#there's also an interview from like 2017 where he talks about the stuff you carry around with you (metaphorically) being like

[ramonapest]

genius “stop making this hurt” official lyrics & meaning  // stop making this hurt // how dare you want more

#bleachers #bleachersedit #jack antonoff #ttsoosn #stop making this hurt #how dare you want more #tuserella #userbee #userdress #userjolien #parallels #there's also an interview from like 2017 where he talks about the stuff you carry around with you (metaphorically) being like #carrying around a suitcase #ah i wrote the quote down it was 'everyone's dragging around this big suitcase' #yup #my gifs #my edits

[betterstllbemywindingwheel]

As we build up towards the release of HS3, I wanted to set out what has gone before and what Harry has already said - basically so when the inevitable happens we can try it make sense of what they are trying to sell us!

Harry Styles (May 2017)

Recorded in chunks LA and Jamaica 2016. Before and after Dunkirk.

Narratives - ha*lor, Kendall, Townes all as part of RS interview and Apple documentary. He talked about Townes for apple and the today show and in a crazy turn of events, was able to use the lyric for the song about her finding out he wrote the song! Amazing!The Kendall one they even brought back just as he went to Jamaica to record (literally two days before) Harry went on to say it wasn’t about a women but about himself. There was a book about pride and Harry wearing a dress in the album artwork. Also note, for SOTT promo which included RS, he posted the milkshake tweet not long after the article was released.

Plus papped with the chef the week of album release (lol) complete with shared Gucci shirt and photo from the kitchen of Erskine House. She posted on the day of his london show herself outside his house in a very distinctive jacket … which she then wore to the show. This was quickly walked back “he only met her a couple of times” and in came CR. In time for Dunkirk promo and then tour - lasting exactly one year.

Fine Line (Dec 2019)

Recorded during tour (according to post it’s) WS, Cherry, FL; in Malibu (Sept 2018) golden, falling and in Bath (Spring 2019) TPWK, Adore You, LU. How he wrote a break up song on tour… well 😝 also just to note CR had a documentary with her in it called cherry and she posted a pic of herself in the “canyon” and wearing cherry earrings - handy.

Lead single LU released on International Coming out day (Oct 2019) discussing themes of acceptance and the MV including both men and women.

Then Another RS interview, this time with Kid Harpoon dishing up the gf stories sold as about having sex and feeling sad - a heartbreak album with clear ref to CR and Harry referring to his “ex gf” for the apple interview (rare for him to use this wording) just to hammer it home, a voice note of her voice included and a pineapple on the artwork (she has a pineapple on her IG profile and a pineapple ass tattoo) on the CD the liner notes say it was included “with her permission”. This is omitted on the vinyl. In an interview she denied knowing. He was seen with her in the May showing her something on his phone. And after a year of it being missing, her ring and cardigan reappeared in time for promo … which is lucky as there is a line in a song about wearing her clothes. 🤪 Promo also included interviews where he talked about his sexuality and gender and dress pics/beauty papers and the SNL Sara Lee sketch. Liner notes included a pride flag in the studio and Harry wearing a shirt about blowjobs.

So. HS3 rumour has it will be Friday 12th Feb. Expect a single in January. With the cancelled Miami show and the Italy stunt it looks like they are carrying on keeping his name in the headlines before the launch- text book winter gf stuff - complete with insiders talking to People and US weekly.

Harry has said he was working during lockdown 1. He was seen at the same FL studio in Bath Aug 2020.

Kid Harpoon said early 2021 that not much had been written. The Sun, in autumn 2021, had articles about it being released “imminently” which was then denied - suggesting it wasn’t yet finished.

Harry arrived in LA mid July after MP filming and the Italy trip and was seen in a studio and with Tyler Johnson (place your bets that he is in the RS interview this time) before then doing the pleasing shoot and tour rehearsals (leaving not loads of time to record an album?)

In Dazed, interview done sept and at the Boston show, Harry said he’d assumed he wouldn’t do any writing while filming and yet he found that exploring the characters on screen helped him to see life through the “lens” of other people and he wrote loads. (Can we expect to see songs written through the lens of Tom - a closeted man who has to hide his love and pretend to love a woman??????) Dazed also continued the conversation about identity, the binary existence and saw him continue to wear what he wants. We also have My Policeman (which is obviously still in post production but will be released in 2022) promo on the horizon.

So what can we expect? I can’t see how there won’t be a narrative around the director. But in Dazed Harry shut down all talk of it (keeping his private life separate to work lol) and she was only allowed to allude to it - with all the subtlety of a baby elephant admittedly- but the reps wouldn’t confirm. Will it be, once again, something for all groups of fans? He’s never actually been in a proper “relationship” during promo. I find it hard to believe, given how it’s gone before, he’d want to talk on camera about it. They must know the fan reaction is VERY mixed. But there will be some hints - Italy? Friends to lovers themed? Settled? Some ref already hinted at? (My money is on board games or something that was on that Bode bag… something totally ham fisted that gives the game away)

Edit to add - Rob Sheffield was at the NYC shows - wouldn’t be surprised if he did an interview then.

It’s also very likely he recorded a Beats interview with Zane Lowe in November in LA (when his mum was around)

#sorry this is long but wanted it in one place #what will the album be? #predictions

[nightswithkookmin]

Hi Goldy, JK was bold in the past, around 2017-2019 (to me, gcf & rosebowl can be considered as ‘coming out’). But it seems he now prefers to stay closeted? E.g. he snatched JM’s hand in the Xylitol x BTS shoot, then looked at the camera. Holding hands is normal among members… a lot of his interactions with Jin, V and other members are more intimate than holding hands… his reaction makes me feel like he wants me to pretend I didn’t know…?

Sorry I've been a bit AWOL lately...

I'm busy being the man of my woman's dreams in a cis het anti black capitalist world

Fun times.

I saw that bit, uWu-ed and kept it pushing.

It's nothing new really. I think a few months back when I was out here screaming Jikook are toning down, acting super professional around the cameras yadda yadda people out here were looking at me like I'd lost my two delulu heads- but this segues into that theme for me and since I've exhausted the topic I don't know what else to add.

I've said before they've both been very conscious of the cameras within certain periods post October- again nothing new, they be like that every now and then every season every phase and the whys will always be up for debate in these ship streets- on that subject, I've read a lot of opinions yet I think like mine better and will stick to it. Thanks Kimberly of Delulu precinct. Walk along now. Lol.

Jimin was like that during the Coway behind the scene shoot too when he noticed the cameras and quickly elbowed Jk to draw him away from the gaze of the cameras.

I don't think it's because they stopped being 'bold' or want to pretend. It takes a lot of courage to even pretend or even perform the gay in front of the world and your peers. I think they are just awfully aware and conscious of the people they work with as well as corporation's growing awareness, intentions and interests in them. You just never know which saessang is moonlighting as a brand PA or marketing director for a company they are working with. You just never know who is watching especially whenever they have to work with these 'outsiders.'

Think of Dispatch. Were they not allies or business partners, they'd be careful around them too if they worked with them. Know what I mean?

Toning down and exercising caution is necessary sometimes. I don't know why some people think that's absurd or Tuktukkerish when I say stuff like that. Especially with the kind of reputation they have as a ship and just how commercially attractive that image is. It's common sense at this point if you ask me.

Jikook sells. Argue with the analytics. I don't know who thinks they don't. Must be the clowns and penguins. They sell period. BigHit knows this, BTS knows this, companies know this. We don't scream Jikook is a brand within a brand for no reason.

And a lot of the toning down in recent times has perhaps inadvertently mitigated that growing power and demand of them as a marketing resource- who knows, that could have as well been by design, intentionally instigated for obvious reasons which I argue is the case but don't mind me. I'm delusional, gay and apparently the man of my woman's dreams uWu. Gotta wear that pants in my relationship. Ayaya Hwaiting.

When you say he prefers to stay closested- I thought they are both closested already?? They both have never been fully out in our opinion. Yes our opinion because I feel we are like minded. Let's be delulu mates.

On the topic of closets, I want to save that for a separate post. What I can say though is they are both growing and maturing and learning and unlearning. Jungkook's desire to 'come out' or act reckless with his glass closet in my opinion stemmed from him placing more value on his personal happiness over other values perhaps because he was young and hadn't fully grasped the full and complex nature of happiness or understand the privilege he has as part of BTS.

We make decisions based on our values most times. It's how I make sense of their actions really. I'm more likely to assume things that are consistent with the values they each have expressed openly and tend to reject any theory that contradicts or is inconsistent with those values. A guy who values his career is less likely to act in a way that puts that career at risk. And I'm well aware their values evolve over time.

These days he has never quit as one of his mottos next to rather dead than cool- do you see the contradictions in those values? Rather dead means quitting life. Yet now he says never quit. Don't mind me. I'm in a grumpy mood.

But what I'm saying is, the desire to want to show the world who this person means to him is not fixed or a priority all the time. Now i think he values his career a lot more than before which means he is more likely to compromise and less likely to do things that may put that career in jeopardy.

Transferring that to his relationship, I don't expect him to be breaching the glass closet anytime soon. And if he do, it might be incidental and may carry with it consequences which I believe he is well aware and concious of now. Will that change? You bet. Again it depends a lot on what his values in a given moment are and which ones he prioritizes.

It's their relationship. They chose which aspects of it they want to share with the cameras. Some of it get written off as fanservice. Fair enough. But the nonfanservice passing moments has always been questionable- although I must say, I find all Jikook moments and interactions questionable lol.

It's just skinship. Holding hands I mean. Why would he be conscious of that right? II'vetalked about consequences and repercussions of their actions. Sometimes I think it's the off screen scolding that gets to him. The ones silently whispered at his back. I mean we saw his reaction when Jimin was getting scolded by the hyungs for sleeping late. He's talked about skipping sleep too if I recall correctly. Jimin is hyung and I know the hyungs expect him to know better and do better. I'd Imagine Jimin would equally scold JK if his actions reflected poorly on him too.

So why the hell would he not say anything to Jungkook for posting on his birthday when he hadn't posted at all for any hyung's??? Sigh.

It's sad his guards are back up- but it's for good reason I believe given the context of the situation.

I don't think dramatizing his dynamic with Jimin makes him bold. Nor does Jimin's propensity to over express himself with Jungkook mean he loves Jungkook more than. Both are extreme takes for me.

Nevertheless, I contrast that moment with a Tae Kook moment which is one of my favorite tuktukk moments. In this moment, JK is staring at Jimin, his whole body turned towards him. Tae notices the cameras and draws JK's attention to it. I think there are two such moments like that from the recent contents? I don't know I have to cross check.

Tae in that moment reminded me a lot of Jimin. Jimin does this too- play out their relationship infront of the cameras to the point one might say he likes to show off their bond- which is such a BTS thing to do too so no big deal. I mean they like to show off their bond and chemistry as Tae said a while back.

It's one thing for JK to hesitate to act with a member because of the cameras, it's another for him to act self conscious only after the fact.

And JK has always been him like this with Jimin as Jimin used to say- JK acts different with me off cameras than he is on camera. He had a history of suppressing himself around Jimin owing in part to his personality

He's talked about putting on a mask around people and in a recent interview Jimin have talked about pretending and acting one way when he's not- I mean I've ever talked about the boy being in love with the Maknae being a facade- one of many.

They have public personas which, from what BTS themselves say, looks slightly different or similar to what we see on screens- or that they've grown to be more like what we see on screens.

I guess what I'm getting at is that 'pretending' isn't exactly a new thing or out of the ordinary. Personally I'd say he's being conscious of his surroundings like Jimin was and not that he is 'pretending.' If you know what I mean.

If he's pretending he has good reason to I believe and we can only speculate on that- we can't know for sure why.

If Jikook is fanservice then there's no need for either of them to worry about the cameras picking up on their interactions or who's watching them.

What goes on in Tae's head? I wanna know.

I don't know where to direct this post because you didn't really ask a question.

I'm fine thanks for asking. I'm really fine. I'm thinking of joining Jimin in the gym at 3am to bench press and build some biceps to match my role in my relationship😒

And no I don't need any advice. Keep it.

This is going to be my attitude until we switch back😐

I'm gonna be a boyfriend from hell and a blogger from satan's ass.

Also I think I overshare💀

GOLDY

[onlydylanobrien]

Dylan O'Brien - NME Magazine Interview

Dylan O’Brien: “I was in this transitional phase – close to a quarter-life crisis”

From YA heartthrob to legitimate leading man – how the 'Maze Runner' star hit his stride after a whirlwind decade

Definitely!” hoots Dylan O’Brien when NME asks if he still has to audition. “I’m not Tom fucking Hanks, bro.” He’s clearly amused by our question, but forgive us for thinking the 29-year-old actor gets cast on reputation alone. A decade into his career, and he’s making an impressive transition from teen TV star and YA franchise hero to charismatic leading man.

New York-born O’Brien cut his teeth on MTV’s hit Teen Wolf series, before landing the lead in the Maze Runner film trilogy based on James Dashner’s hugely popular novels. Leading a band of bright young things that included ex-Skins tearaway Kaya Scodelario, Game Of Thrones’ Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Will Poulter, he honed his craft while racking up nearly a billion dollars at the box office. “My career is a constant acting class,” says O’Brien. “To be able to do the Maze Runner movies simultaneously with Teen Wolf was amazing in terms of getting in reps and working my [acting] muscle.”

Now for the sometimes tricky bit. Many actors struggle with the post-breakout period, but O’Brien is making it look easy so far. This year’s Netflix hit Love and Monsters proved he can carry an old-school family adventure, and new film Flashback (out next week) reveals an appetite for weirder, more cerebral work. He stars as Fred Fitzell, a young man reluctant to buckle down to life as a nine-to-fiver with a boring corporate job and a long-term girlfriend (Mindhunter‘s Hannah Gross). When he runs into a freaky-looking acquaintance from his teenage years, Fred becomes obsessed with finding an old high-school friend he used to drop a mind-bending experimental drug called Mercury with. It’s difficult to say any more without entering spoiler territory, but Flashback is a wild ride underpinned by the idea that we can exist in several realities at once. Even if you follow every plot twist, you might not fully understand the end. “Oh, it’s definitely a headfuck,” O’Brien agrees. “There’s not totally an answer to figure out. There’s a lot of different things that people can take from it.”

