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onesafezone · 4 months

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a study in portamis (2023 martin bourboulon's ver)

it took me two days and one night to get my own version of terrible clickbait what actually happened in the 'milady' about the whole promising portamis thing (whatever it was).

this post contains film spoilers! no, i'm serious, SPOILER ALERT. (i know the film hasn't been released in all countries yet, so if you haven't seen 'milady', please decide whether you want to read this or not).

my post is dedicated to all the people who have seen 'the three musketeers: milady' or found out about what was going to happen in the film and were heartbroken (for obvious reasons), so I couldn't sleep until the morning, but I did find out why /spoiler, spoiler, SPOILER/ porthos decided to marry aramis's pregnant sister.

yes, i know. it will take me a moment to experience that as well.

OK, here's what we've got. the simplest explanation is this: porthos is flirting with aramis' sister in the camp because he is bored/he wants sex/he wants to flirt/etc. yes, this characterisation portrays him as a frivolous character, but what if this is a fallacy? what if there is still love for aramis in his actions and i can prove it?

___________________________________________________________

i started by formulating the three main reasons why i can't agree with the 'i don't care who i seduce' version of porthos.

first of all: the events of the film unfold very quickly. in the first part, it was made clear to us that porthos has no shortage of lovers. we saw his bed once, and it was warmed for him by both man and woman. he also said that he doesn't sleep with fools, which is not to be taken literally. in any case, this gives us the idea that he has his own standards, that he will not sleep with the first person he meets to quench his thirst. yes, he examined d'artagnan from head to toe, but did he drag him into bed? in general, he knows how to stop and he will be able to restrain himself if the situation demands it.

second reason: you can throw a stone at me, but I swear that his lover in the awakening scene looks a lot like aramis. no, it's not because this man has a beard or curly hair like aramis. there's something in his jaw, his features are built like the aramis-coded type of man. you know what i mean. porthos' lover is literally not d'artagnan-coded, not athos-coded. his lover has a certain type of body/face build. and that type is the same as his best friend's. this is no coincidence.

so, having worked out why i just couldn't accept the fact that porthos suddenly fell in love with a girl (aramis' sister, i'm not going to hinting at anything… because i'm saving the last reason for the finale), i asked myself: why did he decide to get involved? what drove him?

here is my answer:

when aramis received a note from his mother telling him that his sister was pregnant, he immediately changed his face and went to see her. at the same time, porthos immediately noticed the change in his friend's face and tried to call aramis, but aramis did not answer. what did porthos do? without further ado, he immediately went after aramis.

micro-conclusion: he cares about aramis' feelings, he cares about him and he wants to help him.

OK, let's move on. we know how the episode of portamis meeting matilda's fiancé ended: zero result. literally. apart from the fact that the bastard was hit by a cannonball, the meeting had no result. again, what was porthos doing at the time? he asked aramis what he was going to do. he predicted that aramis would challenge an arrogant and dishonest groom to a duel. spoiler alert: he was right. where are his 1000 ecu?? ok, i'm kidding. but here are the facts: he looks after aramis again, tries to cheer him up. and from their conversations it's clear how well he knows aramis.

let's keep going. we're almost there!

porthos has been excluded from scenes involving athos or d'artagnan (let's ignore the scenario that made this happen). at first glance, it would seem that he was not involved in his friends' affairs for no reason. but no, he was wounded (there was a scene in the camp where he was leaning on a crutch) and drunk. in fact, we got a scene where aramis holds a dead drunk porthos, who relieves himself, by the cape, without feeling disgust. what do i mean by that? while aramis, athos and d'artagnan were chasing after milady, porthos, who had remained in the military camp, had time to think carefully about everything. in both sober and drunk mind.

yes, porthos is not as tricky as aramis. and not as cold-blooded as athos. he sees the problem: aramis is very upset that someone has dishonoured his sister. had it not been for an accidental death, the would-be bridegroom would have lived and not taken matilda as his wife, for to him she was obviously a one-time entertainment. aramis is upset, he is sad, and how can porthos help? (yes, he comforted matilda by giving her a made-up explanation, as if her fiancé had been a hero and had saved aramis and porthos from a cannonball, but that was not enough, it only solved the problem temporarily). how to end all this? what can he do? matilda is pregnant, she is not rich, no one loves her, he tells himself that he can do this, he can offer her his hand and his heart, and he will save her (and aramis). it will make his best friend happy again. this is the right thing to do. they will be more than brothers. isn't that the best scenario? aramis will be happy and they will become a family.

attention, now it's time to announce the third fact that doesn't allow me to bury my portamis hopes: when porthos talks to aramis about this decision, aramis doesn't look happy at all.

moreover, his face was masked in confusion.

the scene also ends with them unable to talk about it. porthos is taken away by aramis's sister, his future wife, and all goes well. aramis should be happy. but why isn't he? and porthos, too.

something tells me that this is because his subconscious chooses lovers for him who are similar to aramis, because he tries to make aramis happy, because he cares for him, because he wants the best for him, because he loves him.

i think at that moment, when the words of the forthcoming wedding are heard and there is a sad atmosphere between them, like at a funeral, they both think that maybe all this time their feelings for each other were something more.

#les trois mousquetaires #les trois mousquetaires 2023 #the three musketeers #the three musketeers: d'artagnan #the three musketeers: milady #portamis #porthos #aramis #kinda fix-it post #the three musketeers 2023 #my thoughts

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taylorkellyreporting · 1 year

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i hope no one minds if i liveblog this bitch: clickbait

tried watching this when it came out and lost interest within the first two minutes lmao let’s hope this time goes better

oh damn she’s an addict

i wonder if he’s doing the video for attention or if it’s actually real and he’s in danger 🤨

why do they keep focusing on that one teammate…

the student taking a video pls 😭

oh shit??? the detective is the guy pia matched with the night before

and of course it’s in his handwriting

oh my God he called her but she was so fucked up she dropped her phone and didn’t get it til now 🤦‍♀️ i just know she’s blaming herself

they’re in a whole ass crises and her mom is still taking shots at her that’s so…

not vince trying to kiss her lmfaooo

oh fuck it hit 5 mil

how convenient that they got a lead right as it hit 5 million views

it’s gonna be empty

- 1x02

*pretends to be shocked*

why does he wanna be in homicide so bad?

“we were just having some fun” a guy is literally missing lmfao

that was the worst statement i’ve ever heard

LMFAOOO HIS OFFICE

“are you married, detective?” “yes” tf?

what the hell is sophie hiding

that’s so fucked up

vince was part of that??? wow

i can’t wait to find out if this is just some elaborate hoax nick decided to pull

ooh what if matt has something to do with it? there’s something about him that i just don’t trust

oh shit he has a son

aw i kinda feel bad for the guy

OH MY GOD

and that’s why you don’t make promises you can’t keep

i fully expected him to be alive by the end i’m ngl

oh wow he made homicide

oh shit that’s the guy who kicked nicks ass at the bar

i knew sophie was being weird

- 1x03

his poor kids ☹️

her mom knows???

well that couldn’t have gone worse

i’m so glad she was followed tbh both because she’s a liar and because curtis probably would’ve hurt her

“if you were happy in your marriage mrs, brewer, why were you having an affair?” GET HER ASS!

oh shit did he rape her?

i’m trying sooo hard not to be biased towards either of them since we don’t know the full story but it’s a challenge

ohhh my God ethan heard

“you never judged me. all this time you knew and you didn’t judge” “not to your face” real 😭

i wonder if nicks affair started before or after sophie came clean about hers

oooh that girl that they focused on a bit in the first ep was def about to talk to sophie about something

i really don’t trust matt

judging by the looks on some of the girls faces i really think nick was hurting him and matt was in on it

oh shit sophie’s putting the pieces together

the fucking whiplash i got from hearing the weeknd right after that memorial scene 😭😭

not him using the pics he took while sophie was with him skdjgjgkfjs what an asshole 😭😭

why the hell was he so upset about her affair if he’d been on that app for two years??

