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detectivemarvelingcomics · 2 years

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Not Your Classic Vigilante [Ch. 7]

Alternate Dimension AU

TW: Language, Mentions of Death, Descriptions of Violence, Scar Mention, Mentions of Suicide/Suicidal Thoughts, Implied Sexual Assault

CW: OC Use, See the OC Guide [Here]

Genre: Angst, Some Comedy

Pairing: Batfamily x Batsis!Reader

(7/?) [First] | [Previous] | [Next]

[DC Masterlist] | [Not Your Classic Vigilante Masterlist]

YN Pronouns: Female (She/Her)

Word Count: 5.0K

Notes: WHOAAAAAAA When was the last time I updated this I'm so sorry guys I'll try to spend more time on this blog cuz wow this fic is so fun to write ahaha

Not Your Classic Vigilante: @gabytodd @marshmallow12435 @escapenightmare @luminaaz @akuri-shinsou

Unable to be Tagged: @peachydoki @lolsnack

Disclaimer: This series is originally by @fandom-meanderer who is a close friend of mine, but she has since fallen out of her Tumblr days and asked me to finish a few series for her, hence why I am now in ownership of the Not Your Classic Vigilante series, I hope I can still live up to her writing as I rewrite this series! (I promise not to change too much, hehe)

15 June 2015

“That one, I think, would be Orion,” you pointed to the constellation in the sky, your other hand holding your phone up to illuminate the astrological book on your lap. Your back was pressed up against the hard metal of the back of the truck, the cold being muted out by the quilt beneath you. To your side, Conner only hummed. His fingers drummed on his chest and he kept one arm behind his head.

“How d’you know?” His voice was gruff, and it was sign enough of what he had been doing prior to your date. He never told you about them, but you always knew. It was a stipulation of Tim’s, always trying to keep you as far away from the vigilante gig as he could but you’re bound to get wound up in it when all of your friends and the majority of people who surrounded you happened to be of the extraordinary kind. But, there was always this weird air around him when he’d just come back from missions, and you always knew that the worst ones preceded the text that would appear in your phone from him.

That and you could clearly see the new scars on his arms, Conner wasn’t too versed in makeup, it would seem, but the thought was still there. Who knew that it would be in your teens that you’d have to deal with your hero boyfriend who had an affinity for getting beat up on missions and going on dates with you right after? It wasn’t something on your checklist, that’s for sure.

“See how those stars connect? That’s his belt, then you go from there,” you spoke in hushed whispers. You turned your head to him, his eyes squinting as he tried to make out what you were saying. You sighed and pressed your head against his, trying to see things from where he was. Your hand wrapped around his wrist and you held it up, pointing his hand to where the belt started. “Now do you see? Here’s where it starts,” you moved his hand slightly to the side and his gaze followed, “and there’s where it ends. Now, you go up or down and you see the faint outline of the warrior,” your hand moved down his arm until it reached the first large scar, poorly applied foundation removed easily under your touch and you chuckled. “You know, Con, you have to blend it out.”

“Seriously? Donna said all I had to do was put it on like lotion…” He wipes the rest off with his sleeve.

“Oh, dear, no, honey,” you laughed. “And you have to get your right shade,” you took some foundation off his hand and swiped it across his cheek. “This is about two shades too dark,” you smiled. “But, seriously, you don’t have to hide it from me. I’ve seen my brothers come home with so much worse,” you muttered. Soon your hands intertwined and your eyes raked over the recently healed over scars.

“Tell me about it,” Conner did nothing while you traced over it.

“Wonder what the other guy looks like.”

“What’s left of him?” He adds with a short laugh. You only smiled in response and soon you felt him push his head against yours softly.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah… Yeah, it’s alright,” he nodded his head slowly and you hummed quietly. “I don’t really want to think about it right now.”

“In that case…” you understood what he meant. “This is a really nice quilt, I feel kind of bad for just laying it on top of this dirty truck bed,” you played with the edges of it.

“Hey! I washed it, you know,” he rolls his eyes and you pushed his chest gently.

“Just teasing, it looks like Mrs. Kent worked hard on it, though,” you smoothened out the wrinkles now.

“Speaking of… it’s for you,” he sits up and looks at the patches on the quilt, he holds up the corner piece that sported the bat insignia on it.

“Why tell me after we dirtied it?” You grew wide eyed for a moment. “Oh, wait, so you wouldn’t have to wash it, huh?” You squeezed his cheek. “You suck,” your smile betrayed you.

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who can’t keep their hands off of me.”

“Ew,” you squeezed your eyes shut and shook your head. “You’re the one who’s obsessed with me.”

“Yeah, that’s also true,” he tilted his head to the side. His phone rings in the truck and he sighs. You only straightened, knowing that ringtone well.

“Duty calls?”

“If I just let it go to voice mail, do you think they’ll just assume I’m busy?”

“You could try that. Or you could chance Bart running all the way here and catching us.”

“Dear god, I might actually lose my mind if he did that, hold on,” he hopped out of the truck and sat back in the driver’s seat. You, meanwhile, stayed in place. You picked up the quilt, it wasn’t too dirty, actually, save for some bits of hay and dirt beneath it, but nothing a good wash couldn’t handle. It really did look like Mrs. Kent spent a lot of time on it, the stitches and the fabrics were meticulously placed, and the small depictions on each tile represented a facet of you.

It was a darling gift.

28 July 2022

And now, it was draped over your wall. It was kept clean, you assumed that Alfred regularly washed it, but at a closer glance you could see some of the edges frayed with use. You wonder who caused those?

The clock stroke midnight, and the Manor was empty save for two souls. Everyone else had gone on patrol, go figure. Dead sister comes back but crime never sleeps. Granted, Tim made a really good argument for having one of them stay behind, but Alfred ceremoniously volunteered himself to monitor you. Great.

Alfred Pennyworth sat in the library, patiently waiting for the Master of the home, with a simple book in hand and a cup of tea in another. The library was lit in a way that made the area seem warm and welcoming. Anyone who walked into its warmth would be encased in a feeling of comfort and safety that all else would fade away and allow one restful night. The old butler thought back to the simpler times when the Waynes were a rather joyous group, well, as joyous as a family could be given their hobby. Now would be an important time to note that the book in Alfred’s hands was not one you would find in a store, no, not quite, it was a birthday present gifted to Bruce Wayne by the one and only (Y/N) Wayne. The brightest of the Waynes, but at the same time the most tragic. All she wanted was her father’s approval, but it never came. And despite all the love and affection her siblings gave her, it was never enough to fill the void left by her own father. His eyes drifted over to the darkness of the hallway. The (Y/N) that entered the manor that day, he knew it was her, yet at the same time he knew it wasn’t. But what is this strange feeling?

Now, in stark difference to the library, was the rather cold and secluded bedroom where our heroine lay. Your eyes staring up at the ceiling, unable to even consider the horrors of allowing the tired captain to close her eyes for just a moment. Years of being in a new world conditioned you to be unable to relax in atmospheres like this, cold and alone. An environment that used to feel like the afore mentioned room, was now the opposite. You were at attention, like something would jump out at the shadows any minute now.

But there was a time where this room was, as Tim put it, the happiest place in the mansion. You recalled when the then younger Tim Drake would run in, shaking in his pajamas, and timidly ask to sleep with you after thinking it a good idea to watch a horror movie with Jason, or how every now and then you’d find Damian resting at the foot of your bed in full regalia and all. Even the days where Jason would come to just annoy the living hell out of you and Dick would yell at him from the next room over. You remembered these fondly, but was still unable to find yourself in a state of comfort. Was it the loathing you felt for this manor in general? Or was it the constant nagging of your best friend in your head. Whatever it was, it was enough to drag you out of the prison of your bed and onto your feet.

‘What, Alex?’ You grumbled, your hand clutching your heart. You looked to the wall in front of you, the intricate quilt that hung undisturbed seemed to mock you. You remembered shoving it into your closet after you and Conner had broken up, but someone must have taken it out to display it.

‘Remind me again why you two broke up,’ his voice had a hint of teasing in it. ‘I still remember those ten-paged letters you’d send me detailing every single glance he gave you.’

‘Oh, stop it. I was young and he was my first. And to answer your question, he fell in love with Cassie, perfect Cassie, how could I compete with that? Who was I to get in the way of that? A Super-Boy with a Wonder-Girl. I wonder if they stayed together.’

‘I’m now remembering your fifteen-page letter on that.’

‘Don’t tease me. I literally didn’t speak to either of them for months and I avoided Mr. Kent and Jon like the plague until Mr. Kent came here himself. It was so awkward…’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Alex sounded like he was doing something as he spoke to you. ‘Anyway, I’m sure you’d love to come back, and I can see that the path to your father’s computer is empty.’

‘Okay, yeah, I’m going. Alfred’s pretty vigilant though.’

‘Ah, so you need a diversion.’

‘Yup, what do you have up your sleeves?’

‘Not much, unfortunately. Oh wait, just kidding.’

‘Wait, what? What’s up?’ Your mental conversation is disrupted by a small but sudden explosion outside. You rushed over to the window as Carter gives you a sloppy salute. You look down and notice Alfred walking out to investigate. ‘Alexander Wright, you are a genius.’

‘Thank you, darling. But you really should be thanking Carter, I’m sure he’d love praise from his dear Captain.’

‘Don’t say it like that it’s creepy.’

‘Is it? Why don’t you pay more attention to his mannerisms? I’m sure the two of you would make a lovely couple.’

‘What do you mean?’ Your face heats slightly. Was he catching on? Maybe you should’ve thought twice before keeping a secret from your best friend, but it’s not something you wanted to parade around. ‘Alex?’

After repeatedly trying to call out to him, and repeatedly not hearing a response, you opted to run down the stairs, making sure that Alfred is kept busy as you accessed the bat cave.

‘If you’re done teasing, how’s the cameras?’

‘Took him a while, but Carter was able to get them down for a moment.’

‘Good.’ You descended into the cavern. You fired up the comically large computer a d watched it spark to life, an array of articles that didn’t concern you filled the desktop and similarly multiple programs started running at once. You fumbled to pull the flash drive out but quickly regain composure as you watched all of the information from the bat computer duplicate and save onto the small device that would serve to be your lifeline. Then, a password prompt appeared. You typed in the password you remembered, your hand hovering over the enter button, but… if you were wrong, if your father changed it, then it wold be all game over for you. Instead, you went with the safer option. You pressed the small button on the flash drive and it was quickly overridden, that’s one obstacle down. The whole time you could feel your heart rate rise. You didn’t know how much your father’s tech had changed since three years ago, and you didn’t know if it would detect the device or not. So far, so good, though. You just hoped that there wasn’t a backdoor program that was alerting him right now. But why were the flags in your head raising? You looked around, the cave was dark to hide your presence more but you could swear that something was watching you. You turned back in time for the drive to finish its work.

‘Don’t forget the device.’

‘I know, I know, fuck off.’ You mentally argue with Alexander. You pulled out a second listening device and planted it far beneath the desk just as the flash drive completed its purpose. Just as quickly as you went in, you pulled out the flash drive and retreated back upstairs; however, this time you couldn’t ignore the library. You spent a lot of your time there, now that you thought about it, there was just something so soothing about the never-ending walls of pages. Seeing as it was still empty, you walked in.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m rarely ever home, let me live through the nostalgia again in peace, alright?’ He didn’t respond.

You looked out the window and watched Alfred finish cleaning up the aftermath of Carter’s work and more questions popped into your mind.

First of all, how did they cope after you left? Your father, you can guess easily, probably didn’t find out until months after the fact. Your brothers, Dick in particular, must have been heartbroken. You could hate your father as much as you wanted, but you could never hate your siblings. All of the carnival days with Dick, the late night motorcycle rides with Jason, how you and Tim would do midnight to dawn homework sessions together, and how could you forget about all the arcade days with Damian? And furthermore, the cute movie nights with Steph, or the girls’ nights with Cass, all of these were memories that you held dear. Cass, you thought of her more often than the others sometimes, she truly was, at one point, your best friend.

Cass... you needed to avoid her at all costs.

But more questions distracted you, how different would things be if you had stayed? Would you have gained your father’s approval? Would you have graduated? Who knows? Maybe you would have finally met someone who could have filled that lack of fatherly care. Maybe you would have met someone to share your life with under different circumstances. Two names appeared in your head, but you dismissed them quickly.

Your eyes land on the book near the fire. It was crudely bound with yarn and hastily glued over with scribbles of crayon on the cardboard covers. The pages contained between them were that of various colored construction paper until the last few pages that were white and neatly stacked against each other, no doubt added on much later. You recognized this book that stood out like a sore thumb compared to the expensively bound ones that surrounded it, and you recognized it because it was yours. You picked it up and turned through the pages. It was a sloppy, albeit adorable, picture book littered with polaroids of yourself and your many family members, and each picture had a short description next to it written in the same crayon that adorned the cover. You remembered clearly, you made this to give to your father. You had felt terrible that he was on “business trips” all of the time, and you felt like he would miss his family. At the time, the only people pictured were yourself, Dick, Jason, Alfred, and your mother. Simpler times. You flipped through the pages and noticed that they had been filled in with more neat handwriting and more professional pictures, and you easily recognized this to be Alfred’s doing. Finally, you came to a stop at the last page. In childish writing, it read: “For my superhero dad! So he would always have his family with him!”

Superhero. Is that what he was? That’s how you always thought of him back then. Your mother called him that, the superhero that Gotham needed. Alfred called him that, the superhero that kept you safe. Mr. Kent called him that, the superhero who was his best friend, and the list went on. You called him that at one point. When you were younger, you remembered how when you’d call he’d run over in a heartbeat, working quickly to rid of what upset you in the first place, and you remembered thinking of him as your hero. That all changed when you grew old enough to fully understand what it was that he did, when you renounced the family business, that’s when tensions started to arise. And they kept rising until they were untamable.

Then you died, but we’ve been over that enough times already.

“I know it may not seem like it, Miss (Y/N),” Alfred cuts in. You don’t move from your spot and continue to stare down at the page. You tapped your finger against the picture of you and your father. You didn’t even think he had any other pictures of you aside from this one. “But your father did truly love you.”

“Right,” your facade breaks. You catch yourself and took a deep breath. All these years, and all the lies you’ve told yourself, you’re back at the place you once called home and already you’re wishing you had even an ounce of his approval. “I’m sure he did.”

“Are you really the same (Y/N) Wayne who left this manor three years ago?” Alfred moves cautiously towards you. You take in a deep breath and close the picture book.

“Keen as ever, Alfred,” you smiled weakly. There’s no point in lying to him now, your best bet is to inch around the truth.

“Your smile certainly isn’t,” Alfred points out. He takes a seat by the fire once more and gestures for you to do the same. “It’s different, almost like you have seen a world of pain. And your eyes, they look so much like your father’s, and you know what I mean by that.”

“Do they? I guess that would make sense,” you try to build up you character again. You couldn’t jeopardize the mission, not when the flash drive was finally in your pocket. “I did die.”

“That is true,” Alfred says sadly. He drinks his tea silently. “Do you really not remember anything from that day?”

“I do not,” you lied. The two remain quiet for awhile. You coughed lightly and placed your hand on your heart.

‘He’s catching on,’ you worried.

‘It appears so,’ Alex responds. ‘Remain vigilant.’

“Are you alright, Miss (Y/N),” Alfred speaks again.

“I have been having these strange chest pains,” you explain.

‘Is that all I am to you? Strange chest pains?’ Alex teases. You let your hand drop to your lap, ending your side of the conversation with Alex.

Chest pains. Might be a little complicated to explain to Alfred the circumstances of your survival up to this point. The scar of a magical circle over your heart, one that linked you to the voice in your head, without it, you doubt you’d be able to function as a whole human, if that’s what you still were. You didn’t blame Alex, you couldn’t, his life was on the line and yours was already gone, with the Queen looming over him, you would’ve done the same.

The only catch now is that you have to be careful how far you are from him, which is quite generous.

“Maybe it’s an after effect of dying,” you finally said. And in some ways it was. You don’t remember your heart being taken from you that night, at least. If it was then you were already long dead before you could’ve noticed.

“Please don’t speak of your death so calmly,” Alfred shakes his head. “Dick did not sleep for days, Jason kept coming home with new wounds, Cassandra regressed so far to the point where she shut herself out, Tim kept surrounding himself with work, and do not get me started on Damian… It truly was a tragedy for us. You may not believe it, but it was.”

“Was it for dad?” You looked up at him again, but this time with genuine curiosity. Alfred is silent for awhile. “Did he even know?” You felt your voice waiver. You couldn’t understand why you felt this way, you should loathe him, and you wanted to, so you did for a time. But, and this is what you were afraid of when you heard you had to come back here, with all of these memories resurfacing, you didn’t know what you wanted anymore.

You shouldn’t have come here, you should’ve taken the long route and studied each member yourself.

“He… He did not,” Alfred admits. You put on another pained smile and nodded slowly.

“Of course he didn’t. Why would he care?”

“He was on mission for the League, at the time. No one could reach him and… he didn’t find out until Mr. Kent came over to pay his condolences,” Alfred admits. Of course Mr. Kent came. He treated you more like family than your father ever could. “Just a few days before your funeral.”

“Right, sounds like him,” you shake your head. Before Alfred could try to defend your father’s actions furthermore, you spoke up quickly, “Al, what else changed while I was gone? I feel like I don’t recognize things anymore, nothing is the same here. I don’t even recognize myself when I look into a mirror.”

“A lot has changed, my dear girl,” he nods his head. “And, it will take time, but you will grow accustomed once again, and we will do it together,” he says. You both hear a bookcase slide open then closed. “Your father’s home.”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Do you not want to see him?”

“No,” your answer came out quickly and sharply. It was a tone Alfred had never heard in your voice, and you knew he caught onto it. “Al, my last memory of this house is dad telling me that I have no value in this family, so… no, I really don’t want to see him right now,” you finished. Yet you didn’t move. “Did he even grieve?”

“We all have different ways of grieving, my dear.”

“What was his?” You leaned forward, your elbows resting on your knees now. “No, don’t tell me, I already know. He worked, didn’t he? Arkham must have had a field day,” you shook your head. Alfred didn’t answer and you knew you got it spot on. You wondered how your mother coped with it all, if it was a good idea to even see her at all. Despite appearances, she really was one of the pillars of your life. The days you spent with her helped you release so much stress off of your shoulders and made you feel so carefree that you’d forget all about your vigilante family. Granted, she was somewhat one of herself, but she knew how to separate life and work much better than any of the Waynes did. You shook your head. Why are you still here? “I’m going to bed.” You stood up this time, but as you did so, the library door opened. You didn’t move, your back was to the door and you looked out the window.

It was a night just like this one, your very last one on this earth.

