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warmbeebosoftbeebo · 4 years

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do you think panic!’s management/brendon are gonna do anything about the whole zack thing?

i don’t know. it strikes me how they announced their firing of kenny in less than 48 hours after the disclosures started coming forward, but kenny was actually less integrated into panic than zack is. a lot of people think zack is just a bodyguard, but he’s been wearing several hats for years (panic stuff/storage, panic’s twitter, tour management).

kenny also i think had a very different personality and temperament that he showed to people (eg goofy friendly guy, polite, easy to get along with) vs what he got up to with 12-18 year old girls (inappropriately sexual convos considering the age gap, talked and bribed them into sending inappropriate pictures, most of which didn’t cross over into child porn under the law eg bikinis, bras, using his position as a guy in a band to do it--the fucker knew what he was doing). it shocked me.

zack is openly very vulgar (some of which i don’t have an issue with in themselves), even pornographic, and he hides behind “it’s my sense of humor” and “i’m just really sexual” (when i think he’s more oriented toward making people uncomfortable, pushing boundaries, turning almost everything into something to laugh at). he’s “so sexual” he seeks out porn of women who’ve been hacked and had their nude photos published without consent, eg emily ratajkowski. now, that was something in the news and easily known, not one of those assumption of consent and agreement to distribution that men (and many women) justify their porn use on eg if it’s on a porn site that’s legal, it must be consensual, the exit interview (which guarantees that women say it was fine/fun/consensual: they don’t get paid for the hell they went through until after they give that interview). he sought them out because they were violations, private, not to be shared (indeed emily called one book of nudes published of her just that: a violation). he seems more into the on one level, i was even thinking sexual compulsiveness (i don’t think it is an addiction, and often men will use that as an excuse and to bullshit and gaslight, but it is compulsive) was at work too.

his “hyper sexuality” is more about LOOKING than experiencing. about women looking certain ways for him to gaze at (eg getting women to flash their breasts, photos of bra’d and topless women) than being sexual with him per se.

i had previously thought that there must be something to him because he was with his ex wife for seven years (couple for 7, married for 4 i believe), and she left him because she had fallen for another women and now understood her sexuality to be lesbian. meaning, there must’ve been some things goin for him (eg his and b’s eat pussy no matter what periscope moment) for him to hold onto her for 7 years :P

i thought his humor was a joke, sarcasm, and didn’t know about the scope of it, thought he wasn’t like that in intimate/sexual situations with women or men, because there’s been indications including his own statement of bisexuality that he’s bi. turns out, it’s not sarcasm, joking around... it’s how he is. i now think it’s more like he pornifies women so much it sometimes gets boring and he turns to objectifying men too. breezy would be the clearest case of it being how he is because she had to tolerate him for nearly a decade and he didn’t even stop when she got more assertive in trying to stop him. she said he got even worse. again, that is aligned with what i’ve noticed about him: he pushes, and pushes, until he’s on the other side of the damn boundary field. that people dislike it often encourages him and he continues or worsens it.

but i wasn’t surprised like i was with kenny, although i believed everything with kenny even quicker, because there was so much evidence, eg screenshots of his words, selfies. i’m almost surprised there hasn’t been more than the one accusation of sexual assault (the opportunistic touching of the 13 year old girl’s breasts), because he is a very impulsive, almost compulsive person re his “i’m so sexual.” that there is only one public accusation of that is what has me a bit cautious of that one. would he even hit on, touch, take advantage of a 13 year old? it is completely plausible considering what else we know.

something else that strikes me is the time where he joked on periscope about his dad sexually abusing him. it was one of the few times b tried to shut him up, spoke over him, etc.

another thing i’ve wondered: if his behavior has something to do with jealousy, aggrieved entitlement (thinks that he deserves “it” as a man, sees other guys getting “what he wants” while he often doesn’t get “it” aka the sex he wants with the women he wants) over how much women/fans/groupies/girls (and boys too ;) ) go for band mates, especially b. i think that was at work with dallon and breezy. he probably thought he should have “access” to her that dallon and her own will and desires (for dallon, not for zack, she actually strikes me as somewhat “dominating” sexually) was in the way of. that she should of been there for his entertainment and consumption and pleasure, not been in a sexual partnership with gentle female dominance with dallon.

b obviously knew at least some of this (he’s heard his jokes for about 14 years, including sexist, misogynist, homophobic, ableist, etc ones), and would have seen some things too. the question is how much. some of it was, as i said before, “just” (as in normalized) the environment of all-male bands with mostly to all male crew, that zack partook in too, and b would have seen a lot of that as well.

most things zack has been called out on is within that realm of normal (watching and collecting porn, verbal harassment disguised as fun joking around, “show us your tits,” band-related bribes by bts guys in exchange for sex acts, taking photos of women in their bra at shows, the topless collage and posting them publicly, mocking disabled people)... kenny breached that normal “bros doing bro things” code by going after girls under 16, as young as 12. in undeniable ways (lots of screenshots, several girls who came forward, and did i say lots of screenshots?). the normal bros couldn’t stand for that, both because of the age (”pedophiles” are nearly universally reviled at the same time as being part of the norm men are trained into by other men from preteenhood eg barely legal/incest/“age play” porn, no body hair on women, how “daddy,” ddlg and similar themes have even entered vanilla sex) and how undeniable it was.

that was a long way to do more zack musing and to say: i don’t know. he already knew a lot of it, although something that struck me was that b seemed more comfortable in that periscope with sarah where she was talking about the nude wallpaper talking about zack having some nudes of men than the general discussion/discussion of having nudes of women.

edit: something else i saw was that b’s dad would continue or worsen zack’s tweets several times. wonder how much boyd is like zack? there was even one that just said he (zack) was single again with a photo of a pug (or similar) dog with sunglasses (suggesting he looked like the dog) but boyd turned it into a fucking rape joke (the hide your wives one). wonder if b grew up with boyd talking about women in similar ways?

#zack hall

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d-2s · 4 years

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lmao

I will never feel bad for anyone who makes a spicy post and can't handle the spice. But what makes me angry is when I close the issue within an hour and two days later I get messaged with screenshots seeing how the person in question has been dragging the same dead issue for two days straight.....me and literally all my mutuals did not bother you after that hour, it's not our fault other people we don't know got involved ????????? are we the only ones that can disagree with a post with almost 500 notes???? Tumblr is a public place it doesn't mean everyone who disagrees or has beef with you is related to the first person who called you out.

I literally wanted to message you to understand why you’re still dragging the issue and to leave us alone but no, you have made yourself all too comfortable since you have fabricated a whole lie to make ur friends feel sorry for you and it seems like that’s just the kind of person you are. Props to you for being good at nothing but being a master manipulator. In future, don’t make posts if you can’t handle stans disagreeing. I had long been over the issue, so you should do the same, don’t drag the issue for yet another 48 hours. I expect kpop is not that deep posts and harassing people for the sake of your oppar related posts as confirmation that you’ve read this. Good luck to you.

**receipts

i confronted them on tumblr before anything else. They’re acting like I was too pussy to reblog their tumblr post and I just ran to twitter or something. I posted it on both places, for the simple reason that I can (if you post something publicly on any platform, it can be shared publicly on any other platform, its like, common sense lol). I only had 100 followers on that twitter, the tweet got like 5 likes, while I have like 700 here. Shouldn’t someone be more upset that I put it on tumblr than twitter??? Also, the other people I didn’t know who got involved were all tumblr shinee stans, I don’t even know them up until now, I just know they exist lol.

🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿 just in case

#negative /

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

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A/W 2020 Fashion Month: Before Vogue Went Blank (Part 2)

Hi to anyone reading,

I was going to start this post by jumping straight into Dion Lee and part 2 in general but there's been a lot going on the past couple of days-although this blog is primarily fashion, it wouldn’t feel right to start talking about designers without acknowledging all the shit that’s been going down.

^Photo Credit to @spiltcoco on Twitter

Yesterday, police footage came out of US police murdering yet another black man in broad daylight-George Floyd. He joins Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Alton Sterling, plus hundreds more named and god knows how many more unnamed African American citizens in the ever-growing list of victims of police brutality.

The majority of these are just people going about their daily lives, a majority of them doing absolutely nothing wrong; even those we know to have committed crimes have been unarmed and non-violent offenders. That being said, their offences are beside the point when we’ve seen the white perpetrators of mass shootings be calmly cuffed and escorted into the backs of police cars as if they were the ones selling cigarettes without permits. American police, given the amount of them that are armed, regularly become judge, jury and executioner trained for 8 weeks by an institution that originated from slave patrols. I cannot imagine how terrifying it is just to walk around as a PoC in America. I cannot imagine the collective trauma that has been suffered because of recent events on top of the intergenerational trauma that most likely exists because of centuries of oppression. I cannot imagine what it’s like to live in a country that was built to suppress you and was by law allowed to do so until very recently, those original structures still in place. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be made to feel like this is your fault. I mean, Boris Johnson is a useless, cold-hearted twat and I won’t defend him or this country for a minute (we have much blood on our own hands, and racial profiling is just as much a thing here as it is in America-I read earlier that you’re 28 times more likely to be stopped and searched in London as a non-white person compared to a white person), but I still can’t imagine him publicly advocating for the mass murder of groups he knows to be primarily made up of black people via Twitter. This whole situation is so unimaginably fucked up; anyone who still sees America as one of the world’s most developed nations needs to take a long, hard look at what is going on and reconsider that opinion.

Whilst we can’t fix everything, we can all speak up and make our voices heard, and it is our duty to do so. It’s not good enough to just “not be racist”, you have to be ANTI-racism, even if that means constantly reflecting on your own privilege and challenging your assumptions. Neutrality is complicity. Signing a petition isn’t going to change the world, but it’s a start:

https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_abi&recruited_by_id=7ba70000-a127-11ea-87fb-d1ff0bf6ea96

As I publish this, there’s less than 50,000 signatures needed to hit the target of 6,000,000 so if you happen to see it, get signing! There are lots of other petitions online but Change.org seems to be the only major one you can sign in the UK as the other are US based and require a zip code. I never thought I’d close a paragraph by quoting Macklemore but the line “no freedom 'til we're equal, damn right I support it” is at the forefront of my mind right now. Again, neutrality is complicity. We’re never going to achieve a fair society by sitting on our asses and hoping things will improve. Let’s all do the best we can.

Sorry if that intro wasn’t what you came here for, but I just think it’s so important to talk about. I know I’ve said in the past that fashion is supposed to be an escape from everyday life but there are some times when real life needs our attention and this is one of them. Feel free to unfollow if you disagree.

Anyway, onto the fashion. If this is the first post you’re reading, welcome! There’s a part 1! But I don’t wanna be pushy so start here if you wish!

If you read part 1, welcome back!

I ended that post by practically falling at the feet of Dilara Findikoglu, and I so wanted to start this post by regaining a sense of dignity and go straight into what-the-fuck-ing at Dior, but I know breaking chronological order would really piss off those “OmG I’m SoOo OCD, tHis BuzZfeEd aRtiCle WiTh DiFfereNt SiZed TiLes ToLd Me!” which is basically me minus claiming liking things to be organised means I have OCD-no, just dermatillomania and the denial that a compulsive skin picking disorder has anything to do with OCD because the neuroses club that is my brain doesn’t have any space left. SO, I have to continue where I left off and star the post with Dion Lee, whose collections I am a big fan of.

I could ramble a bit more but I did enough of that at the beginning of part 1 and am sure I’ll do more than enough in this post anyway, so here it is, Dion Lee:

Considering we ended with the maximalism of Dilara Findikoglu, sliding back over towards the other far end of the scale with a designer that tends to pitch their tent on the borders of the minimalism camp feels correct. Dion Lee, fortunately, seems the perfect collection to open with. There aren’t many other brands who do edge in such an understated and masterful way. If you want to be ready for combat and look like you’d fit right in at Vogue at the same time, look no further. This season’s collection is full of perfectly placed cut outs and immaculate tailoring and subtle street fighter-esque details as ever, and that’s why it pains me to say it:

Not that this is enough in the way of critique to restore my dignity by any means, it’s not a patch on last season.

I don’t think there was a single bad look in that show, and at times it felt like I was weeding through them here. When the looks were good, they were GOOD but a lot I found to be disappointing. Plus I have no idea why you’d put tie-dye in an A/W collection. I appreciate that it’s an Australian brand and that our winter is their summer, but they’re presenting to the rest of the world at fashion week and anyone in Paris, Milan, London and New York is going to be freezing their tits off and looking like a twat in an orange tie-dye sundress. There wasn’t much of a dip in quality for the menswear compared to last season, but honestly womenswear left a lot to be desired. That’s what happens when your expectations are high.

I used to think that if you assume the worst, it’s impossible to feel let down. And then I saw Dior’s A/W 2020 collection. Did a full 180 on that statement.

