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antisepticcrayon · 11 months

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Posting here too! Just so I can give a longer explanation a bit for the few pieces I've been able to scramble for Sean.

Now I'm not the best at drawing people so it's very rare that I get to try to draw fanart for Sean and the community but I'll share the few I've been able to do!

Starting with the spring banner I made for Sean's server! Has to be one of my favorites becos I loved how it turned out and the fact that I somehow won the banner contest. It's always such a funny shock to go onto the server and see my art there. I've never been so proud of an accomplishment like that.

Next up is the Chase brody youtooz plush concept. Now I did this for kicks and giggles (/hj. Please Sean. We need sad dad plushies.) But it was pretty funny that that reference sheet got way more attention than I thought. And at the time of iris being fairly new was also so funny to me. He looks so sad. I need 17 of them.

King of the daisies portrait! My one piece of fanart that got the most recognition from the community! I spent a grueling 5-6 hours on this piece. It was during a time of art block so I wanted to try drawing realism for a month (didn't go exactly a month but I tried!) And this was my second attempt of the month and it came out so well. I absolutely adore it. And the inspiration came from when Sean announced that white daisies were his favorite flowers. So of course to honor the flow3r king, I did that for him. (Also another reason the banner, he's wearing a daisy crown!)

And finally the anti portrait. This one I made at work actually right before I was contacted for winning a meet and greet ticket to face time Sean through moment house. And to calm my nerves for the next couple days, I worked on this piece. (I referenced an art piece done by turquoise magpie I believe for this one!) But also another part of my month realism challenge!

The 2 realistic portraits hold a special place in my heart. Becos even through the horrendous wifi (and my uncontrollable anxiety) and cutting out during my meet and greet, I had the chance to show him them. I just didn't get to hear or see his reactions properly but the fact I showed him at all for him to see was more than enough.

Annnd then these last art pieces (I'm frankly TERRIFIED of showing. Unsure if it counts as fanart buttt)

These first 2 photos are reference pieces for my "JJ" inspired OC/Fursona. He is considered my comfort character who I tend to draw and doodle whenever I'm feeling down or having a bad day. Jameson (and chase) are my favorite egos and I find comfort in them. Not sure why, but I do. I feel like they just came at times I was struggling the most and brought joy to me though. Just Sean in general has done as such.

And the last photo is a book cover I created for a short story I'm writing with my self insert OC and chase Brody (along with the other egos).

The short story takes part of a community I'm in that surrounds giant/smalls/humans folklore and certain cultures surrounding a time of creatures big and small, Aka G/T! Think of any fairy tales like jack and beanstalk or even japenese animes like the secret world of ariety or movies and books like "The borrowers". (Another comfort for me. I find writing helpful as well for bad days and to also center and express myself again)

Anyways one of my favorite human pieces I've ever completed on my own through lots of practice and failed sketches (my good friend zora rendered and shaded it for me! Actual drawing, linework and coloring done by me!)

Anyways, I hope I'm not overstaying my welcome so I'll cut it off here!

I thank you both for doing this revival! I was never able to participate truely with "septicart" but I'm glad I can right now through this :)

Thanks for reading!

- Dj💜

(I apologize if my wording is wacky! ADHD and dyslexia isn't a fun combination when trying to write and explain things ack)

@turquoisemagpie @rogue-of-broken-time

#SepticartRevival2023 #septicart #jacksepticeye fanart #jacksepticeye

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noweakergirl · 3 months

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Bestie we clowned 🤡 but its okay cause Ts11 sjdhshsjwjsjdjdjdjssjsjjssjskkssk (the title omg THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT???)

BESTIE I just came to send you the exact same message, she truly clowned us all HAHAHA but that's okay cause she gave us the biggest and the best shock ever! I couldn't sleep properly from the excitement last night so I had a fever dream that she announced a brand new album instead of rep and now I just woke up and yelled when I watched her Grammy announcement 😭

The cover is like a sad sensual 1989 because we're not seeing her eyes and the album title is SO Lana coded. Lyrics energy feel like the mix of Speak Now, folklore and evermore because HELLO she is calling herself a poet!!!! Officially!!!!! (not that we didn't know that of course) Oh, I KNOW that ink worked hard.

Also, didn't you mention that your birthday is in April? Are you alive asdfhgk?????

#WE'RE GETTING A NEW ALBUM #the best message to wake up to!

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thedarkheretic156 · 2 years

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IV_ Eternal Flame_IV

PARTS ❧ Mortals ❧ Death ❧ Sing ❧ Hunt ❧ Loss

TW: slight gore.

The old folklore of the east whispers of a terrible power. Wielded by a lone demigod, fated to walk through the eras the dark fires of hell dancing on her fingers. With no regard for human life, she was fated to be feared and worshipped. But fate is a bitch. Now cursed to be stripped of her powers and doomed to mortality she finds herself in the care of a sworn rival. The great Daiyoki of the west.

❧Hunt❧

I groaned into the grass. It was hot, unbelievably humid and I was bored out of my mind. The cicadas buzzed loudly around us as Rin and I sat making flower crowns from wildflowers. The act felt strange to me, I hadn't ever really stopped and bothered to look at flowers. Much less play with them. But the child seemed to have found curiosity in everything.

Rin sat among a patch of violet-blue flowers, thin fingers wrapping flower tendrils into delicate braids. She looked so content just doing that. I wondered what it would be to feel that at peace. I sighed, throwing a clump of grass in the air. "Rin?" I asked, "Do you want to go hunt?"

Rin's humming stopped, "Hunt?"

I shrugged, "or anything else really, I could teach you how to spar." "I don't like to fight," Rin replied meekly, setting the flower crown down. "I don't think I could hurt anyone." She said, shuddering as if repressing a bad memory.

I frowned. "Just because you can wield a sword doesn't mean you have to hurt people," I replied. "The choice remains with the master, not the weapon."

I arched my back, the laziness of the humid evening weighing down on me. "You're human. You're a woman. The world will be harder on you." even as I spoke, I wondered why I cared all of a sudden.

A small voice rang in my head, what does it matter? A human child, bound to death, what good could a blade bring to her life?

