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herlondonboy · 1 year

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I Miss You, I’m Sorry

pairings: Taylor Swift x gn!reader (platonic)

Summary: in which you’ve been at everyone of Taylor’s opening shows in the pit since the Fearless tour, but you’re not at the opening of the eras tour

warnings: angst, unspecified chronic illness, reader death, this was supposed to be happy, spelling mistakes, sad Tay.

word count: 1.5k

You had been to everyone of Taylor Swift’s tours. It was a known fact between the Swifties. So much so that people went go up to you at the beginning of the Reputation Stadium Tour and asked for your autograph.

You and Taylor weren’t necessarily friends, but she was well acquainted with you and how your wear obscure outfits to each show. She often found herself scouring the front rows of each show for a familiar, comforting face.

Many videos had showed how Taylor’s eyes would light up when she saw you and vice versa. How she’d wave giddily, and hold back a laugh at your costume and how you’d bounce up and down, screaming the lyrics louder than anyone else.

You weren’t the first Swiftie, but you had been crowned the biggest Swiftie.

At the end of the Glendale show, you had stayed behind to take a mass amount of photos in your costume. That was the first time you were taken backstage. Part of you thought that you were being kidnapped (three men in all black, looking all emotionless and brooding leading you somewhere dark was suspicious to say the least), but then Taylor was stood in front of you with a wide smile.

Your eyes were wide and your mouth was agape, not to mention that you could hear your heart beating in your ears. “H-Hi?” You squeaked out, afraid that if you spoke too quickly you’d wake from this dream.

“Hi! Y/N, I’m-“

“Taylor-fucking-Swift,” you cut her off with a gasp.

Tears welled up in your eyes. You were supposed to meet her at the Reputation Secret Sessions in New York, but something had come up, so you didn’t get to. Part of you wished this had happened three years ago when you weren’t so weak, but it was happening nonetheless.

“Can i hug you?” Taylor asked.

You nodded rapidly and Taylor leaned forward to wrap her arms around you. You melted into the hug, sniffling softly, “I can die happily now.”

Taylor chuckled, “I missed you at the Secret Sessions,” there was a frown in her voice that made you feel guilty.

“I caught the flu,” You lied, “I didn’t want to make you or anyone else sick. I really wanted to go, though.”

The blonde smiled, still hugging you, “Well, when my next album comes out, I’ll have a super secret session just for you. Since you’re my biggest fan,” She said and there was some truth behind her words.

You had been invited to Taylor’s house to listen to the songs on Lover a few days before the first Lover Secret Session. To say you adored each song (Death By A Thousand Cuts being your favourite) was an understatement.

Taylor didn’t notice how jittery you got when Soon You’ll Get Better was playing. It seemed like you had related especially to that song, whether you were the best friend of the person in the hospital room or you were the person in the hospital room.

Your sister, who was also a big fan of Taylor and had been accompanying you to each tour, had always skipped that song whenever playing the Lover album in order, it hurt.

When Midnights came out, you were practically promised a world tour since the Lover Fest was cancelled due to the global pandemic. That was a hard time Your you and your older sister. As if you weren’t sick enough as it was, you had caught the coronavirus and had been forced into a hospital where your family couldn’t visit you for months.

But it got better. The rerelease of Fearless and the release of Folklore came and some people had spammed your instagram account with the news of finding out that you had helped Taylor write the bonus song. Then not long after, you had been allowed visitors and your sister never left your side again.

Though you were bedridden, you kept a smile on your face. Most people weren’t bothered by your sudden disappearance, it had happened a few times in the past whenever you had gotten sick, because you always came back with a brighter smile.

Then Midnights came out and Taylor announced her Eras tour and TikTok was going wild. Some fans were complaining about the price, some were wondering if you had gotten tickets. That led to people beginning to worry. You had never been gone for two years, and worse, your sister was gone, too.

So, when March 17th rolled up, and Taylor opened the tour with Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince, Taylor and her fans searched for you in the crowd. You weren’t there. And the second night in Glendale, you weren’t there either, but your sister was.

And that gave Taylor a little bit of hope. She waved at your sister, who waved back, fiddling with bottom of the top that you wore to the opening of the Fearless tour back in 2009.

At the end of the show, your sister had been led backstage where Taylor had changed and attacked her with a hug. The blonde broke away with a grin, “Hi! How are you? It’s been ages!”

“I’m good, yeah, it has.” Your sister responded, “Life’s been cruel, you know?”

The blonde nodded and looked down, “Where’s?-“

“Y/N told me to give you this,” Your sister held out a diary, making Taylor falter.

“What’s this?” She asked, frowning at the title of it.

Your sister sniffled, “They said- They said that they’re sorry that they couldn’t make it this year, that something came up. They really wanted to be here, Tay.”

The blonde felt her cheeks begin to dampen as your sister continued talking.

“They wrote this when they realised that they wouldn’t-“ A sob tried to claw its way out of your sister’s throat. “M-make it.”

The blonde shook her head.

Whilst the two of you weren’t necessarily friends, you knew each other well enough to know that you didn’t need to label whatever it was going on between the two of you. Your sister’s shoulder’s shook slightly as Taylor took the diary and hugged the woman.

“I’m so sorry,” She apologised profusely. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

A few days later, It was the Las Vegas shows. And, though Taylor hadn’t quite recovered from the news, she couldn’t just not go and perform. So, swallowing down her tears, she made her way onto the stage and sang like she wasn’t feeling all of these negative emotions.

And when it came to her surprise songs, she was sat at the piano, blinking away her tears. She cleared her throat and looked at her fans with a small smile, “So, uh, How is everybody?”

They began screaming on top of each other, making her chuckle slightly.

“Um, I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, but my good friend, Y/N Y/L/N past away last year. Their- their sister told me after the second show in Glendale and they wrote down a diary, wording every thought that had ever crossed their mind about me. They said- they said if they ever died and we became friends they wouldn’t want me to cry for them because they’re ’no one special,’ but they were probably one of the best people that I have ever met.

“Y/N drew a sketch of what their next outfit to one of my tours would be,” The image went up on the screen, before a series of photos of you at tours, smiling at Taylor and the camera. “I just- I wanted to say that even though we didn’t do labels, you were probably my best friend, Y/N,” She sniffled, “And I love you.”

The chords to your favourite song began and as Taylor tried to keep the lump in her throat down and her tears at bay, and a slideshow that your sister had composed began playing in the background.

Your life played out in front of everyone from beginning to finish, from 1994 to 2022. All twenty eight years. The people in the audience watched as you lost your parents and then yourself.

And then in the end, a photo of you grinning tiredly flashed onto the screen as the song faded out. And just as it ended, your voice sounded through the speakers.

Is this recording? Yeah? I’m going to assume it is. Okay, um, it’s February 21st— Happy Birthday, Joe. Uh, i don’t know what I want to say. I mean, thank you to everyone that has made my life worth living. I mean, at fifteen I wore a stupid outfit to a Taylor Swift concert and now I’m friends with her? It’s kind of sad knowing that I’ll never get to hear Speak Now Taylor’s Version, but oh well.

I’m going to be honest, I’m so scared to die. Every night for the past six months I’ve been scared to fall asleep, knowing that there will be a chance that I don’t wake up. I don’t want to die, I’m terrified. I don’t want to leave my sister alone and I know that she doesn’t want me to know, but she’s been crying herself to sleep since we got the news.

I just want to know if you’ll look after her for me? I’m all she’s got. Thank- thank you. I love you.

There was silence followed by Taylor’s small, ‘I love you, too.’ And then cheers from the crowd. Some people were announcing their admiration for you and some were crying.

“I miss you, Y/N.” Taylor whispered. “I’m sorry for not being there with you.”

—

What’s your favourite Taylor Swift song?

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 8 months

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AITA For ruining a coworker's "business opportunity?"

