-on effects for his agent, too. “He asked me to confirm the Australian band Pacific Avenue as support for his Australian tour last year. The music was great and they didn’t have an agent, so now I’m representing them!” says Rowland.

As the European tour speeds toward its conclusion, agent Rowland is enjoying every minute of it.

“It’s incredible ‒ they’ve really stepped things up,” she says, fresh from seeing the show in Athens and Paris. “They’ve got 6 hanging LED screens on the stage, and the whole production just looks polished and professional.”

And Rowland is especially excited about next year’s Latin America dates, which will deliver her first stadium shows as an agent.

“The return to Latin America is going to be huge ‒ Louis is playing arenas and stadiums in South America and Mexico: 15 shows in 11 countries,” she says.

Vines is similarly enthused. Harking back to the Covid situation, when a show would go on sale, sell out, be postponed, and then rescheduled in a bigger venue, Vines says, “For example, in Chile, originally the show was scheduled at a 5,000-cap, half-capacity arena in Santiago. And what we ended up doing was three nights at 10,000-cap in that same venue.”

Vines contends that Tomlinson’s work ethic is outstanding. “He loves his fans, and he loves performing for them, it’s as simple as that,” he says. “He just loves being on the road and seeing how the songs connect live. In fact, the second album was very much written with the tour and live shows in mind ‒ ‘This song could work live,’ ‘This one will open the set,’ ‘This is the one we can do for the encore.’”

Another element to Tomlinson’s psyche has been his decision to visit places off the usual tour circuit.

“Louis has a real desire to perform to fans in markets that are often overlooked,” says Rowland.

Manager Vines explains that while the Covid-delayed first tour allowed them to upgrade venues pretty much everywhere, “On this tour, we’re a bit more competent on venue sizes, but we still speculate a little bit in different territories. In Europe, for example, we’ve gone into the Baltics and a number of different places to test the markets there, while in America, we are looking at A and B markets but also tertiary markets as well ‒ we go to places where people just don’t tour in America, just to see what the reaction is. That was something that very much interested Louis ‒ to play in front of people who don’t normally have gigs in their town. So there’s been a lot of experimentation on this tour in terms of where we go and what room to play.”

That concept is something that Vines has employed before. “I manage a band called Hurts who were pretty much overlooked by the British radio system and we have spent 15 years building a business outside of the UK. And that was built on going to play at those places where people didn’t normally go. They built to multiple arena level in Russia, for instance.”

“If you can build fanbases in lots of different places, you have festivals that you can play every summer, as well as youring those places. It allows you to have more consistency over a number of years, by having more opportunities.”

Such a strategy found a convert in Tomlinson. Vines tells IQ, “Louis also is extremely fan-focused in everything that he does. He comes at it from a perspective of ‘I want to take the show to them,’ meaning he’s always more willing to take the risky option to try something out.”

And the results? “It’s a combination,” concludes Vines. “There have been a couple of places where we now understand why tours don’t go there. But there are more places where it’s worked incredibly well. For example, we enjoyed incredibly good sales in Budapest. And overall, it’s allowing us to get a clearer idea, globally, of where the demand it, which will help us when we go into the next tour cycle.”

#louis tomlinson #iq magazine #matt vines #interview #faith in the future tour bts #holly rowland #this was a PAIN to transcribe my god

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kookiecrush · 7 months

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Hey 😊

What are some tk moments for you that made you completely sure of them being together? Like those moments where you can just cannot pretend that they aren't a couple 💜

Hi 😊 hmm, when I think about it, rather than specific moments, my belief is based on all the moments, big and small, that have happened over the years. They might not mean much on their own, but when you put them all together, it becomes quite clear and creates something beautiful. But there are some that stand out to me, and these are a few of them.

▪︎The ily sign during their Chile concert in 2017 - it's the way Tae subtly shows Jungkook the sign behind his back and the way Jungkook acknowledges it by gently nudging Tae's hand with his own. I just think it's such a raw and tender moment between them. Even though they're standing on a stage in front of thousands of people you can tell that moment was meant to be something private between them. It wasn't fanservice, I don't think it was even really meant to be seen at all. Tae was worried about Jungkook because he wasn't feeling well, and showing him ily was his way of letting him know that he was there for him.

▪︎Jungkook asking Tae, "Am I your friend?" During Summer package 2018 - although it's more about Tae's reaction to what Jungkook says for me. Jungkook was being cheeky and basically put Tae on the spot, causing him to appear quite flustered and speechless. The word (chingu) isn't the issue as all the members were using it to introduce each other during that segment. Jungkook even referred to Yoongi, who is his hyung, as "chingu." It seemed to me like Jungkook wanted to tease Tae about the status of their relationship being more than "friends," and Tae's reaction was very telling.

▪︎The "Private conversation" comment - we all know by now that k-army have said the "Private conversation" phrase is usually used in a romantic sense between couples and that it's also slang for "making out." Both Jungkook and Jimin's reactions to what Tae said is interesting. Jungkook looked slightly taken aback, instantly checks how long he's been on vlive, and then says, " Everyone, I guess I have to end it quickly." Which is funny because at the beginning he said that he was going to stay on live for a really long time, but as soon as Tae tells him to stop, he does. And then Jimin's reaction is to get close to the camera and start making kissy/teasing noises while smiling. Although quite bold, this moment doesn't really surprise me because taekook were pretty wild at times back in the day. Over the years they've obviously matured and learned to be more subtle and discreet.

▪︎Hiding in each other's lives - it makes no sense as to why they would need to hide the fact that they're sharing a room, or hide the fact that they're in the room when the other one is on live. This isn't an issue with any of the other members, and it relates to them being separated and their interactions together being reduced on screen. There's enough evidence (behaviour and voices in the background) for me to be confident that this has happened multiple times. One instance I'd like to point out is a Jungkook live in 2019 where Jin, Jimin, and Tae join him in his room whilst he's on live (the one where when asked what they where doing Jungkook replied "date" causing an awkward silence and Tae to start randomly clapping). Tae asked, "Who's room is this?" Which caused Jin and Jimin to look surprised because taekook were sharing the room but trying to hide it. Later on during the live, Jungkook asks Tae when he's leaving, and he says, "weren't we using the same room?" Exposing them both. And then when Tae finally does leave, he only pretends to because after he's "gone," we see the wrapper from the sweet he was eating earlier being thrown from a direction off screen and Jungkook keeps glancing to the right, the direction in which Tae "left."