I suppose it’s a step up from haute couture, but then at least the styling in that was simple, and it just didn’t look like anybody had tried at all; here it’s clear Maria Grazia chucked everything she could at this collection, every headscarf, every gingham print, every shallow feminist undertone, and it was still a fucking mess. At first you think some of the individual pieces are cute but have just been ruined by the styling, and then you begin to look, and realise that even those individual pieces could’ve easily been bought in a New Look Boxing Day sale.

THIS IS CHRISTIAN DIOR, SUPPOSEDLY ONE OF THE MOST LUXURIOUS BRANDS OUT THERE. WHAT IS GOING ON!?

I don’t know, I included as many looks that I didn't mind as I could, but it’s like there always has to be a crappy, unnecessary detail in there. Everything is so literal. Of course the collection based around the divine feminine has the models dressed like basic ass Greek goddesses, so of course the collection based around the modern woman and equality has women walking the runway in ties and ill-fitting shoes too. Maria Grazia, here is a box:

Think outside of it.

Next is, thankfully, Elie Saab:

No, not exactly a trailblazer of a collection, but executed with poise and elegance as always. I mean, the styling is spot on. It looks like each part of the outfit was made for another, to contribute to a whole clearly envisioned look, similar to what we saw in the Alberta Ferretti show. Elie Saab is known for its haute couture shows where all the tiny details, the sequins and the silk and the embroidery come together to make something beautiful, and this is just that on a larger scale, with less “wow”s and more quiet admiration, more wishing you were the one wearing that outfit. If you’re gonna play safe, do it this well. The night dresses are stunning of course, but not even my favourite bit of the show. It’s the casual looks, the pussy bows and the ruffles and the neck scarfs and the private girls school monochrome colour palette with the occasional pop of red or purple, a toned down version of what we saw at haute couture, any of which deserve to be worn whilst eating macarons in front of the Eiffel Tower before trip to Musee D’Orsay. It’s Poppy Moore’s school uniform grown up and made fit for a fashion magazine editor:

Somehow managing to cram an Emma Roberts early 2010s fashion moment into every post is my talent, who knew. Wild Child was really a gem.

Erdem was a mixed bag:

With a lot of the outfits, I can’t tell if I actually like the garments that much or if I just like the look as a whole. I mean, without sounding too gluten-free Callie from the Valley, I like the VIBE, but there was a lot of outfits I almost included before I had to ask myself “LAUREN, do you ACTUALLY like this or do you just like the walking-into-your-sugar-daddy’s-will-reading-to-claim-his-fortune DRAMA of it all!?”

It happened a couple of times, where once I took off my black and white, theatrical violin accompanied entrance filtered sunglasses, I realised that the actual print was ugly. A collection so cohesively ornamental and kitschy is going to lean too far into that at times, and they were a few overly-fussy moments where it seemed less nudge nudge wink wink and more like Erdem Moralıoğlu fell into his grandma’s wardrobe, stole some fabric, and called it a day. I don’t want to sound like I’m not a fan of the collection because overall it’s gorgeous, I just thought it was a bit much at times.

Continuing with the theme of clever seasonal continuity that weaved its way throughout this year’s A/W offerings, Ermanno Scervino kept the core of his summer collection and made it just that little bit darker, added some weight to everything, and this is one of the rare occasions where I like the winter incarnation a lot more. I’m not huge about either but there’s a lot of things I’d love to wear here, the coats especially.

Up next is a reliable favourite of mine:

Etro.

Was it REALLY necessary for you to include ALL those coats I hear you ask?

Alaska Thunderfuck as Gia Gunn voice: Absolutelyyyy.

When it comes to bohemian fashion, Etro is unbeaten. Everything is always exquisitely coordinated and styled. Like I usually fucking hate aztec print but I love the way it’s done here. I’ve never known a brand to make belts seem like such an integral, tasteful part of the outfit in a field where they so often seem like a last minute addition for the sake of accessorising; it pains me to say it, but Elie Saab, I’m looking at you. It’s your only fault.

Yes for bringing back embroidered jeans! Yes for all those high necks! Yes for the tapestry print! Yes for the Afghan waistcoats! Etro will keep fedoras cool forever and I love them for that; I don’t know if she ever actually wore any of their stuff but I just know Stevie Nicks was in her prime would’ve ate this shit UP and she is my style icon for the ages. Plus, I might be way off base here but a lot of the collection seems to be inspired by traditional Romani style and it’s a beautiful direction to take things, a treasure trove of layers upon layers and rich textures and opulent prints.

I can’t wait til the phase of my phase of my life where I can swan around in maxi dresses and ponchos. I just hope those maxi dresses and ponchos are Etro.

Onto another brand which hasn’t had a bad show since I started my reviews: Fendi. This season, they took their late 60s/early 70s wild child aesthetic and gave a millionaire’s high maintenance wife spin on it, and what’s not to like about that?

I mean, Fendi is a brand which is always going to excel in its F/W presentations-the rich, bohemian prints (pro-tip: if you can’t already tell, me mentioning the word bohemian in a review pretty much guarantees I like the collection), the furs, and the warm colour palette all perfectly translate into clothes suited for walks through a city going through a post-summer burnout, where it rains red and orange leaves. You can tell Silvia Fendi is in her element when she’s got texture to play with, something that comes across in the gorgeous coats Fendi consistently puts out, and this season continues that trend. Plus, there’s a lot of adorable details here-shoes that show off the decorative socks underneath, the cube shaped bags and those furry ear muffs which I hope bring about a high street muff renaissance because they’re the equivalent of slipper socks for my ears and THEY’RE ACTUALLY REALLY PRACTICAL. The only thing I’m not in love with is the mirrored glasses, and I can’t help but think how replacing them with a pair of grandad style aviators would be the icing on the cake for the collection. Maybe I just need to see Miss Robyn Rihanna Fenty wearing them and then I’ll get on board. Usually works.

Ah, GCDS. I got so excited for it after last season but this time round, it was a bit of a disappointment. There were a few outfits that semi-matched up to how cutting-edge I saw their last collection, however a lot of the pieces looked pretty low quality. I get that streetwear is in the name, but it’s supposed to be a high fashion take on that, and a lot of the looks were quite pedestrian. Stand outs are the top 2 rows and the leather motocross style jumpsuit on the far right, third row down, but the quality of these pieces wasn’t consistent across the board and I feel like I ended up having to convince myself I liked some of the others just so I had enough photos to justify including the brand. It really sucks when I look back on how ahead of the game last season’s collection was-we’re talking outfits that wouldn’t be out of place on Instagram’s Tokyofashion page and as far as I’m concerned that’s the fashion holy grail. Some of these looks, especially the menswear, could be from a Boohoo TV ad and that makes me sad.

Meanwhile, Giambattista Valli put out a collection that looked like a virtual postcard of Parisian fashion; if a St-Germain-des-Prés streetwear themed Instagram doesn’t exist already, someone should capitalise on that, stat, because if my typical vision of French feminine fashion is correct it would be full of outfits like this. I feel like this is what a fashion novice EXPECTS Chanel to look like. Trust me-these days the reality is much more disappointing.

There’s many things I'm happy to see here besides the tulle and florals and prettiness I expect of the brand. Obviously the berets and the bows and the elbow length gloves are the kind of off-duty ballerina style touches I’ve become accustomed to but there are also some nice surprises here: the military style white jacket, the unexpected snake motif on clothing that’s otherwise overly delicate, and to my delight the return of the boater hat. IDGAF, this is the summer where I’m buying myself one off Ebay and making this happen for me whether they become a “thing” or not. I shouldn’t squander having this little of a double chin; the opportunity may never present itself again.

I haven’t watched Killing Eve in a longggg time since there’s only so much of two women attempting to kill each other and then miraculously avoiding death you can watch but I’d love to see Vilanelle prancing round a city in this kinda shit slitting some necks again. I hope that doesn’t make me sound like too much of a sadist; only in a purely fictional world is this something I want to see, I assure you.

Givenchy was really, really great this season too, imo. Definitely a step up from the last RTW anyway. Aside from the drama of the exaggerated floppy brim hats and the quirky tassle detail dresses a la Schiaparelli, a lot of these outfits kinda remind me of something a Miranda Priestly/Cruella De Vil type would wear, and you know me; I’m all for that kind of intimidating, about-to-either-slap-you-or-fire-your-ass bad bitch energy. The gathered leather gloves with the androgynous subtly checkered power suits feels CORRECT and if Giambattista Valli is the bottom in this relationship, Givenchy is the top. Am I allowed to reinforce sapphic relationship stereotypes as a bi girl? Probably not. I’m sorry. Won’t do it again. Just this once. And you know I’m right really xoxo

And OMFG Gucci. Another impeccable collection for me, honestly. Once again, it’s probably my favourite of the season. How it is that Alessandro Michelle gets it SO right for me despite his vision being so bold and different every time? He has this specific brand of strange, conceptual beauty which blends past and present trends in a way so supreme it should be considered art. It’s not a term to throw around loosely but the man is a genius, and tbh I’m still not over the human head props from the 2018 F/W winter show.

In my Haute Couture week review, I talked about the Viktor and Rolf collection (which I loved, don’t get me wrong!) and said that pretty meets grunge is my fave thing ever-this is that, but much even more substantial and intelligent. The Wes Anderson-esque pieces or that late 60s/early 70s hipster aesthetic that I loved in last season’s show hasn’t been done away with either-be it the level of detail or the colour scheme, it all somehow fits together. Never did I think I’d see dresses fit for porcelain dolls through the lens of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen seamlessly slotted in between outfits that could’ve been put together from the clothing rack of Dazed and Confused’s costume department. I want it all-opulent fur-trimmed coats, crucifix jewellery and pilgrim hats I’m sure both Edgar Allan Poe and modern goths would approve of, and the tiered skirts that wouldn’t be out of place in a Westworld saloon. The models were delightfully sad and almost creepy looking and I wouldn’t change that for the world. To say 10/10 doesn’t do it justice, so I’m gonna have to open a reviewer’s can of worms and say 100/100.

Gucci is a tough act to follow, and I’m sorry it has to fall onto the shoulders of Halpern. In the nicest possible way (as if there is any nice way of saying it), I don’t think I any expected anything but a downgrade, so if anything, my standards will be lower so...Michael Halpern, you can thank me I guess?

That was really mean, I’m sorry. It’s not a bad collection, and I definitely like it more than last season’s. It’s a slightly garish colour palette at times but an exciting one in spite of that, which when paired with the animal print dotted throughout makes this collection the perfect fit for a tropical beach party or at the very least, a semi-decent night at the Caribbean themed bar in your local town centre. The sequins and silk, a Halpern trademark, are as tastefully done as ever, and seeing them on the models, I can’t deny these are some power fits-the kind of clothes you are bound to look and feel confident in; if you wanted to play queen of the urban jungle for a night, this is what you need to be wearing.

Ah, Hermes.

Generally not one to stoke a fire inside me. In all fairness, the tailoring here is really, really nice and French biker chic, and the pieces are perfectly crafted-it’s not that I don’t like the outfits because I think that if I saw one of them individually in a natural, messier setting I’d probably be impressed. These are classy, elegant winter looks and what more could you want when you’re looking for outfit inspiration for this season? It’s just that it’s always a little too neat and uniform for me, and on the runway I like my fashion to be risky. This could almost be the sophisticated mother to a Tommy Hilfiger collection and whilst that’s something I would probably wear if I wanted to look put together, it’s not what you get excited to see at fashion week. Primary colours all together aren’t where it’s at for me either, the infamous colour scheme of the cheap plastic playhouses you’d find in the garden of every working/middle class British household back in the day. Yes, I had one. So did the after school club I was forced to attend whilst my mum was at work. Apparently the negative connotations are still too much for me (a boy I went to the after school club with did once fall off the back of one and crack his head open so maybe it’s justified).

Isabel Marant was pretty much exactly what you’d expect from Isabel Marant; if the Etro bohemian woman is one who rolls out of bed and chucks on the first thing she sees, the Isabel Marant bohemian woman is the one who claims she’s done the same thing but who actually planned it all out the night before. She designs for the gluten-free, bikram yoga Kourtney Kardashian style “hippy” who claims to be a free-spirit but would definitely not do acid with you. I was gonna say it was a collection for the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world but then I remembered Gwyneth proudly released a candle she claimed smelled like her vagina and changed my mind-she’d definitely do acid with you.

It’s definitely a cohesive transition from the summer collection; both have that seemingly laid-back, clean-cut vibe, and cater to the rich, impeccably groomed scented candle loving woman everywhere. Obviously the pieces are a tad more suited to an alpine lodge in Switzerland than a beach in Malibu this time round, but that same mild colour palette, pretty, naturalistic patterns, and generally relaxed fit persists. It’s cute enough.

J.W Anderson is a bit of an enigma.