For a bit of context this happened in the Summer of 2020. Also I'll be using the term MLM frequently and in this case it means "multi-level marketing" so comapanies like Avon, Tupperware, Monat, Vector-Cutco, LuLaRoe, etc. A

So I have this coworker let's call her T and in July of 2020 I got a FB message from her that said "Hey girl, so I recently started my own business and I thought you would be the perfect candidate to join my team! We'll be selling cooking and bakeware which should be right up your alley given how much you love to bake! So what do you say are you ready to join my team and leave [place of employment] behind?" I was immediately suspicious about the uncharacteristic tone of her message and asked her "What is the company name?" And she responded with "Pampered Chef." (an MLM). For the record, I am extremely anti-MLM, and know from following several anti-MLM YouTubers that hardly anyone makes any kind of money in those comapanies. So I politely declined her offer. And she immediately said "But you would be perfect! It would be just like when you sold Girl Scout cookies when you were a kid! I need you to join my team!" And I told her "I'm not interested in selling bakeware for an MLM. So my answer is still no." (Also bold of her to assume I did any of the cookie selling when I was in Girl Scouts, I gave thr forms to my parents and they did the bulk of the work).

I thought that was the end of it until I got an invite to an IN-PERSON (remember this was July 2020) Pampered Chef party at her house that at that point 40 people had RSVP'd to. I declined again snd blocked the group and a few days later I got another invite which I again declined. And the process repeated several more times. One day I got one at work within earshot of the manager's office and loudly said "Oh my GOD T I'm not going to your Pampered Chef house party in the middle of a pandemic!" Which got the manager's attention (we had already had one incident where an associate's wedding turned into a super-spreader event where 20 other associates ended up missing work due to Covid) and he asked me what was going on. And me being fed up with the near constant harassment, she messaged me several times a week and even went to my dad about it (he worked at the same store we did), I told him everything. And the following day T announced on Facebook "Unfortunately due to the current state of things, I regretfully have to cancel the in-house Pampered Chef party." She had also messaged me "thanks to you I can't hold my party or recruit people from work. Why did you tell management about it?" And I told her I was fed up with the constant harassment and didn’t see any other way of making it stop. I ended up blocking T after that. And thought it was the end of it.

Until her husband messaged me on FB several weeks later "Hi, I'm [so-so] T's husband, she asked me to reach out to you on her behalf to ask you if you would be interested in joining her team at Scentsy (another MLM that sells scented wax melts) she can't seem to message you for some reason." And I responded "Sir, with all due respect I've already had to threaten to file a harassment grievance against T if she continues to try and recruit me for her "businesses." My answer is still no and I will ask you to never contact me about this again otherwise I will go through with my threat." He apologized and I never heard from him again. T on the other hand makes snide remarks about how I ruined her businesses every time we happen to be on the same shift. And how I didn't have to be a narc and go to management about it and I should have just let it be. So AITA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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wosowrites · 1 year

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Winter Olympian (Jessie Fleming x Reader)

warnings: none

a/n: i’m pretty sure the last winter olympic games were in 2022. based off this request:

prompt: in which jessie is dating a hockey player and is watching her in the olympics along with her chelsea teammates when the reader gets injured.

You and Jessie had been together since 2020. It was honestly a miracle that you guys hadn’t met before, having both been Canadian and having been to London, Ontario at the same time, multiple times. But you only met by some coincidence in the plane going to Vancouver from England. You had been in England for hockey, and Jessie to meet different head coaches and check out facilities. She was still in University. You were in England for a hockey competition that had ended up getting cancelled due to an outbreak. Your teammates had stayed in London, but you wanted to go back to Canada and university.

It had been the splat middle of the pandemic, and only necessary flights were scheduled, and it so happened that you and Jessie were sitting, with one free seat in between you, on a plane to Canada. You had both started talking, and then you realized everything you had in common. Canada natives, olympians, high level athletes. The rest was history.

Jessie sat in her living room with relatively the whole Chelsea team. Over the years, you had become close friends with the girls, even though you lived in Canada to play hockey professionally. The room had never been more crowded. On Jessie’s couch in-front of her flatscreen TV was magda, pernille, guro, sam, niahm and herself. On the floor at their feet sat Millie, Kadeisha, Fran, Ann- Kat and Zecira. And then across the room, chairs from the dinner table had been scattered across the TV area, seating Maren, Joanna, Lauren, Jess, and Emily. It was fully. Very full.

The game started with the national anthem and the shake of hands, as soccer does. But things went different quickly. The game was full of contact, even more because it was an olympic final between USA and Canada. Jessie watched, concentrating hard. "Jesus!" Magda yelled as a player for body slammed against the walls of the rink. "It’s fine, Magda. It’s hockey." Jessie muttered absent mindedly.

In the second period, it was 2-1 for USA and you got a penalty. A player pushed you hard against the glass and you completely abandoned your stick, going over and pushing her onto the ice. A fight broke out, your team holding you back and the opposite team yelling in your face. The ref put you in the box for the two minute penalty. You took your helmet off and looked around in annoyance as you sat in the box, chewing on your mouth guard.

"Damn Fleming. Every time I see her do that mouth guard thing I remember that our little quiet JFlem pulled her." Sam teased, making her blush red. You did look good. Slightly sweaty, tangled hair and stressed eyes did nothing to your charm.

It was only three minutes after you got let out from your penalty that you got taken down. Obviously, the girl you had pushed has held a grudge. As you skated with the puck and body checked you, sending your body flying sideways into the panels.

Your left leg collided with the panel, and you knew something was wrong immediately. It was the way your knee bent backwards and you screamed before you could stop yourself. The ref didn’t stop the play immediately much to the yells and cries of your teammates. By the time the ref blew the whistle, you were sobbing in pain on the ground.

"Holy shit! Ref! Why isn’t he calling that what the hell!" Jessie yelled, standing up and screaming at the TV as the camera panned on you, your body on the ground and your leg stuck out strangely. "That looks broken…" Ann Kat whispered to Z who nodded. "Shit. Shit." Jessie sweared, sitting down and putting her head between her hands. "Hey, she’ll be okay. She will be okay." Magda said, rubbing her hand on Jessie’s back. The freckled Canadian just nodded slowly.

The medics came and got you off the rink quickly, there was no way you could keep playing. You cried as you went off the rink, your helmet abandoned behind you. Your teammates patted you on the back and you just had to tell them to keep going.

But there was nothing you could do. You sat in the medical examiners room, your gear being taken off and your body examined. And thirty minutes later, you heard the final whistle and knew that USA had won gold. You cried, more for the loss than for your leg. You knew a broke leg meant you would be out for a while, and if you were out you could stay in London with Jessie. But loosing the gold medal match… that hurt more than a broken leg ever could.

One week later.

A nice stewardess rolled you out of the plane in a wheelchair as you held your crutches and your bag. You guys talked as she brought you to the area where your luggage would be, and where Jessie would be.

As you entered the large space, you spotted her right away. It was hard not too considering the entire chelsea team was there. Tears filled your eyes as you told the woman wheeling you you were good here. You stood up carefully and Jessie rushed up to you and hugged you tightly, then kissing you a couple of times. "I’m so sorry. I’m sorry." Jessie said. "You did so good. You played so well." Jessie said to you lovingly. "I’m okay. It’s okay. I’m here with you now." You said, holding her to you and kissing her again. "And the whole chelsea team apparently." You laughed, waving at the girls. "Yeah they all insisted to come. You scared the shit out of me during that game babe." Jessie said gently.

You smiled at her as a way of apologizing but she quickly ushered you to sit down and wheeled you towards the girls who greeted you as the Chelsea girls do. Loudly.