“i forgive you” the audacity.

- 1x04

emma’s a real one for helping out that man and his wife i can’t lie

did he hurt her too?

he clearly never mentioned emma to matt

SHE KNEW HE WAS MARRIED???? i wonder what else she knew

i wonder what nicks mom would say if she knew that he was cheating first

what the fuck

at first i thought matt killed nick but then he stopped that student from talking to sophie so i figured he was hurting them too bc why else would he not want it to get out? but if he found out what nick was doing and killed him for it, he wouldn’t want to be caught so maybe that’s why he did it?

shit are they gonna kill emma?!

okaaaay emma’s saying she got spooked and ran her car off the road but she was clearly sideswiped so either she’s lying or her head injury is preventing her from remembering 🤨

i wonder if all the women he was dating decided to kill him?

i really have no idea how this is gonna end

#clickbait lb #nick brewer #pia brewer #zoe kazan #betty gabriel #adrian grenier #phoenix raei #long post #netflix clickbait #clickbait netflix #clickbait series #tw rape mention

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mishafletcher · 4 years

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Are you a Gold Star lesbian? (Just in case you don't know what it means, a Gold Star lesbian is a lesbian that has never had the sex with a guy and would never have any intentions of ever doing so)

So I got this ask a while ago, and I've been lowkey thinking about it ever since.

First: No. I am a queer, cranky dyke who is too old for this sort of bullshit gatekeeping.

Second: What an unbelievable question to ask someone you don't even know! What an incomprehensibly rude thing to ask, as if you're somehow owed information about my sexual history. You're not! No one—and I can't reiterate this enough, but no one—owes you the details of their sex lives, of their trauma, or of anything about themselves that they don't feel like sharing with you.

The clickbait mills of the internet and the purity police of social media would like nothing more than to convince everyone that you owe these things to everyone. They would like you to believe that you have to prove that you're traumatized enough to identify with this character, that you can't sell this article about campus rape without relating it to your own sexual assault, that you can't talk about queer issues without offering up a comprehensive history of your own experiences, and none of those things are true. You owe people, and especially random strangers on the internet, nothing, least of all citations to somehow prove to them that you have the right to talk about your own life.

This makes some people uncomfortable, and to be clear, I think that that's good: people who feel entitled to demand this information should be uncomfortable. Refusing to justify yourself takes power away from people who would very much like to have it, people who would like to gatekeep and dictate who is permitted to speak about what topics or like what things. You don't have to justify yourself. You don't have to explain that you like this ship because this one character reminds you a bit of yourself because you were traumatized in a vaguely similar way and now— You don't have to justify your queerness by telling people about the best friend you had when you were twelve, and how you kissed, and she laughed and said it was good practice for when she would kiss boys and your stomach twisted and your mouth tasted like bile and she was the first and last girl you kissed, but—

You don't owe anyone these pieces of yourself. They're yours, and you can share them or not, but if someone demands that you share, they're probably not someone you should trust.

Third: The idea of gold star lesbians is a profoundly bi- and trans- phobic idea, often reducing gender to genitals and the long, shared history of queer women of all identities to a stark, artificial divide where some identities are seen as purer or more valuable than others. This is bullshit on all counts.

There's a weird and largely artificial division between bisexuals and lesbians that seems to be intensifying on tumblr, and I have to say: I hate it. Bisexual women aren't failed lesbians. They're not somehow less good or less valid because they're attracted to [checks notes] people. Do you think that having sex with a man somehow changes them? What are you so worried about it for? I've checked, and having sex with a man does not, in fact, make your vagina grow teeth or tentacles. Does that make you feel better? Why is what other people are doing so threatening to you?

Discussions of gold star lesbians are often filled with tittering about hehe penises, which is unfortunate, since I know a fair few lesbians who have penises, and even more lesbians who've had sex with people, men and women alike, who have penises. I'm sorry to report that "I'm disgusted by a standard-issue human body part" is neither a personality nor anything to be proud of. I'm a dyke and I don't especially like men, but dicks are just dicks. You don't have to be interested in them, but a lot of people have them, and it doesn't make you less of a lesbian to have sex with someone who has a dick.

There's so much garbage happening in the world—maybe you haven't noticed, but things are kind of Not Great in a lot of places, and there's a whole pandemic thing that's been sort of a major buzzkill? How is this something that you're worried about? Make a tea, remind yourself that other people's genitalia and sexual history are none of your business, maybe go watch a video about a cute animal or something.

Fourth: The idea of gold star lesbians is a shitty premise that argues that sexuality is better if it's always been clear-cut and straightforward—but it rarely is. We live in a very, very heterosexist culture. I didn’t have a word for lesbian until many years after I knew that I was one. How can you say that you are something when your mouth can’t even make the shape of it? The person you are at 24 is different to the person you are at 14, and 34, and 74. You change. You get braver. The world gets wider. You learn to see possibilities in the shadows you used to overlook. Of course people learn more about themselves as they age.

Also, many of us, especially those of us who grew up in smaller towns, or who are over the age of, say, 25, grew up in times and places where our sexuality was literally criminal.

Shortly after I graduated high school, a gay man in my state was sentenced to six months in jail. Why? Well, he’d hit on someone, and it was a misdemeanor to "solicit homosexual or lesbian activity", which included expressing romantic or sexual interest in someone who didn’t reciprocate. You might think, then, that I am in fact quite old, but you would be mistaken. The conviction was in 1999; it was overturned in 2002.

I grew up knowing this: the wrong thing said to the wrong person would be sufficient reason to charge me with a crime.

In the United States, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, clarifying that according to the federal government, marriage could only ever be between one man and one woman. It also promised that even if a state were to legalize same-sex unions, other states wouldn't have to recognize them if they didn't want to. And wow, they super did not want to, because between 1998 and 2012, a whopping thirty states had approved some sort of amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Every queer person who's older than about 25 watched this, knowing that this was aimed at people like them. Knowing that these votes were cast by their friends and their families and their teachers and their employers.

Some states were worse than others. Ohio passed their bill in 2004 with 62% approval. Mississippi passed theirs the same year with 86% approval. Imagine sitting in a classroom, or at work, or in a church, or at a family dinner, and knowing that statistically, at least two out of every three people in that room felt you shouldn't be allowed to marry someone you loved.

Matthew Shepard was tortured to death in October of 1998. For being gay, for (maybe) hitting on one of the men who had planned to merely rob him. Instead, he was tortured and left to die, tied to a barbed wire fence. His murderers were both sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. This was controversial, because a nonzero number of people felt that Shepard had brought it upon himself.

Many of us sat at dinner tables and listened to this discussion, one that told us, over and over, that we were fundamentally wrong, fundamentally undeserving of love or sympathy or of life itself.

This is a tiny, tiny sliver of history—a staggeringly incomplete overview of what happened in the US over about ten years. Even if this tiny sliver is all that there were, looking at this, how could you blame someone for wanting to try being not Like This? How can you fault someone who had sex, maybe even had a bunch of sex, hoping desperately that maybe they could be normal enough to be loved if they just tried harder? How can you say that someone who found themself an uninteresting but inoffensive boyfriend and went on dates and had sex and said that it was fine is somehow less valuable or less queer or less of a lesbian for doing so? For many people, even now, passing as straight, as problematic as that term is, is a survival skill. How dare you imply that the things that someone did to protect themself make them worth less? They survived, and that's worth literally everything.

Fifth, finally: What is a gold star, anyhow? You've capitalized it, like it's Weighty and Important, but it's not. Gold stars were what your most generous grade school teacher put on spelling tests that you did really well on. But ultimately, gold stars are just shiny scraps of paper. They don't have any inherent value: I can buy a thousand of them for five bucks and have them at my door tomorrow. They have only the meaning that we give them, only the importance that we give them. We’re not children desperately scrabbling for a teacher’s approval anymore, though. We understand that good and bad are more of a spectrum than a binary, and that a gold star is a simplification. We understand that no number of gold stars will make us feel like we’re special enough or good enough or important enough, or fix the broken places we can still feel inside ourselves. Only we can do that.