Despite the experimental silhouettes and the kooky details that you think would very “look at me!”, the collections still seem to have a chilled, easy-going feel to them. They toy about with the strange but remain entirely sophisticated whilst doing so-I think it’s because aside from the little quirks that make the garments J.W Anderson, they’re otherwise fairly reserved and simple; even the quirks themselves mostly tend to be exaggerated, more conceptual takes on more typical stylistic motifs anyway. Anderson has a knack for producing statement pieces that don’t look like they’re trying too hard to be statement pieces, a talent he expertly deploys at Loewe as well. Whilst Maison Margiela collections are like the fashion equivalent of that Jughead “I’m weird, I’m a weirdo” speech, J.W Anderson’s refusal to conform is quiet and modest. I like it. It’s not generally my personal style but I can admire the thought behind the work, and there are still some things I’d love to try. I have a few standouts-the shoes with the hoop detailing dancing from the ankle straps, the dress on the bottom right with what appears to be art nouveau typography on, the trench coat with the cape detailing and the gossamer dress to its right are all stunning, especially that dress. If I ever want to dress as the bubble Glinda the Good Witch descends in when she meets Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I know where to go, though I don’t suppose there’s going to be an occasion that calls for that any time soon. Can I just have the dress anyway?

Kim Shui is another new designer I found through blessed Twitter screencaps-thanks guys for doing my research for me. Much appreciated.

But anyways! Like Charlotte Knowles, it’s clear she’s still establishing her aesthetic as a designer, and thus far I love it. The whimsical, throwback prints on urban silhouettes that range from the androgynous suits of city dwelling cool girls to the amped-up sex appeal of nightclub dresses is gorgeous, especially twinned with dainty headscarfs and opera gloves-all in all I think this a very cool and wearable collection and I’m looking forward to the next collection she puts out.

Next up is Lacoste, and IDK why I always include their collections to be honest, considering they’re not really known for “high fashion”. I guess it’s because my dad has collected Lacoste shirts since I was little so I kinda have a soft spot for it and feel obligated to include it every time presentation season comes around. Yes, the outfits are unbearably preppy and the colours are garish but I feel like that’s kind of the appeal? So what if some of the tracksuits look like they could’ve been pulled out of a bad mafia movie? I see the argyle jumpers, with a bit of wear and tear, as a charity shop gem my sister would come across (she has the #Y2K Depop girl knack for finding old designer pieces in the shittiest charity shops without the audacity to try and sell them at a 70% markup) that I would then steal from her wardrobe to wear myself, contrasted with a ripped mini skirt, chains and and docs. I see the POTENTIAL of a look that is very fuck you to the rich middle age tory styling we see here. It’s punk, okay?

Lanvin was STUNNING this time around. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching Mad Men recently and it reminds me of the fashion on that-which I hope somebody won an award for at the time BTW, it is SO fucking good-but I just adore every look here. I can’t even remember if I reviewed Lanvin’s SS20 show, and so clearly if I did it wasn’t that memorable (no shade intended), however this collection is a different story. Every single one of these outfits is iconic movie moment worthy, a 60s Cher Horowitz plaid two piece equivalent that would get screencapped and replicated ad-nauseam, all the best looks of Betty Draper and Peggy Olsen and Joan Holloway and Megan Calvet brought together and refined for the modern day woman. I might even consider sacrificing my anti-royalist principles if it meant I could transport myself back in time and switch bodies with Grace Kelly so I could make this collection my princess-off-duty wardrobe and drive around Monaco in that Bella Hadid look, roof down, all the drama of the fur trim and the gloves and hair whipping about in the wind (but in this unrealistic vision I can actually see what I’m doing and I’m not choking on random strands and swearing at Mother Nature as if she is a real entity with a personal vendetta against me).

Loewe! More J.W Anderson! I’m gonna try not to repeat myself by arsekissing too much all over again and get the good points out of the way quickly! So rapid fire: elegant! Delicious colour palette! Interesting shapes! I think I’m seeing a Victorian/Edwardian influence there! Correct me if I’m wrong! I like it! The coats are strong! Remind me of the suffragettes! But lets pretend in this case these Loewe style coat wearing suffragettes are not raging classists!

AH. Apart from that, it was a bit too austere for me. I definitely preferred Anderson’s eponymous collection; there were a fair few recurring details in this show that I couldn’t get behind that I didn’t include, in particular this bib-like black panel that just kept popping up on everything. Sorry J.W Anderson. But a 50% success rate is still good! And at the end of the day, having 2 collections on Vogue Runway at once is more prestigious than the accumulative total of every accomplishment I’ll probably ever have achieved in my life by the time I’m on my deathbed so what do I know anyway? Sigh:( At least I’ll always have the honour of having the largest head by circumference of my class in year 4, right *sweats nervously*!?!?!

Louis Vuitton was definitely a downgrade on last season for me. There were for sure elements I liked-the Vera Wang-esuqe mixing of the tulle bustle skirts with the rougher, more masculine biker inspired vests and jackets was a cool choice, reminiscent of Gucci’s mixing of the lace dresses with harnesses. I enjoyed the baroque jackets and subtle nods to steampunk style too. Though we’ve already seen it a lot this season, the wet look coat with fur trim I can’t help falling in love with, and I’m immune to the potential ugliness of the muted blue monotone look purely on the basis I can picture Ripley from Alien in it. So like I said-it’s not as if I hated it. I guess when it comes down to it, the collection wasn’t bad so much as I just had higher hopes. I will say though, the staging was INCREDIBLE. As a history nerd, I never thought I’d see the day when a Henry the 8th lookalike actor was part of the backdrop of a Paris fashion week show-and I always thought there was no interesting career path for me in the subject!

And another big name I don’t tend to be so partial to, Maison Margiela. IDK, I did like last season but I wasn’t a fan of haute couture and it took me a while to warm to this. Call it deconstructed, experimental, whatever, but you know when you can’t decide what to wear and you’re in a rush so you kinda just throw all the shit you decided against into a pile? Well, my initial thought was that this season Margiela is kinda that, on the runway.

I will say, once I let go of my need to see a clear shape, a lot of the individual pieces were stunning (NOT the puffed up tabis though, I still can’t even get behind the regular ones). I guess I just wish they’d go for less is more with the styling because as it currently stands, it makes it hard to actually take the clothes in.

Ultimately, one thing you can always say about Margiela, like their clothes or not, is that it has a monopoly on being effortlessly bold.

Marc Jacobs I really liked again, though I will say it doesn’t stand out quite like the S/S collection did. That was absolutely STUNNING-I can’t remember specifically where I ranked it in my top ten but I know it was at least in the top 5. This, on the other hand, is...pretty. It’s very pretty, and very put together, so I’m not saying at all that I don’t rate it. I suppose it’s just a lot simpler than I expected it to be-I don’t have a problem with simplicity, at all, especially if it’s what a brand is known for but I feel like part of the appeal with Marc Jacobs is that it’s pretty kooky. I mean, not Thom Browne or Margiela kooky, but commercial kooky at least. I feel like the kookiness is lacking here? And that’s where this feeling is coming from? And also, the fact that Lanvin tackled the same era and did it a lot better? So there’s that, too. Plus, I adore Miley Cyrus but...why? Random celebrities waking the runway just doesn’t do it for me-it always comes across as a publicity grab, as if the designer isn’t confident enough in their collection’s ability to get people talking on its own, and I suppose in this case that says it all really.

Margaret Howell was...well, Margaret Howell. She’s known for her basics, and they’re always pretty non-offensive “regulation hottie” in the words of the icon that is Damian from Mean Girls. It’s been, what, four years? More? Since I last watched that film but I’m pretty sure watching it about twenty times between the ages of 9 and 15 tattooed it on my brain. I include her because even though they don’t get my pulse racing, I like these pieces; considering the fact that expecting straight white men to ever have style on the level of barbiedrugz (his instagram is my favourite thing ever) or Rickey Thompson is ludicrous, Margaret Howell’s menswear looks are probably are the best, realistic goal for any future partner. Because I like my men dressed like Paddington bear/a depressed Brown University English lit lecturer, okay? Or in other words, Will Graham from Hannibal.

Marine Serre had a few good moments-the looks that I liked were the ones that stayed within her lane of blending the weird with the visually appealing. There were a lot of cool things going on, and I like the utility vibe (the boot with the pouch detailing and the mask are perfect examples of this done well), but outside the fits I picked out a lot of it went over my head tbh.

Marques Almeida is a show I was looking forward to-it has such a youthful, experimental quality to its collections (it’s no surprise the designers said they were influenced by the HBO show Euphoria this year!), similar to Central Saint Martins, and you can tell the designers (Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida) are based in London too; we are talking about the birthplace of the punk fashion movement, and as a designer it’s probably almost a rite of passage that you incorporate elements of that into your work. Marques Almeida does that with a flair and consistency you can count on. Their clothes don’t have the wildest silhouettes or anything like that but the fun they have playing around with print and colour and the ease and confidence with which they settle on those combinations always comes through-the black and white coat with the yellow furs trim is one of my favourite pieces from the entirety of this season’s offerings.

I wasn’t so fond of Max Mara’s SS20 collection and I'm not gonna lie, this isn’t THAT much of a step up for me personally. It’s just one of those brands I feel obligated to include because it’s talked about quite a bit but I’m not totally sure if it’s for me. Too monotone, but I’ll give it another season! And I mean, there is a slight improvement here-this collection is a lot more laid back than the stiff, austere feel of the last, and there are some very well fitted and structured pieces. A lot of the looks kinda remind me of a 2020, fashion take on The Breakfast Club’s “Basket Case”, which is kinda cool, and just from looking at the clothes, the high price tag is palpable. Also, scruffy hair club unite! Though obviously it’s intentional here! That’ll be my excuse for the next time I turn up at work looking like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards-Max Mara made me do it.

Ending on those words of wisdom, I’m gonna bring this post to a close, because I can’t fit any more photos in! I’m desperately hoping that I can fit this all into 3 parts like I did with my last RTW review but even if I do have to make 4 posts, I still include my top 10 shows as I did before. I hope to get that post up within the next couple of weeks! After that, I’ve shot a Lana Del Rey inspired by each of her different albums and “era”s though given last week’s events I’m on the fence about whether to post it or not, especially given her silence over the last couple of days. I’m really proud of what I’ve put together and I’ll always love her art and music (I have 2 bloody tattoos, for fuck’s sake!), so I’m trying to think how I can reconcile that with those awfully worded posts and just the general lack of awareness of bigger issues that she’s displayed the last week. JFC, being a Lana stan has always been so chilled up until now. All the very valid and important takes aside, that “Lana pls delete that post and apologise, we can’t fight the barbz all your stans are depressed” tweet is the only good thing to come out of this shitshow. He got a point. Breathing feels like effort lately:( IDK, if you’re also a Lana stan and you have any opinions on the matter, feel free to DM me, because I’m feeling pretty conflicted rn.

Most importantly though, are the issues I opened this post by talking about, and I thought I’d finish by including the thread of petitions I saw on Twitter. Like I said, a lot of them aren’t available to sign in the UK but to anyone who read up until this point (thank you!) idk where you’re reading from so maybe some of them will apply to you:

https://twitter.com/yericvIt/status/1265801832930045953

Also, while we’re at it, because every tory voting twat seems to treat our country as if it’s some beacon of hope where racism is non-existent and love to tell PoC to stop moaning about their experiences, here’s a thread of black British men and women who have lost their lives to police violence:

https://twitter.com/illh0eminati/status/1266441604170223617

Thank you for reading until the end. I hope that you enjoyed the fashion part of the post but also that if you did read this far, you read the other bits too if you didn’t know what was going on already. It seems like everyone does but you forget that Twitter’s a bit of an echo chamber and that outside of it, there’s a lot of ignorance, whether intentional or not. I know Tumblr has a similar audience to Twitter so I imagine there’s loads on here about everything going on too, but ya know. I wanted to talk about it just incase.

Stay safe, keep fighting the good fight, and again, thank you for reading!<3

Lauren x

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thetortureartist · 5 years

Text

Introduction

About me . . .

I am a Dominant, Male, Feeder. . . . An artist, skilled in the areas of Sculpting, Drawing, Painting, Woodworking, Leatherworking Etc. I enjoy expressing my kinks and interests through my art and writing, as well as making my own BDSM equipment and toys.

I have been involved in the BDSM lifestyle, and BDSM community for over eighteen years. My kinks and interests include. . . . Curvy/Thick Girls, BDSM, Pregnant Girls, Enemas, Fat Girls, Feederism, Really Fat Girls, Inflation of all types, including, Fluids, Air, Cum, Food/Stuffing. Etc. . . . Pretty much anything that involves, or results in a girl having a big, round belly. . . . Extremely Fat Girls, Force Feeding, Teasing & Humiliation, Piggy Play, Corporal Play & Punishment . . . and many other related activities that would fall within the BDSM & Feederism lifestyles. . . . Oh . . . and did I mention that I like . . . FAT GIRLS??? . . . Honestly, I appreciate, and I am attracted to beauty in all shapes & sizes. . . . From "Average" to Extremely Huge.

