#nat geo live | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

somekindofpoet · 1 year

Text

Missed Connection 2

Summary: A flight delay causes a chance meeting between R and Jenna Ortega

Word Count: 2.1K

A/N: Laughing at the fact that I thought I could do a one shot of anything

Part 1 Part 3

“No big deal,” you grumble under your breath, fumbling with the keys to your apartment. “Oh yeah, I was just on SNL, no big deal.”

Your Uber driver, who informed you is named Dani, ranted and raved about Jenna for the rest of the ride home. She then insisted you watch Wednesday before you even thought about texting her. The words “respect on her name” and “so fucking lucky” were cried out several times. Dani refused to drive away before you promised her you would update her on the situation. It seems you were friends now. Against your will, but she appeared serious about not leaving, so you exchanged numbers and made your promises.

Your door opens, and you take a deep breath, happy to be home. The house sitter deep cleaned before he left, and you were grateful for the smell of fresh laundry the moment you stepped in. Your cat sat, perched on the shelves above your head, watching you closely.

“Hello, Mr. Burton, wonderful to see you too,” you smile up at him, and he narrows his yellow eyes at you.

You nod and drop your bags to the side, happy to see nothing had changed in his world. You trudge into the living room and flop on the couch, sliding your phone onto the coffee table. Half of you wants to text Jenna and let her know you know who she is now. The other half is absolutely mortified at the idea of ever seeing her again. You decide you’ll watch one episode of Wednesday, then hit the hay. You can decide how to approach the Jenna situation in the morning.

——

Four hours later, you’re still on your couch, valiantly fighting sleep for just one more episode. It’s 2AM, and you know you need to pack it in. She’s just so brilliant. Her version of Wednesday is quick-witted, hilarious, and naturally, insanely good looking. She’s so different from the person you ran into at the airport. She wears Jenna’s face, but that seems to be where the similarities end. Besides the straight faced sarcasm, that was a strong parallel.

Your grogginess fools you into a sense of confidence, and you finally pick up your phone. You’d already saved her number hours ago, afraid you’d lose the gum wrapper. You open a new message and type out “…” nothing. Nothing comes to mind. What do you even say to a movie star? You remember how she reacted to you calling her a big deal and decide you can’t tell her how great she is in the show. You stare at the phone, sigh, then lock it. Maybe sleep will help.

——

Your phone buzzing on your pillow wakes you up. You forgot to turn on do not disturb, and now you’re paying for it. You crack open an eye and look at the name on the screen. You note that it’s 6 AM and groan as you slide the answer button.

“Sid, are you aware of the hour?”

“Good morning, sunshine! Welcome back to glamorous LA!” Sid’s voice rings through the speaker, her high-pitched singing making you wince.

“Uuuuuugh,” is all you reply, letting her know how you feel about the call.

“So I know you just got back, and yes, I know you’re supposed to be on vacay after your Nat Geo thing, but….”

“Sid, if you ask me for a favor right now, I’ll kill you.”

“Listen! Before you say no, I may have accidentally overbooked myself, and I need a favor.”

You groan, rub your eyes with your knuckles, “You need to get a scheduling assistant dude.”

“I know, but this is big. I have a thing that got moved up, and now I can’t do this Dior shoot.”

You open your eyes, your interest piqued, “Dior?”

Sid laughs, “I knew you’d like that. Uhm, just one thing though, it’s in like two hours so-“

“Sidney, are you kidding me?!” You shoot up and leap out of bed, beginning your search for decent clothes.

“I mean, if you’re late, it’ll be on me, but I knew you wouldn’t be up yet. Can you take it for me?”

You pull on a pair of black slacks and grumble, “I swear you owe me so big, Sid, like we’re talkin' drinks on you for the next month.”

“Okay love you I’ll text you the address you’re the best byyyeeee!”

You sigh as she quickly hangs up the phone and resume your search for clothes. It had been a while since you’d photographed people since you’d moved on to nature photography. The models weren’t bad; you just found the shoots boring. Everything is staged and unnatural, beautiful people in beautiful clothes with beautiful lighting. The biggest challenge to it was dealing with managers and temperamental brand agents.

