#stylistically it was very good and it was extremely funny. I thought the message got muddied a little bit and the pacing was uneven. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

laughing-with-god · 5 years

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BTS Reaction #4- Love At First Sight

HOSEOK- “I’ll be out in a second!” You called out to the front of the shop as you heard the bell ring that told you a new costumer just entered.

You eyed the pot in front of you and nodded to yourself. It looked like enough soil, so you smiled and took off your gardening gloves. You headed to the front counter, where a smaller yet older lady stood by, eyeing the place with a secretive grin on her face.

“How may I help you ma’am?” You asked politely. She smiled at you and gestured to all the flowers by the huge bay window.

“Do you offer flower delivery?” She asked.

“Of course. Most of our flowers are delivered with a note though. Do you have one with you?” You told her.

“Well, my son’s birthday is next week and I have the card. I just don’t know what kind of flowers I should send with it.” She hummed thoughtfully as she gazed around the shop.

“Roses seem to be a costumer favorite, however poppies are in season and we have a few out back.” You answered blandly. Your boss was always telling you to push the roses and poppies, since they were the most expensive. Personally, you thought they were over-rated.

“Hmm...what do you think?”

“If you don’t mind me suggesting, I would think our white and yellow daisy bouquet would be nice. White is for purity and innocent love, while the yellow stands for luck and good health.” You advised her carefully while eyeing the flowers.

She seemed to think about this for a bit, before nodding and handing you a birthday card.

“So how much will that be?”

.....

It has been four days since the lady came in for the bouquet of flowers for her son. Today was the day that the flowers would be delivered and you quietly made sure the arrangement was in order, cutting off any last minute thorns.

“Hey, (y/n)!” You boss yelled out from his office. You stalked forward ended up at his doorway.

“Yes Sir?”

“The delivery man just broke his ankle. I’m going to need you to due all the deliveries today.” You let out a deep sigh as you noticed the weather outside get gloomier and gloomier.

“Okay sir.”

....

You ended up in front of a factory like place. The address you got lead you here and you wondered if this son worked as a factory worker. You hurriedly skipped to the entrance as you felt rain began to trickle down from the sky.

The factory was empty and instead filled with many people running around with lights, cameras, makeup and outfits. Suddenly, a lady holding seven cups of coffee bumped into you.

“Um, excuse me, where can I find a Hoseok?” You asked.

“He should be done with his photo shoot right about now.” She gestured over to a corner of the factory that held a table with food. Photo shoot? You followed her direction and saw a tall man standing by it, stuffing a rice cake into his mouth. You guesses this was Hoseok, as there was no one else there.

“Umm...Happy Birthday?”

He turned around and looked at you with wide and glossy eyes. In shock of you, his jaw dropped as a rice cake fell from his mouth.

Years later, Hoseok would swear to god he thought an angel was delivering him flowers that day.

JIMIN- You huffed loudly, annoyed. You weren’t sure why you signed up for this. Sure you loved makeup and trained hard to get where you have gotten. However, you were more into special effects or maybe even some avant-garde makeup for model art. Never before would you have thought that you would be doing some arragont kpop idol’s makeup. Plus the job wasn’t challenging at all, pop on some eyeliner, smokey eye, TONS of BB cream, highlighter and sometimes blush. Nothing too crazy. However bills needed to be paid and you were told a makeup artist working for a certain popular kpop group all of a sudden got really sick, so they put you to work immediately. You showed up to the backstage of some music show, where a stylist informed you of the concept and implied certain aspects that should be brought out on your idol’s face. You were taken to your vanity and was left with the promise of a man named ‘Jimin’ arriving shortly.

You quietly sorted out your own makeup along with some of the supplies that was previously laid out for your use. Silently, you prayed that this Jimin guy wasn’t rude or a high class diva. Yet, as usual your logical side took over and you began to ponder.

This group is supposedly VERY popular, you’re at a very famous music show and from the looks of it; this backstage dressing room that this group got was very nice and filled with attentive staff members all rushing to do something.

You sighed.

This guy was probably one of the most well-known idols in Korea. And fame is very hard not to get to your head. You mentally prepared yourself for a Diva...or divo, rather.

Suddenly, you felt movement beside you and you realised someone had sat in the seat. You slapped a brave face on and took out the primer and a foundation brush, you were still looked down and you wanted a quick peek of who this guy was sat down and ready for your appliance, while reaching over for a blender your eyes gazed up so you can see this mans face through the mirror.

He was already looking at you through the mirror’s reflection. Staring rather...

His puffy eyelids and under-eyes practically smothered his own eyeballs, however you could tell that he was -without a doubt- staring at you. You realised he may not be informed of why you (someone he’s never seen before) are now doing his makeup so you smiled, bowed and introduced yourself before continuing.

“Hello, I’m (y/n) and I’ll be doing your makeup until your artist gets back. Please take care of me.”

His seemingly stunned face was now curled up in a cute, childish grin. You watched very amazed as his shoulers shrugged up to look smaller, his eyes completely dissapear behind the aeygo bags and and a gummy smile took over, revealing some pearly whites that a colgate commercial would be glad to have. You kinda wanted to squeal but got ahold of yourself since you had to be proffesional.

“So your my new makeup artist?” Suprisingly a thick and raspy voice came out of his pouty lips that held a strong busan accent. You shook your head and reminded him that you said you were just here until the other one got back. To which his smile dropped to a cute pout and his whole face scrunched up in what you can only describe as determination. While you began your first steps of his face, you would’ve sworn you heard him mumble; “We’ll see about that.”