▪︎Dates/trips for just the two of them - the most important thing to note about the Atomix date/Paradise hotel stay/Namsan date is that as far as we know, they were alone. There were no staff or managers with them. Those dates were something they did on their own for just the two of them. The Atomix date was on a day the restaurant is usually closed, so it's safe to assume they were the only ones dining that day, and you need to book in adance so it was something they had planned. I don't need to say that staying at the Paradise Hotel together sounds like a romantic staycation. The Namsan hotel also required booking in advance, and if I'm not mistaken, you have to book a hotel room to eat there. These all seem very much like intimate and romantic dates to me rather than two friends having a casual dinner.

There's many more, but I'm going to have to stop here because this is long as hell already. If you made it this far, I'm sorry 😂

#ask #taekook #vkook #it's a long one 😩

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cerastes · 1 year

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It’s been a few days, so I can say this, but man, I think the worst part of family gatherings, or rather, the price for the seemingly free food, is definitely having to listen to older relatives talk about politics, specially other countries’ politics, while I’m just trying to mooch food while making the minimum social noblesse oblige so I can leave.

This one relative, he’s real big on Trump. Sucks and chews his foreskin clean every time he can. There’s a pretty big misunderstanding older people here in Chile have, see, they see themselves not as latinos, they see themselves as ~race neutral~, they are white, obviously. Which is real weird until you realize that’s the propaganda generation. Old fucks here, damn man, real big on believing shit, huge fans of just accepting what they are told. No one would go on the radio and lie, right? Or on Whatsapp chain messages, for that matter. Critical thinking’s for pussies. So this relative, yeah, he shows up for the family gatherings, but while we feast on delicious homemade meals, he’s only eating Donald Trump’s dick nonstop.

So I had enough, told him to stop talking about what he didn’t know about, and to stop gargling on that man’s dick for one second because his lentils were getting cold. He didn’t like that one, for some reason, so as any red blooded, brave man invested in foreign politics he doesn’t know shit about, he stood up with mighty presence and told me he’d kick my ass if I disrespected him again. I reminded him of his latest failed business venture and how he’s mooching off his wife just as he’s always done in less than polite terms, and fuck man, maybe I’m just really bad at this, but he did not like that one either. Then my mother kindly reminded him I’m a boxer, and he suddenly remembered how he prefers the marketplace of ideas to settle differences. It may have to do with the fact that his own son, who is decidedly not a fighter, punched him out 2 years ago.

What I’m trying to get at is, man, the Chilean schism of race here among old people is fucked up, and I wish I could just say I don’t get it, but I do. Again, these people grew up in the era of maximum unfiltered propaganda with no world wide web backdrop to contrast ideas and opinions against. People nowadays, with the world wide web backdrop, still develop the most ass backwards incomprehensible worldviews that, were you to portray them through a character in a video game or a book, would get said character labelled as unrealistically unhinged by most people, so imagine how some old people from back then must be. These are people that really believe that if “Tio Trump” had his way, they wouldn’t be machine gunned during the celebratory parades at sundown towns. Or, to put it in less wordy terms, we got some real fucking stupid old people in this country, but like, real real fucking stupid, you wouldn’t believe how stupid they are... But for every reason that makes perfect, coherent sense. That’s not even getting into the complicated relationship that Chile has with the Left, to throw in the pot of everything else up there.

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hexjulia · 2 months

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ngl looking at more pictures of seatoads that unknown species of seatoad from chile looks a lot like already known seatoads

possible new species pic from article

older pic of a sea toad from some reddit post

it's just that i'd never seen one before. fuzzy sweater of an animal. obviously even subtle differences are important and might mean it's a new species anyway but the weird shape and texture were just unfamiliar to me! not actually probably as odd to people who know more about related species.

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alittledizzy · 1 year

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It's so nice to see normal people who understand normal fandom culture. Like seeing dteam post snaps then trying to figure out where they are based on the background is normal in other fandoms.

I just feel like there's a level of common sense that people here just blatantly ignore - both common sense from the public figure/content creator (they aren't going to post something they are genuinely keeping locked down) and common sense of fans. Most people are rational beings. Will there always be fringe people that don't ahere to common sense, or feel entitled? Yes. Will that be true whether or not the majority of fandom is discussing a transitory location that they've posted? Yes. No one is seeing someone on tumblr posting about dnf being at The Abbey and having an entire change of heart on their stance on privacy invasion. The people that would want to do that are already doing it.

And there's a level of common sense about what you can/should discuss publicly and what you shouldn't. A restaurant, a bar, a hotel room - transitory. Not a permanent location. Restaurants, bars, clubs - very public, too. Very recognizable.

When they're all going to Disney Springs to eat there are a number of people that instantly recognize it and say it and maybe this is just my limited exposure to the fandom but I don't see anyone screaming about that. For some people, The Abbey was instantly recognizable. A street in LA is recognizable. A shopping mall is recognizable. A hotel in Chile is recognizable. I feel like for most people one thing that happens here is familiarity breeds comfort. If you know what the inside of an IHOP looks like and you see them at IHOP, you have this feeling like because you didn't go looking for it, it's fine to say hey they're eating at IHOP. If you don't know what the inside of The Abbey looks like and you just see someone say "oh, they're at this specific gay bar" it feels Bad Wrong Danger because you didn't come into the situation with that knowledge, you were told it.

The same way with Disney Springs, like I mentioned - people have seen them there enough times that it doesn't feel wrong to say but if it's a location they're at for the first time despite the technicalities of the situation being the same it gets more negative response to identify the new place. And this fandom thrives on restrictive responses to things and public condemnation related to that, this sense of the division between two halves of fandom being so strong and people existing in such fear of being canceled or labeled if you happen to be accused of being on the wrong side of it.

It's a weird fucking situation, man. idk. Like I genuinely don't know if it's a response to the puriteen bent of younger fans or specific to Dream being doxxed in the past (which obviously I have a huge amount of compassion for, and is a much different and more serious thing than identifying locations based on voluntarily posted snapchats) but learning the ropes here feels much more dangerous than any fandom I've been in before.

#anon asks #dnf asks

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cha-melodius · 1 year

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hii!! if you're feeling up to it could you please do prompt 8 with firstprince?