Speaking over Zoom from his LA home, O’Brien is bright, thoughtful and really good fun to talk to, especially when he relaxes into the interview, but he clearly knows where his line between public and private lies. When he first read the Flashback script, written by the film’s director Christopher MacBride, his “mind was blown” by just how much he related to Fred. “I felt like I was in this transitional phase of my life that was, you know, sort of close to a quarter-life crisis type thing,” he says. “For whatever reason, it was like me and this script were meant to be. I remember reading it and thinking: ‘I am this guy right now.'”

“There were a lot of things in my personal life that were neglected for a while”

When we ask why O’Brien felt as though he had reached a “transitional phase”, he gives an answer that’s vague but not exactly evasive. For understandable reasons, he doesn’t mention the incredibly traumatic motorcycle accident he sustained while shooting the final Maze Runner film in March 2016. O’Brien suffered severe trauma to the brain and said in 2017 that he underwent extensive facial reconstructive surgery after the accident “broke most of the right side of my face”. Tellingly, he’s never really revealed what happened on set or how it affected him.

Today, O’Brien dances around the details of the accident and other issues he was dealing with at the time, but doesn’t shy away from discussing his inner conflict. “You know, it was a lot of personal things combined with at-a-point-in-my-career things,” he says after a brief pause. He says he’d have been going through some of this stuff anyway, simply because of his age, but it sounds as though success intensified it all. “It was like this whole fucking storm of shit,” he continues. “I was simultaneously so fulfilled and happy about these, like, otherworldly and surreal things that I had experienced in terms of where my career had brought me. I had all this confidence and fulfilment and beautiful people [in my life] – such amazing things to experience at a young age. But at the same time, there were a lot of things in my personal life that were unchecked and sort of neglected for a while.”

O’Brien says that in time, he realised he had to “stop for a second” and “re-explore how I wanted my life to look going forward”. In fairness, you can see why he needed a breather: his career took off while he was still a teenager. After his family moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles County when he was 12, O’Brien contemplated a career as a sports broadcaster – his Twitter bio still bills him as a “no longer suffering Mets fan” – then began posting YouTube videos as moviekidd826. A funny, slickly edited skit titled ‘How to Prepare for the SAT in 45 seconds’, shared when he was just 17, shows he was a born performer and storyteller. YouTube success led to him getting a manager, but his breakthrough role in Teen Wolf still came out of the blue. At the time, he was treading water at a local community college and taking auditions on the side.

Still, he has since taken a rather fatalistic view of this career-making moment. “It’s totally weird because, when I think about it now, I don’t see how it could have happened any other way. I can’t picture myself doing anything else now,” he told Collider in 2011. “It was really sudden and a little random, and not provoked by anything. It was just out of nowhere. It wasn’t my intentional doing.” Today, O’Brien summarises his skyscraper career trajectory succinctly. “I guess I just graduated high school and started acting,” he says. “And then I felt like I was just flying by the seat of my pants and never got a chance to stop.” Thankfully, straight-out-the-blocks Hollywood success hasn’t taken away his sense of perspective. When I say how easy social media makes it to compare yourself unfavourably to others, O’Brien jumps in: “Yeah, that’s very true. I was watching the Billie Eilish doc the other day, and I was like, I’ve done nothing. I’m not an artist at all!”

“No one thought ‘Love and Monsters’ was going to be good!”

O’Brien is also self-deprecating when he talks about being cast in Flashback, suggesting it happened because he had such an intense connection with Fred. “I was honestly like, ‘Who is watching me right now?’ That is the best way I can describe how I was feeling when I came across this script,” he says. “Chris [MacBride, director] and I had this conversation that went so well in terms of [my] understanding this script that I think he’d sent around a lot and [that] very commonly wasn’t understood. I think Chris has even said that the night before shooting, he suddenly had this thought, like, ‘Wait, do I even think he’s a good actor?'”

Though O’Brien has firmly ring-fenced elements of his private life, he’s actually pretty frank about his acting vehicles. He readily admits he was expecting a snobbish response to Love and Monsters, a CGI-heavy hybrid of post-apocalyptic action and romcom that dropped on Netflix in April and topped the streamer’s daily most-watched list. “It means so much that Love and Monsters has gotten the response that it’s gotten,” O’Brien says. “No one thought this movie was going to be good.” His blunt honesty makes me laugh out loud. “No one did though!” he says in response. “And so, fuck that. You know, most of the people who say something to me about the movie, they’re like: ‘I watched Love and Monsters, and it was… good?’ And honestly, that just cracks me up.” For obvious reasons, we hastily decide not to share our response to the film – namely, that it was a whole lot better than expected.

In Love and Monsters, O’Brien plays Joel, a survivor of a so-called “monsterpocalypse” that has bumped humans to the bottom of the food chain. Though he’s known in his colony as a bit of a coward, Joel sets off on a treacherous 80-mile journey to find his high school sweetheart Aimee (Iron Fist‘s Jessica Henwick), which means evading the hungry clutches of various supersize grizzlies including a giant monster-frog hiding in a suburban pond. It’s a simple but pretty out-there premise that wouldn’t work if O’Brien’s performance was even slightly condescending. Instead, his unselfconscious sincerity really sells a film that has as much in common with the family-oriented Robin Williams movie Night at the Museum as darker fare like The Walking Dead.

His obvious affection for the project really comes across during our interview today. “When I read the script, I just thought it was so sweet and funny and smart and unique, but at the same time reminiscent of all these movies that don’t really get made any more,” he says. That’s a fair point: Love and Monsters is neither a fail-safe superhero movie nor a slice of classy Oscar bait. “And when they were talking about how to market this movie, it was so funny hearing all these conversations like, ‘How do we actually get people to watch it?'” he adds. “But that’s a big part of the reason I wanted to do this movie: because it felt like something I missed seeing.”

“I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who want to make something out of love”

So in a way, Love and Monsters was a risk for an actor seeking to establish himself outside of a bankable movie franchise and a hit TV show. O’Brien has only made four films since his final Maze Runner outing in 2018, and insists he hasn’t been tactical with his choices. “I don’t have anyone saying, ‘We need to get you in an Oscar vehicle’, or any of that kind of shit,” he says. “I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people who think like me: that you should do what you’re drawn to, and make something out of love.”

He’s recently finished shooting a mysterious crime thriller called The Outfit in London with Mark Rylance. Directed and co-written by Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his screenplay to Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, O’Brien calls it “quite possibly one of the most special pieces of writing I’ve ever experienced”. He first read the script on a plane and says he “actually stood up and clapped” when he got to the end. Considering O’Brien probably wasn’t flying Ryanair, this reaction presumably attracted a few baffled glances.

Anyway, it must be pretty intimidating walking onto set with Rylance, a multi-award-winning actor revered by his peers – Al Pacino once said he “speaks Shakespeare as if it was written for him the night before” – but it sounds as though O’Brien took it all in stride. He says he’s confident in his abilities, but admits to having a slight wobble whenever he begins a new project. “I’m always sort of re-questioning everything – like, ‘Can I even act?'” he says. “But I think there’s something very natural about that. I think even Rylance could relate to that feeling. Acting is like starting a new year at school every single time.”

At this point in his career, O’Brien has made peace with the fact that some people will have preconceptions about him based on what he’s known for: Maze Runner and Teen Wolf. “People will put you in a box no matter what,” he says. “There was definitely a time when that would get to me, especially when it felt like somebody had a perspective on me that in my soul, I just felt wasn’t accurate.” Still, there’s no doubt he wants to show us what’s really in his soul with more films like Flashback. “If anything,” he adds bullishly, “it just makes me think: ‘Right, I’m really gonna show them now’.”

‘Flashback’ is out on digital platforms from June 4

#dylan o'brien #love and monsters press #flashback press #the outfit press

[swiftgronmasterpost]

Late Stage Swiftgron Part 1

Update from November 2021 - I really don’t believe much of this is meaningful at all.  I don’t think they’re sitting around referencing one another on social media or anything but some of Dianna’s interactions with Karlie are interesting Dianna shows up explicitly in Taylor’s life a couple more times so I’m leaving these sections here.;

From here on out everything but the 2014 AMAs and Dianna’s somewhat shocking appearance at Taylor’s 2019 SNL performance are just odd social media shenanigans (or subtweets) between the two, and Taylor appearing to release at least one more song about Dianna (Babe in 2018) (and let’s be honest you can make a strong argument for The 1 being about Dianna as well other post 1989 songs.)

Some of this might be complete crack or coincidence but as you all know I want this to be the most thorough Swiftgron document possible.  

If anything it proves they both certainly still have similar interests and they really do seem to be in touch.

There are some interactions claimed by others to be Swiftgron related that I’m not going to include because they’re just a bit too reachy for me (though I completely support the theorizing!) but in general, if I personally can see the hint of a Swiftgron connection, I’m going to include it here. Draw your own conclusions and take everything, particularly the alleged subtweets/social media shenanigans, with a grain of salt.

And yes there’s tons of Kaylor and other Gaylor/Gaygron content that will be left out of this segment because this masterpost is focused on Swiftgron.  Someday it would be cool to make a giant masterpost/timeline that documents all of it, but for now it’s just going to be Swiftgron stuff. August 26, 2014 - Dianna tweets, and then deletes “Withdrawals, clearly…we had fun.” 

There’s no screen shot of this tweet but some retweets/responses of it remain:

If Dianna is indeed referencing the song Clean (in which their relationship is compared to an addiction hence, “withdrawals” from it) then Taylor would have had to give her advanced knowledge of the song since 1989 did not come out until October 2014.

Taylor did claim she ran 1989 by the muse that inspired it and they were both in LA in late August 2014. Maybe this is when.

November 1, 2014 - Taylor posts about Clean

November 19, 2014 - The 2014 AMAs Kaylorgron Explosion Extravaganza:

Taylor, Karlie, and Dianna are at the event.  Taylor and Karlie are clearly on a date and Dianna is there to present Sam Smith’s performance of I’m not the only one.  Dianna seems a bit out of her element/gloomy when interviewed on the red carpet and Taylor flexes Karlie hard, dancing with her throughout the night and even sitting on her lap during an interview.

Click here for photos, video, gifs, and a live L chat reaction to the night.

December 28, 2014 - The writer for the tv show The Originals, Carina Mackenzie, tweeted that 1989 was about Dianna:

It’s of course notable that someone in the industry is “confirming” Swiftgron on main (particularly before gaylor went mainstream with Kaylor being so obvious in 2015/2016) however what’s even more interesting and notable about this tweet is that an actor named Michael Trevino was on the show The Originals and he dated Jenna Ushkowitz from 2011-2014.

Not only that but Michael was at Dianna’s 26th birthday when Taylor was in attendance as well.

It’s possible that Michael witnessed Swiftgron in real life and spilled a bit to the writer of the TV show he was on.

January 5, 2015 - Taylor likes a Swiftgron related post on Tumblr of Dianna saying she’d go on the road with Taylor and carry her bags at the Giffoni Film Festival in 2012:

February 9, 2015 - Style is released as a single

February 13, 2015 - The Kaylor “Best Friends” on a road trip Vogue Spread comes out.  You’re probably familiar with it but if you aren’t google it.  It’s incredibly romantic and pda filled.

The Style music video is released on this day as well.

We don’t have to go through the whole video but one egg I just have to note is the cave pictured in the MV is in Morocco the same country Dianna seemed to flee to after Swiftgron was outed:

February 14, 2015 - Dianna tweets 143 remember those days (for some reason it has not been deleted) seemingly in response to the Kaylor vogue shoot:

143 is a code that means “I love you” that originated from Mister Rogers.  Both Taylor and Dianna have publicly shown that they are fans of his.  Taylor has even made certain songs 3 minutes and 41 seconds long seemingly referring to this number and wore a Mister Rogers pin on a jacket for a photoshoot once.

Here’s a bit more in depth analysis on the significance of the 143 post.

This tweet is how we know that it is 100% in Dianna’s character to occasionally subtweet Taylor and why a lot of this social media analysis has been done.  

February 16, 2015 - Just two days later Dianna attends a fashion show in which Karlie walks and is noted to “have kept a smirk on her face” during.  Dianna doesn’t clap at the end of the show and looks miserable in photos of the event:

February 17, 2015 - Taylor releases Wonderland

I’m going to pause here and discuss the song Wonderland for a brief moment because it is some of the most incredibly airtight evidence for Swiftgron available.

Dianna’s favorite book of all time is Alice in Wonderland.  She brought it up in interviews all the time, tweeted about it, auctioned off a signed copy of it for charity, her private Tumblr and instagram account are called whosirmesir which is a reference to it, her private Tumblr is filled with reblogs about Alice, and her public Tumblr was called fell down the rabbit hole.

So the fact that Taylor writes an entire song describing a relationship through the lens of and packing full of references to Alice in Wonderland is incredibly interesting.

Let’s take a look at some of these lyrics:

Flashing lights and we, took a wrong turn and we Fell down the rabbit hole (literally Dianna’s tumblr name and url)

Didn't you flash your green eyes at me (Dianna is famous for her beautiful almost hypnotic green eyes and yes they are green)

Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds (queer coded)

Too in love to think straight (queer coded)

But there were strangers watching And whispers turned to talking And talking turned to screams (seems to reference when they were outed) You searched the world for something else (Dianna very publicly went travelling around the world right after April 2013 when they seem to break up)

Taylor literally put Dianna’s Tumblr URL in the song.  Frankly I’m kind of shocked she released this song at all it is so obviously and clearly about Dianna.  Truly a Swiftgron anthem!

Back to the timeline...

March 8, 2015 - Taylor posts Flamingos for her dad’s birthday:

The caption was “Happy Birthday, Dad. Thanks for all the unconditional love, sarcastic comments, and interesting Christmas presents.”

May 1, 2015 - Dianna posts a flamingo for her birthday (post is now deleted):

The caption was “This is 29. Spoiled rotten. Funny enough, at work they were painting the hallways white and the roses (hallway doors) red, then I actually went to Wonderland (@AliceUnderLdn) and came home to a surprise flamingo. Here we go. Another year around the sun…feeling lucky and loved and loved and lucky.”