27 July 2019

It was such a lovely night. The moon was full, and the air wasn’t as smoggy as it usually was in this godforsaken city. You had finished your final, three hours of grueling free response finally over as you made your way back to your apartment, having given up on the dorms since you’ve started to become independent of the Wayne fortune. You had your scholarships to pay rent, but you’ve barely even started unpacking your boxes. You stretched your arms over your head.

You were done. Once you got this grade from your final, you’d see if you would be able to graduate, and once you did? Who knows what’s next. You only had the rest of your life. You couldn’t stop the smile on your face. Never had you felt so much more relief than to know that you did it. You took your phone out, your thumb hovering over Dick’s contact, but you paused.

You wondered if your father had told everyone yet.

Without another thought, you scrolled on, your thumb landing on Roy’s number instead. It only rang once before he picked up.

“How’d your final go, Goose?” The nickname had a teasing connotation to it, but you ignored it. It was an old nickname he’d had for you since his time in the titans with your older brothers and whenever he said it it was quickly followed by you getting shot with a nerf gun and still, one year into this secret relationship, he still never relented when he called you by it.

“I think I did really good, actually! I feel like celebrating, are you busy right now?” You walked with a slight skip in your step.

“Uh… shit, yeah actually,” he says. “I’m with Jason right now.”

“Oh, crap, why’d you pick up then?!”

“And ignore a call from a pretty girl like you? How could I?”

“I’ll never understand how you do that so easily,” the heat in your cheeks was especially prominent with the cold air around you. “You talk to everyone like that?”

“Only to the future Mrs. Harper, of course.”

“Oh, god,” you rolled your eyes, but your smile betrayed you. “Raincheck then?”

“Raincheck. I’ll take you out to the best dinner you could even dream of.”

“Just so you know, Red, burnt chicken and raw asparagus isn’t what I have in mind for a celebratory dinner.”

“That was just the once, (Y/N)! Besides, I bet you’re equally as bad in a kitchen, trust fund kid.”

“That’s not what you said when you were bedridden in my dorm room for a week.”

“Your roommate is so cool for that, by the way.”

“Oh, I’m sure she just didn’t want to die,” you laughed. “Okay, I’ll call you later, I’m on my way back to my apartment.”

“You need help getting settled? I’ll gladly ditch your depressed brother for you any day.”

“Oh? And what’s your excuse?”

“Same one I gave him when I answered you. A pretty girl needs my help.”

“Screw you,” you shook your head.

“Maybe tomorrow if you’re lucky.”

“You’re so shameless, Roy,” you sighed. “Seriously, go back to whatever you’re doing together before Jason gets curious.”

“Do we know the same Jason Todd?”

“Roy!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going, I’ll see you later, (Y/N).”

“Bye,” you waited for him to hang up first before continuing. It was just around the block now, and the streets were clear. But, the longer you walked, the more anxious you got. You looked over your shoulder, once, twice, and maybe thrice now.

No, this area was a part of Tim’s rounds, you’ll be okay.

You’ll be okay. You thought this even as you felt someone grab your arm and drag you into an alley.

28 July 2022

“Alfred, leave the room.” You were pulled back into reality with a blink of your eyes. The moon was still as bright as ever. Alfred looked to you before looking to the person behind you.

“Of course, Master Bruce,” Alfred spared you one glance before exiting the room. You didn’t look behind you. You didn’t want to.

“(Y/N),” your father’s voice was stern. Always stern with him, he was never relaxed. You didn’t move. You didn’t want to. You took a deep breath.

‘Do you need another diversion?’ Alex’s voice rang in your head. You placed your hand on your heart, feeling the skin between them burning.

‘No. It wouldn’t work anyway.’ You turned around. “Hey, dad. Long time no see.” You kept your words slow, the library only illuminated by the fireplace that roared next to you. A fireplace in a room full of books, it spelled trouble, in your opinion. You closed the crude picture book with one hand while you looked at your father. His cowl was off, it was bundled in one of his fists, and his suit looked to have undergone some changes since last you saw it, but the man before you was undoubtedly your father. He took a few steps towards you until he was an arm’s distance. You both stood in silence, and the flash drive in your pocket became all the heavier. You couldn’t read his expression, you never were able to, but now it felt more intimidating than ever. For the first time in a while, you felt so small. You should’ve known that your high horse would have stayed on the other earth.

‘Take a deep breath, (Y/N), steady yourself,’ Alex spoke gently. Back in character.

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have come, I’m not welcome here anymore, but according to Jason, I have nowhere else to go,” you explained, keeping your voice from wavering. Bruce made no moves, he just continued to stare down at you. Until, finally, his hand rose and settled on your shoulder. It wasn’t heavy, had it not been for the soft grip you’d think that he wasn’t even touching you at all.

“You’re home, you’re always welcome here.” Such words that were so weighted were said by a man with only a sliver of emotion. His expression that was once straight finally broke and, for a moment, you could’ve sworn that you saw sympathy. You bit back any smart remarks and instead shrugged his hand off.

“I’ll be gone by tomorrow,” is all you said. You walked past him and back up the stairs, part of you hoped that he’d call you back, maybe have a civil conversation, but no such wish was answered. No, instead you continued forth until you were once again situated on your bed, memories of a time past swirling in your head.

This was a bad idea.

#dc #batman #batfamily #batfam #batsis #batsis fics #batfamily x batsis!reader #batfam x reader #batfamily scenarios #batfamily x reader #batsis!reader #batfam fics #batfamily fics #batfamily x batsis #batfam x batsis!reader #batfam x batsis #my writings #nycv

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flightless-rising · 3 years

Text

Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D

Iceberg explanation

( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)

EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!

The Sky

Naomi

Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.

On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.

It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.

It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.

What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.

Missing Tidelord

In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.

In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.

Emperors

Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.

Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.

An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.

The Surface

Old color wheel

Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.

When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.

Imperial breed scrolls

Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.

At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.

There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.

Baldwin breed change

When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.

In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.

Trans Fiona

When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.

Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.

Boolean

Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.

Plaguebringer coli team

On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.

As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.

Boston & Hope

This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.

So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.

In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.

The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.

If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.

I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Shallow Waters

Eyepocalypse

On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.

Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.

A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.

Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.

EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.

Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.

Courier Breed

The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.

Multiaccounting

According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.

Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.

The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.

Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.

Purble

“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.

In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.

I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.

Tert Picking

This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.

Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.

Swiftwings

Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.

The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.

“Real” Lore dragons

Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.

All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.

The Middle ground

True deity names

When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.

The names are the following:

Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver

As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.

No leg coatls

On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.

The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.

Dress slot unlocking

A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.

This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.

Clanbound scatterscrolls

I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:

“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”

Beta Mirrors

Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?

According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.

This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.

Dragons are evil

If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.

Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.

The Depths

Scroll of Divorce

In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.

If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.

First Festival

The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.

Offsite drama

Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).

Egg rot

Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.

It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.

Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.

Pablo

From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.

I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.

Latest News

On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.

This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.

Lameforger

On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.

Festival of one (1)

On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.

It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).

The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.

The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.

Vape Juice

As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.

The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.

I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.

I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.

The Abyss

Humans

There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.

The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.

Plague healers

Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:

“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."

Akitla

As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.

After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T

here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.

As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.

Arcane sprite book

“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.

On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.

I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.

They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.

They’re dedicated and I respect that.

EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.

The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.

Simple Farmer

Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.

Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.

Dragon Deaths

Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.

Yep.

Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.

Zalvador

User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.

Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.

These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.

The Pit

Black linen neck wraps

For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.

Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.

Icewarden ears

Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.

In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.

As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.

Forbidden Snapper lore

Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.

This is what the original section read:

"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."

Bee movie script

I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.

From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.

EDIT 28/06: Zeus

Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".

Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.

Wegg shaming

On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.

Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!

The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.

The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.

Plague nest skull

The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.

It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.

EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.

Rock bottom

CAPTAINPLANET

…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.

I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.

EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.

This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.

Lair 46264

A cursed lair.

Dreams

I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.

A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.

I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.

The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.

Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.

Dragon Slime

Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.

It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.

EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here

Cucumber

Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.

EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!

#flight rising #fr #flight rising meme #iceberg meme

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thechanelmuse · 4 years

Photo

TW: rape

‘I May Destroy You,’ Michaela Coel’s gimlet-eyed exploration of trauma and its myriad ripple effects follows Arabella (Coel) — a funny, messy, sharp-as-hell London writer — after a dizzying night in which she’s drugged and raped by a stranger. At first, she dismisses the hazy memory as just an upsetting image in her head. Soon enough, though, Arabella reluctantly comes to understand it as the truth, and tries to work through that horrifying reality without coming apart. [...]

Not every part of Arabella has a direct line to Coel, but the series’ catalyzing experience, unfortunately, does. In 2016, Coel took a break from a marathon writing session for the second season of “Chewing Gum” to grab a drink with a friend, and was drugged and assaulted by a stranger. She’s been sifting through the emotional wreckage ever since to find some kind of clarity, if not peace. Now, with “I May Destroy You,” she’s doing it for all the world to see. “As a fellow android exploring what it means to be human,” says Coel’s friend Janelle Monáe, “watching Michaela be vulnerable on-screen as she walks in her truth gives me and so many the bravery to walk in ours.” [...]

Coel began writing “I May Destroy You” in February 2017, in between acting in TV projects like the “USS Callister” episode of “Black Mirror” and Netflix’s limited series “Black Earth Rising.” She took solo mountain trips and wrote draft after draft of what would eventually become “I May Destroy You,” spilling her stories and tangled guts onto the page, rearranging them into shapes she could better recognize. In August 2018, she spoke about her trauma publicly while delivering the Edinburgh International Television Festival’s James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, a prestigious assignment the festival has otherwise bestowed on a cadre of white British television mainstays (as well as no fewer than three Murdochs).

The majority of Coel’s speech, delivered to a room of the U.K.’s most powerful entertainment brokers, traced the constant racism and classism she endured on the way to that Edinburgh stage — a theme subtextually underlined by the fact that Coel was, and remains, the only Black woman to have that platform. She spoke about turning her solo play “Chewing Gum Dreams” into a “Chewing Gum” TV series (which aired 2015-17 on the U.K.’s Channel 4), a transformative time that taught her the technicalities of making television and confirmed just how disinclined certain white gatekeepers are to trust a poorer Black woman’s vision. Toward the end of the 50-minute lecture, Coel revealed her assault and elucidated the industry’s inability — or unwillingness — to handle such a human emergency when pages are due. As for her recovery, she said, “It’s been therapeutic to write about it, and actively twist a narrative of pain into something with more hope, and even humor.”

When it finally came time to translate it all to the screen, “I May Destroy You” was so close to her bruised heart that Coel took on the challenge of playing several roles throughout the series’ development: creator, writer, actor, producer, director. Netflix offered her a total fee of a cool $1 million to make and star in the show, but the proposed contract wouldn’t grant Coel even a tiny percentage of the rights. She hadn’t fully realized how much claiming legal proprietorship over her work mattered to her until the prospect of not being able to emerged, at which point it became crucial.

Then, after some Googling, she realized that her CAA agents would also be profiting from the deal via the endangered practice of packaging. Stung and surprised, Coel walked away from both her agents and the offer. “I’m not anti-Netflix,” she’s quick to say now, “but I am pro-‘the creator, writer, director, actor should probably have a right.’” She’s hyper-aware of how much this project required of her, and how comparatively little granting her “a right” might cost a powerful network like Netflix. “That’s not quite fair, is it?” Coel muses. Creating the show, after all, took almost everything she had.

With the BBC, a million-dollar paycheck might not have been in the cards, but more important to Coel, she didn’t have to fight half as hard to claim ownership. (As a matter of industry course, it’s far more common for British studios to afford creators rights to their work than it is for American equivalents.) They struck a deal, and Coel got to work.[...]

“When you’re restricted,” she explains, “sometimes that’s where you find great things: in the lack of possibility.” She attributes this rather Zen approach to Hugo Blick, the “Black Earth Rising” showrunner who showed her the value of keeping a cool, empathetic head on set. Blick’s ability to step away from a gnarly situation for even 30 calming seconds is one that Coel has worked to hone for herself, especially while steering a series with such fraught ties to her history. No matter how sideways things might go, she never wants to forget just how much she loves the collaborative act of building a television show, wild complications and all.

From Forbes:

I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel Rejected Netflix’s $1 Million Offer In Favor Of The BBC Because Of Ownership

The creative, who stars as Arabella and wrote all 12 episodes, started pitching the programme in the spring of 2017 with one of her first ports of call being Netflix who picked up her prior series Chewing Gum.

Though Netflix offered a generous upfront fee of $1 million (£800,000), the sum had strings attached, including full rights ownership away from the creator, something Coel pushed back against. Coel recalls a moment during the interview where she is speaking with a Netflix development executive on the phone, asking if she could retain even a very small 0.5% of the copyright to her show.

“There was just silence on the phone. And she said, ‘It’s not how we do things here. Nobody does that, it’s not a big deal,’” Coel recollected. “I said, ‘If it’s not a big deal, then I’d really like to have 5 % of my rights,’” Coel added, stating that she even went down to 2%, and then 1% and even as a final compromise to 0.5%.

Coel remembers that the executive said she would have to run it passed her superiors, before adding, “‘Michaela? I just want you to know I’m really proud of you. You’re doing the right thing.'”

“I remember thinking, I’ve been going down rabbit holes in my head, like people thinking I’m paranoid, I’m acting sketchy, I’m killing off all my agents,” Coel says. “And then she said those words to me, and I finally realized — I’m not crazy. This is crazy.”

Coel discovered her agents, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) were set to make an undisclosed amount from the series if she took the deal with Netflix. She reveals that the agency pushed her to take the deal prior to her finding out and their subsequent dismissal as her U.S. representation.

Taking the project to British broadcaster the BBC later in 2017, Coel found the corporation to be supportive with her maintaining creative control even with the explicit depictions of sex, sexual assault and drug use. Plus, as the broadcaster had to adhere to terms of trade, Coel had no problem with retaining the rights also. The broadcaster also brought HBO to the table as another co-producer to help subsidise a portion of the budget.

This isn’t about just “knowing your worth;” it’s about knowing the business (your business) and never settling just to secure “something.” A million dollar offer, no copyright ownership and no creative control is beyond disrespectful. Learn the business in whatever field you’re in and stay acclimated with jargon and new, current and old practices. Know your shit.

It’s like when people say “Get a lawyer” to handle negotiations and look over your paperwork. You pay a lawyer to do a job, but it does not mean you should be oblivious to aspects of law and contract jargon among other things because “that’s what they’re there to do.” You can’t say someone (sometimes lawyers included) screwed you over after you’ve signed the dotted line. They’re protecting and looking out for themselves. Commit to do the same for yourself.

#michaela coel #i may destroy you #film business #ownership #hbo #bbc #netflix #business

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nightswithkookmin · 3 years

Note

Hey Goldy, why do you think jk could've been homophobic in the early years? I genuinely want to know becuz i didn't really feel that way myself . And when according to you did he become woke? And what do u think about jimin in this case?

I think JK could have been homophobic????

Have you been snooping around my Ko-fi page??? I don't recall ever saying anything like that on here...

Are you on Ko-fi? You can ask directly on Ko-fi if you have any questions with regards to any of the posts on there. Simply DM.

I said that, because I had read somewhere Jungkook was straight and was dating a trainee before 2015 when he and JM started fully dating but then those same peopele claimed somehow that JK was too young to be gay at the time or to be doing Jimin prior to 2015- in that context then to me, if he wasn't closeted and gay then he'd come off as very homophobic especially in the way he acted around JM and treated JM in that period in my opinion.

If he wasn't too young to be straight, he wasn't too young to be gay. I knew I liked girls at the age of seven ish. Never acted on it and shied away from gals mostly until highschool when I came across much older queer gals- Some have claimed they knew they liked girls much earlier than that.

I mean I'd assume straight people knew they were straight even in kindergarten. Why does it gotta be any different for gay people. It's really bizarre to me.

That's not to say I don't think Jikook weren't problematic or didn't have issues.

For JK I can say, toxic masculinity, internalized homophobia and immaturity marked his earlier phase- not just him but Jimin and everyone in bangtan too (minus the internalized homophobia of course) in my opinion. Which I think we've talked about on here a few times now.

I understand certain conversations make some people uncomfortable especially ones surrounding BTS and homophobia, misogyny cultural appropriation, gay culture appropriation etc.

As I said on Ko-fi, if Jungkook wasn't queer/gay back then, then I'm afraid, to me, a lot of the things he'd said and done around around JM was quite homophobic.

But since I believe he was gay, they just come off as internalized homophobia to me.

And by that I mean things he'd say similar to RM talking bout how 'Jimin tries a lot to be masculine even though he's not' and gets elbowed by Jin to shut up because it's something you just don't say to effeminate men like JM or especially gay men. It comes across as a homophobic slur or microaggression (if JM is in deed gay- which I think he is.)

Or all the crying jokes bangtan makes about JK most times and the constant attack on Jikook's masculinity in the group- being gay doesn't make you less of a man💀

You'll understand if you've seen JK's face drop at certain 'jokes' certain people in the group throw his way.

When did Jungkook become woke????

That's like asking me when did BTS become woke.

Sounds very sarcastic but whatever.

Don't think I can point to you a particular date in this instance just that there's been a very visible gradual shift in the way he thinks, behaves or carry himself within the group over the years.

When he stopped saying things like men shouldn't wear rings on their pinky or that men shouldn't check their selfies after taking them- to which JM replies in frustration 'men, men, men, what the heck is men!'

When he started unlearning the toxic masculine stuff and started embracing his true nature?

It's been a journey for him I'd say.

Whenever he second guesses himself and hesitates to touch JM in certain places-even to this day( a certain titanic run episode comes to mind)

He reaches for JM's waist, stops and holds his shoulder instead. There's a cut a his hand is now on JM's waist- clearly he was cued by the director or someone to hold JM's waist to make it more entertaining.

Now I wouldn't say this act is homophobic per se. Plus, he's not the only one who some times get confused around JM and hesitate to touch him- Tae does that too.

There's that TXT member who froze entirely when JM touched him.

But I can't ignore that JK's hesitation comes from him thinking it's inappropriate for him being a guy to hold JM in certain places like that- which is interesting because they be playing with each other's dixk and shit. You'd think that's more gay no?

Men are nasty and do nasty things like hitting eachother's private region for play or squeezing eachother's nipples and shit- Apparently, that's not gay. To them.

But suddenly, holding hands or placing their hands on a man's waist is gay because it's intimate and something a couple would do- very heteronormative I'd say.

Sounds familiar?

'Sounds like something a couple would do' then the members would proceed to act embarrassed by it.

And this was what, like a few months ago?