(Hi anon, thanks for the prompt! This was 8. “My holiday dish is better than your holiday dish,” and it ended as an enemies-to-lovers neighbors AU. I hope you enjoy!)

The Spirit of Giving

Read it on AO3 (T, 2.3k)

Here’s the thing: Alex is pretty sure Henry can’t even cook.

His annoying—and annoyingly hot—neighbor across the hall gets delivery constantly, when he eats at home to begin with. Then there was that one time that his grocery delivery order accidentally got left at Alex’s doorstop, and Alex had dug in without looking at the receipt stapled to the outer bag only to find a large collection of instant noodles and frozen dinners. Look, no shade on his ramen choices; that creamy tom yum one is fucking good, and Alex absolutely understands the appeal of a bowl of hot, umami-laden instant ramen when you can’t be assed to cook. But there were also essentially no raw ingredients in the bag, either.

The point being that he’s never seen any evidence that Henry knows how to use what must be a very nice kitchen, if it’s similar to Alex’s (and he knows it is). One of the main reasons Alex got an apartment in this co-op was because of that kitchen. Cooking is important to him. Besides running, it’s the only thing that can quiet his too-loud thoughts and calm his frayed nerves when his job gets to be too much. He cooks a lot, and he cooks a huge variety of different styles and cuisines, although of course Mexican cooking is the most important to him.

Which is why, when the co-op president puts a sign-up sheet for dishes to bring to the annual holiday party, he cannot understand why Henry of all peoples signs up to make enchiladas. Enchiladas! The whitest person in all of Brooklyn, making Alex’s fucking specialty! It’s a fucking affront, is what it is. And then, when Alex confronted him about it, he had the gall to shrug and say he didn’t see why he shouldn’t sign up for them.

Fine. Alex will make tamales, which will be even better, since the co-op president decreed that no one could sign up for the same dish. It’s just been a little while since he made them, but it’s a good excuse to call his grandmother and have her ramble to him about making the dough and the proper way to fold them, plus at the end she insists on sending him a box of dried chiles in the mail. A win-win, really.

There are a couple of weeks in between the sign ups and the actual holiday party, which are long enough for Alex to notice something odd going on at Henry’s. Their apartments are the only two that occupy the third floor, and so they share a number of common walls that are fortunately pretty well sound-proofed. The duct work for the HVAC must be shared in places, though, because occasionally Alex can smell things like Henry’s Thai takeout, or that time when he seemed to be dating a guy who was really into Axe body spray (that, fortunately, did not last long). Alex has also detected things burning in the kitchen on occasion, which is another point in the Henry-can’t-cook column, but he almost never smells the telltale aromas of cooking food. Onions and garlic sweating. Bread baking. Soup simmering. It’s distinct from prepared food delivered or reheated.

Now, though, some of those scents have started wafting over from Henry’s apartment. Garlic frying, and then burning, then frying again. Meat searing. Once, he swears he smelled dried chiles being toasted. It’s a scent straight from his childhood, and not one he’d mistake for anything else. Then there are the grocery deliveries he’s seen sitting on Henry’s doormat. Not that he’s been snooping, but he could see certain items at the top of the bags, like peppers and Mexican cheeses and an actual bag of masa harina flour. That one might have made him do a double take at to be sure he wasn’t imagining it.

It seems, unbelievably, like Henry’s practicing for the holiday party. Obviously, he should, if he thinks he’s going to beat Alex at his own game, but it’s very unexpected.

Maybe Alex should make a practice batch of tamales.

A few days later, on a Saturday when he has a bit of free time, he invites Nora and June over for dinner. Casually, like. He doesn’t say why, or what he’ll be cooking, but he dives into his grandmother’s recipe and is fucking glad he did so ahead of the actual party. It really has been a while, and he was never all that great at folding the wrappers neatly.

“So,” June says, leaning on one elbow on the counter while she watches him carefully fill the corn husk wrappers. “Are you going to tell us why you’re making Abuela Diaz’s special tamales in mid-December?”

“Do I need a reason?” he shoots back.

“For something this labor intensive? Absolutely yes.”

Alex sighs. “I’m practicing for the co-op’s holiday party.”

“First,” June starts, and Alex knows he’s in for it. “Why aren’t you just making enchiladas? You always make enchiladas for potlucks. And second, since when do you care enough about co-op potlucks to need to practice?”

He really doesn’t want to tell her. He can hear it now, because it’s always the same whenever his neighbor comes up.

Of course, Nora does it for him. “It’s Henry, isn’t it,” she guesses slyly, coming to stand next to June. “It’s always Henry when it’s something to do with the co-op.”

“I don’t get why you hate him,” June says before he can even refute Nora’s claim. “He’s seemed perfectly nice every time I’ve talked to him.”

“You don’t have to live next to him, Bug,” Alex protests. “He’s annoying, and he thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

June hums uncertainly, but he doesn’t care what she thinks. He’ll never forget how, when he’d been moving in, his new neighbor had take one look at him and muttered ‘Oh, Christ,’ before fleeing. Maybe he thought Alex hadn’t heard him, but he had, and it was more than enough to get a sense of who he was. Later he’d introduced himself, goaded on by his brightly-clad friend, and though he’d been polite he’d also clearly been under duress, which didn’t help anything. Anyway it’s been two and half years, and little has improved. Alex is pretty much annoyed by everything Henry does, even when Henry’s not really doing anything particularly annoying and he knows he might be being unreasonable.

This time, he is not unreasonably annoyed. “He’s making enchiladas,” Alex explains testily. “He signed up before me and he stole my dish. So I’m making tamales that will be a million times better than whatever a British approximation of enchiladas is.”

“That is weird,” June agrees, her brow furrowed. “What does he usually make for these things?”

“He doesn’t. He brings wine, or a cheese plate or something.” Alex doesn’t say that Henry’s cheese plate game is strong. The man does know how to pick out a good brie. “So he’s really just going out of his way to fuck with me this year, and it’s not going to work.”

“Think it already has,” Nora says, smirking as she sneaks a bit of chicken out of the pot.

Alex bats at her hand. “Fuck off. That’s for the tamales.”

“Which are also going in my stomach. Just cutting out the middle man.”

“Bug, control your girlfriend.”

“No thanks,” June replies, smiling sweetly at him.