Taylor also gave Emily, another rumored ex, a flamingo bandana for her birthday.  i also think it’s odd that Dianna mentions Wonderland specifically in the post.

January 15, 2016 - Dianna’s engagement to Winston is announced and Kaylors notice Taylor is liking sad posts on Tumblr including several posts related to Clean:

November 7, 2016 - Lorde’s birthday party where Kaylor is together in public for the last time for 20 months.

January 5, 2017 - Claire (who is still very close with Taylor) comments on one of Dianna’s Instagram posts):

March 2, 2017 - Dianna posts her James Dean inStyle UK photo to Instagram:

This is actually the second time she has posted this as a throwback photo.  She also posted it on February 4, 2016 with simply the caption “TBT” and did not include the “rebel without a clue” bit which is a reference to James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause). She’s never posted the same TBT photo twice before or after this (as of the writing of this post in October 2020).

It I may be permitted to go real far out on a limb here it’s almost as if she wanted people to connect that photo of her in the UK InStyle magazine to James Dean.  James Dean is of course the way Taylor describes her lover in the song Style.  

At any rate it’s very odd that it’s the only photo she’s posted twice whether it’s related to Taylor or not.

April 25, 2017 - Fans notice Dianna is having her script tattoo removed:

This is significant because a part of the tattoo was dedicated to Alice in Wonderland - it said “We’re all mad here” 

Tattoo removal is a years long process:

So it’s possible she started getting it removed around the time that Wonderland came out.

It’s also possible part of the tattoo was dedicated to Lea (the part that said “here I am”) so this whole removal situation is very interesting.

In 2019 she was still getting it removed and commented this at a Cafe Carlyle session:

"i was like i don't know i wanna explain all my tattoos or the one that i'm getting removed on my side...you know you're like...WHATEVER we're stopping we're moving on"

February 13, 2018 - Dianna attends the Carolina Herrera fashion show, so does Karlie. Dianna is introduced to Karlie by Derek Blasberg and very audibly calls Karlie “gorgeoouusss” as they meet. 

Kayda play “Gorgeous” by Taylor Swift.

Click here to keep reading!

[arrogantsunofabitchhh]

On Dermot Kennedy

All right here’s the intro to little baby Dermot Kennedy.

This sweet angel started just playing on the streets of Dublin because he loved music. After a bit he made some money and released a few songs, and Spotify reached out and was like “hi.”

That was 2017. Fast forward to 2021, and he’s getting geared up to go on tour with Shawn Mendes. We love an arc. In regards to his relationship with Shawn Mendes? One of the few public things Dermot has said about him is that “To know how he carries himself and deals with being closeted everything is really admirable,” which Dermot said on Irish radio morning show just a few days ago. Say less Dermot.

Anyway, I’ve been super into Dermot since late 2018, before most of his discography was released, so everything kind of played on repeat. He’s a lyrical genius and a vocal angel, so it was easy stuff to listen to.

He released a full album in 2019, Without Fear. It’s beautiful, it’s brilliant, I love it. He has a few songs on there though, specifically Outnumbered, Rome, and For Island Fires and Family, that I have ALWAYS associated with Larry. They’re on my Larry playlist because, I mean they are beautiful, and they are very The Breakup Times and the Back Together Forever/We Made It times, which I am obsessed with.

HOWEVERRR it wasn’t until a few days ago when I was watching current interviews of all the boys that one with Niall popped up and it was like, “Niall Horan on Dermot Kennedy, Billie Eillish, and more” and I was like—okay?

So I learned that during lockdown, Niall and Dermot wrote a song together.

They literally collaborated over text, which like, that’s so pure.  Niall messaged Dermot and was working on a song and was like “can you give me a chorus” and they just like, made a song. 

Dermot says “it may never see the light of day.” I would do anything for this song, let me tell you. Dermot says in an interview he did about the song, “The amount of this stuff [collaborations] that goes on and it may never see the light of day. Who knows?” Don’t ask me about all the unreleased Larry music we’ll never get. I cant deal with it.

So anyway, we’ve established there’s a relationship with Niall and Dermot. It’s fair to say it goes back a bit, given that I’m not sure you jump right into songwriting with a stranger. 

There’s also a really cute video from earlier this year where Dermot sings History and messes up the lyrics saying “this is me letting Niall Horan down one more time,” and during Niall’s live last September he referenced Dermot by his first name (which I can’t believe I didn’t flag at the time) and then sang a few lines from Dermot’s song Outnumbered. PLEASE AH. It’s my favorite Larry song. Also I miss Naill’s lives.

So I knew Dermot was going to be touring with Shawn, which I love. But then I found out him and Niall are buddies, buddies enough to write a song together over text. Very cute. I hate it.

So then I decided to look for some more legitimate connections.

Dermot is super active with his fans on twitter, which is very pure. I love that for him. He doesn’t follow a ton of people though.

But Louis followed Dermot on Oct 5, 2019—the day after the album Without Fear was released.

Now as far as I know, they haven’t interacted publicly. But we all know how little that means? And besides, Dermot has another moot that we know other than Niall—Ashe the not so dark Larrie.

So anyway, we’ve established at the very least a baseline connection. And we know Louis and his dates and how obsessed he is with timing. I just find it incredibly interesting that he followed Dermot the day after his album was released, despite I’m SURE knowing Niall was friends with him. But maybe I’m just trained to look too closely into things. Who knows. Bottom line is, Louis was like—here’s a follow mate. I like what you’re doing.

Now to get into Dermot himself, as well as his music.

Dermot talks about nostalgia all the time, about how he writes so much about the past because there are just things he wishes he could go back to. Then he says, “people need to recognize that it’s not a bad year, it’s just a necessary one,” which is a common sentiment but tell me it doesn’t ring of “just a bad day, not a bad life.” Anyway.

Down to the nitty gritty of Dermot’s songwriting. He talks about songwriting as being a game, of finding the balance of taking things very personal to him and people he knows and finding a way for the GP to relate to it. 

We all know the story there.

Then he says this: “I find that so much of my songs are messages to the people I care about, which is obviously nothing new in art. But I wish certain people would see themselves the way I see them,” a few moments after saying he says “when you love someone, be it your family or your partner—” screech to a halt with me, please.

Dermot has reportedly been in a serious relationship with the same girl for, at the time of this interview, eight years. 

Now maybe Dermot uses the term partner to relate to the audience at large, not wanting to exclude anyone. But he’s talking about a very personal writing process, and I can’t for the life of me imagine not automatically saying ‘girlfriend” in that situation if I were him. Again, maybe nothing, but it all keeps coming.

He then goes on to talk about his musical journey and how he found his confidence, citing “up until the age of 25, it felt like my parents, for example, who were reassuring me that things would work out, and to keep at it and not give up.” Now, Dermot will be 30 this year. His birthday is literally one week before Louis’s. My personal headcanon now is that they’re all friends and will grab a pint, but it’s fine.

But in another interview, it’s written that “Dermot credits her with keeping the star grounded.” If they’ve been dating for 8 years, that means at 25 they would have been together for like, three almost four years. You’re telling me he doesn’t mention her, the person that “keeps him grounded” when talking about people who made him never give up? The same girl he apparently wrote these lyrical monstrosities for? Okay.

Now I’d like to say here, there’s a perfectly valid chance that they are dating and are just super private. But I’m just saying that as a disclaimer so that I don’t get cancelled for making assumptions about someone’s sexuality.

 If you ask me, though, Dermot is not straight. I think they did start dating genuinely after his first failed love, but I think as time went on he Discovered Things about himself and now she helps him fill a narrative. I don’t think they’re contractually bound, but, I don’t think they have a genuine romantic relationship either. And I do not believe for a second that she is the inspiration for these songs.

Because the other theme is that these songs are DRIPPING with intense doubt, with themes of missing a love that’s either lost or distant, and of reassuring a partner that there are better days ahead. 

His music, which he says himself is from personal experience (whaaaaat?!) does not scream “committed long-term heterosexual relationship” to me. That’s another reason I find so much Larry in these songs.

And for what it’s worth, in another interview, Dermot says “I’ve had a certain amount of difficulty in my life, and I haven’t yet got to the point where everything is happy and carefree,” he says. “But then again, I don’t think I have to go through life hurting myself on purpose in order to get a song out of it. There’s enough hurt out there in the world already to get sufficient inspiration from.” So obviously he draws from other peoples’ pain. Ouch, but I get it.

There are some pretty heavy consistencies with dealing with closeting in his lyrics. There are several songs that very much have Queer Journey written all over them.

Speaking of music, the lyrics. Let’s fucking goooo.

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: Streaming, With Only a Little Trepidation

“I’ve never had more fun on a job before,” says the WandaVision lead who spoke with the Ted Lasso star about their shows, the Scarlett Johansson lawsuit, and what happens to the theatrical moviegoing experience now.

In Reunited, Awards Insider hosts a conversation between two Emmy nominees who have collaborated on a previous project. Here, we speak with WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen and Ted Lasso co-creator and star Jason Sudeikis, who previously starred in the 2017 film Kodachrome.

VANITY FAIR: Elizabeth Olsen and Jason Sudeikis met for the first time just before filming their 2017 indie Kodachrome, but they already had at least one thing in common: a “big old crush” on Ed Harris, as Olsen describes it. “He did not disappoint at all,” adds Sudeikis. “He stuck up for us. He cared about us. He cared about the movie.”

A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races

Now, the two have much more in common, as first-time Emmy nominees. Olsen is nominated for lead actress for her work as Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision, a Disney+ limited series that explores grief and loss, through a superhero story wrapped in a parody of TV sitcoms. Sudeikis earned four Emmy nominations for Apple TV+’s darling Ted Lasso, which he cocreated, cowrote, and stars in as Ted, a cheery American football coach who attempts to coach an English Premier League soccer team.

In early August, Olsen and Sudeikis reunited over Zoom to chat with Vanity Fair about transitioning these characters to TV, their views on the new streaming empires, and what they think of the lawsuit Scarlett Johansson recently brought against Disney regarding the strategy to stream Black Widow simultaneously with its theatrical release.

Vanity Fair: It’s been quite a few years since you shot Kodachrome. What do you remember about where you were on your trajectories at that time?

Elizabeth Olsen: Of life? It was when I was at a down trajectory.

Jason Sudeikis: Personally or professionally? I feel like from the outside, it only seems like you operate in one direction [motions upward].

Olsen: From a personal standpoint. So, I was excited to get to do a small movie, an intimate job that had some levity. And that was really nice. And I have a big old crush on Ed Harris and I still do.

Sudeikis: Yeah. To know that the director was like, “hey, we’re thinking about Jason Sudeikis for this role” and then Ed Harris stayed on, It was like, “all right, pleasant surprise. Pleasant surprise.”

Your current projects, WandaVision and Ted Lasso, may seem very different but do have one thing in common: they both feature characters that originated elsewhere. Wanda is obviously from the Marvel films and Jason you played Ted Lasso in commercials. Why did you feel these characters would work on a TV series?

Olsen: I got really comfortable in the Marvel movies, taking up my piece of the story and my piece of, how does my little arc work in this much larger arc with 30 other characters? And so the idea of all the focus being on me and Paul [Bettany] totally freaked me out. And that it was on television felt weird because these characters are superheroes and maybe they should be seen on big screens and not televisions. But the entire DNA of the show was meant for television. It was written for television. The arc has to be told through television. And from an actor’s point of view, it was something I’d never done. I’ve never done sitcom acting, let alone go through the decades with it.

And I’ve never had more fun on a job before. We got to go to work and just feel like an idiot all the time. And all of us, we’d be like hamming, hamming, hamming, and use each other as these barometers of “are we doing this too much? Is this now just a parody? Is this a joke? At what point are we supposed to dial it back?” And at one point I did, I think, a quadruple take, and that was the first time the director asked me to pull it back and just do a double take. So it was pretty incredible to get to expand on the character and this world, but do it from a totally different perspective. I’m so grateful for that job.

Sudeikis: Have you hosted SNL yet?

Olsen: God no!

Sudeikis: No? Well, I’m not going to agent you and be like, “if they ask, would you ever want to?” But, look, I know you’re funny. It was really fun to watch you do multi-cam sitcom acting. And then the genre thing, it made me be like, “oh, she would crush on SNL”. You’re always going to internalize stuff because you’re, in my opinion, very, very talented and very, very smart. So then even when you externalize things, like a quadruple take, it would be joyful to watch even in the attempt. Watching the show, it didn’t seem at all like an aberration or like you were putting it on. It felt well conceived and well thought out. And it almost made me wonder if the creator was aware of that or was it all just an act of faith on their part.

Olsen: It was a total act of faith. What they did is they took comedy actors who are really funny and gave them the more dramatic stuff. Because they thought that would balance out when we failed. And we’re like, “You guys are very smart for doing this.”

Sudeikis: Now, are you putting that on them or was that articulated to you day one?

Olsen: We talked about it. We were so open about it. We’re like, “this is very clever that you guys put some of the funniest actors in MCU in these dramatic parts.” But SNL, I watch it every Saturday when it’s live. I’m obsessed with SNL and that’s why I would never! It’s like the ocean. I respect the ocean so much and that’s why I don’t need to go in it.

Sudeikis: I don’t know. I think we’ll see. This is going to be like Charles Foster Kane’s declaration of principles. “I would never host SNL.” And then, “And your host, Elizabeth Olsen.”

Olsen: So tell me about Lasso: small to big.

Sudeikis: Me and my buddies, Joe [Kelly] and Brendan [Hunt], did those commercials in 2013, 2014, and we then sat down to talk about it in 2015. And it was kind of like, “okay, is it another set of commercials? Is it a movie?” I knew what the character was and we all grew up with great sports films, by Ron Shelton and Rudy and Hoosiers and things like that. But then also liked Nora Ephron, you know? We wanted to make something that had a little bit of romance. And romance may not be sexual, it’s also a platonic version of romance. And the story just sort of spooled out of us in a way that garnered a pilot episode and then a well-beat-out outline for a season. Because we were kind of modeling it after the British Office where it’d be like six episodes, six episodes, and then maybe an hour and a half special, like a movie type thing. Not wanting to take up too much space and not knowing how long it would go. And so it only could be a TV show, was the way it felt.