Toxic masculinity is at the heart of homophobia. One usually follows the other. If you can spot toxic masculinity in JK, you should be able to spot his internalized homophobic tendencies.

That being said. He's grown now. Way mature than before. Occasionally does some ignorant shit but he's way better than before- in my opinion💀

They shouldn't kiss and act grossed out. If it grosses you out don't do it in the first place that's just rude. I think you know what I mean.

Like RM says, they were all a bit in the mud, unsophisticated in their formative years and I don't think that excluded JM and JK( not gonna go into JK's problematic moments on here or recount them)

As to whether or not some of the things he said in those days were homophobic or not I think it depends on perspective and one's own understanding of anti homosexual tendencies and behaviors.

If not then ignorance is bliss I guess.

What do I think about Jimin???

I think he's gay. Lol.

But he's had his own toxic manly man moments.

'We are men and men shouldn't pop their booty'

Men shouldn't pop their booty? He tried it. Lol.

From the top, make it drop honey😏

Calling Hobi gay as a joke???

'I think he likes men a little too much'

Sir, sit down. A few years later, you are gay too. Very gay. More so gay than Hobi💀

This you???💀

Not sure how to steer this conversation because I feel you don't know exactly what that blog on JK and homophobia is about.

Anywho, thanks for the question. Love it.

I'm gonna answer all your questions. I love them🤤💜

Signed,

GOLDY

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bleedinglovehes · 4 years

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liam payne sucks tbh

This compilation is for my dear friend, who goaded me into making a comprehensive list of every time Liam Payne has been openly homophobic in the past ten years, with a couple of bonuses at the end! Because he has been. A lot. He’s displayed his privilege and offended LGBTQ+ people on multiple occasions and shows no signs of even attempting to educate himself or empathize with those his words have hurt. On that note, let us begin this journey.

Let’s start with the obvious, shall we? The infamous Duck Dynasty's Family Values tweet. Anyone who’s been in the One Direction fandom should be able to easily recall the incident, but I’ll break it down for you. On January 18th Liam tweeted about how he loved the “family values” on Duck Dynasty. By that time, it was know that the family was openly homophobic. Just one month prior, in December 2013, the families patriarch (Phil Robertson) was suspended from the show following homophobic remarks that received backlash. (He compared homosexuality to beastiality).Liam immediately received backlash for the tweet, for good reason, so later that day he took to twitter to claim that “Being a fan of someones show and the way they still hold a family together doesn't mean i am ok with all they say”. (https://twitter.com/LiamPayne/status/424679109634314240) That was his “apology”. Now, Liam’s association with the Robertson’s did not end there. 8 months later he posted a happy birthday message from Willie Robertson (Phil’s son) on his instagram. Though his interacting with the Robertsons had upset many LGBT+ people, Liam continued to openly support the family.The very next month he, and close friend Andy Samuels (pay attention to that name, we’ll reference it later) went shooting in Louisiana with the family. Andy and Willie Robertson’s sister in law both posted about the event at the time, but the posts have since been deleted.

Now if you were one of the delusional people still convinced of Liam’s membership in the LGBT+ community, you may find lot’s of faults in my logic. Him supporting a family sticking together doesn’t mean he shares their homophobic values, and you’re right, to an extent. But a queer person would not be so careless. Liam is displaying his privilege as a straight white man by ignoring the disgusting homophobia displayed by the patriarch, and likely shared by his sons and grandchildren. So, with that incident we have, at the very least, hopefully shown the audience Liam’s blatant ignorance when it comes to the LGBT community.

Let’s continue. 2014 was the start of a startling trend of tasteless comments Mr. I-Used-To-Be-In-1D-Now-I’m-Free has made in relation to the community. In August of 2015, Liam said that Girl Almighty (a One Direction song he wrote on) is about "trying to find that number one woman of your life” which would have been fine, except he went on to say that “none of [the fans] can relate to, because most of you are girls. Except for the boys in here, you know what I'm talking about." Almost immediately, his remarks were under fire for being too heteronormative, and he was accused of being homophobic. Instead of using the incident as a learning experience, Liam took to twitter to first clarify he is “in no way shape or form homophobic that's a ridicules thing to say and I'm not here to offend people so take it as you will”. Essentially, rather than apologize to every LGBT girl at the show, he decided to say since he’s not homophobic the comments weren’t offensive. He went on in another tweet and called the statement that deeply offended his non straight female fans “throwaway”. All I can gather from his little twitter tirade is that Liam was upset that his “throwaway” comment hurt LGBT people and that those people would not let it go. He finished by tweeting “crap end to a good day”, blaming the backlash rather than his own ignorant comment. All of the tweets are still on twitter and a quick search will bring them up for you.

2015 was a big year for Liam in terms of casual homophobia, and just one month after the Girl Almighty Incident, he was back at it again with… The Pride Flag Incident. Now, to provide some background, pride flags started making appearances at the shows in large numbers thanks to The Rainbow Project. The project was started to promote a safe space for LGBTQ+ fans. It garnered a lot of attention and the starters of the project clarified several times that it had nothing to do with the infamous “Larry” ship, which I will not discuss as frankly it’s not relevant to my main point. So a month before the Pride Flag Incident The Rainbow Project was getting attention from the media. Anyone who took two seconds to research the project and motivation behind it would know that it was only to support queer fans.

Okay but seriously, the Pride Flag Incident was a big deal. Let me explain. In the summer of 2015, gay marriage was legalized in the US. LGBTQ Americans were absolutely thrilled, for good reason, and pride flags were seen in abundance. So here’s what happened. Liam was interviewed by Attitude, a UK gay magazine. Now he started off alright, claiming that he found it, “funny that being gay is still something that’s talked about as though it’s not natural”. The use of the term “funny” is… troublesome for me, but that’s not the issue with the article. It’s his next statements that, once again, show his ignorance. He talked about there being an increase in rainbow flags at One Direction shows following the legalization of gay marriage. He made the correct point and he should've stopped there. Unfortunately, he continued, saying “I think that was mainly because people think of the Louis and Harry thing, which is absolutely nuts and drives me insane.” Once again he ignored the huge queer fanbase One Direction had amassed at that point and was subject to backlash. He, once again, took to twitter and, once again, stood by his ignorant comments rather than make a real apology. I won’t bring up Harry. I won’t bring up Harry. I won’t bring up Harry. I won’t bring up Harry… ok fine I have to. Harry actually waved a pride flag at the next concert they had. AKA, the one right after Liam’s comments were made public. Harry was, according to Liam, one of the people being disrespected by the pride flags.

I’m sensing a trend here. Liam makes an ignorant comment that offends people, Liam goes on twitter and stands by the ignorant comments, Liam claims people offended are in the wrong. Moving on, I'm honestly not sure what Liam did in 2016. I think that’s when Strip That Down was released. Anyways he only offended…. every one direction stan with that.

2017 though, that one was big. That’s when Liam made The Clothing Comments. So in May he was on the radio, probably promoting something, and was asked which members of One Direction he would let watch his child. He said that he’d pick Louis, because he’s a dad, and that neither Harry nor Niall made the cut. The issue? His reasoning behind why Harry wasn’t a suitable babysitter was that, “I couldn’t rely on Harry because I feel that my child would come out dressed in something that I just wouldn’t understand”. Yet. Another. Ignorant. Comment. Harry had, beginning in 2014 and continuing to 2020, been dressing in a non traditionally masculine way. 2014 had him sporting pussy bow blouses while 2020 has gifted us with a lace jumpsuit equipped with matching lace gloves. Now, therein lays the issue with his comment. Harry doesn’t dress in a traditionally masculine way. That was apparent in 2017. That’s what Liam had an issue with. Also, Liam has been making comments about Harry’s fashion sense on a semi consistent basis since that article dropped so… yea.

2018’s… incident… is almost funny to me because once again Liam display’s absolute ignorance when it comes to the LGBT community. It began with Liam taking place in Adidas’s Prouder campaign in June. It was sponsored by a bunch of celebrities and an article was released where each gave a quote about what makes them proud, obviously in relation to Pride. When Liam was asked the question he answered “I think since I’ve had a little boy, everything changes in life. ‘I’m aiming more for him to be prouder of me, and already he’s making me a better man, which I think is incredible.’” He did not reference the community he was supposedly supporting. He received immense backlash for his “straight pride” comments on twitter and gay news outlet Pink News.All in all it was just insensitive. He was dragged on twitter for not knowing the meaning of pride and the movement he was supporting.That’s not where the incident ended though. On July 7th London hosted the annual Pride Parade, that I’ve heard Liam promised to attend. I do not have receipts for this, so my next point may seem a little weak at first, but stay with me. Instead of attending the event, Liam attended a Dolce and Gabbana fashion show. Why might that be an issue? Well, since 2015, the fashion label has been called homophobic after two directors made insensitive comments about same sex parenting. So, if you don’t believe he promised to attend the show, the fact that he attended a show for a homophobic brand should upset you.In fact, Liam has shown no indication of distancing from the brand. In contrast, Harry has only been seen wearing Dolce and Gabbana once since the comments were made. (Performing on the Jimmy Kimmel show in Nov. 2015). Liam has worn D&G several times in the years since the comments were made.

2019 was a bad year for Liam, and not just because he took Zayn, Harry, and Niall’s number ones and slapped them together to debut at #111 on the Billboard Hot 100. In July he was paid by the Saudi Regime to perform in Saudi Arabia. The issue? In Saudi Arabia being gay is a crime and women’s rights activists are jailed. Nicki Minaj was also set to perform at the festival but backed out due to the Saudi Regime’s blatant homophobia and sexism. Once again he displayed his ignorance and privilege. He’s not queer, he’s not a woman. So he accepted the money and performed. Now I know he had fans there excited to see him, but he made the wrong choice. He should’ve backed out and not accepted any money from the Saudi Regime. July was just not a good month for Liam.So he was asked whether or not he planned to vote in the election. His response? “I think I will vote but I am always out of the country. We need a mobile app where we can vote with our thumbprint or something. I mean, in regards to Boris or Jeremy, I don’t think we give people enough time. Same with West Brom football club. They always change their manager every week it seems and we never get time to gel with anybody.” He’s just so ignorant. As a rich white straight man, the election had no effect on him. He seemed to indicate a preference for Boris Johnson, a racist sexist homophobe. December was by far his worst though. So his debut album, LP1, dropped at the beginning of the month. Immediately, Liam was attacked for his fetishization of bisexual woman, seen in the song “Both Ways”. It’s just disgusting, and made worse by his history with the LGBTQ community. A straight man singing about how hot it is that his girlfriend likes girls is just… so bad. That whole incident speaks for itself in my opinion. That brings us to the reappearance of his comments about Harry’s clothing. He claimed that “I couldn’t put myself in that. I’d look fucking… It’d look weird.” Now, has anyone seen what Liam has worn over the years? Liam’s issue is that the Met Gala look was feminine. He’s claimed to be the antichrist version of Harry, and you know what? I see it. He’s a straight man uncomfortable with men wearing feminine clothing and gay people in general. Harry is a queer man who thrives in feminine styled or women’s clothing. They really are opposites.

So what have I established? A pattern of ignorance that have hurt LGBT people on multiple occasions. Now, ignorance does not equate homophobia, so here’s how we know. Remember his friend Andy Samuels? Well he’s been openly homophobic (and sexist) on his social media. He’s been friends with Liam for over a decade. Remember when Harry made his iconic “not that important” comment? Liam’s reaction is… troublesome. He does a short laugh, and then glances off camera with an uncomfortable look on his face. Take from that what you will. There are UNCONFIRMED rumors of Liam using homophobic language backstage at One Direction concerts. Like with his reaction to Harry’s “not that important'' comment, there is no proof, but, based on his other actions, I am inclined to believe it happened. So there you have it. Liam’s history of ignorance. Homophobia is defined as a “dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people”. I think it’s safe to say that applies to Liam. He’s uncomfortable with feminine styled men, supports homophobes (The Duck Dynasty family, Dolce and Gabbana, Boris Johnson), and makes ignorant comments that are extremely offensive to LGBTQ people. He may not go around screaming slurs, but he is homophobic. He’s the type of homophobic person who claims not to be because he knows a gay person. Who claims the pattern of ignorance is simply the fault of the one getting offended. That’s who Liam Payne is. Look, you don’t have to agree that he’s homophobic, but you have to agree that he’s ignorant and refuses to get educated. And you have to admit that there is no way he’s LGBT. There is no way anyone could orchestrate a smear campaign that relied on so many casually ignorant statements and incidences.

This post was not my fault. Really. It’s wasn’t. It’s actually my friend’s fault. She told me that there were people on tumblr who actually believe Liam Payne is LGBTQ+. Shocking, I know. She also said that some people were comparing the experiences of Liam, a straight man, to Harry, his queer former bandmate. Which, no? And because I am so sure people will deny everything I have presented, a link to a google doc with links to each article and tweet I referenced has been included. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i2lWQPr0oQeA_MYLdkmp6G19waj9KSYaQgcBek8O2OE/edit?usp=sharing

#liam payne #lp1 #both ways #one direction #homophobia #maya henry #harry styles #louis tomilson #niall horan #zayn malik

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kingstylesdaily · 4 years

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Why Harry Styles Just Scored His First No. 1 Song

Like any boy band alumnus, he first had to overcome radio’s bias against teen heartthrobs.

Late summer is a great time for sleeper hits: songs that have been hanging around the charts for months and finally hit their stride. Four years ago, in August 2016, Sia’s “Cheap Thrills” reached No. 1 after knocking around the charts since the prior winter, getting its final boost from a Sean Paul remix. In September 2018, Maroon 5’s year-old “Girls Like You” slipped into the top slot after wafting around the Top 10 for more than four months, with a Cardi B verse putting it over the edge. Last year around Labor Day, Lizzo finally topped the Hot 100 with “Truth Hurts,” a song that was two years old and had been rising gradually on the chart since the spring.

This year’s sleeper hit is “Watermelon Sugar,” a wisp of a song by boy bander–turned–self-styled rock star Harry Styles. With a name inspired by Richard Brautigan’s hippie-era, post-apocalyptic novella In Watermelon Sugar, Styles’ lackadaisical tune is not only a sleeper but a grower, the sort of hit that sneaks up on you—I wasn’t sure it even had a fully written chorus the first time I heard it, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Indeed, the whole nation took its time deciding that this quirky ditty would give the starriest, most eccentric member of One Direction his first-ever U.S. chart-topper.

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“Watermelon Sugar” is the third single promoted from Styles’ second solo album Fine Line, which was released last December. That alone is remarkable, given the challenge in the digital age of generating chart interest in anything other than an album’s first couple of singles. Generally, in an era when all of an album’s songs are available to be consumed the day the album drops, you need a remix or a special guest of some kind to gin up chart action months after the song first hits streaming. “Sugar” has none of those. To be sure, there was some gimmickry fueling the song’s leap to the top, albeit of an old-fashioned kind: The song had its best week of sales ever thanks to an assortment of limited-edition vinyl and cassette singles that came bundled with a digital download. Those sales got “Sugar” the last mile on the charts, but Columbia Records wouldn’t have put the physical goods on sale if the song wasn’t already a radio smash—“Sugar” currently has the second-biggest U.S. airplay audience—and they knew they had an opening between current hits by Taylor Swift and a pair of lascivious female rappers I’ll almost certainly be writing about in this space next week. So, fair play to Team Harry: They took advantage of an open chart window, a tactic as old as the Hot 100 itself.

As “Sugar” leaps from No. 7 to No. 1 on the Hot 100 this week—essentially switching places with his ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift’s “Cardigan,” which falls to No. 8—Styles scores only the second-ever chart-topper by a member of One Direction. That includes all of the hits by 1D itself. In its five years of recording, from 2011 through 2015, the band never scored a Hot 100 No. 1. This despite topping the Billboard 200 album chart with its first four studio albums, the only group in history to launch a career with that haul. So … what was that other 1D-affiliated Hot 100–topper I mentioned? It was by ex-member Zayn Malik, the only member to break from the crew while it was still active. Zayn’s smoldering, Weeknd-esque boudoir jam “Pillowtalk” debuted at No. 1—and spent a solitary week there—in the winter of 2016, fueled by blockbuster streams and downloads ginned up by 1D superfans still mourning his departure the prior year and the group’s resulting, presumably permanent hiatus.

Explaining how the top-selling boy band of the 2010s could shift so many CDs and downloads but generate only two No. 1 singles means briefly recapping the fraught history of boy bands and the charts. Selling albums has never been hard for pinup pop groups, since the days of Meet the Beatles! and More of the Monkees. And in the ’70s and ’80s, such precision sing-and-dance troupes as the Jackson 5, the Osmonds, and New Edition managed to generate both gold albums and chart-conquering singles. In 1989, New Kids on the Block had the year’s second-biggest album and four of the year’s top singles, including a pair of No. 1s. But starting in the ’90s, as U.S. radio networks consolidated (fueled by the 1996 Telecommunications Act) and programmers more narrowly targeted specific demographics, radio stations shied away from maximalist teen-pop that appealed primarily to under-18 audiences. By the end of that decade, even as boy bands were enjoying a new wave of TRL-fueled popularity, radio became a chart handicap for them. The Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync had the top-selling albums of 1999 and 2000, respectively—the diamond-selling Millennium and No Strings Attached—but only scored a solitary Hot 100 topper between them, ’N Sync’s “It’s Gonna Be Me.” (Backstreet never hit No. 1: The deathless “I Want It That Way” peaked at No. 6.)

This radio bias against boy bands has persisted into the 21st century. And ever since the Hot 100 went digital about a decade and a half ago, teen-pop’s chart placements have been the result of a battle between rabid downloaders and radio gatekeepers—massive digital sales compensating for modest radio play. For example, radio was what kept the Jonas Brothers from scoring any chart-topping hits during their original wave of teen idoldom; their biggest hit of the ’00s, the No. 5 hit “Burnin’ Up,” sold 2 million downloads but only ranked 55th at U.S. radio. By the ’10s, the same fate befell one-man boy band Justin Bieber. In this long-running Slate series, I have chronicled the blow-by-blow between Justin Bieber and radio programmers that swung from Justin as hit-starved teen idol in the early ’10s to dominant young-adult chart-dominator in the late ’10s. In the early ’10s period, Bieber was a YouTube and iTunes demigod with not a single radio smash to his name. He could sell a half-million downloads of “Boyfriend” in a week and still fall short of the No. 1 spot, thanks (no thanks) to radio.

