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thesims4blogger · 4 years

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The Sims 4 Star Wars Journey to Batuu: Community’s First Impressions

When EA revealed The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu during today’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, players in the community took to social media to let their opinion on the game be known. The Fansite Simsvip ask players on Twitter what their initial thoughts were, so here is a collection of thoughts from players around the community…

It’s basically Strangerville but with a super niche audience. No one will get most of the references unless they’re a Star Wars fan. It’ll probably provide an hour of gameplay and that’s it. Ngl though it looks well made

— Sugar G (@appIause) August 27, 2020

I personally don't see a place for it in the Sims franchise as an actual in-world location. The Sims is supposed to be a life simulation at heart with fantasy thrown in. Not a badly disquised advert for a completely different I.P. If I wanted to play a Star Wars game I'd buy one.

— Alistair Stuart (@Alistu_Sims) August 27, 2020

It's a cool idea. For some reason I love shameless branding like this. It will probably be a nice change of pace at the very least.

— Paul (@ThePJBentley) August 27, 2020

It's not my favorite theme. But since it's here.. I'm going to take full advantage of it 😊

— Mimy S Flores (@mimysf1111) August 27, 2020

Definitely not a pack I would enjoy. Either for the game content. Storyline or the build and buy it all looked very uninteresting, I may still enter in some giveaways for the pack but this will be the 2nd pack including bowling I will never purchase. Just not enough in it:)

— JoJo🕵️‍♀️ (@JoJoPandaX) August 27, 2020

I’m not a fan of the movie series but this pack actually interests me

— Akane (@Aka_RoseGaming) August 27, 2020

Its unexpected but i think it'll be fun. And it also means i can make my swtor characters in sims so thats honestly what I'm looking forward to most with this.

— Shey (@Shey_Shen) August 27, 2020

I’m excited! I love the idea of missions to influence which side wins. I do think it will be fun to play with still might wait for a sale 😅

— Sophie is not Social (@SophienotSocial) August 27, 2020

I've sat idly by while knitting and laundry and university packs rolled around. They weren't my cup of tea or first choice, but I never tore down and ostracized those who were excited because the DLCs didn't fit my own personal expectations. I'm really excited for this pack! 😊

— LanceChristophr (@lancechristophr) August 27, 2020

Literally the first pack I have absolutely no interest in buying. I am very disappointed. It's fine for those who are fans and all, but I feel like this pack is so specific. I usually can find SOMETHING I like even in the packs that really aren't my gameplay style but this? NO :(

— Louise Laursen (@PurpleMio) August 27, 2020

Feel like we already had enough star wars content in the game. I feel like a into the future pack mightve been more well received. At least there are people who enjoy it though so can’t say no one’s getting anything good!

— bag of bones (@savantavocado) August 27, 2020

I hoped it wasn't going to be star wars when I heard. I don't have anything against the franchise, it's the fact that it' so highly specific and caters to a different audience is what baffles me. It's obvious that it's something that was pushed by EA to advertise their new game.

— 🍞𝙇𝙀𝙀💕 (@imCement) August 27, 2020

My thoughts were "Where is my Harry Potter pack?" Like boarding school for children sims, werewolves, fairies, etc.

— 🌈Jordan aka Snow🌈 (@Bookfangirl742) August 27, 2020

I 100% didn't need it right now. I feel like this was more an EA/Disney move rather than the core Sims team. Mainly because we need so much more in terms of gameplay, representation and playability. I could've got behind it if it was released sometime next year instead of now.

— Camille (@CraftyGamer89) August 27, 2020

I think the reason everyone has such an issue is that there are so many things the sims 4 is missing as a life simulation game and then they choose to put the time and effort into a star wars pack..i happy for those who want it but i get why everyone else is so upset

— Lauren Attwood (@LaurenAttwood69) August 27, 2020

We wanted more realistic gameplay and the gave us Starwars?!?! Why??!?!

— willemijn kroon (@williekr2000) August 27, 2020

im just... wow, at least I wasn't mad but rather sad how EA is so disconnected to the Sims fanbase desires and pleas for our favorite game

— I build anything and I stan OT9, OT4, & OT7! (@J_Lanz16) August 27, 2020

im just... wow, at least I wasn't mad but rather sad how EA is so disconnected to the Sims fanbase desires and pleas for our favorite game

— I build anything and I stan OT9, OT4, & OT7! (@J_Lanz16) August 27, 2020

Not feeling optimistic about it at all tbh, looks like it may have about as much replay value as Strangerville buuuuut at the same time it opens up the option to lightsaber duel Judith Ward so I guess I’ll give it a shot

— Dex (@Theyhrite) August 27, 2020

Excited for the droids and lightsabers. Seem like they can be fun and I image there will be a mod out soon for a lightsaber death since the sims will probably not give us one

— 🐁 ғᴇᴀɴᴏʀ ⟴🐀 (@_neonheart_) August 27, 2020

maybe if the game was more complete then sure but, the sims feels very empty and is lacking a lot. the last thing we need is a star wars pack right now

— heather (@heathermk_) August 27, 2020

i think it could be cool if your sims could actually live on batuu (maybe after completing the story or smth idk) but if it just turns out like a vacation world you go to once and then forget about it's gonna be disappointing

— cali (@caligumu) August 27, 2020

baffled, honestly. like. why is this a thing?! I have zero interest in farming or "better babies" but this just feels *really* out of place?? Strangerville has its appeal and Eco Lifestyle was just a very very bad case of "poor marketing", but this is just. 🤔🤔🤔

— Fae (@fae_of_the_rose) August 27, 2020

I said this before but... They are going to add light sabers before inclusive skin tones... let that sink in.

— Lil Ass Kicker (@Firelillx) August 27, 2020

THE SIMS 4 IS NOT IMMERSIVE ENOUGH FOR THIS TYPE OF NICHE GAME PACK!! They have refused to fix some of the most basic features (skin tones & babies) but they have the time and resources for these new special aliens??????? Make it make sense.

— whatamievendoin (@whatamievendo14) August 27, 2020

We already have Sixam which is not exploiting. Why take a franchise that does not reach the players. pic.twitter.com/aPhd1QBmZs

— The Queen alien -🛸 sims - (@The_Queen_Alien) August 27, 2020

Not at all interested.

— Sunshine (@sunshine0375) August 27, 2020

I was a little worried how this would combine with the Sims. It seemed so alien (no pun intended) to the rest of the gameplay. But after seeing the trailer I can’t help with being excited. It looks beautiful and definitely different. The build and buy objects look great so far

— Chantal Noordeloos (@C_Noordeloos) August 27, 2020

I’m still wtf’ing. It’s too niche for a game that is supposed to be a LIFE simulation game, too specific-to-star-wars-fans to appeal to a wider audience. It also makes me sad thinking about the future of the franchise when they seem so disconnected in what the community wants.

— Hayley Marie (@countrystrongau) August 27, 2020

What are your initial thoughts on the The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu Game Pack? Let us know in the comments below!

#news #ts4 #sims 4 #the sims 4 #game pack

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aaronmaurer · 4 years

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Music I Liked in 2020

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

I can’t say I discovered a lot of new artists in 2020, but I did find a lot of solace in new records by familiar voices. During days of intense isolation and lonesomeness, music provided support, hope and the occasional semblance of peace. I’m especially grateful for the musicians who found new ways to perform live from their home studios, once the entire touring industry completely shut down. I’m sure we all found our own rabbit holes, but live-streamed sets from the likes of Ben Gibbard, Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Atkins, Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin, Geographer’s Michael Deni and Ben Folds kept me sane during April, May and beyond. As did all of these albums, which I highly recommend.

15. Serpentine Prison – Matt Berninger

The National frontman’s first solo record is a slow-burn that may not reach the heights of his work with his main group (or sideproject El Vy), but still has signature moments of poetic beauty. The title track is a clear standout (and when it gets stuck in your head, you can have fun brainstorming your own alternate non-sequitur couplets; examples: “Tripping on Molly / Salvador Dalí”, “Praying to Jesus / Ramona and Beezus” / “Sell it on Etsy / Heavens to betsy” / “Patio tables / Anne of Green Gables” It’s fun! Try it out!)

14. Local Honey – Brian Fallon

Speaking of Matt Berninger (and solo projects from alt-rock frontmen), I hear a lot of his influence on the latest from Gasoline Anthem’s Brian Fallon. This largely stripped-down affair has quiet splendor to spare and provided a balm in the early days of the pandemic.

13. Gigaton – Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam’s latest record finds the band operating in a variety of different modes – head-on rockers, balladeers, experimentalists – yet doesn’t quite gel into a whole the way their very best work does. That said, it’s an energetic album with many songs I look forward to hearing live, someday…

12. George Clanton & Nick Hexum – George Clanton & Nick Hexum

A vaporwave collaboration between electronic artist George Clanton and 311’s Nick Hexum? Really? Somehow it works, and its chill vibes were a perfect backdrop for lonely summer malaise this year.

11. Petals For Armor – Hayley Williams

Paramore’s Williams branched out on her first solo record this year, allowing her to operate in a variety of styles without losing her powerful voice. Moments of slinkily seething electronica (“Simmer”) share space with pop smarts (“Dead Horse”), quietly pretty harmonies (“Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris”) and all points in between.

10. Mordechai and Texas Sun EP (with Leon Bridges) – Khruangbin

Houston psych-rock trio Khruangbin did double duty this year, first releasing a collaborative EP with Leon Bridges then following it up with a new full-length a couple months later. Both records hang in the air like hazy, languid summer heat, in the best possible way.

9. RTJ4 – Run the Jewels

RTJ4 is just as rollicking and propulsive as Killer Mike and El-P’s previous collabs, but with a greater sense of socially conscious urgency and righteous anger, giving it an even rawer power. Tracks like “Walking In The Snow,” “JU$T” and “a few words for the firing squad (radiation)” are just the tip of the iceberg on this incendiary record.