#woso fic #woso imagine #woso x reader #woso #chelsea fcw #jessie fleming #sam kerr #magda eriksson

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logically-asexual · 6 months

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i do believe that thomas is enthusiastically working on sanders sides and i think that the long time it has taken for the video to be made is due to other problems, and i get why people who don’t agree with criticisms of thomas think it’s weird to assume that thomas has given up on sanders sides, since even though his updates are vague as hell and come like thrice a year, they’re still updates.

however. i do think the other side is also understandable. mostly considering what the past couple years have been like.

so if you’re someone who thinks it’s crazy that people think thomas has given up on sanders sides here’s a hopefully helpful explanation. i’m not looking for an argument, i just want to explain this in good faith because i’ve seen people confused.

so in the past couple years the discourse has been a lot of -> people being upset that there’s no videos -> people arguing in defense of the waits with different arguments -> the first group not accepting these arguments and still being upset -> and so on.

first the argument was like “he has a small budget and small team, so it makes sense to take a while to make a good quality video!” and like… fine.. he did put out working through intrusive thoughts which had a bunch of cool effects and props and equipment etc and showed that there was a lot of work going into the video that justified a few months of wait. (it was still annoying because it was supposedly “just an Asides” and it clearly did take time away from working on the next actual episode.)

but then he had the patreon and by this point the budget couldn’t really be an excuse? the idea was that with patreon not only videos like WTIT would exist, but that every video could be like that and they could come out just as often as before, because such a big production shouldn’t get in the way now that they had the money and the people to get it done efficiently. that is, unless thomas has a terrible business model where he still spends more than he earns despite probably earning enough to pay a good enough team if the money was well managed? i don’t know how much he earns but he was able to make putting others first and working through intrusive thoughts with no problem and the patron amount has only increased since then right? so that excuse didn’t really last.

then the main episode still didn’t come so the defense was “the pandemic obviously makes it harder to film.” which. of course it did. but then there were vaccines, restrictions were mostly over and thomas started putting out content where he did film with others, just not the main episode. okay. this excuse is now cancelled and then it must be something else.

then we have “thomas has health or personal issues that make him feel uncomfortable in front of the camera.” very reasonable. if he was in the filming stage and so the production of an already-written video had to be paused while he recovers. however. we later found out he is still in the writing stage, after three years.

and writing doesn’t need in-person meetings, it doesn’t need a huge budget further than what they pay for rent at their office and paying the writing team., it doesn’t need thomas to attend scheduled meetings and show a fake-happy face to thousands of viewers. personal issues could get in the way of thomas feeling motivated to write but he still has an entire team of writers and also it’s been three years… and he did make other scripted content in between and didn’t seem to have a problem with that. if it was an issue that made him sad enough to not want to write then after stretching the writing stage a few months then ,, by that point it would probably have been more productive for him to take a full break (letting the audience know) before coming back ready to work.

so. these excuses, mostly thought by the fans trying to justify the lack of videos, are actually very reasonable on their own. but when compared with the reality that time has shown us they seem to be just. excuses. and not actual reasons for the main episodes to come out. so two different conclusions can be taken from this:

1. there’s another problem* that we haven’t figured out yet (and in this sense it would be nice if thomas told us a bit more so we could at least have an idea of what this mysterious problem is. a lot of people in the ts criticism tag only wish thomas was more honest about whatever is going on).

*i personally believe this and i think the problem is simply that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, which is something that thomas and joan do have a record with. like with the puppets episode. but they always have solved those problems that come with having ambitions bigger than their abilities and the result is always great so thomas’s team keeps doing it. but without thoughtful planning it might reach a point where this style is no longer sustainable and i think that’s what has happened with the finale. also made worse now by the lack of joan to improve the writing of the show. but that’s my own guess.

or 2. thomas is straight up lying with his updates. and he’s just. not working on the finale or working very slowly because he barely pays any attention to it. this is the conclusion (from what i see in the ts criticism tag) that a lot of people have come to. because they feel like every other reasonable explanation has been proved wrong and thomas’s lack of more explanations and defensiveness when anybody asks about sanders sides makes them think that he’s not willing to admit something, and that that something is that he doesn’t want to do the show anymore, despite still wanting to earn money and sell merch and leave the possibility open in case he does feel like doing the episode later.

again. i personally don’t believe this. but i understand where the idea comes from. i think thomas isn’t responsible for everything fanders assume about him but there is some blame to be placed on him for the distrust these fans now have on him. because he’s let actual years go by without a word about why writing the finale has taken so long, and because he’s so defensive when people ask about it. he can’t control everything fans think but he could have handled it better. he still could. but i don’t think he’s going to change anything and he’s just hoping to put out the video as soon as possible and let it speak for itself, and he’s hoping that with that people will just naturally come back and let the past go once it’s done. not a good idea imo. but that’s how it seems to be.

anyway. again i’m not looking for an argument. but you can comment your opinion if you like.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #ts criticism #ts critical #ts crit #idk

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taylorswift-imagines · 6 months

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Her show gets canceled

Pairing: Taylor Swift x (female) reader

Warnings: None

Requested: Yes

***

Taylor was understandably devastated, her show had been canceled to what you thought was for good reason, though there is nothing you hate more than to see your girlfriend so upset.

So you were trying your best to comfort her.

You hadn’t seen her this upset since the last time her shows had been canceled due to the covid pandemic when it very first started a few years ago. Taylor had support in this, but you were her biggest supporter of all, and she wouldn’t know what she would do without you in her life. It would be hard, that’s for sure. Right now was one of those times where she needed you more than ever and you were there holding her as she let her emotions out on your shoulders.

After a while when Taylor seemed to be settled down at last, you made a few suggestions to help keep her mind off things and she agreed to them. You were rubbing soothing circles on her back when you realized it was beginning to get late. You gently leaned back, pulling apart from her as you held her hand in one and her chin with the other before wiping away the tears before speaking gently.

“Why don’t you go start on your night routine and I’ll make something for us to eat?”

Though you were on the tour bus, you try to make it as much home as possible for the two of you for travel’s sake.

You help Taylor up as you watch her walk away to get ready for the night. The moment you heard her as she started getting ready, you started on some dinner, in which you had decided to prepare Taylor’s favorite meal. While you were setting the table, Taylor comes out and seemed to be feeling better, especially after seeing her favorite meal is what you would be serving for dinner. Having the privilege to share this meal with you, made it taste even better to Taylor even though you ate in silence. Once dinner was over and everything having been cleaned up and out away, you both retire to your room while deciding to watch a movie.

“Why don’t you pick the movie and I’ll go find us a snack while we watch it?”

Taylor agreed and you set off for some snacks.

When you come back with her favorite snacks, you were rewarded by seeing her smile and it was a smile you had been longing to see all day after seeing Taylor so upset.

“My hero, I don’t know what I’d do without you!” she said.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at that as you get comfortable by her side.

“I don’t know, either.”

“I love you, (Y/n.).”

“I love you most, Taylor.”

Taylor definitely felt better and you both enjoyed your evening together.

An evening of comfort and love.

***

@taylor-loves-you

#taylor swift imagines #taylor swift imagine #taylor swift x reader #taylor swift x fem!reader #taylor swift #request #requested #requests #ask #ask box

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schmergo · 8 months

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Reading headlines about professional theatre these past few years is an absolute wild ride. Maybe all this stuff was happening before the pandemic, but I never heard about it. Now every two seconds, it's something like this:

"Inspiring! 'Retired' Broadway actress stars as Elphaba in Broadway with no rehearsal after 8 years away from the theatre working as a biologist in Antarctica... and she's never even SEEN Wicked before!"

"The Show Must Go On! Tony-winning actor announces that he performed at the Tony awards on a broken leg, will be taking two days off to have it treated"

"The Zodiac Killer to join the cast of Chicago as Roxie Hart! He will be wearing a bag over his head at all performances to hide his identity, but we are training AI to recognize his voice patterns"

"Audience wowed by all-understudy performance of Sweeney Todd with the role of the Beadle eliminated entirely and Johanna played by the French horn player from the pit"

"Previously announced production of NAPOLEON! THE MUSICAL to be canceled two days before scheduled opening after playwright pulled rights due to 'unauthorized changes' and 'offensive casting.' Director defends choice to have a chimpanzee play the title role."

