#separately they are characters i fiercely love but together they are a powerhouse i will love forever

[trashlie]

!!! omg yes yes i’d love for you to write more about that!!!! and! the first post from you i saw about kousuke and how he subverts the trope of the ml??? it was SO GOOD!! and you got another ask that mentioned how people saw yeonggi as the happy go lucky character! it reminded me of this ask which is very long i sent to @somebody-909 😭 i was just gushingggg about secondary male leads bc i for some reason always end up rooting for them and how yeonggi has the vibes even though he’s a main character 😩 and also we talked about other characters like kyo but i forgot that tohru also had dealt with abuse from her own family so in the end it’s like. it’s a story about two survivors finding happiness etc etc 😔🥺 idk idk all of you guys who make analysis are so cool

I hope you don't mind me answering these two asks separately, because I just know if I didn't I would miss too many things, haha!

I'm not sure if I could write a very good analysis of Yeonggi subverting the secondlead trope, but I sure could try! I feel like it's a little more biased because I DO ship Stalkyoo, but I think I can try to work with it! I also remember seeing that ask (I was going through their blog the other day) and I really enjoyed it! Like you, I tend to favor secondary leads, which I think is also because I have a tendency to love the act of yearning and pining lmao and man second leads sure do pine a lot, right? Also because second leads often (though mercifully not always) have a tendency to hesitate and miss their timing or just plain don't act on their feelings, and it creates a big sense of what could have been, and I think when you are someone who favors underdogs, you really fall into that "what could have been" thing, right?

(I think there's also a conversation to be had about first vs second leads and traits of masculinity, but I am admittedly not well-versed enough to do this, but some general food for thought is: often in the case where I favored a first to a second lead, it's because the first lead evoked a lot of traits of masculinity that I don't care for? Jealousy, possessiveness, being cold and not showing their emotions esp compared to a second lead who was often portrayed as gentle with his heart on his sleeve, kind. In a lot of these cases, the second lead is often not favored by the majority of the audience because "he just feels like a friend" aka he lacks the masculine traits people think a man should have~ or blah blah blah. I wonder if this is still a prevalent thing these days? I tend to avoid love triangles so I'm not sure, but, it's something I would like to throw in if I talk about Nol subervting the second lead trope aaahhhhh now I'm just on a whole other tangent lmao)

Here's an embarrassing admission: in the past, when I was young, back in like, 2007 in my first year of college and I started reading Fruits Basket and I watched the original anime lmaooooo I actually really favored Yukki, because I'm a gross sucker for gentle prince types lmaoooo but as I've gotten older, being able to understand what made Kyo and Tohru work so well was really satisfying!

I've become really enamored with the idea of Nol and Shinae as mirrors to each other, able to help each other identify and work on the parts of them where they are weaker or struggle, and the idea of these two people coming from uneasy lives and finding comfort in the sanctuary they create together? WHOLESOME. I live for that shit. (I don't ever want it to read though like I want Shinae to "fix" Nol or anything like that - he has a lot of work to put himself, just like she has for herself, but I like the idea that as they become people who heal themselves, they help each other heal, too, in the ways that they reflect each other, if that makes sense?) Survivors creating their own sense of home, out of the mess that they've endured is.... AAHHHHHH satisfying! There's something so strong about survival, let alone finding comfort in the wreckage of all that tried to destroy you, isn't it? Shinae has been dealt a bad hand in life, lacked opportunities others had, was judged mercilessly without anyone getting to know her; the idea of her becoming a person who can face the world without feeling like she's ill-fit, without feeling like she's out of place, because she's finally learned her value? Hhhhhh I love it! And likewise, Nol being able to face his awful family knowing that he is more than they ever saw in him, that he was never the villain he was made to believe? PLS my heart!!!!!!!!

(You know, my first time I read ILY, before I realized it was deeper than the surface and than I gave it credit for, I was also convinced Nol was a second lead interest, simply based on the fact that so often characters like Kousuke are coded the first lead and that characters like Nol are there to make us sad lmao. I think that's what made writing the Kousuke analysis so easy for me! At one point I decided to a read where I did not view anything through a romantic lens - not even things like the hospital balcony scene or the wac hand holding - to try to judge just what else could be going on under the surface, that's when I started to realize that a lot of scenes are kind of kind of a couple things superimposed over each other. Kousuke and Nol look like they're competing for Shinae's favor when they each remove their jackets, but what does it REALLY mean. Ironically enough, reading without a romantic lens made me favor Nol and Stalkyoo EVEN MORE lmao because I was finally able to pay attention to the nuanced depth and character development, and the way their relationship progressed as she came to trust him and their friendship solidified really made the framework feel obvious. But the point is: like you I tend to favor second leads and I was already favoring Nol on the principle that he's so sad and I just wanted to see it all turn around for him for once lmaooooo)

[carewyncromwell]

Welcome to the next part of the POTC AU, and with it the start of a new Act!