8. American Head – The Flaming Lips

American Head returns the Flaming Lips to the melodic soundscapes of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which is my preferred mode for the band, and thus is my favorite thing they’ve done in at least a decade. The record is a bit more dreamily melancholic than those earlier releases though, creating atmospheres of contemplative beauty.

7. Punisher – Phoebe Bridgers

Coming after collaborations with boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center, it’s hard to believe this is only Bridgers’ sophomore album. Punisher takes the winning palette of Stranger In The Alps and mixes in more colors and texture. This is an album that rewards repeat listens; tunes that I had initially dismissed have ended up becoming my favorites as they get their hooks into me. The most immediate tracks like “Kyoto” and “ICU” don’t lose any impact over time, but the likes of the quietly devastating “Chinese Satellite” sneak up on you and gradually reveal their layers.

6. Imploding the Mirage – The Killers

I was done with The Killers. My interest always ran hot and cold anyway, but after 2017’s Wonderful Wonderful, no thanks. So imagine my surprise when I gave Imploding the Mirage a shot and found I LOVE it! It may be my favorite of their records yet, at least the most consistent, where they most fully realize the confluence of their Springsteen-tinged Americana fetish and electro-rock sensibilities. Bombastic 80s arena percussion and over-the-top synth flourishes combine in the best possible way. There’s not a dud on the album for me, but I’m especially fond of “My God,” “Lightning Fields” and “Dying Breed.”

5. The Ascension – Sufjan Stevens

The Ascension hits with similar energy to 2010’s polarizing Age of Adz, but with more easily accessible songs. It’s a dark and introspective record about disillusionment with America and oneself, but also highly danceable – if a bit overlong. Standout tracks like “Goodbye to All That” and “Lamentations” provide transcendent moments of soaring beauty like calm in the storm. And the brilliant title track plays like a self-interrogating rejoinder to Adz’s pep talk “Vesuvius” in which, instead of cheering himself on, Stevens probes and calls into question his motivations and beliefs.

4. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez – Gorillaz

The latest record from Damon Albarn’s ever-evolving cartoon collective is its most engaging since Plastic Beach, with a spirit of musical exploration that reminds me much of 2001’s self-titled debut as well. The project was introduced as a series of one-off singles, so what really surprises is just how well they cohere into a full record, featuring a plethora of A-List guest artists and Albarn holding down the fort with some of his best songwriting yet.

3. 10 Songs – Travis

Travis are a band that I’ve casually enjoyed (2001’s The Invisible Band is great) but never followed all that closely. I certainly wasn’t expecting much from a latter-day record from them, but 10 Songs is one of the 2020 releases I have returned to most. The songs are the audial equivalent of a warm blanket, with a lovely wistfulness permeating through. Standouts include “The Only Thing,” “A Million Hearts” and “Kissing in the Wind,” but all ten songs are great.

2. Devastator – Phantom Planet

Phantom Planet’s first record in 12 years doesn’t miss a beat, finding a sonic middle ground between their early indie-pop leanings and their later punkier direction. The hooks are plentiful and the lyrics poignant (this is basically a breakup album about the end of frontman Alex Greenwald’s relationship with Brie Larson), with highlights including the up-tempo “Only One” and the elegiac “Time Moves On.” Return of the year.

1. folklore and evermore – Taylor Swift

Top 40 Pop Music is not really my thing and while I’ve certainly appreciated some of Taylor Swift’s work before (Red has jams!), I wouldn’t have called myself a fan. 2020’s pair of surprise release records are a different mode of songwriting for her and right in my wheelhouse, with indie-leaning production courtesy of fun./Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff and The National’s Aaron Dessner. While my impressions of Swift’s past work have been navel-gazy and self-mythologizing (not a problem, but not that interesting to me), folklore and evermore broaden her storytelling to paradoxically become more specific in its universality and/or more universal in its specificity. The moments that are autobiographical (“mad woman,” “invisible string”) have an authenticity and self-assuredness that make them all the more accessible. This is romantically nostalgic poetry with the power to reopen old wounds and maybe also start rehealing them at the same time. While I still give folklore the edge (I love “august,” “exile” and mirrorball,” to name just a few), evermore is steadily growing on me with each listen.

Here’s a playlist songs from each of these records for your sampling pleasure:

Bonus! 2 Unexpected Cover EPs:

Switchfoot – Covers EP and Death Cab For Cutie – Georgia EP

As society grappled with lockdowns and concerts were uniformly cancelled the world over, many artists kept occupied with livestreams from their home studios. Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman and Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard were among those who posted daily songs or shows during the early days and their bands would each end up releasing EPs of cover songs during the year. Switchfoot take on a range of songs from the likes of Vampire Weekend, Frank Ocean and The Verve and Death Cab honor Georgia artists like R.E.M. and Neutral Milk Hotel for a Bandcamp fundraiser for voting rights. Both efforts provide some unexpected reinterpretations that elevate them above the average covers album.

#music

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purplesurveys · 4 years

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860

How much does the last person you talked to mean to you? That would be my dad, and he means the world and more to me. I’m much closer to him than with my mom. Do you have plans for tomorrow? My mom’s gonna drag all of us to online mass in the morning even if she’s really the only one who enjoys doing it; but other than that, I’ll pretty much just be lounging around at home. What's the last movie you saw? Been answering this a lot these days...but Two for the Road. Have you heard of Google Plus? Yeah. Wasn’t that a flop? I’m sure I heard news of it closing down a year ago. Can you take a joke? Depends on the joke. I’m a little thin-skinned so I'm probably not the best person to hurl jokes at if they’re gonna be about personal stuff or things I’m already insecure about.

Do you look okay? It’s better if I stay at home at this point when it comes down to it, but I don’t look bad. My hair’s just a little unkempt and my face needs a splash of water or two. What's something big that you're looking forward to? Mmm, probably a real-life graduation. My school decided on an online graduation for now, but they did let us all know that should things start looking up by the end of the year, we can have an actual ceremony. It’s an if-and-only-if kind of situation, but it was still honestly the best update ever and I’ll take what I can get. Who's your favorite singer as of now? Hayley Williams. Do you accept all of your friend requests on Facebook? Hell no. I never understood why some people would add back people they don’t know. What do you want right now? Some good fucking Asian food please. I would do anything for a nice spicy plate of pad thai. Are you dramatic? Eh, only around people I know. It’s not a defining trait of mine though. Ever experienced tornado or a hurricane? We get tons of hurricanes every year, but I’ve never seen a tornado. Are you feeling lonely? Right now, I’m just feeling hot lol. I have no idea how long y’all still have to hear this from me, our weather’s being wack as fuck and it’s not normally this hot by July, ugh. When do you start school? Aw man, this just made me all sad for a bit. Do you hate basic and unoriginal questions? I hate basic questions but I don’t really mind unoriginal ones even if they get too repetitive. As long as they’re the random-type of question, I’d be happy to answer it. Is it possible to miss someone so much that it hurts? Emotionally, yeah. I don’t think I’ve experienced physical symptoms though. What do you have pierced? Ears. If you could dye your hair, would you & what color? Probably not, at this point. I feel like I would’ve done this sort of thing only in college, and now that that’s over I don’t feel like entertaining the idea of dyeing my hair anymore. Hypothetically, I would have gone with dark green. [trigger warning] Would you rather die by knife or gun? Horrible and possibly triggering question, considering I’ve substantially read up on suicide methods before. I have an answer but I’m skipping this question, just so no one else has to get any ideas.

Do you make fun of people? If they deserve to be made fun of. What's the biggest promise someone's ever made to you? Did they keep it? I dunno. I don’t really keep track of promises because I don’t let myself get attached to them for the most part. Even though cigarettes are bad for you, do you smoke them anyways? Yeah but I vape a lot more. Super super rare that I get to smoke. What happened last night? I had really good liempo for dinner, had a few conversations on Facebook, took a survey, ended up sleeping relatively early because it was warmer than usual. Does thunder & storms scare you? No, I find them very soothing actually. Have you ever scared yourself? Sure, like whenever I go downstairs at like 3 AM my brain is always telling me there’s someone behind me, and I guess that counts. Do you find it annoying when others fake being 'high' or 'drunk'? I have never seen anyone do that but I imagine I would get SO annoyed lmao. That sounds so sad??? What's the last video game you played? Mario Kart 8 on the Switch. Are you the kind of person who over-thinks everything? Duh. Paranoid insecure overthinker are my second, third, and fourth names. Google, Bing, or Yahoo? Google. I used Yahoo for like the first year we got wi-fi, and I never cared for Bing though I was around when they first introduced it. What's the name of someone you once loved, but can't forget? I’ve only loved one person and I’m still with her rn. When were you the happiest in your life? I don’t think there’s been a period where I was purely happy. I’m still waiting for that. Have you ever played in the snow? No. Did someone say 'Goodnight' to you last night? Yeah.

#survey #surveys

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howlpendraig · 5 years

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21 QUESTIONS

TAGGED BY: @lvllns tysm!

RULES: answer 21 questions and tag 21 people

1. nickname: i don’t really have one? i don’t think

2. zodiac: i don’t know all the extra details but taurus

3. height: 5'2, tall people do not interact (unless your a girl who wants to date me)

4. hogwarts house: hufflepuff

5. last thing i googled: the closing time for my local shop

6. favourite musicians: hmm, Snow Patrol, Hayley Kiyoko, Imagine Dragons, Lizzo, Bastille, Marina, Florence & the Machine, Lorde, Carly Rae Jepsen, Of Monsters and Men

7. song stuck in my head: Say my name by Destiny’s Child

8. following: 100 exactly, I usually hover at around 75 so this is a lot

9. followers: 415

10. do you get asks: very rarely, would be open to more!