While my "Real Life" involvement in BDSM goes back some eighteen-plus years. . . . My awareness of, and interest in it, has existed since I was very young . . . as early as eleven as I recall.

But my interest and attraction to Feeding and Fat Girls goes back even further . . . to when I was very, very young. I have had an obsession with Fat Girls, the act of feeding them, and making them fatter, almost as long as I can remember.

Both my interest in BDSM and Feederism existing long before I was aware of a sexual/arousal connection.

I can remember being as young as seven or eight. . . . Drawing cartoons of a very hungry girl going from one fast food restaurant to another. . . . Eating and eating . . . growing progressively fatter. . . . Her belly expanding against the table, and pinning her in the booth. . . . Her clothes gradually splitting at the seams. . . . Until finally, she ended up lying flat on her back, too fat and gorged full to move.

I also drew other cartoons of girls being forcibly fed and fattened . . . by usually unseen antagonists, or sometimes by machines. . . . Fed until they were incredibly huge and often perfectly round.

I kept those cartoons well hidden, and was always scared to death someone would find them. . . . I wish I still had those crude cartoons. . . . But sadly, they are long gone. . . . Having been destroyed at some point for fear of being discovered.

So you could say my perversion has been life long. . . . How or why I initially became exposed to it, or how these kinks and interests became so engrained in me I cannot say.

But I do remember . . . the 1937 Merry Melodies cartoon "Pigs Is Pigs" captivated me from the time I first saw it as a child. And it has stuck with me all my life. . . . It certainly contained themes of BDSM and Feeding. . . . Force Feeding against someones will to be exact.

The 1951 cartoon "Chow Hound" also sticks in my mind. . . . Particularly the end scene with the forced, funnel feeding.

So blame cartoons again if you must. . . . But I for one, am so glad someone decided to make those silly little cartoons all those years ago. . . . Though I am sure their intention was to tell a "moral lesson", rather than creating arousal . . . Ooops!

There is also the 1971 movie "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory" . . . You know . . . the Blueberry Girl scene! . . . Yet another intended moral lesson gone awry. . . . Turned into a life-long perversion/kink for many out there.

But I am who I am. . . . I make no excuses for it . . . and I know there are many, many others out there . . . both male and female, just like me.

About my art and writing.

I am a perverse, imaginative individual, with a highly creative, extremely fertile mind. . . . I have countless thoughts and ideas, and enjoy expressing my kinks and perversions in the form of drawings, sculptures and written material. etc.

Over the years I have created these works primarily for my own personal enjoyment, and as a means of purging my thoughts and ideas, to make room for new ones. . . . When I come up with a thought or idea, it tends to stick with me until I do something with it. . . . So . . . sketching the idea out, or writing it down allows me to get it out of my head and recorded into some tangible form. . . . Thus leaving my brain free to create other new ideas.

Unfortunately most of this material exists only in the form of sketchy outlines, disconnected scenarios and ideas, rough sketches or doodles. Most of it not developed enough for any kind of public dissemination.

Often times I may work at something, getting it partially developed . . . then, Real Life issues or some new idea interferes, and draws my attentions elsewhere. Some of these ideas may often sit for months . . . or in some cases, years before I come back to them.

Recently, I have been trying to bring some of these works to the point of completion. And I have decided to finally post some of these publicly for the enjoyment of those who are like minded . . . and share my particular kinks.

However, my Real Life / work situation often leaves me very little time for these indulgences . . . an hour here . . . thirty minutes there. So postings may be few and far between. . . . But, I do have a few works nearing completion, and will post when I can.

I am posting on Tumblr first. . . . I had set up a Tumblr account some time ago with the intention of starting to post there. . . . But then Tumblr had their morality implosion. . . . Though I do still see such material being posted there . . . having to scroll through their dashboard to look at stuff is a fucking pain in the ass.

So I was going to use Twitter . . . as it seemed to be the place to where most have gravitated. . . . But discovered while it is well suited for the posting of pictures . . . it is not well suited for the posting of longer writings.

I have also had a Deviant Art account for many years . . . but never have posted anything there. . . . Turns out, Deviant Art isn't as “deviant” as they profess to be. . . . I am not fond of their censorship practices.

There are other places to post this sort of material . . . but for now, Tumblr seems to be the place to start. . . . I may also cross post to Deviant Art to see what happens. . . . If I do post material anyplace else, I will post appropriate info and links.

By no means do I consider myself a "writer". . . . My writing is crude at best. But let's face it, I am not attempting to write the next best seller, or block buster film here. This is masturbation material! . . . Fatty Porn . . . Fatty-rotica if you will. . . . If my writing manages to make some cocks hard, and some pussies wet . . . well then . . . mission accomplished!

This material is not for everyone. . . . It is intended for “mature” adults only. . . . If you ARE NOT interested in such subject matter, please go elsewhere! . . . There are countless diversions on the internet to entertain you.

For those who are incapable of understanding or accepting this sort of material. Who seek it out purely for the "Freak Factor", and "Shock Value". . . . Who feel compelled to post comments telling me what a Sick Pervert I am . . . a Twisted Fuck . . . a Perverted Freak . . . that I am Fucked In the Head . . . Etc. Etc.

Thank you! . . . I am well aware of this. . . . I embrace it . . . I promote it . . . I live it . . . and I do my best to indulge it, nurture it and grow it every chance I get. ;)

So please don't waste your time and effort, or the time of those who do enjoy such material. . . . Just go find something that you enjoy, whatever it is, and focus your attentions there. . . . Trust me my friend . . . there will come a point in your life when you realize TIME is far to valuable to waste.

For those of you who ARE interested in such things . . . Please. . . . Enjoy!

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phroyd · 5 years

Link

The Proud Boys want the public to believe that they’re a “drinking club” who only resort to violence to defend themselves from anti-fascist protesters during political rallies.

But in private, these extremists have discussed injuring and even killing their adversaries, plotting tactics and optics for months in order to assert a claim of self-defense should they face charges.

According to private chat logs obtained exclusively by HuffPost, the punch-happy, pro-Trump street gang was particularly excited for its “Resist Marxism” rally, scheduled for April 6 in Providence, Rhode Island. With the right plan of attack, members said, this one could put them back on the map.

This mother f**ker needs to meet a 7mm [Magnum rifle] from about 500 yards.Proud Boy Shaun Hufton in private chats.

The group had been floundering ever since 10 of its members were arrested for assaulting protesters outside a GOP event in New York City last year. Their leader, Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, reportedly arranged for his followers’ surrender.

In the chats, covering a time period between February and March of this year, members claimed they needed a conclusive “win” this time around, which they defined as a bloody battle against “antifa” in Providence. If this brawl were bigger and more violent than previous iterations, they might regain some of the street cred and followers they’d lost.

“We’ll grow this group of patriots and we’ll never back down,” wrote the event’s organizer, Proud Boys member Alan Swinney, in the private chat messages. “If we win, it will make more patriots come to the next rally. We just need to go there and we’ll beat them. We’ll have enough to crush them at some point.”

A source with direct knowledge of the exchanges confirmed to HuffPost that the logs were authentic. Swinney also responded to several screenshots. When asked about discussions of violence in the chat logs, he told HuffPost, “They’re warriors. ... Choir boys don’t go up against people like that [anti-fascists]. It takes a person with a certain type of mindset.”

The logs contained a revolving door of up to 30 Proud Boys and their allies, including militia members and other “patriots,” as Swinney called them. Those named in this story either publicly identify as members of the Proud Boys or affiliated groups, or have been identified as such in national news stories or by the groups’ leaders.

Looking forward to Providence, members in the private channel were pumped for the opportunity to cause mayhem. One Proud Boy named Anthony Mastrostefano said:

“All I want to do is smash commies too. Actually I’m lying, I’m way past just hitting them. When the time comes I will stop at nothing to fully eradicate them all!”

“We’re A Drinking Club”

The Proud Boys have a yearslong history of violence, and they’ve built an entire brand off of the fights they’ve helped organize in American streets, from spars in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, to attacks in Providence and New York.

McInnes created a set of rules by which his gang members could gain clout in the organization, which include forgoing masturbation, getting a Proud Boy tattoo and fighting in the name of the gang.

Their leadership has always claimed that such violence is incidental, acts of self-defense necessitated by their anti-fascist opponents, who show up to each of their purported free-speech events in protest.

They’ve gone as far as to file lawsuits to maintain that facade ― on Monday, several of their members stood at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and announced that they were suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling them as a hate group. McInnes himself filed a defamation lawsuit against the civil rights organization in February.

“We’re a drinking club that stands behind Donald Trump,” said Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio at the D.C. event. “That’s enough to earn hate of the left.”

But private chat logs leaked to HuffPost fly directly in the face of that sentiment, showing Proud Boys premeditating violence they hope to commit. They spent months before the April rally meticulously planning strategies for injuring protesters.

Members discuss what weapons they might use against the “commies” they’ll meet in the street, which police officers might be sympathetic to them, how they’ll raise funding to fly out their long-distance compatriots, and how they’ll “bait” protesters into throwing the first punch so that they can claim self-defense.

HuffPost has reviewed dozens of private messages shared among a small group of Proud Boys and their allies, mostly on the social app Telegram, in the months leading up to the “Resist Marxism” rally they had planned for April. The chat logs were leaked by a source who wished to remain anonymous out of fear for their safety.

The rally ultimately didn’t happen, but the logs provide an inside look into the extremist group’s strategy as well as evidence that such planning continues to this day.

The Proud Boys Premeditate Violence

“Group, meet Kindness,” wrote Proud Boy Jason Cardona on Telegram, above a selfie in which he’s holding his pet, an ax.

“Ahhh, Kindness,” crowed Proud Boy Peter Scott in response. Scott then posted a picture of himself holding a large knife. Another member, Jake Adkins, posted a short video depicting an unknown device, asking the group, “Think I can get this thru in a checked bag?”

On Telegram, the Proud Boys privately fantasized about the weapons they might like to use against anti-fascist protesters at the rally in Providence. But they were also cautious about what weapons they told others to bring, as they didn’t want to face more arrests.

Scott noted that mace is “100 percent legal for self-defense” and directed everyone else in the chat to “armor up boys!” Makeshift armor is a common sight among Proud Boys, militia groups and other far-right extremists at these rallies. Depending on where a gathering occurs, concealed guns are also a possibility.

“If you’re in a state that can show up with your guns that’s fine. Up here in New England you can’t but some of us still show up,” wrote Proud Boy member Kenny Lizardo. HuffPost reported on Lizardo last year after he showed up on the doorstep of a comedian to intimidate him over his tweets

“I carry but it seems like to [sic] much could go wrong with that,” wrote Proud Boy Jason Lewis. “Big patriot fists and boots will do just fine.”

The gun-measuring contest was interspersed with analysis of street-level warfare. They explored how to counter “black bloc” tactics used by anti-fascists, in which protesters wear all black to make it hard to distinguish individuals, and they shared stories about previous exploits, most of which included getting a solid punch in without getting caught.

In some chats, the Proud Boys claimed to have ties to local law enforcement, though it’s unclear how legitimate those relationships were. As reported by the Portland, Oregon, alt-weekly Willamette Week, the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer ― their close allies on the West Coast ― have had some success garnering police sympathy during their fights.

“Last year we had two different cops ‘admiring’ our work,” said John Stewart. “One told us ‘they don’t want to fight you guys again they are pussies.’ The other thanked us as we walked by him.”

But they would never learn if their apparent clout with police would help them stage their April 6 rally in Providence ― it fell apart before it began. The national Proud Boys “elders” announced at the time that the gathering was postponed while they focused on the trials of those 10 Proud Boys arrested and charged over last year’s attacks in New York City.

They Know What They’re Doing

The Proud Boys repeatedly acknowledged that their plans could get them in trouble.

“I advise all of you to only speak in terms of self-defense and never speak of premeditated violence,” wrote a man who identified himself as Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman, an extremist who has previously been convicted of violent felonies and is known for his attacks at rallies and repeated parole violations, among other crimes.

He added: “I could be liable for what happens in Providence. So please stop making it easy for these people to prosecute us by putting threats of violence in writing that can be used against us later.”

Few seemed to listen, and leaders like Swinney had to attempt damage control on a regular basis.

For example, Proud Boy Shaun Hufton at one point made a direct threat to kill an anti-fascist activist who goes by the pseudonym Antifash Gordon on Twitter:

“This mother fucker needs to meet a 7mm [Magnum rifle] from about 500 yards,” he said, to which Scott responded, “Do not post any threats on here, the feds will use it against [us] in court.”

For his part, Swinney often repeated the “defense-only” deflection, demanding that other Proud Boys characterize their “rallies against communists” as acts of preservation and their presence as a security detail for rallygoers.

In an interview, Swinney corroborated the authenticity of chat screenshots HuffPost showed him and said he personally agreed with statements about “smashing commies” like Mastrostefano’s.