Rin shook her head, "I have lord Sesshomaru to keep me safe." She said smiling, I rolled my eyes.

"And master Jaken, and Ah-un." The child continued in a sing-song manner, "And now~" she added, "I have you too." My half-lidded eyes flew open, shocked more by the brazen coincidence of the words. Wei, the real Wei, had said the same thing. Grinning her beautiful smile, so bright it rivaled sacred fire burning behind her.

And what had happened to her?

I felt myself grimace at the old memory. And then, even after all that, I had just let her die.

10 more days. I counted down. 10 more suns before the feast of Manna, could I even stay near her after that? Can I see through the belief the human child had put in me? Something dark settled in me. Rin placed the finished flower crown on my head. "All done!" she announced, "You look so pretty!" she said clapping her hands.

Not this one. I thought, promising it to whatever wretched deity that was listening. I won't fail this one too. The dusk settled in, painting the sky a beautiful auburn, against the vast sky, Rin's frame gleamed with life. The soft scent of wildflowers clung to her palms. For the first time Y/n, felt peaceful. But she hadn't just realized it yet. Not quite yet.

You are going soft, daughter of the hills.

I jerked up, sitting around wallowing in thoughts was doing nothing.

"Rin," I said. I needed to do something about my boredom, "what do you think about having Pork for dinner?"

"This feels like a bad idea." Rin said sheepishly, "We could always just eat the fish lord Jaken got for us." She said shuffling hesitantly. I grunted, "take this as a small token of advice Rin, never settle for alms from someone, when you can get better things by yourself." I strapped Mrutunjai to Ah-un's saddle, patting the fire-demons snout. He huffed in response lowering one of his heads for a pat.

"But your wounds-" Rin continued, "I don't think you should hunt until they are completely healed, and its already dark, what I lord Sesshomaru finds out-"

I looked at the young girl and grinned. Rin felt a rush of warmth as the cockiest smile laced the older female's face. There was truly something different about her she couldn't fathom. At times like these when she smiled, Rin would feel as though the woman should have been born with razor-sharp fangs.

I pushed my long braid over my shoulder, "Let Onee-san handle this." Th further we walked into the forest the more nervous Rin grew. I knew all she could think about was how Sesshomaru wouldn't approve of their little exercise. But right now I couldn't care less, the Daiyokai and Jaken couldn't be seen since morning. These two would just wander away without any explanation, expecting us to stay put like good little humans and I was far over it.

Having to wait around for them to return to do anything was getting on my nerves. The frustration seeped into my steps as I angrily strode forward. Ah-un at my heels. The overhead canopy grew thicker and Ah-un grunted. He seemed to have spotted something. I narrowed my eyes, scanning the pitch darkness of the forest before us, there was a faint twitch and I grinned, "Good boy" I whispered to the fire demon.

I pulled on his reins and the fire demon stopped, Rin peeked out from his saddle, "What's wrong?" I motioned her to stay quiet and slipped Mrutyunjai off the saddle. I gave her a departing wink and patted one of Ah-uns heads. In an unspoken command, one fire demon to another, Ah-un understood perfectly, leaping gracefully into the midnight sky. Taking Rin away at a comfortable distance from the hunt site. I leaned against my sword, warming my human body for what was to come. An undeniable thrill went down my spine as I wrapped my fingers around the familiar hilt. Usually her blade would have roared to life, quivering with bloodlust. But right now it felt dead in my hands. I adjusted my stance. No time to mope over that now. I locked my eyes on the beast, hiding perfectly with the stripped brown trees around the undergrowth. Mud flies buzzed around, and the beast's ear flick was the only sign I needed to charge. The boar noticed, obviously. At the first crunch of the dry leaves under my foot, the monstrous beast burst out of its hiding place. Plowing chunks of earth with its upturned tusks on its snout. The bellow sent birds flying from all directions.

My speed was drastically low, the human body alien to any kind of fighting, I had lost so much strength, I needed both my hands to hold up my own sword. But my mind hadn't forgotten the eons of harsh training. The demon instinct honned over the years and just the pure thrill of drawing blood took over completely. The boar charged at me, I steadied the blade in my hand and waited, just a little closer now. I dropped to my kneed, wringing the wicked blade with me, slicing through the beast's front legs. The animal's scream rang through the forest, the crimson blood splattering everywhere. The wound tipped it off its balance, slamming head first into the trunk of a wide mahogany.

Good. I thought It was a clean cut through its legs not powerful to dismantle the limb but enough to send its balance for a toss. The splatter of blood had already covered one side of my face. Out of habit, I stuck my tongue out and tasted it. The metallic taste of blood sent shivers down my spine. More.

I needed more.

It charged again, and dashed towards me, its wounded legs buckling, the upturned tusks narrowly missed my torso as I slashed the sword across its eyes. If I still had my ayakashi body I would have just let the beast crash into me, it would have been a blow I could take easily. But now I had to dodge even the lightest attack, one mistake and it would smash me up against the bark of a tree. Well, it just made it that much more thrilling.

The beast now half blind squirmed before me in a panic frenzy. I pulled mrutyunjai up, my arms shaking with excitement and exhaustion. And charged again. It continued to scream in agony as I sliced through it, evading the tusks and curved hoofs. My blows were clean yet ruthless, chopping off the beast's hind legs, ears, and chunks of its snout before allowing it to die. I growled giving the final blow, sinking the blade hilt-deep into its heart. The beast spluttered out more blood before finally falling silent.

I drew the sword from the corpse and Ah-un and Rin descended down. I kneeled down beside the beast pressing my palm against its snout. "king of beasts, slain in sport, slain in hunger, I bow down for your sacrifice." I whispered out in the old tongue, a prayer my clan spoke after every kill.

Rin's pale face popped out of the saddle again, "is-is it d-dead?" she whispered, there was a queasy look to her face like she was going to be sick. I tried to stand up, but my knees gave away. The little hunt seemed to have taken a massive toll on my human body. I doubled over, the world before me spinning. Rin squealed, running towards me at once, I felt her thin arms around me as she spoke, "are you okay? You're hurt aren't you?!" She wailed out, "I knew this would happen I knew -"

I opened my mouth to reassure her but a familiar croak beat me to it. "THERE THEY ARE!" Jaken's strained voice called out, "M-master Jaken-" Rin started, but the toad demon was fuming. Fuming.