11. amount of sleep: between 6 and 7 hours usually

12. what are you wearing: turtleneck and flowery skirt which reaches the floor (this describes most of my wardrobe atm)

13. dream job: i would like to be a writer or alternatively teach at university eventually

14. dream trip: I really don’t know! I’d like to visit Greece I think or Rome, somewhere with lots of historical places to see and museums.

15. instruments: i used to play guitar, at a very basic level, but that was a long time ago

16. languages: English & Welsh

17. 10 favourite songs as of now: oh idk umm

Doom Days - Bastille, Natural - Imagine Dragons, Let’s get married - Bleachers, Boys of Summer - Don Henley, Ohio - Andrew McMahon, Feel the Love (cover) - Margate Social Singing Choir, Soldier - Fleurie, Don’t Give In - Snow Patrol, Talia - King Princess, She’s a Lady (cover) - Lion Babe

18. if you were an animal: oh to be a soft house cat, napping as a job

19. favourite food: anything sweet, maybe lemon meringue pie

20. random fact: Eryn is actually my middle name and idk if there is anyone left on this website who remembers my first name (except obviously @aphrodifte), that’s good because i don’t care for it.

21. my aesthetic: Windowsills lined with plants, overflowing bookshelves, squares of sunlight shining on the floor from the windows, floral prints, turquoise and pink, long swishy skirts and dresses, the smell of autumn/winter-themed candles

TAGGING: (only if you want! and i haven’t kept track of who’s done it so if you have feel free to disregard!) @fillianore, @aphrodifte, @trvelyans, @sunwarden, @ezrisdax, @elvhenstar, @ohroses, @gay-dragon-age, @harlotrohan, @bosmerie, @serbarris,

#lvllns #I find it really neat you want to visit Wales so much! I've lived here my whole life so I suppose I don't think about it!#ask/tagged games

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makistar2018 · 5 years

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Taylor Swift on Sexism, Scrutiny, and Standing Up for Herself

AUGUST 8, 2019 By ABBY AGUIRRE Photographed by INEZ AND VINOODH

Cover Look Taylor Swift wears a Louis Vuitton jumpsuit. Rings by Cartier and Bvlgari. To get this look, try: Dream Urban Cover in Classic Ivory, Fit Me Blush in Pink, Tattoostudio Sharpenable Gel Pencil Longwear Eyeliner Makeup in Deep Onyx, The Colossal Mascara, Brow Ultra Slim in Blonde, and Shine Compulsion by Color Sensational Lipstick in Undressed Pink. All by Maybelline New York. Hair, Christiaan; makeup, Fulvia Farolfi. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman

Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, Vogue, September 2019

IT’S A SUNDAY AFTERNOON in Tribeca, and I’m in Taylor Swift’s loft, inside a former printing house that she has restored and fortified into a sanctuary of brick, velvet, and mahogany. The space is warm and cozy and vaguely literary—later, when we pass through her bedroom en route to her garden, 10 percent of my brain will believe her wardrobe might open up to Narnia. Barefoot in a wine-colored floral top and matching flowy pants, Swift is typing passwords into a laptop to show me the video for “You Need to Calm Down,” eight days before she unleashes it on the world.

I have a sliver of an idea what to expect. A few weeks earlier, I spent a day at the video shoot, in a dusty field-slash-junkyard north of Los Angeles. Swift had made it a sort of Big Gay Candy Mountain trailer park, a Technicolor happy place. The cast and crew wore heart-shaped sunglasses—living, breathing lovey-eyes emoji—and a mailbox warned, LOVE LETTERS ONLY.

Swift and a stream of costars filmed six scenes over about a dozen hours. The singer-songwriter Hayley Kiyoko, known to her fans as “Lesbian Jesus,” shot arrows at a bull’s-eye. The YouTube comedian-chef Hannah Hart danced alongside Dexter Mayfield, the plus-size male model and self-described “big boy in heels.” The Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon served up icy red snow cones. Swift and her close friend Todrick Hall, of Kinky Boots and RuPaul’s Drag Race, sipped tea with the cast of Queer Eye.

Speak Now “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” Swift says. Celine coat. Dior shoes. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman. Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, Vogue, September 2019

The mood was joyous and laid-back. But by the end of the day, I wasn’t sure what the vignettes would add up to. There were shoot days and cameos I wouldn’t observe. For security reasons, the song was never played aloud. (The cast wore ear buds.) Even the hero shot, in which Swift and Hall sauntered arm in arm through the dreamscape at golden hour, was filmed in near-total silence.

For weeks afterward, I tried to sleuth out a theory. I started casually. There was a “5” on the bull’s-eye, so I did a quick search to figure out what that number might mean. Immediately I was in over my head.

Swift has a thing for symbols. I knew she had been embedding secret messages in liner notes and deploying metaphors as refrains since her self-titled debut in 2006—long before her megafame made her into a symbol of pop supremacy. But I hadn’t understood how coded and byzantine her body of work has become; I hadn’t learned, as Swift’s fans have, to see hidden meanings everywhere. For instance: In the 2017 video for “Look What You Made Me Do,” a headstone in a graveyard scene reads NILS SJOBERG, the pseudonym Swift used as her writing credit on Rihanna’s hit “This Is What You Came For,” a Swedish-sounding nod to that country’s pop wizards.

After an excessive amount of ad hoc scholarship—a friend joked that I could have learned Mandarin in the time I spent trying to unpack Swift’s oeuvre—I was no closer to a theory. Pop music has become so layered and meta, but the Taylor Swift Universe stands apart. Apprehending it is like grasping quantum physics.

My first indication of what her new album, Lover, would be about came just after midnight on June 1, the beginning of Pride Month, when Swift introduced a petition in support of the federal Equality Act. This legislation would amend the Civil Rights Act to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. (It has passed the House, but prospects in Mitch McConnell’s Senate are unclear.) Swift also posted a letter to Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, asking him to vote yes. The request, on her personal letterhead (born in 1989. LOVES CATS.), denounced President Trump for not supporting the Equality Act. “I personally reject the president’s stance,” Swift wrote.

Back in the kitchen, Swift hits play. “The first verse is about trolls and cancel culture,” she says. “The second verse is about homophobes and the people picketing outside our concerts. The third verse is about successful women being pitted against each other.”

The video is, for erudite Swifties, a rich text. I had followed enough clues to correctly guess some of the other cameos—Ellen DeGeneres, RuPaul, Katy Perry. I felt the satisfaction of a gamer who successfully levels up—achievement unlocked!The video’s final frame sends viewers to Swift’s change.org petition in support of the Equality Act, which has acquired more than 400,000 signatures—including those of Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Kirsten Gillibrand—or four times the number required to elicit an official response from the White House.

“MAYBE A YEAR OR TWO AGO, Todrick and I are in the car, and he asked me, What would you do if your son was gay?”

We are upstairs in Swift’s secret garden, comfortably ensconced in a human-scale basket that is sort of shaped like a cocoon. Swift has brought up an ornate charcuterie board and is happily slathering triple-cream Brie onto sea-salt crackers. “The fact that he had to ask me . . . shocked me and made me realize that I had not made my position clear enough or loud enough,” she says. “If my son was gay, he’d be gay. I don’t understand the question.”

I have pressed Swift on this topic, and her answers have been direct, not performative or scripted. I do sense that she enjoys talking to me about as much as she’d enjoy a root canal—but she’s unfailingly polite, and when we turn to music, her face will light up and she will add little melodic phrases to her speech, clearly her preferred language.

Balancing Act Later this year, Swift will appear in the film adaptation of Cats—as the flirtatious Bombalurina. Givenchy dress. Bracelets by John Hardy, David Yurman, and Hoorsenbuhs. Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, Vogue, September 2019

“If he was thinking that, I can’t imagine what my fans in the LGBTQ community might be thinking,” she goes on. “It was kind of devastating to realize that I hadn’t been publicly clear about that.”

I understand why she was surprised; she has been sending pro-LGBTQ signals since at least 2011. Many have been subtle, but none insignificant—especially for a young country star coming out of Nashville.

In the video for her single “Mean” (from 2010’s Speak Now), we see a boy in a school locker room wearing a lavender sweater and bow tie, surrounded by football players. In “Welcome to New York,” the first track on 1989, she sings, “And you can want who you want. Boys and boys and girls and girls.” Two years later, she donated to a fund for the newly created Stonewall National Monument and presented Ruby Rose with a GLAAD Media Award. Every night of last year’s Reputation tour, she dedicated the song “Dress” to Loie Fuller, the openly gay pioneer of modern dance and theatrical lighting who captured the imagination of fin-de-siècle Paris.

Swift, who has been criticized for keeping her politics to herself, first took an explicit stance a month before the 2018 midterms. On Instagram, she endorsed Democrats for the Tennessee Legislature and called out the Republican running for Senate, Marsha Blackburn. “She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples,” Swift wrote. “She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values.”

Swift says the post was partly to help young fans understand that if they wanted to vote, they had to register. To tell them, as she puts it, “Hey, just so you know, you can’t just roll up.” Some 65,000 new voters registered in the first 24 hours after her post, according to Vote.org.

Trump came to Blackburn’s defense the following day. “She’s a tremendous woman,” he told reporters. “I’m sure Taylor Swift doesn’t know anything about her. Let’s say I like Taylor’s music about 25 percent less now, OK?”

In April, spurred by a raft of anti-LGBTQ bills in Tennessee, Swift donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. “Horrendous,” she says of the legislation. “They don’t call it ‘Slate of Hate’ for nothing.” Swift especially liked that the Tennessee Equality Project had organized a petition of faith leaders in opposition. “I loved how smart it was to come at it from a religious perspective.”

Meanwhile, the “Calm Down” video provoked a Colorado pastor to call Swift “a sinner in desperate need of a savior” and warn that “God will cut her down.” It also revived heated debate within LGBTQ communities about the politics of allyship and corporatization of Pride. Some critics argued Swift’s pro-LGBTQ imagery and lyrics were overdue and out of the blue—a reaction the new Swift scholar in me found bewildering. Had they not been paying attention?