“He specifically said ‘when the time comes,’” Swinney told HuffPost, adding later: “When the time comes, and the order is given, I’ll do whatever it takes to stop these people. The constitution is the greatest document of freedom ever written. I’ll give my life to defend it if nessicary [sic].”

Phroyd

#extremism #violence #proud boys #gavin mcinnes #alan swinney

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biooflanarhodes · 3 years

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The Truth About Lana Rhoades' Biography

She has yet to show the identification of the child’s daddy. Remarkably, she was wed on the age of 18 as quickly as she completed from secondary school. She had truly not yet ventured into grownup film acting. In 2018, she publicly confirmed that she was quitting her career in grown-up films to endeavor into different personal projects. Nevertheless, her retired life was short-term following her important return in January 2020.

It seems whoever Lana started seeing after breaking up with Mike is the father of her child, though she has but to make it official with him. Even although they went on this date, it may have been their last. Lana went on to say that the date was "boring" and that this individual brought one other woman alongside as a backup. "The guy who invited me also invited one of many other women and this isn’t the primary time that this has happened to me that the place I’ve been invited on a date and so they also invite a backup possibility," she said.

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love-killed-the-superstar · 7 years

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IT’S HERE!!! SOME DOMESTIC IRMA/CORNELIA GOODNESS TO HEAL YOUR SOULS, HAPPY FEMSLASH FEBRUARY

Title: The Frying Pan Conversation Pairing: Cornelia/Irma Chapter: 1 - road trips and stars Summary: “What, you mean you can't just up and introduce me as your banging girlfriend?” “No, Irma,” Cornelia said through gritted teeth, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “Because up until today they think I've been dating an aspiring future botanist from State U, not the girl who once snorted orange juice out of her nose during a Boy Comet marathon.” (Cornelia and Irma spend Christmas with the Hales.)

Read on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13743063/chapters/31578714

Irma stared out of the window groggily as Cornelia took her sweet time loading two large suitcases and a handbag into the back of the car. She'd taken the liberty of shoving everything she needed into her signature teal suitcase and a tote bag with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles design on it, since it was to be expected that Cornelia would be bringing home so much junk for a two-week period.

A rapping of knuckles against the glass dragged her out of her daze, and she rolled down the window.

“Morning, Corny,” she drawled, rubbing one eye sleepily. “I've been driving since six and without the sweet remedy of coffee, so you'll have to take over until we hit the next pit stop.”

“As someone who had the sensibility to prepare coffee beforehand, I'll rise to that challenge,” Cornelia said with a smirk, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. She leaned down, planted a wet one smack in the middle of Irma's forehead, then yanked on the door handle. “Now get out so we can swap over.”

“Only because that was the darned cutest wake up call ever,” Irma agreed with a yawn, stepping out of the car and into Cornelia's arms. Her girlfriend was ready for the Heatherfield winter, in a moss green shawl and mulberry-coloured dirndl skirt. Her cute winter ankle boots, cuffed with faux fur the colour of soot, added an extra two inches, leaving Irma squinting up at her in bemusement. “Are you ever not wearing earth tones? And how am I supposed to kiss you back when I'm at eye level with your boobs?”

“You're creative, you'll figure something out,” Cornelia said lightly, far too chipper for so early in the morning. She spun Irma around, effectively taking her place beside the car, and plopped down in the driver's seat. Irma climbed onto her lap immediately despite protests.

“You're right, I did. I can finally get to your face.” Irma pulled her into a kiss, as messy as it was sleep-deprived, and grinned as she pulled back. “Course, I could have just kissed your tits instead.”

“Through this shawl?” Cornelia raised her eyebrows. “Nice try. It's cashmere.”

“Well, cash it in for some sweet Irma kisses, because they're incoming.” She puckered her lips for effect, and Cornelia hastily clapped a hand over her mouth. In the ongoing struggle, Irma's butt cheek leaned against the wheel, honking the horn twice before Cornelia forcibly pushed her into the passenger seat, giggling helplessly.

“Irma! I'm sure my neighbours don't want to be awoken by your butt on the steering wheel,” she chastised, but she was grinning from ear to ear. Irma rolled her eyes, still giggling like a fool, and fastened her seatbelt.

“Spoilsport. Anyway, I'm gonna catch some sleep, so no singing along to the alphabet song while I'm snoozing, okay?”

“Where you get the impression that I'd be listening to anything but classical, I'll never know,” Cornelia responded nonchalantly, grabbing her flask of coffee from the cup holder and offering it out to her. “Here, some coffee and a short nap and you'll be right as rain.”

Irma took a swig, spent the next few minutes complaining about Cornelia's shit taste in coffee, and curled up in the passenger seat, insisting on wearing Cornelia's cashmere shawl to snooze in.

“If you drool on it, I'm holding you accountable for dry-cleaning,” she warned, but her tone held no malice and Irma made a point to give it a wet kiss before curling up against the window and drifting off.

…

“Hey, you're getting spit on my shawl.”

Irma was nudged awake with a playful left hook to the chin, and she groaned as light seeped into her vision. The morning sun was already higher in the sky, and making its presence known by proceeding to blind her.

“Ugh, what time is it?” she groaned, shielding her eyes with one hand and wiping at her mouth with the other.

“Half ten. At this rate, we'll make it to my parents' cabin for mid-afternoon.” Cornelia climbed back into the driver's seat and thrust a wrapped sandwich into Irma's face. “Here, I picked you up a breakfast sandwich.”

Irma took in the scent of bacon and egg, and immediately her mouth began to water all over again.

“Oh man! Cornelia, have I ever mentioned what a goddess you are?”

“Once or twice,” she remarked with a smirk, unwrapping her own breakfast bagel. “Mostly after cunnilingus.”

“Cornelia Elizabeth Hale, that mouth!” Irma swatted at her arm playfully, before tucking into her sandwich. She eyed Cornelia's bagel. “You still veggie?”

“Yep,” she said distractedly. “Thinking of going vegan for my new year's resolution, but finding vegan alternatives in service stops seems like a pain.”

“You pansexuals and your crazy dietary choices,” Irma grumbled, an impeccable impression of her father, shaking her head. Cornelia grinned.

“That's a thing?”

“Read it on Twitter.”

“Oh, so you're stereotyping me now?”

“When don't I stereotype you, blondie?” Irma teased with a wink. “You do realise if you go vegan my dad is never gonna cook for you again? He puts cheese and butter in everything.”

“That's fine,” Cornelia said with a shrug. “I'm sure Anna will bend over backwards searching for vegan cookbooks. Chris will hate me for it, but he hates me anyway.”

“It's possible he doesn't hate you,” Irma countered. “He just doesn't like that he has to deal with two annoying big sisters now instead of just one.”

“An understandable dilemma,” Cornelia agreed. She took a few moments to finish her bite of bagel before continuing. “I'm sure it can't be easy knowing his sister's dating the hottest girl in the universe. He'll end up having to settle for less no matter what.”

“Narcissist. Anyway, since I came out my dad and Anna keep trying to land home the point with Chris. Like, 'if you bring a boy home instead of a girl, it's no biggie, okay?' Part of me thinks its endearing, but mostly I'm just offended that Chris is getting an easy ride and not taking full advantage of their newly opened minds.”

“Ah, well, he'd have to have those leanings in the first place to take advantage of them,” Cornelia pointed out, chewing thoughtfully. “And from the looks of things, Chris is as straight as a goal post.”

“I mean, he's thirteen and still thinks girls are gross, so there's hope yet.” Irma shrugged. “What about Lillian? Think she's gonna be psyched that you're dating me?”

“If disappointment could be a more powerful emotion, she'd probably be feeling that?” Cornelia suggested with a grin. “I mean... she got on pretty good with Peter. Who knows what she'll say to know I left Heatherfield's cutest surfer to date... Heatherfield's second cutest surfer.”

Irma balled up her wrapped and threw it at Cornelia with a scoff.

“Rude! And hey, I may not be beach hunk material, but I'm beach chunk, and that's a very attractive quality.”

Cornelia reached over to pinch Irma's cheek playfully.

“That's right. Peter could slice beef with that jawline. I much prefer these chubby cheeks.”

“You mock, but I have many selfies with lipstick-covered cheeks in my evidence locker,” Irma retorted. “You do love these chubby cheeks and I can prove it too!”

Cornelia leaned over and pressed a kiss to the cheek in question.

“You don't need to prove anything,” she replied, an impish grin on her face. Irma's eyes narrowed and she stretched across to kiss Cornelia squarely on the nose.

“Let's just agree that we're both adorable and call a truce. Got any of that disgusting coffee left?”

Cornelia reached into the cup holder and presented a brandless fair trade coffee cup proudly.

“Why waste my coffee on your ruined taste buds when I could just overload you with sugar instead?”

Irma clapped her hands against her cheek with a squeal, before gripping the coffee cup like a life preserve.

“Cornelia, you are an angel among women everywhere, you know that? The best girlfriend a girl could friend! Ellen and Portia who?”

“Your excitement over pit stop coffee is just a little bit sad.”

Irma shot her a glare that soon melted into a grin as she took a gleeful sip.

“You put in three sugars? Corny, now you're just spoiling me!”

“What can I say, I'm a renaissance woman.” She took a sip of her own coffee and buckled herself back in. “I don't mind driving for a bit longer, but we'll switch at lunch time, okay?”

“Dealio. Man, you're the coolest. Did you forget to pack the stick that's normally in your butt?”

“Don't push it, dear, or I'll throw your coffee out of the window.”

As Cornelia pulled out of the parking lot and onto the junction, Irma pulled the shawl a little tighter around her and sipped her coffee. She was gradually feeling like herself again, and not some subhuman creature who'd been stomping around since 5:30 that morning. Cornelia had on some kind of smooth jazz radio station, blasting that good and horny Dionne Warwick song that Cornelia put onto every custom playlist she sent to Irma, and Irma felt the need to shake up the momentum of the car a little. Wordlessly she plugged in her iPod and began switching through tracks.

“Irma!” Cornelia protested. “I was listening to that!”

“You mean you don't want to pop your pussy to Karmilla's latest single?” Irma asked, eyes popping in disbelief. “Man, you'll love her new stuff now she's publicly come out, it's like her entire discography suddenly makes ten times more sense in the context of the metaphysical closet.”

“Karmilla's gay?” Cornelia asked in disbelief. “Since when?”

“Bi,” Irma corrected. “Since like, last March? How is this news to you?”

“Ahh. I don't know, I'm still stuck on Dionne Warwick after all this time.”

“Fair enough. Well my darling Corny, in fifty years when you catch up with contemporary music again, give Karmilla's upcoming album a listen, so far it's really angsty and gay. And also uplifting and gay.” “Sounds like a blast.”

Irma scrolled to Karmilla's latest song, Claim To Closet Fame, and let the first few bars wash over them in a blissful silence.

Then she started wailing about kissing down a woman's chest in a darkroom, and Cornelia grimaced.

“Her passion is a bit scary.”

Irma shrugged.

“Passion is passion, babe.”

“So,” Cornelia said quickly, not wanting to press the issue of their clashing music tastes any further, “this is going to be a very important winter break.”

“Uh huh.” Irma sat up a little straighter. “Our darling Cornelia's ready to jump out of the closet and scare her parents half to death over an awkward dinner where they'll be paranoid she's gonna tell them she's pregnant or dying or flunking her degree instead of just making the frying pan joke over a face-time call and being done with it.”

With a deep sigh through her nose, Cornelia pushed her hair back. “It's not that simple. First is the idea of explaining pansexuality to my parents, who by the way, still think there's only two sexual orientations and being bisexual is a one-foot-out-of-the-closet situation. So brace yourself for that.”

“Noted. Go on.”

“Then we'll have to go through the stages of my parents asking if they did something wrong, if I've been in a toxic relationship, if I'm just confused, and all of that fun stuff. And they'll say, 'Peter is such a nice boy, why would you choose to be gay?' which brings us right on back to point one.”

“So this will be a circular conversation. Understood.”

“And then, finally, we'll tell them that we're in a relationship. But I need them to understand my identity first and foremost, Irma. You can understand.”

Irma shrugged. As far as coming out had gone, being gay and dragging Cornelia along to Heatherfield Pride as her girlfriend had been one and the same, but she got the jist.

“What, you mean you can't just up and introduce me as your banging girlfriend?”

“No, Irma,” Cornelia said through gritted teeth, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “Because up until today they think I've been dating an aspiring future botanist from State U, not the girl who once snorted orange juice out of her nose during a Boy Comet marathon.”

“No fair, that was one time and I was thirteen!” protested Irma, throwing up her hands in disbelief. “You can't hold that over me forever!”

“I don't, but they'll remember because it was my mother's couch that had orange juice stains on that never quite went away,” Cornelia pointed out tiredly. Irma groaned dramatically and flopped back in her seat, hand thrown over her face.

“Are they ever gonna approve of me being your girlfriend?” she grumbled. “I don't fancy marrying into a family that thinks I'm some good-for-nothing slob.”