You brush your teeth and tame your hair as fast as you can, gathering your camera and equipment for the shoot and hustling out the door. You paste the address from Sid’s text into your maps and peel out of your parking lot. If you hurry, you’ll make it with a few minutes to spare.

You should have known LA traffic would play you like a fiddle. You park your car four minutes before the shoot time. You’re not sure why you care if you’re late, seeing as you’re not the one who booked the shoot. But still, somewhere deep down, you want them to like your work, and no one likes a late appointment. It's for this reason you practically sprint through the parking lot and into the studio, your equipment making it nearly impossible to see.

For the second time in two days, you’re barreling into someone, knocking them on their ass and sending you flying over their body. You hit the ground with a grunt, your precious camera safely tucked into your chest. You sit up groaning, ready to spew apologies when you see who exactly you’ve run into. You think it has to be some sort of cruel joke or karmic intervention for sins from a past life.

Jenna sits up, rubbing her head, her oversized black hoodie draped across her frame. When you meet eyes, you both freeze, baffled. You gawk at her. You know you’re doing it, but you can't stop. She stares at you, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Is this how we’re always going to greet each other, do you think?” She asks, a smile pulling at her lips.

You grimace, “I can’t believe my luck. What’re you doing here?”

“Uhm,” she sighs, shrugs, “Working?”

You push yourself to your feet and offer to help her up, but she’s already gathering your things and piling them neatly in her arms.

“Thank you,” you tell her with a smile, “I’m working too, a favor for a friend.”

She frowns up at you, handing over your equipment, “I thought you were a nature photographer?”

“Oh, I am. Like I said, I’m doing my friend a favor. She’s an idiot and overbooked herself, so now I have to deal with models and Dior.”

Her eyebrows shoot up, her eyes bright, “Hi, it's me. I’m the model you have to deal with.”

You choke on your spit, coughing and spluttering, “You’re kidding, right? That's a joke?”

She jerks her head back, “Is the idea that horrifying?”

You're kicking yourself internally for sounding like an asshole, “No! Not at all. It’s just…I…well, to be perfectly honest, you make me a little nervous.”

A laugh escapes her throat, and she looks down at her feet, “You managed well enough yesterday.”

“Uh, yeah. I saw your billboard on the way in from the airport. You undersold yourself a bit.”

Her shoulders sag, and it makes you regret admitting it. You scramble to fix the situation.

“But! But I can pretend I never saw it. If that’s what you want. We can just act like this is some weird meet-cute again.”

She lifts her head, smirks at you, “You thought yesterday was a meet-cute?”

You blush, your eyes wide, “Oh. I…uh, yes?”

She nods, and you can see her mull over the idea. She seems to accept it because the next thing you know, you’re following her deeper inside the studio. You spot the door Sid told you to go to and follow Jenna inside. She disappears behind a mass of stylists and a curtain of clothes with a handful of other celebrity models. You work with the brand managers and review Sid’s vision for the shoot, making your own tweaks here and there. As a whole, it goes shockingly well. Like, well enough for you to reconsider your self-imposed exile in nature photography.

When the shoot ends, and you’re packing up to leave, you’re reminded why you left fashion in the first place. A throng of people wait outside the studio doors, flash cameras held high, yelling and jostling each other. They’re choking at the bit to get the best shot of Jenna and the others when they walk out the doors, like vultures waiting for their pound of flesh. It makes you sick. You stand behind the tinted glass doors, watching the mob with clear distaste.

A voice at your side surprises you, making you jump, “Day in the life,” Jenna sighs, eyeing the crowd.

You hum in agreement, looking back out the window. “You deal with this all the time?”

“Every day,” she grumbles, her eyes tired.

You decide to change the subject, turning away from the doors to look down at her.

“You were great today. You’re a natural.”

Her eyes leave the crowd and turn up to you, “I’m glad you think so, but it’s not natural. I’ve had my fair share of lessons.”