The stars are only shiny scraps of paper. They offer us nothing; we don’t need them. I hope that someday, you see that, too.

#queer stuff #lgbtq #gold star lesbians #long post #sorry #Anonymous

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books-and-catears · 3 years

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Allow me to share another brainrot,, time traveler mc

After they time travelled with the help of barbatos and belphie performed creeky crack on neck, and then they came back, Tiny problem, they accidentally gained a small part of barbatos's time travel magik somehow

And god was it chaotic the first few month's - accidentally creating time lines and having to get out of them-- they keep a small journal of a diagram wherever they jump to, and usually go to solomon or, of course, barbatos for help (barbatos becomes a father figure not clickbait) Though, this helped them became a bit more creative, they also like noting down random events that happen in timelimes

So many more opportunities for mc!! Yayyyy!!!

(I have a whole appearance for them in my head oh god i am back on my time traveler shenaigans)

Also im another regular here now *pulls up a minecart and sits sideways on it* boohoo cracker

If you're a regular here, I am freaking blessed cause your ideas are too freaking amazing. *Takes a seat next to you on the sideways Minecart*

Twisting Time Pt. 3

Barbatos: Two in one day? You're speeding up this time MC.

MC: Well it wasn't hard. Instead of fighting over who is the biggest TSL fan, I pretended to be an anime enthusiast who really wanted to know about TSL instead.

Barbatos: Is this why you were stuck in his room for the last 4 days?

MC: It took us three days to finish the whole series. He spent the fourth day ranting about his opinion on how grand it is. All I had to do was listen and smile and he randomly started crying and hugged me telling me he's grateful I'm here and listening.

Barbatos: And that's when you sprung the offer of the pact on him?

MC: Yep. And Beel was even easier.

Barbatos: You cooked up a feast for him and he agreed to a pact?

MC: Well I also promised him I'd cook this again once in two months.

Barbatos: But a feast surely must be hard to make on your own.

MC: I used Mammon and Levi's help. Pacts are a wonderful thing. *Giggles*

Barbatos: You're a sly one. *Chuckles* I hope you know what you're doing after everything you'd left behind.

This time around it was okay. You could feel it. It felt wrong at times...like it wasn't fair. Like you already knew everything ahead of time, the initial excitement of the unknown and meeting for the first time gone.

The others were all unaware of the pacts you were making. The secret was between you and them. You weren't here to fix the family among each other anymore.

You were here to fix you. You still loved them of course, only a selfish kind.

But it was all for a better future. You convinced yourself to be strong, as you prepared to pact with Asmo and Satan next.

MC: Asmo! There you are!

Asmo: Ah in a rush to see me this morning, MC? How adorable!

MC: *jokes* Of course I want to see you. Who doesn't want to see beautiful things early in the morning?

Asmo: Oh flattery will get you everywhere. Come on inside, let me me show you how beautiful I can really be.

MC: Well I heard you and Solomon have a pact. Can I have one too?

Asmo: I can't just give a pact to anybody MC. You will have to earn. I wonder how you will.

MC: Would you like to do a nostalgic fashion show with all your favourite dresses?

Asmo: .... Oh MC.

Satan: What are you hiding behind your back MC?

MC: Take a guess.

*Something meows behind MC's back*

Satan: ... A cat?!

MC: Not just any cat. I enchanted her with disguise magic so that noone else can see she's a real cat. They will just see a soft toy. *hands him the kitten*

Satan: Why are you doing this?

MC: Well Asmo said I needed to earn my pacts so I'm trying to earn yours.

Satan: ...

Cat: *meows*

Satan: Consider my pact achieved. Now come let's name and feed this kitty.

____________________________________

Somewhere in a parallel timeline...

MC: Solomon! I'm so glad to find you here! I think I'm lost again.

Solomon: *sigh* Which one are you?

MC: Um the real one?

Solomon: *bigger sigh* No you're not. All of you are the real ones. But from the fact that you're not wearing a ribbon and didn't know about that means you're not MC Blue, Orange, Pink, Yellow or Green.

MC: Why are there so many versions of me??

Solomon: You've been going haywire after you came back to life. But then again even I probably can't handle Barbatos's power.

MC: And the colors?

Solomon: Every color represents the brother each version of you likes. So tell me Red or Violet? Red is Beel, Violet is Belphie.

MC: Um do you have a color? *Blushes*

Solomon: .....Why yes. *ties a white ribbon to your collar* I suppose you'd like to stay here's with me? *Smirks*

MC: *nods*

Solomon: Well then you'd better hide in my bedroom for a while. All your versions are looking for me since MC Teal took Barbatos out on a vacation.

MC: Oh. Well jeez I'm literally all over the place. *hides in his bedroom looking out*

MC Blue: *runs in crying* SOLOMON!

Solomon: Did you enter a wrong time line again?

MC Blue: I JUST SAW LUCIFER AND DIAVOLO GETTING MARRIED AND THEY ASKED ME TO BE THEIR BEST HUMAN. How could Lucifer do this to me???*crying louder*

Solomon: *trying so hard to hold back laughter* It's okay it's okay. That's not your Lucifer. Let's revisit the diagram and find your way back shall we?

*After MC Blue leaves*

MC white: Is it bad that I really wanna see that timeline they just talked about?

Solomon: I'll show you how to get there. I just hope we get to see them kiss the groom. Now let's go.

#obey me headcanon #obey me imagine #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me levi #obey me belphie #obey me lucifer #obey me asmo #obey me beel #obey me fluff #obey me x TimeTravller!MC #obey me x reader

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taylorswifthongkong · 3 years

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Taylor Swift broke all her rules with Folklore — and gave herself a much-needed escape The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency. By Alex Suskind

“He is my co-writer on ‛Betty’ and ‛Exile,’” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore — a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner — delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album's hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August��), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil — and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums — something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness — something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vain, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy?

That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies?

I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing?

I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that's the smallest number of people I've ever had know about something. I'm usually playing it for everyone that I'm friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, "Why didn't you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?"

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret?

Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that?

Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness?

Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story?

I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House?

Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"?

F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right?

Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally?

I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change?

It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event?

I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor?

Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room?

I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first.

It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

"I almost didn't process it as an album," says Taylor Swift of making Folklore. "And it's still hard for me to process as an entity or a commodity, because [it] was just my daydream space."

I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn-of-phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere.

Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future.

I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

#ew #entertainment weekly #article #interview #folklore promo #folklore interview #quote #aaron dessner #jack antonoff #joe alwyn

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path-of-my-childhood · 3 years

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Taylor Swift Broke All Her Rules With Folklore - And Gave Herself A Much-Needed Escape

By: Alex Suskind for Entertainment Weekly Date: December 8th 2020 (EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year cover)

The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency.

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Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore - a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner - delivered.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil - and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums - something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness - something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic? TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vein, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy? That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies? I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

One of the other unique things about Folklore — the parameters around it were completely different from anything you'd done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past? I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing? I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you've done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too — these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it? Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret? Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that? Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness? Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story? I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House? Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”? I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"? F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right? Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally? I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks? I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change? It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event? I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor? Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room? I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of "sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an "aha moment" for you while writing that? I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first. It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

On the flip side, "Peace" is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There's this really striking line, "The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?" How did that line come to you? I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn of phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere. Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we're here talking about the National again. Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future. I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

*** For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

#taylor swift #interview #entertainment weekly #folklore album #folklore era #video

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sunriseabram-death · 3 years

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AAAAAA HOW DOES SHE FEEL ABT/REACT TO ALL THOSE EVENTS (edens, kathy, seth)

natasha seeing neil all bandaged after he comes back from the ravens: alright whats all this then

neil: i went to the nest (*NOT CLICKBAIT*)

KSHSJFJF do they tell e/o about getting countdowns or is nat also like "¯\_(ツ)_/¯ guess ill die" like neil did and just. vibes for 40 days

nat sang 2 him 👁️👁️??? did she do that when they were little 🥺......