Nor did it strike me as out of character for Swift to leverage her power for a cause. She pulled her catalog from Spotify in 2014 over questions of artist compensation. She stared down Apple in 2015, when the company said it would not pay artists during the launch of its music service. (Apple reversed itself immediately.) As a condition of her record deal with Universal Music Group last year, the company promised that it would distribute proceeds from any sale of its Spotify shares to all of its artists. And this summer, Swift furiously called out Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine Label Group, for selling her master recordings to the music manager Scooter Braun. (When I ask Swift if she tried to get her masters from Big Machine, her whole body slumps with a palpable heaviness. “It was either investing in my past or my and other artists’ future, and I chose the future,” she says of the deal she struck with Universal.)

Swift’s blunt testimony during her 2017 sexual-assault case against a radio DJ—months before the #MeToo reckoning blew open—felt deeply political to me and, I imagine, many other women. Swift accused the DJ, David Mueller, of groping her under her skirt at a photo session in 2013. Her camp reported the incident to his employer, who fired him. Mueller denied the allegation, sued Swift for $3 million, and his case was thrown out. Swift countersued for a symbolic $1 and won.

Watch Taylor Swift Take Over Go Ask Anna:

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In a Colorado courtroom, Swift described the incident: “He stayed latched onto my bare ass cheek” as photos were being snapped. Asked why photos of the front of her skirt didn’t show this, she said, “Because my ass is located at the back of my body.” Asked if she felt bad about the DJ’s losing his job, she said, “I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault. Here we are years later, and I’m being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are the product of his decisions—not mine.”

When Time included Swift on the cover of its “Silence Breakers” issue that year, the magazine asked how she felt during the testimony. “I was angry,” she said. “In that moment, I decided to forgo any courtroom formalities and just answer the questions the way it happened...I’m told it was the most amount of times the word ass has ever been said in Colorado Federal Court.”

Mueller has since paid Swift the dollar—with a Sacagawea coin. “He was trolling me, implying that I was self-righteous and hell-bent on angry, vengeful feminism. That’s what I’m inferring from him giving me a Sacagawea coin,” Swift says. “Hey, maybe he was trying to do it in honor of a powerful Native American woman. I didn’t ask.” Where is the coin now? “My lawyer has it.”

I ask her, why get louder about LGBTQ rights now? “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” she says. “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of. It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world. It’s clickbait, and it’s a part of my life story, and it’s a part of my career arc.”

I’d argue that no heterosexual woman can listen to “You Need to Calm Down” and hear only a gay anthem. “Calm down” is what controlling men tell women who are angry, contrary, or “hysterical,” or, let’s say, fearing for their physical safety. It is what Panic! at the Disco singer Brendon Urie says to Swift in the beginning of the “ME!” music video, prompting her to scream, “Je suis calme!”

I cannot believe it is a coincidence that Swift, a numbers geek with an affinity for dates, dropped the single—whose slow, incessant bass is likely to be bumping in stadiums across the world in 2020 if she goes on tour—on June 14, a certain president’s birthday.

IT'S ENLIGHTENING to read 13 years of Taylor Swift coverage—all the big reviews, all the big profiles—in one sitting. You notice things.

How quickly Swift went from a “prodigy” (The New Yorker) and a “songwriting savant” (Rolling Stone) to a tabloid fixture, for instance. Or how suspect her ambition is made to seem once she acquires real power.

Other plot points simply look different in the light of #MeToo. It is hard to imagine that Swift’s songs about her exes would be reviewed as sensationally today. I wonder if, in 2019, any man would dare grab the microphone out of a young woman’s hands at an awards show. I stared into space for a good long while when I was reminded that Pitchfork did not review Taylor Swift’s 1989 but did review Ryan Adams’s cover album of Taylor Swift’s 1989.

I ask Swift if she had always been aware of sexism. “I think about this a lot,” she says. “When I was a teenager, I would hear people talk about sexism in the music industry, and I’d be like, I don’t see it. I don’t understand. Then I realized that was because I was a kid. Men in the industry saw me as a kid. I was a lanky, scrawny, overexcited young girl who reminded them more of their little niece or their daughter than a successful woman in business or a colleague. The second I became a woman, in people’s perception, was when I started seeing it.

“It’s fine to infantilize a girl’s success and say, How cute that she’s having some hit songs,” she goes on. “How cute that she’s writing songs. But the second it becomes formidable? As soon as I started playing stadiums—when I started to look like a woman—that wasn’t as cool anymore. It was when I started to have songs from Red come out and cross over, like ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ and ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.’ ”

Those songs are also more assertive than the ones that came before, I say. “Yeah, the angle was different when I started saying, I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Basically, you emotionally manipulated me and I didn’t love it. That wasn’t fun for me.”

I have to wonder if having her songwriting overlooked as her hits were picked apart and scrutinized wasn’t the biggest bummer of all. Swift: “I wanted to say to people, You realize writing songs is an art and a craft and not, like, an easy thing to do? Or to do well? People would act like it was a weapon I was using. Like a cheap dirty trick. Be careful, bro, she’ll write a song about you. Don’t stand near her. First of all, that’s not how it works. Second of all, find me a time when they say that about a male artist: Be careful, girl, he’ll use his experience with you to get—God forbid—inspiration to make art.”

Without question the tenor of the Taylor Swift Narrative changed most dramatically in July 2016, when Kim Kardashian West called her a “snake” on Twitter, and released video clips of Swift and Kanye West discussing the lyrics to his song “Famous.” (No need to rehash the details here. Suffice it to say that Swift’s version of events hasn’t changed: She knew about some of the lyrics but not others; specifically, the words that bitch.) The posts sparked several hashtags, including #TaylorSwiftIsASnake and #TaylorSwiftIsCanceled, which quickly escalated into a months-long campaign to “cancel” Swift.

To this day Swift doesn’t think people grasp the repercussions of that term. “A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience,” she says. “I don’t think there are that many people who can actually understand what it’s like to have millions of people hate you very loudly.” She adds: “When you say someone is canceled, it’s not a TV show. It’s a human being. You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, Kill yourself.”

An overhaul was in order. “I realized I needed to restructure my life because it felt completely out of control,” Swift says. “I knew immediately I needed to make music about it because I knew it was the only way I could survive it. It was the only way I could preserve my mental health and also tell the story of what it’s like to go through something so humiliating.”

State of Grace Dior bodysuit and skirt. Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, Vogue, September 2019

I get a sense of the whiplash Swift experienced when I notice that, a few months into this ordeal, while she was writing the songs that would become her album Reputation—and fighting off Mueller’s lawsuit—a portion of the media and internet began demanding to know why she hadn’t un-canceled herself long enough to take a position in the presidential election.

On that: “Unfortunately in the 2016 election you had a political opponent who was weaponizing the idea of the celebrity endorsement. He was going around saying, I’m a man of the people. I’m for you. I care about you. I just knew I wasn’t going to help. Also, you know, the summer before that election, all people were saying was She’s calculated. She’s manipulative. She’s not what she seems. She’s a snake. She’s a liar. These are the same exact insults people were hurling at Hillary. Would I be an endorsement or would I be a liability? Look, snakes of a feather flock together. Look, the two lying women. The two nasty women. Literally millions of people were telling me to disappear. So I disappeared. In many senses.”

Swift previewed Reputation in August 2017 with “Look What You Made Me Do.” The single came with a lyric video whose central image was an ouroboros—a snake swallowing its own tail, an ancient symbol for continual renewal. Swift wiped her social-media feeds clean and began posting video snippets of a slithering snake. The song was pure bombast and high camp. (Lest there be any doubt, the chorus was an interpolation of a ’90s camp classic, Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy.”) Nonetheless, most critics read it as a grenade lobbed in the general direction of Calabasas.

One longtime Nashville critic, Brian Mansfield, had a more plausible take: She was writing sarcastically as the “Taylor Swift” portrayed in the media in a bid for privacy. “Yeah, this is the character you created for me, let me just hide behind it,” she says now of the persona she created. “I always used this metaphor when I was younger. I’d say that with every reinvention, I never wanted to tear down my house. ’Cause I built this house. This house being, metaphorically, my body of work, my songwriting, my music, my catalog, my library. I just wanted to redecorate. I think a lot of people, with Reputation, would have perceived that I had torn down the house. Actually, I just built a bunker around it.”

IN MARCH, the snakes started to morph into butterflies, the vampire color palette into Easter pastels. When a superbloom of wildflowers lured a mesmerizing deluge of Painted Lady butterflies to Los Angeles, Swift marked it with an Instagram post. She attended the iHeartRadio Music Awards that night in a sequin romper and stilettos with shimmery wings attached.

Swift announced the single “ME!” a month later, with a large butterfly mural in Nashville. In the music video for the (conspicuously) bubblegum song, a hissing pastel-pink snake explodes into a kaleidoscope of butterflies. One flutters by the window of an apartment, where Swift is arguing in French with Urie. A record player is playing in the background. “It’s an old-timey, 1940s-sounding instrumental version of ‘You Need to Calm Down,’ ’’ Swift says. Later, in the “Calm Down” video, Swift wears a (fake) back tattoo of a snake swarmed by butterflies.

We are only two songs in, people. Lover, to be released on August 23, will have a total of 18 songs. “I was compiling ideas for a very long time,” Swift says. “When I started writing, I couldn’t stop.” (We can assume the British actor Joe Alwyn, with whom Swift has been in a relationship for nearly three years, provided some of the inspiration.)

Swift thinks Lover might be her favorite album yet. “There are so many ways in which this album feels like a new beginning,” she says. “This album is really a love letter to love, in all of its maddening, passionate, exciting, enchanting, horrific, tragic, wonderful glory.”