If Act One was largely based on The Curse of the Black Pearl, Act Two starting now is largely based around Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, perhaps with a smattering of other things from the other films too like I did in the first half. Now that our chess pieces have nearly all been placed on the board in their proper places, it’s time for things to get serious. Will Carewyn and Orion ever be able to be together? Will Bill, Jules @cursebreakerfarrier, and Charlie be considered criminals and thus separated from Carewyn and Percy forever? Will Jacob find a way to protect Carewyn from Davy Jones/Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws? And what role will our newest arrival -- Cutler Beckett -- and his business associate, privateer-turned-pirate-turned-pirate-hunter Patricia Rakepick (pictured above) play in this unfolding drama?

A few notes about Rakepick’s design super quick before we start -- her outfit is largely based on an 18th century woman’s riding habit, which was a kind of uniform exclusively used when women went horseback riding, one of the very few “physical” activities European ladies were allowed to participate in back then. Considering that breeches were banned in lot of Europe during that period, this is the closest thing most upper-class women got to wearing something comfortable in public. The pendant on Rakepick’s collar is an Eye of Horus, like the pin she wears on her cloak in the game. As for the thing in her left hand at her side...I’m sure a lot of you fans of the original Pirates films can guess what it is, but one fun aspect is that the design is not entirely like the one from the movies. Instead there are some salutes to Finn’s character in there, including the moon’s phases around the heart-shaped keyhole and stylized flames on the sides. (There are even two “Pisces” signs etched into two of the tentacles on top.)

Previous part of the AU is here -- whole tag is here -- and I hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

While Carewyn was getting settled back into life on Port Royal, at the same time, very far away, the Tower Raven came up on a deserted island that likely hadn’t seen a man in years.

According to the calculations Jacob had done based on the intelligence he’d gleaned from old court records from Ireland and a witch from Tortuga, this was the spot that Finn McGarry -- now known as Davy Jones -- said goodbye to the goddess Calypso so many years ago. And if the legends were to be believed, this location therefore was where the infamous Dead Man’s Chest -- the chest containing Jones’s still beating heart -- was hidden.

Jacob truthfully wasn’t thrilled about this plan. He’d done plenty of research on Jones so as to make sure he knew as much as he could before trying to double-cross him, but blackmailing someone like Davy Jones was something no one should want to do for very long. As Ashe had pointed out, the second Jones had the upper hand over Jacob, he would likely retaliate ten-fold.

But now...now Jacob had no choice. He had to have and keep the upper-hand with Jones, if he had any chance of keeping Carewyn off the Flying Dutchman. It was his fault that she was now in this position, and he couldn’t live with himself if he lost her again due to his own foolishness.

As they approached the island, Ashe abruptly seized Jacob’s arm.

“Jack -- look.”

There was a large dark shape positioned in the water on the far side of the beach. Jacob immediately brought up his telescope to get a closer look -- when he did, his jaw clenched.

“Looks like we got ourselves a Naval Man o’ War,” he snarled. “The HMS Lion.”

The rest of the crew exchanged nervous looks. The Navy hadn’t sent out Man o’ Wars since the war against the Spanish -- they were the powerhouse of the British crown, capable of sinking even the best-armed galleons.

“How many guns?” Ashe asked under his breath, as he rested his chin on Jacob’s shoulder and looked out at the horizon himself.

“...Looks to be 60 altogether.”

There was muttering among the crew now.

“What should we do, Captain?” one of the pirates couldn’t help but ask anxiously.

“Not get blown up, to start with,” said Jacob rather bluntly.

He lowered his telescope. His eyes drifted away, off toward the sky as he considered the matter.

“The Navy must have figured out this place’s significance,” he murmured. “I don’t know how, but no matter how they found out, I have no intention of letting them get to the Chest first.”

“Stealth might be our best option,” said Ashe lowly.

Jacob nodded. “I agree.”

He turned to the rest of the crew with a fierce expression.

“I need three volunteers to go ashore with me to fetch the Chest. The rest of you will remain here with Ashe, to prepare for a quick escape. Ashe,” he said, looking at his First Mate seriously, “best to be keeping out of sight on the Northern tip of the island, facing due west. The current is stronger there, which could give you a head’s start, should you need to retreat -- ”

“I won’t be retreating without you, Jack,” Ashe cut him off harshly. “don’t be thinking I will.”

“You will if you’re ordered to do so,” Jacob said sharply.

“Like Hell.”

“Ashe, I need my First Mate to look after the ship and the crew.”