For One Direction, the chart patterns were the same. A Frankenstein’s monster that Simon Cowell famously threw together in 2010 on his televised competition The X Factor from five solo competitors—Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson—1D continually found its singles dragged down on the Hot 100 by radio, even as the band sold truckloads of albums. The pattern was set in fall 2012 when “Live While We’re Young” debuted with a staggering 341,000 downloads but could only get to No. 3 on the Hot 100, thanks to its 50th-ranked radio airplay. In the summer of 2013, the slyly Who-interpolating “Best Song Ever” became 1D’s highest-charting hit ever, debuting at No. 2 with record video views and near-record downloads, but at radio it never got past No. 53. “Story of My Life” (No. 6, 2014), “Drag Me Down” (No. 3, 2015)—no matter how many downloads sold or videos viewed, 1D could never top the Hot 100 so long as its radio spins remained limited.

The reason I’m running down all of this granular chart data is it reveals the hurdles both 1D and its post-breakup soloists had to overcome to top the Hot 100. Like Justin Bieber, they had to become credible radio fodder with adults as well as kids. With his early break from the group, Zayn was the first to pull this off. Though “Pillowtalk” debuted at No. 1 largely due to massive sales and streams, the carnal song did eventually become a No. 4–ranked airplay hit. Cleverly, Zayn had chosen a then-current EDM-inflected R&B mode and dropped his debut while the Weeknd was between albums. Other former 1D-ers have had their share of solid radio hits, including Liam Payne’s hip-hop–inflected “Strip That Down” featuring Quavo of Migos (No. 10 on the Hot 100, No. 4 on Radio Songs) and Niall Horan’s softly bopping pop jam “Slow Hands” (No. 11 Hot 100, No. 2 Radio Songs).

And Harry Styles? He decided to make things harder on himself. His 2017 debut album was chockablock with old-school classic rock. This would be like launching a career in 1964 with big-band jazz. While Styles’ fame ensured a big launch for his Bowie-esque single “Sign of the Times”—it opened, and peaked, at No. 4 on the Hot 100, fueled by strong downloads—radio showed only moderate interest. It eventually reached a modest No. 21 on the airplay chart. Later Harry singles like the twangy “Two Ghosts” and the thrashy “Kiwi” missed the Hot 100 and had little radio profile beyond a handful of pure-pop stations that were loyal to Styles from his 1D days. One admired Harry for following his artistic muse—more Joni Mitchell than Justin Bieber—but as a pop star, he arguably squandered his momentum coming out of One Direction.

What has made Fine Line, Styles’ sophomore album, such a clever left turn is he retained the rock flavor he naturally gravitates toward but converted it into mellow California-style surf-pop, and he let his production team—Tyler Johnson and Thomas “Kid Harpoon” Hull—fashion the songs into percolating radio jams. Each single has opened the door a bit wider: “Lights Up,” a No. 17 last October, is lightly strummed beach music with ethereal backing vocals. And “Adore You,” a No. 6 hit in April (for my money, still Styles’ best single), is thumping electropop. “Adore” in particular served as Styles’ entrée onto radio’s A-list—it reached No. 1 on mainstream Top 40 stations and No. 2 on Radio Songs by early summer.

With this beachhead established, Harry was finally free to let his freak flag fly with “Watermelon Sugar,” which is simultaneously his oddest single and his most infectious. The chorus consists of nothing more than the line “Watermelon sugar high” repeated a half-dozen or more times, with emphasis on the “HIGH.” (TikTok users have keyed into this idiosyncrasy, sharing videos in which the “high” gets its own video edit of the user playacting her best stoner face.) Last November, when Styles did double-duty hosting and singing on Saturday Night Live, “Sugar” was one of the songs he performed, and in that indoor setting, it came off as willfully quirky and seasonally incongruous; the song’s first verse line is “Tastes like strawberries on a summer evenin’.” Now, timed for 2020’s beach season—complete with a video filled with beautiful people on the shore, shot just before the pandemic and, according to a title card, “dedicated to touching”—it’s sitting atop the hit parade.

In short, Harry Styles finally has a profile on the radio and on the Hot 100 that matches his profile on magazine covers, and he achieved it on his own schedule and something like his own terms. Like John Lennon in the ’70s—the founder and nominal leader of the Beatles but the last former Fab to reach the toppermost of the poppermost as a solo artist—Styles just had to find his own way. As that onetime teen heartthrob sang, “Whatever gets you to the light, it’s all right.”

source: Slate

#kingstylesdaily #harry styles #hs: watermelon sugar #august 2020

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greatfay · 3 years

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since ur answering asks and shit can u explain what u meant by generational differences in communication

Damn it’s like 2015 tumblr when my inbox used to be WET. So if you’re talking about the controversial opinions post, YES, like I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that generational divides aren’t real (because they aren’t, they’re arbitrary) and distract us from real problems and yes they paint past generations as collectively bigoted when Civil Rights protestors in the 60s (who are in their 70s and 80s now) are mirrors to BLM protestors today, who could be of any age, but the most vocal and famous (at least online, especially irt to the founders, like Patrisse Cullors who is 37.

But how we communicate is sooooo different. I really point to the Internet and Social Media as a major influence in how younger millennials (more Tom Hollands and less Seth Rogans—see even there, I feel like there are two different types of Millennials) and Gen Zrs/Zoomers and even Generation Alpha behave and communicate. We live in a world where we grew up either knowing right out the gate or discovering the hard way that what we say and do has permanence, the kind of permanence that prior generations have never experienced until today. The dumb things kids have been saying since forever can now follow them... forever. We have an inherent understanding of how online spaces work. Compare that to, idk, let’s say you posted on your Facebook (for the first time in 18 months) “All these big and bad grown ass Senators going after actual child Greta Gerwig lol ok, you’re so brave for attacking a CHILD over climate change” and then your aunt, who’s turning “forty-fifteen” in May replies to your post with “So happy to see my passionate niece! Much love from us, hope you’re doing well. Paul is doing great, waiting on his screening results. Tell your mom I said we miss her, we need to get together, we forgive her for last Christmas.”

Like... ok there’s a lot going on there, but your hypothetical aunt is oversharing on a publicly accessible post. And even with the most strict of privacy settings, she’s oversharing where your other Facebook friends (which may include classmates, coworkers, etc.) can see. But she’s saying things that would only be appropriate in a 1-on-1 conversation. This Aunt doesn’t have an understanding of such boundaries, she’s not as technologically literate and hasn’t grown up in a world of Virtual Space, she still gets most of her news from TV, she trusts what a reporter on Channel 4 will read off a script more than what actual video footage of an incident might reveal on Twitter, and she has no clue that she’s been sharing her location data with every post she makes.

There’s such a huge difference. I think it even affects how we experience and express stress and frustration. I think growing up partially in online spaces has made me more accustomed to conflict and consequence-free arguing than someone who never had to worry about that. I’ve been exposed so much to harassment and bullying, triangulating and echo chambers in forums and threads, and vastly opposing point of views at such an early age that it’s had an effect on how I see the world. Compare this to a customer I helped two weeks ago who was looking for a specific type of supplement for children. I found it for her, I handed her exactly what she was looking for, even though her description of the product actually matched several different products; to make sure I’d done my job thoroughly and that she leaves happy and satisfied and doesn’t bother me again, I then show her more products that match her description so that she knows she has options. And she proceeds to freak out, saying “NO, NO, I’M LOOKING FOR [X] AND IT HAS TO BE [XYZ]” and when I say freak out, she looked stressed and PANICKED. And being a retail employee wears you down bit by bit, and add COVID on top of it and little shit like this makes you snap, sometimes. So I have to cut her off like “Why are you screaming and freaking out, jfc you’re holding what you said you wanted. It’s in your hands. I gave you what you wanted, I’m just showing you more things.”

That customer is not an exception, she’s not a unique case. She’s representative of a frightening percentage of her generation, the kids who watched Grease and The Breakfast Club and Ghost in theaters when they were originally released. This is how they communicate and process information. She could not, for some reason, register that her need had been fulfilled, and defaulted to an extreme emotional response when given new and different information.

I’ve yet to deal with someone younger than 35 act the same way, the exceptions being the kids of very wealthy people at my new job who reek of privilege I gag when they walk in—but even they are like *shrugs* “ok whatever” and understanding when there’s something I can’t do for them.

Me: “sorry, we are totally out of that one in your size, but I can order it for you, it’s 2-3 day shipping at no cost to you and we ship it straight to your house”

A rich, white, attractive 22-year-old who’s had access to organic food, a rigorous dermatologist, and financial security since she was born: “mmm... sure, I’ll order it”

A 47-year-old of any socioeconomic background, of any race, in the same situation: “AHHHHHHHHHHH”

I just think it’s crazy how three generations of kids and young adults raised in a world where everything moves so much faster, where knowledge and entertainment and communication can be gathered so much faster, are often so much more polite and patient and understanding. Yesterday I told an older man (mid-50s) whose native tongue is the same as mine, as clearly and succinct as possible, that what he’s looking for is “in aisle 4.” He proceeded to repeat back, “Aisle 7?” four time before I dropped everything to show him what he needed in aisle 4, despite his insistence that he didn’t need me to walk him there. 4 and 7 sound nothing alike in English. There’s just something going on up there 🧠 that’s different.

Oh, other generational divides!!! We have different approaches to labor and working. Totally different! I’m a “young” millennial where I’m almost Gen Z, and I’ve noticed an awful trend among my demographic where people actually brag about working 90 hour work weeks. Or brag about how they skip breaks and live on-call to get the job done for “the hustle” like this “hustle, become a millionaire by 30″ culture that’s dominated these kids, idk where tf that came from. Like why are you proud of being a wage slave, getting taken advantage of by your millionaire/billionaire overlords. Compare this to my mother’s generation (she’s a borderline Genius X’er, she and her best friend were a year too young to watch Grease when it came out and had a random older woman buy tickets for her; she went to Prince concerts, took photos of him, then sold the photos on buttons at school, that’s her culture and teenage experience), where she’s insistent on her rights and entitlements as an employee, and these things she instilled me: “whatchu mean they didn’t schedule a break for you and you’re working 12 hrs today? oh no, you’re off, don’t answer your phone cuz you are NOT available!” There are Gen X’ers who entered the workforce at a time that America was drifting toward this corporate world, with more strictly defined regulations, roles, and understandings of labor rights (and also, let’s talk about how the 80s there was so much more attention on workplace harassment, misogyny and gender divides in wage gaps, etc. etc... not that much has changed, but at least it was talked about!). There are young people today who are taken advantage of because they aren’t as informed or don’t feel as secure and valuable enough to claim what belongs to them.

At the same time, those generations (Gen X and older) have a different viewpoint of hierarchies in the workplace and respect irt our direct supervisors. That’s how you get this blurring of boundaries between Work Life and one’s Personal Life that leads to common tropes in media written by their generations, where oh no! I’m having my boss over for dinner and the roast beef is still defrosting :O is such a “relatable thing” for them... meanwhile us younger generations are like I don’t even like that you know where I live, and if I see your 2017 Honda Civic pass my place one day, we’re going to have a problem. I think older generations have a different relationship with the word “Respect” than we do. Like, my grandma, who’s turning 87 (?) this year, and the other seniors in my area, they have a different concept of honor and an expectation of professional boundaries that I, and my mom and her generation, just don’t see (so then there’s something in common with Gen X’ers and the rest of us.) My dad grew up in a world where talking and acting like George Bailey and knocking on someone’s door with a big smile could get you a job, a job that could pay for college and rent no problem. My mom grew up in a world that demanded more prestige, where cover letters and references could get you into some cushy jobs if you’re persistent and ballsy enough. And I grew up in a world where potential employers literally don’t see your face when you apply unless they lurk on any social media profiles you have publicly available and they hold all the cards, and you need all those CVs and reference letters just to make minimum wage... so I feel like I am powerless in the face of such employers.

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vomara · 4 years

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I saw your posts about Katara and the general treatment of female characters in the new ATLA fandom and what i wanna know is, why is it like this now? You know usually i'd say if there's misogyny in a fandom is because the show itself has big problems with it. But ATLA is like, the complete opposite of that? It's a very good show in terms of equality between female and male characters. And it was out there pushing that over a decade ago.

Like who's coming into this show full of great women and going "I only care about the boys and the girls are annoying"? Methinks these people are far too accustumed to shows and fandom where male characters and male focus are the norm, and they come into this show and start perpetuating the same, but this is to me at least almost entirily the fandom's fault. Cause the show isn't out there purposely ignoring or giving bad dialogue and arcs to the women in it. (2/2)

yeah, i agree. there's a very clear and longstanding male-centric bias in fandom in general, and atla is no exception, and yes, it really isn't well-supported by canon, which has plenty of well-developed female characters. atla fandom isn't the WORST i've been in, but the fandom focus has... shifted very male-centric nowadays in a way that wasn't always so prominent. while i'm not gonna say that it was a fantastic thing, before about 2015, there was a little bubble of more female-centric fanwork in the fandom -- mostly concerning azula, but other characters, too. (again, i don't think that it was a fantastic thing, given the fact that a lot of azula fanwork tends to ignore fundamental aspects of her, but it was there, and it existed.) now what? the fandom is predominantly z*ukka, with lingering remnants from a thriving z*utara fandom.

in general, i don't blame fandom for zuko being a fan-favorite -- he was practically designed that way. dramatic and attractive, with one of the most visible character arcs in the series. for other characters, you actually have to pay attention to see how they learn and change; for zuko, you don't have to pay much attention at all. but exempting him, the two most developed characters are aang and katara, both of whom get glossed over in fandom, particularly 2020 fandom. since katara is the main female, let's look at her.

why is she so disrespected in fandom? i think we can start by examining the largest pairings. the z*utara fandom goes all the way back to the airing of the show itself. it's a genuinely compelling dynamic and i like it, but the fandom repels me deeply... because katara is often forced into a position where she has to perform emotional labor in order to force zuko to redeem himself. her character often loses spark, and she sometimes becomes passive in way that's not canon. not to mention there's a whole subset of z*utara tropes that feels very... colonialist. and being a brown girl, fitting her into these more passive, colonized molds is... uh, not a good look on the fans. but i digress. at least she's there and present.

now flash forward to post-2015, but especially 2020, z*ukka fandom. (this fandom existed prior, but was much more lowkey.) the one thing about a lot of mlm pairings in practically every fandom, is how fans can choose to exclude the females of the narrative. this is in no way a disparagement of gay shipping -- but it is a criticism of how those same shippers behave to other characters. other characters, especially females, become accessories to their main ship, and because of that, they often become flat and unidimensional. furthermore, z*ukka had a rival ship in z*utara, so establishing a sense of superiority comes down to proving that sokka is somehow better than katara in some form or another. and how? she's homophobic, she's whiny, she's a "mom", she's "straight" (???) ... or maybe they call her badass and assign her no other traits. maybe they even pair her off with another person to get her out of the way, so they can focus on their mlm pairing, which they justify as more important because it's "progressive shipping". essentially, unlike z*utara, z*ukka stans can very conveniently throw katara out the window. she doesn't need to be present, and so often times, she isn't.

it's just all part of this continued shafting of brown girls in fandom. the fandom CONSISTENTLY loves to hate katara, specifically because she talks about her trauma so much. (which is justified as hell! she lost her mother and then became a mother to the rest of her village at a young age, and she uses this trauma to help her empathize with others!) zuko's out here monologuing about his trauma, and everyone loves him, but this same love doesn't extend to katara. it's irksome to say in the least. sokka, who's of the same race, gets a lot more attention, and that really says a lot about how gender plays into fan-following, because he isn't quite as developed as she is.

there are other girls in the fandom with notable followings, but honestly it would take forever going through each one of them step by step. azula is the most significant in fandom, and that's partially because her character development is strong and visible in the way that zuko's is. also, people have a tendency towards enjoying more unstable females, but that's its own thing. overall, though, even she has been long outstripped by the fan-following of the main mlm ship in fandom. there's no way to compete with that.

and really, that's all it is. this recent misogyny is very much a result of this almost cultish shift towards one particular ship in fandom, an mlm ship that very obviously allows for the exclusion of female characters. once you become a superfan and enwrapped in this type of cultish shipping, you no longer need canon, you no longer need the rest of the cast, and you no longer need female characters, and so you can just enter into a nice little echo chamber where you talk about the same two characters over and over again and get completely disconnected from the original material. and that sucks, because often times, it's the canon context and the complexity of other characters that provide complexity to these characters you're discussing, and now that you've disconnected, you've warped and flattened the dynamic of everyone including those favorite characters into something very generic and boring. and that's a travesty! but, well, i suppose it’s just another byproduct of misogyny.