You shrug and start to walk toward the back of the building with her at your side, “Well, it seemed natural. So that’s a good thing. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that, though, because, well, you’re here.”

She snorts, “I guess I can’t pretend being in a Dior promotion isn’t a big deal, can I?”

You give her an exasperated glance, “No. You cannot.”

When you round the corner, a man in a black suit is waiting at the back door. He opens his hand toward Jenna and dips his head, ushering her toward the exit.

“Well, this is my ride. I meant what I said yesterday, though. Text me. I’d really like to hang out, you know, when I’m not working.”

You gulp, nervous at the thought, “O-okay, yeah.”

As soon as she’s out the door, you pull your phone out, frantic to tell someone, anyone, about this. For some reason, your first thought is Dani. You get one text through to her, and she calls you immediately.

“Hey! I’m driving, can’t text. Tell me everything. Did you text her? Did you watch the show? Are you in love yet?!” Her voice comes through with road noise in the background.

You laugh, holding the phone to your ear with your shoulder as you push open the door.

“So, actually, I just photographed her at a Dior shoot. I-”

“YOU WHAT?! God, how are you the luckiest person on the planet? Tell me everything.”

And so you do. On your drive home, you tell her about not knowing what to say over text, how you accidentally bowled Jenna over again, how the shoot went, the conversation about the paparazzi, and how Jenna insisted you text her.

“So?” Dani says, and you hear a horn screeching in the background.

“So what? And are you okay? It sounds like you’ve pissed every driver in LA off.”

“Oh, don’t mind them. I’ve got a great Uber rating they can fuck right off. Did you text her? She doesn’t even have your number yet dude!”

“Oh…shit you’re right!” You yelp, not realizing that, obviously, this interaction was one sided because Jenna couldn’t reach out to you even if she wanted to.

“Okay, I know this friendship is new, but I feel like we’re close enough now for me to tell you. That's your in, idiot! You know what, I’m hanging up right now. Text her. Then tell me everything.”

The phone line dies just as you’re parking. You stare at the phone, absorbing the onslaught of information you’ve just been assaulted with. Dani may have been slightly crazy, but she was right. This was your in. You open the phone, pull up Jenna’s contact and type out a new message.

Hey! Its y/n. I just realized I have your number and never gave you mine.

Anyway, I want to take you up on your offer

I’m off for the next few weeks, so just let me know when you’re free

You stare at the phone, watch as the text bubbles turn blue and the delivered mark appears under them. You bite your lip, anxious about a reply. After a moment, you realize she’s probably an incredibly busy person and would absolutely not text you back immediately.

Jenna

Hows tomorrow sound?

#jenna ortega x fem!reader #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x y/n #jenna ortega x reader

1K notes · View notes

munsonfamilyband · 5 months

Text

Just had the most ooey gooey platonic stobin thought (featuring, as always, steddie)

Just, years after everyone has left Hawkins. The kids all graduated and have gone on to college. Nancy has her degree and is working her way very quickly up the ranks of the paper she works at. Jonathan got a job with Nat Geo somehow (though no one is surprised). Robin is working at some kind of archive, sorting and translating and transcribing and she loves every second of it.

Eddie and Steve live in the apartment right next to hers. At first it was awful, both because she hated having a wall between her and Steve, even with the balconies that they managed to connect somehow, and because their bedroom shared a wall with hers and they were so LOUD. Over time it got easier, her and Steve still were weirdly connected and Eddie woke up with a surprise third person in their bed multiple times a week but he knew she was a bonus when he asked Steve out.

Eddie got a job working as a tattoo artist (he convinced Steve to get one, but he only agreed to any tattoos that had a pair on someone else so he and Robin have matching anchors and ice cream scoops and he and Eddie have a little bat wearing a crown).

Steve struggled his way through school and got a job as an elementary school teacher. He comes home covered in glue and paint and glitter multiple times a week and has complained about ruining so many sweaters but he adores his kids and his job.