“And I’ll do so, but I am not going to have you die a martyr, Jack.”

Ashe moved in a bit, taking hold of Jacob’s collar and pulling his face up closer to his so that their lips were mere inches apart.

“Don’t forget that it’s not just me you’d be hurting, if you didn’t return,” he said softly. “You promised your sister that you would see her again, when this thing was through. If you don’t keep your promise to her, after how long I had to listen to you go on all these years about how much you love and miss her, I will never forgive you.”

Something pained flickered in the back of Jacob’s skull-like blue eyes. He considered Ashe for a moment, his expression faintly wounded despite the grimness of his face -- then he pulled Ashe in for a short, rough kiss before releasing him.

“I will return,” he said very quietly. “I promise.”

Jacob and his three crew members stowed onto the island in a jollyboat a good mile or so away from where the Man o’ War was positioned, so as to stay out of sight. When they approached the beach, they found an entire battalion of Naval soldiers digging. Clearly they’d been told to search the entire island for the Chest, but were starting with the area closest to the water, since Jones was not much one to walk on dry land. It was a logical choice, thought Jacob -- and once he’d visually combed the island’s surroundings, it didn’t take long for him to come up with a plan.

Given how outnumbered they were, Jacob knew the best way to handle the situation was to wait for one of the Navy recruits to find the Chest first. Sure enough, within a half-hour, someone started shouting for their superior officers to come quick.

The rest of the battalion swarmed around like interested seagulls around the Dead Man’s Chest as the soldier pulled it up and out of the sand. They were so focused on trying to get a peek that none of them saw the detached watermill wheel coming toward them until it was almost on top of them. With help from his crewmates, Jacob had dislodged the wheel from an abandoned mill just up the hill and rolled it right down the beach into the horde of soldiers. In the melee, Jacob was then able to dispatch the soldier who’d found the Chest and snatch it away from him, before he and the rest of his crew members abandoned the wheel and hightailed it back into the brush. The soldiers all fired indiscriminately as the wheel hightailed away, but somehow miraculously the pirates just barely avoided any fatal wounds -- Jacob guessed that a lot of those soldiers were new recruits, and so likely had had their eyes shut while firing.

Trying to get back to the Tower Raven was much harder. Their only hope to get there was the jollyboat -- and, of course, that they could get back fast enough that the Raven could set sail before the HMS Lion came around. Unfortunately whatever luck had been on Jacob’s side up until that point seemed to be drying up. The pirates had a bit more cover in the trees than they’d had on the beach, but not much, and although a lot of the soldiers were clearly inexperienced, there were still a lot of them -- far more than even Jacob had predicted. Soon there were a good hundred soldiers surrounding the four pirates, trying to cut them off from the shoreline. Jacob lost his first crewmate in the first five minutes -- then his second, not long after. Jacob and the last pirate just barely managed to get back to the jollyboat and cast off, but within moments, the HMS Lion had come around the edge of the island, heading straight for the jollyboat.

Thinking quickly, Jacob pushed the jollyboat as far out into the open water as he could. The Navy wanted the Chest too, so the deeper the water they were in, the less likely they’d fire their cannons at them, for fear they’d lose the Chest in the process. He then set about pulling off the mad-genius maneuver of making himself look incompetent.

After securing the Chest securely to the bottom of the boat, he then instigated a fight with his crew member. The two rocked the jollyboat so badly that within minutes, the entire boat had flipped over. Jacob then used the opportunity to -- with his crewmate’s help -- swim with the boat into the strongest North-leaning current and let it coast them closer to the Tower Raven. The Navy ship did, in fact, hesitate just long enough out of confusion that it lost some of its closeness to the jollyboat before catching sight of the Tower Raven in the distance and putting together that it had been a trick.

Jacob peeked out from under the jollyboat briefly, delighted at the sight of his ship and of Ashe standing at the railing. He was already fetching a rope ladder for them to climb up when all of a sudden --

BAM.

Out of nowhere, another ship -- a much smaller sloop called the Sickle -- had started attacking the Tower Raven. The Raven’s crew all immediately tried to bring the ship about to counterattack, but the distraction had completely thrown the Raven off their guard and given the Lion the time necessary to come within firing distance. Within moments, Jacob was forced to dive under the water as his beloved ship -- the Tower Raven -- was blasted apart from both sides.

When he and his fellow pirate reemerged from the water, Jacob’s face was as white as a sheet as he stared at the flaming wreckage.

“ASHE!” Jacob bellowed. “ASHE!”

He cast his eyes around frantically. Where was he?! He had to be there -- he --

“ASHE!” he screamed louder, but once again, there was no answer.

His entire body was shaking. The light had left his eyes as he paddled through the water, ignoring the anxious cries from his crewmate as he shoved fragments of wood and sail aside.