#i spent over an hour going off i am so sorry #it's wild how this is like... the tip of the iceberg. i had SO much more #atla #ask #text #mine #fandom wank

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shemakesmusic-uk · 3 years

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Simpson is a Richmond-based singer and rapper who you may also know as Babe Simpson, one-fourth of the Tumblr-born rap collective Barf Troop. They dazed the internet back in the early 2010s with their uncensored, forward-thinking rhymes and aesthetics, and even got the attention of Drake. Though the collective has gone silent in recent years, Simpson has since cultivated her own steady following around her soft, and ruminative tunes. Her latest is 'Cherry Ice Cream Sundae,' a song about "treating ourselves with as much tenderness as we treat everyone else," she says, and is backed by a lush landscape of jazzy guitars and drums — a sound that could be considered a close sibling to the rap lullabies of Noname. Simpson's now sharing the song's peculiar video, which features a charming but eerie cast of marionette puppets. Over email, Simpson explains that she wrote the song after experiencing "a feeling that I’ve always been trying to put into words but I don’t think I was mature enough to be able to sing. I reached my breaking point where I was like, f*ck it, whatever happens, happens, and I’m gonna look on the bright side everywhere I can. I’m going to 'smile because I can.' I actually changed the original opening lyrics from 'The world is in the shitter' to 'Life is kind to who’s kind to it back.' The world has always been in the shitter, but that hasn’t made it any less special or sweet. I think that’s made me much more of a realist. I recorded it tipsy, upside down, hanging off my bed as a freestyle, and it felt so natural saying and listening to it back made me feel so proud." [via NYLON]

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Earlier this week, Lana Del Rey revealed the artwork and tracklist for her new album Chemtrails Over The Country Club. Back in October, Del Rey shared the album’s lead single 'Let Me Love You Like A Woman.' It was the first song she shared from the album after postponing its planned September release. Now, she’s sharing the album’s second single and title track. She’s also announced that Chemtrails Over The Country Club will be out March 19. In a lengthy interview with BBC Radio 1 — during which she talked about the Trump insurrection and her album cover controversy — she mentioned that Jack Antonoff produced much of the album, minus 'Yosemite,' which was produced with Rick Nowels. Watch a music video for the album’s title track, directed by BRTHR, above. In a different kind of statement, prior to the release of the 'Chemtrails Over The Country Club' music video, Del Rey explained why she is wearing a cast in it: "When you see my second video for this album, don’t think that the fact I’m wearing a cast is symbolic for anything other than thinking I was still a pro figure skater. I wiped out on my beautiful skates before the video even began after a long day of figure eights and jumps in the twilight of the dezert. Anyways my fracture isn’t that bad kind of goes with my new bucket hat. Thanks to my beautiful family for my gifts." [via Stereogum]

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Joining forces for the new uplifting track, G Flip and mxmtoon are sharing new empowerment anthem ‘Queen’, produced by Rostam Batmanglij. "'Queen' was written about the strong women around me, the queens that raised me and the queens I’ve met through my years,” G Flip explains. “My idea of a queen is not necessarily linked to gender; queens come in all forms and walks of life. To me a queen embodies power and strength; they embrace all they are fiercely yet gracefully. The song was written one sunny day in LA, I was chillin on Rostam’s lovely white couch and he turned around to me and said ‘how about we write a song about Queens’ and I replied with ‘F@!K yeah!’. I’m also super stoked to have mxmtoon on the track with me, she is an absolute queen. I first was introduced to her when I was trying to find ukulele chords to a Khalid song and found her cover on YouTube years ago. She makes awesome music and her voice has such a cruisy timbre to it so I was thrilled to have her jump on 'Queen' with me. She is also an avid croc lover and part of the LGBTQIA+ community, so obviously it just made sense!” mxmtoon adds, “So happy to be a part of ‘Queen’ with G! she and Rostam were such a joy to work with and so so much fun to collaborate with on creative as well. I’m so glad that it’s still possible to make art and music with someone even when they’re on the other side of the world, and I’m lucky that I got the opportunity to feature on G’s song. ‘Queen’ is a power anthem for any person, and I’m so excited for people to love it as much as we do!” [via DIY]

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With her hotly-anticipated new album Magic Mirror out now, Pearl Charles gave us our latest teaser of what to expect earlier this week, sharing new glitzy bop ‘Only For Tonight’. “‘Only for Tonight’ tells the story of a currently bygone era of wild nights out on the town - the highs and lows of one night stands and the crashes of the morning after,” she explains. “The music video, directed by Bobbi Rich, leans into those excesses, paying a sparkly homage to the late-night musical television shows of the 70’s, from Soul Train to The Midnight Special, as well as the gauzy, Vaseline’d lens of ABBA’s music videos. With an added sprinkling of VHS special effects, you’re likely to feel like you’re watching a home-taped recording of a lost episode of Top of the Pops.” [via DIY]

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Alt-pop trailblazer dodie has shared her new single 'Hate Myself' in full. Everything the songwriter touches seems to turn into melodic gold, with her debut album Build A Problem landing this Spring. Out on March 5, it's led by new single 'Hate Myself', which made its bow as Annie Mac's Hottest Record In The World. It's an apt title, with this instantly-viral moment offering an "inner monologue" that touches on some of dodie's inner-most feelings. The song depicts "someone who seems to find themselves in relationships of any kind with people who deal with their feelings internally - unfortunately resulting in assuming the issue is with them." dodie co-directed the video alongside Sammy Paul, shooting at the Cornish seaside village Polperro. The pair "excitedly landed on the silly idea of the training leading up to becoming a post-lady, and thoroughly enjoyed planning the many bizarre exercises she would have to perfect. Our excellent Art Director, Louis Grant, worked on bringing her home and training station to life. Though jogging on cliff tops in the rain, carrying a large sack and slipping in the mud was certainly cold and exhausting, I think I preferred it to slowly feeling sicker, licking stamps on a swaying boat by the Excel." [via Clash]

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Berlin-based indie five-piece People Club are back with new single and video 'Francine', following on from their last release 'Lay Down Your Weapons', which focused on police brutality. The new single 'Francine' tackles the topics of addiction and lovelessness. In the words of the band: "The song speaks from the voice of a lamenting partner whose lover (Francine) is helplessly addicted to drugs. Francine lost interest in her relationship with the narrator a long time ago. It's a song about commitment and how love can fade away leaving only wickedness behind." Regarding the visuals, the band said "The 'Francine' video is a play on the old idiom of 'being your own worst enemy'. A phrase which quite beautifully captures the inner critic which we know so well, especially during the course of the pandemic - we've had to learn to each give ourselves a break. The video was shot in the depth of the harsh Berlin winter, in the depth of the pandemic." Director Felix Spitta added "I love the band and I love the different personalities. It is always heaps of fun working on creative output together. Riding through Berlin only with bikes and all the film equipment in the freezing cold almost felt like a masochistic idea from Saxon. It's inspiring to be surrounded by so many creative minds.”

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Pale Waves are back with 'Easy', the third single to be shared from their highly-anticipated second album Who Am I?. Lead vocalist Heather Baron-Gracie describes the new track as "a song about how love can change your whole entire perspective on life itself. It’s saying ‘being in love with you is so easy, you finally make sense in my life because nothing did before'." The new single is accompanied by a James Slater-directed video that shows Baron-Gracie performing at a Tim Burton/medieval-style wedding in an abandoned church. Baron-Gracie adds, "I wore a wedding dress throughout and we shot the video in an old abandoned church. I’m really inspired by the gothic medieval aesthetic and at the time I was thinking of the video I was watching a lot of Tim Burton films whose creativity really inspires me." Pale Waves' second album will follow their 2018 debut LP My Mind Makes Noises. Baron-Gracie says of their upcoming album, "For me, music and art is for people not to feel so alone and isolated. I want to be that person my fans look up to and find comfort in." [via the Line Of Best Fit]

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The official video for Zoe Wees’ new single, 'Girls Like Us,' is online now. Like the song, the clip sends a message of togetherness and solidarity to girls around the world who are feeling the pressures of society. Zoe Wees says, “It’s not always good to think about how you look to the rest of the world. It’s much more important to think about how you feel inside. It is not easy to call yourself beautiful but being confident helps you to accept and love yourself.” The 18-year-old Hamburg, Germany-based artist adds, “We’re walking through a world with blinded eyes. At the end of the day, we all go to bed without make-up with the ugliest clothes and wake up with the messiest hair on earth.”

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Julien Baker has shared a new taste of her forthcoming album Little Oblivions by way of a new single ‘Hardline’. Julien says, “A few years ago I started collecting travel ephemera again with a loose idea of making a piece of art with it. I had been touring pretty consistently since 2015 and had been traveling so much that items like plane tickets and hotel keycards didn't have much novelty anymore. So I saved all my travel stuff and made a little collage of a house and a van out of it. I wanted to incorporate it into the record and when we were brainstorming ideas for videos we came across Joe Baughman and really liked his work so we reached out with the idea of making a stop-motion video that had similar aesthetic qualities as the house I built did. I don't know why I have the impulse to write songs or make tiny sculptures out of plane tickets. But here it is anyway: a bunch of things I've collected and carried with me that I've re-organized into a new shape.” The video for ‘Hardline’ was directed by Joe Baughman, who notes: “Man, even after having spent 600 hours immersed in ‘Hardline’ and having listened to it thousands of times, I am still moved by it. It was a fun and ambitious challenge creating something that could accompany such a compelling song. The style of the set design, inspired by a sculpture that Julien created, was especially fun to work in. I loved sifting through magazines, maps, and newspapers from the 60s and 70s and finding the right colors, shapes, and quotes to cover almost every surface in the video.”

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Teenage Joans are staying true to their world and unveiling 'Something About Being Sixteen', a new single that's sure to cement their 2021 as victorious. It's the perfect successor to 'Three Leaf Clover' and a track that makes it two-for-two for Teenage Joans, further capturing the excitement and energy within Cahli and Tahlia as they trade catchy riffs and thriving choruses with the combo of light-heartedness and intimateness that seems to define Teenage Joans' work, and how they're able to look in at themselves (and out at the world around them) through a lens that keeps it fun and digestable. "'Something About Being Sixteen' is undoubtedly Teenage Joans' great take on the classic coming of age rock tune, generally closing our live sets with audiences singing along every time without fail," the duo say on the single. [via Pilerats]

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Kate Hollowell took a risk going by the moniker Number One Popstar when she released her debut single 'Psycho.' However, Hollowell didn’t mind if that choice set her up for failure or not. She goes with the flow. Luckily, that mentality has advanced her even farther. Now, Number One Popstar releases her second single, 'I Hate Running.' New Year’s resolutions are, most of the times, created for the wrong reasons. It’s also no surprise that majority of people’s goals center around exercising and weight loss. 'I Hate Running', however, challenges that mindset, satirizing the toxic nature of exercise industry and diet culture. Hollowell said herself, “The song explores facing the hard, emotional work instead of the physical. I really don’t enjoy running, and I wanted to troll the exercise industry and write an anti-motivational song.” In terms of sound, 'I Hate Running' shares similar vibes to her first single with its classic 80s pop of saturated synths. But, this time, there’s a hint of disco with the zealous psychedelic guitar and electric drums and keys. The interludes consist of a symbolic, robotic, and almost sinister snippet from a workout instructor. It all complements well with Hollowell’s escapist lyrics. Even though the lyrics say otherwise, the track’s sound might just spark that motivation to workout or dance, doing mindful movement that makes us feel good. Exercise should never feel like a punishment, and Number One Popstar is here to remind us. She makes us want to stick it to the exercise industry, proving to it that we will only work out for the right reasons. [via Earmilk]

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Alt-pop riser Chloe Rodgers has shared her new video 'The Algea' in full. The Nottingham based talent sparkled in 2020 in spite of the pervasive gloom, releasing two startling singles. Her third release could be her best yet, with 'The Algea' hitting streaming services just before Christmas. The video captures those mid-winter chills, while providing a platform for Chloe to express herself. Constructed alongside creative director Kate Lomas, it was shot at Newstead Abbey in Nottingham. Chloe comments... "I wanted to use a music box in the video to represent being objectified and getting stuck in the same cycles, as that’s largely what the song is about. I wrote the song when I was 18, but didn’t add the verse at the end about claiming my power back until a couple of years later when I felt a bit stronger. We tried to reflect this in the video too with the Chloe in white sort of protecting the other Chloe of the past." Kate Lomas adds: "This was such a joy to watch come together, the video concept is based around the idea that Chloe is the character in a music box, she’s the performer that’s spinning round on an endless cycle for other people’s entertainment. The video tells the tale of Chloe definitely breaking this cycle and no longer playing this role." [via Clash]

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Jaguar Jonze has announced her ANTIHERO EP will be released on April 16 via Nettwerk Records. With the EP announcement, Deena shares the official music video for her latest single, 'ASTRONAUT,' the follow-up to two previously released videos for 'DEADALIVE' and 'MURDER'. Each of the five music videos for the forthcoming ANTIHERO EP will come together through bold-palette videos that transform into an antihero character “in a cyberpunk, anime, futuristic, graphic, almost sci-fi world,” says Deena. Deena adds, “as ‘ASTRONAUT’ delves into my anxiety, I wanted the film to reflect that in a simple way that helped portray how my anxiety can sometimes manifest - a contradiction between feeling lost in vast spaces and trapped in claustrophobic spaces. I had a specific idea in mind, which meant that I had to undergo stunt training with professionals and learn how to maneuver in a wire harness. Most of the video had to be shot in a single take because of the stunts' nature in safety preparation, time consumption, and impact on the body. I'm still recovering from the bruises, but it was all worth it, and the team was amazing in pulling it all together. I'm proud of this one as it is 3 minutes of my rawest vulnerability, visually interpreted. I'm also finally ready to share it.” 'ASTRONAUT' is the sound of Deena liberating herself from a lifelong battle with anxiety. “It is a human trait. It’s how we survive in the wild,” she says. “We’re all wired as humans to be quite anxious. As females more so, because we’re more susceptible to danger.”

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Rising star Mulay shares the smoking visuals for her new single, ‘Antracyte’. It’s the culminating release in a three-part video series from the Berlin-based alternative R&B singer-songwriter/producer/artist, ahead of her highly anticipated EP, which comes out at the end of the month via Groenland Records. Mulay explains about the single, “'ANTRACYTE' is the intro and title track to my debut EP. It’s the soundtrack to the birth of a villain and captures the moment of complete honesty to yourself about the awareness of doing wrong by the ones you love while feeling the inability to turn around. It’s about the desire to taste forbidden fruits, to cross and explore what lies beyond the line and the self-empowering feeling of playing by your own rules defeating the fear of consequences and the power of moral concepts. 'ANTRACYTE' tells a story of contradicting emotions, a story of love, lust, pain and a longing for more. It’s about facing your own darkness and sins, about self-revelation, emancipation and about paying its price, resigning to your fate.”

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Only a band like shallow pools could make a blast of 'ice water' sound refreshing and necessary in the dead of New England winter. But the Massachusetts indie-pop group is usually pushing against the current of what we’d normally expect, and now the quartet hits us with a dose of cold reality through their new single and video. 'ice water' is a vivid new single that confronts the mental health struggles brought on by quarantine and isolation, and even the shallow pools aesthetic has reflected this by shifting from bright glowing neons to a more subdued color palette of beiges and browns. Call it a sign of the times, and call 'ice water' the sound of now; upbeat and jovial on the surface, a comet of pop smarts and hooks, but with the darker shine that resides in our lives when we’re positioned away from the screens and digital scenes. As Glynnis Brennan sings “Every day’s the same and / There’s no breaking out / Like I’m stuck here / Going through the motions now” well, we feel that. shallow pools describe “ice water” as “a departure from the music we’ve made in the past, but it’s the perfect bridge between our old and new sound.” That is certainly the case, and 'ice water' continues to showcase the group as one of New England’s sharpest, following a string of 2020 singles that included pop standouts like 'Haunted' and 'Afterlight'. “We wrote the song with our friend and producer, Chris Curran, and learned a lot about the type of music we want to be making in the process,” the band adds. “The song is about the impact that the state of the world has had on our mental health, specifically in the last year. We’re excited to share it and hope that anyone who has had similar experiences will find some comfort in knowing that there are others who can relate.” [via Vanyaland]

#videos of the week #simpson #lana del rey #g flip #mxmtoon #pearl charles #dodie #people club #pale waves #zoe wees #julien baker #teenage joans #number one popstar #chloe rodgers #mulay #jaguar jonze #shallow pools

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comrade-meow · 3 years

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Now Jackson is helping to lead LGB Alliance, which she co-founded with Kate Harris, in its fight against the promotion of gender identity policies and their corrosive impact on lesbians’ and gay men’s lives. And LGB Alliance enjoys the support of another of the Gay Liberation Front’s founders, as she revealed to David Bridle.

How did you first hear about the Gay Liberation Front meeting?

I was a student at LSE. I started there in 1969, I was studying maths, and I walked down the corridor and I saw a poster which said: “First meeting of the UK Gay Liberation Front.” It was the most astonishing thing because I had to translate it in my head as to what it might mean. I had heard that “Gay” was a new word for homosexual, and I knew “Liberation” was about freedom and “Front” sounded a bit militant. It sounded very exciting and I thought “I think I want to be on there that sounds right.” I went to this first meeting and there were 19 men there, and just one woman – me – so I was immediately voted on to the steering committee.

What happened in the first meeting?

Aubrey Walter and Bob Mellors had just come back from the United States where they’d been at the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a meeting called by the Black Panther Party. They were real liberationists and it was very clear that this was going to be a revolutionary movement. What was very clear from the beginning was that gay liberation must be aligned with women’s liberation because they wanted to break through the sexist principles that society was based on. That was the theory anyway. At the second meeting there were a few more women.

How did the gay men and lesbian women get on?

I did notice that while a lot of the gay men were very interested in aligning with the women’s movement and breaking through sexist role patterns, there was also a certain amount of misogyny among some of the gay men. I can remember thinking it’s going to be difficult for men and women to work together. I was among the minority of lesbians who decided to work within gay liberation; most lesbians worked within women’s liberation because of feeling more in common with other women’s issues. The fact of lesbians being doubly oppressed both as women and as homosexuals is just a really important part of understanding what it means to be a lesbian. Some men really get that – and some men really don’t.

What was the first Gay Liberation Front demonstration?

We organised our first demo in November 1970 at Highbury Fields and that was just astonishing. We’re demonstrating and there’s crowds lining the street looking at us in disgust. It really is quite something to be walking down the street and to see these people looking at you with revulsion in their faces. You stand taller because you think we’re together and we’re out. Our main message was “Come out of the closet”, show the world there’s lots and lots of gays and lesbians – and your ideas about them are all wrong. I was the spokesperson for the demonstration and my telephone was the number for Gay Liberation Front. I spoke to the reporter at The Times and I said “It is important to know that we are not ashamed to be homosexual”. For years I thought what a very mild and rather timid thing to have said.

Bev Jackson spoke to The Times: “It is important to know that we are not ashamed to be homosexual”

How do you feel about that now in 2021?

I look back now and I think – God, we have to say the same thing again – that is insane! What on earth has happened? That’s what drives us, the idea that our legacy has been trashed. They’re making homosexual into a dirty word and even trying to avoid saying “gay” and “lesbian”. We’re not a string of letters. It’s absolutely fine to be attracted to people of the same sex. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. The idea that people are reintroducing the notion of shame into same-sex sexual orientation is quite appalling.

What was your most important experience growing up?

When I was 11 years old I went to a new school and I really wanted to make friends but I was Jewish in a very anti-Semitic neighbourhood. We had this teacher who kept making anti-Semitic remarks and then at one point she looked around and said “I suppose nobody here is Jewish?” And the whole class burst out laughing. They thought that was such a hilarious idea that anybody in the class could be Jewish – and I put my hand up. I said, “Please Miss, I have some Jewish relations” – in fact I’m totally Jewish – and then I had to go to the toilet and throw up. Later my class teacher found out and she said if anybody made any anti-Semitic remarks again, I should tell her and she’d kick them down the stairs. So it wasn’t the case that everybody was anti-Semitic. Having found myself able to speak out at that time, feeling the terror of being alone, but also the need to say the truth, that’s been the most important moment of my life. It made me strong. It enabled me to come out as a lesbian in a very hostile homophobic environment when I was 16 and it’s enabled me now to stand up against the forces in the wider LGBTQIA+ movement as someone who is critical of the whole concept of gender identity.

Was there a point – prior to the formation of LGB Alliance – when you personally followed the issues around gender identity and their impact on same-sex attraction?

In 2015 I was mostly involved with refugee rights. I worked with refugees on the island of Lesbos and I wrote a book about it. I was only vaguely aware of what was going on in terms of the LGB rights movement. I remember at Christmas 2016 expressing my views about children thinking there was something wrong with their bodies, and changing their bodies, and being critical of this. I discovered that this was seen as quite a reactionary view and I thought that was odd. It didn’t seem reactionary to me. So I started researching it and the more I researched it the more worried I became. What was happening that young lesbians were no longer welcome in the LGBT rights movement? It just didn’t seem possible and I thought people must be exaggerating. I researched it more and more, and then came that moment in 2018 when Angela Wild went to the front of the Pride march with her “Get the L Out” group, and I thought “what is she doing?” I soon realised that this action had actually been quite necessary because it attracted attention and focused people’s minds.