I had no strength left to retaliate. Fuck I was worn. There was no breath left in me and my whole body shook from exhaustion. I dropped to the ground, pushing back blood-slick hair from my face.

"UNGRATEFUL HUMANS BOTH OF YOU" he screamed at us, "Going off alone at night, into the forest, without any courtesy of even ASKING your Master Lord Sesshomaru! you have no right!" he continued, "No right to wander off on your own, NO RIGHT- not when Lord Sesshomaru has so generously taken your useless self under his wing-" his gaze pinned on Rin, still smoldering with anger. And I wasn't going to take that.

"We went on a hunt." I explained simply, reigning in the tide of anger rolling in.

He pointed a green finger at me, "I knew it was a bad idea to take you in." He snarled. "There wasn't any use for another dead weight troublemaker here-

"Load the beast on the saddle," I told him softly. There was a long period of silence that followed before Jaken went red with rage, "Only Lord Sesshomaru can command me. He boomed shaking with anger, "you filthy, low-life, undignified-

"Rin." My voice was pure venom. I had just about enough of these insults, "How about we have frog legs for dinner as well?" I asked murderously, The intent to kill seeped into my tone. For a moment I completely forgot who I was and who the goblin in front of me was. I just wanted to kill again. Draw blood. I felt the trance take over me. I flicked out my tongue tasting the thick, boar blood caking my face. More. Cut its throat. A death-like whisper spoke in my head.

Skin it alive. Another whispered.

More. They sang in unison. More.

I felt myself raising Mrutyunjay again-

"Jaken."

The cold voice snapped me back to reality. I blinked realizing what just had happened, the trance wore off as soon as it had appeared. The bloodthirsty voices faded out as if someone had flipped a switch. The thought that I would have struck Jaken down, right in front of Rin made me shudder.

Anger, daughter of the hills, if you don't leash your temper it'll run you over.

I looked up to see Sesshomaru toss the beast onto Ah-uns back. His amber eyes flashed towards me. Molten gold. My human blood quivered, making my teeth clatter. My mortality itself recoiled from pure daunt, as my survival instincts kicked in. I was standing in front of something so much more powerful than my human self. He called it back, tearing the cold unreadable eyes off my figure. I knew more than well what he was doing, a silent warning, using one's ayakashi aura to suppress the weaker species.

A reminder of who really the daiyokai here was. He turned away wordlessly, taking Jaken with him. His long silver hair faded into the canopy as Rin helped her on her feet.

"Lord Sesshomaru is just upset." She promised her weakly, "He won't let you go though, so you don't worry, I'll talk to him-" the child continued, giving me well-meaning yet rather empty words of reassurance.

It was clear he wanted me and Rin to return on our own with Ah-un. I pulled myself onto Ah-un's saddle weakly, before pulling Rin up as well.

Her heart and mind were still racing as they leaped into the night sky. The standoff with the daiyokai had sent her human body reeling with fear. But her ayakashi mind had felt it differently. The burn of his gaze, the way his aura had encased her threateningly, her ayakashi mind had felt it at its core. It had been just as powerful, yet not daunting. It was something else that has stunned her into silence, something else entirely. For her ayakashi mind, it was arousing.

---------

I can't wait to make it a smut already, but we need more plot. T8T

#sesshomaru #reader x sesshomaru #inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha #anti sessrin #lord sesshoumaru #sesshomaru x reader

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stop-ur-losing-me · 3 months

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new album announcement ts11 how we feelin

i. predicted. it. im being so fr. i told my friend i thought she was gonna release ts11 or bleachella bc everyone was expecting rep tv. and i was right. im in shock. also the cover is giving i dont wanna live forever but the title is giving folklore. anyways super excited.

#taylor swift #asks #inbox

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always-rolling-my-eyes · 9 days

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Day 8 of The Tortured Poets Department countdown and this Rebecca has a marvelous time listening to folklore.

I think everyone remembers where they were when, surprise 🤗, Taylor announced folklore. It was shocking, it was exciting and it brought some much needed joy and light to an incredibly difficult time. The album itself became Taylor’s second magnum opus and her fourth peak. The entire world was immediately obsessed with it, meme’s and catchphrases were running rampant, even some of Taylor’s biggest opps were openly praising her. It was very frustrating that it took this album for a lot of people to finally give Taylor the credit for the amazing songwriter that she is, but better late than never, I guess. Not only did this album get Taylor her third Album of the Year, first and so far only woman to do so, at the Grammys, but it also brought Aaron Dessner into her life, who has proven to be not only an amazing collaborator but a trusted and valued friend, which I think I can speak for all Swifties when I say, we are eternally grateful for.

My top 3 from this album:

August

My Tears Ricochet

The 1

Honorable Mention: Cardigan

Most Underrated Song: Betty

#taylor swift #ttpd countdown #the tortured poets department #folklore

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houseofbrat · 1 month

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How I landed BBC's car-crash Prince Andrew scoop - and now Billie Piper is playing me on Netflix, by SAM McALISTER

By Sam Mcalister

Published: 21:43 EDT, 25 March 2024

Thursday, November 14, 2019, and I’m in the South Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, with the back of Prince Andrew’s head to the left of my line of sight, and the presenter and interviewer Emily Maitlis — pen in hand, wearing a green khaki military jacket, black trousers and open-toe heeled boots — directly opposite me.

I’m a 46-year-old junior TV producer and this is about to become one of the most analysed and talked about broadcast moments ever.

I can barely breathe. It’s taken 13 months of painstaking negotiation, many conversations and meetings to make this moment happen — to convince Andrew to give his first ever sit-down interview about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. And to do it with the BBC’s Newsnight.

As the interview unfolds, each answer is more excruciating than the last. There are long periods where I just stare at the ornate carpet of that splendid room, desperate to collect myself and not react to what I am hearing.

Because it’s explosive stuff.

Today, Andrew’s answers have passed into comedic folklore and launched a thousand memes, but back then they are freshly shocking. When Emily presses him on the nature of the birthday party he’d hosted at Sandringham for Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell — currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking the women and girls Epstein sexually abused — the Prince replies that it was ‘a straightforward shooting weekend’.