And so then it went away for a while because that was in 2015. And then lo and behold, it comes back around when I met Bill Lawrence for this other project. That one didn’t work out, but he was like, “Do you have anything?” I said, “Well, we have this.” And I remember having a whole bunch of stuff in this office, more work than I think he realized. He’s like, “Oh yeah, this is definitely, this is a whole thing. Okay. Wow. You guys have really thought this through.”

Olsen: Did you have a [writers] room or did you already write most of it?

Sudeikis: No, we definitely had a room. It was like I knew the chords, I knew the structure of things. We had a great room of 11 people for the first season. With hiring people, we just had good fortune. I didn’t know it was interesting at the time, but asking people during the interview process who their mentors were, who were the people that encouraged them, who made you think you could do this for a living—you can learn a lot about a person by listening to them talk about their mentors, their heroes.

Olsen: With the jokes, I feel like they’re so quick, but they’re so specific to people who watch sports and who knows sports. Well, not all of them, but a lot of the jokes are. Do you have a list of ones that you want to get in there or are these coming up in the room? Because it gets me as a big sports person.

Sudeikis: It really depends on it. There’s some ideas that I’d had for years and years that are just from old notebooks that I used to carry around when I worked on SNL before you would type things into a phone. And storylines and themes and characters that have just been ruminating in my head based on other ideas for either movies or sketches that didn’t make it. And then a big part of the room is that we have this collective consciousness that isn’t all sports.

And then with specific soccer jokes, we do try to include jokes that we call “two percenters” that only football fans would like. Just as our little tip of the cap because we wouldn’t be here without that group of people digging our shit back in the commercial days.

Your shows were on Disney+ and Apple TV+. Did you have any concerns about them being on streaming services, which were relatively new at the time, and finding an audience?

Sudeikis: It’d probably be more so if it was like Goodyear TV+, if it was some brand that didn’t already rule the world of entertainment and technology.

Olsen: I did a version of that with Facebook. And I didn’t like that experience. I loved my show [Sorry for Your Loss] and I loved everyone that I worked with. But the Facebook relationship was frustrating because of the lack of television experience and how the platform is organized. When we went to season two, we had a meeting that our show called for Facebook to have with us, so that we can give them our notes about their platform and why we think it’s really hard to find our show on their platform and how it’s congested. So I was anxious going into Disney+. But I knew it was Disney. And I think I was more anxious with the Marvel characters being on television than I was about the Disney+ element.

Sudeikis: Golly, I didn’t even consider that. And you’re absolutely right, because Facebook would be closer to Apple. Truth is we didn’t have a choice. We pitched it to a bunch of different places. They were the only ones that would open the door and say, “yeah, come in out of the rain, you can hang out in here. You can do your little show in here.” And so, the trepidation was alleviated by the fact that there was nowhere else open to us.

Olsen: Facebook and Apple I feel like aren’t that similar.

Sudeikis: No, but they hadn’t created content before.

Olsen: Well, Facebook now is [scaling back] scripted content.

Speaking of streaming, both of you have starred in big theatrical movies. Are either of you worried about the theatrical experience, in the way that COVID has changed how movies are being released at this point? We saw how that’s playing out with Scarlett Johansson’s recent lawsuit.

Olsen: I’m worried about a bunch of things. Not worried on Scarlett’s behalf. But I’m worried about small movies getting the opportunity to be seen in theaters. That was already a thing pre-COVID. I like going to the movies and I don’t necessarily want to see only an Oscar contender or a blockbuster. I would like to see art films and art house theaters. And so I do worry about that, and people having to keep these theaters alive. And I don’t know how financially that works for these theaters. I do hope that there’s some sort of solution that the larger companies are coming together to keep, at least in L.A. this is going to happen. But I do think it’s going to be how it kind of used to be when studios owned theaters. And I have a feeling that we might go back to that being the only way to keep them alive with such expensive real estate. But when it comes to actors and their earnings, I mean, that’s just, that’s just all contracts. So it’s either in the contract or it’s not. What about you? Are you worried about Scarlett?

Sudeikis: Of course. How could I not? She’s married to my comedy brother [SNL’s Colin Jost].

Olsen: I think she’s so tough and literally when I read that I was like, “good for you Scarlett.”

Sudeikis: Well, I mean, it is appropriately bad-ass and on brand. I think it’s also married to yes, the COVID of it all and success of the streaming sites. But also just technology. I mean this thing [points at his TV] is as good as any movie theater, and all that stuff is getting cheaper and cheaper. If you’re a family of five and you’re going out there and it’s a whole thing. And yet the communal experience, towards Lizzie’s point is, is one that you can’t replicate in home. You can’t replicate through social media. I think both of our shows have succeeded greatly on their own merit, but it’s certainly written further through people’s love of them socially. Which would have happened back in the day around a water cooler. And while that’s nice, it’s still not the same as sitting next to everybody and getting scared at the same time or cheering at the same time and laughing at the same time.

I do think though, if we just use anecdotally, Kodachrome as an example, more people probably have seen it because it got on Netflix than they would have in the theater. And the more that happens, the better. So it’s like there is that reach that as long as those streaming sites are still paying to make those little movies, they have the opportunity to be seen. And so it is this balance. I just hope that with that still comes creative autonomy, and we don’t lose sight of that.

What about the experience of making these shows will you take on to your next project and the one after that?

Olsen: Well, I definitely had a shake-up to use my full body as an actor. I had to create a character and voices. And just all the technical stuff that I have loved doing my whole life was just shook up a bit. And so I’m now really excited to do more of that and to feel a bit freer in building characters. And so that has really informed the next thing I’m working on now and preparing for. It’s just kind of put me back in my actory body in a really good way.

And hosting SNL.

Olsen: Of course, now I’ll host SNL because stage fright has nothing to do with that. I can do a monologue in front of people and make them laugh.

Sudeikis: Not a prerequisite. Having worked there for 10 years, not a prerequisite. Well, the tacky answer is it’d be tough not being the boss again. And I’m fucking flabbergasted that people have picked up so much what we set down for them. You know what I mean? From colleagues on the writing and acting side to just regular folks back home, people I’ve never even met. It’s thrilling. I have to try to make sense of that for myself. And I think a lot of it has to do with it being something so personal. And so that might be the thing to lean into.

Olsen: It’s interesting you say that because immediately three days after wrapping, I had to go into a film where we’re not in WandaVision land, obviously. I mean, they kind of are a muscle, these Marvel movies. Instead of going back to that routine of it, I tried to do what you’re saying. I was like, “okay, so what can I play with that I haven’t gotten to that’ll at least satisfy something inside me that I want to play with right now?”

Sudeikis: I don’t know when I’ll get to do that again, when I’ll do that next. Because yeah, it’s Lasso—

Olsen: Lasso forever.

Sudeikis: At least for a little bit longer.

Olsen: Is it what you said, three seasons and then a special?

Sudeikis: I mean, the special would have been the third season with the initial thing. Now you sound like you’re my agent or manager.

Olsen: Oh good, that’s what I came here for. That’s what I wanted to do.

Sudeikis: Who sent you? I know the end of this story. I mean, the fact that we have a third season could fucking blow it all and ruin what would people like so much of the first season. We might be in the middle of doing it now in the second season. I don’t know. We’re just doing it the same way we did it last time. So we’ll see. But yeah, that’s a big old, long winded question mark.

Olsen: Or an ellipsis.

Press: Streaming, With Only a Little Trepidation was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness #Marvel #MCU #Candy Montgomery #Love and Death #Avengers Endgame

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games). 

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3? 

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones. 

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki. 

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry. 

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).  

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops. 

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it. 

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either. 

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience. 

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me. 

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games. 

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this. 

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series. 

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with. 

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already. 

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun. 

#video games #collection of saga final fantasy legend #SaGa #SaGa I #SaGa II #SaGa III #Raging Loop #Root Double #Snack World #Trials of Mana #Seiken Densetsu 3 #Utawarerumono #Ys #Ys IV #ys memories of celceta

[culturenosh]

GOD IS TRANS

All my friends keep asking me ‘Are you happy?’/ Happy as a girl can be! Are you happy?

In 2017, I wrote for The Singles Jukebox that SOPHIE’s single “It’s Okay to Cry” was proudly, explicitly, beautifully artificial, and that its hyperreal video in which the artist danced topless in a synthetic rainstorm felt something like paradise. I said that its unreality didn’t matter to my emotional response. I agree with most of what I wrote, but I take back the last part. The unreality was, in fact, central to how SOPHIE’s work makes me feel.

SOPHIE’s breakout single, “Bipp,” posits, “I can make you feel better — if you want to.” Accompanying that melody, low bass tones rev and ripple, while high sounds bubble and bounce; there’s a feeling of elastic grace in its movement, like each sound is a molecule colliding into others. The adjectives critics reached for when it was released always carried that element of physicality. Patric Fallon writing for Pitchfork called it “sticky” and “rubbery”; Boomkat’s product description of the vinyl single compared it to “sugar-glazed silicon”; Killian Fox for the Guardian described the song in 2016 as “an elasticated squelching noise with a helium vocal on top.”

These themes pop up again and again in the writing around SOPHIE’s work. It’s rubbery, it’s sticky-sweet, it’s elastic, it’s mechanical, it revs, it screeches, it squeals. SOPHIE’s contemporaries, like Arca or A.G. Cook, might create music that feels alien or dreamy; SOPHIE’s music always felt like it referenced the physical world, but not in a way that you would expect music to do. SOPHIE would reference not physical instruments, but physical objects and materials. 

This specific quality was integral to the work, and it was intentional. SOPHIE sculpted these sounds out of waveforms, instead of relying on samples. In an archived 2014 interview with Elektronauts, the artist talks about sound design as an exercise in defamiliarization: “The language of electronic music shouldn’t still be referencing obsolete instruments like kick drum or clap. No one’s kicking or clapping. They don’t have to!… You can just take a bassline made out of elastic and try it in metal.” In a video interview in 2018 with the German outlet Arte Tracks, the artist discusses making “sounds which cartoonize and exaggerate naturally occurring or organic sounds and phenomena, and materials that don’t exist at the moment.” One of the common adjectives used to describe SOPHIE’s work is “sculptural,” which carries the risk of casting the music as purely abstract; but it also demonstrates that SOPHIE’s sound art was also visual and tactile, while SOPHIE’s physical and visual work was purely conceived as a supplement to and a vehicle for the songs. In that same Arte Tracks interview, SOPHIE discusses the release of “It’s Okay to Cry” and the choice to show SOPHIE’s face and body for the first time in its video. Responding to the framing that this reveal was “brave,” the artist says that the intention wasn’t to create media attention by coming out, but to “use my body more as a material, as something I could express through and not fight against.”

SOPHIE married that philosophical framework to an artistic practice that prioritized movement and pleasure. The currents of kink and sexuality were central to the work — the 2014 single “Hard” opens with the lines “latex gloves, smack so hard/ PVC, I get so hard,” and in the Elektronauts interview the artist talks about synthesizing sounds for “latex, balloons, bubbles, metal, plastic, elastic,” physical materials that share a modern provenance and a fetishistic quality. On “Ponyboy,” from the artist’s 2018 studio album Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, distorted vocals bellow “Spit on my face/ Put the pony in his place.” But SOPHIE didn’t invoke sex as an end unto itself; instead, sex was an experience that could defamiliarize the omnipresent language of gender. The bridge of “Ponyboy” goes “he is just a pony/ she is just a pony/ they is just a pony/ pony, pony boy.” “Pony Whip,” from the 2019 remix album of Oil, repeats the teasing line “so I treat him like a boy/ so I treat him like a boy/ so I treat him like a pony boy” until the meaning of the phrase bleeds out entirely. The experience of physical pleasure in SOPHIE’s work has a psychedelic dimension, like activating the body allows us to move beyond the definitions that are assigned to it; like the body itself is something we continually create.

This clearly puts SOPHIE’s work in the lineage of pop and disco, genres which use physical pleasure as a means for spiritual transcendence. In a 2017 Teen Vogue interview, SOPHIE says, “A lot of the stuff I’ve done takes the attitude of disco but tries to bring the sound world forward… I’m trying to imagine what music that’s positive, liberating, weird, dark, and real could be in the present day.” In a 2015 Rolling Stone interview with A.G. Cook, SOPHIE says, “I think all pop music should be about who can make the loudest, brightest thing. That, to me, is an interesting challenge, musically and artistically. And I think it’s a very valid challenge — just as valid as who can be the most raw emotionally. I don’t know why that is prioritized by a lot of people as something more valuable.” 

Disco and pop music — electronic music in general — has long been negatively associated with artificiality, as if artificiality is in and of itself less sincere or authentic. SOPHIE’s music is proudly, directly, purposefully artificial; it is also proudly, directly, purposefully emotive. In SOPHIE’s hands, synthesized sensations and materials became the building blocks of the best dance music you ever heard. The textures of real life — car engines, rubber tires, plastic containers, metal bars — are mirrored back at us in strange, sexy new shapes.

I say that SOPHIE’s music is trans, and this is what I mean. Jessica Dunn Rovinelli’s beautiful piece on SOPHIE’s work in the Guardian explains that “SOPHIE molded raw sound to make hyperreal versions of recognizable forms…. Transgender people in particular exist through self-processing: we make a body that we can live in and a world where that body can feel safe.” Sasha Geffen tweeted that “SOPHIE’s music isn’t just ‘about’ transness, its idiom is inherently trans. It traces the process of surfacing interiority.” Transitioning is a kind of inside-out alchemy — I feel a certain way, I learn to understand it, I begin to orient my life in a way that allows me to express it, other people begin to treat me differently. From the interior work comes the exterior effects; from reorientation, new pleasure and new life. Even if the change is synthetic, in the sense that I have to make it myself with chemical supplements or medical treatments or changes in clothing or requests to change the way I’m referred to, it doesn’t mean that its effects reverberate any less.