The night they get engaged Steve had just come home from the first parent-teacher conferences of the new year and he was barely standing up. He was carrying the italian Eddie had told him he ordered on his way home and when he got inside their apartment he was almost too tired to notice all the lights being off and all of their candles lit.

Almost.

Steve froze and then kept putting his stuff away, calling out for Eddie. He finally found him in their bedroom (that no longer shared a wall with Robin’s), where Eddie was bouncing on his toes and twirling a small box in his hands.

Robin didn’t know what was going on when she heard Steve scream… something, she couldn’t really tell because it almost sounded like he was crying. Her Bestie Alarms immediately went off at the sound of Steve Tears but as she opened her balcony door to go check on him, he was already there. Tears still falling, hand shoved into her face, and the biggest smile she had ever seen him make.

It took less than 5 seconds for her to recognize the new ring on Steve’s hand and then they were both screaming and crying and hugging each other. (They were also ignoring Eddie yelling from their balcony to give his fiance back).

A few months passed and Steve and Eddie had started planning their wedding. Robin was nervous, she was waiting for Steve to ask her to be his maid of honor or something and she wanted to, she did. But she was also terrible at planning big events and she didn’t think she could handle all the pressure of having to plan showers and parties and getting things organized the day of. She wanted to be in Steve’s wedding more than anything, but she did NOT want to be in his wedding party and she was terrified of telling him that.

When Steve and her were at lunch one day and he said he had something to ask, she started panicking. She had barely been listening but she did catch a word she wasn’t expecting.

Officiate.

Steve told her that he wanted her to officiate his wedding. He said that he knew she would have hated being best man (the way he didn’t said maid of honor didn’t make her love him more, it didn’t) because of all the planning but he needed her to be part of his wedding. She was great at giving speeches, rambling included, and he couldn’t think of anyone he would rather have perform his wedding.

They both cried and then got kicked out of the chinese restaurant.

When the time came, Robin stood at the “altar” that the kids had helped make. It was covered in flowers and twinkling lights and it looked beautiful.

That day, being able to be the one to help her best friend get married, was the best day of her life.

#steddie #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #platonic stobin #robin buckley #period hormones got me fucked up thinking about robin officiating steves wedding #eddie and steve had to do a coin toss for who got dustin #(eddie won)#(steve was okay with this because then he got to ask max)

336 notes · View notes

detectivechen · 10 months

Text

there's video of bob iger saying just about everything from that interview...except the excerpt of him saying with his whole chest that workers suck for striking + like i said yesterday, 'why couldn't SAG and the WGA just fall in line, like the DGA?'.

he wants to sell basically all of disney's TV scripted assets (ABC, FX, Nat Geo, etc.) like he wasn't someone who contributed to breaking the TV model, but is looking to keep ESPN, the live sports channel.

what a nasty, nasty spirit on the heels of a surprise contract extension for him through 2026 (aka job stability, the main reason why his workers are going on strike) + a 5x bonus on top of the $27M annually. at least wall street's happy, though, right?

#isa.txt #strike update #wga strike #sag strike #was it him?#i'm surprised his PR team let him go through with the interview #RELEASE THE TAPES #disney #bob iger

510 notes · View notes

strangebiology · 4 months

Text

How Funding Affected my Journalism Jobs

The different places I’ve worked as a journalist, and in related fields, have all had different funding. Here are my experiences at different places–and it seems to me that grant-funded stuff is the best.

Internship at Nat Geo

Grants sponsored both of the other interns, but not me. Nat Geo makes a lot of its money through things like books at TV.

Mine was low-paid, but probably normal for an internship in 2016? LOVED the experience. Freelance at Nat Geo afterward was MUCH better paid. $14/hour part-time. IDK how much the grant-funded interns made. 2016.