At the end of the day, a representative from Bighit called and offered you a permanent position as Jimin’s makeup artist. You attempted to decline, but they seemed oddly persistent that you take the offer...

(gif is when you tell him you aren’t his new makeup artist)

TAEHYUNG-You were a huge fan of BTS. And like most Army, you found yourself growing a soft spot for one particular member. Yours’ was Taehyung. You just saw alot of yourself in him. Both of you are really weird and quirky but funny and caring people notheless. Sometimes misunderstood but more intillegent than what people gave you credit for. You loved the alien boy because you were an alien yourself.

You were so over-flowing with love that you decided to make a fan-account/blog for him. You gained hundreds of followers because they loved how funny and unique you are, you also were really friendly and decided to chat with other fans openly on there. You excitedly annouced that you were going to a bts fanmeet in your city, to which your followers all liked and commented how jealous they were and how lucky you were. Some demanded you take pictures and video, which obviously you were gonna.

You got an ask notification the night before the event. It read, ‘OMG (y/n) I’m so happy you get to see them in person. I hope that taehyung recongizes you. Lol, wouldn’t it be funny if he jumped up after you tell him that your followers also call you alien and yell “THERE YOU ARE, MY LONG-LOST ALIEN SOULMATE! Which planet are you from?!” Anyway good luck tommorow~’

You laughed while reading this and typed back a sassy but odd reply before going to bed.

The next day you arrived at the fan meeting and although you were extremely nervous, a weird sense of calm hit you when you were about to go up to the table. You said hello to the first members, letting them know how wonderful they are and how much their music meant to you when suddenly you were face to face with your bias.

“Hey Tae oppa. You’re my favorite member and idea type and I just want you to know that I understand your antics very well given I’m labeled as weird too by some people.”

He looked up from signing your abulm but stopped in his tracts when he made eye contact.

“What’s your name?” He said, oddly still and not at all like the goof ball persona he had on when meeting other fans. You got scared for a second. Had you offended him or something?

“Y/n” you had said. He nodded in thought for a moment before continuing his signature and asking you some weird questions. Like how many kids you wanted or would you rather stay in or go out for a date. Before long you were shooed onto the next member, not before receiving a long and thoughtful stare from your bias.

At the end of day you were still thinking about the strange encounter you had with the man. You wondered if there was something about you that caused him to act more reserved or if he was just having a bad day? You thought about posting your experience to your followers to gain some insight but then thought against it. After all, idols are human too and the last thing you would want is to stir him up into a controversy.

You received a private message from your blog and when you went to open it, you were left confused.

‘I’m from Saturn. How about you? Love the blog btw, you weren’t kidding when you said you were odd too’

What followed after that was a selfie of Taehyung that you knew for sure was not recycled from the internet. Meaning he had to have taken that as he was speaking to you. He was even wearing the same outfit he had on during the fan signing.

He found your blog and was set on making your ‘alien couple’ fantasy into a reality.

JUNGKOOK- Being a college student was really hard. Constant stress and lack of funds caused you to suffer some mild anxiety. Like right now for example. You were currently looking at the list of books you’d need for the upcoming semester when your heart stopped beating from sheer shock. How in the devil’s butthole were you gonna find a way to pay for this?

“You know, I know a local bookstore that has a lot of university books for like a third of the price if your interested. You won’t have to pay like hundreds of dollars.” Your friend told you, trying to calm you down from the sheer panic attack that was about to hit you. She wrote down the address and told you to find it. With that, you bounced to find yourself some cheap books that won’t cost as much as a couple months’ worth of rent.

You found the shop and found the things you were needing. All except one. You just had one more book to buy but unluckily for you, it was super hard to find. You skimmed the shelves of this cute little shop, humming to the music they were playing in the background.

And then there it was.

The book you were in desperate need for in order to understand your class and pass.

But....it was in the hands of another.

A very good looking guy whom wore a white shirt, beanie and some timbs. You recognized him, given that many students at your school were fans of him and his group. But in this moment did you care at all that he was famous???

No.

If anything it made you more vengeful.

You were barely able to pay for food, and an idol who has everything at his finger tips was gonna steal a deal from you? Yeah, you were gonna let that happen.

“Yah! I need that book! You see unlike you, I am a broke student who REALLy needs that discounted book for a class! As an idol, I’m sure you could afford to buy it at full price!” You screeched in his face.

He looked up and was about to retort when he went silent and his big doe eyes got a glossy look. You continued to rant, somewhat blowing off steam on this innocent guy but little did you know, he wasn’t hearing a word. Lost in space (more like your face), all he could hear was the distant sound of wedding bells and angels singing. It was hard to see who was more insane in this scenario, the person who freaked out at a stranger for grabbing the book you wanted due to panicked stress and possibly the beginnings of a mental breakdown. Or the guy who sat there, let himself get berated bc he was too focused on planning his future wedding with this seemingly crazy person.

(Later he did buy you the book, after you swore to go to dinner with him.)

(GIF of him just staring at how gorgeous you are)

#bts reactions #jungkook #taehyung #bts #hoseok #jimin #loveatfirstsight #bts fluff #kpop #bangtan boys #love #namjoon #yoongi #jin #suga #rapmonster

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sorasunao · 6 years

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the GazettE ~ Aoi about World Tour’13 [part 1]~

What did you feel when, after 6 years, it was decided about the Gazette World Tour'13?