One of my favorite SOPHIE songs goes “I don’t need anyone to be who I want to be.” You can read this as a statement of satisfied self-sufficiency, like “I can be who I want to be all by myself,” but I prefer to read it like a prognosis: “I don’t need anyone else to demonstrate how to I want to exist.” To create your own future means leaving behind those who want to dictate that future, who demand control over the terms on which you live. In SOPHIE’s alchemical work, familiar sounds become new shapes, so that old structures — the pop song, the chorus, the melody, sound itself — become vehicles for innovation. SOPHIE made that process of innovation sound like the sexiest, most joyful thing in the whole world, so much so that you wonder why anyone would settle for the old and familiar.

Photo cred @corporatebigwig

#SOPHIE

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: my dä fanart from when I had my (arts) comeback in 2018

For years I didn’t draw anything because of a personal (art crisis) and because I simply was studying and working so much I just had no energy left for arts.

In 2018 I was done with schools and studying and dropped out of the school I was in at that moment, and also the horse stable I was working at (school related stuff) was sold and closed its doors so also my work ended. For the first time in almost 5 years I was actually free. The longest holidays I had has was 3 weeks summer holiday in 2016, I think. I had another in 2017 but of that I actually was having health issues (nothing serious) for 2 weeks and then had to be in school for the 3rd one, after which I even got the flu.

So I was SO excited when I finally was free the first day of November in 2018. After I had got enough sleep and rest, I started to find my creativity again. And I started to “daydream” before falling asleep every night, I started to write fanfictions in my head and I started to draw, too. Partially it was also because for the first time in years I had an online friend I enjoyed talking with and we had similar interests, aka dä and Bela/Farin, and that inspired me a lot to draw even more - but unfortunately that friendship did not work out in the end and we’re no longer friends.

Anyway, most of these drawings are very much Bela/Farin related again because I talked about that a lot with this person and I often asked what they’d want to see and then drew it if the idea was something I could carry out.

This is not the first one I drew but maybe the 4th or so. I’m just putting this here first because it’s the most “innocent” aka not too much shippy stuff rubbed into the faces of my followers who don’t care about that. There’s 5 different drawings + 1 comic behind the read more link. All of these, apart from the comic, where drawn into my old sketchbook.

About the drawing above - I didn’t use pencil for these first ones at all yet, I just drew them with the fineliners as I was still a bit rusty as the last time I REALLY drew anything was in 2013 aka over 5 years ago from 2018, so I had to actually look at my old comics and drawings to even figure out how to draw these characters anymore. And I think the last actual time I drew in this style was in 2011 even. And that is very visible from the first 2018′s drawing I did! ↓↓↓

This is the one - and wait, I have an explanation!

So with this person I mentioned, we just constantly had this playful debate over whether Bela is “bottom” or not - and honestly I couldn’t care less about that because I no longer read any fanfics. I do write fanfics - or a fanfic - but only for myself and as an asexual I have never been interested in writing about certain themes so I never need to think about the whole top/bottom stuff anyway. I used to read smut before until I one day just realized it’s SO BORING and uninteresting to read, started skipping all smut scenes and wanted to read fluff but all the fluff was so quickly and badly written because everyone wanted to write smut only, that I was left with absolutely nothing to read. So it was the old story again: I started writing/drawing the stuff I wanted to read and see.

However, back to the top/bottom topic, I always base my opinions with everything over how things are in real life and with these guys, if you look at how they are in interviews and on stage, the dynamics are not just plain black&white. I’ve never seen there anything that would indicate that just one is “top” or “bottom” whatsoever which is why I kept saying imo they’re more like just switching if you listen to their jokes. Remember: I don’t read any fanfiction and don’t give a fuck about smut (lol at the pun) and honestly, even tho I understand those jokes they do and say on stage, I wish not to have any visuals about any of that “activity” in my head.

So, to support my “they switch!” opinion, I drew this, just for fun. And it is the official first drawing I did in 2018. I just needed to fire back bigger than I could do with simple text messages :D

***

Moving on. The person in question was very fascinated by the idea that Farin would be a vampire and not Bela (to support their top/bottom views...) which is why I drew this:

Also a very quick one, without sketching anything before drawing with fineliners. This and the first image of this post both are very small in real life actually, the signature is about the same size in every drawing so you can see from that that they are actually pretty small.

Talking of the signature: The funniest thing to me about this IS the signature. Because I was so rusty I didn’t even know how to write it anymore :DDD You can compare it to the signature in the other drawings because in them it’s better. Why it’s so funny to me is because it should say “Aada” but it looks more like “Hella” which means “stove” in Finnish.

***

Next one was something I saw in my head and wanted to draw - I think this one was also done without sketching it at first:

Kinda simple, right? :D I just wanted to draw something with heavy shadows and they’re meant to be watching TV at night. I guess it came out pretty okay.

***

The next two I drew based on one of my old fanfics I wrote years and years ago. I’m a bit annoyed that I decied to draw these into my SKETCHBOOK when I could have used just paper I use for drawing but I guess I didn’t know yet where I was going to end up with these and drew them into the sketchbook because of that. I thought I didn’t sketch these at first but I have found photos of these with sketched with pencil so that means I started sketching my drawings at this point.

So, back to the fanfic, it’s one of the longer ones I wrote (but still not that long even) and set to happen in the late 80s. There was some drama in the story because of Bela’s drug use and Farin was very harsh and Bela left altogether. For some time they had no idea where each of them were but then one very rainy night they both were on a walk at the same time and happened to stumble upon each other for the first time in weeks or so. I can still see those scenes so vividly in my head and here’s my artistic view over those scenes:

Yes. I love drawing stuff like BRICKS.

I have used my Promarkers with the second image, the paper was not the best for them which is why the black looks awful.

What comes to the image... it really annoys me to look at that because how the FUCK that is something I have drawn? And it’s legit based on something I have written. ME??? Like wtf. My aroace ass just can’t handle me writing/drawing fluff like this. I have days when I need to see fluff more than anything and then have to produce the content because can’t find it from anywhere else and my brain is simultaneously like “flufffff 8))))” and “boohoo whyyyyy how staaaaaph D:” because I am so afraid of being connected to what I draw. Like. If I draw or write fluff, it doesn’t mean I would be a romantic person nor allosexual nor alloromantic, right? Because I can also draw a comic or write a story about a murderer and it doesn’t make me a psychopath either. It’s the exact same thing.

And in fact: I had a comic book character who was called Micro the Insane Murderer because that’s what he was. Also I once wrote a story about a serial killer but she was also insane. But for whatever reason it’s much harder to show people fluff I have written or drawn than my fictional serial killer stuff... I guess people just easier assume that you’re an allo, thanks to anormativity, but usually don’t think you’re a psychopath just because your OC is :D

***

The last one is the comic that has a Halloween theme as it was around Halloween and the person I talked with still wanted to see/read something where Farin is the vampire instead. So here’s something that was my first B/F comic in 7 years. I didn’t remember how to do pretty much anything anymore and the coloring is a bit off, and I was really still just trying to figure out how to do all this again :D

At that point I think my head was still filled with fanfiction stuff so the comic also is full of (hurt/comfort) drama - and a long-ass “backstory”. You can see that from this on I have moved to more humorous stories. Sometimes I draw occassional fluffy comics when I’m really on that weird mood (usually 1-2 days/month thanks to the uterus and hormones), but my main focus is on the humour and I wish to make people laugh.

But that’s about it. I think I have now posted everything here, the newer ones I have posted here after drawing them since 2019 but this post is the “missing link” between those old old comics and the newer stuff :D Then I of course have all the other traditional art like potraits and such I did in 2009-2012 which I have never shown here. Maybe I should post those too?

#mcrmadness draws #my dä comics #my fub comics #my dä drawings #dä fanart #die ärzte #belafarin #my OLD dä fanart

[callmeblake]

Frank Iero, New York, NY, June 2019 (X)

Aug 29, 2019, 09:10am

Frank Iero May Just Be His Own Puppet Master

Photo Credit: Audrey Lew

Interview below the cut

Derek Scancarelli

Contributor

Hollywood & Entertainment

I am a music journalist living in New York City.

Frank Iero is breathing deeply and fighting off nausea. This isn’t uncommon for the 37-year-old guitarist and vocalist, given his predilection for debilitating anxiety. But on this occasion, it isn’t pre-show jitters.

“Oh my god, I hate this f*cking boat,” Iero says, as the docked vessel on which he sits knocks against a pier in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Iero and his band, The Future Violents, just finished an intimate Saturday matinee show as fans sweat, sang and caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

It had been about 16 years since Iero and his now defunct band, My Chemical Romance (the band broke up in 2013), first performed on water. In July of 2002, the band released its debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. In October of 2003, the soon-to-be emo heroes performed alongside New York Hardcore legends Sick Of It All at an aquatic gig booked by New Jersey college radio station WSOU. And in June of 2004, My Chemical Romance released Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the band’s platinum-selling breakthrough record. In a matter of two years, Iero’s life changed dramatically.

In 2019, Iero still hasn’t found his sea legs, but a lot more has changed. He’s fathered three children, released three full-length solo records (including 2019’s Barriers), and survived a near-death experience. And as he gets older, he finds truth in life’s greatest clichés.

“Time flies, it just screams by,” Iero says. “You think you’re appreciating the time, but it’s easy to take it for granted. It’s a shame.”

But Iero is trying his hardest to pay attention to the little things, especially when it comes to family. He and his wife, Jamia, have three children together: nine-year-old twin daughters, Cherry and Lily, and a seven-year-old son named Miles.

“It’s wonderful to see them evolve and come into their own,” Iero says. “But it’s funny how personalities are innate. We shape the way they experience things or teach them the ropes, but for the most part, I’ve found that we are who we are when we’re born.”

From the start, Iero has seen an even split in the twins’ personalities. Cherry, he says, most behaves like her mother, whereas Lily possesses her father’s attitude.

“Some of the sh*t I hear coming out of my daughter's mouth,” Iero says laughing. “My God! It’s stuff I think but never say — they don't know to be ashamed yet! It's amazing and honest and pure. And I know exactly where she's coming from because I feel the same way.”

As part of fostering a relationship of trust and honesty, Iero has been age-appropriately transparent with his kids about the 2016 accident that almost killed him, his brother-in-law and guitarist Evan Nestor and his manager Paul Clegg.

While unloading gear from their van in Sydney, Australia, a city bus crashed into the group and their vehicle. In a 2017 interview with MTV, Iero recounted, in vivid detail, the moment he was dragged underneath the bumper of the bus, the screams of his brother-in-law, and the blood pooling from his manager.

Although Iero was able to walk into an ambulance carrying one of his friends, the scene was a spectacle overrun with emergency personnel — they even landed a rescue helicopter in nearby Hyde Park. Despite serious injuries, amazingly, there were no fatalities.

When Iero returned home from the hospital, he explained to his children that he was in a car accident, but that it was a singular freak incident.

“You don't want to lie,” he says. “They're getting older. Their friends and their parents are on the internet. They're asking questions. It does get back to them.”

Iero was as honest as possible, but avoided any gory details. He was also conscious that it wouldn’t be long before he would travel for work again — and he didn’t want to scare his kids any further.

Almost four years later, residual damage from the crash is impossible to ignore. Nestor has nerve damage in his leg that may never be corrected. Clegg’s leg and knee have undergone multiple surgeries, but are in poor shape. And Iero still has a tear in his shoulder that hurts every time he plays the guitar. Despite the pain, he’s afraid to undergo surgery.

“I was lucky enough to walk away and still play,” Iero says. “If I were to test fate again and go under the knife, if something were to go wrong… to let that be taken from me … no, I can't.”

On some days, the emotional toll of surviving such a traumatic accident weighs more heavily. Iero describes his recovery as non-linear: some days he feels collected and in control, other days the memory rushes back into his mind.

After his new band finished recording Barriers, Iero and his team went back to Australia for appointments pertaining to the accident and corresponding litigation. As soon as he exited the plane, Iero felt like he’d returned to the horrific scene. For the following week, he was barraged by an unending state of panic.

“You go through these instances of PTSD,” he says. “You never know what's going to trigger and send you all the way back to the beginning with recovery.”

Iero greatly underestimated how difficult his return to Australia would be. When navigating to a doctor’s office near where the accident occurred, he couldn’t bring himself to walk down the street. And suddenly, he felt surrounded by buses.

“I don't know if this is true,” he says. “But it felt like every other car on the street was one of these f*cking buses. They were everywhere. It was frightening. I couldn't do anything. I was shaking like a leaf.”

Despite the traumatic flashbacks, Iero continues to reflect on that day. In the promotional run for Barriers, he discussed the accident at length. And on the record itself, he addresses the complicated ripple effect it’s had on his entire sense of self.

“I don't think it needs to define me,” Iero says. “But it was something I needed to talk about on this record. It's not something I could sweep under the rug. But do I want to dwell on it every day and relive it? No. But I think about it constantly. I feel the pain constantly. It's on my mind.”

In recent interviews, Iero has tended to frame a few philosophical takeaways from his ordeal. In simple terms, the first idea is that he’s found a new lease on life — that everything happens for a reason and he’s been given an opportunity to seize the day. The second philosophy is much darker, a sort of survivor’s guilt compounded with fear and existential dread. The third and most abstract consideration is closest to Simulation Theory — where Iero has the ability to control his own artificial timeline.

Sometimes, Iero questions if actually died that day. He wonders: Is this all real?

“It’s hard. No one can tell you what to believe,” he says. “But you come to this realization, ‘Well, this is real to me, the hand I was dealt, so I have to make the best of it!’”

Through the acceptance of uncertainty, Iero surmises that he just may be his own puppet master.

“If this is a figment of my imagination,” Iero says. “If this is all in my head, then I am the master of my own destiny. If I want to do something, I can manufacture it. And if it's not the case, then at least it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe putting positive vibes out into the universe is beneficial. If we didn't make it and we're just going through this weird labyrinth in my mind, I can do anything I want.”

And lately, he’s been doing just that. Call it sorcery or the power of positive thinking, but Iero is motivated. For Barriers, he was able to assemble a dream band, The Future Violents (different lineups of his backing band have previously gone by The Cellabration and The Patience), featuring his brother-in-law Nestor on guitar, Thursday’s Tucker Rule on drums, Murder by Death’s Matt Armstrong on bass, and Kayleigh Goldsworthy on keyboard.