You wrote to Ruth Hunt who was then in charge of Stonewall?

I wrote her a very long letter with all my concerns about young lesbians having nowhere to meet, not being able to call themselves lesbians any more, about the way in which people were encouraging children to think that they might be born in the wrong body and a whole range of other concerns that really worried me. She didn’t write back. She ignored my concerns. Eventually I published the whole letter on Twitter because I wasn’t going to get a response. I also wrote to other people at Stonewall saying, “Can we talk please? I’m one of the founding members of the Gay Liberation Front and I’m concerned.”

What happened to Stonewall in the years prior?

What happened is in 2015 Ruth Hunt decided to add the T to LGB. It was basically following what had happened in the United States. In the US it had been LGBT much longer than that and there was pressure on her to do the same. Since the T has been added to Stonewall the whole ethos has changed. The emphasis is now all on gender identity. The issue is presented as if it’s about trans rights, but it isn’t really. I don’t know what a middle-aged man who’s got several children and then decides he’s a woman has in common with a 14-year-old girl who is feeling distressed for various reasons and feels that she must be a boy. It’s very difficult to see that those two people can come under the same heading. According to Stonewall’s website, “trans” includes crossdressers or people who are male part of the week and female another part, and people who are non-binary – and it’s not clear what that means either. None of these words are defined and therefore you don’t know what you’re talking about half the time. Laws are based on facts and it’s really important to define the words that are used. The shocking thing that’s happened at Stonewall, and at all LGBTQ+ organisations, is that the word “sex” has been replaced by “gender”. This is not a small thing. Instead of “same-sex attraction” they now talk about “same-gender attraction”.

Here’s this young lesbian standing up against this clinic and on the other side you’ve got Stonewall opposing her. How is this possible and why are people not seeing that Stonewall has stopped supporting gay and lesbian rights and is instead promoting gender ideology or whatever you want to call it?

What do people like Stonewall think gender means?

A lot of the gender identity campaign is about changing the meanings of words or making words slippery. So you don’t quite know what you’re talking about. Gender is one of the worst examples. As soon as they try to explain it they end up with stereotypes. There isn’t any other way to do it. What can it possibly mean? Is there some sort of girly essence that can live inside a male body? That is just the most sexist thing I’ve ever heard. It’s not progressive. It’s awful. It seems to me that this whole idea of gender identity has been stuck in between reality – which is the sex of your body, you’re male or female – and the imagination, the feelings you might have, as a sort of intermediate thing. It’s kind of loosening people’s grip on reality. Look: you can be a lovely gentle male and you can wear dresses and you can call yourself Lilian and it’s absolutely fine. But you’re still a male and you can imagine you might be all sorts of things, but you’re still a male. And with girls what’s going on is really unfortunate, a kind of way to escape from being a woman because it’s not very easy to be a girl growing up.

Can you talk about the Keira Bell case?

Most astonishingly perhaps you’ve got Stonewall opposing Keira Bell, this young lesbian who sued the Tavistock GIDS Clinic for not giving her the care she had needed. Instead she was given puberty blockers and had her breasts removed and she now knows it was all a mistake. She won her case. The judges used the word “surprised” I think five times in the judgment because they were astonished that the clinic doesn’t keep proper records, doesn’t know the proportion of child patients who are on the autistic spectrum, doesn’t follow up patients after treatment, doesn’t keep notes on consent, doesn’t have evidence for the treatment. Here’s this young lesbian standing up against this clinic and on the other side you’ve got Stonewall opposing her. How is this possible and why are people not seeing that Stonewall has stopped supporting gay and lesbian rights and is instead promoting gender ideology or whatever you want to call it?

How was the inaugural meeting of LGB Alliance set up?

I was asked to take part in a commemoration in the run-up to 50 years of the Gay Liberation Front that was going to take place at LSE on 22nd October 2019. They sent me a train ticket and I was going to take part in the panel. Around the same time, I met Kate Harris. She had published a petition, together with Johnny Best, calling on Stonewall to enter into dialogue about the course it had taken. They refused to do so even though a massive 10,000 people had signed the petition. Then the LSE meeting was cancelled, but I already had my train ticket. So I said to Kate “why don’t we just have our own meeting on that day, and start something new?” We went looking for people who were expressing similar ideas and invited each one separately. We decided to have the meeting at Conway Hall because it had a history of involvement with social movements. We knew that if news got out there would be tremendous antagonism, maybe aggression, and so we hired four security officers just in case. But everyone kept the secret. Not one of the 70 people we invited gave away the meeting at which we formed LGB Alliance.

I was contacted just a few days ago, for the first time in half a century, by Aubrey Walter, one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front in the UK, who edited a book about the early years entitled Come Together and now lives in Spain. He wrote to express his support for LGB Alliance. When I asked him to provide a comment for this article he wrote this: “What is our movement about if not same-sex love? Good to see LGB Alliance standing up for this principle against false gender ideologies.”

What would you like the Conservative Government to do?

We were very pleased that the government decided not to go through with gender self-ID. That would have severely undermined the rights of women and gay and lesbian people. The argument is always cast in terms of trans rights. It’s not about trans rights. Of course trans people have rights under the law and we fully support those rights. The argument is really about gender identity. We’re also extremely glad that the Department for Education issued new guidance saying that relationships and sex education has to be based on evidence – on facts – and schools should not be working with external groups that teach children that if they don’t fit into old-fashioned stereotypes they might have been “born in the wrong body”. We are paying attention to see that schools actually keep to the new guidance, however. Then there is the matter of single-sex spaces – in prisons, rape shelters etc. Single-sex spaces are guaranteed in the Equality Act but they are being misinterpreted. We do wish the government had gone further and cleared up these misunderstandings and also clarified that for a woman to request a female doctor is a perfectly lawful and reasonable request – and a woman, of course, is an adult human female.

Has LGB Alliance ever been invited to meet Stonewall, Pride in London or Mermaids?

No, and all our invitations are just ignored or declined. We did of course write to Nancy Kelley [CEO of Stonewall] when she was appointed to congratulate her and to invite her to meet us, but no.

LGB Alliance is often accused of being a “hate group”. Why has this stuck and is there nothing you can do to counter it?

Anybody who actually listens to us, reads what we write and watches our webinars gradually realises that it isn’t true. But it’s a very clever tactic. If you’ve got no arguments, what do you do? People have a right to their own beliefs but they don’t have a right to impose those beliefs on the rest of us – but in order to shut us up, all they have is insults. We certainly don’t hate anybody and more and more trans people are coming over to our side because they see that actually they’re really suffering from all this. They’re being drawn into this really nasty atmosphere which is not about trans rights. It’s about imposing a belief system that some people have on the whole of society. “No debate” and “you’re hateful” is all they’ve got. They have to stop us talking.

Gay men and lesbians need spaces of their own and they have a right to spaces of their own – and that we have to say this now in 2021 is an absolute outrage. We could really lose a lot here if we don’t stand together and fight against this madness.

Looking back on yourself going to that first meeting of the Gay Liberation Front in 1970 and now fighting for lesbian and gay rights all over again, how does it feel?

I feel I have a duty to expose this monstrous Injustice for what it is. Most of the people who oppose us and who call us a hate group, I think they’re probably very well-meaning. They’ve been misinformed. They listen to people who they trust and they say “that LGB Alliance, it leaves out the ‘T’. That sounds mean, it must be a hate group.” Since the Keira Bell case we’re getting some light now. People are starting to realise that something terrible is happening to kids who would in most cases be lesbian and gay if they grow up – that they are being persuaded that they need medication, and maybe surgery. How could anybody think that’s a progressive thing?

The Gay Liberation Front demands in 1970

What about single-sex spaces for lesbians and gay men?

We get messages all the time from young lesbians who are excluded from LGBT clubs because they say they’re not interested in people with penises. “Oh you’re transphobic!” they’re told. Where are they supposed to go? Why are there no places for lesbians any more? It affects gay men too. A very sad group of gay men who had their own reading club contacted us. They had run this group for years and are now being told they can’t have it anymore. They have to have trans men in there because otherwise they’re not being inclusive. They’re just totally baffled. Why are gay rights and lesbian rights going backwards? How dare anybody call this progressive! Gay men and lesbians need spaces of their own and they have a right to spaces of their own – and that we have to say this now in 2021 is an absolute outrage. We could really lose a lot here if we don’t stand together and fight against this madness.

What is your message to the people who once marched with you in the Gay Liberation Front but now attack you?

I would say that some of those who marched with us then see us, as the veteran gay rights campaigner Fred Sargeant sees us, as reviving the spirit of gay liberation. In fact quite by coincidence I was contacted just a few days ago, for the first time in half a century, by Aubrey Walter, one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front in the UK, who edited a book about the early years entitled Come Together and now lives in Spain. He wrote to express his support for LGB Alliance. When I asked him to provide a comment for this article he wrote this: “What is our movement about if not same-sex love? Good to see LGB Alliance standing up for this principle against false gender ideologies.” – Aubrey Walter, co-founder of the London Gay Liberation Front, 1970.

What are LGB Alliance’s plans for the future?

Reviving LGB rights everywhere. There are now 15 LGB groups set up along the same lines as ours, from Brazil to Australia, from Canada to Poland. Our aim: global revolution!

For more information about LGB Alliance go to: https://lgballiance.org.uk

#Anglo.txt

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larryfanficwriter98 · 4 years

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Chapter Eight

Harry woke up the next morning drowsy and exhausted, but he grinned when he saw Louis still fast asleep beside him. Yesterday Louis and his friends had been in the pit at the show and after the show, they had hung out in the park then went back to Harry's and hung out. They got to know each other in person without a phone screen in the way. Around 10 they had all retired and not wanting to get made fun of or teased he took up big spoon rope since he was bigger than Louis. He was broader and taller so it meant Harry was the big spoon. Just like he had been with his ex a few years back. Harry looked at Louis, studied his sleeping features, and couldn't believe someone so cute and small had such a big personality. He also could remember his softer more childish features from years ago when they were teenagers.

He could still remember the way his whole body stopped working when he saw Louis. He had been 14, almost 15, and had just come out to his family a few days prior. Then there he was kissing and snogging for the first time with Louis in a closed-off hall after obviously flirting and staring on both sides. It was a perfect kiss too just like yesterday’s, well except it was a lot more awkward since Harry was 14 and never kissed anyone. No wonder Harry felt an instant connection to Louis, they felt an instant connection to each other. They had met so many times prior that Harry would believe in soulmates at this point.

Harry climbed out of bed after kissing Louis' cheek then walked into his closet. He grabbed some clothes for the day then headed to the bathroom to start his morning routine. Afterward, he headed downstairs and started on breakfast hoping he had his heart-shaped waffle iron here and didn't take it somewhere else. Finding it under his many many skillets he plugged it in then got to work on the waffle mix. Minutes later he was flipping the waffle iron to start the cooking when he felt arms wrap around his waist from behind and he grinned.

"Good morning Lou." Louis hummed as Harry turned in his arms and wrapped his arm around Louis' shoulders.

"I feel exhausted even though we slept for like...10 hours."

"That's the jet leg hitting you. You just need a bit of breakfast, some fresh air, and something to do to distract yourself from it. It'll go away in a few hours. Probably around 12."

"Damn and here I thought we missed the jet leg when we took a flight that would let us sleep to get adjusted to the time zone change."

"You beat the worst of it. That's always the best way to travel so you're able to sleep and wake up to the city's morning. I'm surprised you guys thought of it."

"Liam, Niall, and Zayn planned it." Louis told him as he sat on the countertop as Harry went to go get the bacon from the fridge.

"So what do you want to do today? There's Universal, Disney, a zoo, an aquarium, museums, there are a few beaches not far from Orlando. Or we can just stay here, I have an indoor and outdoor pool, a game room, tons of movies with a movie room in the basement. Tampa is only an hour and a half drive as well. How do you want to spend our first Valentine's day together?"

"How about we just explore the town and see what we find to do. You can take me to the places you go to when you're here."

"I actually don't stay in Orlando that much unless I have shows here. I bought the house when I was 19 and was dating my ex. We went to Universal a lot together so much so that he convinced me it was a good idea to buy a house here. Of course, now I know it was because he needed somewhere to cheat on me that wasn't my LA home. For obvious reasons. If I wasn't in Manchester then I was in LA and he lived in LA so I stayed there a lot. Whenever he came to visit family or cheat I went home to visit my family."

"He made you buy a home in Orlando so he could cheat on you?" Louis asked

"Well, his reasoning was because we went to Universal so much because he liked it but yeah it was also to cheat."

"Did he tell you he cheated when you broke up?"

"No, actually I found out when I came to Orlando and walked inside my room to see him fucking a girl in my bed. I knew he was bisexual, but his reasoning was because I wasn't having sex with him even though we had been together for quite a long time actually. Also since it wasn't a guy he wasn't technically cheating."

"Please tell me you dumped him after that."

"Actually no. I stayed with him for another six months and in those six months I had been guilt tripped each time he was hard into giving him a hand or blow job. I broke up with him when he tried to talk me into having sex with him before I was ready. He had been pushing it for a month and this particular time he just wasn't taking no for an answer. I realized what he was doing. I told him to grab his stuff and leave." Harry told Louis who stared at him

"Who stayed with someone who cheated on you then was manipulated and talked into performing sexual acts because he didn't want to wank in a shower? What a dick head. I am- if someone has ever done that to one of my sisters I'd have murdered him. If he still alive because your sister is scary."

"She doesn't know what happened. Well, she knows it was because I wouldn't have sex with him, but not everything." Louis wrapped his arms and legs around Harry and pulled him in close to his body, Harry's hands falling to his hips smiling at him.

"Well just know that he was an asshole and a selfish prick and I never want you to feel obligated to do anything you don't want to. Because trust me I get hard pretty easily, but that doesn't mean I am going to pressure you in any way. I forced myself my first time, I wanted to get over with and I regretted it minutes later. I wasn't ready but I was 18 and I had convinced myself and forced myself to go through with it when I was drunk at the pub. It was in a dirty dingy bathroom with spit, water, and precum as lube, and never again will I trust a guy who said 'Relax I got this' with his hands down my pants. My dick and ass were sore for days because of the dryness. So trust me when I say if you ever feel ready with me I will be sure to make it very very special and memorable and you will be the most comfortable person ever. No matter what position we take."

"First..ew...that just sounds gross and horrible. If you ever spit on me I will sue you. I don't care what the reason is if you dare spit on me I will sue you. Do you understand." Louis laughed as he nodded, "Good. Secondly, I trust you and am comfortable with you more than I have been with anyone. I, unfortunately, came into fame as a virgin, and also my first boyfriend was a manipulative verbally abusive ass. So it's harder to trust anyone, believe me, there have been times when I've wanted to just get it over with too, but you don't know who to trust anymore. The media offers people money for a story, even if it's not true. I trust you though. I've always felt you to be trustworthy and honest. I'm not worried about you going off to any media outlet that offers you money, which is why I refused to make you sign an NDA when my lawyer and label wanted you to when we started face timing."

"I can sign an NDA-"

"No. I trust you. Besides if you were going to say anything you'd have done it by now. You have enough information to make a few million."

"Really? I don't have that much that isn't exactly common knowledge." Louis said

"You have enough." Harry said with a shrug as he moved to out a skillet on the stove to start the bacon as the waffle maker timer went off.

"Want my help?"

"Please tell him no. We would like it to be edible." Liam said as he and Zayn walked into the room with Niall following only moments later

"I got it. Go sit with your friends then after breakfast we'll leave for town. We'll explore together."

"Sounds good." Louis said, leaning over to press a kiss to Harry's cheek before jumping down and sitting on a stool, "So what are you lads doing today?" Louis asked his mates

"Us three have a taxi coming in an hour so it can take us to a car rental since it was closed yesterday when we landed." Zayn said

"I have three cars in the garage you can drive. A 2013 Audi S8, a 2011 Mercedes SLK, and a 2011 range rover. Then my car that I'll be taking today is a 2015 Audi A5. My newer car that I bought for my 21st birthday."

"Are you sure you want them to drive? They're not the best-"

"Excuse you. Who has an accident here and who doesn't?" Liam said looking st Louis

"An accident that wasn't my fault. He hit me when I was parked."

"Still an accident." Liam said

"I'll put you guys on my insurance for the week, it's not that big of a deal. If anything happens it's not like I can't afford it. I hardly drive them anyway. I drive my new Audi and my new Range Rover all the time. I've sold most of my other ones and I've been meaning to sell these three. I just keep forgetting about them. The keys are up on the key hanger in the front entrance." Harry said with a shrug

"Are you sure?" Niall asked

"I'm positive. Rental cars are a pain in the ass don't even bother. They require so much and for international travelers like you guys it could take hours before you're approved. So just take one of mine."

~~~

After a wonderful breakfast of heart-shaped waffles and bacon for everyone Louis took a shower and got dressed in black skinnies and one of his graphic tees the boys gave him over the years. It has a graphic of a vanilla cone and on the shirt, it read "vanilla is for ice cream". Louis loved this shirt and didn't think much of it as he pulled it on then headed downstairs. The front door was opened and when Louis stepped outside he saw the garage was opened. He headed inside and saw all four shiny cars well taken care of and all of his mates in one of the three cars mentioned while Harry leaned against an Audi.

"Niall is going out on his own so he isn't third-wheeling anyone so I'm letting him pick the car first much to Zayn's disappointment."

"Niall can come with us."

"I offered, but I think he just wants to explore on his own. Is he ever away from you three?"

"Not really. Zayn and Liam have monthly date nights and they've been busy planning their wedding. So it's been very coupley at the house."

"The wedding is what..three months away now?"

"Yeah. May 14 to be exact. You're invited by the way, as my plus one if you want to come."

"They told me I was invited, they actually asked if I would sing their first dance song for them then I told them I can ask Ed himself to do it and they got excited. So remind me to call Ed in a few hours, I want to get him before he goes to sleep as it's only 5 in London."

"Sure so about 3?"

"Yeah, about 3 or 4. Around the time we end our exploration and go to the shops to get groceries for our romantic dinner tonight."

"Sounds good."

"Well, are we ready to go? The lad knows to lock up before they leave, they have the codes for the security box outside, and they have a house key. Also, they each have mine and my security team's number should they need anything. As well as copies of insurance cards."

"Already?"

"Paper temporary ones. You have one too in my glove box but figured since I'll be driving for now you won't need it right away."

"Then yeah I'm if you're ready." Harry pushed off from the car and opened the passenger side door letting Louis into the car before closing it once Louis was settled in the seat.

#Larry Stylinson #larry fanfiction #larry fic #work in progress #New Chapter #archive of our own #Wattpad

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fiction-in-my-blood · 3 years

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Switching Sides: Part 13 (HLITF)

if anyone possibly wants to get on a tag list I’d be happy to make one

👉 @theshove 👈

If you wanna catch up, Part 12 is right here! Happy reading :)

Premise: Growing up in a life of crime in a Japanese mafia, Atsuko Motomori has seen enough injustice to last her a lifetime. To try and give back to the universe her family has taken so much from, she dreams of being a detective from a young age. Her twin, sharing her disgust for her father and many uncles, just wants an ordinary life away from the crime, paing and suffering. Instead, she wants to be in the spotlight with the soft notes she makes with her cello. In their escape of 2015, on their coming of age birthday, they must split ways, never to be together ever again. If one was found, they didn’t want the other dragged down with them. Atsuko, having changed her name and appearance as best she can without a scalpel, sets off to start her life of car chases and arrests.

Four years in a seemingly dead-end police station in the middle of nowhere, being passed over time after time for promotion, Atsuko finally gets a shot at her dream, having been sent to an academy for the best candidates in the country by her boss who had always kept an eye out for her. After discovering her boss may have made her bite off more than she could chew, Atsuko must become the slave of a dominating instructor!? Who so just happens to be the captain of the most famous police unit in Japan? Not to mention a total knockout! Will Atsuko finally achieve her dream? Or will her new instructor put her through the wringer?

Warnings: Language, Reference to sexual activity, Forceful nature, Abuse, Kidnapping, Torture.