And asked where he was on March 10, 2001, when Virginia Giuffre claimed he danced with her at Tramp nightclub in London’s Mayfair, then slept with her at Maxwell’s house in Belgravia, Andrew answers: ‘Pizza Express in Woking’.

‘I didn’t sweat at the time’, is his response to the suggestion that Giuffre remembered him perspiring profusely that night.

Every answer propels the interview into a new sphere of absurdity. Every answer convinces me this is the scoop of the year. By the end, I’m pretty sure it’s the scoop of the century.

The atmosphere as the cameras stop rolling is electric. All of the Newsnight team (from the Deputy Editor, Stewart Maclean, to the make-up woman, Cat Crawford) look shellshocked. I don’t know what to do with myself.

Surely Prince Andrew’s face will be ashen? He will be devastated by the experience...

On the contrary. As my eyes survey the room, I can see his beaming smile. It’s patently clear that not only does he think it’s gone well, he thinks he’s aced it.

So confident is he that he takes Emily on a tour of the palace. I decline, keen to get back to the office and the calming presence of Newsnight editor Esme Wren.

Those iconic shots of Emily and HRH striding down the Palace Hall were taken after the interview had ended. Zoom in on Andrew’s face: see how pleased he is with his performance.

It wasn’t long, however, before the slew of national and global headlines that pilloried him burst his bubble. Not one piece of coverage was positive.

Commentators, newspapers and broadcasters across the world were united in a single thought: the Duke of York had made an appalling mistake. He had gone from being a largely forgotten man to a global pariah. And he was about to be unceremoniously put out in the cold.

On November 20, 2019, just four days after the Newsnight interview had aired, the announcement came: Andrew was to ‘step back from public duties for the foreseeable future’. The Queen’s favourite son had effectively been sacked by his own mother.

Although Andrew has never faced a criminal court, the court of public opinion has drawn its own conclusions.

Before becoming a TV producer, I trained and worked as a criminal barrister, and believe me, that interview was a prosecutor’s dream. There were just so many details that, if untrue, could be fact-checked and disproved.

Today, the Prince still vehemently denies he was involved in any wrongdoing. In 2022, however, he made a civil settlement, reportedly of around £12million with Virginia Giuffre, who has said that he sexually assaulted her on three separate occasions. The out-of-court settlement was reached on the basis that the Prince accepted no liability.

So our Newsnight interview certainly had very expensive consequences: it probably hastened that settlement with Giuffre.

For me, too, there have been consequences. The day after we recorded the interview, Esme, tweeted, ‘Full credit to our indefatigable interview producer @SamMcAlister1 for securing this world exclusive’.

Giving producers credit is a rarity in our industry, and the Press picked it up. I got my 15 seconds of recognition, then it was just back to work as usual.

Of course, I asked for a pay rise after the interview, but I didn’t get one. As a part-time junior producer whose job it was to negotiate interviews with everyone from tech billionaire Elon Musk to actress Amy Schumer, I was never on more than ten per cent of the presenter’s salary.

That didn’t change. I worked behind the scenes and didn’t expect to be given a share of the limelight. Admittedly I had never really played the BBC game — I didn’t know the right people, I didn’t toe the line.

And, in my leather trousers and snakeskin boots, I certainly didn’t dress the way most people at the BBC dressed. Then there was also my need to be home to care for my son, who was only three when I started at Newsnight.

All of which probably contributed to the fact that, even though I’d been on the team for ten years, I never really progressed professionally before the Prince Andrew interview. However, I did not progress afterwards either, and that didn’t feel right.

For the next few years, I got through Covid — which meant a prolonged period of sickness and the long days of homeschooling — and returned to work when the world re-opened.

Although a pay rise and promotion were still not forthcoming, everywhere I went, people told me: ‘You should write a book about what happened!’

Eventually, I decided to do just that. It was my hope that, like many correspondents and presenters, I could write it while still working at the BBC, but it was made clear that wasn’t an option. So I managed to find a literary agent, gave up my staff job and risked it all. I took a chance on people being interested in what I had to say — the story of an ordinary woman in an extraordinary situation.

I secured a little advance, tapped away on my laptop on the sofa late at night, and called my book Scoops. I hoped a few people would buy it. It was the best decision I have ever made.

The book was serialised in the Mail. I held my breath. I was trepidatious that the Palace and the BBC might cause some issues. They were both Goliath to my tiny David, but somewhat surprisingly, I didn’t hear anything.

There was, however, a flurry of interest elsewhere — a Channel 4 documentary, some media appearances, a few articles, all culminating in the dream of any author: the offer to have your book turned into a Netflix movie, with me as executive producer.

Which is how I came to find myself explaining the exact process by which the interview occurred to top TV screenwriter Peter Moffat, of Silk and Your Honour fame. How, in the beginning, the BBC had turned Prince Andrew down.

In October 2018, a PR company working with Andrew sent me the offer of an interview with him about his charitable pursuits. A ‘puff piece’, where you basically spend time with the subject but don’t get to ask any real questions. We didn’t do those on Newsnight, so I declined, but kept the conversation going.

Months passed, and then came an invite for me to go to Buckingham Palace to meet his chief of staff, Amanda Thirsk (who is played by Keeley Hawes in the movie).

I took the bus to the palace, and didn’t even tell my boss I was going, I was so certain nothing would come of it. I took a few selfies in the waiting room (irresistible when left alone with a phone) and talked to Amanda for hours.

But then came a red line. Prince Andrew’s association with the businessman Jeffrey Epstein, then a free man, but with a past conviction for procuring a child for prostitution, was considered a no-go area. And so, again, we declined.

Then things got frenzied. Epstein was finally re-arrested in July 2019. He was charged and awaiting trial for sex trafficking of minors when suddenly in August came news of his death, apparently by his own hand.

Ghislaine Maxwell, at large for many years, was tracked down in 2020, arrested and charged, too. The FBI was very interested in speaking with Prince Andrew. Virginia Giuffre announced she was bringing a new lawsuit, and doing interviews, and the pressure on Andrew became intense.