“Of course they don't think that!” Cornelia said quickly, switching lanes to let a FedEx van pass. “Sure, they probably aren't expecting mystery botanist guy to be... well, you. But once they get over the fact that you're a woman, I'm sure things will settle down! I mean, my mother can be a little critical, but Lillian is just as messy as you, if not worse, and my dad adores her. Besides, he finds your jokes funny.”

“That's because he doesn't know I'm banging his daughter!” Irma exclaimed, huffing. Cornelia blushed a little and rolled her eyes.

“You're being ridiculous. First of all, my parents don't need to know we're having sex.”

“Oh yeah, because that isn't immediately the conclusion they'll jump to when you tell them since we're supposed to be sharing a pull out couch for the trip!”

“We didn't just immediately jump into sex when we got together, if you recall,” Cornelia continued, eyes trained on the road ahead. “I'm sure my parents won't mind us sharing the couch. Besides, I doubt we'd be able to without breaking it, that thing is horribly flimsy.”

“I'm amazed our darling princess Cornelia hasn't protested against the couch more,” Irma remarked, shooting her a playful look. “Remember when we went on vacation together that one summer? We had to force you into a sleeping bag!”

“The guest bedroom only has a single bed, which Lillian is taking, and they weren't expecting us to join them over winter break, so it was the couch either way.”

“Well, when we go on to my place after the first week, we can share my bed. Dad and Anna made me tidy up my room, you'll be pleased to know, and Anna sat me down for a talk about 'being safe, even with a girl'. Which was super fun, by the way.”

Cornelia snorted out a laugh.

“Your cop dad isn't gonna arrest me for propositioning his daughter, is he?”

“Part of him was relieved, actually,” Irma recalled with a gleeful expression. She cleared her throat, doing her best Tom Lair impression. “'I can't say I'm not surprised, but a woman will treat you properly. Men can be animals.' Honest to god, he said that. As if you're the most pristine girl in Heatherfield.”

“He's only relieved because you had such bad taste in men,” Cornelia replied, mouth crinkling upwards mischievously. “I've had the pleasure of getting to know a few gentlemen in my time.”

“Yeah, well, there's a reason I had such bad taste in guys, you know!” Irma retorted. “Every time one would so much as smile at me I got the wrong end of the stick, little did I know.”

“All tall beautiful blondes,” Cornelia mused. Her smile broke out into a grin as bright as the sun outside, and she clasped the wheel with new energy. “My my, Irma Lair, you sure do have a type, don't you?”

Irma blushed to the roots of her hair.

“Oh, come on! This is – this is bullying, harassment, defamation-”

“It's the truth! Remember Andrew Hornby?”

“Oh my god, please don't bring up Andrew Hornby at a time like this.”

Cornelia's eyes twinkled with mischief. “What was it now? You almost exposed yourself as a guardian by sneaking out to a party transformed, wooed Andrew Hornby, and when he tried making a move on you...”

“If you finish this story, I swear to god-”

“That's right! You turned him into a frog!”

Irma, face bright red, butted her head against the window in defeat.

“I'll turn you into a frog if you don't put a sock in it, Corny!”

As their playful bickering continued, Cornelia's phone started to buzz.

“Irma, get that for me,” she ordered, eyes trained on the road.

“Sure, your highness,” Irma drawled, rolling her eyes and reaching for Cornelia's sleek rose gold smartphone. She unlocked it with ease (Irma's birthday, could this girl get any lamer?) and the screen lit up. “Hay Lin's calling.”

“Patch her through, I guess. And put her on speaker!”

Irma swiped and held the phone up, rolling down the window a crack to let some breeze in. The cold was biting, instantly earning a complaint from Cornelia, but it just felt like another authentic piece of Hay Lin that Irma wanted in the car with them at that moment.

“Hey guys! Are you there yet? And is that Karmilla I hear?”

Claim To Closet Fame was on its third loop.

“We still have about four hours to go,” Cornelia supplied, “and Irma, change the damn track already.”

Irma switched it over to the B-side track, Sensual Orientations.

“Hay Lin, I'd just like to announce how hurt I am that you called Cornelia first when I'm your top contact,” Irma declared, hoping her pout could be heard down the phone.

“Irma, I tried your phone but you never picked up!” Hay Lin retorted. There was some shuffling, and her voice sounded slightly further away than before. “Bear with me, I'm moving boxes.”

Irma fished around for her phone, noting the three missed calls with a heavy sigh.

“You're right. I'm just a terrible friend.”

“Nope, you're just terrible at leaving your phone off of silent.”

“Your hidden pink is a weapon; So shoot me into heaven,” sang Karmilla.

“Irma, is this one about sex too?” Cornelia complained.

“Just wait until you get to the pussy rap, Cornelia,” cackled Hay Lin from down the line. “Me and Irma have been practicing in our free time.”

“If we get that far I'll hang up,” Cornelia warned, shaking her head in dismay.

Irma stuck her tongue out, before gleefully turning her attention back to the phone.

“So what's this call about anyway, Hay Lin?”

“I thought you could use a practice model for when you and Cornelia make your big announcement!” Hay Lin chirped. “If Cornelia's parents are as hard to convince as I've been told.”

“When they find out the first thing they'll ask is which one of us is the man in the relationship,” Cornelia deadpanned. Hay Lin burst out laughing.

“Well, of course they're gonna assume it's me,” Irma grumbled, “just because I wear sports bras and read comic books and can burp up to F in the alphabet.”

“Well, hit me with your perfectly crafted coming out speech,” Hay Lin interrupted cheerfully, with a thump as she lowered the boxes. “I'll give you a worst case scenario so you'll feel better!”

“This is never gonna work,” Irma giggled.

“I'm not doing this.”

“Come oooooon,” Hay Lin whinged, and Irma joined in. “Do iiiiit.”

“Fine, fine!” Cornelia exhaled. “Ugh, here goes. Mother, Father, I've been meaning to say this for a while. I'm pansexual. It means that I, that I feel attraction so people regardless of their gender.”

Hay Lin cleared her throat, impersonating Harold Hale to the best of her ability. “Preposterous! Which one's the man and which is the woman, my darling Cornelia?!”

Irma snorted.

“Why would he be asking that if he doesn't know Cornelia's boning me yet?” Irma pointed out.

“Irma!” snapped Cornelia.

“Sorry, sorry,” Hay Lin apologised, undeterred. “Got into the part too much. Let me try again. Ahem. Cornelia, what does this mean? Are you saying you're a... a lesbian?!”

“This is painful,” complained Cornelia. “I refuse to take this any further.”

“So you are a lesbian??”

“Hay Lin!”

“Aw, I'm only teasing,” Hay Lin said cheerily, unapologetic. “They'll be fine once they get past the initial shock of it all. I mean, it's the 21st century! Times are changing! And for all you know, they could be really chill. I mean, my parents used to hate me watching Hell's Kitchen but now they tune into it with me!”

“That's not the same thing and you know it, Hay Lin!” Cornelia snapped. She huffed and took a moment to compose herself. “Anyway, you're probably right. I'm sure things will sort themselves out after the initial shock, and then-”

“Stop, stop!” Irma interrupted suddenly, waving her hand around. Cornelia frowned, eyes darting between her girlfriend and the road ahead.

“What are you-”

“You feel it in your pussy like I feel it in my bones! You investigate my labia like Sherlock Holmes!” chorused Irma and Hay Lin at a deafening volume, as Karmilla began to belt out her rap verse.

“No,” Cornelia snapped. “No, no, we're not doing this, guys, we're not doing this!”

“When you're kissing down my thighs I never felt so high, so do whatever you please, 'cause when I cum I'm gonna fly!”

“ENOUGH!!”

…

The sun was beginning to sink lower in the sky as they pulled up the driveway, not quite sunset yet. After exhausting Karmilla's album Cornelia had switched it to some station playing cheesy 90s hits, which had resulted in a passionate sing-along born out of pure nostalgia for childhood road trips as Irma had taken over the final stretch in the driver's seat.

She awkwardly parked behind Mr Hale's chevy camaro, the speakers blaring out the last few lines of Breakfast At Tiffany's as they sat stationary. Her own car felt a little redundant in comparison.

“Your dad has good taste,” Irma said with a wolf-whistle. “How come he hasn't bought you a car yet?”

“He's waiting for my birthday,” Cornelia said with a shrug. “I told him I was interested in a prius. Mom told him that was too pricey for my first car, of course.”

“You have your dad wrapped around your finger, he'll hand it over to you gift-wrapped.” Irma leaned in for a quick peck on the cheek, and instinctively Cornelia moved away.

“Irma, please,” she said quietly, a sigh just beyond her lips. “We... we have to be careful.”

Irma rolled her eyes and leaned against the steering wheel.

“I know. Just, don't leave it too late, okay? The sooner you rip off the band-aid the better. At least they'll have the whole of Christmas to get over it, y'know?”

Cornelia nodded, reaching across to squeezed Irma's arm.

“Shall we do this?”

“Christmas break with the Hales,” Irma drawled. “Can't wait.”

Cornelia's parents looked poised and stylish as ever when they answered the door, and Harold wasted no time in sweeping Cornelia up into a tight hug while Elizabeth smiled and nodded poliely at Irma.

“Oh, how have you been, sweetheart?” Harold asked, rocking her a little in his arms. “Any trouble getting here? Feeling all right?”

“Dad, I'm fine,” Cornelia insisted, pulling away slowly. “And the journey went smoothly. Irma picked me up on time and we didn't hit any traffic.”

“Good, that's good.” He patted her shoulder as Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

“They're both over twenty now, dear, perfectly capable of getting here in one piece. It's good to see you, Irma. Please allow us to pay you for the fuel, ferrying our daughter over here.”

Irma opened her mouth, but Cornelia cut in quickly.

“Mother, that isn't necessary!”

“Hey, I want some money back if it's up for grabs,” Irma hissed in her ear.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No no, I insist. It's so lovely of you to join us. I was a little worried all of your school friends would be tagging along. We wouldn't have the room, frankly.” Irma glanced at Cornelia.

“They were busy,” Cornelia said quickly. She shifted the suitcase she was holding and Harold instinctively reached for it. “Will and Taranee are studying and Hay Lin's helping her parents.”

“And mystery botanist man couldn't join?” Harold asked with a wink, hoisting the case out of her arms.

Cornelia blushed, refusing to look at Irma, and hurriedly choked out, “No, he could not!”

“Oh Harold, don't tease,” Elizabeth scolded, as he heaved the suitcase inside. “Come inside now, girls, it's chilly out.”

Irma drank in the sight with eyes as wide as saucers. The Hales had a swish set up, the cabin rustic yet elegant, with creams and cornflower blues somehow blending seamlessly with rich reds and golds. It sure beat the beach cabin she and her family visited every summer, that much was for sure. Her dad had a habit of hanging up those dumb singing fish plaques, as opposed to the deer head as a proud centrepiece in the Hales family cabin.

“This place is amazing,” Irma breathed.

“It's something, all right,” Cornelia sighed, a little off put by the hunting trophy herself. “Was that a gift from Uncle Edward, Dad?”

“Sure was! You know what they called me whenever my old man took us hunting? Tree Hugger Harold,” her father said with an awkward chuckle. “Could never bring myself to pull the trigger, myself. He spent a few days here before we made the journey, so we haven't had the chance to take it down yet...”

“Don't take it down, it's cool!” interrupted Lillian, dashing out of the guest bedroom with a scarf in hand. “I want to make him wear this when we decorate!”

“That isn't very tasteful, Lillian,” Elizabeth chastised, but Harold let out a hearty laugh and scooped her up into his arms.

“I suppose he won't have any complaints, will he?”

“You ever heard a disembodied deer head bitch about wearing a snowman scarf?” Irma muttered to Cornelia, who stifled a guffaw behind her hand. She waved hesitantly at Lillian. “Hey there, Lil.”

Lillian gave back a mechanical wave.

“Hi Irma.”

As usual, they had nothing to say to each other. Irma scratched the back of her head awkwardly.

After a beat of awkward silence, Cornelia pulled her over to one side.

“Here, let me take your coat.”

“Your sister is as sociable towards me as always,” Irma joked, shimmying out of her jacket and leaning into Cornelia's touch for a few moments before moving back.

“She's doing that teenager thing where she hates talking to anyone who isn't behind a gaming headset,” Cornelia remarked, hanging the jacket up beside the coats of the other family members. It felt a little like assimilation into the lives of the Hales, and filled Irma with a strange sense of gratitude, even if at the end of the day it only boiled down to them saving a hook for her coat. “Chris must be like that too?”

“Yeah, but he's been that way since he was eight,” pointed out Irma, shaking her head. “Every time I try and worm a conversation out of him he tells me he's busy. You know the PS4 was a gift for both of us?”

Cornelia cracked a grin and pinched Irma's cheek playfully.

“You poor thing. We'll reclaim it when we go to yours, Alchemy mentioned she lent you a few games that I'd enjoy too.”