His practice tamales come out pretty damned good, if he says so himself, and the ones for the holiday party are going to be even better. Alex is confident now that there’s no way his won’t be the best dish a the whole potluck; he’s definitely going to win (and no, he doesn’t care that you can’t ‘win’ a potluck, June). So it doesn’t matter if he smells more chiles from Henry’s apartment, or the aroma of toasting tortillas.

Then, a week before the party: betrayal.

He’s trudging up the stairs to his apartment after a long day at work when he thinks he hears a familiar voice coming from above him, and when he gets to the landing it’s confirmed. “June?” he asks, confused. “Oh shit. Did I forget about a thing tonight?”

For some reason, June looks guilty, and it makes him really fucking suspicious. “Er, no. I was just. Leaving.”

“What do you mean, leaving? What are you doing here if it’s not to see me?”

“Don’t get mad,” she says. She hesitates and chews her bottom lip, like she’s not sure she wants to tell him. “I ran into Henry last week and he asked for my help. With the enchiladas.”

“You’re helping the enemy!?” Alex nearly shouts. They’re still standing in the landing. This is probably not the place to do this.

“He’s not your enemy, Alex,” June sighs. “He’s really a nice guy, if you would just get to know him—”

“No,” Alex cuts her off. “I can’t believe this,” he wails dramatically, pressing the back of one hand against his forehead. “Betrayed by my own kin!”

June rolls her eyes at him. “You’re being absurd. I’m leaving now. Maybe consider being adult about this for once. He’s trying.”

“Trying what?” Alex asks, but she’s already walking down the stairs. “Trying what, Bug?”

The day of the party comes and Alex is fucking ready. The tamales are exceptional, if he does say so himself. Even though it’s just a co-op potluck, everyone likes to dress to the nines, so he digs a seldom-worn deep red velvet three-piece suit he bought once on a lark (and which makes his ass look amazing) out of his closet, along with a forest green tie in a classy Christmas tree print. He styles his curls just so. No one’s going to look better than him at this party tonight, not even stupid Henry, who always looks beautiful even in the most boring suits possible.

Sure enough, Henry is wearing a sedate dark grey suit with a plain red tie, though the suit looks like it must be bespoke with how it fits him. Alex feels a knot of something—annoyance, probably—twist in his gut at the sight of him, standing there holding a pan. He looks strangely shy. Almost hopeful. Alex follows him over to the table set up for the food and puts his tamales down next to the enchiladas, which, ok, smell pretty good. The two dishes look right together. It reminds him of Christmas in Texas, and he feels something catch in his throat.

“Hullo, Alex,” Henry says, a little carefully, like he’s not sure what Alex will do. Probably fair, given their previous interactions.

Alex clears his throat and tries to regain some of his usual emotional distance. “Hi,” he says, pausing awkwardly. “Uh. Those look pretty good. I heard you had some help.”

Henry smiles and looks down at his hands for a moment before meeting Alex’s gaze again. His eyes are so, so blue. It should be illegal. “I wanted them to be right.”

“Why?” Alex can’t help but ask. “Why sign up for something you’ve never made before?”

“You always make them, and they’re always wonderful,” Henry tells him, “but last year I heard you talking about how there’s something different when they’re made for you. That you missed that, since you can’t often get back to Texas for Christmas.”

Last year. Henry remembered something he said offhandedly last year. Alex doesn’t even remember saying that, although it’s true. Even if it’s the same recipe, it’s different if you make it yourself.

“You made these for me?” he asks, struggling to fit the pieces together. Henry doesn’t even like him. Right?

“I did.”

“You practiced for weeks. You… asked for my sister’s help,” Alex realizes. “For me.”

“I never would have gotten the tortillas right without her,” Henry says solemnly.

“I thought you were just trying to fuck with me. Get on my nerves.”

Henry chuckles, a little ruefully. “I know you don’t believe it, but I’ve never wanted that, Alex.”

Alex finds himself rendered uncharacteristically speechless. How could he have been so wrong for so long about all of this? About Henry, who’s looking at him so intently, so adoringly, that it’s dizzying?

“You look stunning tonight,” Henry tells him, seemingly growing more confident the more flustered Alex gets.

Alex swallows. “Yeah, well. Your tie is fucking boring,” he says, without any heat. He can feel himself smiling without his permission. It makes Henry laugh, and that sound does something to Alex’s insides that is both wonderful and terrible at the same time. He wants to hear it again and again. But first—he can’t believe he’s really thinking this—he really wants to try these enchiladas.

Henry watches him raptly as he grabs a plate from the table and dishes out a couple of neatly wrapped enchiladas from the pan, making sure to get plenty of the rich, red-brown sauce. The tortilla yields is an extremely satisfying way when he presses his fork into it, with just enough resistance to promise to be toothsome without being tough. When he finally takes a bite he’s transported; God, the pork inside is perfectly spiced, and the sauce—

“Where did you get this recipe?” he asks, barely managing to swallow before he gets it out.

“I started out with one I found on a Mexican cooking blog,” Henry says. “But then June gave me your grandmother’s sauce recipe when she came over to help.” He bites his lower lip tentatively. “Is it any good?”

Alex doesn’t know what comes over him. He sets the plate down on the table, steps forward, puts both his hands on either side of Henry’s face, and kisses him soundly. Henry makes a small surprised noise in the back of his throat, but then he’s kissing Alex back eagerly, his hands coming up to rest on Alex’s hips. He nips at Alex’s lower lip and their tongues tangle together, and it’s so fucking good that Alex actually whimpers when Henry pulls away.

“I’m not sure the middle of the co-op holiday party is the best setting for this,” he says, a little breathlessly.

“Ok, we’re definitely taking this upstairs,” Alex agrees, “but first… you have to try my tamales.”

#firstprince #rwrb #red white and royal blue #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #firstprince fic #rwrb fic #firstprince fanfic #rwrb fanfic #my fic #1 million words challenge

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aqua2fana · 2 years

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More on that Gotham Rogues mermaid au

So like a week or two ago I made this post and thought I’d add in what ocean or sea the rogues were caught in and a couple things about their life in the batfam’s aquarium

Edward: South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam, very curious about humans. loves attention and must be constantly entertained or else he escapes his tank and roams the facility, giving him intricate puzzles to solve works best. He loves compliments and responds well to positive reinforcement. Very emotional. He charms anyone he can. Loves getting access to any human media.