"After 147 years, beloved local theatre company announces closure due to ongoing poison-resistant ant infestation. Site to become a research lab about these spectacular ants!"

"5 billion dollar new AI-written Broadway musical BABY SHARK to close after 2 performances, both of which took place on a partial set because it wasn't finished yet"

"After 109 years, beloved local theatre company canceling their 2023-2024 season because they only got 2 sales and that was from the artistic director's mom and her next-door neighbor Debra (who drives)."

"Shocking! Artistic director of beloved local theatre exposed! Actors report seeing multiple interns and swings sacrificed to a minotaur living in the boiler room during his time at the theatre.'

"Beloved local theatre company announces new membership structure! Top membership tier (names engraved on lobby wall, premium seats for whole season, free admission to exclusive parties and events) will consist of donors who gave full or partial organs to our uninsured non-union actors!"

"Onward and upward! Phantom of the Opera now spotted living under Shake Shack!"

#musicals #broadway #musical theatre #theatre

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xaeydnquartz · 1 month

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Part of me kinda wants to stop DMing my first and current campaign? IDK just need to vent

So, brief expo. like many, got into CR during the pandemic (mainly due to "The Legend of Vox Machina" which lead to me actually bingeing the all 3 campaigns) During which time a friend (who was in my immediate friend group but like the rest of my friend group, i didnt really feel close to) told me that he was really into CR as well. As a fresh new critter, i was stoked. Was able to share my blossoming love of CR with someone (FINALLY!) during which we both mentioned how D&D looked so much fun and that it would be really great to be able to play and ooo what if we got our friends together and played.

After which we discussed, if we did, who would be DM? Seeing as how none of our friends really played D&D our talk lead to either my friend or me and after asking the question "Which do you think you would prefer more?" It was clear i would try my hand at DMing (i like lore in games, and i like storytelling, and im a tad bit of a control freak at times, lol)

Anyway, we eventually got in touch with our close knit of friends, and though i intended to be a standard 6 we suddenly had an 8 party party (and that was with me having to tell even less close friends there wasnt room).

Feeling it would still be manageable (as there was precedent that i could pull inspo from, CR) i began planning a rough idea of a campaign and working with my friends to create their characters and running a session 0 so we were all on the same page. You know standard stuff.

-Fast Forward to current date and time-

It has its stressful moments, but i still am able to enjoy the time with my friends for the most part (though theres a lot of times were ive never felt lonelier) Which brings me to the whole point of the post, my need to vent to the void about this loneliness. Nobody really gets in touch or interacts with me at all. Not to talk about the campaign or even collab on their characters. The most i get are occasional critiques about how i could have done something better couple sessions prior and request to add another person to the 8 person party. When we have sessions, people show up late quite often, leave early quite often, have to cancel as they have other things they are doing (even though we planned and scheduled weeks prior) and even when people are there they somtimes feel like they arent always present. i already feel extremely distant from all of them as they all live closer to each other while i live on the totally opposite side of the state and theyve known each other way longer than i have, but the minimal interactions they have with me, the DM/GM of all people, just continues to add to all of it I know we all are busy with our lives, and that compared to those things D&D is really not that big of a deal or important. And i get that, it is just a game afterall, but it still manages to hit pretty hard

I've communicated my feelings through our time of this campaign, if im being honest, maybe not this indepth. I mean, its partially because i barely see or talk to them (again life gets in the way) but also because i feel extremely guilty for putting this kind of tension to something we are all supposed to be enjoying and relaxing to. Its especially painful as most recently 2 players, who said they would get in touch with me about changes possibly being being made to their characters, never got in touch in anyway shape or form, and its been about a month now? And session is in a week...i didnt even get much as a reply back. Idk, its been almost about a year now and i felt i just needed to get this out somewhere other than debating myself.

Thanks for listening tumblr.

#D&D #Dungeons and Dragons #venting #vent post #its just a game it really isnt a big deal #feels pretty lonely though #not what i was hoping for

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kookies2000 · 10 months

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Ok, let's get caught up on Disney stuff and how their 100th year has been doing.

• Strange World loses money.

• Lightyear loses money.

• They cancel the Owl House, one of their most popular shows and biggest money maker.

• The let James Gunn go. The same guy that created GOTG. One of the biggest hero films in Marvel.

• Ant Man 3 under performs. Needed 560 million to make a profit.

• The Little Mermaid under performs. Needed 560 million to make a profit.

• Elemental under performs. Didn't deserve to, by the way. Marketing just sucked.

• Indiana Jones under performs, loses money. Literally needs 600 million to break even.

• Nimona gets released and reveals Disney's homophobic side.

• Haunted Mansion is going against the Barbie Movie. So good luck.

• And now the strike is going on. Bob Iger is refusing to compromise with them.

Man, "Wish" better be one hell of a movie to restart the Disney company on a good role. And even then, Wish has competition with Trolls 3. Which seems silly to some, but take a look at how big the Trolls fandom is. How many fan fics do we have on AO3? It's a pretty fair amount, bigger than Puss in Boots. And most of us are adults. That's not counting the kids who watched the first Trolls film on Netflix so much it's on the top 10. As for the 2nd film being released when theaters were closed due to Covid.

The 2nd film did well enough during a pandemic to gain a 3rd film.

So it is genuine competition since Trolls has a fandom behind them. Am I expecting Trolls to destroy Wish. Hell no! If anything, I'm expecting both films to do average. 200 to 300 million each. What I'm saying is "Wish" needs to be this grand finally in order to let Disney rest easy for a while. But Trolls 3 will be an obstacle.

The two golden moments Disney had were The Owl House season 3 finally. And Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, ending with a bang.

#Disney #writer's strike #haunted mansion #indiana jones #strange world #the Owl House #marvel #bob iger #writers strike

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balestrem · 1 year

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Quiet quitting is one of the most bizarre things to me to be discussed in 2022.

It’s mostly bizarre to me, because of the entitlement older generations have towards younger generations and the ignorance they enforce upon my generation, especially in Germany, where I grew up.

You have older generations, usually the generation of my parents, calling us lazy, unable to work well under pressure, etc. I’d like to give insight into the fact that our school system was designed to recreate a work-like state from the age of six. You go to school, learn stuff, go home, do unpaid labor, called “homework”, which has to be good, otherwise you’re labeled as stupid and unable to keep up and have to repeat a year in school. I partially had a workload of 12 hours per day, not because I was poorly structured, but because I had four school subjects per day, with four different kinds of homework which all required at least 30, if not 90 minutes of investment, to do homework properly. Add to that my dyslexia and you get at least 30 minutes more than others. But even non dyslexic students sat there for hours doing homework. I even had my mother do my homework for me, because the work load was too much. Let that sink in.

Then you have a system that rewards pupils who are never sick, by pointing out how there is one kid in class with the most sick days, as though it is their fault that they get sick. Meanwhile you have underpaid and overworked school staff who cannot handle instances of bullying accordingly, resulting in pupils being more sick, especially mentally due to continuous bullying. You create a place that is literally designed to be hostile to human nature, by forcing people to sit still for multiple hours a day, move during breaks to „prevent health problems“ in the future, but give so much homework that hobbies and personal interests can barely be done, and usually if one performs bad at school they have to quit their hobbies because they need to focus more on school or they have their parents cancel their hobbies for them (if they could afford a hobby to begin with), resulting in more stress, because of less possibilities to destress. Then you have heavy school bags that literally fuck up people‘s backs for life, because they have to carry like 10-20kgs of books and folders per day (this was my reality, I kid you not). Then we had no proper food at our cafeteria (for the first four years we had no cafeteria at all, but had to go to school until 3 or 4pm, with no proper food).