The theme of the album — and his own internal dialogue — mostly relates to tragedy and timing. Did the universe have a course set out for him? Or was he just some random victim?

“The crazy thing is that you didn't do anything wrong,” Iero says of the accident. “Yet, all of this stuff was taken from you and you have to make these decisions. You get angry a lot.”

He continues: “These random, abrupt, violent actions. Do they happen to us? Or for us? I wouldn't have been able to make this record if it didn't happen. And it made me realize a lot of things about myself. Am I happy it happened? No. But I'm happy where I am right now.”

Iero views Barriers as an exercise in vulnerability. If the aftermath of his accident taught him anything, it’s that success was meaningless to his character, but adversity helped him grow. For the first time, addressing childhood trauma helped Iero expose himself in a way that felt freeing.

“When you put something to song, it gives that memory weight,” Iero explains. “If you never talk about it, it's almost like it didn't happen. There's a fine line between relinquishing that power to this memory, situation or trauma, or holding that power over it and creating your own narrative from it.”

Barriers also intertwines Iero’s childhood experiences with his current perspective as a father. This go around, he felt comfortable writing about his parents’ divorce — the couple split when he was three and divorced when he was seven.

He looks back on the unpleasantness of the process and his consequential understanding of his mother’s issues with addiction, depression and mental illness. On his 2016 record, Parachutes, Iero first referenced his mother’s struggles and his own liability to inherit her traits. He’s still horrified by the idea of predeterminism.

“When you're a young kid being surrounded with it, it doesn't feel right,” Iero says. “You're not happy. You're scared. You're constantly concerned for your parent. It’s almost as if you become the caregiver.”

He continues: “Then you see yourself falling into these patterns that you were witness to and maybe in a roundabout way were taught. That addiction, that depression, runs through you. It's easy to fall off that cliff. I don't want that for my kids and I need to stop this cycle. Like this sh*t stops with me. Whether it be I get okay, or I f*cking turn my lights out.”

It’s this sort of tongue-in-cheek use of concerning language that keeps Iero’s fanbase enthralled, yet somewhat on edge. Take for example, in the comment section for his video “Young & Doomed,” some diehard fans are troubled by his repeated use of the words “hurt myself again.” While he’s surprised to hear about the response, he counters that the record is ultimately meant to feel uplifting and positive, even if addressing dark topics.

“I don't think that we should strive for perfection,” Iero says. “This idea that we should all have this perfect life and be pretty and purse our lips to post a picture on social media is bullsh*t. The things that make us unique are important.”

He continues: “Sometimes we're our own worst enemies and we hurt ourselves. Those scars, though, are important. They're beautiful. ‘Young And Doomed’ is a call to arms to celebrate the things people think are wrong with us.”

Now, Iero just hopes his story and music inspire fans to try, fail and try again.

“You don't find out who you are unless you get a scar and get hurt,” Iero says. “You should be hurt, hurt other people, and learn that it feels terrible to hurt someone else. You should feel sorry for it and make amends for it. These are important lessons to be a better person. You find out who you truly are by attacking things that scare you the most.”

Frank Iero is currently touring Europe with Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers.

#frank iero #august 2019 #forbes #audrey lew #red eagle shirt #all blue #october 2019 #bus crash #navy blue tiger windbreaker

[eunhae-code]

Can you please talk about the whole "we're not living together" thing because to be honest it seems like bullsh*t to me, you know why because it happened after Donghae slipped and said it on live radio and his shocked face confirmed it like he wasn't supposed to say it and he didn't want people knowing that fact cause they were asked before in 2017 (if I'm remembering correctly)and they didn't answer the question, so I think Hyuk going back to the dorm is a lie and purely acting and what supports this theory is their words and doing clashing cause one time in super Junior returns Kyuhyun said he got something from the dorm and Donghae said "our apartment?!" And I was like didn't you say you live in your OWN apartment and in the second pubg live when they were given their presents they said if those presents continue to get more expensive and if they'll get home decorations Tv and stuff they'll decorate the living room in their apartment and yes they said apartment not apartments.

I feel like eunhae will always say the truth when they're the most comfortable, tell me have you noticed that?and did they slip other times?

Ello anon!

So the theory about their apartment has been going on since like 2012. I can’t say it’s confirmed or not because English translations are rough at best. We’ve seen images and conversations between them that say there may be a shared space. But the conversations really go back and forth. Always check out Japan interviews/concerts. I feel like that’s when they are most comfortable (this goes for a lot of groups/soloists that may root for LGBTQA+)

Before the army, it was mentioned that they wanted to live together in an interview. Then after the army, they suddenly said “no we don’t live together lol why would we, we ain’t gay!” and the interviewer is just staring like “y’all told us that 2 years ago”. Also the fridge, Hyukjae bought him was $2000 just cause Donghae asked for it 💁‍♀️

Especially with how often Donghae mentions “couple” items and how comfortable the two are in the apartment.

Everyone else’s body language visiting says enough. They’re a bit more stiff and careful with how they carry themselves. Meanwhile Donghae rushes in like he’s lived there since day 1 and already knows exactly where everything is. I’ve been to my friend’s house a hundred times and I couldn’t even tell you where she stores her toilet paper.

In my opinion, I say yes and no. I believe they share a living space, but there’s also one that is used as a “coverup” so any fans that might follow can’t tell. The dorm can also be used as such.

#eunhae

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Employed To Serve are putting British metal back on top

For the past decade, Justine Jones and Sammy Urwin of Employed To Serve have helped elevate British rock and metal both on and off the stage, from Album Of The Year releases to their championing of new bands. Now, with fourth full-length Conquering on the horizon, the pay-off is being felt across the entire scene…

Some years ago now, at the end of her last job in retail, Justine Jones made a decision. Providing she could eat and had a roof over her head, she wasn’t, she told herself, going to spend her life doing anything that was “un-fun”. Instead, Justine decided, she’d navigate the world by working hard on the things she loved and that she truly believed in.

“I’ve never been content to be a cog,” she says. ​“I’ve always wanted to be like a very heavily involved person. I like having a say, I guess. I’ve never liked having a manager, in terms of work. I have got that childish, rebellious thing, like, ​‘Don’t tell me what to do.’”

Employed To Serve are not cogs. Nor are Justine and guitarist Sammy Urwin ones to sit around and wait for the lights to go green. With what the singer calls ​“our Hatebreed, perseverance attitude”, a self-starting, hands-dirty, DIY ethos that’s as much about enthusiasm for music and building a scene as it is firing up pits, they have become one of the most exciting British metal bands of the past decade. When Oli Sykes invited them to join the Bring Me The Horizon-curated All Points East festival two summers ago, he noted that they were ​“one of the few heavy bands around who I actually like”.

Kerrang! had got there before him, mind. In 2017, we crowned Employed To Serve’s second album, The Warmth Of A Dying Sun, our Album Of The Year. Its follow-up, 2019’s Eternal Forward Motion, was awarded a full 5K rating and a spot on our front cover, their second. When they gave us the nod a while ago that they were about to drop the first single from their brilliant fourth album, Conquering, coming this September, we didn’t even need to think about giving them a third.

Like Oli’s band, there’s an energy to Employed To Serve, an orbit around them that feels like it’s pulling in other bands, linking seemingly unlinked outfits together through sheer enthusiasm. Beyond the band, offstage, Justine and Sammy run Church Road Records from their home in the Surrey commuter town of Woking (a place notably annihilated by Martians in H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds). Through this, they can sign and put out music by bands that they like: the only real signing policy amounting to ​“bands that excite me”, says Justine. There’s as much gratefulness towards the artists they release – Svalbard, Palm Reader, Cruelty, to name but three – for trusting them to look after their records, as there is to anyone who gives their own band the time of day.

“As cheesy as it sounds, we’re lifers,” says Justine. ​“I love music. I love releasing it. I love that I do it for a full time job. I love playing live. First and foremost, we are music fans. Obviously, we love being in a band and stuff. But we just live and breathe music.”

As with so many things for so many people, the depth of this dedication was thrown into sharp focus as COVID took hold last year. At the end of 2019, Employed To Serve were on a winning streak. Eternal Forward Motion was one of the year’s most acclaimed releases, they band had spent a month on the road with Bury Tomorrow in Europe and the UK, and on New Year’s Eve, Sammy and Justine put a bow on their long-term relationship by tying the knot. In March 2020, just before lockdown ended touring for everyone, the band’s UK headlining run just about snuck in, and saw them sell out London’s Camden Underworld, a show that ended in chaos with the audience onstage triumphantly carrying Sammy on their shoulders.

When things ground to a halt, the gap left was palpable. Once source of reflection came in taking stock in what the band had achieved, while also having to find a replacement for guitarist Richard Jacobs. It’s an exercise the pair are admittedly used to, to the point where Justine says, ​“We probably look like dictators, like it’s the Sammy and Justine show.”

To wit, keen observers will note that they are the only members of Employed To Serve to be on both this Kerrang! cover and the last one. There’s no bad blood anywhere – Richard left to move to Japan with his wife, drummer Robbie Back has become a dad, bassist Marcus Gooda went on to focus on other things – it was simply the wage of getting older in a band. When life’s forks come up, you have to make a choice. For Sammy and Justine, the choice just happens to be to stay the course. Three new members have been drafted into the band – guitarist David Porter, bassist Nathan Pryor and drummer Casey McHale – but it still provided a moment of reflection for what was actually important.

Another, more serious bit of stock-taking came last September, when Justine resigned from her job as a label manager at Holy Roar records, after serious assault allegations were made against the label’s owner. Soon after, that label folded entirely.

But in both cases, where events could have sown doubt or caused serious damage, things instead bloomed. And so, Sammy and Justine turned Church Road – a small concern of Sammy’s for years already – into a full-time occupation and livelihood, taking on Holy Roar releases already on the slate and pressed, and releasing them herself. In the case of their first release, Svalbard’s When I Die, Will I Get Better?, there was barely a month to move everything over, and yet it still hit the shelves on the day it was always intended to. Because, looking back, it’s almost like there was no other consideration than to carry on.

“When everything happened, I thought, ​‘Maybe I could go to a bigger label or something.’ But that’s not where my heart is,” says Justine. ​“My heart is in finding bands in tiny little venues and then helping them grow into their second hours and stuff. And it’s just more fun. Obviously, it’s very scary [running your own label], and I’ve spent a lot of this past year very stressed. But I don’t have to answer to anyone – I just do the best I can for the bands because I love them. My favourite thing is sitting on Bandcamp with a coffee or a beer, and going through each genre finding the best bands of that day, or going through Apple Music or Spotify and finding new bands. It has been like that since I was a kid. So doing a record label just makes sense.

“Obviously I wish it was under better circumstances, but COVID has been almost like a blessing for this band, because it’s helped us regroup,” she continues. ​“It made us take stock of all the cool shit we’ve been lucky enough to do. Because sometimes when you get caught in the rat race of everything, you’re never really living in the moment. And then COVID happens, and you think, ​‘What do I miss?’ Friends, family, playing shows. And I’m like, ​‘Cool, I’m doing the right thing. Let’s get back to it.’”

For Justine, this meant becoming the boss. For Sammy, already a music obsessive with an apparent addiction to both old-school death metal and playing guitar in as many bands as possible as a member of Renounced and Motormouth (as well as playing in Glorious with Justine), it was an opportunity to dedicate his life to his passion even further. A gardener by trade, he’d lately found himself wondering what was beyond it.

“I was doing gardening work on and off for the last 10 or so years. I enjoyed the work, but sometimes I would kind of find myself being a little bit like, ​‘What’s the five-year plan?’” he says. ​“I’ll always do the band. But we got a few members going off and doing other stuff. I knew I had to find something else to do, because I wanted to do something in music that also fit around being in the band. I just knew I wanted to be with like-minded people talking about music all day.”

Sammy and Justine talk about music a lot. Get Sammy started on metal, and his enthusiasm quickly runs away with him. For Justine, their impending gig at Download Pilot a couple of days after our interview is as much about watching everyone else as it is their own show. Though one of the heaviest bands on the line-up, as a showcase of the breadth of rising talent the British rock scene has, appearing on the same ticket as Enter Shikari, Trash Boat, Creeper, Boston Manor, Neck Deep, Loathe and Conjurer is a large-scale version of what they’ve been driving at for years.

“It’s so funny, because it kind of sounds weird, but within the British scene, it makes total sense,” says Justine. ​“It’s a very rich scene at a minute, and it’s for all spectrums. You have bands like Orchards and Gender Roles on the Big Scary Monsters label, but equally, there’s loads of heavier bands, too. Everyone knows how hard it can be being a British band, because it’s hard to get over to America. And now, unfortunately, it’s gonna be hard to get to Europe [after Brexit]. So everyone’s got this thing like, ​‘We’re this little island here and we need to stick together and support each other.’ It’s a nice collective, and a moment in time to be a part of.”

“Even though we’ve written a more metal record [with Conquering] for us, that’s definitely not a statement of us closing the door,” says Sammy. ​“Obviously we’d love to tour with Gojira or Lamb Of God or something like that. But if Creeper came to us and said, ​‘Do you want to tour with us?’ we’d say yes.”

It was on such a line-up that Justine first appeared on the cover of Kerrang!, alongside Becky Blomfield of much-missed alt.punks Milk Teeth, with whom ETS were touring at the time. It not only showed two rising talents in the British scene, but also how well such different ends of it slotted together. Which was kind of the point.

“We were like the little metal sandwich in that tour,” says Justine. ​“But we worked well, because it was an example of this sort of British scene that’s going on at the moment.”

“People turned up who would be wearing ETS T‑shirts, and then singing along with Milk Teeth and vice versa,” says Sammy. ​“That’s so cool to see. Obviously there’s still a little bit of gatekeeping going on in the world of metal. But, for me, that was a really good sign of a shift.”

“It makes total sense. I don’t know why it’s not more of a thing, having mixed bills like that,” says Justine. ​“Everyone in our generation grew up listening to Slipknot and blink-182; two polarising bands, but it makes total sense. I listen to both of them religiously. So that actually kind of makes sense in a bill. It’s literally a music fan’s show. I remember Thursday opening for My Chemical Romance at Wembley on The Black Parade tour when I was 14, and Reuben opening for Billy Talent as well. I literally got to get into heavier stuff from those mixed line-ups.”