Jonathan: originally from the North Atlantic Ocean, Labrador Sea but despite being a deep sea mer he migrated inland and began terrorizing people in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, he was eventually pulled out of the Ottawa River. likes the dark, scares guests, has a supernaturally terrifying aura, unsettles guests and staff. Has a fascination with any staff that aren’t openly afraid of him. Very persuasive.

Oswald: Found deep in the Bering Ocean off the coast of Russia. Fascinated by birds because they can fly and he thinks that’s the wildest thing. Basically runs a trade system between the other mers the way inmates in prison do. He came up with it and they trade things like food, shells, different “enrichments” from their tanks, things they’ve stolen from staff. Motivated by greed and pride.

Selina: Originally from the middle of the South Pacific Ocean but wandered a little outside the normal range of the Indo-Pacific region and was caught far off the coast of Chile. Is a thief and a flirt, very independent and loves shiny things. Keeps a collection of things she’s stolen from staff members. Prefers to share her tank with a group of at least 5 (non-mer) catfish all of which she has named and become very attached to. Flirts with Bruce for extra privileges.

Ivy: Originally from the the Western Pacific between Japan and Australia, migrated around the world luring men out to sea and was eventually captured in the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Tank has tons of plants and is basically an enclosed ocean forest, she doesn’t come out for visitors often and when she does it’s usually for female visitors and staff. Likes to visit Harley and is only handled by female staff.

Harley: From the East Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia, migrated up to the Irish Sea. Very social and talkative. Has a huge crush on Joker obviously. Has two pet dogfish sharks named Bud and Lou of course. Loves when staff provide her with hair ties and supplies to make jewelry out of seashells. Loves interacting with guests.

Joker: No one knows where he came from but he was fished out of the Suez Canal (in case you don’t remember where that is off the top of your head, it connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean). He’s probably responsible for a number of missing persons cases before being caught. Joker has been obsessed with Bruce from the beginning and is usually extremely violent towards other mers and especially towards staff in an effort to get Bruce’s attention. Once tried to maim Jason. Bruce is the only one allowed to handle him now.

Waylon: Caught in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Was occasionally known to eat humans before his capture. Can speak French. Likes to hide in the sand. Is insecure about how plain he looks because he’s less colorful than the other mers.

Zsasz: Found in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Croatia. Indifferent towards humans and violent towards other mers, especially female mers. This is because he is very nihilistic. Is not allowed any sharp objects. Likes things that most would consider frivolous because he appreciates especially pointless things. Ex: dumb plastic “enrichment” decorations and other such things that shouldn’t be underwater or things that become useless once in water.

Harvey: Originally from the West Pacific and adopted a migration pattern drifting from the West Pacific off the coast of Japan or Australia to the Eastern Pacific off the Coast of Oregon or California, was captured off the coast of California. Very persuasive and also very moody, important that staff knows which side they’re speaking with. Only eats from 2:00-2:22 pm and 2:00-2:22 am. Usually settles disputes between the other mers, unless he’s personally involved with the dispute. Was the Wayne Aquarium’s first mer and knows Bruce very well.

Bane: Found circling Santa Prisca (which I guess is the dc equivalent of Puerto Rico) in the Caribbean Sea. I’ve since decided he’s a bull shark due to the significance of the bull in a lot of Spanish speaking countries. Really hates Bruce and is surprisingly indifferent towards other staff. Really likes to eat puffer fish and will be pissed if they’re unavailable. Has a really thick layer of glass between him and guests.

Jervis: From the English Channel but captured in the Celtic Sea off the coast of Cornwall. Used to lure blonde women into the sea. Flirts with blonde female guests. Speaks in rhyme with a British accent. Alice in wonderland doesn’t exist under the sea but he happens to have similar obsessions anyway. He references things that have an uncanny similarity to wonderland characters and the wonderland plot line. This baffles the staff as they have no idea if he’s referring to mers he used to know or if these people/characters exist at all.

Freeze: Captured in the North Sea off the coast of Germany. Can be surprisingly gentle. Demands very cold water that includes actual ice floes. His mate, a female mer named Nora is in critical condition, he was captured because he brought his mate to the German shore in hopes she could be saved. Wayne Aquarium is working on a cure for her condition.

Most of them low key have an obsession with Bruce or one of the other Wayne’s.

Idk if I want to include the rest of the rogues but for the record... Slade would be obsessed with Dick, Roman with Jason, Ra’s (I think the al Ghuls would be sea snakes) with Tim, and Talia (assuming I include the al Ghuls as mers considering their relation to Damian) would behave very motherly towards Damian (who I guess in this au if the al Ghuls are mers would simply have an unnamed Arabic mother).

I also headcanon that female mers are typically more dominant in mer society which is matriarchal, females are typically larger and more likely to cooperate with each other and form a large group (hence the Gotham city sirens). Males are smaller and more likely to fight each other.

Anyway these headcanons are free to use and I’d love to hear any additions

#mermay #dc comics #batman #batfam #mermaid au #batman villains #gotham rogues #edward nygma #mr freeze #victor zsasz #bane dc #poison ivy #jervis tetch #selina kyle #harley quinn #the joker #harvey dent #killer croc #oswald cobblepot

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topconfessions · 6 months

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Since there are people commenting about Miss Jennie Kim lemme add something for the perfect mix: (also this prob have leaked somewhere in Google blind items or such because it is a hot-topic since K-pop is trendy on the USA for now). Miss Jennie has become a yacht girl in her week in Cannes, she has been put on sale for 2 (2.5?) MILLION DOLLARS and then you can have one night w YG “favorite” princess, and I think at the end it was brought by one random CEO. Worst part? She got only 12% or 20% for her work and the rest was her company that received. It’s mf wild. I used to look for tea on her, but girllllll I would say that K-pop can be even darker than America Hollywood because how these groups are put on sales like wh**** and they don’t even receive the whole payment…. I won’t even start in the mess Rosé is in… she will soon become a yacht girl too if she don’t stop giving YG reasons to keep her in a chain.

Remember a year or two back trolls bitched at me cause I kept it blunt about idols especially TOP and even Jennie?

Thank you for confirming what I suspected. Before these blinds dropped I always knew and suspected she was a yacht girl. I just didn't say she was and kept it to myself cause kids today want proof but older objective fans know Hollywood dirt & tea 80% of the time is speculated about and dropped by those sources you've mentioned. I've seen many stories on LAA over the years leaked there through Incogs that were later released in the news or tmz later.