NEIL IS NOT! HAVINF A GOOD TIME i love how everyone collectively is like "yes neil must suffer more" truly brings us all together. i cant even imagine how painful itd be 4 nat 2 see neil being hurt :[ was she hurt too.. OMF SHE MUSTVE BEEN TAKEN BEFORE HIM RIGHT this is horrible this is the worst i wanna go home!!!!!

uncle stuart seeing them both in the basement covered in blood: alright whats all this then

WHAT IF ONE OF THEM WAS SHOT BY ACCIDENT.... nat unharmed mostly (or not) then gots shot in the chaos.. ohhhhhh my god. oh mt gof.?!?? STUART THINKING SHES MARY FOR A SECONDM TOO.......?!! pain all around :)))))

what was the moriyamas plan for natasha? was she ever involved in any of that exy mess :0 or was she solely nathan's protégé/business.. or FIRST BRANCH STUFF? if ichirou's around the same age i can imagine nat getting promised to him. 2 Butchers to work with? and one binded by marriage which would strengthen the ties between families? i do see it

this is so ajdjsjdkjf but alternate version where they both are in that role.... the Butcher of Baltimore and the Butcher of (other place)? murder siblings. i am Looking

BALTIMORE REUNION<3

(after nat and andrew tied in their 10 min staring contest) nat: okay he can go with u to interrogation . hes earned it

neil, sarcastically: thanks, Mom. wait . fuck

andrew: too soon?

nat: i changed my mind. wheres my glock

the government agent: (is not getting paid enough for this)

her reaction is literally “why do you like these people” 😭 when she finds out about edens tho...the monsters quite literally owe neil their lives for not letting her go down there

LMAOO “what’s all this then” 🙏🏼😭 she’s like “if it weren’t for the fact that you’re injured I would KILL YOU”

nat never got a countdown 😐 like she never got a newer phone so she couldn’t receive text messages. it was literally a complete surprise.

yeah she did that when they were little 😭 neil’s room shared a closer vent to the basement so he heard a lot of screaming 😔 he’d go to her room and she’d try and sing him to sleep

iconic of all us to go “let’s play jenga but with this kids trauma <3” she was hurt 😞 and yeah they took her before him 😩 extra leverage against neil so he didn’t try and run

UNCLE STUART <3 his rage levels are higher than the fucking Empire State Building.

SHE DID GET SHOT!!! she did!!! she tried to cover neil because she’s like “alright these people’s aim fucking SUCKS” and then she gets shot in the torso :/ immediately curses stuart out so that REALLY made him think she was mary 😭

she wasn’t as exy driven as neil but she did enjoy playing it? like canonically part of the reason neil played exy as a little kid was cause it made his mom smile so I think nat had the same reasoning. I always hc that neil was gonna be the next butcher so nat would’ve been his Lola (without the...other stuff lola did with nathan 💀). her being arranged to marry Ichirou ....maybe that’s why he was so lenient to neil being a little shit 😭

murder siblings......I see it 😳. we know thanks to riko that the moriyamas are sexist so neil would probably be the face of the operation while nat would be doing the dirty work 👀 they’d probably want to stay together so now we get TWO Wesninski’s running Baltimore

PLSSSSS 😭 they’re all so hilariously awkward and rude I love them

#sister au #ty for asking btw 🥺 ily

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thestudyfeels · 5 years

Text

100 Days of Sweat

Welcome to the official admission post for the 100 days of sweat challenge! *plays the conquer theme song and does a booty pop* This is a pretty long post, but has everything you need to start, so read on!

READING TIME: 6 minutes.

OoOh? What's that?

Thanks for coming out of the cave! In short, it's a consistency challenge to turn working out into a habit.

You've basically got to move your body for a 100 days straight. No slacking, no backing out!

Most take on this challenge personally, but I felt accountability would be great for those beginning with exercising & those who can't seem to keep their streak (cough, me).

Sounds fun! How do I join? Do I need to do a booty pop too?

Booty pops are appreciated. But here's how!

1. First things first, decide whether you'll be joining via IG, Discord or staying on Tumblr.

2. If using IG, reply to this post with your handle or (alternative) if you'd like, join Discord instead! For that, click here to join the server!

(NOTE: Those who joined via the first post I created regarding this needn't reply again! I've already added you to the list.)

3. Lastly, boost this! Reblog, get your followers to join! Drag your friend or sibling in! (already dragged my bestie into this in case no one joined in lmao)

Important PSA: yO, ANYONE can join! All my beginners and winners, young teens and old pals, drarry fans and johnlock shippers, team cold water AND hot water (sparing y'all because I stan working out more), EVERYONE!

Here's what I'll do:

I'm creating an IG group for those interested in staying fully committed. (Pros include making friends! Or enemies, for a hundred whole days! Some of you might even get married together, I have high hopes because wedding cake is everything)

Sayani from @studign-stars will be the admin for Discord! You can hit her up for queries, if any.

In short, there'll be 3 separate groups. One for those joining via Discord, one for those on the IG group, and a third for those staying on Tumblr.

If you wish to use any other platforms like Snapchat and Twitter, feel free! Also plug your progress on Tumblr too so we can hype each other on! (tag stuff with #100dos)

+ That said, I highly suggest joining either one of the groups, for accountability does wonders. It's now up to you, fellow warrior.

How to prep for this challenge:

OhO! There's a whole lot prepping to be slayed. To finish this challenge as smoothly as possible, here's a few steps. Make this easier for yo’ lazy bum.

1+ Firstly, grab a marker and scrap paper (when you on a student budget, cuz same) and write down numbers from 1 to 100. I did 1 to 30 to prevent myself from being overwhelmed, but do right them numbers to gain momentum.

2+ Take couple before photos. From the front, and the side. If you don't want to, take them anyway and store it in a folder you never open. Also measure your weight, and if you have a measuring tape, take other basic measurements of the chest, waist, arm etc.

3+ Coming to the main part! Pick your 'base’ routine. This is the primary workout you wanna do 2-3 times a week. It's the main course!

For beginners, I suggest choosing a 15 min full body workout. Do try it out before you start 100 days— make sure it's challenging enough.

For those who already move their bodies, pick a workout that aligns with your long-term goals. If you want toned legs, pick a leg day routine. If you want abs, focus on abs.

My base routine is the Beginner's Bodyweight Workout (BBW) from the NerdFitness website. I do 3 sets of the entire routine (takes around 25-30 mins) thrice a week.

So, do some research and pick a workout! Doesn't have to be an hour long at all, just make sure it's time-effective and challenges you.

4+ Find your cheat day workout.

Yikes, the wording is kinda incorrect, but anything for the clickbait.

This is the workout you do 2 days a week, and is the second most important workout. (This means: 3 + 2 = 5, you’ve now got five days planned!)

I do Alexis Ren’s ab routine (I hate it) twice a week because abs are my target zone. For you, it could be arms, thighs, butt, anything!

5+ Leave your last two days for simple moving.

It's up to you to decide what's going to be cooking in the remaining two days. For suggestions, you can pick a fun activity, say yoga, handstands, cartwheels, splits, any form of dancing like hip-hop, Zumba etc.

I'm trying to do a handstand this year and get my middle splits already (I fell off track so I still have quite a way to go) so I'll be stretching and doing hand flexibility exercises in the last 2 days.

Or you can just go for a jog or a power walk. Just keep the momentum going!

A quick recap:

To summarize, you're doing a major workout 3 times a week, a toning workout (mine is abs) twice a week and a fun activity in the last two days.

Also, mix this up. Your muscles need time to heal, and I strongly emphasize leaving the next day free for lighter activities after doing a major workout. Here's my routine, as an eg:

Do remember that this is just a STARTING POINT, because we don't want you to wake up everyday and be like “wut I do today.” It's now your mission to plan your workout routine. Consider taking more workload or reduce it as per your level (this is definitely a lot, try reducing if you're just beginning).