I kept trying for the interview, week after week, month after month. Finally, in October 2019, came an invitation to return to see Amanda, and a face-to-face with Prince Andrew himself in November.

It was the first time I had ever met him and he was exactly as I had imagined from my research — a high-energy man, full of confidence and sporadic laughter. He was surprisingly congenial and open given the circumstances.

Rammed into a tiny room in Buckingham Palace, the three Newsnighters (me, Emily and Deputy Editor Stewart) faced Andrew, Amanda and a very unexpected guest — his elder daughter, Princess Beatrice.

She was dressed in navy blue, asked sensible questions about the possible logistics, and it was clear, she was close to her father and concerned for his welfare. The discussion was frank, firm, sometimes funny.

My background — I am from a family of East End market traders, coupled with my legal training — seemed to work a charm.

The argument was simple: the country probably mostly considered him guilty, and the solution was to give an account of himself. I’m not sure how Emily and Stewart felt when I mentioned his ‘Randy Andy’ nickname, but he laughed and I hoped against hope that we had convinced him.

Less than 24 hours later we received a ‘yes’ and just three days later we were back at the palace, armed with the cameras.

Two days later, I watched it go out in a special Saturday edition of Newsnight. I was at my boyfriend’s house in East London, where I was too nervous even to sit down. At last, all my work was paying off, and spectacularly.

What I hadn’t expected was that one interview would take over the next five years of my life.

This time last year I was on a film set watching myself being played by Billie Piper for Scoop — the Netflix dramatisation of the story.

The first time Billie and I met, we went for dinner and she thoroughly grilled me — about my job, my family and my life. She hadn’t played a real person before and said she wanted to do me justice.

Watching her on set was uncanny. She had perfected my bouncy walk to match my bouncy curls, even accepting my need to be decked head-to-toe in black with lashings of lip-gloss, those snakeskin boots and sunglasses.

In fact, costume and make-up on the film did such a stellar job that some of the crew members couldn’t tell us apart.

The day filming outside the BBC was particularly memorable. It was the first time in a couple of years that I’d been back to my old office. Who would have thought I’d return to shoot a film about my time there? It was next level surreal.

I’m not embarrassed to admit that I shed a tear watching Billie that day. One minute the actress was playing me outside the BBC offices, the next she was chatting with my fake mum and having a kebab with my fake son (played by an adorable boy called Zach Colton).

My real-life son is proud but, like most teens, declined to come on set and be fussed over.

My mum, Netta, came to meet her alter ego, Amanda Redman, who was absolutely wonderful to her. The happiness and pride Mum felt for me that day was very special to see. Without her help in caring for my son when I worked at the BBC, I don’t know how I would ever have managed.

As for Prince Andrew, I was 15ft behind him again. But this time, he was being played by the actor Rufus Sewell — his handsome features covered in swathes of prosthetics — and a new Emily, played by Gillian Anderson. The same clothes, same words, same steely determination, same gaze.

And that’s my film. But what of the other dramatic rendering of the interview? There’s been a lot of speculation about rival versions, with Emily Maitlis also an executive producer on a series called A Very Royal Scandal, which will come out later this year on Amazon Prime, starring Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew.

I heard about it first in the news last year. We had already started filming Scoop at the time.

Some newspapers like to talk of an enmity between us, a ‘Battle of the Blondes’, but I’m sorry to disappoint — I wish Emily nothing but happiness and success, and can’t wait to see if someone is playing ‘me’.

Now it feels as though my life is on the cusp of something new. There’s uncertainty and excitement. Friends and strangers are wishing me tons of luck, although no doubt some quarters won’t like the fact I’m speaking out about the story again.

I’ve had to grow a thicker skin. My plan is to concentrate on enjoying every magical moment. Appreciate it all. Enjoy my second 15 seconds of glamorous parties, film premieres, photo-shoots, martinis at posh bars...

Then it will be back to normal life, hustling for work, keynote-speaking, chatting with my new students at the LSE, where I’m a visiting senior fellow in the law department.

And then back on the bus, lashings of lip-gloss, off for a kebab, with a big smile on my face.

#Daily Mail #Sam McAlister #bbc #media #movies #netflix #the disgusting one doesn't get his name in a tag #british royal family #princess beatrice #epstein shit #my gif

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cosettepontmercys · 3 months

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So I noticed how she changed her profile pic in the morning and thought it was mostly nothing. I didn't really keep up with the website codes or Red herring or anything and thought the only thing that would happen is an outfit hinting at rep...which was mostly true. I never thought she would announce anything at the Grammys! I was happy to see her win the category and when she announced it..I was really shocked and confused?Lol I mean..new album? Instead of rep? The title that was longer than most of her album names? Then the announcement/photo prologue she posted. It might have been more shocking than Midnights but that time I was so shocked I cried lol. I don't think it was more shocking..it just left me like what??? I honestly don't know how I feel about the album title or aesthetics yet but I think it could match my earlier prediction of a mix between Folklore and Red with maybe Midnights. If she is performing it on tour, I think it will be more acoustic and that would fit with a breakup album. I think it fit that a little bit but then it still feels like Folklore to me. It also reminds me of Dead Poets Society lol and I've seen other theories on the theme and choosing her career as a poet. But then there is the other side that says it's black and white like Rep and will be the other side of that with like the anger and revenge side. That's not what I thought at all so now i don't know! I guess the cover leaned into that how it only shows half of her face like 1989 or rep but i'm not crazy about the cover either..like it didn't fit with the title at all. However I guess I would love a mix of all three since rep red and folklore are my fav albums. What do you think? I hope you have a great week! 🩷

i was actually at powerpoint night with some friends and my phone started blowing up so i went and looked and i was shocked that there was a new album. — i'm putting my thoughts under the cut! 🤍

i've been seeing a lot of non-swifties criticize her for announcing it at the grammys, since the grammys is a black tie event / a more ~ professional ~ one, and every video i see of the crowd is a little 😵‍💫 . i think there were some things about the grammys that i've seen that just make me feel a bit 😵‍💫 about that entire night. like her pulling up lana on stage, and the way she interacted with boygenius... i just feel a bit 😵‍💫 overall haha.