You don't get to Jennie level and not get pimped out. That's just facts. I do not care what any fan says. I knew it when she got on the idol and worked with weeknd she was selling pussy. The fact it's company managed is not shocking at all but is sad as fuck and underwhelming like you've conveyed. These teen fans, kids and adults who don't regularly study these things aren't familiar with yachting and thinking these girls are just vacationing hanging out and partying. Also that's a great price for her honestly. She's unrelated to this HyunA if she had crossed over during Red era and How's this era would have gotten 3.7-5 mill easy cause of body and her skills.

Thanks for the tip. I just knew she had to be yachting or escorting and not freestyling either. I feel indifferent about it cause sex is a huge hidden secret trade business in kpop and now even bigger cause of them being validated in America. I want to pretend to be surprised that rose is on her way to that but I'm not. Something about her always have me the vibe she'd end up in this way.

She deserves better.

Again, I don't feel bad for Jennie cause they need to stop foolish and actually link with an American celebrity for a PR relationship or hook up or actually give that pu$$ away in a normal relationship to an investor or CEO as a GIrlfriend and get them to help buy them out of their contracts so this isn't a thing anymore. I've yet to see an idol step up to the plate and actually crossover to establish themselves away from the market minus features on songs, photo ops at events and parties etc.

Idgaf what anyone says, networking and social climbing is how to advance in Hollywood these days. Look at Pete Davidson, Travis Kelce (nobody @ me on this) ice spice and a ton others I can name. If I was Jennie I would have already done that. Shit I would have took advantage of the weeknd cause what does Selena have that Jennie does minus full boobs and clout? Chile.

Anyways, I remember seeing Usher whispering to Jennie during the fashion show he wanted to work with her. And he's doing that obviously cause she's a boost and good look for a track. If she had sense and YG isn't keeping her on a leash, she should have went to Ushers Vegas show and get a spotlight.

Goodluck to her.

#blackpink jennie #blackpink #blind item

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destinyc1020 · 2 years

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I mean yes z has helped Tom in many ways but I wouldn’t say he spiraled without her, I think he got through just fine compared to other people considering he was going through a breakup, spiderman being taken out of the mcu and being called a cheater and having someone get a lot of hate because they were seen with him all at the same time I think he handled all of that quite well to be honest. But yes she has helped him a lot especially with how to handle aspects of his fame and he is very lucky to have her but she is also just as lucky to have him. I feel like I always see everyone always saying he’s the lucky one to have her but they always forget to mention she’s also lucky to have him cause the guy is a catch let’s be honest

Why do y'all always pitch a fit whenever anyone mentions how lucky Tom is to have Zendaya? 🥴

Anyway, as far as Tom "spiraling", that doesn't mean he hit rock bottom or turned into a crazy maniac. It just means that he was definitively NOT himself after his breakup with Zendaya. I don't think I need to go over the things we saw when they broke up. Even he himself mentioned ina recent interview last year that he didn't want to go into all of the details of what he did in order to "cope with heartbreak" (his own words). 🤨

He definitely handled things very well considering all of the things he was going through at the time, but he definitely was not himself for a lot of 2019 and part of 2020, and anyone who just looks at his old footage and pictures from that time period will be able to easily see what I mean.

Anyway.....

Idk what blogs you've been reading, but you must not be reading mine, because I've ALWAYS said that both Tom and Zendaya are super lucky to have each other.

Just because I focus on how lucky Tom is to have Zendaya on one day, it doesn't mean that she isn't lucky to have him as well. (Like what kind of reasoning is that anyway? 🥴)

Don't be so sensitive over every little thing Anon.

If you've been reading my blog, you will know that there have been PLENTY of times when I've said that Zendaya is lucky to have Tom.

Idk why you're complaining Anon....I love both Tom and Zendaya. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I think you're trying to find fault in smthg where there is none. Can't you just be happy that Tom is lucky to have Zendaya in his life? 🥴

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velvetstreets · 1 year

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Denver made me actually cry the first time I heard it!! I think the way he’s speaking from his heart on this song (and album) just made me feel like we know him on another level? Because yes, he’s so private!! Like the part where he says, it was more fun when they were known less because I feel like even though he obviously wants to be like the biggest rapper out there, he’s very humble and down to earth so it’s hard for him to manage being personable and being the biggest ya know???? Like do I make sense? 👀

Also the part in Denver where he says, he was hiding any sign of weakness from his guys because he didn’t want them second-guessing with him… HOLY SHIT. I know that was a heavy ass feeling for him to bear alone.

Questions when he asks why he’s so flawed or why he’s skeptical of God made me feel sooo 🤯

I’ll be honest this song wasn’t my favorite at first but I needed a few listens to fully ingest it. a few listens to fully ingest it.

Like when he says it’s either you or my schedule you can’t both be demanding made me gasp LOL

no bc he’s SPEAAAKINGG 😭😭💗 like yes!!! This is what the people wanted!! Depth and honesty and I can get that it’s difficult to open that part up of himself to the public (bc chile I could never) but it’s also what connects him with people. Authenticity is important in art 💗

I think questions shows growth but also that he has more growing to do- and I think he knows that and acknowledges that in the song which makes me 😌🫶🫶

Cause why does he say the schedule thing and then says he a cheater!!!🔫🔫 like I will fight u fr

#ugh I could talk abt this for hours #but yeth #love his growth #love our growth

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mariacallous · 11 months

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Russia has succumbed to authoritarianism: the existing regime has effectively outlawed the country’s political opposition. Its key figures are now in prison or else looking for ways to continue their work from abroad. Meanwhile, the debate about whether Russia’s disparate opposition forces should sacrifice their differences for the sake of building a coalition has become a central question of Russian political life in exile. Graeme Robertson has studied the dynamics of protest and opposition activity in Russia for the past two decades. His most recent book is “Putin v. The People,” published by Yale University Press in 2019. In conversation with Meduza’s special correspondent Margarita Liutova, Robertson spoke about what can and cannot be achieved by an exiled opposition, why opposition is comprised of “disagreeable people,” and what it takes to unite them in a coalition. His remarks have been condensed and edited for clarity.