Put it to either of them that between their music, DIY attitude and simple lust for wanting to marshall a scene without walls, Employed To Serve could be called leaders, or at least the setters of examples for others to follow, and it’s a compliment they’ll take, but also something that they don’t want to take too much credit for.

“I mean, it’s for others to say, isn’t it?” says Justine. ​“We just have mental to-do list of stuff we want to achieve. And if that inspires people, that’s sick. It’s never like we try to be the leaders or anything.

“At the end of the day, I love the idea of kids getting into metal because of us and vice versa.”

As such an entry point, Conquering is a very good one. Ultra heavy and explosive, it leans even further into Sammy’s love of death metal OGs like Morbid Angel and Death, plus classic thrash, with shredding solos everywhere, as well as more vocals from the guitarist. And not even changing three-fifths of the band since their last album has had anything other than a sharpening effect. Fundamentally, Conquering is exciting, full of energy, and powered by a deep-set love for simply doing it.

“The floodgates have been opened, I guess, in terms of wearing our influences for this record on our sleeve,” says Sammy. ​“I like to think we still maintain the ETS that was there before, but it’s obvious that during lockdown and leading up to this record, for me it was about early Machine Head and Testament and Exodus and stuff. I feel like this is our chance to show that side of us a bit more.”

“It’s where I feel at home, as well, because I grew up listening to early Lamb of God and ​’90s-era Roadrunner Records bands,” adds Justine. ​“Straight-up metal, but not straight-up metal in the sense that we’re doing it by numbers. We sound like us, but there are more choruses and solos.”

“Lyrically, it’s similar to Eternal Forward Motion and touching on some pretty bleak stuff, but for the most part we tried to put a positive spin on it,” says Sammy. ​“I wanted put all of that energy into something positive. I didn’t want to say the same things again, because I didn’t want to make it sound like it’s the same record. I’d say it’s an even more positive record than before.”

The day we meet for this interview, long after the tape recorder goes off, conversation about bands and music continues into the small hours. Three days later, at Download, as Sammy chucks himself into the crowd at the end of the band’s set and Justine alternates between roaring her head off and smiling her face off, the delight in all this is self-evident. Employed To Serve are one of the best metal bands in the country – one of the best bands full stop, in fact – but on a broader scale, they also act as a reflection of an emerging wave of bands for whom being in a band is an act of joy, of doing something with your life, of not settling for things that are, as Justine says, ​“un-fun”.

“Stuff in the band does get to you sometimes and you do get grouchy or whatever,” admits Sammy. ​“But we realised that we’re also very fortunate people who have played with people that have become our best friends. It’s about taking stock and being like, ​‘This is fun.’ That’s what the album is about. It’s about not letting things in your life get the better of you. Because sometimes they do, and you find yourself getting all aggy, and you’re only doing yourself a disservice at that point, really.”

“I think Henry Rollins said, ​‘Tenacity over talent,’” says Justine. ​“We work hard, but it’s tenacity. You could be the sickest guitar player but just sit in your bedroom and never play a show. No.”

“I mean, I do set myself up for it, where I’m kind of pulling my hair out,” adds Sammy. ​“I’ve had times where I’ve had three or four band practices a week. And there’s a gig this night, and a gig that night, and I’ve got to do this, that and the other. But you’ve gotta be in it to win it. And when a cool gig comes about, or cool tour comes about, or you’re just really happy with what you recorded, that’s when you know it’s worth it.”

As they say themselves, Justine and Sammy are lifers. As other members leave to start families or move abroad to begin the next chapter of their lives, rather than feeling left behind, it’s almost made them realise even more quite what a special thing they have.

When it brings you as much happiness as doing this clearly does, what else do you need? And anyway, it’s worth it to not simply be a cog.

#Justine Jones #Employed To Serve #2021 interviews

[ask-gotham-city]

We’re back! G’s still busy with school but we’re figuring out a balance for stuff.

I finally got some free time to finish my research on Mr. Wayne’s relationship history, so here’s what I’ve managed to find. I was actually able to make this pretty thorough, but that’s not surprising considering how long he’s been in the media spotlight.

High school:

Pretty vague overall. A few alleged girlfriends, but the media didn’t touch him too much until he came back in the mid 90’s from those few years off traveling.

College:

Besides the usual rumors of him sleeping around a lot, there isn’t much until his Junior year, which for those of you who don’t know, is when he was outed as bi.

I’m not gonna get too far into the details, because it was a pretty nasty media storm, but basically, some photos were leaked to the press of Bruce and his friend Harvey Dent that confirmed they were in a relationship. The media exploded, and there were a ton of generally really gross and homophobic allegations brought against both of them.

A prime example of this bullshit is when a group of conservative assholes pushed to have Bruce’s son Dick (who he had just adopted the previous year) taken away from him on the grounds that he was “an inappropriate parental figure.” This obviously didn’t take, and later that month Bruce made a statement to the press that was basically a very polite fuck off.

He and Dent continued to date until the accident in 2002 that resulted in Dent becoming the villain Two-Face. This was also when the Wayne Foundation officially started funding rehabilitation efforts for Gotham’s rogues, and Bruce has mentioned in several interviews since that he has hopes to see Harvey recover in the future.

2004-2009—Selina Kyle

This was a public relationship and confirmed by both of them in interviews at the time. Of course there were rumors of Bruce cheating on her, but nothing was ever proven beyond: he’s friends with other women. Gotham’s media is bullshit and both parties denied anything happening even after the fact, so it’s safe to say there was nothing.

They broke up privately sometime in late 2009, and it was widely speculated that this was over tensions regarding the passing of Bruce’s son Jason earlier that year.

They’re still good friends! They post pictures and talk about each other in interviews and just generally seem to be happy where they are.

2010-2012—Batman (kind of)

Oh boy, 2010, the year of the famous Batwayne video (you know the one).

Between the princess carry on their way out of the building and how Batman held Mr. Wayne’s hand while he was being patched up by the EMTs, it’s not a surprise that this rumor spread like wildfire.

Overnight, Batwayne was trending on most social media platforms and there were several morning news segments talking about the supposed relationship.

It didn’t help that Bruce had been publicly sponsoring Batman since 2002 (as a way to bolster villain rehabilitation efforts). As a result, the media and the public made the leap that they met through a business partnership, became friends, and started dating. Which like... I guess generally makes sense?

Bruce heavily denied it in interviews, but that didn’t stop the tabloids. They dug up really old footage of other saves, tracked Batman sightings along with Bruce’s public appearances, and found that the Dark Knight has never strayed far from the Waynes. More assumptions were made and the ball just kept on rolling.

Why is Mr. Wayne always the first to disappear in a conflict? Batman gets him out first before he takes care of everything. Why does Bruce leave Gotham on vacation every time Batman’s in a huge fight? He’s worried about his safety.

It was two years of a phenomenal public push that uncovered a lot of coincidences and connections between the two of them, and although his associates and kids never backed down from joking about it in interviews, this has never been confirmed. It did, however, deserve an honorable mention for the sheer amount of drama and coverage it got.

2012-2017—Clark Kent

Listen, this was the best time to be a Gothamite I swear. The media didn’t now how to handle Bruce going from dating Upper-Class-Super-Famous-Philanthropist Selina Kyle/The-Dark-Knight-Himself to... That-One-Reporter-From-Metropolis. They struggled.

The Daily Planet and other Metropolis news outlets tried to get in on the action, releasing the ever famous tabloid article where poor Mr. Kent gets asked if he “cleared the relationship with Batman first.”

Please, dear god, just watch any of the interviews from this whole thing, they’re so funny.

Besides what they released by choice, most of this relationship was private. They were spotted together in public a few times and posted plenty of pictures on social media, and overall they seemed super happy!

It’s unclear when, but it was confirmed by Bruce in an interview in 2018 that they split. They’ve both said it was mutual, and just like Selina they appear to have stayed good friends.

2017-Present—A Whole Lot Of What The Fuck

Listen, after Clark I couldn’t find any more confirmed relationships, but ohhh boy have there been a lot of stories. I’m just gonna rattle off a short list of ones I’ve found, because honestly these have been some wild years. These are all alleged, some crazier than others, so please take them with a grain of salt

Lois Lane

Wonder Woman

Superman

Selina Kyle again

Oliver Queen

Clark Kent again

A lot of one off dates that pushed the media to begin perpetrating the Bruce Wayne Sleeps With Everyone Under The Sun Idea

Basically every Justice League member at some point or other

Fashion model Diana Prince (this actually has a lot behind it but it’s only been public speculation so far so 🤔)

Lex Luthor (hELp)

Batman (that one’s never really went away)

And that’s all I was able to find. G helped me out with this a lot and I’m very grateful, so thanks dude! My overall take away from this is: the internet is a rabbit hole of weirdness and Mr. Wayne is just vibing in it. I support my queer icon and trash man of a boss and I hope he’s having a good quarantine.

-W

#W talks about stuff #bruce wayne #harvey dent #selina kyle #clark kent #batman #two face #catwoman #superman #bruharvey #batcat #superbat #dc #dc comics

[icey-zev]

Mark Gatiss recalled meeting Jon Pertwee when making of P.R.O.B.E.

DWM 514 interviewed MG during Queers on set in July 2017. (There is a long interview about Doctor Who - Empress of Mars, MG's early DW days and so on in this issue)

I want to add in The Zero Imperative, Jon Pertwee's character named Jeremiah O'Kane, the same with Mark Gatiss's great-great-great grandfather, who is also a clinic doctor. (In fact this story was base on MG's family tale, but he never mention this)

Interview Transcripts:

In 1994 and 1995, Mark Gatiss was involved with entries in the indie company BBV's series of P.R.O.B.E. dramas. While such straight-to-video productions were unable to use any BBC-licensed characters and monsters, they often sought to emulate the general feel of Doctor Who. When Mark carne on board, BBV had already produced The Airzone Solution, which starred Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. There was also a supporting role for future film star Alan Cumming... who 24 years later has performed one of the monologues for Mark’s Queers.

"The other day, Alan and I spent about an hour talking about The Airzone Solution," Mark chuckles. "The strangest link after all these years, who would have thought? But I guess [BBV founder] Bill Beggs had read Nightshade and I think Gary Russell gave him my number. I was living at Arsenal, when Bill said he wanted to do another film."

Mark perhaps reserves his fondest memories for 1994's The Zero Imperative, the first BBV film he wrote and appeared in. He admits this one has, "everything in it! A real kitchen sink job: even Exorcist references and all sorts. But I got to write for Jon Pertwee, two years before he died, and he was so kind and encouraging. We shot all his scenes in three days, and he’d had a back operation. He wasn't well, but he was on good form."

Mark remembers his hero Jon's first arrival on set, "as if the Queen Mother had arrived. Everyone was terrified, in a good way! We were all milling around, slight frozen, and I remember Jon saying, 'Where's Mark? Where's Mark?' and I was pushed forward like Edward Woodward in The Wicker Man [1973], yelling, ‘Oh God! Oh Jesus Christ!’ Jon told me, ‘Your dialogue is very sayable. Congratulations.’ It was great! I mostly had a really good time. That was my first script, apart from things I’d written in college. I remember so much about that experience: Jon telling us stories about doing Carry On Cleo [1964] and stuff. I regret missing, by a moment really, the opportunity to give him parts in The League of Gentlemen, which was only five years late. I love him. He was everything to me as a kid. I did the introduction to the Worzel Gummidge book recently [The Worzel Book by Strart Manning, published by Miwk], and met his son Sean Pertwee in America, which was just a brilliant confluence of things. It’s hard to express what someone means to you when they’re in your life all the time. Jon meant everything to me and I was mortified when he left Doctor Who. To write for him at all was amazing, although I wish I could have written more."

What does Mark of The Zero Imperative and the other P.R.O.B.E dramas now?

“Oh, I don’t know: I haven’t watched them since we made them! I imagine they’re very embarrassing, mostly. But it was first steps and I was thrilled, of course I was. The I did the Winterborne ones [The Devil of Winterborne and Ghost Winterborne], trying to make something that was much less Doctor Who and only to have Doctor Who people in it. I suppose it was a slightly supernatural police thing. That was a very happy time: I made a lot of good friends there. I remember a really lovely summer, and seeing a grass snake with a butterfly landing on it. We were young, we were in love! It was fun. Bill Baggs has never re-released them and I’m grateful! But it was a very useful training period and very interesting.”

↑ MG & Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker in The Zero Imperative; & Reece Shearsmith, Caroline John in The Devil of Winternorne.

All screenshots from P.R.O.B.E. DVD, you can find them on Youtube, Dailymotion in low qualities. I bought DVDs a couple years ago, until this year I finished this series' subtitles (chs & eng), but I'm not going to released them on Youtube, Dailymotion etc..

#mark gatiss #jon pertwee #interview #DWM #P.R.O.B.E. #The Zero Imperative

[abundanceofsoph]

SkyFire 3: Chapter 6

Dunkirk Premieres & the summer before tour: July/August 2017  

Word count: 3.3k

SkyFire 3 MASTERLIST

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The song in this chapter is Boys Like You by Anna Clendening

In the weeks following Robin’s funeral, both Harry and Aurora tried to find their way back to normal. Aurora spent hours at a time in either of their home studios, writing countless songs in an attempt to process the painful emotions coursing through her or working on a surprise gift that she was painting for Harry. They both called Anne almost every day, just checking in with her to make sure she was looking after herself, often inviting her to come stay with them in the city, although she always refused. Before long, the premiere for Dunkirk was  only a week away and Harry flew to LA and back for the press tour and enjoyed the long days of interviews alongside his cast mates. Aurora remained in London but was eagerly looking forward to walking the red carpet with Harry at the London premiere in a few days’ time, having already organised a gorgeous silver gown with the help of Harry Lambert and it hung, waiting, in her wardrobe for the big day.

xXx

The day before the premiere, Rori was buried under the duvet when Harry walked back into their bedroom after his morning run. It was not exactly unusual given that she had never particularly been a morning person, but usually she was scrolling on her phone by this point, trying to muster up the energy to get out of bed and start her day. He decided to leave her be and headed into the ensuite bathroom to shower and change out of his workout clothes. When he returned, she was still curled up in bed and he started to grow concerned. Harry’s brow furrowed as he climbed up the bed and lay back down next to his wife, peeling back the covers to reveal her flushed face. At first, he wasn’t too surprised by her red, sweaty face given the summer heat already building outside and the way she’d wrapped herself up in the duvet like a burrito. His brow furrowed quickly when she groaned, her eyes squeezing tight at the brightness of the room suddenly revealed by the loss of the covers.