i've saw something about how it's labeled as synth-pop, which is interesting, since it doesn't match the album art at all, but was talking to friends about how the same thing happened with midnights (labeled as rock originally, marketed as a 70s aesthetic) and how evermore was originally also labeled as synth-pop. so i guess that doesn't really matter.

i think it might sound a bit like midnights 3 am + folklore / evermore, but i feel like taylor always manages to surprise me in terms of sound / lyrics ! have you seen the theory about how rep was more black than white, and this is like the opposite? i'm surprised she dropped the track list so early — i guess to build anticipation? i like the album cover and the album art at the back, and i'm curious about the "i love you, it's ruining my life" line and what that's a song lyric from!

i don't really know how i feel about this album; i keep alternating between being excited and also just being annoyed at all the ~ swiftie discourse ~ i've been seeing and how a lot of people seem determined to perform a public autopsy on her relationship with joe alwyn. which just ... makes me feel weird? like obviously taylor's a singer/songwriter that draws on a lot of her personal experiences! that's normal! but also the way swifties talk about joe is just ... a bit odd, in my opinion! like we're taylor fans, i get it, we don't want taylor to be upset, etc. but i also think that the way people talk about joe like he's the worst person on earth is a bit weird when his biggest crime (as far as i know) is ... getting complacent in a relationship? like when jake gyllennhaal and john mayer are ... right there? i just ... sigh!

i think i'm most excited for the songs: clara bow, the alchemy, the manuscript, i can do it with a broken heart, but daddy i love him, and so long london though! what about you?

#post: answered #🩷 anon

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jakeperalta · 3 months

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Omg!!! What do you think? I thought you were going to be asleep! For TS11 I was thinking it would be a breakup album kinda like Red..especially if she would've announced it or released it during the tour. So this seems like a mix of that and maybe Folklore. Idk how I feel about the title or aesthetic yet though! I am so shocked since I was expecting rep and it's so soon!

Haha yeah I couldn't sleep for some reason and then I heard my phone buzz so I was like 🤨 something is going on here...

It sounds very intriguing! Definitely wasn't expecting a brand new album until tour was over but I guess if she's been writing it for this long then she doesn't want to keep sitting on it. It certainly seems like a sad album and would make sense to be at least in part breakup based, although I am so curious to know more about how it came to be developed since obviously it's been less than a year since the breakup so it's not purely a post-breakup album and I wonder what made these songs separate to anything she was writing for midnights

#answered #anonymous #taylor swift

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rootsinthefuture · 10 months

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The Doppelgänger, the legend of the double

Doppelgänger ([ˈdɔpl̩ˌɡɛŋɐ], literally 'double wayfarer', in the sense of 'bilocated', is a German term, composed of doppel, 'double', and Gänger, 'going', 'passing' (from gehen, 'to go').

It refers to any double or doppelganger of a person, most commonly in relation to the so-called evil twin or bilocation; it also describes the phenomenon in which one sees one's own image out of the corner of one's eye. In legends and novels it is a spectral or real duplicate of a living person; in folklore it is also described as a spirit unable to disappear. In some mythologies seeing one's own Doppelgänger is an omen of death,[4] while seen by a person's friends or relatives can also bring bad luck or announce the onset of an illness.

In the field of esotericism, the Doppelgänger is considered by Steiner to be an evil entity of an ahrimanic nature, which penetrates into every human being at the moment of birth, accompanying him or her throughout life and finally separating from him or her a few moments before death. In contrast to the Socratic daimon, responding in a certain sense to the voice of the guardian angel, the ahrimanic double tends to cloud the individual's free consciousness, instilling in it, like a parasite, thoughts and impulses for action that are foreign to his authentic way of being. Not to be confused, moreover, with the threshold guardian, who is a mere doppelgänger, the evil doppelgänger is, for Steiner, the cause of organic diseases.

According to folklore, Doppelgänger do not cast shadows and are not reflected in mirrors or water. They are supposed to give advice to the person whose likeness they bear, which can be misleading or malicious. They can also, in rare cases, instil ideas in the minds of their victims or appear to friends and relatives, causing confusion. In many cases once one has seen one's Doppelgänger one is doomed to be haunted by images of one's spectral counterpart.

Esotericism expert Antony Vassallo has received numerous shocking testimonies from people who have come to him seeking explanations for the Doppelgänger phenomenon. Disturbing encounters with identical copies of themselves have left people upset and searching for answers in the field of esotericism. Vassallo offers his support and experience to help these people understand the mystery surrounding the Doppelgänger and find meaning in their experiences.

#doppelganger #urban legends #rootsinthefuture #mistery

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nymphthroughthestargate · 10 months

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Meeting SG-1

a mini fic written by mushroom with help from stick

drawing by mushroom

the old forest was a few hours walk from the village. they said a doorway of the stars lay in there, but that didn't surprise anyone. a multitude of amazing and magical things came out of that forest; the trees themselves pulsed with a secret knowledge. some say that if a child were to wander into the forest alone, they would become a spirit among the trees and be one with nature for all eternity.

now that's just folklore - what actually happens is the child gets adopted by the trees, and raised with love and care and that secret knowledge most people dismiss as just a feeling. this is what happened to Nymph.

as a wee babe, her parents had given her a different name; but the trees had no care for it. they knew her - and other children like her - as Spirits of the Forest, Nymphs and Faeries and Wild Children and all sorts of other titles the humans had given their precious wards. once the child was old enough, the trees would show them all these special words and let them choose which felt most like them. the word Nymph had rung true for the child our story is about, and thus it shall be her name until the end of time.

~ • ~ • ~

SG-1 walked through the gate into a forest that, on the outside, looked like any other forest through any other gate. the MALP had relayed some strange readings, but they hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary - for an alien planet, that is. there was a path leading through the forest from the stargate, but it was overgrown to the point that it could hardly be called a path anymore.

Daniel heard something through the trees, and, after a half-hearted attempt to raise O'Neill's attention failed, he started off after the sound by himself. it was a rustling of leaves that seemed to stop and wait for him if he fell too far behind. when Daniel reached a clearing, the rustling sounds seemed to circle him as if something in the treetops was climbing all around to get a good look.