Aoi: I thought, "It will be hard" (laughs). Because most of all I hate to move from place to place. Moves during 3-4 hours is tolerably, but in Europe it was necessary to go for 16 hours, and in Central America about 8 hours. I thought, "I'll soon grow bald" (laughs). Besides, I did not really know anything about South America: neither about the local atmosphere, nor how well they know about the Gazette. But as the tour approached, I was more and more looking forward to it. From abroad, messages like "We are waiting for you with impatience" began to arrive, and I genuinely wanted to answer these feelings. I wanted to make concerts such, so that the people who came there wanted us to come again. Besides, in some things I wanted to test myself. I decided to perform abroad with a minimum set of equipment.

What caused this decision?

Aoi: Because that's what Nuno does * (laughs). [* Nuno Bettencourt is the guitarist of Extreme] He uses only a small set of equipment. At first it was dictated by a new trend, but later, by trial and error it became clear, that the minimum equipment is without a doubt the most advantageous option. If, for example, the guitar and amplifier are connected to each other by the smallest possible number of equipment, this helps prevent to deaden the sound. Trying to do so in a foreign tour, I was pleased with the result, and I'm thinking of resorting to the same method in the upcoming national tour.

It turns out that the tour was a great chance to experience something new. Before the tour, you also took part in the Russian festival KUBANA FEST and in SUMMER SONIC.

Aoi: In Russia, I felt "That's what a real festival is!". At home, we played many times at festivals, but our performances were mainly during the day, and at nights, we always stuck out in the dressing room, so I didn’t have a feeling that this is a festival. Even at SUMMER SONIC, security insisted that we stay in the room, and then to go to the stage, and on sensations it almost didn’t differ from an ordinary concert. At KUBANA FEST, first of all we performed late at night, and there were already a lot of spectators. However, even though it was forbidden, many fans recorded the performance on camera. And during the live, here and there I noticed flashes. "Ah, I already saw this somewhere" (laughs). At first, the audience seemed to be perplexed: "What kind of colored clowns are these?", but then gradually they began to have fun, mosh pit began and like this, and the area turned into something incredible. Then I thought: "You, assholes, you don't listen to us at all" (laughs). Never before at the concerts of the Gazette the public didn't react as well as at the concerts of some melodic metalcore band. I could see it live, and it became for me a precious memory... And also there hefty guys ran naked (laughs). SUMMER SONIC, hmm... I especially don’t remember anything. Is it only that this year we were in the neighboring dressing rooms with coldrain, although usually we are always lodged next to absolutely strangers. Since I'm familiar with RxYxO [* bassist of coldrain], I came to an excellent mood, after seeing him. After watching the coldrain’s performance, I was able to say only "That's cool" and thought that we, too, should try harder. Recently, I rarely feel such a surge of enthusiasm, so that case served as a good impulse for me.

The world tour in this sense has given you a great return. The first part of it took place in South America, and the first stop was Mexico.

Aoi: As I imagined, Mexico was an eerie place (laughs). There, people hardly walk around the streets. Well, somewhere on the outskirts of the open place, it happens, you meet local people, going for food, but on the main streets there are almost no one. I certainly studied the level of public safety in every country where we went, and in Mexico it limps on both legs. However, on their own, Mexicans are very nice people. Especially, hotel employees - they are very kind, polite and try to do their best. Also, in Argentina, it seems, a very high level of female emancipation. Women are pretty self-confident, even waitresses, how to say it, are very harsh and almost do not listen to what they are told (laughs). In addition, the population of South America speaks mostly Spanish and doesn’t understand English at all. They can simply say hello in English, but when you try to speak with them in English, the conversation does not work. In this regard, Russia was also terrible (laughs). In Russia, the makeup was imposed on us at the hotel. And from time to time, some maids, some other people came to us, and constantly spoke Russian. Our stylist answered in English, but they didn’t understand him at all (laughs). I myself speak only Japanese, so it's natural that I spoke Japanese with a stylist. In the end, everything was mixed: Japanese, English and Russian (laughs). I sat and wondered if anyone understood anything, but the maid eventually left us with a smile on her face (laughs). It was very funny.

Yes, Russia cannot be understood with the mind (laughs). Returning to the previous topic, how do you like Central America?

Aoi: Since Mexico, in every country we have been able to give an excellent concert. The voices from the audience were strikingly loud. I didn't hear well what they shouted, because I use headphone-monitors, but according to Reita, who doesn’t use them, fans constantly sang so loudly that it seemed as if they did not listen to our performance at all (laughs). Fans in South America are very active, especially in Brazil. There the largest number of people came to the airport, and they were all just mad. Brazil is the exact opposite of Japan. And it seemed to me somewhat surprising, that in this place so many people know the Gazette. Fans in Mexico and in general in South America are incredibly impulsive, but they can not be called cheeky. Plus I really liked the food in all countries. True, I would like to see another hall selected for us in Argentina - why on the stage do you need such an outstanding front-line descent? (laughing) Why did they do that? (laughing) Except this I have only the warmest memories about Mexico and South America. I definitely want to go there again.

Let your desire come true. After leaving Brazil, you once returned home, and then continued your journey across Europe.

Aoi: I don’t remember how I got home at all (laughs). It seems I caught a cold on the road from South America, and although at the time of arrival at Narita Airport I felt healthy, arrived home, I found my temperature at 38 degrees. I haven’t been out of the house all this time and, having only had time to repackage stuff, immediately went to Europe (laughs). Honestly, throughout the European part of the tour I was unwell, so I had some difficulties. In Europe, I tuned in the way that six years ago we were already here. In Mexico and South America, we were for the first time, so there it felt like everything meets you with open arms. Thanks only to this, my enthusiasm didn’t fade away, I succumbed to this feeling. In Europe, I'm prepared for the fact that there will not be such an atmosphere. Add to this poor state of health, and, I'm sorry to say this, but with the fans who met us at the airport, I was cold (laughs). In South America it was great to be friendly in every possible way, but as soon as I landed in Europe, I became a completely different person (laughs). I prepared for the worst, however, after playing one concert, realized that, despite my condition, I can perform as well as usual. And thanks to this, I found peace of mind.