In Focus Swift’s new 18-track album, Lover, will be released August 23. Hermès shirt. Chanel pants. Maximum Henry belt. Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, Vogue, September 2019

I have to ask Swift, given how genuinely at peace she seems, if part of her isn’t thankful, if not for the Great Cancellation of 2016, then for the person she now is—knowing who her friends are, knowing what’s what. “When you’re going through loss or embarrassment or shame, it’s a grieving process with so many micro emotions in a day. One of the reasons why I didn’t do interviews for Reputationwas that I couldn’t figure out how I felt hour to hour. Sometimes I felt like: All these things taught me something that I never could have learned in a way that didn’t hurt as much. Five minutes later, I’d feel like: That was horrible. Why did that have to happen? What am I supposed to take from this other than mass amounts of humiliation? And then five minutes later I’d think: I think I might be happier than I’ve ever been.”

She goes on: “It’s so strange trying to be self-aware when you’ve been cast as this always smiling, always happy ‘America’s sweetheart’ thing, and then having that taken away and realizing that it’s actually a great thing that it was taken away, because that’s extremely limiting.” Swift leans back in the cocoon and smiles: “We’re not going to go straight to gratitude with it. Ever. But we’re going to find positive aspects to it. We’re never going to write a thank-you note.”

Though people will take the Perry-Swift burger-and-fries embrace in the “You Need to Calm Down” video as a press release that the two have mended fences, Swift says it’s actually a comment on how the media pits female pop stars against one another. After Perry sent Swift an (actual) olive branch last year, Swift asked her to be in the video: “She wrote back, This makes me so emotional. I’m so up for this. I want us to be that example. But let’s spend some time together. Because I want it to be real. So she came over and we talked for hours.

“We decided the metaphor for what happens in the media,” Swift explains, “is they pick two people and it’s like they’re pouring gasoline all over the floor. All that needs to happen is one false move, one false word, one misunderstanding, and a match is lit and dropped. That’s what happened with us. It was: Who’s better? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? The tension is so high that it becomes impossible for you to not think that the other person has something against you."

Meanwhile, the protesters in the video reference a real-life religious group that pickets outside Swift’s concerts, not the white working class in general, as some have assumed. “So many artists have them at their shows, and it’s such a confounding, confusing, infuriating thing to have outside of joyful concerts,” she tells me. “Obviously I don’t want to mention the actual entity, because they would get excited about that. Giving them press is not on my list of priorities.”

At one point, Swift asks if I would like to hear two other songs off the new album. (Duh.) First she plays “Lover,” the title track, coproduced by Jack Antonoff. “This has one of my favorite bridges,” she says. “I love a bridge, and I was really able to go to Bridge City.” It’s a romantic, haunting, waltzy, singer-songwritery nugget: classic Swift. “My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue,” she sings. “All’s well that ends well to end up with you.”

Next, Swift cues up a track that “plays with the idea of perception.” She has often wondered how she would be written and spoken about if she were a man, “so I wrote a song called ‘The Man.’ ” It’s a thought experiment of sorts: “If I had made all the same choices, all the same mistakes, all the same accomplishments, how would it read?” Seconds later, Swift’s earpods are pumping a synth-pop earworm into my head: “I’d be a fearless leader. I’d be an alpha type. When everyone believes ya: What’s that like?”

Swift wrote the first two singles with Joel Little, best known as one of Lorde’s go-to producers. (“From a pop-songwriting point of view, she’s the pinnacle,” Little says of Swift.) The album is likely to include more marquee names. A portrait of the Dixie Chicks in the background of the “ME!” video almost certainly portends a collaboration. If fans are correctly reading a button affixed to her denim jacket in a recent magazine cover, we can expect one with Drake, too.

Eyes On Her Designer Stella McCartney on her friendship with Swift: “In London we’ll go on walks and talk about everything—life and love.” Stella McCartney coat. In this story: hair, Christiaan; makeup, Fulvia Farolfi. Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, Vogue, September 2019

She recently announced a fashion collection with Stella McCartney to coincide with Lover. “We met at one of her shows,” says McCartney, “and then we had a girls’ night and kind of jumped straight in. In London we’ll go on walks and talk about everything—life and love.” (Swift has no further fashion ambitions at the moment. “I really love my job right now,” she tells me. “My focus is on music.”) Oh, and that “5” on the bullseye? Track five is called “The Archer.”

Yet something tells me the most illuminating clue for reading both Lover and Reputation may be Loie Fuller, the dancer to whom Swift paid homage on tour. As Swift noted on a Jumbotron, Fuller “fought for artists to own their work.” Fuller also used swirling fabric and colored lights to metamorphose onstage, playing a “hide-and-seek illusionist game” with her audience, as one writer has put it. She became a muse to the Symbolists in Paris, where Jean Cocteau wrote that she created “the phantom of an era.” The effect, said the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, was a “dizziness of soul made visible by an artifice.” Fuller’s most famous piece was “Serpentine Dance.” Another was “Butterfly Dance.”

SWIFT HAS HAD almost no downtime since late 2017, but what little she does have is divided among New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, and Rhode Island, where she keeps homes—plus London. In an essay earlier this year, she revealed that her mother, Andrea Swift, is fighting cancer for a second time. “There was a relapse that happened,” Swift says, declining to go into detail. “It’s something that my family is going through.”

Later this year, she will star in a film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Catsas Bombalurina, the flirtatious red cat. “They made us the size of cats by making the furniture bigger,” she says. “You’d be standing there and you could barely reach the seat of a chair. It was phenomenal. It made you feel like a little kid.”

But first, she will spend much of the summer holding “secret sessions”—a tradition wherein Swift invites hundreds of fans to her various homes to preview her new music. “They’ve never given me a reason to stop doing it,” she says. “Not a single one.”

Speaking of: Inquiring fans will want to know if Swift dropped any more clues about how to decode Lover during this interview. For you I reviewed the audio again, and there were a few things that made my newly acquired Swifty sense tingle.

At one point she compared superstardom in the digital age to life in a dollhouse, one where voyeurs “can ‘ship’ you with who they want to ‘ship’ you with, and they can ‘favorite’ friends that you have, and they can know where you are all the time.” The metaphor was precise and vivid and, well, a little too intricately rendered to be off the cuff. (Also, the “ME!” lyric: “Baby doll, when it comes to a lover. I promise that you’ll never find another like me.”)

Then there was the balloon—a giant gold balloon in the shape of a numeral seven that happened to float by while we were on her roof, on this, the occasion of her seventh album. “Is it an L’?” I say. “No, because look, the string is hanging from the bottom,” she says.

It might seem an obvious symbolic gesture, deployed for this interview, except for how impossible that seems. Swift let me control the timing of nearly everything. Moreover, the gold seven wasn’t floating up from the sidewalk below. It was already high in the sky, drifting slowly toward us from down the street. She would have had to control the wind, or at least to have studied it. Would Taylor Swift really go to such elaborate lengths for her fans? This much I know: Yes, she would.

Taylor Swift Talks Googling Herself, Which Celebrity's Closet She'd Raid, and the Bravest Thing She's Ever Done:

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Vogue

#taylor swift #vogue #september #2019 #cover girl

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capturethechaos · 3 years

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12 with Danny

Fluff

Words - 561

Prompt. 12 "It looks like Santa threw up here." Situation 2 Borrowing a ladder from a neighbor

“Danny, please-- please, do not go overboard this year on the decorations for the house. You borderline started a decoration war with one of the neighbors last year.” Y/n begged, collecting everything she needed for work that day.

“What was so bad about that?” He asked, trailing along behind her.

“He fell off of his roof Danny, if it weren't for the multiple feet of snow he could’ve broken his neck.” She said, pulling her boots on and straightening herself out to look at Danny.

“And all he got was a few bruises and minor frostbite.” He said, leaning against the wall watching her as she pulled her jacket on.

“Danny--” She said, giving him a stern look.

“I’ll try not to go overboard, no promises though.”

A smile crept onto her face, knowing he would most likely end up going crazy with the decorations like he always did. She walked over, standing on her tiptoes to give Danny a kiss on the cheek.

Work went by excruciatingly slow for Y/n, whereas for Danny, the day was flying by. He had decorated all that he could within his reach, but he had grand plans, so he would need a ladder. He pulled his phone out his pocket, scrolling through to find his neighbors contact; hitting the call button and listening to it ring.

“Hey Craig, I am in desperate need of a ladder. Would you mind if I borrowed yours for a while?” Danny asked, pulling a bin of lights out of the garage.

“Yeah man, no worries. It’s just leaning against the side of the house, go grab it whenever you need it.”

“Thanks dude, I’ll have it back to you by tonight.”

“No problem man, have fun decorating. Did Y/n ask you to go easy on the decorations this year?” Craig asked.

“Of course.” Danny said with a chuckle.

“Are you gonna go easy?”

“Of course not.”

“Have fun with that Danny.” Craig said, laughing at the response.

The two said their goodbyes, and Danny walked over to grab the ladder. The decorating only took him a few hours, knowing that Y/n would be home in a short time for work only encouraging him to go faster. It had begun to get dark by the time he was done, and within a few minutes of him hanging the last string of lights, he heard the sound of Y/n’s car pulling into the driveway.

“Danny-- I thought I told you not to go overboard.” She said as she closed her car door.

“Hello to you too darling, in my defense-- I didn’t put up the giant inflatable snowman.” He jested, a wide smile spread across his face.

He crawled down the ladder, running up to Y/n and pulling her into a tight hug.

“It looks like Santa threw up here.” She said breathlessly, Danny squeezing the air out of her lungs.

“Well-- I think this is the prettiest vomit I’ve ever seen.”

“It-- it is nice Danny, thank you for decorating.” She said, her arms still stuck to her sides.

She looked up at him, a smile playing on her lips.