~~~~~~

A week and a half had passed since I awoke in the hospital. My recovery was slow, painstakingly so, and I found my thoughts trailing back to every painful memory I had. But, no matter how scared and depressed I got, Kaga would always somehow show up, explaining he had more questions for me, and I would be able to slowly explain to him the same story I had been repeating for days at that point. It was almost comforting and with the silent stare he showed me every time I was able to complete the tale, I felt myself connecting with reality a little bit more. It showed me, reporting to him, that I had lived through it.

~~~~~~

"He's being sentenced today," Juna announced as she sat on the couch in my room, eating some noodles she had bought on the way over. We both stared out the window, the sky raining down hard pellets on the city below. It was a soothing sound to fill the silence that followed her announcement.

"What... What if he doesn't get imprisoned?" I couldn't help my imagination get the better of me. What if he was set free when all the evidence magically disappeared? What if the defence was able to create enough reasonable doubt for the jury to deem him innocent? What if he didn't get a long enough sentence?

I had filmed a video of my witness statement for the courts several days ago, and that was traumatic enough. If I had to do it again in an appeal the defence made up to weaken the case, I wouldn't be able to go up in front of the world and tell my story. I couldn't share with them all my years of weakness as I allowed myself to be abused by the man who was meant to protect me.

"He's going to be put away, Katsu. Don't even put that into the universe." A displeased expression flew over Juna's face as she turned to me, cringing even at how I could think of that happening. I knew it was irrational. The case was solid. There was no way for him to snake out of this one. But, still... I couldn't help but worry.

"Oh!" Juna suddenly gasped, placing a hand on her bursting belly. She was a matter months away from the due date, so the gasp in surprised caused fear of a miscarriage to circulate my brain. I called out, questioning her what was wrong as I lifted the sheets off my legs. She laughed, jumping up and pushing me back on the bed before I could even rest my covered feet on the cold floor. I was only allowed one assisted lap around the hospital floor a day, and I had already used that token up.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Here." She smiled, taking my hand and placing it where her's had previously been. There, I felt a pressure poking from her belly and recoiled in uneasy disgust. She laughed at my childish reaction to her baby kicking and went to sit down again.

Biting the tip of my thumb, the reality of her birthing a child of her own hit me again. At least, for this one, they might not have to worry as much as we did growing up. They would still be hidden from the world, hidden from what remained of my father's mob, but maybe they would have some freedom to be happy and childish for longer than we did.

"That smells really good." I sighed, trying to distract myself from those lingering thoughts, referring to her takeout food. It felt like years since I had swallowed something solid. My stomach felt empty most of the time, but thanks to the IVs, I never felt truly hungry. Just a little uncomfortable.

Juna laughed at me, explaining that she knew I wasn't really allowed solids yet. "I had pudding yesterday! Come on, just a noodle." I pointed one finger up to show how little I needed. My jaw almost felt weak; not using it for so long. She laughed again, picking up a strand between two fingers and dropping it into her mouth teasingly.

The more we talked and she teased me, the more relaxed I became. It was only when she left did I ever let my thoughts return. Let them consume me the way they did. As she told me what romantic thing Kanto had done this morning, a knock came to my door. We both turned and my eyes grew at who stood there.

For a moment, I saw the man that fed me when I was in captivity. He smiled, holding a bag of candies in one hand, showing it to me like it was a prize. I yelled, screaming as I jumped out of my bed and pushed myself to the back corner.

"No! Go away!" I cried out, him watching my reaction made his expression fall.

"Katsu! Katsumi, calm down! It's just Noburu." Juna ran to me from the other side of the bed and held my shoulders to try and stop my kicking. Tears streamed down my face as I begged for the man to leave. I didn't want the kindness he showed me, I was so sure it was what made me feel the true extent of the pain I felt.

Soon enough, nurses came rushing in, pushing passed the man that stayed in the doorway, face blank with shock. When they couldn't calm me down, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder and my consciousness quickly faded.

~~~~~~

"This is the worst day she's had so far." Katsumi's doctor told the man and woman that stayed in her room as she slept in the bed. After her breakdown, the surgeon was called to help explain why she had reacted so vividly and check up on her condition. Luckily, she hadn't ripped a stitch from her surgery.

"But she knew Noburu before it happened. Why would she think he was one of her captors? She hasn't seen him in weeks!" Juna fretted, sympathetic worry spreading across her face as the bartender looked at the sleeping beauty guiltily.

"I don't know, but you can't come again. Not until she's healed. She still has weeks of rehab ahead of her." The doctor turned to the young man and he nodded solemnly.

"Surely she'd learn to remember what Noburu really looks like?" Feeling sorry for the man she knew loved her sister, Juna pleaded his case.