Then you have weird power dynamics with teachers who bully you and abuse their power and give you bad grades, just because they think a person with dyslexia should not get the chance to go to university, thereby giving them bad grades, by not answering any of their questions during exams (also something that happened to me and other students as well). And if it’s not dyslexia there is another aspect that a teacher will hate about you and mock you for and treat you like you’re less than a human being than others.

Then we entered a school system that was changed by graduating one year earlier to go to university sooner in Germany, but the school books were not ready for that so we had to carry two books per subject at times, because the subjects we discussed required two books of two school grades. We had no coherent teachings and had to read a lot of stuff at home, by our selves, because the curriculum to teach us properly was not yet developed. And we were asked to understand it all and there was never time for any questions.

Then we finish with a degree, have terrible payments, cannot afford a reasonable lifestyle and are forced to suck it up. Then we have shortages in almost every area, a pandemic we went through a financial crisis, a war that effects the economy and destabilizes a lot in other countries, we have a climate crisis which no politican seems to take seriously enough to do proper change, basically my generaiton in Germany will not have any rent and no positive prospects for the future. Far right extremism seems to be on the rise world wide.

I had my first burn-out in fourth grade and had to go to therapy, because school life was so tough and nobody did anything. I had a parent at home who created immense pressure and guilt if I failed, who regularly assaulted me verbally.

And now our “generation is just lazy”? That shoe just doesn’t fit.

#2022 #quiet quitting #capitalism #anti capitalism #school #childhood trauma #school life #growing up #exhausting #Stress #personal #education #school system #gen z #gen y #Future #climate crisis #pandemic #economic crisis

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propaganda-inc · 11 months

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Thought I'd post some more propaganda, since people are really getting mad at ONLY /u/Spez for this. For the people in the back that are still using Reddit- this is ultimately the reason why I left Reddit.

TL;DR: Yes, /u/spez is the CEO of Reddit, but now he's beholden to the true owners of Reddit- Literal white supremacists, Chinese businesses looking to subvert American democratic values, and businesses that are desperately looking for new ways to make money after a pandemic has gutted the people dry of all the money it could take.

Let's get a little Pepe Silvia in here, shall we? Setting mood music:

youtube

Reddit was originally founded by /u/Spez (real name Steve Huffman), Alexis O'Hanion, and Aaron Swartz (RIP). In 2006, Conde Nast bought Reddit. So, if you read Vogue, Pitchfork, Wired, Vanity Fair, & the New Yorker, you may have gotten some of the same content owned by the same company- just through a magazine rather than Reddit. Also, since June 2020, Conde Nast has claimed that their advertising revenue has gone down 45% have gone down dramatically since the pandemic, alongside the cancellation of major publications by Conde Nast. Buut in 2017, Reddit was made into an independent subsidiary by Advance Publications. Sounds like an innocent enough name, until you look at which companies these lovely people own:

That Charter Communication, is just a fancy name for the lovely ISP known as Spectrum- Better known to some of our older folks as Time Warner Cable. You know, one of the ISPs so hated in the United States that they actively changed their name so that people wouldn't recognize them doing their dirty work again?

Isn't it interesting that one of the main complaints by Huffman is that Reddit isn't getting it's due in advertising revenue? Huh. I wonder where he's getting that from. But that's only one section of the shit sandwich. Let's talk about some of the lovely* investors that Reddit's had on aboard since 2006. The list is.... interesting. 2014: A group of investors, including Marc Andressen (an investor in nearly all of the major social media networks that exist), Peter Thiel (a literal white supremacist), and for some reason, Snoop Dogg and fucking Jared Leto. 2017: Advance Publications buys Conde Nast and subsequently Reddit, raising its valuation to about $1.8 billion. 2019: Tencent (you know, the CHINESE VIDEO GAME COMPANY THAT HAS BANNED PLAYERS FROM THEIR GAMES FOR SUPPORTING HONG KONG DEMOCRACY DEMONSTRATIONS) buys a 5% stake in the company. Did I mention that Tencent is also the largest gaming company in the world? 2021: Fidelity Investments(??? an insurance firm and mutual fund????) decides to add another $700 million to the pot, giving them a whole stake as well too. So, let's tie this all together. Yes, /u/spez is the CEO of Reddit, but now he's beholden to the true owners of Reddit- Literal white supremacists, Chinese businesses looking to subvert American democratic values, and businesses that are desperately looking for new ways to make money after a pandemic has gutted them dry. Of course Huffman is going to stay the course on this one- his job literally depends on it in the first place. All of the people that make this site (what other social media network do you know that doesn't pay it's mods and is valued at $10 billion dollars) ? have been tossed to the side in favor of making money. Remember this:

Reddit and its investors do not give a fuck about their community.

They do not give a fuck about their moderators. They do not give a fuck about disability rights. Most of all? They don't give a fuck about you.

#reddit api #reddit refugee #reddit blackout #reddit protest #r/196 #pepe silvia #conspiracy #Youtube

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vague-humanoid · 9 months

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Since the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s abrupt cancellation of the annual Asian American Literature Festival last month, organizers and community supporters have sought to hold APAC and the Smithsonian at large accountable for its unilateral decision to cancel the festival, which caused tens of thousands of dollars in financial losses for partner organizations and invitees.

Beyond monetary loss, Asian-American writers involved in this year’s festival programming are also dealing with the emotional toll the situation has wrought. Some organizers have voiced suspicion that specific portions of this year’s programming—most notably a Trans and Nonbinary Reading Room—could be part of why the festival was canceled.

On July 5, an email from APAC’s Acting Director Yao-Fen You notified organizers that the festival would no longer continue due to “unforeseen circumstances.” According to The Washington Post, You sent the email after staffers submitted a report flagging “potentially sensitive” issues in the festival’s programming. The report, which Festival Director Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis submitted at You’s request, cited a handful of events, including the Trans and Nonbinary Reading Room. That event was described as “potentially the most sensitive of the festival’s offerings” due to the growing book bans targeting transgender and nonbinary authors. You sent out the email formally canceling the festival hours after Davis submitted the report.

Ching-In Chen, the Trans and Nonbinary Reading Room’s curator, was among the curators who learned about the cancellation from other community partners after the email’s distribution, which did not reach Chen directly.

“I think everyone was confused,” said Chen. “I was upset because I’d spent a lot of time making the [reading] list, talking to the bookstore, talking to River [Ying Dandelion], talking to everyone else who was going to be at the festival.” Chen lost more than $2,000 in curation fees and travel and accommodation expenses covered by APAC as a result of the festival’s cancellation. Another $500 that was committed to purchasing works from the trans and nonbinary writers featured in the reading room was lost too.

Transgender poet Yanyi, a regular festival contributor and a curator for this year’s programming, said the cancellation felt “out of the blue” since he was still in regular contact with other coordinators and APAC staff as of late June. Like other attendees, Yanyi planned his August schedule around the AALF with a separate trip to connect with his publishing team in New York. He lost his honorarium for curating the event, but more importantly, Yanyi said, he lost a chance to commune with his literary peers.

“[During the pandemic] I did writing sessions for Asian diaspora writers; I ran a poetry manuscript workshop,” Yanyi said. “You can imagine the wonder of how much an entire group of us can create for our community. And to have that taken away from the public really so suddenly is, it’s just the worst.” (The Smithsonian is the festival’s largest sponsor but does not own the rights to the events.)

After an initial backlash, the Smithsonian released a statement saying that the festival was postponed to a later date and that it was due to logistical shortcomings which “did not meet Smithsonian expectations for hosting a successful in-person event.” Those claims have been disputed by organizers involved in the festival’s coordination.