Fellowship at PBS Newshour

A grant from the National Science Foundation funded me, but PBS is state-sponsored media. Interestingly, that’s a huge red flag in China and Russia, but I found the US-funded Public Broadcasting Service very fair to its subjects. Good experience, but even worse pay, at $13/hour full-time. 2016-2017

Job at Newsweek

Their funding is from clicks. This place was crazy bad and paid garbage. Everyone hated it and almost everyone quit, unless they were being fired for making a living wage. Some people even got fired for accurately reporting on the company itself on assignment from their editors–there was no obscuring it, that was cited as their reason for termitation. Newsweek is Hellfire and damnation. I suspect the nonsense demand for 5 stories/day/person and silly demand that we make them go viral stemmed from the following: the fact that the company primarily made its money from clicks and higher-ups didn’t appear to care about the long-term reputation of the company or its reporters, and perhaps an ego-fueled refusal to try to understand what actually got clicks. $39k/year. 2017-2018

Freelance at VOX

Funded by clicks/ads and grants at the time, but halfway through they started a contribution campaign. The difference I noticed between VOX and Newsweek was that VOX practices were smarter and they actually paid attention to analytics and sane business practices. Also, it's much easier to qualify for and get grants if you're actually doing good journalism, so I don't believe that Newsweek's policy of "lots of garbage" was actually business-savvy in any way.

Vox was a good experience, even though I wasn’t working as a journalist, but doing SEO/social media for journalists. $35/hour, then $50/hour part-time. Then I was laid off due to the pandemic. 2019-2020

Freelance at Alzheimer's Association

Remote, not really journalism, but I liked it anyway. Nonprofit, so, funded by donations and grants. $65/hour part-time. 2021

Job at Bay Nature

My job was entirely funded by a grant. Odd situation–I got the grant and I could bring it to any legit journalism employer. Bay Nature was supposed to contribute 40% of my salary but flexibility happened and they just paid health insurance and such. They got basically no money at all from clicks, like, pennies a year. Not much from subscriptions. They have fundraisers, and at the time, there were 3 writers/editors and 2 fundraisers on staff. Later they hired another writer whose entire salary was paid by a philanthropist, and then I’m told they got another salary funded by a UC Berkeley journalism grant program. So, like half of their editorial staff was grant-funded.

Great experience, but low pay for the Bay Area. $50k/year, all from Poynter-Koch, 2021-2022.

Freelance at Politifact

A nonprofit and they probably get lots of grants. My particular position was also funded by a grant entirely. Loved it. $250/article fact check. 2022.

Book

REALLY love it. $50k is from MIT Press, which is a not-for-profit, and it gets some grants and endowments. Then I got $56k from a grant from the Sloan Foundation on top.

Future?

I also got $500 (plus gas and hotels) to attend a day of learning with a program called Investing in Wyoming’s Creative Economy, and that means I’m one of 100 people eligible to apply for 10 $25k grants for future projects. The idea is to support creatives to stay in Wyoming and have sustainable businesses here. Maybe do some art that will bring in tourists.

_____________________

Note that a grant sort of does, and sort of doesn’t, mean free money. It means money to support a project that usually has to have a mission and a public good, like educating the public. You don’t pay these back, and the org giving the grants doesn’t require a percentage of the profits or anything. But, for instance, the $50k grant from Poynter-Koch was more like a gift to Bay Nature, so they could pay me, and I worked for a year to actually have the funds.

However, I’m not yet convinced that there is any objectively good funding model to ensure the most fair and accurate journalism. In theory, the capitalistic ones would be the best, but the public desire to read inflammatory stories about how their political enemies are evil, or a different generation is full of idiots, adversely affected the accuracy of headlines at Newsweek IMO.

You might think that the worst funding source would be Poynter-Koch, which is a program run by Poynter and funded by the Charles Koch Institute. But neither Poynter nor Koch even asked me to tell them what I was writing, let alone try to stop me from writing it. (Poynter hosted mentor-led auxiliary groups to talk about our careers/lives and such, so the topics of our articles came up sometimes if we chose to share that.)

Anyway, I’m thinking of writing an article on how funding models affect journalism, for better and worse. There are some high-profile examples of grant funding causing harm. But for now, the above is my experience–pretty much all good, except not enough funding sometimes.