“Hi.” She said, staring at his flushed skin.

“Hello darling.” He said, leaning down to kiss the tip of her nose.

“Now-- let’s go inside, make some hot chocolate, and decorate the tree!”

If you'd like to be added to the taglist for the Christmas fics lmk!

Taglist - @eatmejoshkiszka @screechesincoherently @amouratomique @fictional-duchess @theweightofstardust @obetrolncocktails @basically-hayley @amarideberry @weightofdreams-gvf @safari-shlong @j3rboa @castlebythesea @dearie-me @godlygreta @bluebonnet-sonnets @civilgroupie-gvf @aureummel @joshkiszkastea @prettyxvenomx @ageofsammy @sarakay-gvf @jakekiszkasguitarpick @welightthefire @gretavanhoney

#A Very GVF Christmas #danny wagner #danny gvf #danny wagner imagine #greta van fleet #greta van fleet imagine #gvf #gvf imagine

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hobbitsioc · 6 years

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Tagged by the utterly fabulous @nimji-s sorry this is so late, love <3

Rules: Answer 21 questions then tag 21 people you want to get to know better

Nickname: Wildling (by my mom and a couple of former high school classmates), Nerd (by... everyone), walking Disney encyclopedia (by my former Musical Theatre classmates), walking wikipedia (by my former MT classmate), Discount Jimin (inside joke between me and my friend), Peter Pan (by my former MT classmates), Alvin (inside joke between me and my friends after they found out I can do a chipmunk voice)

Zodiac: Cancer (or Gemini, according to the new zodiac thingy)

Height: 5'3 (160cm)

Last thing I googled: God Help the Outcasts French lyrics

Favourite musician: Ed Sheeran, Hayley Kiyoko, Jónsi, Min Yoongi, Amber Liu

Other blogs: That one blog my friend and I have where we share (read: scream about) our kpop conspiracy theories with each other

Following: Way too many

Amount of sleep: It's a wild roller coaster from night to night

Lucky number: 9

What I'm wearing: My fave BTS hoodie, EXO t-shirt, workout shorts, floof socks, glasses, headphones

Dream job: Anything involving media and communication, really. Journalist, travel writer, film/music/literature critic, content writer, museum curator, you name it. I used to want to become a professional stunt man or dancer, but my back/knee/toe injuries from dancing are royally fucking that up for me. As a kid I wanted to become a professional skier or competitive swimmer, but unfortunately I grew up in Southern Sweden where I didn't have the opportunity to train as much as I would need to, and I’m allergic to chlorine, so rest in pieces.

Dream trip: Oh, wow. Canada, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway and South Korea are my main priorities, probably. I also really would like to go back to Thailand and especially Germany someday.

Favourite food: Sushi, sweet potatoes and bread. If you're familiar with Swedish cuisine you'll also majorly feel me when I say lussekatter.

Play any instruments: I used to play some acoustic guitar while growing up. I learned the basics in bass while studying Musical Theatre at a Swedish folk high school (1 year program post high school), and I really want to learn to play the harmonica.

Languages: Fluent in Swedish, Norwegian and English, and I'm currently learning German and Korean. I understand basic Spanish as well as a little bit of Icelandic. My dream languages I someday want to study are North Sámi, Finnish, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese and Irish Gaelic.

Favourite song right now: (excluding movie soundtracks and Non/Disney songs) Breathe by Lee Hi, The Greatest by Taeyeon and Outro: Tear by BTS

Random facts: Nothing matters to me more in life than the environment and animals. I'm a highly spiritual person who wants nothing more than to live in a lil cottage in a wintery landscape with a dog. I'm also a heck of a baker, especially when it comes to chocolate. I currently have 7 tattoos and counting.

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: Silhouette tattoos, sheet music, snowy mountain tops and crystal clear lakes, a full moon surrounded by clouds, paw prints in the snow

Tagging @aitey, @sasstrid-and-dorkcup, @starlight-linguist, @eashmo201, @kyungsoomorelikehusbandsoo and anyone else who wants to do this! <3

#about me

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urwarriorangel · 6 years

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<3 urwarriorangel’s writing challenge <3

hello my darling angels! i have started a writing challenge because i want to read more of what you write. i’m calling this a challenge because that’s what i’ve read others call it? rules are listed below! all submissions will be read by yours truly and (if they follow the p basic rules) i will post them all on a masterlist! i will reblog them and give you feedback because that’s what should happen regardless and also i love you guys! (gif not mine!)

rules

*no rape/incest/underage sex/etc.

*if you choose to write smut, you must be 18+!!! the characters you’re writing for must be 18+!!

*must be character x reader! you can write for multiple characters, but it still must be a reader insert!

*it’s first come first serve for characters, meaning there are character limits. multiple people can write for the same character, but they are capped. so please message me as soon as you see a character you want to write for!

*only one prompt per fic! (bonus points if you use any of my original prompts lol!) (also prompts can only be used once)

*triggers must be tagged. if there are any triggers in your fic, you must have a trigger warning. i cannot emphasize this enough.

*fic should be at least 500 words, if it’s longer (which please make it as long as you’d like!) you have to add a ‘read more’

*must tag me in the fic and use # urwarriorangelwritingchallenge <3

*fic should be a new original, not an old piece being resubmitted or a part of an already existing series. (you can write a series for this challenge if you’d like!)

*bonus points if you’re a poc!writer with a poc!reader <3 <3 <3

*you must respect the sexuality of the character! if you would like for an lgbtq+ character, their sexuality should not change in the fic. thank you!

*please send me a message with the character(s) you’d like to write for and the prompt!

example: damon salvatore + “i don’t know how much longer i can go on”

~the masterlist will be posted on august 13th! (if this goes well aka if people participate i would love to do this more often!)~

categories allowed:

anything your heart desires. if you’re going to write fluff please keep it compelling! add a few different styles together! give me some angst, some smut. make it a mystery! i mean absolutely no disrespect to those who write/read only fluff, but personally i find fluff a little more fun when it’s got multiple components! (if you write only fluff, please go ahead and write fluff! i will read it and i’m sure i’ll love it! these are just my personal preferences!)

i love aus very much, so please don’t shy away from them!

characters & prompts under the cut!

characters (five slots for each character)

agents of shield

al mackenzie antoine “trip” triplett daisy “skye” johnson grant ward jemma simmons lance hunter leopold fitz lincoln campbell

brooklyn 99

amy santiago charles boyle gina linetti jake peralta raymond holt rosa diaz terrence jeffords

buffy the vampire slayer

angel buffy summers cordelia chase rupert giles william the bloody aka spike

criminal minds

aaron hotchner david rossi derek morgan elle greenaway emily prentiss jennifer jareau luke alvez penelope garcia spencer reid

defenders-ish

billy russo frank castle jessica jones luke cage matt murdock

friends

chandler bing joey tribbiani monica geller phoebe buffay rachel green ross geller

game of thrones

arya stark benjen stark daenerys targaryen eddard stark jaime lannister jon snow khal drogo robb stark samwell tarly sansa stark tyrion lannister

gossip girl

blair waldorf carter baizen chuck bass dan humphrey nate archibald serena van der woodsen vanessa abrams

harry potter

draco malfoy fred weasley george weasley harry potter hermione granger remus lupin ronald weasley sirius black (young) tom riddle

hawaii five-0

adam noshimuri chin ho kelly daniel williams kono kalakaua michael noshimuri steve mcgarrett

jane the virgin

adam alvaro jane gloriana villanueva petra solano rafael solano

lucky number slevin

slevin kelevra

mcu

bruce banner aka hulk brunnhilde aka my valkyrie queen bucky barnes aka winter soldier clint barton aka hawkeye drax aka the destroyer erik stevens aka killmonger gamora aka um need we say more? janet van dyne aka wasp loki aka loki m’baku aka you already know mantis aka mantis aka a fucking cutie may parker aka ailf nakia aka loml okoye aka incredible badass peggy carter aka kickass peter parker aka spider-man peter quill aka star-lord pietro maximoff aka quicksilver sam wilson aka falcon scott lang aka antman shuri aka an angel stephen strange aka dr. strange steve rogers aka captain america t’challa aka black panther thor aka thor tony stark aka iron-man wanda maximoff aka scarlet witch

new girl

coach nick miller

pretty little liars

aria montgomery caleb rivers emily fields ezra fitz hanna marin jason dilaurentis mona vanderwaal noel kahn spencer hastings wren kingston

reign

francis mary stuart nostradamus sebastian

riverdale

archie andrews betty cooper cheryl blossom fangs fogarty fp jones fred andrews jason blossom josie mccoy jughead jones kevin keller malachai charles!reggie mantle ross!reggie mantle sweet pea toni topaz valerie brown veronica lodge

shadowhunters

alec lightwood clary fray isabelle lightwood jace herondale lucian grey magnus bane simon lewis

teen wolf

allison argent chris argent cora hale derek hale isaac lahey jackson whittermore jordan parrish kira yukimura liam dunbar lydia martin malia tate peter hale scott mccall stiles stilinski theo raeken

the 100

bellamy blake clarke griffin echo finn collins jasper jordan john murphy king roan lexa lincoln monty green nathan miller octavia blake ontari raven reyes wells jaha

the originals

davina claire elijah mikaelson freya mikaelson hayley marshall kol mikaelson lucian castle niklaus mikaelson marcel gerard rebekah mikaelson

the vampire diaries

bonnie bennett caroline forbes damon salvatore elena gilbert jeremy gilbert katherine pierce malachi parker mary louise matt donovan nora hildegard olivia parker tyler lockwood stefan salvatore sybil

x-men

alex summers aka havok charles xavier aka young!professor x erik lehnsherr aka magneto hank mccoy aka beast jean grey aka phoenix logan aka wolverine peter maximoff aka quiksilver ororo monroe aka storm raven darkholme aka mystique

prompts (once someone requests a prompt, i will update the list! list will be updated once a day, if multiple people ask for a prompt in between updates, i will give it to the first person who sent me an ask. i realize that there are more character options than there are prompts, i did this because i don’t think too many people will participate. if we ever run out, i will add more prompts! example of request: klaus mikaelson + “give me a chance”)

(rfaimagining)

angst

1: “ give me a chance. ”

2: “ not you again.. ”

3: “ leave me alone. ”

4: “ i don’t love you anymore. ”

5: “ why do you hate me? ”

6: “ i lost the baby. ”

7: “ i thought you loved me. ”

8: “ i don’t need you anymore. ”

9:“ i can’t believe you! ”

10: “ we can't keep this up forever. ”

11: “ you’re a monster. ”

12: “ i hate you. ”

13: “ don’t leave me… ”

14: “ you’re a disappointment. ”

15: “ don’t die on me– please. ”

16: “ i never meant to hurt you. ”

17: “ are you upset with me? ”

18: “ i wish i’d never met you. ”

19: “ i’m going to kill you! ”

20: “ please don’t hurt me like this. ”

21: “ thanks for nothing. ”

22: “ dont call this number again. “

23: “ why did you spare me? ”

24: “ you need to leave. ”

25: “ i’m sick. ”

26: “ i’m dying. ”

27: “ i wish i’d never met you. ”

28: “ i thought we were family!”