Also important: DETERMINE your workout routine NOW. I spent 2 years (only stopped like 3 months ago) doing YouTube videos haphazardly. This works, because you are working out after all, but it's a pretty lousy method if you want consistent results. Also makes you depend on motivation to workout (which has probability results equal to me marrying Tom Felton), whereas if you had a routine, you'll have to workout because it's in your schedule and you'd be a loser to lie to your schedule.

Is this a lot? It's a lot. I know.

If this is overwhelming you, don't back away darling. Face your fears. Here are some reasons to not back out—

The entire challenge is flexible: You don't have to follow that routine ^ if you don't want to. Starting out, you can do a major workout 2 times a week and fill the other 5 days with fun stuff. You can always change the routine later, 100 days is a long ass time.

The challenge fucks with your mindset and strengthens it: 100 days of continuous movement is CRAZY. Can you imagine how strong (mentally too!) we'll all be at the end? You'll have grown so much!

Working out will become a habit: I've been working out for 2 years now, and it has positively affected every single sphere of my life. Exercising is the #1 habit I suggest everyone build. Since science says it takes 66 days to build a habit, we're ON it.

You'll be really proud of yourself: I know I'll be. I'm literally going to hug y'all at the end of it, and sing jingles about how far you've come. 2019 will have been slayed.

I could go on and on, but this is it. Now's the moment. This is about doing something you're afraid of. Taking risks. Learning, falling, getting back up.

Thence, ladies, gents and non-binary pals, THIS is the 100 days of sweat challenge. You're cordially invited to it.

(We're dramatic, yes.)

🌻 !!! MAJOR PSA & DEADLINES:

The challenge itself begins on 10th April, 2019.

You'll be added to the IG group latest by 7th April.

Because I'm your mom, I'll add everyone in, tell you the details and everything. If you’ve got any questions, jump into my inbox now and get them answered.

That said, please remember that I won't take anyone in midway (no, not even if you buy me free tacos for a year). So join in now & spread the message! The more, the merrier! Bring beer too!

Thanks for joining in! This will be promising and hugely interesting (accountability can do wonders, but we'll see). I'll be waiting for you on the other side with my stuffed animals, cIaO fReNdOs!

— Nandini (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ 💌

letting my taglist folks know (which you can join here!)

@doctorearlgray, @mintschlar, @procrastilate, @scienceandsarcasticdroids, @sxudying, @hannistudies, @vocative, @studign-stars, @ash-trological, @sweet-bean-study-queen, @chaoticstormthings, @lunetudes, @beingstudent, @beautiful-magicalbrain, @akydemics, @literery, @redvelvetstu-dies, @vivinotes, @jynsdesk, @moonshinestudies, @studying-in-chaos, @thelazyunistudent, @einstetic, @ram-the-blonde-bitch, @a-students-lifebuoy, @studahliless, @inspostudying, @the-diary-of-a-failure, @would-iwasshookethspeared, @coffeeandpies, @artsytourism, @gloomstudy, @scrolls-of-jupiter, @studytrivia, @ristudy, @isatriestostudy, @historicalbeez, @luvjoys, @indiaisstudying, @studyingunderwater, @dianeemay, @kemi-k, @londonotes, @froststudies, @pennyfynotes, @studiently, @midnightstudying, @unicorndoesstudies, @studyingundersun, @wingedprunepsychiclawyer, @tonystarkstudies, @delphinaaugery, @morganastudy, @studiies-psych, @sumastudies, @emrys-studies, @parleonstudies, @acataemic, @studylustre, @adelinestudiess, @sorcierstudies, @coffeeinfusedstudying, @pizza-and-studying, @the-third-me, @scrunchiestudies, @jemsjournals, @jas-study, @jabuticabablr, @khelmatic, @avastvdies + you, if you’re reading this!

#100dos #unicorn studying #studign-stars #inspostudying #looklibraerie #heypfyn #jacistudies #lunetudes #ash-trological #studylustre #gloomstudy #dahliless #moonshinestudies #athenastudying #heypat #heylondonotes #adelinestudiess #hanniscup #heyindia

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esmeblaise · 5 years

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A quick summary of sanders characters you can reference for rping and fanfic writing

Thomas: Goofy, theater nerd, and a regular nerd, cartoons, pizza, has lots of problems, talks to himself a lot, jumps to conclusions, nervous, does not like horror, loves his friends dearly, tries his best to be a good person, jokes, really really nice, likes to sing, gay, so gay, supportive, a total dork, likes to laugh, tries not to cuss

Logan (Logic): logical, serious, i know what needs to be done, two moods: i have no emotion and EXTREME EMOTION, usually anger, feels guilty when he lets himself have emotions, wants to learn, exasperated, please listen to me, likes to teach others

Patton (Morality): happy pappy patton, i love literally everyone, has to be good or things will be bad, needs to see the best in others or it will break his heart, doesn't let himself be negative, naive, supportive, somehow the dad and the child?, loves his family more than anything, actually scared, confused most of the time

Roman “Princey” (Creativity): extra, romantic, dreamy, theater nerd, self confidence issues, protective, loud, trying his best, a little rude but its usual unintentional, argues with logan constantly, wants to be better, ironically bad at giving romantic advise, a dork,

Virgil (Anxiety): an angsty teen, so fucking emo, wants to be good, is trying his best, paranovigilant, scared scared terrified, protective, he loves his family, wants everyone to be safe, hates who he is, really hates who was

Deceit: self preservation, really just wants the best for his family but knows no one will listen to him, so he tries to trick them into figuring it out themselves, really really smart, exhausted by the dumbasses around him, sarcastic, totally extra, theater nerd, a total fucking dork

Remus (Dark Creativity): dude what even, a run on sentence, down the internet rabbit hole, ok but WHAT IF, extra, so fucking extra, extremely morbid sense of humor, says whatever goes through his head, no filter at all, just wants to have fun, hates boredom, does not care about anyones opinion, giggles, i fucking love him

Dr. Emile Picani: autistic, non binary, a super nerd, he seems random but he actually knows what the hell hes talking about and is suuuuper smart, hes on the same subject the topic is just different, references references references, cartoons, exited dumpling, fanpals,will not stop talking, uncomfortable with touch and displays of affection, he can be serious, tells you what you need to hear, hes a licensed therapist so whatever he does works

Remy (Sleep): lazy, clingy, arrives late with starbucks, gets lost easily, calls everyone girl or an insult, especially if he loves them, a total drama queen, acts like a stereotypical popular teenage girl really, depressed, somehow convinced everyone hes cool so now he just kind of has to roll with it??? Help!??

Joan: logical and smart with a dark slightly twisted sense of humor, cusses constantly, anxiety, asexual, vegan, always wears beanie, sarcastic, in ask the experts is "rude" to thomas and pretends he isnt actually his friend which makes thomas sad, really cute with big puppy eyes

Talyn: awesome goth fashion, also lots of cussing, vomit, vetal miking, cats, halloween aethstetic, sardonic, small and cute but will cut you down, dark sense of humor but in a different way than joan

Valerie: kind, disney songs, basically a disney princess, romantic (really im just thinking of the valentines episode now) speaks spanish

Elliot: sad, abused, needs help, nonbinary, deserves better, anxiety, doesnt think highly of themselves, family and relationship problems, tries their best, doesnt get emiles references but tries to anyways, really sweet, i love them

Kai: sardonic, sassy, wants more, so fucking done, kind of an angsty teen, wants to be left alone, really damn cool, doesnt let things stop them, actually self conscious, hides their feelings, pretends not to like picani

Dot: school teacher, romantic, a little exasperated with her husband, still totally loves him, wants them to work out even when they have problems, honestly they're just an old married couple, theater nerd, thinks picani is hilarious

Larry: a lot like his wife but more exasperated and done with things, more of a theater nerd, doesn't understand his wife sometimes but still loves her and goes along with it, thinks picani is wackadoodle and does not understand him at all

Percy/Magenta (Printer): likes to fuck with everyone, will not work for others, a lil bitch really, "your magenta is low~", color lover

Missy (Misleading Compliments): seems mean at first but is actually the sweetest lil dumpling, totally clickbait, surprising, nice, you didn't expect that did you?, loves surprises

Nate (Procrastination): lazy, laaaaazy, will not do what he's supposed to, like ever, haha no, easily distracted, protective, probably has adhd, hey look the internet, one more video last one I promise, late to everything

Pranks: mischievous, likes to laugh , its never mean, prank master, friends with missy, loves fandoms, a total nerd actually, im kinda imagining mikey from tmnt??