#funding #journalism #not biology

59 notes · View notes

fotographee · 1 year

Text

yeah, i go to shows: national geographic live edition

kleinhans music hall

february 28, 2023 // 6:59 \ 8:33 \ 8:47 PM

click for higher resolution ;)

#aesthetic #photography #brian skerry #secrets of the whales #national geographic #national geographic live #nat geo #nat geo live #kleinhans music hall #kleinhans #yeah i go to shows #presentation #feb23 #february #feb 2023

2 notes · View notes

shuacore · 2 years

Text

[ 15:17 ] when the world stopped moving

even though you and mingyu had been separated for years, there was always a grey area in what your relationship really was.

the people that caution against staying friends with your exes? you should’ve listened to them.

you weren’t together anymore. you both were so immature when you were. mingyu was emotionally unavailable and clingy, and you were in a terrible place mentally. the two of you never fought, but his presence had started to make you feel ill and resentful which just made you feel worse.

so why, after all these years, does he still ignite a foolish spark of excitement in your stomach? why can you still imagine a future with him when you look at him?

do his eyes pause on you a second too long or are you imagining it? sometimes, when mingyu hugs you his hands linger on your neck. you stand so close that your shoulders brush. he whispers things in your ear, and you blush feeling his breath on your ear.

but you’re not together. so you always pull yourself out of his grasp, offer him a sad smile, and walk away.

it’s so hard to watch you be happy.

it seemed almost too easy for him to move on.

year three post-break up. why does it still hurt? why does it still ache like an old wound?

looking at his life from a distance feels like someone is pulling stitches out from an old injury, sans anesthetic, sans warning. it’s supposed to be healed…so why are you still bleeding?

you could go months without seeing him and be perfectly fine. but one flash of that heart-breaking smile, one note of that warm raspy voice, and you go tumbling back to what you know.

he’s a famous photographer, backpacking around europe and asia and south america, traversing africa and the middle east, and you’re stuck in your old apartment—the same one he lived in—brushing the dust off memories of a bygone era.

it’s so hard to know that i’m not.

you hear the click of the camera. the sun is warm on your skin, brushing the back of your eyelids in an orange glow. the fountain burbles quietly as water splashes into the pool.

santorini. late summer.

without opening your eyes, you cast out your hand, fingers searching for mingyu’s. you know he’s somewhere near. you can hear him fumbling around with his camera.

“stop filming me,” you murmur, squinting in the bright sun. your boyfriend is squatting on the concrete, his trusty 35 mm camera pointed at you. his left eye is pressed to the viewfinder, his fingers twiddling with different controls as he peers at you through the lens. you roll your eyes playfully as you toss your head back against the chair.

“then stop being my muse,” mingyu replies, shuffling closer. you let out a shriek of laughter as he tosses the camera onto a pile of towels, suddenly wrapping his arms around your torso. mingyu presses his mouth to any exposed skin he can find, on your shoulder, your arms, your hips, your knee, your stomach, your face. he smells like sunscreen and wet skin and mint.

you grasp mingyu's chin in your hand, pulling his mouth to yours, smiling against his sun-burned lips. he tastes like fresh peach and sparkling wine.

‘cause you know i love your brother and your mom like they were mine.

sometimes mingyu still calls you. his voice crackles over the speaker of your landline.

you have one new message.

“just wanted to say hi. it’s about 1 AM here. i hope i don’t wake you.

“i’m in venezuela right now, doing some commission work for nat geo...i know you said you always wanted to visit. it’s so beautiful here—sometimes the sky turns completely purple and red during the sunset, and you just see the sun peeking out from over the plateau.

…

“my mom asks about you a lot. she misses you and she wants to know if you’re still studying art history.

“she’s always buying those snacks you like, saying i need to send them to you. i keep telling her no, it’s—it’s not like that anymore, but you know how she is.

“anyway, wish you were here.

“i miss you.”

end of message.

love is more than words and i also hurt you.

the worst part was that you didn’t even fall completely out of love. it hits you one night, in the dead of winter, during a conversation with mingyu.

foolishly, you had agreed to catch up with him over dinner.