29: “ there was never an us. ”

30: “ so that’s it? it’s over? ”

31: “ i fucked up. ”

32: “ i came to say goodbye. ”

33:“ he’s dead because of you. ”

34: “ i don’t deserve to be loved. ”

35: “ about the baby… its yours. ”

love

36: “ i’m so in love with you. ”

37: “ dance with me! ”

38: “ isn’t this amazing? ”

39: “ i wish we could stay like this forever. ”

40: “ will you marry me? ”

41: “ i’m pregnant. ”

42: “ i need a hug. ”

43: “ you’re special to me. ”

44: “ i’m going to keep you safe. ”

45: “ do you trust me? ”

46: “ can i kiss you right now? ”

47: “ you’re cute when you’re angry. ”

48: “ i’ve liked you for awhile now. ”

49: “ let’s have a baby. ”

50: “ we’d make such a cute couple. ”

51: “ i want to take care of you. ”

52: “ can we cuddle? ”

53: “ it’s lonely here without you. ”

54: “ i can’t stand the thought of losing you. ”

55: “ shut up and kiss me already. ”

56: “ are you flirting with me? ”

57: “ is that my shirt? ”

58: “ how did we get here? ”

59: “ you own my heart. ”

60: “ you’d be a great dad. ”

61: “ you’d be a great mom. ”

62: “ i want to protect you. ”

63: “ what's the matter? ”

64: “ you’re so beautiful. ”

65: “ did you do something different with your hair? ”

66: “ is that a new perfume? ”

67: “ stop being so cute. ”

68: “ you’re making me blush! ”

69: “ you’re teasing me again… ”

70: “ this is why i fell in love with you. ”

71: “ you’re the best! ”

72: “ they’re going to love you, don’t worry! ”

73: “ oh, are you ticklish? ”

74: “ of course i remembered! ”

75: “ you’re one hell of a girl. ”

76: “ you’re one hell of a guy. ”

77: “ are you jealous? ”

78: “ hold me and never let me go. ”

79: “ stop hogging all the blankets! ”

80: “ lets run away together. ”

misc

90: “ catch me if you can! ”

91: “ i’m fine. ”

92: “ are you drunk? ”

93: “ are you high? ”

94: “ we can't go in there… ”

95: “ give it back! ”

96: “ well this is just great. ”

97: “ don’t touch me. ”

98: “ not sure if you could tell, but i’m not exactly a people person. ”

99: “ this was fun— let's do it again sometime!”

100: “ i didn’t do it! ”

101: “ i did it… ”

102: “ i don’t remember that! ”

103: “ well that’s pretty rude of you to say. ”

104: “ get that thing away from me! ”

105: “ you owe me. ”

106: “ do you believe in aliens? ”

107: “ do you believe in ghosts? ”

108: “ are you hitting on me? ”

109: “ why are you naked? ”

110: “ you did what?! ”

111: “ you have… superpowers? ”

112: “ why are you bleeding? ”

113: “ where did all these puppies come from?”

114: “ don’t make me come over there myself! ”

115: “ that wasn’t funny. ”

116: “ this tastes horrible. ”

117: “ this is delicious! ”

118: “ are you mad at me? ”

119: “ stop ignoring me… ”

120: “ i love that show too! ”

121: “ can i borrow that book of yours?”

122: “ let's blow this joint. ”

123: “ let me help you with that. ”

124: “ take that back! ”

125: “ wanna go see a movie with me? ”

126: “ no way, that’s so lame. ”

127: “ what are you listening to? ”

128: “ i brought you your coffee. ”

129: “ don’t fuck this up. ”

130: “ run! ”

131: “ lets run away together. ”

132: “ i haven’t slept in four days… ”

133: “ your turn to do the dishes. ”

134: “ was i really that drunk? ”

135: “ was i really that stoned? ”

136: “give me back my phone! ”

137: “ you’re an asshole. ”

138: “ are you cold? ”

139: “ this place gives me the creeps. ”

140: “ i swear my house is haunted. ”

141: “ did you hear that? ”

142: “ it’s just your imagination. ”

143: “ just how stupid do you think i am? ”

144: “ stop being such a baby. ”

145: “ go back to bed. ”

146: “ are you okay? ”

147: “ i can take care of myself just fine.”

148: “ thanks for helping me back there. ”

149: “ since when have we ever been friends? ”

150: “ what on earth are you wearing? ”

151: “ i can’t feel my legs! ”

152: “ stop texting me weird stuff so late at night. ”

153: “ put me down! ”

154: “ there’s only one bed… ”

155: “ it isn’t what it looks like! okay.. maybe it is… ”

156: “ how did i lose it? ”

157: “ i read your diary. ”

158: “ this is awkward. ”

159: “ didn’t you read the sign? ”

160: “ do you think you can teach me that? ”

nsfw

161: “ bite me. ”

162: “ make me. ”

163: “ fuck me. ”

164: “ stop teasing me so much… ”

165: “ do you like it when i touch you like that?”

166: “ okay.. this is new. ”

167: “ want to head back to my place and have a little fun? ”

168: “ you’re in trouble now. ”

169: “ what a pretty sight. ”

170: “ bend over. ”

171: “ on your knees. ”

172: “ the food looks great but.. there’s something much more delicious i’d like to eat right now. ”

173: “ lay back. ”

174: “ take off your clothes. ”

175: “ well, fine; just this once. ”

176: “ i’m waiting. ”

177: “ you’re so beautiful. ”

178:“ as you wish. ”

179: “ first one to make a noise loses.”

180: “ you have no idea what you do to me. ”

181: “ if you’re bored; wanna have sex? ”

182: “ i've wanted this for so long. ”

183: “ car sex looks so much more easier in the movies. ”

184: “ can i touch you? ”

185: “ open up. ”

186: “ no strings attached. ”

187: “ already? do i really have that much of an effect on you? ”

188: “ mine. ”

189: “ the nights still young. ”

190: “ we can't do that here! ”

191: “ behave. ”

192:“ what did you just say? ”

193: “ good girl. ”

194: “ good boy. ”

195: “ come here. ”

continued nsfw from misc sources

196: “are you going to come here, or are you going to make me come get you myself?”

197: “don’t look at me like that, you brought this on yourself.”

198: “stay still, squirming will make it worse.”

199: “keep count. if you lose it, we’re starting over. understand?”

200: “go get me the cane.”

201: “take your shirt off and put your hands up against the wall.”

202: “open your mouth. i’m putting the gag in so your screaming won’t alarm someone.”

203: “did you disobey my orders?”

204: “i thought i told you not to touch that?”

205: “have you finished everything i told you to do?”

206: “if you don’t stop acting like this, i’ll be forced to use different tactics.”

207: “your skin turns so red under my palm.”

208: “bend over the back of the couch.”

209: “you might want to bite something, the whip has a bite to it.”

210: “come here and bend over my lap.”

211: “i’m tired of your smart mouth.”

212: “you’re really hot.”

213: “oh, don’t mind me. just enjoying the view.”

214: “you know, those/that ______ of yours are/is pretty distracting.”

215: “hot damn.”

216: “so, you come here often?”

217: “well, well. my night just got better.”

218: “is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

219: “you have got a great ass.”

220: “hey, i’m open minded.”

221: “you enjoying the view over there?”

222: “keep sweet-talking and this could go a whole new direction.”

223: “don’t be bashful. you know you want to.”

224: “you can have me any way you’d like, baby.”

225: “you wanna move this conversation someplace more private?”

226: “i’m off in a few minutes, you know.”

227:“it’s been a long day. why don’t we help each other unwind?”

228: “i think it’s about time we stop avoiding the obvious.”

229: “i’m gonna be honest with you. i’m really horny, and you’re really hot. can we fuck? like, now?”

230: “i wanna see you get naked.”

231: “you like how i bend over for you, huh?”

232: “you’re getting me all worked up.”

233: “what do we have here?”

234: "i see someone’s happy to see me.”

235: “play your cards right, and i just might have to put you on speed dial.”

236: “you like that, don’t you?”

237: “how do you want me?”

238: “i’m sure we can put those lips to better use.”

239: “i want you. right here. right now.”

240: “god, you’re perfect.”

241: “i really like a man who’s good with his hands.”

242: “i’d be more than happy to show you a good time, if you’re looking for one.”

243: “i saw that. you just checked me out.”

244: “you look real good in that suit/dress/skirt/outfit.”

245: “you wanna help me out of this ___?” (insert article clothing here.)