“AAAAASHE!”

Within moments, the sloop called the Sickle had descended upon the overturned jollyboat. The jollyboat was quickly seized and yanked up onto the deck with grappling hooks, even as Jacob and the other pirate did their best to fight them off. Unfortunately flintlock pistols like the ones they carried were not conducive to fighting in the water -- they needed a proper spark in order to fire properly, and the gunpowder was just too wet to ignite. And so Jacob and his crewmate were stuck crawling over and balancing on top of the overturned jollyboat as it was hoisted up onto the deck, fighting a losing battle against the large number of soldiers with their cutlasses.

When the jollyboat finally was pulled up onto the deck, Jacob and his last crewmate were completely surrounded in seconds. But Jacob had long since stopped fighting to win -- his eyes were so hollow and mad with pain and rage they were more like a raging animal than a man’s, and so even as his crewmate fearfully started to slow as he realized all hope was lost, Jacob never stopped hacking away at every soldier that approached him. He only stopped when a gunshot whizzed right past his ear, swiping through his curly hair before lodging into the head of his crewmate, who immediately collapsed in a heap on the deck.

Out of the fold came a red-haired woman dressed in a black tricorn hat, a black jacket over a high-necked white shirt and a long red skirt, and a pair of black boots. Her collar was fastened with a pin shaped like the eye of Horus, and the pistol in her hand was still smoking as she smirked at Jacob.

“Well, well,” she said coolly, “if it isn’t ‘Black Jack Roberts.’”

Jacob’s teeth bared in a snarl. “Rakepick.”

“I’m surprised you managed to survive this long,” said Patricia Rakepick idly. “Then again, you did somehow survive being shot and thrown overboard -- I guess I shouldn’t be surprised a sea rat like you was able to claw your way up on deck somehow...”

With a furious roar, Jacob charged at Rakepick. She fired again with her pistol, but Jacob somehow managed to deflect the shot with the broad side of his cutlass and lashed out at her with ferocity, forcing her to dodge and retreat somewhat.

“Seize him,” she said sharply.

In an instant, the soldiers all rushed at Jacob. He managed to cut down a good five of them before their comrades were able to surround and contain him. It took a good ten men, but they managed to pin him down to the deck and disarm him.

Rakepick watched Jacob rage like a mad animal against her soldiers’ hold for a moment, her gaze oddly grim.

“You know...I wondered a few times if I should’ve been more lenient on you, back then,” she said. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t have stolen my ship, and I wouldn’t have had to blow it up, just to keep you from escaping. But it seems you truly are too dangerous to be left alive. Cutler Beckett knows it just as well as I.”

The pupils in Jacob’s skull-like eyes were insane blue slits as Rakepick kicked the jollyboat over, to reveal the Dead Man’s Chest still securely tied to the bottom. In a moment, she’d cut it loose with a knife and picked it up by one of the handles on its side.

“You -- !”

Jacob pushed and shoved against the sailors holding him with all of his might, but he couldn’t break free. Rakepick pointed her pistol right at him as she carried the Chest at her side.

“I must thank you for busting into that court of records, though,” she said with a small smirk. “I wouldn’t have even thought to try to look up Finn McGarry’s old shipping routes if you hadn’t made the connection between him and Jones...”

She handed the Chest off to another officer, who carted it away below deck and out of sight. Jacob angrily tried to get up again, only for one of the soldiers to roughly push his head into the deck with his foot.

“Shame you won’t be able to use the Chest as a bargaining chip for whatever deal you had with Jones,” said Rakepick. “I wonder -- is that how you survived, last time? You made a deal that brought you back from the grave? I must wonder what on Earth you must have promised him, to make you seek out his heart now rather than give it up...”

Her taunting only served to make Jacob lash out more violently. Eventually it got to the point where Rakepick rolled her eyes impatiently.

“Like talking to a mangy street dog,” she muttered to herself. “To think this is the boy who became Captain of my ship...”

Her dark blue eyes hardening, she clicked her pistol and aimed it right at Jacob’s head. Just as she was about to fire, however, out of nowhere, a voice echoed on the wind up onto the deck.

“Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray

Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay

Conversing with a young lass, who seemed to be in pain,

Saying, ‘William, when you go, I fear you will ne’er return again.’”

The resonant bass tone was hypnotizing and eerie, making all of the soldiers freeze up. They all looked at each other, clearly moved by how hauntingly beautiful it was, but also confused -- was it a mermaid? It sounded like a man...and yet, it was just as enticing and wonderful. Even Jacob had frozen up from his spot on the deck, though not for the same reason.

Some light returned to his eyes. He knew that voice...

“My heart is pierced by Cupid -- I disdain all glittering gold --

There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold...”