“i’m sorry for how it ended,” you say in a quiet moment, swilling the wine in your glass around the bowl. mingyu doesn’t respond immediately.

he’s quiet as he says, “no need to apologize.”

“mingyu—” you take a deep breath, willing your heart to still. “i don’t know if it’s just me, but is there still something here? the calls, the voicemails, your mother.”

when you finally look at mingyu, he looks sad.

“i still like you. and i want to try again.” you sound like you're pleading.

mingyu smiles, but the look is familiar— it’s the same apologetic smile you often give him.

“i like you, too,” he says. but then he hesitates.

your heart lifts. do you even dare to hope? you miss mingyu so bad, it’s like part of you has been forgotten for eons, and when you’re around him it’s so easy to fall into old habits. the smiles and the laughter. the touching.

“—but i just don’t know what i want.”

here come your dreams, crashing down around your ears.

“let’s just stay friends for now."

you plaster an understanding smile on your face. your stomach is collapsing in on itself.

you don’t know if you can go through life, pretending like you just want to be friends with mingyu. but the thought of cutting him out of your life is so much more devastating, so suffocating that you feel like your throat might close up.

“yeah, no—yeah, of course. i get it,” you reply, and every word feels like a knife to the gut.

mingyu’s eyes are still sad. remorseful. he places his hand over yours, and his thumb skims over your skin.

you really wish he wouldn’t do that.

“who knows…,” mingyu begins, and by the soft rasp in his voice you know he’s going to break your heart, “if we’re both still available in a couple years…”

years.

the first tear falls.

you’re back in limbo.

when the world stopped, i just wanted you to hold me.

—

ot13 | masterlist

#kpop #kpop imagines #kpop fanfic #seventeen #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfic #svt fanfic #svt imagines #svt fluff #svt smut #mingyu #kim mingyu #mingyu x reader #mingyu angst #mingyu imagines #mingyu fluff

441 notes · View notes

lordeemailarchive · 8 months

Text

Pure Heroine turns 10

(27/09/2023) (PH 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY DISPATCH)

Living in Ruins of a Palace within My Dreams

Photo by Simeon Patience

Hi,

Firstly, I wanna say thank you for your extremely supportive and kind messages after my last newsletter. I genuinely feel deeply cared for, less alone, and more sure that things will be okay after sending it! Albeit with a slight overshare hangover. I think a part of me knew that I had hit a wall, and that I needed to invite in the compassion and understand I’d been struggling to generate on my own, and then I’d have something to draw from and mirror. It feels like it’s working. I feel incredibly grateful that we have this relationship, that we can each give when the other needs it. Beautiful stuff x

Now, might U have noticed it’s 2013 mode round here????????? Yes that’s right, it’s a very special anniversary… Pure Heroine is... ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡TEN ˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚ YEARS ˚༘♡ ⋆｡˚ OLD ੈ✩‧₊˚ TODAY ! ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

You may (like me most of the time) hold the opinion that this album has been MYTHOLOGISED QUITE ENOUGH, but a milestone is a milestone, so I thought coming here and typing some shit to u about this time would be a fun thing for those who care.

2 xxxxtra special ltd time only commemorative designs by Hassan, who did the original of this bootleg tee 10 years ago❤️

It’s close to midnight, and I’ve just finished scrolling through my entire computer and phone archive from 2011-2013. Going on this memory lane ride has reminded me, for one thing, what a different time it was technologically. We were just starting to be able to see ourselves in real time, but we weren’t constantly connected. I had an iPod touch until halfway through 2013, which didn’t have a front camera or internet access, and my sister and I shared a MacBook, which is where we did our schoolwork and I wrote my lyrics. I took my first few years of selfies on Photo Booth…. Just let that… sink in!!!

Note the Royals Nat Geo pic in background— it’s happening...