"hello?" he called out hesitantly, turning around every-which-way to see if he could spot the source of the noise. it mightve been the wind playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn he heard a child-like giggle. a loud shuffle behind him and he turned around to be nose-to-nose with an upside-down child. taking a step back (half out of shock, half out of respect for her space), he noticed a lot about her. her eyes, for one, were different colours - one gold, one warm pinkish-red; and her reddish-brown hair was full of leaves and twigs. she flashed a grin, which showed little fangs where normal canine teeth should have been.

"hello," Daniel repeated, this time as a greeting. the little girl just blinked at him.

"I'm Daniel Jackson," he offered, pointing to his chest.

"is that your word?" the girl asked, in a squeaky little voice.

"my... word?" Daniel raised an eyebrow, not sure what she meant. the girl turned around so she was upright, but she still floated above the ground as if gravity didn't affect her.

"the trees say that everyone has a special word that makes them them. my word is Nymph."

"ah." Daniel nodded. "in our culture, we call those names. but yes, Daniel is my 'word'."

Nymph's eyes opened wide in excitement and curiosity. "you have a word for your special words?!"

her outburst made Daniel chuckle, but he wasn't quite sure why. he was about to say something else, but his radio crackled to life with O'Neill's voice.

"Daniel, where you at?"

it startled Nymph, so Daniel held out a reassuring hand before answering.

"I'm here, Jack. and I've found something that I think you should see."

"that'd be great, if you would tell me where 'here' is." O'Neill's sarcasm was almost tangible, but he had a point. there was radio silence, then Teal'c's booming voice announced that he could find Daniel.

about five minutes later, the rest of the team came crashing through into the clearing.

"good thing you run like an elephant with a broken leg, cause it means we can follow the destruction to find you," Jack joked. Daniel gave a sheepish shrug in return, but before he could say anything, Sam had noticed Nymph floating behind him.

"Oh my God!" Sam exclaimed. "who is that? and why is she flying?"

"it's more floating-" Daniel started, but got interrupted by Jack's signature muttering.

Nymph waved, but still didn't touch the ground. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, Jack stared at Daniel like it was somehow his fault, and Sam seemed itching to ask an overwhelming amount of questions. no one said anything for several awkward minutes, then Nymph took Daniel by the hand and dragged him toward one of the tree trunks.

"here, Danny. look!"

she placed his hand on the tree, and the cracks in the bark started to glow green with energy. the glow spread onto Daniel's hand in veins, and Jack and Teal'c raised their guns defensively, but Daniel lifted his free hand to stop them.

"no, wait! I think this is what she wanted to show me!"

indeed it was, because through those glowing veins came a rush of knowledge - a vast consciousness that he had tapped into, swimming with concepts and history. he could swear he could see parts of the Forest far from here, as if he were looking through the very eyes of the trees.

but before Daniel could even process the glory he was witnessing, a sharp pain that felt more emotional than physical seared through the hand that was connecting him, and in the split second it took for him to tear his hand away he saw something that made his heart sink - an army of jaffa, hacking away at the trees only a couple of miles from where he stood.

in the corner of his eye, he could see Jack rushing to catch Nymph as she fell slightly through the air, just barely catching herself before he reached her. her once vibrant eyes were more muted of colours, and she seemed to be a very sick little girl.

"what's wrong with her?" Sam called out, worried.

Daniel cut in before Jack could say that he didn't know. "the trees are alive - sentient, actually. it's a vast consciousness, and I think Nymph-" he put emphasis on her name and gestured towards her, realizing that he hadn't done any introductions, "-is connected to it. and that's not the bad news. the goa'uld are here, and they've got an army of jaffa chopping down trees pretty fast. I think that hurting the trees is actually hurting her."

"but why aren't you as sick as she is, if you were connected too?" Sam asked, worried yet curious.

"it hurt me a little, but I think she was raised here. I think she spent most of her life connected to the trees, to the point that she's practically part of the collective consciousness."

"Daniel Jackson, if there is a jaffa army on this planet, how do you propose we stop them from harming the forest?" Teal'c asked, but in a way that suggested that it wasn't a good plan to try. but they had to do something - Jack was carrying Nymph at this point, and she was looking more sickly by the second.

"that's what worries me - I don't think we can."

Daniel looked around, frantically searching for an answer or a plan or SOMETHING they could do to help. but only one solution came to mind.

"WE CAN PROTECT HER!" he yelled suddenly into the forest, hoping the trees could hear him. "WE CAN TAKE HER WITH US, AND SHE'LL STOP GETTING SICK! AND I PROMISE TO KEEP HER SAFE!"

there was silence, and it seemed almost too still. then Nymph stirred.

"no. no I don't wanna go, dont make me leave!" she mumbled, twisting helplessly in Jack's arms. the trees shook their leaves, and a great branch scooped them all up. they rushed through the air, being cradled gently in the branch, and were set down in front of the gate.

"Daniel, quick, dial the gate." Jack ordered.

Daniel rushed to obey, pushing the buttons on the DHD as fast as he could and hoping the goa'uld hadnt noticed their presence. Nymph pushed herself away from Jack, and grabbed onto the branch that had brought them there with both hands.

"I don't wanna go! you need me!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. the green glow of the tree reached down her hands, then her arms, until she was covered in the glowing veins. Nymph's eyes widened in understanding, and she nodded as she let go and gently floated into Daniel's waiting arms, letting them take her through the gate.

~ • ~ • ~

General Hammond's voice called out from stargate command.

"SG-1, who is that?"

"her name is Nymph, general, and she needs to stay here with us." Jack called up, nodding to Daniel as they walked down the ramp and the wormhole vanished.

an order for "medical team to the gate room" rang through the halls, and Hammond descended down the stairs to meet SG-1.

"I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this that you'll give me during the debriefing?" he asked, though it seemed more of an order.

"yes, sir, absolutely." Jack responded, looking towards Daniel. "Daniel will be glad to tell you everything."