Got peace of mind as a musician? 6 years ago in Europe there was a kind of boom on Japanese anime and visual kei, right?

Aoi: This feeling now became almost invisible. I think the other members will say the same thing, but this time our concerts were attended by those who love the Gazette. From the local coordinators, I heard: "If you had come a few years early, this much people would come to your performance", and I answered them: "Even so, I'm glad that we did not come at that time." Based on the figures obtained as a result of getting into a mainstream, you can give an incorrect assessment of yourself. On the contrary, after waiting for the boom to wane and making sure that this is the number of people who came to look at us, we can confidently make a verdict. At some concerts the tickets were soon sold out, and every live was amazingly hot. I believe that we have a chance to repeat this tour, and next time I want to get deeper into Europe.

to be continued...

translation from japanese to russian by haruurara-kazan on tumblr

translated from russian to english by me

as always thx for reading and sorry for mistakes ^^

#thegazette #the gazette #aoi #world tour #worldtour #translation #interview #world tour 2013 #world tour'13

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madamspeaker · 7 years

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Hillary Clinton on where it all went wrong | The Sunday Times Magazine

The woman who lost to Donald Trump reflects on the failure of her presidential campaign and coping with crushing disappointment. Interview by Christina Lamb

First comes a man to switch the chairs. Then a young press officer to arrange their position. Two men in grey suits with tell-tale earpieces, the Secret Service, hover at the doorway. Stylists flit in, pleased the weather is overcast as it is “kind for photos”. It feels like the entourage of an ageing movie star or the forward party of an absolute monarch. “She’s just coming,” I am repeatedly told, followed by: “She’s held up.” I keep getting my notebook and tape recorder ready, to no avail. And then, when Hillary Clinton finally walks in, I am helping the photographer prepare his shot, crouching down pretending to be her and making angry and devastated faces; she did, after all, lose the election to a womaniser whose candidacy she considered a joke. Fortunately, she appears not to notice and immediately moves the chairs closer. “I feel like we’ve met,” she says, warmly. This is odd, as she is the one who is familiar, if a bit softer, blonder and bluer-eyed in person. At 69, she has been on the world stage my entire adult life. First lady, wronged wife, senator, secretary of state, first woman to run for president for a main party. Even her pantsuits are familiar; today she wears black trousers and a blue top as shiny as a Quality Street wrapper.

“I’ll bet you know more about my private life than you do about some of your closest friends,” she says in her new book. “You’ve read my emails, for heaven’s sake. What more do you need? What could I do to be ‘more real?’ Dance on a table? Swear a blue streak? Break down sobbing?”

That, of course, is exactly what I want as I wait in the hotel in Chappaqua, the small, leafy town north of New York that she and Bill call home. At the end of a nearby cul-de-sac stands their large white clapboard house, where she has been doing yoga (favourite position: Warrior II), praying and downing chardonnay to drown her sorrows. Today, it’s strictly iced tea (it’s not even midday) and she is so much nicer than that brittle woman on TV that it feels mean to ask her to relive her pain. Instead of cursing or sobbing, she is keen to discuss why child refugees are going missing in Europe, and the implications of last month’s Kurdish referendum.

We establish that we met in the bar of a hotel on a trip to South Korea in 2010 that included a visit to the demilitarised zone, where she was literally eyeball to eyeball with a soldier from the communist North standing outside the window. I was surprised then by how funny she was over gin and tonics.

Korea, of course, is very much in the news. The day before, the president had prompted gasps in his first speech to the annual UN general assembly in New York by threatening to “totally destroy North Korea” and taunting its leader, Kim Jong-un, as “Rocket Man”.

You must feel you should have been the one standing there, I say. Her smile is part-grimace. “Put aside what I would have said, how I would have conducted myself, I just found it hard to believe he was standing there as president and saying what he was saying,” she says. “It was a distressing speech — dark, dangerous, selfish, incoherent — and left as much room for misinterpretation and confusion as I ever heard in a speech by a president of the United States.”

She was particularly worried about Trump’s suggestion he would undo Barack Obama’s hard-won nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump derided as “an embarrassment to the United States”.

“They want to blow up the Iran nuclear deal just because we did it,” she says. “I think the Iran nuclear agreement was a stellar example of multinational co-operation, but more than that, it certainly put a lid on its nuclear programme. So when I hear President Trump talk in such a bellicose manner, threatening not just North Korea but Iran, it raises the potential you will have two extremely dangerous nuclear challenges in two regions of the world with unforeseen consequences, which will be horrible for people in those regions.”

Trump’s repeated use of the word “sovereignty” (21 times) in the speech and insistence that he would “always put America first” seemed intent on undoing all the effort she put in as secretary of state in the Obama administration to — as she sees it — restore the international reputation of the US after the damage caused by George W Bush’s War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq. “It’s not about me,” Clinton insists. “It’s about the message that sends to the world and what his priorities are, what he values and doesn’t.”

Of course, it is also about her. Rather than accept defeat and go quietly into the night, as many believed she should, she has written a 494-page angst-ridden book, titled What Happened. Though she laughs a lot in our interview, her bitterness resonates in every mention of the T-word — and there are many. A close female friend of hers tells me that “Hillary is utterly devastated”. “I have developed the hide of a rhinoceros,” Clinton insists to me, but I can’t imagine what it is like actually Being Hillary.