When I was fourteen, my greatest work of art was my bedroom. A very cool, very classic teenage bedroom, Andie’s and Duckie’s from Pretty in Pink meets the Virgin Suicides— fairy lights, fabric on the ceiling, candles, stolen road signs (badman), paper lanterns, beer crate shelves, magazine pictures and club night posters and permanent marker on the walls. Bliss! I’d sit up there and vibe out, taking a lot of selfies. Creating a small-scale work of art using the self, and then examining the product from every angle, was the best method I had to express myself and exercise creativity at that time, and I now see it as an important PH incubation phase, whether I knew it or not. Something really amazing about a young person starting to see their own face and body for the first time, coming to a very secret understanding that they are beautiful.

I started to smoke weed, which gave me a deeper understanding of sensory pleasure, and allowed me to start to see my world as a possible work of art. I’d go on long walks around the neighbourhood, and began to mythologise the stuff around me (big empty floodlit rugby fields/bus rides/dark streets/boredom/isolation) into the motifs that would become Pure Heroine. I wore a lot of like, navy lipsticks from the 2 dollar shop. God, this aesthetic, It’s just TOO MUCH.

At some point in here, I met Joel, and another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. When you’re a teenager, you’re particularly sensitive to adults being condescending to you, not respecting the specific and finely tuned skills you have because of the ones you don’t. I was always on the look out for it, and from the first day meeting Joel, I knew that he would never give me that feeling. Which I’m sure wasn’t easy — my wallet at the time was the foot of a pair of tights that I cut off and knotted at the top — but somehow from the very beginning he made me feel like my ideas had value, like we were peers, in the most sensitive and age-appropriate way.

My view for thousands of hours making this album

We got on a call earlier this week and broke down the complete history of making the album. We both agreed that making Pure Heroine was deeply exciting and intimate and free, and still one of our most treasured experiences. I’ve linked it here.The second half of 2013 is when I really met the world, went to America and Australia and Europe for the first time. I found an incredible (for some reason Christmas themed) disposable camera image of my stage outfits all over the floor of my hotel room, which really sums up how ad hoc everything was at the beginning — a jetlagged sixteen year old, late for lobby call and frantically stuffing thousands of dollars of borrowed clothes into a suitcase.

In this stage, it felt like I pulled everything off by the skin of my teeth. Every week was the most exciting week of my whole life, I was so tired and still didn’t have a winter coat and took everyone clamouring for a piece of me completely for granted. I had zero cultural context, had no idea if an interview or TV show was huge or small, and so breezed through it all truly not giving a fuck. I am not a naturally nonchalant person, it was literally just too much to care about, I could hardly get up in the morning, so I just said absolutely whatever I felt like, all kinds of wild shit, if someone did something corny I’d say so, I was ruthless in that way that only teens are. Then through that year we went on our first tours, met you guys for the first time, hours and hours of hugs after the show, my favourite part so far and where it started to feel real for me. James took a lot of beautiful film photos through that time, and I’m really grateful he did.

Ten years goes really fast. One minute you’re wearing a leather collar with a giant crystal hanging off it to a Chanel party, and the next you’re blonde. A lot of stuff isn’t good after ten years. But I am still totally touched by this sweet record. I have deep respect for the vision of the little one making it.

Going back through all of this has reminded me of something that feels important to point out, whether you make art or not: everything starts out as a bunch of bullshit in a laptop. Pure Heroine was a handful of Photo Booth selfies and emotional Word documents and Tumblr posts (and a gorgeous over-decorated bedroom) before it was even one song. I had no reason, on paper, to believe that I was capable of anything. But if you can trust that the first impulse you had to create came from a place of deep wisdom, develop a few principles for your decision-making, and absorb a lot of stuff you find inspiring, you’ll have something special on your hands. Pure Heroine exists because I had the tiniest inkling of what I’ve now come to see as one of my guiding principles: that each of us have a handful of songs inside us that are ours, and only ours, to sing. Your specific interests and upbringing and physiology and experiences exist only in you; you are sitting on a gold mine that no one can rob. Whatever that means to you, whatever that statement you were born to make is, I invite you to take a big breath and make it.

All my love for another ten years of all this, and more, and more—

Ella XXXXXXXXXX

(source: received this email)

63 notes · View notes