How would you assess the achievements and failures of the Russian opposition over the past two decades? And what would be a fair way to assess them, in the context of a country where the opposition is barred from the elections?

If you think about what opposition movements generally try to achieve, it comes down to two things. One is to overthrow the incumbents; the other is to replace them with a better alternative, which involves expanding the range of democratic alternatives as such.

In regimes with somewhat competitive but still less than fair elections, this can be achieved in two different ways. (We can think of examples like Ukraine before the Euromaidan, or Russia before the annexation of Crimea as a basic setting, where the opposition had some access to the elections.) So, the first thing that can happen is that there’s a fair election, you get the votes you needed to win, and therefore you win. One example would be the referendum in Chile at the end of the Pinochet regime. Another one could be Mexico’s protracted transition to democracy, when the opposition pushed the regime towards fairer and fairer elections over time, until it finally won, and the regime gave up.

An alternative scenario is to force the regime to cheat in the elections so much that it triggers massive street protest. This was obviously the case with the Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan in Ukraine.

Neither of these alternatives is possible in a place like today’s Russia. They can only be realized in a much more competitive, much fairer setting than Russia today. In a place like Russia, though, to expect the opposition to achieve these goals would mean to hold it to the wrong standard. Even if you were able to get millions of people on the streets in a place like Russia, the likely outcome would be total suppression. The regime itself wouldn’t fall. (We have the examples of Belarus and Iran for comparison.) In conditions like these, even if the regime does fall (as in the case of the revolution in Egypt), what happens is that it gets replaced by something even worse, since there’s no infrastructure a transition to democracy.

And so, we need a different standard for thinking about what’s possible for today’s Russia. A color revolution might have been a reasonable expectation for Russia back in 2011, but it’s not a fair expectation by which to judge today’s opposition. A better standard would be based on the things that Alexey Navalny’s team and other segments of the opposition have been doing: fighting corruption, contesting injustices locally, standing up to environmental degradation, defending the vulnerable, and curbing the excesses of power. And also exposing the vicious nature of the government and building up capacity for the long haul, for the unlikely event that you might get lucky, and the tables might turn in your favor.

Now, has the Russian opposition been a success by this reasonable standard? Have they succeeded in building a broad and deep infrastructure for putting pressure on corruption, or in establishing a potentially viable political party? If you’d asked me this question in 2019, I would have said yes. But it’s all proven to have been very fragile. I’m not sure it’s the opposition’s fault that the regime has now clamped down so hard on them. It’s a measure of how vicious and aggressive this regime is. So, what the opposition has been able to achieve under the circumstances seems to me pretty decent. It’s at least a B+.

There’s a widespread view that the Russian opposition (chiefly Navalny and his team) merely helped legitimize Putin, by creating an impression of democratic competition in Russia.

This is a classic dilemma faced by opposition the world over: to participate or to boycott. But the truth is that no one cares about a boycott. It’s very, very hard to draw the regime’s feet to the fire by boycotting the elections. If you think back to 2011 and the beginnings of Russia’s Bolotnaya movement, what got that movement started was an election, in which the Communists’ votes had been stolen by United Russia party and Gennady Zyuganov called on people to go into the streets. Had the communists not participated, no one would have been bothered by the outcome in favor of United Russia, and there wouldn’t have been a protest in Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square.

People don’t take to the streets in their millions because someone who didn’t run failed to do well in the election. That would be a bit absurd. And this is why the current regime has you trapped in this dilemma: if you participate, you make the regime look good; but refusing to participate also doesn’t help things. Still, participating in elections beats boycotting them almost every time. The one exception to this is the kind of boycott that turns into a real problem for the regime (as in the United States during the Civil Rights era).

All of Russia’s opposition leaders are now in jail, or else exiled abroad, where they’re often seen as mere talking heads instead of politicians. What do you think about public commentary as a political activity, and what else can politicians do in exile?

I’ve been trying to think of some example of an opposition that sat down in another country, wrote a platform, and then somehow came to power and implemented that platform at home. One example that I can think of is Vladimir Lenin in Switzerland, at a time when all of the Russian opposition gathered in Europe debated which version of utopia would be the best. Then the state collapsed, due to an imperial war, and they came to power. Germany then sent Lenin by train to Petrograd to facilitate the overthrow of the provisional government and to get Russia out of the war. That’s a pretty unusual set of circumstances, all told. Besides, when the Bolsheviks did seize power, they did this as a minority. Next, they had to eliminate all the democratic elements from the Soviets, and that’s an ugly tale.

There’s no substitute for this work since a regime like Putin’s won’t fall by being toppled from the outside. If it falls, it’ll be because of its own internal contradictions and problems, like, for instance, a big split over succession after Putin dies. Events like that open up windows of opportunity. And to seize that opportunity you have to get the people organized and enthusiastic and motivated on the ground, in Russia itself.

If you think about the collapse of communism in Poland, it wasn’t the Polish government exiled in London that did it. It was organizers in Poland itself, who worked for years, clandestinely, building the workers’ movement and gradually coming into the open by the 1980s. It hadn’t been a coup. It wasn’t done by the foreigners. And it was all about building an organization. I can’t imagine a harder thing to organize, meaning that things are really bad in Russia, but not as bad as they had been in communist Poland in the 1950–1960s.

In Putin v. The People, you argued that the dividing lines in Russian politics are very different compared to Western democracies, the only real dividing line being loyalty to the president. This, you said, lends the opposition a kind of deviant quality.

This is a classic mark of an autocracy. If you’re against me, you’re against the state. Think Venezuela and Nicolas Maduro, whose strategy was to present his opponents as American tools, essentially as foreign agents. This is Authoritarianism 101, but, on the other hand, it’s also a classic tool of democratic politics. During the Cold War, American conservatives tried to smear liberals as Russian spies and communist “foreign agents.” I grew up in Britain in the 1980s, and Margaret Thatcher’s strategy against the British Labor Party was to present them as stooges for somebody else. This is a classic conservative “patriotic” move, even when it’s totally absurd.

What’s really interesting is the particular choice of issues that Putin picks to help in consolidating the vote, by driving in wedge issues that will divide the population not 50-50, but 80-20. He’s managed to expand the coalition of people who feel that something isn’t right, isn’t Russian, isn’t authentic about what Putin himself finds undesirable — like LGBTQ people, for example. This is what makes Putin resonate so much better with the broader public, and this is what’s clever about him. Every society has conservatives in it, but it takes political creativity and skill to maximize a coalition and make your opponents appear weak. That’s where the politics comes in.