“I think it’s a complete abuse of power for [APAC’s] acting director to have unilaterally suddenly canceled the Asian American Literature Festival in this manner,” said Cathy Linh Che, the executive director of the literary nonprofit Kundiman, a longtime festival partner. “To claim A/V issues when we had run this twice before, including once at the Eaton hotel, and the Eaton had already been long booked, is also outrageous.”

Since its dismantling, festival partners like Kundiman have launched an accountability campaign against APAC and the Smithsonian under the AALF Collective. The collective’s open letter addressed to APAC and the Smithsonian leadership has gathered more than 2,300 signatories so far. It features a list of demands to repair the working relationship between the institutions and festival partners, among them calls for the Smithsonian to pay organizers and performers the full funding that was agreed upon and demands for You’s resignation. (You did not respond to a request for comment from Prism.)

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fallloverfic · 1 year

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Nimona, the 2011-14 webcomic by ND Stevenson, turned into a graphic novel published on May 12, 2015, and adapted into a full cast audiobook on October 4, 2016, has been adapted into an animated movie!

The movie premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France on June 14, 2023. Netflix released a teaser trailer on May 18, 2023, a clip on June 8, 2023, a full trailer on June 14, 2023, another big clip on June 21, 2023, more footage on June 22, 2023, and another big clip on June 27, 2023. The movie released in select theaters starting on June 23.

The movie released on June 30, 2023 on Netflix for streaming! You can also view the movie for free, legally, on YouTube, until February 26th, 2024. Netflix also released a free-to-read digital-only multimedia 358-page artbook for the movie.

For simplified background, Disney cancelled the movie in 2021, but on April 11, 2022, it was announced that Annapurna would produce the movie, DNEG would animate it, and Netflix would distribute it for streaming sometime in 2023. I'm seeing a lot of confusion out there, so I'll make a summary of what else we know. I also keep the Nimona movie fanwiki page up to date with more info as it releases. Other good places to get news: ND Stevenson's twitter, his Tumblr, his personal site, the savenimona twitter, and the movie page on Netflix. While managing the fanwiki I found that Wikipedia's reference articles for the movie were kind of terrible and often quoted things not being said in the articles being quoted, even in their archive versions, so I would stick with first-hand accounts where possible, particularly what's coming from folks working on the movie and the companies making it. Below is a more detailed summary of info.

Nimona by ND Stevenson began life as a school project while Nate was in college. He was a tumblrite and posted the first pages on Tumblr on December 14, 2011. On June 19, 2012, he began publishing the webcomic in full on its own site. Sometime before November 2012, it was contracted for publication as a graphic novel after completion. The webcomic ended on September 30, 2014, and was released as a single graphic novel in entirety on May 12, 2015. It has currently been translated into 16 languages. Nate adapted it into a full cast audiobook that released on October 4, 2016 (you can hear a preview and purchase it via the link above). The graphic novel and audiobook are still available for purchase.

Apologies for maybe getting studio names wrong, some have changed over time. Anyway: the movie rights for Nimona were acquired by 20th Century Fox Animation in June 2015, to be produced by Blue Sky Studios. In June 2017, Fox scheduled the movie to be released on February 14, 2020. Patrick Osbourne was brought on as director, and it was planned to have the movie in the style of Paperman (Osbourne was animation supervisor of Paperman (2012), and went on to direct Feast (2015), which used the same style). After Disney acquired 20th Century Animation (as it was later called), the movie was delayed to March 5, 2021. There was reportedly pushback for queer stuff in the movie. Blue Sky is publicly stated to have shutdown due to the pandemic and money issues, which isn't relevant here, and I would be careful spreading rumors it was for other reasons. A lot of "successful" US companies shut down studios and departments en masse for other very dumb reasons, particularly in recent years, sometimes just because they aren't making as much money as their parent/shareholders wants them to and cutting salaries makes your profits look better to shareholders. The important part is: Blue Sky was being shut down, and Disney officially cancelled the movie in February 2021.

At some point around the cancellation, a video compilation of early release footage and sculpts seemingly from someone involved in the movie's production was released online. It was later taken down, but put back up by iO9 after the Annapurna, DNEG, Netflix production was announced.

After Disney shuttered Blue Sky, according to Variety, the Nimona crew, "led by former Blue Sky co-presidents Andrew Millstein and Robert Baird, shopped the animatic around town. The film caught the attention of Annapurna CEO Megan Ellison, who was familiar with the film and had been tracking the project. “I think anyone who has ever felt misunderstood or like an outsider will connect with N.D. Stevenson’s story like I did,” she said in press material for the film. “When I watched the storyboard reels I immediately fell in love with it. Nothing about it felt conventional or built off market research. It’s bold and mischievous and full of love. Nimona has such a powerful voice.”

Annapurna stepped in and signed up Millstein and Baird as executive producers. They created Shapeshifter Films so the team could finish “Nimona,” and subsequently joined the company, forming Annapurna Animation.

DNEG Animation was hired in the spring of 2021 to help with the animation, becoming collaborators on the film."

On April 11, 2022, it was announced that the film would be produced by Annapurna, animated by DNEG, and distributed by Netflix. Netflix also shared the first summary:

"A Knight is framed for a crime he didn't commit and the only person who can help him prove his innocence is Nimona, a shape-shifting teen who might also be a monster he's sworn to kill. Set in a techno-medieval world unlike anything animation has tackled before, this is a story about the labels we assign to people and the shapeshifter who refuses to be defined by anyone."

Between Netflix's posts and DNEG's Nimona page, as well as folks involved with the film talking about it, and new info released after the Annecy Film Festival announcement, we knew it would release in Summer 2023. Netflix released a primary cast article with images of what the characters look like from Netflix (be warned, both are very spoilery).

What is also interesting about the cast listings is that Ballister's last name was changed from Blackheart to Boldheart.

Sources for Business Insider said that Blue Sky's work would be incorporated into the film somehow. The second production seemingly wasn't started from scratch, and members of the Blue Sky production stayed on to work on the project. This makes sense, given the art was quite similar to what was in that footage released around the film's cancellation in 2021. DNEG crew have stated repeatedly, though, that although they did have a lot of material from the Blue Sky production, they had to make a lot of things from the ground up.

Quane released an official shot from the film on January 4, 2023:

It was announced that the movie would premiere on June 14, 2023, at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France. (Post on Annecy's site, post on DNEG's site)

Two new stills were also released on April 25, 2023, with the Annecy Film Festival announcement:

On May 10, 2023, Netflix posted a new image for the movie:

The May 10 article also had a new movie summary:

"When Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed), a knight in a futuristic medieval world, is framed for a crime he didn’t commit, the only one who can help him prove his innocence is Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz), a mischievous teen with a taste for mayhem — who also happens to be a shape-shifting creature Ballister has been trained to destroy. But with the entire kingdom out to get him, Nimona’s the best (or technically the only) sidekick Ballister can hope for. And as the lines between heroes, villains and monsters start to blur, the two of them set out to wreak serious havoc — for Ballister to clear his name once and for all, and for Nimona to… just wreak serious havoc.

Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, Nimona is an epic tale about finding friendship in the most surprising situations and accepting yourself and others for who they are."

Netflix released another still on May 17, 2023. On May 18, they released their teaser, the movie's first poster, and the announcement of the June 30, 2023 general streaming release date!

Netflix also added a new preview image to the Nimona page on the app, featuring Ballister and Ambrosius facing off behind Nimona.

And Netflix started selling Nimona plushies! Amazon (and possibly other vendors) are also selling shirts/jackets with official movie art!

Netflix released more footage of the movie on May 24, 2023! (it's around 6:31 in the video).

Empire magazine released another still for the movie on June 7, 2023, as well as an article in their June 8, 2023 issue.

Variety released a new still on June 11, 2023.

Netflix released a new poster on Jun 13, 2023!