Rakepick was likewise taken aback, but she kept her head more than her compatriots. In a moment, she’d peered over the side with her pistol at the ready, looking for the source of the voice.

She saw nothing but bubbles at first -- then, all of a sudden, something launched itself out of the water at her with an inhuman screech, its sharp fangs bared.

“AUGH!”

Rakepick was thrown backwards onto the deck. The thing in question sort of resembled a man at first glance, but due to the ocean water still clinging to his body, his skin was rippled with shimmering scales, his eyes were completely brown with no trace of white, his fingers were long, narrow, clawed, and webbed, and everything from the waist down resembled a large, slender fish tail.

Jacob’s blue eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

“...Ashe?” he whispered.

Rakepick recovered rather quickly -- she fired at Ashe, forcing the merman to lunge out of the way. Knowing he didn’t have much time before the other soldiers recovered too, Ashe threw himself across the deck toward Jacob. Quite a few of the soldiers withdrew subconsciously seeing the bizarre, hissing, fish-tailed and fanged man coming at them and it was just enough for Jacob to, in one more inhuman show of strength, throw the rest of the soldiers off of him.

Ashe quickly seized onto Jacob’s coat in his clawed, webbed hands, hoisting himself up into a quasi-kneeling position on the deck.

“Jump into the water with me,” Ashe said quickly.

“No -- ” said Jacob frantically, “not without the Chest -- !”

“Open fire!” bellowed Rakepick.

The soldiers, still stunned by the monster that had flopped up on deck, all hurried to try to load their weapons.

“We can’t get the Chest back if we’re dead!” Ashe reminded Jacob harshly, his sclera-less brown eyes narrowing.

He could feel his legs slowly returning as his scales dried out. Hoisting himself to his returning feet as best as he was able, he pulled Jacob along behind him back toward the ship’s railing, and -- just as the firing squad set loose a hail of bullets -- yanked Jacob overboard after him. As they fell, Ashe covered Jacob’s mouth fully with his own, before they landed in the water below with a loud SPLASH.

Black Jack Roberts and his First Mate Duncan Ashe just barely managed to escape Patricia Rakepick and the British Navy that day -- but that was a small victory, in the face of what their enemies had won.

[amazingviralinfo]

Beyoncs new tour finds her at the height of her artistic powers. What makes her sound, her dance moves, her image and her feminism so distinctive?

The sound: It sounds like a push to dominate all of pop

Of late, some music writers have got into the habit of referring to Beyonc as Queen Bey. It doesnt exactly imply a great deal of critical distance, but you can see why the nickname has stuck. It is hard to think of a recent album that feels more commanding and imperious than Lemonade, not just in its lyrics where defiant woman-scorned wrath meets righteous social anger but in its music. It sounds not like an R&B record, but a push to dominate all of pop. Country, alt-rock, left-field electronics, hoary Jack White blues-rock? I can do the lot. That seems to be one of its messages.

So pervasive is the Queen Bey persona that it is easy to forget that there was a time when Beyonc didnt seem to know what she wanted to be, at least musically. Her solo career never faltered commercially she continued the run of peerless pop hits that had begun with Destiny Childs No No No as if the groups dissolution were a mere formality, as if she had been the only thing that mattered about them all along but she also gave the impression of being torn between a career as an R&B diva and the desire to be an MOR entertainer.

Many of the best tracks on her first two solo albums tended to point up her voices similarity to R&B singers of the 60s and 70s the raw drums and see-sawing organ of Freakum Dress, the funk-rock of Suga Mama, Crazy in Loves blaring Chi-Lites horns but they were surrounded by stuff that erred on the sickly side of perfect, as if she were quietly investing in a future that might have more to do with cabaret than clubs.

Beyonc at the BET awards in Los Angeles. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for BET

The sense of an artist being pulled uncomfortably in two opposing directions reached its peak with 2008s wildly uneven I Am Sasha Fierce: one disc full of self-help-motto power ballads and tracks that sounded as if they were following trends (Halo was audibly made in the image of Rihannas Umbrella), and another that suggested, for the first time, a willingness to experiment the percussion battery and oddly doomy minor chords of Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), Video Phones minimal fusion of crunk rhythms, sampled groans, and needling synthesisers.

I Am Sasha Fierce sold 8m copies, but its follow-up suggested a rethink or at least a focusing of her approach. Made after she had severed ties with her manager and executive producer father, 4 built on its predecessors more experimental aspects, and introduced the I-can-do-anything musical expansiveness that you hear on Lemonade. There were influences drawn from Afrobeat, dancehall and alt-rock; thrown together with Kanye West collaborator Jeff Bhasker, the Sleepy Jacksons Luke Steele contributed the psychedelicised Philly soul of Rather Die Young.