In the 1990s, she had to endure the whole world knowing about her president husband’s affair with the intern. Who can forget Monica Lewinsky’s semen-stained Gap dress? Then, when she contested the Democratic nomination in 2008, she had to watch the job go to the cool younger guy with far less experience. After that, she had to swallow her pride to work for him, which she did with great aplomb. Then, to run again and lose to a reality-TV host who boasted of sexual abuse, and tweets insults to everyone from the mayor of London to the Pope.

Clinton clearly can’t get her head round the fact that her fellow Americans voted for Trump rather than her own supremely qualified self. “I thought I’d be a damn good president,” she says. “I did not think I was going to lose.”

She admits she had prepared for her first 100 days with binders full of policies, and had written her victory speech, which she planned to give dressed in white, the colour of the suffragettes. Indeed, so confident was she that, as the results started coming in on election night, she went for a nap in her suite at New York’s Peninsula hotel. She woke before midnight to find husband Bill and her team ordering in whisky and ice cream for the shock, as the key states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Iowa all fell to Trump. By 1.35am it was all over. The victory party was cancelled, the white suit packed away, and the specially built platform in the shape of the United States under a symbolic glass ceiling a terrible embarrassment.

Instead, she and Bill lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Does she still wake up every morning, wondering how it happened? “Yeah,” she replies. “I’m not living it every minute of every day, but every day I live it.”

Does she sometimes want to kick something? She laughs. “A friend gave me a little sign that says, ‘I do yoga, I meditate and I still want to kick somebody.’ I know that feeling.” It wasn’t just losing, she adds, but to whom. “It’s deeply troubling, because if I had lost to what I’d call a ‘normal Republican’, I would have disagreed with them — I had deep disagreements with George W Bush, but came to understand his worldview. I knew his father, I knew Reagan, I would have a lot of political differences, but I wouldn’t have felt the same sense of real loss for our country, that we elected someone who knows so little, cares even less and is just seeking the applause of the masses. I feel a terrible sense of responsibility for not having figured out how to defeat this person. There must have been a way and I didn’t find it.”

Instead, in the early hours of November 9, she made a concession telephone call that she describes as “one of the strangest moments of my life — weirdly ordinary, like calling a neighbour to say you can’t make his barbecue”.

After addressing shocked and tearful supporters the next day, she and Bill drove home in silence. Desperate for distraction, she decluttered all her wardrobes, arranged photographs in albums and remodelled the adjoining house they bought last year. In between, she went for walks with Bill and their dogs, read all the Elena Ferrante novels and went to weepy Broadway musicals such as Les Misérables.

But it was impossible to escape. Even the wallpaper in their bedroom, yellow with pastel flowers, was a copy of that in their old bedroom in the White House.

Then there was the inauguration that she and Bill were expected to attend as former president and first lady. Knowing the eyes of the world were on her, she steeled herself to “breathe out, scream later”, and tried to imagine she was in Bali.

Over and over, she asked herself “Why?”. Astonishingly it came down to just 77,744 votes out of 136m cast. “If just 40,000 people across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania had changed their minds, I would have won,” she wrote.

“I thought, ‘I have to understand what happened,’ ” she tells me. “That’s why I wrote the book.”

Yet the writing process was so painful, she admits, that “at times I had to go and lie down”.

Shouldn’t she just accept defeat and shut up? She gives the very idea short shrift. “I am perfectly willing to take responsibility for all the shortcomings I can identify about myself and my campaign,” she says. “But that wasn’t the whole story. I’ve been in campaigns for decades, nobody runs a perfect campaign. People make gaffes, missteps ... This was of a different order in terms of forces at work and I think that’s one of the biggest threats to democracy.”

The “forces” blamed in the book include misogyny whipped up by Trump, the American electoral college system (which meant she got 3m more votes than Trump, yet still lost), the spreading of fake news through social media as well as other interference by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that she describes as “more serious than Watergate”. This includes Putin’s alleged involvement in the dumping of her emails by Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.

Most of all, she blames the FBI director James Comey for firing off a letter to Congress just before the election — in which he revealed that the bureau had uncovered emails “pertinent” to a previously closed investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email address for classified information during her time as secretary of state. “What happened was almost a perfect storm,” she says. “I think I would have won without the Comey letter. I think the combination of the letter 11 days before the election, and what the Russians did weaponising WikiLeaks, raised enough doubts right at the end among a couple of tens of thousands of people in three states to vote differently.”

I point out that the former vice-president Joe Biden criticised her campaign for its lack of economic message, while Tony Blair said the anger that buoyed Trump “is not unjustified. You can’t just sit there and essentially blame the people.” They are not the only ones who accuse her of being elitist and out of touch.

“I knew that [anger] was out there,” she replies. “But I believed — and the popular vote proved it — more Americans agreed with the direction we were heading than not, and I believed Trump was temperamentally unprepared and unqualified to be president.

“I think there was lots of justified anger and distress over the financial collapse of 2007-2009,” she adds. “People’s savings were wiped out, they lost jobs and homes. But Barack Obama stabilised the markets and navigated us through it to the point that now incomes are beginning to rise and jobs are being created again.I don’t think Trump’s principal appeal is based on economic insecurity. It was a combination of playing on the fears of people who are worried about losing out in the future by fuelling sexism, racism and anti-immigrant feelings.

“The whole campaign he ran, from the very first day, was aimed at scapegoating. So if you are not in the place where you think you should be in society, that’s because someone else has taken it.”