More stills were released in an Entertainment Weekly article on June 14, 2023. And Netflix released even more. More teasers were put up on the Netflix app (though these are quite spoilery, so I'd advise avoiding them). The cast and crew did press tours throughout June 2023.

Again, the Nimona movie fanwiki page has more detailed info on all this.

#Nimona #NIMONA #ND Stevenson #animated films #2023 animated films #Nimona film #Nimona film information post #Nate Stevenson #Nimona webcomic #Nimona graphic novel #Nimona movie #Ballister Blackheart #Ballister Boldheart #Ambrosius Goldenloin

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louisupdates · 1 year

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[This article has been translated from Japanese]

Louis Tomlinson came to Japan for the first time in about 8 years since the One Direction era, and he was the “Japa” of his own documentary film "ALL OF THOSE VOICES" held at TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills. I attended the premiere with director Charlie Lightning.

This work, which will be released for a limited time simultaneously worldwide on March 22 (Wednesday), starts from One Direction’s last concert before the hiatus. It includes Louis' unreleased home movies and his sold-out 2022 world tour, and is a work that depicts the conflicts and challenges of Louis' new life — going from a super popular group to solo artist, behind the scenes. The title "ALL OF THOSE VOICES" comes from the single "Bigger Than Me,” included in Louis' second solo album "Faith In The Future" released in November 2022. The phrase appears in the lyrics of "Bigger Than Me.”

"All of those voices and all of those choices / I don’t hear them anymore / I don’t hear them anymore."

Louis told me about his thoughts on the title of the movie in a solo interview with the Front Row editorial department, realized at the time of this visit to Japan. "It’s an expression of the situation that many opinions are attached to my work. As you know, everyone says, ‘It's better to do this.’ The media are the same, and everyone at the record label will give their opinions. So this phrase means that while I respect such opinions as much as possible, and while considering some of them, let's look inside ourselves more and do what we want to do, without worrying too much about the influence from the outside. It just is.”

As you know, during the past 8 years, when Louis was not blessed with the opportunity to come to Japan, including the force majeure of canceling performances in Japan due to the pandemic, he actually started his career as a solo artist after One Direction went on hiatus. He gained a huge reputation as a member of a global pop group that had been loved by the nickname of 1D, and even after the hiatus, Louis believed in his own way and pushed forward, and in the latest album, it was finally his first solo album to win the first place in the UK. Now he has established himself as a solo star. Being able to watch this movie that follows Louis' trajectory as a solo artist is a record of the time he was away from Japan, especially because it is too valuable for Japanese fans.

The front row editorial department met Louis, who was smiling happily all the time in Japan for the first time in 8 years, and while looking back on the activities of the past 8 years when he was absent from Japan after the movie, the latest album "Faith In The Future" I have questions about various topics, including memories in Japan, his world tours that will come to Japan again next month, and start here in Japan, and thoughts on One Direction. Louis answered each one of them sincerely and politely.

It's been 8 years since you came to Japan! How was Japan for the first time in 8 years?

It's the best! It took a long time to come back. I'm lucky to be able to go to various places as a solo artist and as a member of a group (One Direction). Even so, Japan has always been a place I look forward to coming to again. People are wonderful, the atmosphere is wonderful, and the scenery is the best. And the show in Japan is very unique. It feels different from any region in the world. So I'm relieved to be back. When I was working as part of One Direction, I was lucky enough to come to Japan every year or every other year, but I had been gone for 8 years. I feel relieved to be back, and I'm lucky that there are people who will come to see my movie and want to come to the shows. Anyway, I'm really happy to be back.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE JAPAN TO BE ONE OF THE FEW COUNTRIES TO PREMIERE THE DOCUMENTARY MOVIE "ALL OF THOSE VOICES" ALONG WITH YOUR CHOICE OF THE UK AND MEXICO?

First of all, the reason is that I haven't been to Japan for a while. Then, one of the things I wanted to focus on in this movie was how lucky it was to have fans in various countries. I think holding a premiere in London, Mexico, and here in Japan proves the breadth of the fan base.

Please tell me about the title of the movie "ALL OF THOSE VOICES". What kind of thoughts are put into this title?

It is also a phrase ("Bigger Than Me") in the lyrics of the song, but it expresses the situation that many opinions are attached to my work. As you know, everyone says, ‘It's better to do this.’ The media are the same, and everyone in the record label will voice their opinions. So this phrase means I respect such opinions as much as possible and, while considering some of them, let's look inside ourselves more and do what we want to do without worrying too much about the influence from the outside.

The movie begins with the decision for One Direction to go on hiatus in 2016. Now that it's been 7 years since the suspension of activities, what does One Direction mean to you?

It's everything. It's everything. I really loved it, and I still love it. I can only be proud to be a member of something on that scale. I'm really proud of it. Because we were definitely the coolest when the band was active!

In the movie, you can see the trajectory after embarking on a solo career, but if you look back on your career as a solo artist and list three turning points to the present, which come to mind?

Ooh, that's a great question. I'll try to answer intuitively. Well, I wonder what kind of words will come out of my head... First of all, when I appeared in "X Factor" and performed for the first time (solo debut song "Just Hold On") with Steve Aoki. At that time, it was a difficult time (*) for me personally, and I was quite overwhelmed. So when I finished that stage, I felt like my fear had been dispelled. I don't think there was a more painful performance than that time. It was the moment when I told myself that I could do it even in extreme situations.

※ Louis is sad that his mother Johannah died of leukemia at the young age of 42 on December 7 2016, just before releasing her solo debut single "Just Hold On" in collaboration with Steve Aoki on December 10, 2016. Being on stage with Steve in "The X Factor" was Louis’ first public performance since his mother passed away.

Also, I would like to mention when I wrote "Walls" and "Kill My Mind" (included in the first album “Walls"). If I hadn't written these two songs on the first album, I don't think "Faith In The Future" would have turned out like it is. These two songs gave me the confidence that I could make the music I wanted to.

The third turning point was the tour last year. I love tours, but I've also felt uneasy for many years. "I wonder what my show will be like?" " Can I do the show by myself?" I worry like that. So I became confident after I was able to tour last year, and there were wonderful audiences that boosted that confidence. If I were to name the most recent turning point, it would be touring.

In the movie, you cite songwriting as the most personal pride that you achieved through your activities in One Direction. Now that you are in your 7th year of starting your solo career, what do you feel proud of as a solo artist?

There are several, but I’ll mention "Faith In The Future". Without a doubt, this is an album that I've always wanted to make. I have that sense of accomplishment that I was able to make what I really wanted to make while working as a solo artist for several years.

And there's nothing I'm more proud of than the connection with my fans. I think every artist says that the connection with fans is special, and I'm sure that's right, but the connection between me and my fans is really special. Some of the fans have been supporting me since I was working in One Direction. It's like we've grown up together. There is a bond in the true sense. The bonds should be felt by the fans as well as myself. You can feel that kind of bond at the show.

Let me ask you a little more about the latest album "Faith In The Future". Can you tell me if there is anything that inspired the album itself or the title?

Overall, what inspired me was the live performances I did before I started working on this album. As for the title, when I listened to the first album "Walls" again, I thought it was "hmm" myself, but it was emotionally heavy. I wanted to shake that off. When I look at the title at a glance, I want to make people feel hope and positivity. I thought the title "Faith In The Future" was a title that feels hopeful, isn't it? It set the tone for the whole album. Of course, the album touches both light and shadow, but I think it reflects my current emotions and positive feelings about life.

In relation to positive feelings, when I asked questions from fans for the interview, one said, "I sometimes think negatively, but what do I do to change to positive thinking?" Please let me know if there is anything you are doing to make you feel positive.