"It's too risky when she's still in this vulnerable stage. When she can fall asleep unaided and have a peaceful night, then you can try. I'm sorry, but you need to leave." Doctor shaking his head, Noburu left, leaving the treats he knew Katsumi would have loved on the table at the end of her bed.

~~~~~~

"What's this?" Instructor Kaga asked as I laid in my bed, staring intensely out the window. When I was sleeping, I had another dream about my captors, but this one seemed so surreal, it had really shaken me up. I hadn't talked to any of the nurses and my mood, not to mention my mental stability, was completely at rock bottom.

"Juna left it for me. You can have it, I'm not allowed to eat." I groaned, shuffling onto my back and sitting up to see Kaga already sifting through it. From what I suspected, he had come to tell me the result of my father's hearing, but all he had done so far was steal my-get-well-soon presents.

Sitting in silence, I bit the tip of my thumb to distract the nerves in my stomach. Kaga seemed very content with chewing on the soft sugary treat gifted to me.

"Will you tell me already?" I called out, throwing my fists into my mattress in irritation. Kaga looked at me with a raised brow, his demeaningly concerned look replaced on his face. "My father's trial. You came to tell me what happened, right?" I asked again, needing to know. The anticipation was too much.

"I don't know yet," Kaga grumbled and returned to the squishy cake in between his fingers. I frowned, crossing my arms and turning to look out the window again. It was still raining, even though a day had passed since I was last awake.

The silence was almost too much to bear, so, with a desperate need to cover my thoughts, I grabbed the remote controller on the table beside my bed and pointed it to the radio on the counter across the room. Classical music with a leading group of strings burst from it and I closed my eyes as I tried to drown out my thoughts and every sensory memory I had of weeks prior.

Suddenly, the volume decreased significantly and my gaze shot open to see Kaga standing beside it.

"Are you 90?" He frowned, throwing the pink packaging of the cake in the trash can by the door as he returned to the couch.

"It's my sister's. She helps me calm down." I sighed, turning it up again, although keeping it lower than before as it seemed to annoy him so much. Then, Kaga sprung up again, approaching my bed.

"You won't be able to recover if you just block it out." He placed a hand on the bar above my head and the other on the guarded rail on my bed, leaning in close so all my senses were enveloped by him. His smoke and cologne scent. His face was all I could see. His words repeated over and over again in my head. The warmth of his chest emitting onto my slightly cooler body. My eyes grew wide and I felt my heart stop due to the proximity.

"You need to learn to deal with that if you want to return to the academy." His voice was low and the comment made my head jerk in surprise. He thought I was going to return to my old life? After all the trouble I caused?

"There's no chance I can get back in. My entire resume is fake, let alone my application. I thought I was going to get kicked if I didn't work for you." I frowned my brows, saddened to have to admit I would never be able to complete my dream. Looking down, I found the arm he had encompassed over me. Running my gaze down to his hand, I noticed his knuckles white with pressure.

Before Kaga could retort, a small voice came from the doorway. "Instructor, I have the files you asked for."

Watching Kaga draw back, my eyes locked with a girl I once had a close connection with. She looked tired, a little worse for wear, but most of all, she was teary-eyed.

"Naruko," I uttered under my breath, honestly shocked to see her here. She just stood there, holding onto a beige folder. Kaga stormed over, snatching it from her.

"You're late." He grumbled, taking it and reading through it. I gulped when Naruko's gaze didn't fall from mine.

"Would you come here already? I can't exactly get up." I smiled through blurry vision, trying to reconnect with the girl I left behind. Her shoulder slumped and she ran towards me, wrapping her arms around my neck.

"What the hell, Atsuko! I thought you were dead! I mean, you were dead! How could you betray me?" She shouted in my ear the name she knew me by, tears flying down her face and onto my shoulder. I bit my lip guiltily.

"I'm sorry but... How did I betray you?" I laughed when she pulled back and showed me an out of character frown.

"You said we would graduate together! Why did you leave?" She frowned and my breathing stopped. The happiness I nurtured from seeing her slowly died as I was reminded once again of what I couldn't accomplish.

"He's got life." Kaga suddenly announced, drawing both of our attention towards him. He still had his gaze in the folder, but I knew what he was talking about. My father... He's going to die in prison?

"What?" I asked, feeling Naruko's confusion as she was pushed further into the unknown of my situation. Even though I had an idea of what he was on about, I wanted to make sure. I wanted to make sure I wasn't being hopeful.

"He's got 100 years in jail for ratting some of his partners. He’ll probably be dead by the time that’s up." Kaga seemed hesitant at first but still told me. I gripped the sheets by my leg and reached for my phone on the table.

"You, go back to the academy." Kaga shot a glare at Naruko and she quickly followed his order by running to the door. Before she left, she passed me a meaningful smile and closed the door behind her.

"You're going to recover and you're returning to work," Kaga announced once he was sure Naruko was gone as I stared at my phone, desperately trying to make sense of the clusters of blur in front of me. My vision still hadn't corrected, but I was growing a sense of understanding when I could see the characters. It was so frustrating, trying to see when I knew couldn't. No matter how hard I squinted or how sternly I stared at the object, I couldn't make sense of anything. I couldn't even see my sister's face when she hugged me. I couldn't see myself in the mirror. Just a blur of skin and the white of my hospital gown.

"I can't! How am I supposed to be a detective when I can't even stop this from happening?" I shouted, suddenly enraged by how poor my eyesight had gotten, throwing my phone into the wall of my hospital room to dismiss my problems. It fell into reconnectable pieces at the force.

"I became a cop to protect us, but I failed at that. Juna got kidnapped and I put her baby in danger. All I did at the academy was make mistake after mistake. My recklessness put complete strangers in danger! A boy almost lost his mom! How can I work when whatever I do gets people hurt?" I shouted, tears spilling from my eyes when I didn't care who heard me. I was angry and sad and broken and I just wanted to cry.

Suddenly, I felt arms around me. My head was pulled against a soft, hard surface and I felt a warm breath on my hair. My eyes widened when I realised Kaga was holding me, trying to calm me down.

"You're always so damn loud." I heard him mutter as more tears spilt from my eyes. I clutched the arm around my front for support, needing to know that I wasn't in that room. I needed to know this was reality because lately, I've been having trouble differentiating.

“Just shut up for a minute and remember where you are. Forget the past. It won’t do you any good.”

At some point during my pathetic weeping, with the little sleep I had been getting, I slipped into unaided unconsciousness, something else I’d been struggling with since I was saved.

#HLITF #hlitf ayumu #hlitf kaga #hlitf goto #hlitf ishigami #hlitf soma #hlitf shinonome #hlitf fanfic #voltage games #voltage fanfic #oc #ooc #her love in the force #crime #mafia #mob #police #detective

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

House Sets Impeachment Vote to Charge Trump With Incitement (NYT) House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump on Monday for his role in inflaming a mob that attacked the Capitol, scheduling a Wednesday vote to charge the president with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” if Vice President Mike Pence refused to strip him of power first. As the impeachment drive proceeded, federal law enforcement authorities accelerated efforts to fortify the Capitol ahead of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The authorities announced plans to deploy up to 15,000 National Guard troops and set up a multilayered buffer zone with checkpoints around the building by Wednesday, just as lawmakers are to debate and vote on impeaching Mr. Trump. Federal authorities also said they were bracing for a wave of armed protests in all 50 state capitals and Washington in the days leading up to the inauguration.

National Guard inauguration deployment (Military Times) The Defense Department has authorized as many as 15,000 troops to be deployed to Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. National Guard Bureau chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson said that there will initially be a deployment of 10,000 troops—an increase of about 4,000 from those in D.C. now. That figure is twice the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. The general declined to specify whether the guardsmen will be armed, stating that “we will work very closely with the federal agency, the FBI and law enforcement to determine if there is a need for that.” A D.C. National Guard spokesman told Military Times on Sunday that while some troops came to town with their weapons, carrying them on the streets had not yet been authorized.

Companies cutting off Trump and GOP (Yahoo Finance) Marriott and Blue Cross Blue Shield are just a few of the companies that are halting donations to GOP lawmakers who objected to certifying Joe Biden as president, while other businesses move to cut ties with President Trump directly. The actions come on the heels of Friday’s permanent suspension of Donald Trump’s Twitter account and Amazon’s move to cut off social media platform Parler’s servers. (NYT) The backlash is part of a broader shunning of Mr. Trump and his allies unfolding in the wake of the assault on the Capitol. Schools stripped the president of honorary degrees, some prominent Republicans threatened to leave the party and the New York State Bar Association announced it had begun investigating Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, which could lead to his removal from the group. And the P.G.A. of America announced it would strip Mr. Trump’s New Jersey golf club of a major tournament.

Virus deaths surging in California, now top 30,000 (AP) The coronavirus death toll in California reached 30,000 on Monday, another staggering milestone as the nation’s most populous state endures the worst surge of the nearly yearlong pandemic. Newly confirmed infections are rising at a dizzying rate of more than a quarter-million a week and during the weekend a record 1,163 deaths were reported. Los Angeles County is one of the epicenters and health officials there are telling residents to wear a mask even when at home if they go outside regularly and live with someone elderly or otherwise at high risk. California has deployed 88 refrigerated trailers to use as makeshift morgues mostly in hard-hit Southern California, where traditional storage space is dwindling.

A never-ending scandal (Bloomberg) Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35, the fighter jet already being flown by the U.S. and eight allies, remains marred by 871 software and hardware deficiencies that could undercut readiness, missions or maintenance, according to the Pentagon’s testing office. The Defense Department’s costliest weapons system “continues to carry a large number of deficiencies, many of which were identified prior to” the development and demonstration phase, which ended in April 2018 with 941 flaws, Robert Behler, the director of operational testing, said in a new assessment obtained by Bloomberg News in advance of its publication.

Pompeo Returns Cuba to Terrorism Sponsor List (NYT) The State Department designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday in a last-minute foreign policy stroke that will complicate the incoming Biden administration’s plans to restore friendlier relations with Havana. In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited Cuba’s hosting of 10 Colombian rebel leaders, along with a handful of American fugitives wanted for crimes committed in the 1970s, and Cuba’s support for the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Mr. Pompeo said the action sent the message that “the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of U.S. justice.” The action, announced with just days remaining in the Trump administration, reverses a step taken in 2015 after President Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations with Cuba, calling its decades of political and economic isolation a relic of the Cold War.

Brexit sandwich problems (BBC) A Dutch TV network has filmed border officials confiscating ham sandwiches and other foods from drivers arriving in the Netherlands from the UK, under post-Brexit rules. Under EU rules, travellers from outside the bloc are banned from bringing in meat and dairy products. The rules appeared to bemuse one driver. “Since Brexit, you are no longer allowed to bring certain foods to Europe, like meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, that kind of stuff,” a Dutch border official told the driver in footage broadcast by TV network NPO 1. In one scene, a border official asked the driver whether several of his tin-foil wrapped sandwiches had meat in them. When the driver said they did, the border official said: “Okay, so we take them all.” Surprised, the driver then asked the officials if he could keep the bread, to which one replied: “No, everything will be confiscated—welcome to the Brexit, sir. I’m sorry.”

Merkel sees coronavirus lockdown until early April: Bild (Reuters) Chancellor Angela Merkel has told lawmakers in her conservative party that she expects a lockdown in Germany to curb the spread of the coronavirus to last until the start of April, top-selling Bild daily cited participants as the meeting as saying. “If we don’t manage to stop this British virus, then we will have 10 times the number of cases by Easter. We need eight to 10 more weeks of tough measures,” Bild quoted Merkel as saying.

‘A Stalin with double meat’ (Foreign Policy) A Moscow kebab shop named after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin has closed after just 24 hours of opening after a string of complaints from angry residents. In its brief existence Stalin Doner served items like “Stalin with double meat” and “Beria with tkemali sauce”—a reference to Stalin’s notorious secret police chief. The shop’s owner, Stanislav Voltman, was interviewed by police for three hours following complaints. “They asked me if my head was screwed on straight,” Voltman told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “It’s not like I had Hitler as the face of my brand,” Voltman said. Despite public outcry about the kebabs, support for Stalin is on the rise in Russia. A Levada Center poll in 2019 found that 70 percent of Russians think Stalin played a completely or relatively positive role in the life of the country.

In Kashmir, Hopes Wither (NYT) Kashmir, the craggily beautiful region in the shadow of the Himalayas long caught between India and Pakistan, has fallen into a state of suspended animation. Schools are closed. Lockdowns have been imposed, lifted and then reimposed. Once a hub for both Western and Indian tourists, Kashmir has been reeling for more than a year. First, India brought in security forces to clamp down on the region. Then the coronavirus struck. The streets are full of soldiers. Military bunkers, removed years ago, are back, and at many places cleave the road. On highways, soldiers stop passenger vehicles and drag commuters out to check their identity cards. Conflict in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region, has festered for decades. And an armed uprising has long sought self-rule. Tens of thousands of rebels, civilians and security forces have died since 1990. India and Pakistan have gone to war twice over the territory, which is split between them but claimed by both in its entirety. Now, as India flexes its power over the region, to even call Kashmir a disputed region is a crime—sedition, according to Indian officials. Many say that the political paralysis is the worst it has ever been in Kashmir’s 30 years of conflict, and that people have been choked into submission.

India’s top court suspends implementation of new farm laws (AP) India’s top court on Tuesday temporarily put on hold the implementation of new agricultural laws and ordered the formation of an independent committee of experts to negotiate with farmers who have been protesting against the legislation. The Supreme Court’s ruling came a day after it heard petitions filed by the farmers challenging the controversial legislation. The court said that the laws were passed without enough consultation, and that it was disappointed with the way talks were proceeding between representatives of the government and farmer leaders. Tens of thousands of farmers protesting against the legislation have been blocking half a dozen major highways on the outskirts of New Delhi for more than 45 days. Farmers say they won’t leave until the government repeals the laws. They say the legislation passed by Parliament in September will lead to the cartelization and commercialization of agriculture, make farmers vulnerable to corporate greed and devastate their earnings. The government insists the laws will benefit farmers and says they will enable farmers to market their produce and boost production through private investment.

First came political crimes. Now, a digital crackdown descends on Hong Kong. (Washington Post) HONG KONG—The police officers who came to take away Owen Chow on national security grounds last week left little to chance. Determined to find his phones, they had prepared a list of mobile numbers registered to his name, even one he used exclusively for banking, said the 23-year-old Hong Kong activist. Officers called each number in succession, the vibrations revealing the locations of three iPhones around his apartment. By the end of their operation, police had amassed more than 200 devices from Chow and 52 others held for alleged political crimes that day, according to those arrested, as well as laptops from spouses who are not politically active and were not detained. The digital sweep showed how Hong Kong authorities are wielding new powers under the national security law, introduced last summer, far more widely than the city’s leader promised. Since the Jan. 6 raids, authorities have blocked at least one website, according to the site’s owner and local media reports, raising concerns that Hong Kong is headed for broader digital surveillance and censorship akin to that in mainland China. Hong Kong police have begun sending devices seized from arrested people to mainland China, where authorities have sophisticated data-extraction technology, and are using the information gleaned from those devices to assist in investigations, according to two people familiar with the arrangement who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their safety.

26 missing, at least 13 dead in Indonesia landslides (AP) Rescuers are searching for 26 people still missing after two landslides hit a village in Indonesia’s West Java province over the weekend, officials said Tuesday. At least 13 people were killed and 29 others injured in the landslides that were triggered by heavy rain on Sunday in Cihanjuang, a village in West Java’s Sumedang district. Some of the victims were rescuers from the first landslide.

Leading human rights group calls Israel an ‘apartheid’ state (AP) A leading Israeli human rights group has begun describing both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single “apartheid” regime, using an explosive term that the country’s leaders and their supporters vehemently reject. In a report released Tuesday, B’Tselem says that while Palestinians live under different forms of Israeli control in the occupied West Bank, blockaded Gaza, annexed east Jerusalem and within Israel itself, they have fewer rights than Jews in the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. “One of the key points in our analysis is that this is a single geopolitical area ruled by one government,” said B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad. “This is not democracy plus occupation. This is apartheid between the river and the sea.” That a respected Israeli organization is adopting a term long seen as taboo even by many critics of Israel points to a broader shift in the debate as its half-century occupation of war-won lands drags on and hopes for a two-state solution fade.

Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election (Reuters) Uganda banned social media on Tuesday, two days ahead of a presidential election pitting Yoweri Museveni, one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, against opposition frontrunner Bobi Wine, a popular singer. Internet monitor NetBlocks said its data showed that Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype, Snapchat, Viber and Google Play Store were among a lengthy list of sites unavailable via Uganda’s main cell network operators. Campaigning ahead of the vote has been marred by brutal crackdowns on opposition rallies, which the authorities say break COVID-19 curbs on large gatherings. Rights groups say the restrictions are a pretext for muzzling the opposition. At 38, Wine is half the age of President Yoweri Museveni and has attracted a large following among young people in a nation where 80% of the population are under 30, rattling the ruling National Resistance Movement party.

Coronavirus-spurred changes to global workforce to be permanent (Reuters) Sweeping changes to the global labour market caused by the coronavirus pandemic will likely be permanent, policy makers said on Tuesday, as some industries collapse, others flourish and workers stay home. The pandemic, which has so far infected at least 90.5 million people and killed around 1.9 worldwide, has up-ended industries and workers in almost every country in the world as tough lockdowns were imposed. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that the impact of huge job losses worldwide is creating a fiscal gap that threatens to increase inequality between richer and poorer countries. The ILO estimated that global labour income declined by 10.7 per cent, or $3.5 trillion, in the first three quarters of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, excluding government income support. India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the pandemic had created an “accidental challenge” under which the government delivered food on a regular basis to 800 million people and provided sustained business funds. Philippines central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno said it was clear some industries will not survive, others will not be as dynamic as before, and yet others will be boosted by the massive changes. The need for a more nimble and innovative approach to education will remain long after the pandemic ends, said Helen Fulson, Chief Product Officer at educational publisher Twinkl. “How many children today will be doing jobs that currently don’t exist?’ she said at Reuters Next on Monday. “We don’t know how to train for these jobs.”

#headlines #news

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nightswithkookmin · 3 years

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What you think of fetus V who said in front of everyone "You seem to really like men" to Jimin? Youthful ribbing? Or a moment of insensitivity ? FWI saying you like girls or guys? Or calling close same sex friends u a couple? is actually common where am from. This has happened in my friend circle too actually. Except all of us are hets so no one take it seriously. Cant think a closeted person would find it that funny. Jimins lack of denial or even laughing it off always stood out to me tho.

What do I think of that comment?

I think we both know very often when people say they think a man likes men, they mean to say they think that man is Gay and very often when the g-word is used in a sentence, it is not meant as a compliment- imma give it to you straight, no bs. Lol.

The parlance gay and variations of it, in my opinion, is often used ubiquitously and traditionally as a slur slang among ignorant, non-progressive, anti homosexual individuals and is often rooted in malice.

And when malice isn't intended, ridicule is. The sad fact is, people adopt the terminology as ammunition to blatantly attack, dehumanize, belittle and strip away the dignity of queer folks and when the term is used in reference to non queer people it has a similar effect. It degrades them as well through the irony and humor of comparing them to gay people.

Gay jokes, if you will, is a subtle art of passive aggressively slurring gay folks if you think about it. I mean let's be honest.

Personally, I don't think Tae's intentions in that moment were malicious at all. I don't think he blurted out those words with the intension to ridicule Jimin either- stay with me. It will make sense in a bit.

But he called Jimin gay nevertheless. His comment if a joke, I'm afraid, reinforces these bizzare stereotypes of masculinity and promotes toxic rhetorics prevalent especially within Kpop shipping communities where every Male idol interaction is hyper sexualised and romanticized thus, suggesting a man cannot love another man, be affectionate or be fond of them unless they secretly lusted after them and harbored a desire to lay down pipes in their behinds- which, honestly is crazy coming from a guy with a cultural background such as the Korean culture where kinship is commonplace but more on that later.

I think whatever which way we want to look at it, it was an insensitive comment especially if you believe he meant it as a joke. It was definitely not his most woke moment, socially and culturally- and that's putting it lightly.

That 'gay' comment to me is right up there with all the problematic statements some, if not all, of the members have made over the years- the colorism, racist jokes, the ' eww, you too black,' 'akekeke- you too tanned shoo,' implying if you're black or tanned you are ugly. The fat jokes, the misogyny and misogynior- please don't ask me to give you examples of these. I don't want to ruin BTS for you. Lol.

There are commentaries on these out there on the internet. You can look it up for yourselves- You welcome. Lol.

For the record, BTS have since retracted, acknowledged and apologized for most of these questionable moments throughout the years and so we cannot hold it against them, forever- not to make excuses for them but they are human too. They learn, they unlearn, they make mistakes, they correct them, they grow and as NamJoon said, they really were a bit 'unsophisticated' and rough around the edges in their earlier years- even if it was just five years ago from now, chilee. They is a mess. Lmho.

I think it's all part of the human process honestly- don't worry BTS, I have a lot of space in my heart for y'all to be human and still love ya. Keep going sweeties. Y'all's doing greatness de la grande kind!! Bless y'all.

In V's case he was, since that incident, put as a judge on a show that allegedly featured queer folks and he seemed more welcoming of them than the other judges on the panel, excluding RM of course.

A year later, he would make a song that the LBGTQ plus fraction of Army would rally behind as a highly pro gay song- Stigma, which I find debatable but whatever. I mean, just because JK has stars, clouds and the sky in his lyrics don't make him an astronaut or an environmentalist fighting the good cause for the climate but to each his own.

Stigma was still something, I'll give him that.

Flashforward to five years later, and he would be recommending songs by gay artists, appreciating and promoting gay art and the artists behind them, sporting rainbow outfits, designing a BT21 character that is genderless, incorporating sign language in his speeches- he polished up. Woke the hell up. Politically correct. Yadda yadda yadda.

I think, like some of the others, he too learned his lesson. It's not ok to trivialize the oppression of others or make light of it-

Now that we've gotten the woke bit out of the way, on to our shipping business. Follow me, chop chop. Lol.

Firt of all, I don't think that moment is a big deal. But I find it interesting nonetheless.

Do I think Tae was teasing Jimin in that moment when he made that statement? It's not quite easy as yes or no.

Personally, I think he was clocking him.

This interview was conducted at a point in the timeline where I feel Jimin was shedding his image as the Maknae obsessed hyung in the group. He was coming into his own and embracing himself for who he is and that I think included his sexuality.

Prior to, he had in my opinion, since debut, slipped into the role of the queer jest of the group supplying queer humor and entertainment for listeners at radio shows by offering himself up for ridicule as the 'gay guy' within the group- I hated every bit of it. Lol.

You'd often hear the members refer to him as the one good with the guys, the boy in love with the Maknae- There is still a fraction of Army that see him as this persona but he has since outgrown that label and that phase.

RM was basically the Black jest of the group, offering himself up for ridicule for his darker skin tone right down to his blaccent. Can you do your black accent? They will ask him at interviews and he would proceed to deliver a walmart version of the Black American English. Sigh.

Compared to the previous year where he literally gasped and panicked when the members hinted at his sexuality or made statements that put his sexuality into question, Jimin seemed more in control and mentally prepared during this interview.

When the question was asked of him, the question of why he liked JK, his instincts it seemed was to steer the conversation away from his sexuality- a tactic the rest of the members would employ to avoid discussing Jikook a few months from that interview...

I mean, when Tae asked Jimin on JK's birthday that same year what he wanted to give JK, RM cut in before JM answered. Jimin had done the same thing when in an interview JK was asked if Jimin wasn't his style and JK was stuttering not knowing what to say in response. JM asked him not to answer the question.

When interviewers ask these questions, they do so for entertainment purposes- because who doesn't like gay jokes, amirite?

For heterosexual idols I assume it's not slippery slope for them to engage in these kinds of humor. They can play gay without risking exposing their heterosexuality and when they do play gay it's for jest.

It's not the same for queer idols I think.

Jimin was basically done being the butt of the gay jokes in 2015, he was done selling himself as the JK shit rainbows and I'm the unicorn fixated on him kinda person and it reflected in that conversation.

'I don't like everything about this boy. He ain't all that. But he is the Maknae and he cute so whatever' lol.

Like I said, I think Jimin was steering the conversation away from his sexuality but Tae's comment steered the conversation right back to it. 'I just think he likes men.'

Most South Koreans I've met in person and on the internet spend a considerable amount of time and energy trying to dispel the western notion of gayness projected on to Korean men for their skinship culture.

We like to glamorize gayness in these streets but in reality gay is stigmatized especially in places like South Korea. People don't readily read gay in Male interactions unless they were being homophobic or socially unaware.

To me, Tae's statement was more of an observation about Jimin, one which he felt a need to contribute to the discussion they were having, perhaps to provide insight into the inner workings of Jimin rather than as a joke or jest- or may be he did both.

Jimin managed to avoid opening himself up for the gay jokes and to this Tae then responded, I just think you is gay sir- The emphasis has been mine. Lol.

The thing about Tae is, in the earlier days he used to have a habit of 'exposing' Jimin whenever Jimin told half truths and what not.

For example, in 2014 during an interview when JM was asked what he wanted to do on his free days he had said he wanted to spend time with his family or something and Tae immediately checked him saying he was lying. Jimin then said he wanted to be with Jungkook which had JK fuming.

Was he teasing JM when he called him out for lying about his true desires? May be but I think he meant it too. Know what I mean?

He did the same thing when during their Paris VLive, Jimin got nervous when JK was singing 'know you love me boy, so that I love you,' in the background and Tae asked Jimin if he was nervous. Jimin snapped out of whatever whipped trance he was in and asked 'why would I be nervous' or something along those lines.

Why would Tae assume JM was nervous listening to another man sing? And why would Jimin be nervous in the first place?

And if at an interview Jimin is asked, why don't you like listening to the Maknae sing and JM responded that he is cute but he can't sing and Tae says well I think listening to Jk sing makes him nervous- would that be youthful ribbing or tea? Do you see where I'm going with this?

I see Tae as very observant- If not more observant than Jk. Their jokes are punchier because it is rooted in truth. He is stating his opinion, his observations and when he felt JM's answers were dishonest or inconsistent of his general notion of him, he called him out on that.

It's like him saying JM likes to pretend to be drunk in order to tell Tae he loves him- allegedly. Was it funny, yes. Was it a lie? I don't think so.

Jimin likes to pretend, we been knew. His boyfriend don spilled that tea already. I mean Jk said JM faked being asleep when he noticed the cameras filming him. He said also JM knows he is cute so sometimes he intentionally acts cute.

Tae used to tease Jimin a lot- hell he still teases him a lot to this day. Lol. Had Jimin looking at the back of his head like he wanted to quick punch him in the throat in the recent run, chilee. Lmho.

But you gotta ask, where is the lie in all those jokes?

The question I ask myself, and I think we ought to ask ourselves as shippers is, what about Jimin gave Tae that impression of him in the first place?

What made Tae, coming from a culture and background where 'gay' is a taboo and skinship is prevalent assume that if Jimin liked JK then it was because he liked men or was gay?

Even if Tae meant it as a Joke- no one laughed. Lol. That awkward silence that ensued... now that's how you know he had deadass made a 'gay comment' for real. Lmho.

They were all silent, waiting for JM's response and only laughed when JM responded to Tae- isn't that how it usually goes when you are the one queer person at the het dinner table? The tasteless jokes, awkward silences and stares? Just me? Oh, never mind then. Keep reading. Lol.

Imagine if JM hadn't responded or had gay panicked like he did a year before that interview, when RM revealed JK had been sneaking into JM's bed at night?

Dude was legit ready to throw JK under the bus had it not been for the shady camera guy behind the cameras. Deadass, Jimin was pointing accusing fingers at JK and everything- so much for gay love. Lmho.

The question still remains, what makes you look at your heterosexual friend and go- hey, that's gay. Think about it.

If Tae thought Jimin liked men, even as a joke, it's probably because Jimin had been giving him a reason or reasons to believe he actually liked boys beyond the usual daily doze of gay prevalent within K-culture.

It's similar to JK feeling uncomfortable when Jimin in 2014 described their relationship as one between love and friendship. Jimin responding with male friends can love eachother too without being gay would imply JK was interpreting his words and actions towards him as laced with romantic and sexual subtext or intent.

Now why would JK assume this if men touching men and feeling up on eachother in their culture was a normal thing?

There are gay men in Korea you know?

Tae and Kook were both hyper aware and curious of Jimin's sexuality in that period- for different reasons of course. In my opinion.

Not sure if Jimin's androgynous features played a role in these suspicions and assumptions they had of him in the early days because androgynousity in men is often ignorantly profiled and stereotyped as queer.

Tae seemed convinced JM was queer at least and JK was projecting his own queerness on to Jimin a lot- cough, cough.

It seemed to me also that Tae for whatever reason had the impression JM had a thing for him? I'll save my VMin agenda for delulu Fridays but chilee I don't know, Jimin has been on an agenda to friendzone that man since those manly mans thawed off his chest. Lol.

VMIN... ok.

I mean Jimin's response to Tae was more to deflate Tae's ego than to deflect or evade the issue and I wonder why. 'You are so full of yourself' 'I may like men, but I don't like you' and Tae responds with 'really' as if he's been challenged or dared- ever had your straight friends assume you like them just because you are queer?

Anywho, for whatever reason, Jimin seemed to be the only member in the group around the early days whose words and actions were put through the queer litmus test.

Also, I think a distinction ought to be made between calling two same sex friends a couple and calling them gay.

Calling two friends a couple is inconsequential- except when their sexuality is on the line. Calling two same sex friends you know are straight a couple is nothing but a gay joke.

BTS do this all the time. Jimin called Namjin a couple, Tae kook a couple, himself and Suga a couple, himself and JK a couple.

Jk has equally referred to others within the group as a couple, made heart signs above them, and have even held his chest and said he never thought he would fall for a guy.

In none of these instances did he or any of them imply that they or the persons they were referring to were queer or liked men and I wouldn't make much of such comments.

When JK was called out for gifting a present to Jimin and not the others, Tae teased JK as well and his gestures implied to me, 'it's ok to like him, I know you like him, you like JM don't you, uWu' and other variations of these.

But he in no way hinted at the sexuality of JK explicitly or implicitly- not in a way that prompts a response or rebuttal from JK like it did in Jimin's case.

I guess what I'm saying is that, that moment is nothing but something at the same time. You look at Tae's personality and his reputation within the group as the one with no filter who blurts out things that often has BTS running helter skelter- that 'I want to see your children" comment at Festa almost gave RM an aneurysm. Lmho.

Then they had to literally take his mic away from him when he started talking about meeting a pretty chick or something at a fansigns.

You consider the history between him and Jimin, the context behind that comment and the things that was said after that comment- the interviewer said 'well JK is really handsome...' which means he took the 'joke' Tae had made to mean JM had romantic interest in JK- something I feel JM was trying to avoid.

I don't think Tae meant anything by it. I don't think he knew at the time JM was queer but I do believe he suspected he was.

Hope this helps,

Signed,

GOLDY

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