“Yeah! You like horror, right? There's Until Dawn, Outlast... oh man, and The Evil Within! That one's gory!”

“I don't know about that...”

…

“So, I noticed this place is devoid of decorations,” Irma commented, as they set about laying the table. Dinner was almost ready, and Cornelia's parents were insistent on taking care of the cooking for tonight since they had spent the day driving.

“They have a thing about it being unlucky to decorate unless we're all helping,” Cornelia explained with a sigh, distributing the silverware to each place mat. “We'll start on it tomorrow.”

“Cutting it a little close, don't you think?”

“I wanted to put up the tree days ago but Dad wouldn't let me,” Lillian huffed, sitting herself down and throwing her napkin across her lap before whipping out her phone. She began furiously texting, and Cornelia and Irma exchanged wry smiles.

“I did tell them that they didn't have to wait,” Cornelia said with a shrug, as they took their seats beside one another. “It's not my fault Mom and Dad are superstitious.”

“Wouldn't have pegged them as the type,” Irma remarked. She laced her fingers through Cornelia's, carefully obscured by the tablecloth, and flashed her a cheeky grin. “You don't take after them much, do you, Corny?”

Cornelia squeezed her hand firmly, holding her gaze.

“We lead different lives,” she said simply.

Elizabeth and Harold swept in briskly, setting down dishes of marinated cabbage, roast potatoes and a large portion of roast beef (as if an afterthought, Elizabeth hurriedly brought out a plate of vegetarian sausages for Cornelia). Harold poured everyone a glass of wine, and Irma couldn't help but wonder how Cornelia's parents kept up the gig of acting sophisticated all the time, even in the comfort of their own home.

They murmured a few words of thanks, before plating everyone up.

“So Irma, you're doing a teaching degree?” Elizabeth asked politely, as the family began to tuck in.

“Er, that's right. Not sure what subject I want to teach yet, maybe math or geography...”

“I think that will suit you marvellously,” Harold praised, in between bites of cabbage. “Teachers do far more than set homework, you know. They inspire! They set you upon your life path! Why, if I hadn't had such a passionate math tutor as a young man...”

Irma tuned out, glancing over at Cornelia. They'd gone over her plan multiple times during the drive, to the point where it was practically scripted, but as they sat there munching on potatoes, it became painfully obvious that Cornelia was frozen to the spot, wanting to cling to this moment of her parents' blissful ignorance for as long as she could. It wasn't like she could reach over to hold her hand with Elizabeth watching them both like a hawk, anyway. All she could do at this point was try and push Cornelia in the right direction.

“...and I simply wouldn't be the man I am today if I hadn't followed his advice and gone to the college he'd suggested,” Harold finished with a proud smile.

“Well, the college I'm attending isn't prestigious or anything, but I'm doing pretty well,” Irma said sheepishly, taking a sip of wine. It was dry and bitter, clinging to her tongue like sandpaper.

“That's what counts, my dear. And Cornelia, my sweet girl! How are your classes going? And how is your mystery chap?”

“About that,” Irma began, glancing over at Cornelia nervously.

“Classes are going well,” Cornelia said quickly. “And... he's, um... he's doing well, too.”

Irma gaped at her.

“Well, that's good,” Elizabeth murmured. “Though I do wish you'd tell us more about him. His age? Does he work?”

“We've only been out a few times,” Cornelia said quickly. “There's not much to tell.”

“Is he a good kisser?” Lillian piped up with a sly grin.

“Lillian!” Cornelia snapped.

“Well, talking to you about your boyfriend is like pulling teeth!”

“Stop arguing, you two!”

As the bickering continued, both parents intervening, Irma miserably chewed through her food, knowing the topic wouldn't be broached tonight.

…

After the plates had been cleared and Lillian had retreated to her room, Irma and Cornelia took to sitting out on the porch, staring up at the stars that were so much clearer than from the Heatherfield cityscape. It was freezing out there, their breath visible in puffs, but there was something tranquil about it too. As an added bonus, Cornelia knew her parents wouldn't be able to stand the cold and would grant them some privacy.

“Hey, Corny. I love you.”

Cornelia's eyes flickered over to Irma. She was looking pretty frost-bitten, with only a thin blanket thrown over her lap and cradling a cup of cocoa like a lifeline, but her eyes were filled with a tender warmth that had Cornelia melting instantly.

“Even though I didn't follow through like I promised?” she said softly, self-doubt creeping in as the winter stars twinkled overhead. Irma scoffed.

“Honey, I know a thing or two about how hard it is to say it to your parents. You gotta take it at your own pace.”

“I'll do it tomorrow,” Cornelia promised, mouth pulled into a resolute grimace. “I won't back down.”

“Simmer down, earth guardian, this isn't like going to battle against some otherworldly lizard villain,” Irma teased. “Do this when you're ready, not because you feel like you owe me.” She paused. “Of course, that's something else I love about you. You tackle everything with the same determination. Cramming for exams, kicking alien butt, giving me hickeys...”

“Irma, that was one time!” she admonished, face pink with indignation. She lowered her gaze, cheeks pinkening from more than the cold. “Where's this all coming from?”

Irma shrugged.

“Not sure, really. Could be my heart, but then, my clit's aching, so...”

“Irma!” Cornelia squeaked, reaching over to shove her playfully. Irma erupted into giggles, pushing caramel curls away from her face.

“Hey, I've been waiting months to see you again, and you're telling me we can't even have sex for another week because the fucking camp bed won't be able to stand it. You can't blame me for feeling horny.”

“Self control, please?” Cornelia huffed, but she was smiling. “My parents could be listening in for all you know.”

“Your dad is helping himself to some scotch and your mom is watching Law and Order,” Irma pointed out, rolling her eyes. “I think we're safe.”

“My mother's so nosy, she'll be checking up on us any minute now,” Cornelia continued, taking a sip of cocoa. “Anyway, I love you too. Not that you need reminding.”

“Hey, you're hard to read sometimes,” Irma defended. “And anxiety can be a real bitch. I'm one of those needy types who craves constant validation, you know how it is.”

Cornelia pulled a face.

“Constant validation? I'm not qualified enough. You'll have to demand it from me or I'll never remember to say anything at all.”

“The hell kind of girlfriend are you?” Irma uncrossed her legs and stuck her foot out from beneath the blanket to lightly nudge Cornelia's knee. “Be nice to me, my self-esteem is shit.”

“Though why, I can't imagine,” Cornelia said softly, shaking her head. “I mean, you're beautiful, you're intelligent, you have a wonderful sense of humour, aside from being annoying and inappropriate at times... there's just so many things to like. I can't understand why you'd devalue yourself.”

Irma rested her chin in her hand dreamily. “Well, hot damn. This is why I need you complimenting me all the time, you're a fucking natural at it.”

Cornelia blushed. “It's hardly my fault you're so easy to compliment, is it?”

“Even when you're sassing me it's complimentary,” Irma exclaimed in disbelief, snorting.

She scooted her chair closer to Cornelia's, almost spilling her cocoa in the process, if not for the advantage of Cornelia's telekinesis on their side keeping it in check. She threw the blanket over the both of them and rested her head against Cornelia's shoulder.

“I will tell them,” Cornelia said gently, as they stared up at the sky of stars. “It's not that I'm ashamed of you, Irma. It's just... harder than I thought it would be, now I'm face to face with them.”

“For the last time, Corny, you don't gotta justify yourself,” Irma scolded, pulling her in closer. “What kind of girlfriend would I be if I got worked up over something like this? You said it yourself, this is about you, not just our relationship. So stop beating yourself up every two seconds just because you're not sticking to the plan, it's the first damn day!”

Cornelia huffed out a laugh and pressed a quick kiss to the top of Irma's head.

“I love you, dork.”

“I love you, blondie.”

As they huddled under the blanket, basking in the crispness of the cold night air, Elizabeth peered at them through the window. She opened her mouth to speak, but something compelled her to stay silent. Instead she watched, with uncomfortable curiosity, as Irma and Cornelia's hands clasped together.

Wordlessly, she left them to it.

#w.i.t.c.h.#w.i.t.c.h #cornirma #irmelia #femslash february #cornelia x irma #irma x cornelia #irma/cornelia #cornelia/irma #writing

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kootenaygoon · 4 years

Photo

So,

I was watching music videos again.

Dragon smoke unfurled before me, my living room throbbing with purple Targaryen magic, while Tove Lo sang from my glowing laptop. I gotta stay high all the time to keep you off my mind. I was shirtless in my Shambhala tights, allowing YouTube to send my mind careening through what some algorithm had decided should be my mental breakdown playlist. Repeatedly it returned to a haunting electronica track from Disclosure: You help me lose my mind, and you believe something I can't define. Help me lose my mind. Mika was at class at Selkirk College while I raved, trampling her rabbit’s shit pebbles into the carpet with my slippers.

All around me were canvases, procured with my final cheque from the Star, at various states of completion. I’d finished a couple more flamboyant self-portraits, but now I’d moved on to psychedelic dinosaurs, shape-shifting jelly-fish, and paintings of both Mika and my barber Jesse Lockhart. Right now I was working on my first nude, a beach scene set on the fictional island of Quatsino, with my UBC manuscript’s protagonist knee-deep in the surf. Paisley’s dreadlocks hung blonde around her shoulders, and on her forearm I had painstakingly recreated the rose tattoo her real-life counterpart got back when we lived together in Victoria. I could’ve easily been painting Kessa. A joint hanging from my lips, I felt tears slide down my cheeks like fat slugs, my mind flashing back and forth between fiction and non-fiction. Sometimes it seemed like there was no difference — these were all just characters in my mind, and real or not they spoke to me.

Stacked on the kitchen counter was three or four copies of my last issue of the Star, the one featuring the #MeToo story with Mharianne and Laela. I’d asked Ed about the story while collecting my things from the office, and he’d hinted that it may be on the chopping block due to my departure. I insisted it was done, everybody was interviewed and signed off, it was all ready to go — “you would literally be silencing sexual assault survivors,” I made sure to say. Then I called the president of Selkirk College, begging him to talk sense into Aaron Layton and letting him know I was planning to publish it online myself. They couldn’t kill it, not now. They could take my job away, but they couldn’t take that story. They ultimately ran it without my byline—a masterpiece without a proper signature.

Meanwhile, I had other things on my mind.

“You didn’t wear a condom?” Mika asked, when I told her about Natalya’s potential pregnancy. She was looking increasingly more concerned when she returned to the house to find me manic and monologuing.

“I hate condoms.”

“So what were you using for birth control? Wasn’t this chick married?”

I dragged my knuckles against my temple, my skin trembly and sweat-slicked. “I thought she was too old. She’s like 42 or something. And she’s already got kids, right? I thought she was on top of this shit.”

Mika rolled her eyes. “You have nobody to blame here but yourself. Seriously, you don’t get my sympathy.”

I had initially intervened in Mika’s life because she was in the midst of a break-up, and I empathized with the struggle of going through something so publicly embarrassing in such a small town. It wasn’t until we moved in together that I encountered her real personality — she was a hyper-nerd, into science and learning and the weekly Bingo night. She was one of the bud tenders at the local dispensary, which was a convenient way for me to meet the owners. Amidst my chaotic and prolific dating life, I was trying to keep her on a platonic level.

My Nelson sister, something like that.

“This is toxic masculinity, right here. I’m such a fucking asshole,” I said. “This is what Me Too is all about.”

“Not everything is about Me Too. You’re just obsessed with that lately.”

I shook my head. “Kessa’s dead, Mika. That’s a real thing. Fucking pedophile rings and rape everywhere. This is what the woman are raging about. They’re dancing.”

“Dancing?”

“Like those girls on roller skates, in the Chet Faker video. You know the one?”

By this point she knew me pretty well, and as her eyes narrowed I realized this was more than a normal high. I was operating from an extra elevated plane, like I’d lost sensory hold over my body. It was an intoxicating place to be, far from the shame and darkness of the banal. I’d tried one of the pills Natalya gave me, and it was making the room vibrate.

“You’re on something,” she said.

“Natalya gave me this shit to micro-dose. Like mushrooms and speed or something. I just had one like an hour ago.”

She sighed. “You need to be careful, Will. You’re acting strange.”

However I was acting, things finally made sense. I felt like I’d peeled back a layer of existence and discovered the writhing snake-belly of reality. Trump was grabbing everybody by the pussy, waging Twitter war with Kim Jong-Un, while here in Nelson there was some sort of conspiracy to ruin my fucking life. Was it really the Kessa situation that did it? How did they convince Ed to betray me? I thought of that cop who punched a woman, how he sat on the pay roll for years while they figured out his outcome. Was I worse than him? Did I deserve to have my life up-ended for going to a fucking funeral? What were they afraid of? I rattled through my theories on this as I drove Mika to school, and she mostly looked out the window. I wondered if she regretted moving in with me. I’d become that mentally ill freak people talk about, posting my shit all over social media. I just didn’t care anymore.