Feel free to add more

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #character summary #sanders summary #reference

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 6 years

Link

...let’s do this...

“Dan Slott’s decade-long tenure on writing Spider-Man recently came to an end, swapping the prolific writer out with former Captain America/Secret Empire scribe Nick Spencer. The first issue of his and artist Ryan Ottley’s much hyped run, Amazing Spider-Man #1, took Peter Parker back to the basics. The hero has lost Parker Industries, is under investigation for academic fraud, was fired from the Daily Bugle, and other New York heroes hate him because they think he’s buddy-buddy with Kingpin of Crime turned New York mayor, Wilson Fisk.”

First of all Peter lost Parker Industries during Slott’s run so i dunno why this ‘article’ is framing things as though that is a development from Spencer’s run.

Second of all heroes hate Spidey because Kingpin made it look as though they were friends, its not as though Spider-Man really was friend with Fisk as this article frames it.

“The issue ends with the two kissing and Peter declaring that this is “their story,” emphatically saying what the suspicions have been for some time: the new run of Amazing Spider-Man will begin to undue the events of the controversial “One More” and “Brand New Day” storylines that Slott became infamous for, which saw Mephisto destroy Peter and MJ’s marriage in exchange for bringing Aunt May back to life.”

*pinches bridge of nose* ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Okay so...Dan Slott WASN’T RESPONSIBLE FOR OMD OR BND!

M**********r Wikipedia could have told you that! HOW?! HOW do you not know that Joe Quesada wrote OMD!

HOW do you not know this piece of comic book osmosis that everyone knows! My God!

Furthermore aunt May didn’t effing die in OMD. That was literally the point. They mad ethe deal to SAVE her from death. Not undo it!

I know people who’ve not even read the story and THEY know that!

Also Dan Slott became infamous but it had nada to do with OMD but other stuff.

Also also the story hasn’t shown or promised to undo anything yet but clickbait gotta clickbait.

Also, also, also UNDO ISN’T SPELT THAT WAY!

Holy fuck how do you write for the front page of the biggest comic book news site, get paid for it and not spell check shit?!

“And like those now infamous wedding issues for Batman and X-Men, the move to bring Peter and MJ back together doesn’t really work. There are couples who’ve gotten back together after a time apart, but the issue itself piles so much misfortune on Peter’s doorstep it feels like Peter should be looking into a therapist or anxiety medicine instead of making out with his ex.”

-Is what someone who’s never read Spider-Man would say.

Like Peter went though a lot of bad stuff in ASM volume 5 #1 but:

a) Asshole please, this is nowhere near the worst most stressful or therepy worthy shit Peter has lived through. Supporting his sickly recently widowed mother figure financially whilst going to school, getting bullied, having a crappy boss, dealing with an unreasonable girlfriend and ALSO fighting crime in a city that feared and hated him for no reason. THAT is anxiety and that is also known as the start of Spider-Man’s entire story you fucking hacks!

b) So when you’ve had an awful day and everything has fallen apart getting TLC from someone you deeply love and who deeply loves you...doesn’t make sense. Okay sure.

c) Justin Carter where the fuck did you learn how to read subtext? Shit, nevermind the subtext, where did you learn to read the text bro! The story spells it out for you. Peter’s life is bad, he keeps making the same mistakes again, he wants things to change to be better. So he steps up to the plate and puts the effort in to MAKE it better, specifically by chasing the thing he wants most, the thing he’s yearned for and literally dreamed about (as CLEARLY SHOWN on the first effing pages!). He reunited with the love of his life. For the fuck is that something that DOESN’T work!

d) Exempting the X-Men wedding the Batman wedding issue in my observation totally worked from a characterization pov even if it wasn’t the result fans wanted to deserved.

“Peter and MJ Are A coulee Again! And It's The Wrong Move...”

It isn’t the wrong move and I see no reason why anyone should take this article’s claims that is is seriously when it can’t even spell the word couple!

“Like all relationships, the ones between superheroes and their non-powered partners are full of drama. In the decade since their split, Peter and MJ had many relationships that provided what neither could offer the other at the time. MJ got to date men who were reliable and had the stability that Peter couldn’t entirely provide, and Peter was with those who were more accustomed to or in the line of superheroic work as he.”

Go fuck yourself CBR seriously.

Let’s start with Peter. What in the flying fuck is this shallow, Celebrity gossip rag, juvenile, simplistic, unlearned horseshit of a mentality towards superhero relationships over the last several years that has the absolute biggest hard on ever for the idea that heroes have to date heroes.

Especially Spider-Man.

Whenever the mere idea of Spider-Man dating another hero crops up that is literally the ONLY thing people talk about.

They have so much in common because they are both heroes.

Well shit...why doesn’t he date literally any of the women in the multiple Avengers teams he was a member of. No Carol Danvers doesn’t count, it was one date.

I’ll tell you why.

Because if any of these jackasses knew what the fuck they were talking about with Spider-Man’s character, both in terms of who he is as a person and the entire concept behind him, they’d know that civilian women are both his preference and more in line with the idea of him as a hero who could be you.

YOU in the real world do not date goddam superheroes. You date normal people. Therefore Spider-Man also dates normal people.

‘But what about Black Cat’, I hear you cry out.

Yeah Felicia let’s talk about her for a second shall we.

Felicia, the cat burglar costumed criminal. The one who tried to trick her boyfriend into a life of crime literally the issue after they hooked up.

Felicia, the woman who recoiled upon seeing Spider-Man’s real face.

Felicia the woman who lied and went behind Spider-Man’s back to get super powers that literally caused him cosmic bad luck even after they broke up.

Felicia, the woman who jeapodized Peter’s secret identity multiple times.

Felicia, the woman who literally got in bed with a mercenary (in every sense of the word) in order to frame Spider-Man for murder by seducing him.

Felicia the one and only girlfriend Peter had before he got married who was a fellow costumed person...and she was literally named after something that brings you bad luck.

It’s ALMOST like it was doomed to fail from the start.

It’s ALMOST like it was intended that way.

It’s ALMOST like it was a great big subtextual commentary about how Spider-Man is better off with normal non-costumed women.

Oh...but if only there was some kind of page or panel clearly spelling out the idea that Felicia the costumed person was wrong for Spider-Man but someone else, someone normal, someone rooted in the real world with all it’s relatable problems and activities, was right for him...

...if only...

And if only the comic book run most guilty of shipping Spider-Man with a costumed person post-OMD which was initiated by a hack writer had itself a page or panel spelling out that Spider-Man dating costumed people because they ‘get’ his lifestyle more doesn’t mean jack shit, showcasing even they recognize it to be a stupid shortsighted attitude to Spider shipping.

IF.ONLY!

Let’s move onto Mary Jane.

MJ dated exactly 2 men during the decade after OMD. Bobbi Carr and Pedro the fireman who was literally a poc fireman version of Peter.

Reliable and stable huh?

Tell me how exactly is the life of a rising A-list movie star ‘reliable’ or ‘stable’...even aside from the fact that he was a drug addict?

Tell me how exactly is the life of a firefighter whom would be rushing off whilst on duty and risking his life A LOT be stable for poor Mary Jane’s anxieties over his safety?

What? Reliable is steady job+regular hours?

That’s what Peter couldn’t provide so this reconciliation is bad?