246: “can i keep you?”

247: “you’re such a tease.”

248: “oh my, looks like i/you dropped something.”

249: “i love it when you talk dirty.”

250: “i can’t stop thinking about your hands on me.”

251: “i think you’ll be happy to know that i’m not wearing any underwear.”

252: “i really want to take you home and get you out of all those clothes.”

253: “it’s like you want to ruin men/women for me.”

#urwarriorangelswritingchallenge

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15dollarnosebleed · 6 years

Text

Tagged by @mttbellamy , I keep forgetting to do this!!

Nickname: I told people to call me Jerry but I regret it lmao

Zodiac: Virgo baybeee

Height: I don’t fucking know. Between 5’9 and 5’11 i can never tell, plus I’m heavy so I’m compressed rip

Last movie I saw: The Mule yesterday, but I’ve already seen Bumblebee (again) and Aquaman this month too

Last thing I Googled: target (looking for a bookshelf identical to one I already have)

Favorite Musician: oh GOD I don’t know!!!! It needs to be someone with both skill and quality writing.... Geddy Lee? Hayley Williams? Jepha Howard? Johnny Christ? Chris Wolstenholme? Mike Kerr? Flea? You might notice these are all bassists except Hayley... I like bass

Song stuck in my head: there are three of them:

1. Fly By Night - Rush

2. Chicken Attack - The Gregory Brothers

3. The Stage - Avenged Sevenfold

Other Blogs:

@singingmusicandstuff (old vocal cover blog, shitty shitty vocals from when I first started lmao)

@bangbanggimmefame (formerly Green Day blog)

@16candlesagency (unused)

@honeyfromhornets the blog for my band! Once the singles, ep, and album are finished I will be posting there

Do I get asks? No!!! I wish I did people :(

Following: 211

Amount of Sleep: I need 8+ hours to even function at a base level, with energy drink

Lucky number: 13 baby!!!!

What I’m Wearing: shorts

Dream Job: touring musician, which will come true next year at the latest :)

Dream Trip: to Detroit and Canada, friend and I are getting matching tattoos of Bender on our butts and I need to meet her irl!

Favorite Food: Taco Bell!!! People that don’t like it can rot

Play any instruments: YES!!!! I main Bass, am best at it, and that’s what I write all my thoughts on mostly, but I’ve been playing guitar, piano, and clarinet for longer. I also sing, and I am going to toot my own horn bc it took forever to master, I can hit every note in Plug-In Baby and Supremacy!!!!! It has cost me some low range though :/

Languages: English, two years of French and 12 years of immersive Spanish which only amounts to about 1.5 years of actual Spanish? None of the basics though only words phrases and basic knowledge (I’m better in French)

Random Fact: my first self-written album Vitaxia is coming this year :) 13 tracks completely composed and performed (except drums) by me, the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life so far!!!

Describe yourself as Aesthetic things: Cold, Snow and Mountains, black on black, midnight purple and blue, organized abstraction, symmetry, unnatural spines, monochrome

I tag: @cleaver--girl @simutheory but I don’t wanna annoy anyone other than them hahaha

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shedrinksthewildair · 6 years

Note

What are some songs everyone should know? (and not liking them is Unforgivable™)

oh gosh this is harrrd ahaha i think i would be better at answering this question with books or movies or shows tbh since i have much stronger feelings about those than music 😅 but i will tryokay so i’m just going to share some songs i really like but i don’t think it’s unforgivable™ not to like them 😂- Hayley Kiyoko (Girls like girls + Sleepover)- The Lumineers (Basically everything!! seriously one of the only artists i could just let their songs play BUT faves are Ho hey + Stubborn love + Ophelia + Cleopatra)- Sleeping At Last (Turning page + Saturn + Every little thing she does is magic + Light) - Ingrid Michaelson (Can’t help falling in love)- Bright Eyes (First day of my life)- City and Colour (The girl)- Hozier (Work song + Jackie and Wilson +Like real people do) - Leon Bridges (River)- Vance Joy (Riptide + Fire and the flood)- Matchbox Twenty (Overjoyed)- The 1975 (fallingforyou)- Dashboard Confessional (Stolen)- Snow Patrol (Open your eyes + Run) - Lykke Li (I follow rivers)- Kodaline (High hopes)- Bootstraps (I wanna dance with somebody)- A Fine Frenzy (The beacon + Happier)

#i got carried away omg sorry #but thank you so much for the question!#:)))#ask #rootingodmode #music

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danielbernardgray · 4 years

Text

Howdy!

Are you available now?

Yes

Jus feeding my cat carrots

Do your cats always eat carrots?

No I discovered this a few week ago

How you doing?

I'm well

drinking coffee out of the mug you made me. When I want a non-giant amount of coffee I often opt for the Cat Lover Like No Other mug

Nooooo are you really?!

Awwww

That makes me so happy

I would send a pic but that would slow down the conversation

Lol no it’s fine

is it snowing? I saw snow pics from London

Nope not today but yesterday it was

we had one day of snow, but nothing stuck in our area

What do I do?! Act natural?!

No don't act natural! That'd be the worst thing you could do!

kidding

bad joke

Ffs I am like freaking out do I be me or less me

Well anyhow...

Lol

http://rosalieschweiker.info

Is this a virus?

lol, probably not

She's an artist and has a really nice website

Oh ok

click on it and click on work

you'll get an idea of some of what i want to do with this conversation

Ok ok I see

"it's difficult - I'd like the website to be accessible, but I also want it to be confusing."

Yes that’s true

I have no problem admitting that i'm going to straight up steal this idea

I think the artist wouldn't mind

Lol no it’s a good idea and we won’t be saying the same shit will we

part of the idea is simply that so many artist websites are nearly identical, which is a weird thing for artists to do, do the same website over and over

but maybe not that weird actually

No idea is original anymore

the other thing i'm doing is adding material to my website on a semi-daily basis, to coincide with a show I'm currently in at Texas State University

I thought conversations would be an interesting thing to include, but i also didn't want the conversations to be just about my work, because that seems really self-centered and egotistical

(disregard the obvious contradiction of this appearing on MY website)

Well any type of conversation would do right? It’s all an insight into you whether it’s indirect or directly related to your practice

Probably anything I post will be interpreted as being part of my practice, so yeah, we can talk about anything but i did have a few things in mind.

Let me start with the first thing

We should probably do something of an introduction. Can you post your name, and a link to the clay studio you started just in time for the global pandemic?

Hi I’m Kiran Sattar and I run a little clay studio in Derbyshire, U.K. you can find me on Facebook at @KikiClayStudio and on insta @kiransattarart

as I understand it you were having groups of people come in and make things in your studio, and often they had never touched clay before, right?

or at least not since they were in grade school

Yes! So I ran a range of workshops some one-off ones and others were weekly clay dates with people who found a passion for ceramics and attended each week. We did kids workshops, 1:1s, family workshops and couple ones too. Basically anything you can think of related to clay

A lot of people (mostly the older generation) did clay at school like 40 years ago and they never had an opportunity to do it again ‘til they found me

at least compared to many other art making endeavors, clay/ceramics tends to be something that is often done in a group setting

Yes it’s great to make it in to a social thing, making friends, talking out ideas

Do you have objects that you've made that end up having, or prompting, direct memories of the people you were with when you made the object? Does that work its way into the object?

yes, definitely

Most of its quite random things, I remember vaguely as a child my mum took me somewhere and it was my first experience with clay. I made a little hedgehog and a rabbit

I still have them

I guess that means there's vague memories in the hedgehog and rabbit. I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds nice.

It’s nice to think I was destined to play with clay

the older generation people that came into your studio, would they ever talk about the things they made when they were in school?

They would make the generic stuff pinch pots, hand built bowls. Some had schools with wheels so they’d attempt to make pots, cups and bowls but nothing “usable”. So they enjoy having a chance to have another go.

"usable" is interesting

would they use that term themselves?

Sorry, should have said “functional” ceramics but yes they would have said usable

I'm trying to tease out of myself what's interesting about the nothing usable phrase

Maybe cause people assume it’s always about making something useful/usable? What good is a lump of fired clay if it’s not a cup?

Sitting beside me (actually now right in front of me) is a fired lump of clay that Chris Powell fired for me in my last couple of months of grad school

Ahahahha is it useful?

It's too light to even be a paperweight, zero function

There you go!

but it has loads of memory attachments to it

which to me makes it as usable (or useful?) as the mug you made me

Ahhhh yes ok

And when I say it has loads of memory attachments i think I mean that it makes me think of Chris Powell

more to the point it's an attachment point to a specific human, and a really delightful human at that.

Definitely!

same as the aforementioned mug

I have all sorts of treasures from him that I’ll cherish

I don't believe in ghosts, not in the conventional way the term is understood, but I see no reason why someone's ghost can't be running around and doing things before they die. Preemptively ghosting around seems like it should be totally possible

I guess I understand that? When I lived in my TX apartment I swear I used to trip over my cat

Ohhhh

if a ghost is some sort of essence or remaining traces of a person, to me it makes sense that all you really need is to no longer be in the geographic presence of that person to be able to feel or encounter those traces

Like in dreams? You see loved ones who have passed away?

yeah, but wouldn't you also dream about people who are still alive in Manchester when you were living in Fort Worth? I'm not sure how different that is from the occasional dream I'll have where I'm spending time with my Finnish grandfather, who has been dead now for 15 years

When I got back here or like over holidays at home I would dream of all of you.. well mostly Hayley and I swear I could actually hear her voice

I can’t remember any from being there dreaming of here

If I did, they were in TX with me in the dream but actually in the U.K.

I think I have enough to work with here, conversation as material

I need to go in a minute

thanks for talking with me

I'll let you know when I've posted it. Might not be today's entry but it'll go up soon

Awesome! Thanks Daniel this was fun!

yeah I had fun too

toodles

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