The Return
I am afraid of returning. I am afraid of showing up at the page and every thought, every inspiration disappearing upon my arrival. I am afraid that the words will stop at nothing to avoid being written by me. I can't shake it. I can't shake the voice that keeps me from going to the page. You are selfish, it says. You should be doing everything else. Anything else. Who are you writing for? There are things around the house need doing. There are things around the world need doing. And yet you trudge through the world dragging your feet pulled by words dragging you to the page. There is a gravity inside me that swings opposite the universe, a polar vortex in my center and I am trying everything to not split apart at the seams. And I have crossed so many metaphors now, procrastinating on my return to the work of words. But we must return. Shoulders squared, jaw set, breath deep. The world will scream, the chores will beckon, but the sun will still rise and set with or without groceries, but the words will never be written until you sit. And so you must. You must. you must. you must. Bismillahirahmanirahim. We begin.
3 notes
·
View notes
I could believe that Taylor suing the jet tracker was about “protecting her privacy” if she wasn’t calling the fucking paps on herself every time she goes to the studio, on a date with her boyfriend, or has “girls night” with friends.
evidently there are still some swifties who believe that taylor HATES the public attention that she gets, and all those paparazzi photos where she’s with her “squad” where she’s always strategically placed front AND center like the head mean girl, are just spontaneous photos of her out with her friends. i’m here to burst your bubble and tell you that’s not the case.
now here are photos from taylor’s post-breakup pap strolls, where taylor showed the world how she was “so much better off” without joe. notice anything? all those photos came from BACKGRID or The Image Direct.
now, something you should know about Backgrid and The Image Direct is that they are PROFESSIONAL photography companies. They do not photograph celebs without their CONSENT.
now, not to be blunt, but this means that Taylor Swift calls the paparazzi on herself OFTEN.
just google search “taylor swift backgrid,” or look at the instagram account @backgrid_usa and your mind will be blown at just how often this bitch calls the paps on herself.
taylor goes to the studio to record songs? BACKGRID is called.
taylor goes out to dinner with her friends? BACKGRID is called.
she goes on a date with her boyfriend? BACKGRID is called.
and even during her so-called “private” relationship with joe, the pair were photographed many times by BACKGRID. in retrospect, this is probably why joe looks so damn annoyed in so many photos, because taylor just HAD to call the bloody paps, again. 🙄
OH! and remember jack antonoff’s wedding, where poor taylor was supposedly “ambushed” according to swifties? NOPE! THAT WAS ALSO FUCKING BACKGRID, on the night of the wedding rehearsal and the actual wedding day. they may have been surprised by the amount of PEOPLE that showed up, but they probably saw all the backgrid paparazzi there and realised someone important was there. and as you can see from taylor’s excited face in these pictures, she clearly enjoyed the attention anyway.
but yeah, i’m sure Taylor getting her lawyers to intimidate and threaten a person for posting publicly available information on her flights was ALL about her privacy. there couldn’t possibly be any other reason why she would want to censor them. 🤐
240 notes
·
View notes
Hey so I have a question-
Is Rachel even contributing to LO's art anymore? Like, at all?
CAUTION: MILD FASTPASS SPOILERS AHEAD !!!
I've talked at length about the 'tells' of each assistant and artist, and while it doesn't guarantee that I can tell exactly who drew each panel, there's one thing there's been a lot less of in the most recent episodes that have caught my attention - things that I know Rachel would typically contribute.
And most of it comes down to her lineart.
The shading was always her, no doubt about that, you could tell with how consistently awful it is, how she would take actual decent flats from her assistants and proceed to butcher them with muddied shading.
AmyKim89's flats vs. after Rachel's gotten her hands on them:
(seriously Rachel why tf did you darken Persephone's legs here, it looked so much better before ??)
But there was also her lineart which, at first, I didn't realize who was drawing it. It didn't show up super often in LO but it was always very noticeable when it did so I knew it had to be someone on the team doing it:
The thickness of the lines and the extra little strokes added in along the knuckles and bends, that wasn't something that was really common in LO at this point... at least it hasn't been since S1:
And when comparing it to the lineart she used to do in The Doctor Pepper/Foxglove Show:
(look at the mouth in The Doctor Foxglove Show vs. Hera in the pilot version of LO, they're literally the same)
So yeah, it was certainly the revelation to discover that that one instance of "weirdly detailed lineart" wasn't one of her assistants having a little extra fun, it was Rachel herself. It was already so uncommon for her to contribute all the way back in S2 that her contributions seemed to be more of the exception rather than the norm.
And since seeing the art that's been in the newest FP episodes following the return of the series... is Rachel even drawing at all anymore? Because lately the lineart has felt very thin, in a way that I can't tell if it's her assistants just doing all the lineart now or if she's trying to emulate S1 LO more by using less lineart. But S1 didn't have thin lineart, it had very thick lineart, BUT only being used where necessary to emphasis shadows and depth.
Now the lineart feels very... dinky? Especially when you look at the eyelashes.
That said, there are moments from S1 that had similarly 'dinky' lineart, so take this with grains of salt. It still didn't feel as dinky though as it does today where the lines are practically non-existent in how thin they are.
There are also times when you can tell they're really trying to emulate that S1 look, the pieces are there but they aren't being put together very well:
So yeah at this point I wouldn't even be shocked if all Rachel's doing at this point is scripting and roughs. And considering there are definitely times where she'll just draw without knowing what to write, the 'scripting' is also practically non-existent. It's just her leaving her roughs off to the last second for her assistants to whip out with very little time to pay attention to what's being submitted.
Once again it's Rachel fundamentally missing the point of the criticism that's being made of her work. She's trying to forcefully emulate something that she didn't even have a process behind. I can attest as someone who's been trying to do studies of her past work to recreate it as faithfully as possible through Rekindled, it's very difficult to achieve the 'old LO' look because 'old LO' was literally just Rachel slapping down brush strokes until they looked good, there was no specific process or guidelines that she followed, she just made things look textured and colorful. Everything else was basically up to her figuring out what actually looked good, with panels often having their own vibes separate from others in isolation of one another.
Now she's trying to replicate that look while missing the point entirely that it's not something she can really replicate anymore. Though we do get the odd panel that's way closer to the point, those panels have one thing that she's clearly not putting into the comic as a whole anymore - love and effort.
(fr this panel is so gorgeous but I feel like at this point it was more sheer luck because of how rare it is to see panels like these nowadays, this feels like an accident LOL)
Case in point, this honorable mention towards Persephone's outfit which is literally just a color-swapped version of the sketch that Rachel posted to Blue Sky that got meme'd to death in the ULO sub:
Did you catch that though? The weird dark patch over her boob and the gap in the lineart of her cleavage?
That's because they copy pasted the first panel and then erased out the hands, but missed the part of the hand shading that was overlapping the breast and the gap in the lineart.
I shit you not, Rachel coming up with memes on Blue Sky that she's scraped out of shows she watched 20 years ago is basically the full extent of her writing at this point.
Haha take a thing and make it bigger! So funnyyyy!
(seriously Rachel's 'humor' feels like it's stuck in 2010)
Yep, you're really earning that #1 NYT Bestseller label that you haven't even gotten since Volume 3, Rachel. Put your hand down, there are no high fives for you here.
155 notes
·
View notes