Destinys Child had largelyshied away from the kind of ultra-futuristic R&B sound big in the late 90s and early noughties their singles were always about the chorus rather than the novelty of the production but, just at the point when the charts were awash with R&B stars making tinny pop-house tracks, Beyonce released Run the World (Girls), based on Major Lazers Pon De Floor, a battery of drums, dancehall rhythms and squealing noise. It was refined on Beyonc, the album on which she finally abandoned the last vestiges of conservatism. The sound was rooted in hip-hop, but dragged everything from chillwave to the Aphex Twins abstract electronica to doo-wop into its orbit. It was filled with tracks that stopped abruptly, as though she was impatient to move on to the next idea. There were songs that sounded like suites (Haunted, Partition), even, on No Angel, an audibly off-key vocal allowed out into the world.

A gushing profile in Vogue found her joking that she might take on jazz or even country next time. As it turned out, she wasnt joking. Alexis Petridis

The dance icon: She and her troupe move as one unit a drill team, an army

Beyonc performs at the Super Bowl in 2016. Photograph: Thearon W Henderson/Getty Images

Beyoncs music, style and message make her an untouchable ruler at the top of the pop-culture pyramid. Her dancing, however, is what makes her feel reachable.

We have watched Beyonc grow from seductive showpiece to sexually empowered woman. She has graduated from the male-gaze booty-shaking of Crazy in Love to the unapologetic, hard-hitting struts of Formation. Sure, all the action still happens in her pelvis and chest, but the execution is different, with a sway back, upturned chin and heavier step. Something about it says: This dancing is for me and no one else. Not for your eyes; not for Jay Zs.

Notice that Beyonc is rarely without her all-female squad of dancers, and that she doesnt usually deviate from their choreography. That is completely deliberate, because Beyonc can certainly carry a stage alone. Instead, she and her troupe move as one unit a drill team, an army in the name of black pride and girl power. Allow your eyes to blur and it is as if Beyonc is multiplying, until 50 of her are swarming the stage.

More from the Super Bowl show. Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Refocus your vision and she is just one woman among meticulously organised rows of dancers. She might be the point of a pyramid or centre of an X, but she is always standing with them. It helps convey the idea that Beyonc is your spokeswoman; that she is in this with you, fighting the same fight. That no matter how rich and powerful she is, she is a girls girl, the Everywoman. That she walks, spins, and grinds like each dancer behind her. Because what anchors Beyonces persona once a shiny display, and now a little more vulnerable isnt the dancing itself, but the staging. She does not underestimate the simple and persuasive power of movement in unison.

That is not to say that the actual movement that Beyonc and her team puts out is particularly inventive (though they have certainly come up with some great hairography). While Beyonc has become more radical in message, she has actually toned down the creativity of her dancing since the days of the Bob Fosse-inspired Single Ladies video. Formations punchy isolations, booty-bouncing and chest-popping are evenly set with the beat and the melody, with knees twisting in and out. At its most basic, its a heightened, polished version of something you would do in the privacy of your own living room, music blasting, two glasses of wine in a feel-good romp. Its another way to connect with her fans. For modern-day Bey, dance is no longer a main event; its there to serve her highness. And sometimes, that is all dance is supposed to do. Kristin Schwab

The brand: She doesnt release albums; she creates cultural events

Beyonc and Jay Z at the Met Gala in New York. Photograph: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Theres the A-list, and then theres Queen Bey. Beyonc has risen to a rare level of fame where she has surpassed mere celebrity and become an archetype of achievement. When she dropped Lemonade, the world dropped everything to listen Beyonc doesnt release albums; she creates cultural events.

Beyonc has been famous for almost 20 years, but, it is only in the last eight that she has gone from phenomenal to phenomenon. This is no accident, but the result of strategic brand-building learned from Madonna and Apple.

Her metamorphosis into a brand can be seen in three key milestones. First, she married Jay Z. Then she killed Sasha Fierce. Finally, she fired her father. Strategic partnerships can be a highly effective way to build a brand and, leaving romance aside, Beyoncs 2007 marriage to Jay-Z was as strategic as you can get. Both benefited from the merger I mean marriage, gaining new fans and elevating their respective statuses.

When Beyonc married Jay Z, she was going through a period of transition. You can see this play out in the character of Sasha Fierce, an alter-ego that let Beyonc experiment with a more risqu sexual persona while maintaining her traditionally wholesome image. The 2008 album I Am Sasha Fierce reflected this tension. One side had more mainstream songs for new fans, the other was aimed more at old fans.