In his campaign, Trump talked about how a victory for him would be “Brexit plus plus plus”. Did the British vote, less than five months earlier, not make her think that a similar populist earthquake was possible in the US? “Brexit should have been a bigger alarm than it was,” she admits. “It was some of the same people working for Trump, advocating for him. They thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got this figured out, just tell a really horrible lie over and over again, keep people off balance and make them think that this will, if not make their lives better, make them feel better.’ They voted against modern Britain and the EU, believing that somehow this would be good for their small village. It made no sense. The same thing played out in my race, but I didn’t think we were so vulnerable. But it turned out we were wrong — in part because the Russians played a much bigger role.”

By the “same people”, she particularly means Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, who was an enthusiastic advocate of Trump. Indeed, he was the first foreign politician to be received by Trump after his election. She speaks of Farage with disgust. “He came to the US to campaign for Trump and spent half of his remarks insulting me in a very personal way and talking about Trump as the alpha male, the silver-backed gorilla. Think of those images and what that says about what’s acceptable and what’s not.”

The real Bond villain in her book, however, is Putin, who she believes wants revenge for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the expansion of Nato. She also insists he has a personal grudge against her, describing him as “manspreading” in their meetings.

“US policy of the 1990s, to help democratise and protect former Soviet states, was something Russians didn’t like,” she says. “Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst catastrophe in human history. But he never personally attacked my husband.

“There was that famous encounter Bush had with Putin when he said, ‘I can do business with him, I looked into his soul.’ I said, ‘He’s a KGB agent — by definition he doesn’t have a soul.’ So I sparred with him from a distance and as secretary of state. It was a personal grudge.”

To try to improve the situation, she says she would always go to meetings with Putin trying to find something they could actually engage on, but “as President Obama once said, [Putin] is like the bored guy in the back of the room”. She finally got his attention by asking him about wildlife conservation. “He came alive!” she recounts. “He takes me down the stairs — all of his security guys are jumping up, because we weren’t expected — into this inner sanctum with a huge desk and the biggest map of Russia and he started telling me he’s ‘going here to tag polar bears’. And then he says, ‘Would your husband like to come?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll ask him, but if he’s busy, I’ll go!’ ”

The invitation never came. Instead, last October, the US government formally accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic Party’s computer network, and said that Moscow was trying to “interfere” with the US election. Russia also used its own state-run media, such as RT and Sputnik, to generate anti-Clinton stories, as well as internet trolls to post fake stories on Facebook and other social media.

Last month, Facebook admitted that Russians had spent at least $100,000 on some 3,000 ads on US issues, posted on the site in the past two years. If people clicked, they received a stream of provocative news stories.

“No country has attacked the US with so few consequences,” Clinton writes. Should the Obama administration have done more, I ask. “Aagh,” she sighs, “that needs a whole other session.” She continues with a plea for the British authorities to investigate Cambridge Analytica, a behaviour-profiling company run by an old Etonian that reportedly received £5m from the Trump campaign to help swing voters.

“I hope the UK are investigating,” she says. “You know they were involved in the Kenya elections and Brexit, and are the subject of congressional and special counsel inquiries. The question to be asked is: how did they, the Russians and the Trump campaign converge?”

Grudges aside, what did Putin hope to achieve by supporting Trump? “I think it has exceeded his expectations — except for the unpredictability of it,” she replies. “He thought he was backing somebody who would immediately lift sanctions, be quiescent about Syria and Ukraine, and he’s got a lot of it.”

The Russians may have spread fake news, but why did so many Americans believe it? This, it seems, is the question that haunts her. One particularly improbable story that gained traction involved Clinton and her campaign chair, John Podesta, running a child-trafficking network from a pizzeria in Washington.

“Why would people believe that? Do they despise me and my politics so much that they are willing to believe the most horrible lie? How, in democracies like ours [can] people believe nonsense and lies on the side of buses about how much money the UK government paid to the EU? How did we let this happen?”

Clinton not only feels she inflicted Trump on the world, but that she let down women who had thought they were going to see America’s first female president.

Whatever you may think about Hillary, it was unedifying, to say the least, to see election rallies in the world’s most powerful nation chanting, “Kill the bitch!” How did that make her feel? “Sexism and misogyny are endemic in our society, so of course they are present in our politics,” she replies. “What I found so despicable was that it was stimulated by the candidate himself. In that campaign we had someone who advocated violence, who said all kinds of terrible things, who smirked at other terrible things. It was hard to believe it was happening.

“I got an honorary degree a few years ago from St Andrews in Scotland,” she continues, “and one of the other honourees was Mary Beard [the Cambridge classics professor]. She pointed out that some of the really horrible things people said about me harked back to ancient Greeks.” For example, the campaign mugs depicting Trump holding up Clinton’s severed head recalling Perseus holding up the head of Medusa.

“And Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, told me it reminded her of puritan witch-hunts of the 17th century.”

In the book, she describes how it felt as Trump followed her around the stage in the second TV debate, two days after the release of a tape in which he bragged about groping women. “He was literally breathing down my neck,” she writes. “My skin crawled.”

“Trump was running a reality-TV campaign filled with personal attacks, giving people a great show,” she says. Yet people didn’t just watch it — they voted for him, women too. While Clinton won the vote of black, Latina and Asian women by large margins, 53% of white females preferred Trump. Was she surprised? “No, because these forces have been around my entire life. But both through legislation and broad consensus, starting in the 1960s, it became less and less acceptable in our politics to run on race or be overtly sexist. But that didn’t mean everyone agreed and all of a sudden became feminist and opened the circle of opportunity.”