You’ve argued that support for Putin isn’t based on his accomplishments or even his promises, but instead on the human need to fit in.

I would’ve given a different answer to this question in 2019, but the war has changed things dramatically. This regime has become the war, and war has become the regime. It’s become the central principle of the state’s operation, and the issue of loyalty and of casting the opposition as disloyal has become much more serious in the context of the war, where it’s all about “us” against “them,” “patriots” against “traitors,” etc.

In this context, fitting in and acting agreeable has become more important than ever. The why and the wherefore of the war have receded to the background; you’re either a patriot who supports the war, or a traitor who opposes it. That’s where the regime has had quite a lot of success, in terms of public opinion.

Most Russians take their cues about good citizenship from the propaganda. Can the opposition take charge of this discourse and reframe the public’s understanding of what good citizenship means?

It’s important to create a narrative about good citizenship, but it’s hard to get that kind of message out and to get people to buy into it, when the social pressure is to simply to follow one particular vision. But things can change, and so can narratives. During the Afghan war, when Russian soldiers started coming home in sealed coffins, this quickly rendered the war very unpopular, and that became the dominant narrative. But we’re not in that situation now, despite much greater casualties. This time, casualties had almost the opposite effect than what we might have expected: they seem to have encouraged people to double down on the war effort.

There’s a fairly well-known psychological theory about why this kind of thing happens. System justification theory, or SJT, was developed in the U.S. to try and understand why people who are made poorer by the system, who are worse off because of the system, will nonetheless support it and make sacrifices for its sake. This is the question of the rural U.S. regions and their poor, super-patriotic, conservative populations who oppose the very same programs that could make their own lives better. SJT says that when people see an oppressive system as unchangeable or inevitable, they identify with it. Supporting the system then becomes a matter of pride, which makes people embrace further costs in order to defend it, even if they don’t get any benefit from it.

But there’s another kind of people in Russia, who may support the war but don’t want to assume its extra costs. They are the highly agreeable people that I look at in Putin v. The People. And when we talk about agreeableness, this isn’t the same thing as conformism. Agreeableness is a mixture of wanting to fit in and to get along with the people around you, but it’s more of an active position than conformism. Denouncing someone whose conversation you overheard in a restaurant or on a bus isn’t something a conformist does. This is causing trouble, calling attention to yourself, which is more than a conformist would do.

Another side of agreeableness is that highly agreeable people tend to be quite empathetic. When they see another person suffer, they care about this: they care about Mother Russia and society at home, and they also care about the victims of the war, which makes their support of the war more fragile.

When you look at Western attitudes towards LGBTQ people, one of the best predictors of being open and accepting of those identities is agreeableness. Highly agreeable people in the West tend to be less racist. They tend to be more broad-minded because they don’t want others to suffer. They care about others being happy. That’s not a conformist thing, and it’s the very same thing that gets coded in a completely different way in Russia, where society is told to be aggressive and homophobic, and where agreeableness is weaponized to this effect. And so, where intolerance is socially acceptable instead of tolerance, agreeable people, the same people who might display tolerance elsewhere, will be intolerant instead.

Getting back to the opposition, what do you think about its internal debate about whether to unite or not to?

If you think about big, million-strong coalitions in the street, there’s actually some interesting social science work on this. Mark Basinger at Princeton did some really interesting work on the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. He shows some good evidence that what unites people in their fight is their dislike of the incumbent. That’s it. There’s no positive program that everyone would get behind and take to the streets. When this happens, it’s because everyone wants a regime change.

With regard to Russia, when did we see lots of people mobilize in a way that got the regime worried? How about monetization protests back in 2005, led by a broad coalition, ranging from the liberals to National Bolsheviks, across the whole political spectrum. All of them cared about pensioners, social benefits, and the sense that the reform being proposed was wrong. They weren’t trying to hash out the right policy, because that would have been much harder and immediately divisive.

I don’t know if there’s much value in the Russian opposition getting together and agreeing to some kind of platform at this point. I think it may even hurt things. Having a million people with a million different reasons why the current regime is intolerable is kind of what you’d want. Everybody should just sing their song, have their own critique, and identify their supporters. Then the opposition can unite at the right moment, to take action in the streets or at the ballot box. But I don’t see much value in generating a common platform among the opposition. That just gives you something to argue about.

Clearly, utopia is not on the agenda, so arguments about the best form of utopia are a bit silly and only make the opposition on the whole look small and petty.

Thinking about what it would look like to be an active, patriotic Russian citizen under these circumstances — to be against the war and yet for Russia — is a much more interesting, challenging, and important question than getting personal or even than policy debates. Still, this is a bit of a second-order problem. The main problem isn’t that the opposition is divided and this keeps it out of power: The Russian opposition is out of power because power itself is so very strong, unified, and organized. That is the problem that dominates the narrative, and countering that problem is the most important task.

Beyond this, each opposition group needs to have an image of the future. But this needn’t be a vision that everyone shares. It’s more effective if there are multiple clusters of organizations sharing the same primary goal, which is getting rid of this regime and replacing it with something better. But their visions of what exactly would be better than the present arrangement can range from the far left to liberal. And that’s perfectly legitimate. I’m not going to get into a fight with Navalny if I disagree with him over taxation policy. At this point, that would be absurd.

What do you think about opposition leaders trying to call people in Russia to the streets, the way Navalny’s team just tried to do?

I’m a foreigner. I’m Scottish, I live in the United States, and here I am in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, having a nice conversation about Russian politics, which is something I really care about and have studied for a very long time. It’s very hard for me to say what people in Russia should do, in terms of taking real risks with their lives and freedom, on the ground in Russia. It’s not for me to say, and I don’t have the moral standing this would take.

Public protest in Russia is very dangerous, and if Navalny has the moral standing to call people to protest, it’s because he has earned it through his extraordinary courage. But it’s predictable: if people go out to protest, they’ll get arrested and repressed. What is the likely political consequence of that, then? Would people just convince themselves of the regime’s effectiveness, efficiency, and brutality? Or would they be outraged and angry?

There’s some evidence that members of the opposition feel some fear of repressions, but what they feel for the most part is anger. And this is why they’re the ones who protest and support one another.

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