“So is she going to get an abortion?” Mika asked. “Did she say?”

I shook my head. “She hadn’t even taken a test yet. She said she was just feeling funny, and when she was leaning over she felt something weird.”

“Something weird like what?”

“She said it felt like a tear, like a muscle tear maybe? I don’t know, I was fucking panicking. I told her to call my sisters.”

“Your sisters?”

I didn’t feel like explaining this to Mika. She wasn’t tuned into the greater conversation that was going on, the one coming at me through social media. Men were failing to acknowledge their complicity in rape culture while women bled in public. Nobody was willing to admit they were wrong, because everyone was worried they lived in a glass house. Lately, though, I was wondering if I could break my own glass house. That way I could throw some stones.

“What do you mean throw stones?” she asked.

“These men need to be held accountable.”

“What men?”

“These rapists and abusers and pedophiles who took away my job.”

“I thought you got fired because of Kessa.”

I grunted in annoyance. “I wasn’t fired. I was let go without cause.”

Back in my bedroom, Lt. Aldo Raine marched before his carefully assembled killing team in Inglorious Basterds. I’d watched this clip multiple times, and had the words memorized. Brad Pitt sneered, his throat sporting a nasty scar. I sure as hell didn’t come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of fucking aero plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazis ain’t got no humanity. They’re the foot soldiers of a Jew-hating, mass-murdering maniac and they need to be destroyed.

That’s what was happening here in Nelson, but with rapists instead of Germans. Andrew Stevenson was sitting on the edge of my bed, wiping down the barrel of his shotgun, as I lit up another joint. Now I was watching that scene from The Sopranos, the one where Tony wants to kill the local soccer coach for molesting one of the teenage players. This shit was real life, right here. Like my Trent situation. I thought of the local soccer team, and all the abusive shit-heads that were coaching there. I wondered if one of them had crossed the line, if I’d have to add him to my kill list.

I want my scalps.

Somewhere around that time, I realized I was expected soon at Tony’s Taphouse for my Friday night shift. That was how I was battling rape culture now, working the front lines on the bar scene. My favourite moment of each night was when frightened women approached me at the end of the shift to ask me to stand guard until some creep moved on. I took this role very seriously. This week I’d purchased a new accessory to my vested get-up: a bright red bow tie. I checked myself out in the bathroom mirror, trimmed my moustache, and thought of how Tony stumbled home drunk after choosing to spare that soccer coach of his mobster justice.

“I didn’t hurt nobody,” he said to Carmela. “I didn’t hurt nobody.”

As I grabbed my things and headed out the door, I noticed the Ziploc of pills. There were four left now. The first one had gotten me into this productive headspace, so maybe another would help me tap-dance through this rest of this night. Why the fuck not, right? I’d been receiving upsetting emails, crazy messages, death threats. I couldn’t comprehend it all. Unzipping the bag, I cradled one pill in my palm then threw it back, washing it down with tap water. I was tired of feeling morally exhausted, defeated, exiled. I deserved a little pick-me-up. The clientele at Tony’s Taphouse would have no idea their doorman was rip-roaring high. I would be like Bodie from The Wire, standing on his corner while the hitmen descended.

This is my corner! I ain’t going nowhere!

Before leaving, I decided to re-listen to Eminem’s duet with Rihanna, “Love the Way You Lie.” I watched my favourite rapper rock rhythmically back and forth amidst hip-high grass, his voice filled with regret and grief. Here was the ultimate embodiment of rape culture right here, the meta-Chris Brown taking swings at Megan Fox while Rihanna curls her lip. Thing was, Meghan Fox looked exactly like Paisley. The real one. And as Slim Shady rapped in front of a burning trailer, I couldn’t help but think of Ryan Tapp. I can’t tell you how it is really is, I can only tell you what it feels like. And right now it’s a steel knife in my wind pipe.

Andrew Stevenson was waiting at the door, in a black balaclava, with the shotgun sticking out of his backpack. He cracked his knuckles together as I reached the top of the stairs.

“I need your help. You can never ask me about it later, and we’re going to hurt some people,” he said.

I blinked in surprise. “You’re quoting from The Town. That Ben Affleck bank robbery movie. Right? That scene with Jeremy Renner?”

He opened the front door.

“We’re going to hold court in the streets.”

The Kootenay Goon

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kentonramsey · 5 years

Text

Leomie Anderson On Speaking Up, Standing Out, & Building An Empire

There are traditional fashion models, and then there’s Leomie Anderson. At 26 years old, the British style star already has campaigns with Fenty, Topshop, and Pat McGrath under her belt; she’s walked in shows for Moschino, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Yeezy, and Victoria’s Secret, too. But four years ago, something changed. She pivoted from runway model of the moment to role model for the ages — and it all started with a blog post.

Actually, it truly started on Twitter. In 2016, a young fan messaged her explaining a personal situation: She’d been pressured by boys to send nude photos of herself and have Facetime conversations naked. The fan asked Anderson to speak about the issue on her blog, Cracked China Cup. Anderson generally used the blog to post things like the “Black Model Survival Kit,” a video where she shared her favourite products to take to fashion week in order to avoid mishaps with makeup artists and hair stylists who were unprepared to work with black women. Sexual consent wasn’t something she’d covered before. But, it was an issue that she was familiar with; it had played a significant role in her career since joining the industry at the age of 14. After taking stock of just how many young women followed her online, Anderson felt compelled to address it publicly in “An Open Letter About Consent And Saying No.” It very quickly went viral.

“All my young girls reading this, know that you don’t have to do anything that you aren’t fully comfortable with, and that your no means something,” she wrote. It wasn’t long before Anderson was invited to speak at schools, meeting young women trying to navigate these murky waters, and hearing that they didn’t know where to turn in these situations. “That’s basically what sparked LAPP,” she tells Refinery29. “ I want to create an open, safe space on the internet for women from all walks of life to be able to share their perspectives.”

LAPP, which stands for Leomie Anderson The Project The Purpose, is so much more than the next iteration of her earlier blog. Founded by Anderson in 2016, it has grown into an exciting new platform, publishing articles by an international community of women. On the blog side of things, you’ll find sincere discussions on everything from how fast fashion is harming the environment and maintaining a healthy lifestyle on a tight budget, to “Blackfishing” — the practice of non-black people appropriating black features and culture — and personal takes on current affairs.

The other side of the LAPP coin is the coveted clothing collection you’ll undoubtedly have seen sported by some of your favourite celebrities on Instagram over the past couple of years. Members of the #LappBae tribe include models like Slick Woods, Neelam Gil, Jordan Dunn, and Bella Hadid; British singers Bree Runway and Jorja Smith; presenter Maya Jama; and Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger. Back in 2017, it was Queen Rihanna herself (who Anderson fondly considers a close friend) who wore a LAPP “This Pussy Grabs Back” hoodie to the New York Women’s March. In 2018, the brand hosted their first pop up store in London. As for this year, Anderson tells us that she’s currently in talks to find a store partner and a physical space to host LAPP events.

Needless to say, building an empire is never without its hurdles. Behind the scenes, there have been long hours, serious hustle, and unexpected shifts in plans. On Anderson’s Twitter page, you’ll find a pinned tweet from June 2019, in which she announced that an ex-investor was withholding her LAPP The Brand stock. “I’m sharing my story because I don’t want anyone else making the same mistakes I did, especially young women who men try and take advantage of in business,” Anderson wrote.

Setbacks aside, Anderson kept moving forward. The next milestone came last year when Anderson was named one of the newest of Victoria’s Secret Angels, landing one of the most coveted jobs in the business after four consecutive years walking in the show.

As she tells me about 2020’s big projects over the phone from a London salon — she needs to get her hair and brows done before heading on a last-minute trip to Paris the following day — it’s hard not to be impressed by the scale and breadth of her achievements, but also the cool, assured manner with which she describes the last few years spent carving out her own space in history.

As such, she’s extremely busy. We’d had a tricky day of missed calls while she attended to other commitments before finally pinning down a time chat in the early evening. A couple of days before we speak, Anderson had been living it up in Ghana where (as confirmed by committed Instagram stalking) she’d been hanging out with friend and singer Bree Runway. When she’s finished at the hairdressers, she has to rush home and pack before jetting off in the early hours. Yes, it sounds super stressful, but for the most part, Anderson is unphased, clearly used to juggling the demands of running a business, advocating for change in the fashion industry, securing work as an in-demand model and chatting to excited journalists on the phone.

When she’s not tweeting about the new season of Love Island (last we checked, she’s a fan of friend-zone magnet Nas) Anderson is asking her 35 thousand followers for their thoughts and recommendations. In early January, she put a call out for examples of black women being used as “banter” online. It’s a compliment to an upcoming TED Talk at England’s Warwick University, Anderson explains. “The theme they wanted me to speak about was my experience in the modelling industry and how social media has changed society’s beauty standards.”

“I had to make sure that everyone in the room knew I was coming from the perspective of a black woman and that my experiences have been so shaped and defined by the colour of my skin that it would be impossible to speak about the modelling industry or social media without reminding everybody that these experiences are inflicted upon all black women, not just myself,” she says.

It’s a frustrating but crucial topic that Anderson is well-versed in. The model made headlines in February 2016 when she tweeted about the overwhelming number of makeup artists at London Fashion Week who were ill-equipped to work on dark skin. The following year she shared an infuriating story about being turned away from a model casting, apparently because the designer had already cast one model of colour. Diversity in fashion and the particular lack of representation for dark-skinned women is a problem that has plagued the industry for years. And though Anderson does feel that there’s been a shift in attitude, she says social media has been the key catalyst for change.

“Social media has become a way to protect minorities within creative industries because it allows us to unify, which people don’t want. It allows us to be heard in a way that isn’t controlled by the white, cis, male gaze,” she says. The way Anderson sees it, people being vocal about not seeing themselves in campaigns and calling out organisations for discriminatory practices is really what’s pushing the brands to do something about it. “And I think the fact that so many people like Naomi Campbell and Iman continue to unify and speak up every season about the lack of diversity seen on the runways. I think a lot of brands and people felt pressure… Off the back of that, I feel that so many more black creatives have been given really poignant roles,” she adds, citing British Vogue’s Editor in Chief Edward Enniful and Virgil Abloh becoming artistic director at Louis Vuitton. “It’s inspirational and shows people that black does sell because that used to be the excuse they used to stop us being on the cover of magazines.”

Victoria’s Secret has frequently been criticised for its lack of inclusivity. As someone at the forefront of the industry’s conversation about diversity, I ask how Anderson feels about where the lingerie company stands, having now secured a permanent role as an Angel. A big part of her excitement over landing the gig, she admits, was very practical. “A lot of models dream of getting a contract because our job is so volatile. I want to have something stable,” she explains, which being an Angel can provide. “Victoria’s Secret is a brand that I really love working with because they’ve allowed me to be myself. Funnily enough, a bunch of people want to talk about the lack of diversity [but] they’re a brand that has never tried to silence me or make me feel uncomfortable with the fact that I’m very vocal on issues.”

She continued, “I know a lot of brands, big brands, steer clear of anybody who says anything that’s even remotely political. I know brands who are scared of girls who put #BlackLivesMatter on social media. So the fact that Victoria’s Secret supports me in what I have to say really meant a lot to me.”

The benefit that we all reap from women like Anderson who relentlessly engage with the more difficult conversations is undeniable. But, surely, that can’t be without its own pressures. “You know what?” Anderson offers, “I just started speaking one day and people started saying You’re a role model, I was like, What? I was just saying what’s on my mind. But I realised that it was just important. It didn’t feel like pressure, especially not in the beginning because I felt silenced for so long and I felt the silence wasn’t helping anybody in the [same] situation. The silence wasn’t making my job easier for myself. I was still crying in the toilets and I was still experiencing [the] ignorance of racism.”

In short, it sucked. Not speaking meant that more young models were going to go through the same experiences and Anderson is doing what she can to make sure that doesn’t happen. Anderson explains that she does adamantly enjoy, to use her words, “being able to use my platform for something other than posting pictures of myself.” Speaking out means that she can make an impact for women, not just in fashion but across many different industries, who are undoubtedly experiencing similar issues.

People often ask Anderson whether she thinks anyone who has a platform should automatically become spokespeople and her answer is a straight, unwavering “no” – it’s just not everyone’s forte. “That’s why you often see celebrities trying to say something that is poignant and good but just comes across wrong. Then, all of a sudden that person is villainised because they said something the wrong way,” Anderson explains. “It’s just not everybody’s skillset to do that, honestly! And it’s just not everybody’s passion. To actually be a role model and to always have something to say, to become the voice of that, you have to be passionate about it.”

Anderson is a voice we’re acutely tuned into precisely for that reason. And with a possible podcast and dreams of a new YouTube channel in the pipeline, we can only hope her voice rings louder for young women now, and all the ones on the come up behind her.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Leomie Anderson On Speaking Up, Standing Out, & Building An Empire published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

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