...Didn’t Mary jane literally WORK for goddam Tony Stark, the globe/galaxy trotting superhero Avenger leader who went into a coma then disappeared?????????

And she took that job by effing choice? AFTER breaking up with Pedro the fireman?

How much ‘reliable stability’ does she really want or need?

Because assholes MJ dated and was married to Spider-Man for fucking years. And she liked it. Are we just IGNORING that?

Like assholes that wasn’t even the thing that they broke up over. MJ didn’t break up with Spider-Man in OMIT because he was unreliable and didn’t provide stability. She accepted that. She accepted that shit even in the nuclear levels OOC flashback sequences to their aborted wedding.

She broke up with him because it endangered her family. THAT was the rationale. THEN she got back with him in Superior. THEN she broke up with him at the end because she wanted normalcy but then she literally said pages later that she’ll never get it because she lived in NYC and because guys like the Goblin wouldn’t care if she was dating Peter or not. THEN she threw away normalcy by working for Iron Man FFS. THEN in Red Goblin she claimed she couldn’t be with him because I don’t even know, some bullshit about feeling guilty that she was keeping him away from being a hero.

So the stable reliability argument holds no goddam water to her pre or post OMD characterizations.

Basically the above paragraph boils down to:

“Peter and MJ getting back together is bad because they dated people who could offer them the stuff that neither could offer the other, even though there is nothing indicating either wanted that stuff in the first place.”

“Not all of these relationships were perfect, but they were signs of real change, something that isn’t typically allowed in big two superhero comics, or at least, not in any lasting, meaningful way.”

No they weren’t. They were signs of Marvel putting the characters on rotation because they axed the ACTUAL meaningful change that was the pair getting married and committing to a longterm permanent relationship that lasted 20 years.

Hence why literally none of these relationships had ANY lasting impact upon either character.

MJ was unchanged by Bobbi Carr dating her beyond it prompting her to return to NYC, i.e. return to her old status quo.

Peter was unchanged by Carlie Cooper, Liaeean Teaaen, Mockingbird and Silk. I mean my God this article bangs on about how Mockingbird was so important because she provided something Peter otherwise couldn’t get from MJ but the seires literally handwaves away their relationship. They don’t even get a major break up scene or issue. It’s just. “We broke up, brief flashback. That was it.”

“The last couple of times that Peter and MJ broke off their romantic relationship — after that one time Doc Ock jacked Peter’s body for over a year — it was because she didn’t want his, frankly, ridiculous life as a superhero to define hers.”

The article says the last couple of times they broke it off then lists one example because what is counting.

And as I said that was NOT the reason they broke up after superior. Hell they didn’t even really break up that time. Otto broke up with MJ in Superior ‘2, then she called him up to break up with him many issues later then she went to Peter when he got his body back to give a break up speech to someone she wasn’t even dating!

“More, she didn’t want to keep risking the danger the comes from being close to a superhero.”

And then she went to work for an even more famous superhero who didn’t even have a secret identity and who have much more powerful enemies many of whom would’ve targeted him even if they didn’t know he was Iron Man..before re-entering his friendship group in from Power Play onwards thus rendering her entire rationale for breaking away moot....not that it made any sense to begin with.

“If anything, his life has become even more crazy since their split, since his teacher is the Lizard and he’s a roommate with Boomerang.”

The Lizard was his teacher in the silver and bronze age too you goddam hacks and having a villain for a roommate is NOT crazier than your body being stolen by a villain for God’s sake.

“Both of those situations are going to end pretty badly, and that’s coming just before the “Spidergeddon” event that’ll bring together the Spider-heroes of the multiverse yet again in a fight for survival against evil vampires.”

I didn’t know CBR could see the future and also apparently knows that despite all current evidence to the contrary that Spencer would be doing a tie-into Spider-Geddon.

“Fans of Peter and Mary Jane as a couple aren’t exactly hard up for a comic about their exploits. The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows series may be set in a new universe, but it’s been quietly operating as a book for the two to be happy together. Not only do they have a daughter in that universe by way of Annie Parker, the three of them are a crimefighting family where Annie is Spiderling, and MJ gained powers of her own and became Spinneret. ”

STFU CBR.

a) EVERYONE knew RYV had a limited shelf life

b) RYV is about Peter and MJ are a superhero family, which is a cool concept but also not what a lot, probably even most Spider-Marriage fans want to see. They want to see Spider-Man with a non-powered MJ in the main 616 universe because that is the original real versions of the characters and that dynamic is innate to the inherent concept of Spider-Man as a relatively realistic guy

c) RYV places a lot of focus upon Annie, probably more than on Peter or MJ, especially after the time skip

d) NOBODY who loved RYV was going to simply accept it as a suitable substitute for 616 Spider-Man and MJ not being together. Because as much as we love RYV Peter and MJ those are not THE characters. The specifics of each version of each character carry different emotional investments for the readers. And Marvel knows this hence why they didn’t permanently replace the 616 Spider-Man with Miles Morales, just the other Peter Parker Spider-Man who sold less and had been around for a mere 10 years. It is also the reason why Spider Marriage fans didn’t just say “Oh well at least I still have Peter and MJ in USM and Spider-Girl’ after OMD

“Even if Renew ends and is considered no longer needed, it’s provided the most logical endgame with the best outcome one could think of. Doing that all over again in the 616 universe comes across as redundant and the only thing it really does is reduce the amount of Spider books on the market.”

This one is a real headscratcher.

RYV is not the logical endgame because MJ with powers is not the logical conclusion. Merely ONE conclusion.

FFS RYV isn’t even the same as Spider-Girl despite the premises being similar.

You can take the same broad ideas and do them suitably differently.

Like I dunno exploring the inner dynamics and ups and downs of a couple who do not have a kid?

Focussing mostly upon that as opposed to the kid and all three of them working out how to fight crime together.

Not to mention from this point to even get to RYV (even pre-time skip RYV) would take effing years. Peter and MJ just got back together but it’s a write off because we’ve already seen Peter and MJ with an 8 year old kid so fuck following the trajectory that might get us there?

What kind of nonsense is that?

CBR nonsense, that’s what.

Just like the ‘it will reduce the amount of books on the market’.

Well fuck dude we used to have FOUR Spider-Man books every goddam month about literally the same version of Spider-Man. then 10 years later we had 1 book about Marvel Adventures Spidey, 1 about a high school Spidey, 1 about Mary Jane, then 3 about an adult married Spider-Man.

I THINK we can be okay with a Spider-Man who’s dating or married to a normal woman and another one where he is married to a super powered version of that woman and they are raising their teenage super powered daughter FFS.

And even if we do unfortunately lose Renew Your Vows the argument of ‘we’d be losing a Spider book’ doesn’t even hold up THAT much because...WE ALREADY HAVE TOO MANY SPIDER BOOKS!

Amazing Spider-Man TWICE a month.

Spectacular Spider-Man

Miles Morales

Spider-Gwen

Venom

Scarlet Spider

And soon to come

Spider-Geddon

Spider Force

Spider-Girls

Yet more bullshit I’m sure.

Like I don’t want to lose RYV but dear God we’ve already got TOO MANY Spider books as is.

“And it may have been better for them both to just stay friends, or at least not jump into getting together again so amazingly fast.”

10 years isn’t amazingly fast bro.

So to sum up this article is hot trash that utterly failed to justify it’s own stupid title.

Or maybe it just chronically misspelled it’s own title. Who effing knows. But burn it with fire either way.

#amazing spider-man #feature #Spider-Man #cbr #Comic Book Resources #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #one more day #dan slott #nick spencer #Black Cat #Mockingbird #Bobbi Morse #Felicia Hardy #Superior Spider-Man #spider-man renew your vows #Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows

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foursprout-blog · 6 years

Text

40 Keys To Lasting Happiness

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/40-keys-to-lasting-happiness/

40 Keys To Lasting Happiness

Hưng Nguyễn Follow

Look. I’m like you. I abhor lists like this. They’re all the fucking same. A minion sits down at a keyboard after having just had a birthday, or just gotten married, or just secured their first round of seed funding, or — even worse — just after they’ve read a self-help book, distills their “expertise” into clickbait, and preaches to you that if you just do somewhere between 3 and 100 tasks all the time that you will unlock a blissful utopia within the inner recess of your soul, find everlasting love, live in a perpetual state of abundance, and radiate a cosmic energy that people will find irresistible.