“You alright love?” he asked, his fingers tracing her cheek bones noticing the heat radiating off her.

“Feel like rubbish,” she mumbled while feebly attempting to pull the covers back over her head.

“You feeling poorly, my darling?” Harry asked. His voice was low and soothing, full of concern as she slowly nodded her head, a pained groan following the movement.

“Cold,” she mumbled. “’n my throat hurts.”

“How about I run you a nice bath and put some fresh sheets on the bed?” Harry offered, “and then I can make you some soup.”

Aurora nodded her head in agreement, making no move to follow him as he headed back into the ensuite and started filling the tub. Once it was full, he returned to the bed, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her bridal style.

“Join me?” She asked, her voice a soft mumble as she stripped off the oversized shirt she’d worn to bed.

“I will in a moment, love,” he replied. “Let me just go change the sheets real quick first.”

He disappeared for a few minutes and Aurora sank into the tub, resting her aching head back against the edge. Harry returned quickly, slipping into the tub behind her and letting her settle between his legs. She lent heavily against his chest, her head lolling back on his shoulder, her eyes closing as the warm water settled around them both.

“Better?” he asked, receiving only a content hum in response.

They stayed in the bath until the water began to turn cold and then Harry bundled his wife up in a large fluffy towel before leading her back to their bed. She burrowed back under the covers, asking Harry to stay with her while she napped. She dozed on and off for a little over an hour before turning over and looking up at Harry where he was sitting back against the headboard, a book in one hand while the other continued running along her shoulders absently.

“You should call Anne,” she mumbled, startling him. “Should ask her to go with you tomorrow.”

“What?” Harry asked.

“It’ll do her good to get out,” Rori explained, her throat still raspy, “and you shouldn’t go on your own.”

“You might feel better by then,” he argued. “Was looking forward to showing up with my gorgeous wife on my arm.”

“It’d take a miracle to get me feeling up to a red carpet by tomorrow afternoon, Harry,” Rori replied, with a soft smile. “Was looking forward to it too. Guess you’ll just have to do another movie so I can go to the next premiere.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Harry chuckled. “Feeling hungry? I could make you that soup.”

“A little soup would be nice,” she answered, already burrowing back under the covers as Harry climbed to his feet and headed towards the kitchen.

xXx

Anne arrived the following morning and Harry Lambert showed up to the apartment a few hours after her to help Harry get dressed and provide Anne with a few dresses to chose from that he had gathered together last minute after Harry text him the previous afternoon. Anne had been in Mum Mode since arriving hours earlier, ensuring that her daughter in law didn’t lift a single unnecessary finger. She had Rori set up on the large sectional sofa in the living room, a mug of tea in hand and her next dose of Cold and Flu tablets within easy reach for her to take in a few hours’ time. She’d also popped to the nearby Tesco for groceries and set about making a fresh pot of chicken noodle soup, shaking her head in disappointment when Harry admitted to using tinned soup the night before. By the time both mother and son were dressed for the evening, Rori was wrapped up in a nest of blankets in front of the tv. She smiled brightly as Harry pranced into the room, goofing around and acting as if he was walking a catwalk as he twirled in front of his wife, showing off his sleek black suit.

“If I wasn’t so sick that I felt like my head was going to explode,” Rori said, “I promise I would be ripping that suit off you.”

Harry let out a loud laugh, throwing his head back. “How about I promise to wear it again when you’re feeling better?” he finally asked, his voice dropping lower which caused Rori’s cheeks to flush more than yesterday fever.

“Can we please keep the flirting to a minimum until I go home?” Anne joked as she entered the room, breaking the intense eye contact between the young couple.

“Can’t promise anything mum,” Harry laughed in response. “It’s not my fault that my wife is the most gorgeous woman on the planet.”

“Harry you can’t honestly make claims like that when your mother is standing right in front of you in a dress like that,” Rori argued. “You look incredible Mumma.”

“Thank you Darling. Are you feeling any better?”

“A little,” Rori said. “Now go have fun tonight alright.”

“You sure you don’t want to call Ella to come stay with you?” Harry asked as he kissed her forehead and prepared to leave.

“I’ll be fine, H,” Rori replied. “I’ve got the live stream ready to go. Drugs within arms reach and homemade soup on the stove to reheat for dinner. Now stop worrying about me and got strut your stuff.”

“If you need anything, promise you’ll call,” Harry said, his brow furrowing in concern.

“I’ll be fine,” Rori repeated with a roll of her eyes. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Love you,” Harry added, giving his wife one last kiss before leading his mother out the front door.

After Harry and Anne left, Aurora fell asleep, waking to the sound of the alarm she had set so that she didn’t miss the livestream of the red carpet event in Leicester Square. She smiled softly to herself as she watched Harry’s castmates arrive, having met many of them at a friends and family dinner that had been held a few weeks earlier before the press tour began. Her smile split across her face as the camera swept around to catch Harry climbing out of the car and offering his arm to his mother. Rori felt so proud as she watched the fans scream and cheer excitedly for him. He was stopped part way along the carpet for an interview. He talk a little about the experience of acting for the first time and working with someone as talented as Christopher Nolan.

“You’re joined by your mother this evening,” the interviewer said. “Where’s your new wife?”

“Aurora has the flu,” Harry explained, “but she’s watching at home. Hi, love.”

Once Harry and Anne disappeared into the theatre, Rori switched off the live stream and queued up a rom-com on Netflix, falling asleep again before she reached the midway point of the film. When she woke, the sky was dark outside the large windows, the city lights glinting off the black water of the Thames and Harry was knelt next to the sofa, his hand brushing softly against Rori’s arm.

“Hey baby,” he whispered. “How about we get you to bed?”

Aurora nodded and allowed Harry to help her to her feet.

“’m really proud of you, H,” she mumbled as they crawled into bed a few minutes later.

“You haven’t even seen the movie yet,” he chuckled softly. “Might change your mind.”

“Shut up and take the compliment,” she replied. “Proud of you for putting yourself out there and taking a risk.”

“Thank you, love,” he whispered. “Now get some sleep so you feel better in time for Sunday.”

xXx

By the time Sunday morning arrived, Aurora was indeed feeling much better, allowing her to join Harry on the journey across the channel. They left early in the morning as the sun was just beginning to dawn and drove down to Dover before taking the Channel Tunnel across to Calais and then headed along the northern coast of French until they reached Dunkirk midmorning.

While Harry was busy with interviews and a photoshoot, Aurora wandered along the beach and strolled through the streets of the small village, before meeting back up with her husband to walk the red carpet.

To say that Aurora was proud would have been an understatement. For as long as she had known Harry, he had been adored by his fans, but this was something new for both of them. For the first time, people who hadn’t previously considered themselves to be fans were suddenly paying attention to Harry and giving him credit for a job well done. No longer was he just a former member of a boy band, but now he was a successful solo artist and a talented actor in a credible film. Aurora was beaming the entire day, over the moon to see the love and support being directed towards the man that she knew deserved all of it and so much more.

Following the premiere, the entire cast and their partners headed to a local restaurant that had been booked out and enjoyed dinner together. It was a loud and energetic group, taking up every table in the large dining room and Aurora enjoyed listening to Harry and his castmates recount stories from set. Fionn in particular was more than happy to embarrass Harry, much to Rori’s excitement. Once dinner finally came to an end, the couple stayed at a hotel in town for the night before driving back to London the following day and then flying on to New York for the third and final premiere of the film.

xXx

Once Dunkirk was released in cinemas, the remaining 6 weeks of summer were busy for both Harry and Aurora with the upcoming tour looming on the horizon and countless projects on the go. Harry was busy filming music videos for the next singles to be released, as well as attending countless meetings for the tour and a BBC special that they would be filming at the end of August. Throughout the chaotic weeks of planning, filming and rehearsing, Aurora made sure to spend time with her loved ones before she hit the road with Harry and wouldn’t be able to see them for months on end.

One afternoon in mid-August she caught up with Ella’s mum, Bek, for tea and a catch up in the small flat were Ella grew up in south Wimbledon. The following day, Ella herself came over to Aurora’s apartment for lunch.

“Had afternoon tea with your mum yesterday,” Rori said once they sat down at in the living room with plates of freshly cooked pasta in hand.

“I swear you see my mum more than I do these days,” Ella laughed.

“Well it helps that she works from home and I don’t have a real job,” Rori replied. “Makes scheduling all too easy.”

“You’ve got me there,” Ella said, taking another bite of her pasta.

“Feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks though,” Rori added. “What’s had your weekends so busy lately?”

“Well,” Ella replied, nervously looking at her plate. “I started seeing a new guy.”

“Thought you were going to take some time for yourself after things ended with Natalie,” Rori replied, trying to keep to hint of judgment out of her tone.

“And I did,” Ella replied defensively. “It’s been 3 months and now I’m seeing someone new.”

“Well then tell me all about this new boy,” Rori said, biting back a tiny smirk at her best friends’ defensiveness.

“His name is Tim,” Ella all but sighed.

“Wasn’t the guy before Natalie, Tim?”

“No, that was Tom.”

“This one from tinder too?”

“Yes,” Ella snarked. “Not everyone can find the love of their life at a red carpet event.”

“I’m not judging,” Rori defended, her hand up in a sign of peace. “Just getting the lay of the land.”

“Yeah I know, sorry,” the blonde sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Just sick of mum telling me ‘I told you so’ every time I get my heartbroken.”

“You’ll find the right one eventually,” Rori promised.

“I mean trust me,” Ella continued. “I’m going in sceptical because most of them have been liars or just stringing me along, but I like Tim. He makes me feel like it’s worth taking a risk, you know. Mum doesn’t always know best. I mean she thought my dad was the one and look how well that turned out for her.”

“Well I trust your judgement. Now tell me more about him.”

“Oh my god, he’s amazing Rors. He’s genuinely tall, dark and handsome. Works out but isn’t a health freak that’s gonna shame me for getting a Big Mac and he has these chocolate brown eyes that I think I could stare at for hours. His mum is from Jamaica and his dads from the Midlands. Grew up in Peckham and he’s working as a physio for a football club.”

“You got any photos?” Aurora asked, smiling softly at Ella’s excitement.

“Oh yeah, hang on.”

“Oh, damn girl he is cute. Kinda reminds me of Stormzy.”

“I know right? God, I hope this one works out Rors, I really like him.”

“Remember what I said a few months ago,” Aurora cautioned. “Just ease into it.”

“I will,” Ella promised. “Gonna go so slow I’ll be crawling.”

Conversation moved on from there as they discussed the upcoming tour, Ella’s excitement to start teaching in a few weeks’ time, and an art project that Rori was putting the final touches on, before circling back to Ella’s love life and the date she’d just gone on with Tim.

“Hello earth to Aurora,” Ella said, waving a hand in front of her friends’ vacant stare.

“Sorry,” Rori replied, snapping back to focus on the blonde. “I’m listening.”

“No, you’re not,” Ella chuckled. “You’ve got that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“The look that says; Ella’s disaster love life has inspired another song.”

“My face does not say that,” Rori replied indignantly.

“But I’m not wrong am I.”

“Maybe,” Rori conceded. “Shut up.”

“I’m gonna go,” Ella replied.

“What? No. Stay,” Rori implored.

“You're useless to me at this point,” Ella said. “It’s fine. Go write. But when the royalty checks start rolling in you can buy me a Gucci purse. I have my eye on a few.”

“I love you,” Rori told her, the unspoken apology clear in her tone.

“I know,” Ella laughed as they hugged goodbye and then Ella was out the front door and Aurora headed straight down the hall to her music studio, a melody already filling her head.

Ella reached the lobby, stepping out of the elevator just as Harry was returning from running in Battersea Park.

“Where are you off too?” he asked. “I expected you to still be here until dinner.”

“Rors got inspired so I’m getting out of her hair so she can work,” Ella explained.

“Oh, you mean you didn’t want to hang out while she stared off into space and completely ignored everything you said?” Harry asked with an amused chuckle. He was very familiar with they way his wife would disappear into her own head when she had an idea for a song churning in her head.

“Exactly,” Ella smiled. “Good luck.”

Not wanting to disturb his wife while she worked, Harry tried to stay away from the studio for the majority of the afternoon. He showered and changed out of his workout clothes and then puttered around the kitchen, putting together a vegetarian lasagne for dinner. After cleaning up the kitchen, he finally grew bored enough to go disrupt the impromptu writing session.

At first, she didn’t notice him, but when he flopped down on the sofa across from the piano, her head snapped up and she smiled brightly.

“Ella left,” she said.

“I know,” Harry replied. “Ran into her in the lobby on my way in. Said you got inspired.”

“I did,” she grinned, clearly excited. “Wanna hear what I’ve got so far?”

“Always,” Harry replied.

So when you hold my hand, do you wanna hold my heart? When you say you want me, is it all of me or just one part? So when you hold my hand, do you wanna hold my heart? When you say you want me Mumma said there'd be boys like you tearing my heart in two Doing what you do best Taking me for a ride, telling me pretty little lies But with you, I can't resist I'm terrified, but I'll never let you know Social suicide if I ever let it show Everything feels just right I fall in place, we fall in line I'll never let you go “Thinking I’ll repeat the bridge and the chorus to finish out and I’m still trying some things out for the opening verse,” she explained once she finished singing.

“Sounds brilliant,” Harry replied, smiling brightly at her. “How about you take a break and we have some dinner? Made lasagne.”

“I love your lasagne,” Rori replied, already standing from the piano and heading for the door.

“Jeez, wait for me will ya?” Harry called out with an amused huff, already moving to follow her down the hall towards the kitchen.

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

#skyfire fic #Husband Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #dad!tony #ptsd #domestic fluff #iron dad #step dad steve rogers #aurora stark #Harry Styles #tony stark