This, she says, presents a huge challenge for any traditional politician. “When people come along and say we just have to figure out how to get along with voters who voted for Trump, I say, ‘At what cost? At the cost of turning our backs on refugees and immigrants? At the cost of permitting discrimination against blacks and women?’ No, that’s not an acceptable cost. How do we do a better job of conveying, instead, that we are going to grow opportunity in society, so more people can realise dreams? That has to be the message.”

She made that pitch, though, and it didn’t work. Has America now had enough of the Clintons? “I am not going anywhere, but will be active in politics, which I care deeply about.”

She is setting up an organisation to recruit and train young people — particularly women — to go into politics. “I will do not-for-profit work, working with universities and writing and speaking out [against] what I see as a global backlash against women’s progress.”

Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, recently said: “Things that are seen as strengths in a man are seen as weaknesses in a woman.” Does Clinton agree? “I met Nicola this spring in New York and we had a great conversation,” she says. “There’s a commonality that exists among women who reach a certain level in politics.”

Has she met Theresa May? “No,” she simply says.

Do women lead in a different way? “I think I do. I am very comfortable in a more collegial way. I like to listen, I don’t like to brag or lie about what I can do, which I think put me at a disadvantage this time!”

After all she has endured, would she encourage her own daughter, Chelsea, to enter politics?

“I don’t ever think like that, because she is an independent, incredibly accomplished person. She has written a couple of very good books, I don’t think she’s at all interested in office.”

In the meantime, spending time with Chelsea and her two young children is one of the bonuses of losing. “Grandchildren are the best!” she exclaims.

Bill, she says, is a wonderful hands-on grandfather to Charlotte and Aidan. It’s an unexpected image — almost as unexpected as the affection with which she repeatedly refers to her husband throughout the interview. When I was a Washington correspondent in the Obama years, everyone told me the Clintons’ was a marriage on paper and the couple had struck a deal that she would stay with him in return for him helping her become president. She vehemently denies this, saying she is “fed up with people speculating on the state of my marriage”. In the book, she admits there were times she doubted its future, but she decided to stay with him because “I love him with my whole heart”.

Family aside, there’s always the chardonnay and a strange relaxation technique she describes as alternate nostril breathing.

It’s time for her photos, and what Clinton calls her “glam squad” appears to touch up her hair and make-up. She worked out she spent 600 hours — or 25 days — getting ready on the campaign trail. It’s not over. Next week she comes to the UK, where she will go to Swansea for the naming of a law school in her honour. “I am blessed with a strong constitution and am resilient,” she insists. “I am not going to spend the rest of my life looking backwards.”

The smile breaks and for a moment she looks as crestfallen as the 13-year-old Hillary who wrote to Nasa saying she wanted to be an astronaut. “Sorry, little girl,” came the response. “We don’t accept women into the space program.”

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton (Simon & Schuster £20) is out now

Hillary Rodham Clinton makes exclusive UK appearances at both The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival and Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival on Sunday 15 October

#hillary clinton #hillary rodham clinton #the sunday times magazine

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lilysbook · 7 years

Text

Ramblings: Reflection

My 3 weeks of freedom is coming to an end in 3 more days.

The first week was filled with apprehension and anxiety as I busied myself with the thoughts of finding a part-time job right away before my internship officially starts. It seems that I had forgotten how tough it was to get a job. I sent several resumes and even had an interview however time was a cruel factor. After a few half-hearted attempt in securing a job, I realise that I would not get this opportunity again in the near future. The opportunity to just do nothing. To rest and relax after 3 years of monotonous and toxic environment, I can afford to rest for a mere 3 weeks, can’t I? So rest and relax I did.

In the second week, there were news of EXO’s grand comeback, and EXO’s official SNS were created. Rumors about teaser (and eventually official news of the teasers) started to arise. SM dropped individual teasers at 12am KST each night for their title track.

It was the beginning of my fangirl experience in comebacks. I was on twitter 24/7 and I think that I am an annoyance to my non-EXO twitter stans who had to see all my fangirling EXO tweets, so I am a little sorry about that. As this was my first comeback experience (EXO was my first ever kpop group I am obsessed with), I had no idea what to expect. So, I stayed up every night to wait for the new teaser alongside my twitter timeline that became frenzied every night an hour before it was released. The experience was in a word... fun. I had a sense of comradeship with my fellow EXO-Ls (although I don’t have any common mutuals -- I usually tweet and talk to myself loll). But I had a great time reading, liking and retweeting. The best part was 5 minutes before the teaser. Everyone in the timeline was filled with anticipation and excitement so it’s so easy to fall into the delirium as well.

Kai was the first member in the teaser. Even though I had been excited just a minute before, when the teaser opened with the catchy tune, my heart dropped. Kai had dreads. Disappointment mixed with adoration. Kai looked so cute as always but he had dreads. My stand on it is that it is cultural appropriation and that it is not right for those not in the African culture to have it. Some don’t share my view but I think it is still wrong. He had dreads during the Wolf era as well and he did not like it so why now? Many (including me) defended him saying that the stylist/SM were the ones who forced it upon him. However, now we know that Kai was the one who requested for the hairstyle which disappointed me even more. He needs to be educated about this and some EXO-Ls had planned to do so. Hope that the message will reach him and he will be more knowledgeable about it and hopefully he would stopped wearing that hairstyle.

Baekhyun was next. The first thing that I did was to laugh at his hairstyle. But as time goes by, I think he pulls off the mullet really well. I fell in love right away with the song in his teaser, Forever. Kyungsoo’s line “Don’t break my soul...” was a clincher.