That shit’s not workable. There’s not 36 hours in a day. You’re not a superhero. Stop setting your expectations that high. Instead, let’s take a deep breath and work on incremental change — which everyone knows is the key to success in everything anyway.

In that spirit, I’ve scoured the Internet for you — or, at least, every reputable website I could find (all due respect to Mind Body Green) and cross-checked every happiness/success master list, and documented every happiness hack on which a plurality of these content factories could agree. I’ve presented this list below in no discernible order, since there’s no real wrong order to make progress, with the intention that this list feels a little less hollow than the vapid, patronizing Self-Help Industrial Complex would.

I do promise you this: If you do these things a little more often than you currently do, no, you will not suddenly spend your life sipping Prosecco on a Yacht at sunrise while kissing the love of your life under the sun just off the Amalfi Coast. As a matter of fact, if that’s important to you, the whole trip — flight / AirBnB / Yacht / Prosecco — will run you approximately $1,836 to do one time, so if that falls somewhere in the zip code of your definition of #lifegoals, there’s the bar you need to clear.

I’ll make you one more promise before I present the list: If you do any or all of these things a little more often than you currently do, yes, you will find your life to be less stressful, more meaningful, happier, wealthier and healthier. How much? Depends how often you do them. Maybe 5%. Maybe 500%. But definitely a number greater than 0%, barring circumstances outside your control. I’ve also, where applicable, identified a “dosage” for you, a metric existing in a squishy space somewhere between maximum benefit and minimum effort.

***

1. Call your immediate family, as often as once a week.

2. Schedule time to hang out with your 5–15 best friends, one evening per week and/or one afternoon per weekend.

3. Say “thank you” literally every time you feel like you should, as genuinely and graciously as possible.

4. Help people achieve their goals, small or large, so long as you’re not the type of person who feels easily slighted or used.

5. Every six months or so, identify what you’d like to do in the next six months or so. You could probably get away with doing this yearly. Five-year plans are too long and too Soviet.

6. Eat food that you love to eat. Both hunger and life are finite. Make the most of them.

7. That said: Eat more fruits and vegetables. Potentially as much as 80% of your food by volume. Just, you know … when you get around to it.

8. Always have a project. It doesn’t matter if it’s building a bar cart, or cross-stitching a vulgar pillow, or writing Dallas Cowboys slash fiction, or pickling your own artisan kimchi. Projects bring you satisfaction. Satisfaction brings you confidence. One project at a time is fine.

9. Do things you enjoy doing. Love pinball? Cool. I won’t judge you. Get you a roll of quarters and go full-tilt on a drizzling afternoon. This is the non-goal-directed version of №8. Do something small yet amusing daily. (Not a euphemism.)

10. Schedule something to look forward to. Doesn’t have to be the Amalfi Coast. Call your friend and ask them if they’d like to go to the local Bills Backers bar to watch them get mashed out by the Patriots by 40. Do something like this weekly.

11. Drink coffee or tea. There’s a reason caffeine is the world’s most-consumed substance in the world. Because it works.

12. However much sex you’re having … you could probably stand to have more sex.

13. Exercise. Somewhere between 3–6 hours per week, broken up into 30–60 minute blocks almost daily. Split fairly evenly between strength, sport and cardio. Sure, sex counts, too. And it doesn’t have to be SoulCycle. RegularCycle is fine.

14. Do a small favor for someone. Preferably daily. And don’t tell people about it, unless you want people to think you’re a douchebag.

15. Document your progress in a journal or a spreadsheet or on a pretentious Medium page. Nothing can be improved without first being measured.

16. Keep in regular touch with approximately 150 people. Why 150? Seems to be the number that’s floating around. What’s regular? Probably more often than you currently are with your 3,500 Facebook friends.

17. Wake up earlier. 6 a.m. seems to be the popular target, but anything’s better than 15 minutes before work, you hot mess express.

18. Worship or meditate or practice yoga. Or all three. And if you don’t believe in god, don’t worry, there’s no good reason to start.

19. At night before you go to bed, write down one thing you’d like to do the next day. This is weird, but it’s popular. Like Goat Yoga.

20. Create a “Jar of Awesome” and fill it. This is batshit crazy. But I think it’s closely related to the overly Pinterest-y and homework assignment-y “gratitude journal,” and sounds way more badass.

21. Try new things. Do something slightly different every day, or something moderately different on a regular basis. It emboldens you and makes you interesting. Eat out for Ethiopian. Buy a sex swing. Skydive. Maybe all three.

22. Go outside. Daily, if possible. Apparently, sunlight, exercise, and digital detoxification are all good for you, and this is the lazy way to knock out all three. Speaking of:

23. Go analog. Whenever possible, write in a real journal, read a real book, talk instead of text, and schedule your screen time strategically. It facilitates deeper focus which fosters better flow state. (Though, so can Tetris. See also: №8, №9)

24. Take an annual vacation. Somewhere new, if possible. Somewhere they don’t speak your language, if you can afford it. And use all your vacation days, if you get them.

25. Take a class. Learn a language. Learn to ballroom dance. Learn Tai-Chi. Learn to code. What you learn doesn’t matter as long as you’re learning.

26. Learn something new every day. This is the close cousin of №8, №21, and №25. Again, it doesn’t much matter what.

27. Be kind to others. Given the opportunity. If you’re into making friends.

28. Forgive people. Given the opportunity. If you’re into keeping friends.

29. To the extent that you can, make your role models your close friends. I hack this by making my Facebook “Close Friends” list the people I admire the most. You’ll find yourself subconsciously adapting their (desirable) behaviors. And you’ll forget all about your high school BFF who’s posting political memes with typos.

30. To the extent that you can, do what you love, and find a way to monetize it. Five years ago, I was homeless. I decided if I was going to be broke, I’d be broke as a writer and musician. I started doing both for free. Then I started charging for it. Today, I am still a writer and musician. And I am no longer broke. Even though I work 60+ hours per week, I feel like I still haven’t worked since 2011. (I get that this is a super personal, super specific anecdote and lacks the typical snark of the previous 29 entries.)

31. Celebrate other people’s successes. Throw surprise parties. Never miss a chance to say happy birthday or congratulations.

32. Ask people specific questions about themselves. This is sort of a hybrid of selflessness, empathy, compassion, education, edification and relationship building. This is the slam-dunk, actionable way to do all of that quickly and efficiently.

33. Sleep eight hours. Your mileage may vary.

34. Try not to drink. There’s a million mental, social, physical, emotional and legal benefits to temperance or sobriety, but I’ll label the top-line benefit: Unless you’re drinking *while* doing one of the other things on this list, you’re wasting your time.

35. Try not to smoke. (*Glares at self in mirror.*) You’ll have more oxygen and more energy to do everything else on this list, plus, you know … cancer.

36. Spend time alone doing something other than watching Netflix or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. (Just not *too* much time alone, you sociopath.)

37. Shower daily. You know why.

38. Tidy up daily. Clean weekly. Purge monthly. Donate seasonally. Clutter is the NOS button on the superhighway to crazy-town.

39. Read something interesting regularly. Again, preferably analog. Graphic novels? Go nuts. Astral projection guides? Be my guest. As long as it can hold your attention.

40. Cook your own meals. As often as reasonably possible. Depending on context, this could potentially fall under №2, №6, №7, №8, №9, №14, №21, №25, №26, №27, №30, or №36, and could probably lead to №12 if you play your cards right.

In short, perhaps this world would be a significantly better place if we all just learned our way around the kitchen.

#Happiness

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foursprouthappiness-blog · 6 years