The I Am Sasha Fierce album cover

In 2010, she announced she didnt need to separate her persona from that of Sasha Fierce any more. Killing off Fierce signalled a Beyonc newly confident in what she stood for. This was reinforced shortly after, when Beyonc made arguably her most important move ever: she dropped her father as manager and seized control of her brand. When I decided to manage myself, it was important to me not to sign to some big company, she said. I wanted to follow in Madonnas footsteps and be a powerhouse.

Part of becoming and staying a powerhouse was exerting painstaking, Apple-like control over her brand. Its a mistake to call Beyoncs notorious attention to her image diva behaviour; its businesswoman behaviour. Beyonc understood that she couldnt let Beyonc-the-person encroach on Beyonc-the-brand. So she stopped saying much, and rarely gave interviews. In 2013, she made waves by appearing on the cover of the September issue of Vogue without deigning to give the customary interview that went with it. Her silence made her voice even more powerful, and reinforced the mythology she was creating.

A couple of months later, Beyonc really dropped the mic when she launched her fifth album, eponymously titled Beyonc, unexpectedly on iTunes. The launch broke all the conventions of music marketing and announced to the world that she only played by her own rules. The next year, she was on the cover of Time for their most influential people issue.

Today, Beyonc is more influential than ever. She has become a voice for feminism and civil rights. While this move to the left may seem to run the risk of being polarising, remember that her timing has always been flawless. She understands exactly when she can activate activism for her own benefit. Further, the sign of a strong brand is that it can evolve with culture, and weather the occasional controversy. The strength of Beyoncs brand is such that, at the moment, it seeems she can do no wrong. After all, to err is human but Beyonc is divine. Arwa Mahdawi

The feminist: She calls out to the masses to rise up

The Lemonade album cover

Its all Maya Angelou in those now iconic first 15 seconds of Beyoncs visual album masterpiece Lemonade. As the most famous pop star on the planet, golden cornrow coiffed, and supine on the back of a sports utility vehicle, comes up off the back of her ride in haunting slow motion, the spirit of legend Angelous classic 1978 poem And Still I Rise pulsates like an undercurrent: You may write me down in history/With your bitter, twisted lies/You may trod me in the very dirt/But still, like dust, Ill rise. Our heroine has taken Angelous words (that many a black girl has memorised) to heart, turning the wisdom of her lyric anthem into a long-form visual and sonic meditation. The result is a feminist breakthrough in the world of stadium pop. It is 18 million cracks in pop music cultures glass ceiling delivered by a sister wielding a baseball bat in a marigold sundress.

One of the biggest pop-culture events of the year so far, Lemonade has nonetheless weathered some high-profile handwringing from feminist scholars such as bell hooks, a notorious Beyonc hater, who conceded that the albums visual imagery shifts the gaze of white mainstream culture challeng[ing] us all to look anew, to radically revision how we see the black female body while nevertheless continuing to warn of her oppressive ties to capitalism and patriarchy. These sorts of concerns about Beyoncs brand of feminism are nothing new.

Beyonc at the Super Bowl in 2013. Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

If you are a woman whose independence depends on making money, as Yonc and her fellow children of destiny would sing about in the year 2000, can you ever really be free of the systems that have historically oppressed women and people of colour? If, in your celebration of the single life, you are still chastising your ex for not having sealed a commitment with a rock, are you more of a material girl than empowered woman warrior?

The ambivalences in Beyoncs pre-Lemonade musical repertoire have led some, such as critic Andi Zeisler in her razor-sharp new book We Were Feminists Once, to characterise the superstars relationship to the F-word as a form of marketplace feminism, a mainstream, celebrity, consumer embrace of feminism that positions it as a cool, fun, accessible identity that anyone can adopt But Zeisler is also quick to point out that we need not hate the player, but rather the game in which our reigning queen of pop is ensnared.

The difference that Lemonade makes in Beyoncs career-long, increasingly sophisticated engagement with feminist politics is that it is an album that ambitiously aims to address the game of large-scale, deeply entwined racial and gender oppression, even as it foregrounds a tale of intimate deception and duplicity. True, this is still the Bey weve come to know who extols the virtues of revenge by way of paper, when many a feminist longs to hear her say instead that best revenge is dismantling patriarchy in all facets of modern life. But Lemonade is ultimately an album that moves well beyond a focus on being black Bill Gates in the making.

Just when a series of pop starlets from Taylor Swift to Emma Watson and Chlo Grace Moretz were willing to embrace a kind of feminism that oversimplifies its meaning, that thinks in limited and sometimes twisted ways about girl squads, making womens equality welcoming for men, and gender neutrality, along comes Bey with a new album that demands that we think about feminism as a sophisticated and multilayered practice rather than a slogan. The album encourages black women, in particular, to examine the wholeness of their beings and the complexities of their identities.