There were many theories of whose teaser it will be the following night. Some said it was in alphabetical order, some said it followed the old songs order, some said it was the appearance in the teaser of the previous member. The last theory proved to be right (well, only for the first few nights). Chanyeol was the one to appear in the teaser. I loved his cotton candy hair. I love any hair that is bright. Chanyeol look so handsome in the teaser. The song Chill was awesome too.

Sehun came next and he looks good as always. He had grown on me over time. I always look forward to him when he is in variety shows. He has that natural entertainment sense. Anyway, he was amazingly badass in the teaser. His chest was covered with tattoos and his gaze was intense. I was like, woahhhh the maknae has grown up!

The next night was Suho. I love Suho and his awkwardness. But there were no traces of awkwardness in his teaser. He looks dashing even in the various weirdly-styled outfit and his centre-parted mob of hair; both fits him perfectly. Suho is very princely and he has that royal aura surrounding him. As expected, that is our leader with high ranked visuals.

We were left with my top 3 biases: Kyungsoo, Xiumin, Chen & Lay. I know now that Lay is not in the comeback, but back then, I still had that tiny hope that he would appear the last night or something. Anyways, I was still so grateful and happy that SM saved my favourite boys for the last.

The next night was Xiumin. Wow. I was so speechless by his ethereal beauty. Is Minseok even real? As I have posted often here on Tumblr (LOL), Xiumin is my bias wrecker. I just can’t keep my eyes of him in the teaser. He has that gentle and feminine look that I adore so much, yet he is manly (do I make sense?). He is just so so beautiful. His eyes is his best feature. With his black comma hairstyle, (let’s face it he can dye his hair in any colour and he still look gorgeous) he was the most good-looking out of all the members by far. Of course, EXO has no visual hole (everyone is so very extremely handsome) and this is just my personal opinion anyways. Xiumin is just so underrated sometimes and I just want to shake everyone and tell them to look at that beauty and talent and intelligent human being and stop sleeping on him. His vocal is one of the top in EXO but he was still overlooked. I’m so glad that SM gave him more chance to shine with Young and Free and also The War album. So proud of you my darling, beautiful Minseok.

Chen came next. Different from the other nights, I watched the teaser late because I was not home. The first thing when I got data was to check who was next HAHA. This level of dedication (or obsession) surprise even me. Anyway, it was the vocalist who slays high notes in EXO, Chen. I like Chen’s personality. He even bleached his hair for the first time just for this album. That is dedication. I always like idols with blonde hair as I find them good-looking and Jongdae was no exception. he looks so good in the teaser.

And then who do we have left? Yes, it is my ult bias in EXO, D.O, Do Kyungsoo. Out of all the members, I like his voice the most (yes I may be slightly biased). I like everything about him. I like that he is shy outside, but his stage presence is amazing. I like that he is passionate about both his singing and acting. I like that he is a man of few words, but when he talks, everyone cracks up. I like that even though he is physically small, he is a manly man. I like his smile, I like his hair. I like his loyalty because even though he has acting commitments, he drops everything for EXO. I like him so so much. In the teaser, he smiled so gently, it feels like he is my boyfriend. In this album, I like that he has a lot of parts because i like his singing voice. You know how you like someone and you like everything about them but you cannot also point out specifically what you like about them because you are afraid you will miss out on something? Yeah, that’s how I feel about Kyungsoo. I just... like him as a person. I admire him so much.

Even though I have biases in EXO, I love each and every member too. They are talented and popular, yet they remain humble and polite and down-to-earth. They were met with so many challenges but even so, they are still one. Their gratitude towards the fans are what made us EXO-Ls stay and what makes them still relevant imo. I hope Lay will join them in the repackage album!!!

I love stanning EXO.

Anyway, the group teaser of Kokobop was released night after Kyungsoo’s and then the MV the day after. I love the song. I love the whole The War album. I love how EXO feels so excited about this album because they were involved in the making thus making them attached to it. The MV itself needed some time to get used to because there were slight drug references in it. The first time I watched, I had already picked up on the not-so-subtle cues that they were high on drugs lol (don’t do drugs kids). But I may have overreacted and think too much as well. I don’t know. Baekhyun explained they were aliens sent to Earth (in reference to previous MVs). The filmography was amazing though.

They then had Vlive and everyone was so funny and cute omg especially Kyungsoo’s freestyle dance to Touch It. HAHAHA that ahjussi. The most exciting schedule that they have and that I am looking forward to would be their appearance in Knowing brothers. I am a Knowing Brothers maniac so having two of my faves set of people meet is the best thing a fangirl can get.

Their first live performance of Kokobop was just tonight and it was amazing. The dance, the vocal, the visual were top notch. I like the starting and the dance break part the best.

And they performed The Eve too. Wow. It has a sensuous feeling to it. HAHA. I am barely explaining it but the whole album is that way so yeah. (I want to see this live lol. I attended Exor’dium concert where they performed Artificial Love and woah what an incredible experience).

Anyway, my point of this entry (before I could stop myself from writing an essay about EXO) was that EXO unintentionally became my project during these 3 weeks break. I experienced how it was like becoming a full-time fangirl and it was an amazing and fun experience. I foresee myself not having the luxury of committing this much time and effort in the future due to internship and work commitment hence these 3 weeks had been an enriching and novel experience in its’ own way. I believe that everything happened for a reason. EXO’s comeback just happened to be at the time where I have no commitment and for that, I am utterly grateful.

I will be cherishing my last 3 days and giving full support towards my boys whose rival is their 2016 self (as wisely said by Minseok). I will be like them and constantly try to improve myself as well.

This had been really fun. I will miss this feeling.

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