First of all, I want you to remember that emotions are personal, so the ways to deal with them is also different. On top of that premise, how I'm dealing with it, to be honest, I can't say exactly. I didn't fight like a warrior, and I didn't feel sad all the time. Of course, sometimes I do get depressed, but I forget it the next day. I think it's a lucky thing because I can overcome it without thinking about it too much. I don't know why, but maybe it's the way I was raised when I was a child. In any case, fortunately, I'm not the type to keep worrying.

But if you can confide in someone, you’ll see that communication has incredible power. I've always been saved by kind people and kind families around me. It means having the courage to reveal your feelings. Sometimes it's hard to talk about them, but when you confess your feelings, you don't feel as bad. You'll always feel better. I think that's also helpful for me to be positive.

Thank you. And I'm happy to say that you’ll come back to Japan again next month and start the world tour in 2023 from here in Japan. The Osaka performance will be the beginning, but let me ask you about your thoughts on starting this year's tour from Japan.

I was able to have a wonderful time when I came with the band (One Direction). I think it's a nice and fun place. It's like I said earlier, but I'm happy to be able to come back to Japan again soon. I'm really looking forward to going to Osaka.

If you were to name the song of "Faith In The Future" that you’re most looking forward to performing on the Japan Tour, which song is it?

I did some shows when I released the album, so I've already played some songs from the new work, but I'm looking forward to "Saturdays" among them. For some reason, when I sing this song, my heartfelt emotions come up. It's a song that has already been performed about 4 or 5 times, but I want to sing it many times from now on. And so is "Out of My System" as well. If you listen to it, I think you can imagine how exciting and fun the performance will be. So I'll mention that song too.

What about the songs on the album that I haven't played yet? There are some songs that can be said to be relatively suitable for dancing. I'm looking forward to seeing how such songs like "All This Time" and "She Is Beauty We Are World Class" work in the set list. In the album, they were songs that weee produced while being conscious of making the sound wider. I'm also looking forward to seeing how such songs complement more guitar-based songs.

Do you have any memories that have left a particular impression on your visit to Japan so far?

This is my memory, maybe the fans will say, "You didn't do that!" I might be told that. But in my memory, I remember when we performed "Story Of My Life" for the first time. I chose Japan as a place to perform this song because the Japanese people had sincere respect as an audience. If I did the performance I'm going to describe in England, I'm sure they would scream or shout something toward the stage, but we performed "Story Of My Life" live in Japan a cappella (*). I think that was a performance that could not be realized outside of Japan. It was a magical moment. Japan is the first time we performed in such a way. That performance in a cappella was the best moment. It's the memory of a lifetime.

※ One Direction performed "Story Of My Life" in a cappella several times in Japan, and Japanese fans protected the silence so that the members can perform.

By the way, will the songs of One Direction be included in the set list of this tour?

Of course! Because I always do that. So far, I've performed about 5 to 6 1D songs solo. Recently, I've been performing "Night Changes", and that song is rather a slow song, but I arranged it into an up-tempo version. Personally, I find it interesting in such a place. I'm going to update the songs I used to sing as a member of the band when I was young to match my current musicality. That kind of challenge is fun.

Finally, please give a message to the fans in Japan!

There are a lot of wonderful memories in Japan. I’ll say it again, the shows in Japan have a special charm, and I can't explain it accurately in words, but I feel a special feeling. It's always special when there's a show in Japan. I'm really grateful to all the fans in Japan. I haven't been able to visit Japan for 8 years, but this time I will hold a premiere like this, and I will be able to go on a tour next month. I'm really happy.

#front row jp #front row #louis press #aotv promo #14 march 2023 #louis tomlinson

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bangtanintotheroom · 5 months

Text

Goodbye 2023!

Well well well, it's the end of another year and miraculously, I'm still here on Tumblr writing my silly little smut fics. To think it's been two years since I started this on a whim and have experienced so much on this blog, it's crazy. But this year felt so different compared to the previous one, for multiple reasons that I'll talk about underneath.

To start off on a major personal note, my year didn't start off the best.

I lost my grandmother last December after she struggled with health issues since the pandemic (non-COVID related). She was my last grandparent and although I didn't agree with a lot of her views, she loved me and I loved her. The holidays were rough to get through, to say the least.

Then my great uncle (her brother) passed in February while my family and I were on vacation. We visited and stayed with him last summer, which was the longest I had ever been around him in my life. It was a sudden decline in his health and to have it so soon after his sister was shocking.

Only the people in my personal life know about this as I didn't want to bring this up on here. I make sure to keep certain things separate from my life as a writer, but now I feel comfortable enough to tell you all just what's been going on. I'm doing better now, thankfully. We visited the cemetery recently where my grandmother and grandfather are now laid to rest together with their newly-acquired headstone. It was bittersweet, but it felt good to finally see a marker there after all this time. 💕

Now onto the good notes, which there were plenty of!

This is the first time I have ever went to Trinidad TWICE in one year! We went in February and in May, both for different reasons, but it was a relaxing and fun time. Something about the islands is refreshing, especially when you live in a cooler climate.

And then came April...MUTHAFUCKIN AGUST D TOUR 🗣️🗣️🗣️

This was officially my first K-pop concert and boy, was it an experience. Despite the rain and Prudential staff being shitbags, I had an amazing time and I look back at my videos and pictures with fond memories. Shoutout to @minttangerines @kithtaehyung and @here2bbtstrash for meeting up and listening to me scream drunkenly about nuggets at 2 AM!

I also had some nice weekend and day trips with my irl friends, filled with chaos and conversations that would probably get us committed lmao

I went to Texas for the first time, too! My brother moved down there last year and I already made plans from the jump to go visit him. It's a whole different world down there, but I'm already planning to go back in 2024 (with a checklist of what we have to do)!

Let's see...I did my usual cons and got somewhat back into cosplay, too. My friends and I are planning to return to the last one we visited before the pandemic started, so we're very excited!

Those were the main things in my personal life that occurred, other than work (which is still ass) and the usual daily things.

Now onto my year in writing.

2023 paled in comparison to 2022. My output lessened considerably, due to multiple personal events, exhaustion and stress from work and mental health.

I was writing most of the time, but I was rarely finishing anything to post. My WIPs kept nagging at me on Notion and it got to the point where I recently cleaned up shop. I cancelled some of them, but kept them in a page where I could reuse the concept and scenes for something else. This gave me peace of mind.

But I also have to do some cleaning up for fics that have already been posted.

I know I said I would stretch some of them out, but I am at the point where I have zero desire to still do that. Plus I am getting into new groups and find myself wanting to write for them instead. I will make a separate post on my intentions for my current fics, just so there's no confusion on anyone's end whether it will be continued or not.

It's also been extremely jarring how many people have just...left.

When I compare the end of 2022 to the end of 2023, it's like a ghost town. A majority of the servers I was in have shut down or been abandoned. Many fellow writers have disappeared, deactivated or gone on hiatus (for reasons that are valid and I wish them all the best). And the atmosphere has shifted, but not in a positive direction.

Interactions have lessened, anons are being ruder than ever, people are plagiarizing left and right. It's a mess.

I've had a couple of moments where I debated on stepping away, but I can't right now. Writing gives me an unexpected joy and it's always a treasure to see my mutuals posting their own works that they've put their blood, sweat and tears into. I'm not quite ready to leave that yet.

Although, I do have to take a slight step back, just to focus on personal things. I'm practicing art again to see if I can start selling once I'm comfortable enough to. If things ever get overbearing and I can't juggle the two, I will let you all know as soon as possible. But for now, expect at least one more year of AJ aka bangtanintotheroom!

Wow, this was long 😬 but I've been sitting on these thoughts for months and I had to get it out somehow.

I'll finish this off by saying thank you to everyone who follows me or reads my fics or plans to start reading them. Thank you to my mutuals who are supportive and encourage my crazy ideas. Thank you to everyone.

Happy New Year! 🥳

#AJ getting her feelings out once in a blue moon #happy new year #rambles

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