Beyonc and her team of artistic collaborators turned what had been an initial embrace of feminism into an epic sonic event. It demands that mainstream popular culture reckon with the conditions of being a modern black woman in ways never before seen and felt.

Beyonc and Coldplays Chris Martin at the 2016 Super Bowl show. Photograph: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

For the first time, a superstar black female musician aligned herself with intersecting racial and gender freedom struggles by way of a concept album, as well as the Super Bowl halftime routine watched the world over.

Most would be hard-pressed to recall the last time a black female pop star had enough cultural capital and sheer recording industry power to boldly weave together critiques of racial and gender inequality into a full-length recording. The go-to reference for many is still Atlantic Records-era Aretha, crowned the iconic foremother of the feminist pop anthem. Others might cite the audacity of Lauryn Hills ferociously introspective narratives of self-discovery and personal redemption, the biting lyricism and sophisticated instrumentation of Meshell Ndegeocellos or Erykah Badus finest releases, or the recent Afrofuturist liberation odysseys of Janelle Mone. But none of these artists, not even the Queen of Soul, have commanded the kind of multimedia global platform that fourth-wave Bey has been able to seize upon in this rapidly changing digital age.

And so enter Yonc with her Run-the-World army of women: an all-female dance troupe, backup singers, her celebrated Suga Mama band, and her pathbreaking alliances with diasporic black feminist intellectuals such as Warsan Shire and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. At the height of her artistic powers and political vision, she calls out to the masses to rise up, Angelou-style, and ride with her as she sits behind the wheel of a Hold Up video demolition monster truck, driving pop culture forwards and into the future with no turning back. Daphne Brooks

The celebrity: Even sneezing on stage gets her coverage

Beyonc on tour in Houston, Texas. Photograph: Larry Busacca/PW/WireImage

Pop superstars fall into two camps: the boy or girl next door, or the character who would buy the house next door, evict the family and erect a neon and diamant castle in their own honour. Britney, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift would have you believe they would pop round for a cup of sugar; Kanye, Gaga and Madonna appeal because you know they would send in the JCBs. Fans engage with all those artists with a similar intensity, but we attach ourselves to the humanity of some and the audacity of others.

Most artists stay in one lane, but during her two-decade career, Beyonc has deftly segued from sugar (early interviews show an artist with little to say maybe, we might now speculate, she simply wasnt being asked the right questions) to steamrollers: Aprils Lemonade addressed, owned and even exacerbated rumours surrounding her marriage to Jay Z in the pop equivalent of a controlled explosion, by an artist now able to unleash, control and manipulate her own celebrity on her own terms.

Tech companies pivot when their original proposition goes wrong: Beyonc did it when things were going right or, at least, before diminishing returns set in. And she did so while achieving critical and commercial success.

The shift in Beyoncs celebrity status didnt happen overnight. Her relationship with Jay Z created a celebrity whole far exceeding the sum of its parts, while the aggressive sound and styling around Run the World (Girls) put a hard edge on the broad-stroke feminism of early Destinys Child tracks. But 2013s surprise album really saw Beyonc take control. The power of instant releases shouldnt be underestimated: by stripping critics of any meaningful role in an albums release, Beyonc and others have allowed for a frictionless exchange of celebrity energy between fan and artist.

Jay Z and Beyonc in San Francisco in 2014. Photograph: Mason Poole/Invision for Parkwood Entertainment

Six months later, Beyonc topped the Forbes celebrity power list, based on mentions in print, radio, TV and online, for the first time since her initial appearance on the list a decade earlier. This reflects shifting, click-driven priorities of the global news agenda, but Google Trends echoed Beyoncs role in that shift: before 2013 there were clumps of interest around album campaigns, but in December 2013 Beyonc began prompting huge peaks in interest that wildly outstripped any that came before.

As her politically charged Super Bowl performance earlier this year showed us, Beyonc understands tentpole moments, but she also understands the smaller details, the pegs without which tentpoles wouldnt hold up. She knew this early on. Consider Question! in Independent Women, Pt 1 or I aint gonna diss you on the internet when the world was still on dial-up lyrical proto-memes that now seem like Beyonc staking her claim on the modern world of social-driven celebrity culture.

Fast-forward to 2016 and Becky With the Good Hair the woman rumoured to have been a third party in the Beyonc-Jay Z marriage is a celebrity in her own right, while restaurant chain Red Lobster reported a 33% boost in sales after being namechecked in Formation as the ideal location for a crustacean-themed post-coital lap of honour. If that is interesting in itself, interesting, too, is how widely that news was reported. But this is an era when Beyonc sneezing on stage can guarantee coverage from Time, Vanity Fair, Mail Online and the Hereford Times. That, as much as anything else, defines the meaning of celebrity in 2016. Peter Robinson