#nymph the floaty baby #mini fic #jack o'neill #sam carter #teal'c #daniel jackson #stargate #stargate sg1 #stargate oc #stargate sg1 fic #link to art in underlined text

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gaylorarchive · 1 year

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Big Reputations: Celebrity and Temporal Duration in/of Dickinson Lyrics by Elizabeth Dinneny

Source (x)

On December 10, 2020, Emily Dickinson’s 190th birthday, singer-songwriter-superstar Taylor Swift announced the surprise release of her ninth studio album, evermore. The release was a shock, as Swift had released her first surprise album, folklore, a short five months previous. Swift called folklore “a product of isolation,” made together with a small group of musicians during the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its aesthetic, which continues into evermore, evokes the newly-popular “cottagecore” trend.[1] Swift spoke of her inspiration for the album’s cover photograph with Entertainment Weekly: “I had this idea…that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830” (Suskind). In folklore’s black-and-white cover image, Swift is the sleepwalking girl wearing a custom Stella McCartney jacket (Grindell) in the year of Emily Dickinson’s birth. In evermore’s full-color image, Swift has emerged from the woods and looks back toward it—notably diverging from the look of her eight previous album covers, in which her face appears up close, front and center. Perhaps evermore contains Swift’s least autobiographical lyrics, as some critics have suggested (Petrusich), thus opening up even more possibilities for fictional and biographical inspiration.[2] But we might take a more critical approach. Using the term “autobiographical” risks feigning individual influence and a singular archive. Taylor Swift is certainly known for writing specific autobiographical elements into her lyrics, but we need not abandon autobiography in the face of evermore’s expansive archive. Rather, we should ask: how do these archives mediate the autobiographic? Where do we find Swift and Dickinson, together, in “these imaginary/not imaginary tales” (@taylorswift13)?

The two so-called “sister record[s]” (@taylorswift13) contain stories from myriad archives, including allusions to Romanticism and Swift’s own life. While folklore, with its mentions of Wordsworth and the Lake District, appears invested in the figures and motifs of British Romanticism (Ellis), evermore seems most influenced by one writer in particular: Emily Dickinson. As a result of popular culture’s recent increased interest in Dickinson, Taylor Swift fans knew enough about the poet to begin speculating about Dickinson’s presence in evermore almost immediately. Most conspicuous is the album’s title (and concluding) track, “evermore,” which meditates on a failed relationship whose “pain would be for / evermore” (Swift et al.). The song recalls the final line of a letter-poem written by Emily Dickinson to Susan Huntington Dickinson. The poem ends:

I spilt the dew –

But took the morn, –

I chose this single star

From out the wilde night’s numbers –

Sue _ forevermore!

(OMC 76)

The song and the poem differ significantly in tone, as “evermore” recounts the miscommunications of a past relationship, and Dickinson’s letter expresses an endless devotion to her sister-in-law and lover, Susan Huntington Dickinson. However, both texts share an investment in letter-writing for the articulation and navigation of an intimate relationship. In “evermore,” one narrator is found “writing letters / addressed to the fire,” indicating a failure in communication and the eventual demise of the relationship. Dickinson’s letter-poem to Susan, in addition to celebrating an enduring relationship, demonstrates the value of the letter (and lyric) as a form of intimate expression. Far from being “addressed to the fire,” Emily Dickinson’s letter-poems made their way into Susan Huntington Dickinson’s hands, “a hedge away,” (OMC 76) for decades.

The duet’s speakers also use metaphors of shipwreck to recall their relationship’s collapse. For example, Swift sings, “Hey December / Guess I’m feeling unmoored,” and, later, Bon Iver sings, “I’m on the waves, out being tossed / Is there a line that I could just go cross?” These lines are only a few of evermore’s broad nautical and temporal vocabulary; the album opens with the line, “I’m like the water / when your ship rolled in that night” (Dessner and Swift). In “long story short,” whose joyful tone matches that of Dickinson’s aforementioned letter-poem, Swift sings, “my waves meet your shore / ever and evermore” (Dessner and Swift). The speaker of “long story short” hopes to moor, for evermore, in the song’s addressee. Here, we turn to Emily Dickinson again; in her poem that begins “Wild nights – Wild nights!”, the speaker is “Done with the Compass - / Done with the Chart!” and wishes to “moor” in the poem’s addressee:

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should b

Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -

To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass -

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -

Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight -

In thee!

(Fr269A)

Both Dickinson and Swift invoke the shore as the site of a relationship’s convergence.[3] The speakers escape turbulent waters by finding stability in another person, on the shore, repeatedly. The comparison is complicated by the conditional temporality of “wild nights,” and the poem’s queer interpretations and theorizations cannot go unstated (Smith, Brinck-Johnsen), By reading Dickinson and Swift together, we see how both lyricists consider temporality and the potential of a “forevermore” in multiple forms, including that of an intimate romantic relationship.

The folklore/evermore “era,” to use a Swiftian term (Braca), embraces a cottagecore aesthetic, easily identifiable in the album’s lyrics, acoustic instrumentation, woodsy cover art, and promotional images. The cottagecore aesthetic combines the fable of Dickinson the genius recluse with Dickinson the R/romantic, complementing the conditions and themes of both Swift albums. Swift’s most cottagecore song, “ivy,” has received significant attention from a number of Dickinson fans, who believe the song is inspired by Emily and Susan’s relationship. The album’s tenth track, which has been described as “a folky, convoluted song,” (Pareles) involves a married speaker who falls in love with someone else. The speaker describes the three of them (speaker, lover, husband) in a room, possibly at a party:

I wish to know

The fatal flaw that makes you long to be

Magnificently cursed

He’s in the room

Your opal eyes are all I wish to see

He wants what’s only yours (Swift, Antonoff, Dessner)

Neither the speaker nor the “magnificently cursed” lover are assigned pronouns, leaving plenty of room for queer interpretations of this song about a forbidden, passionate relationship, which the speaker calls “the goddamn fight of my life” (Swift et al). In their own queer readings, Dickinson fans have made fan videos of “EmiSue” scenes set to the song, whose lyrics can be cleanly mapped onto their relationship.[4] In addition to biographical consistencies, the characters of “ivy” employ metaphors of death and augmented temporality that resonate affectively with much of Dickinson’s poetry. The song begins in a graveyard, or at least a metaphorical one: “How’s one to know? / I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones / In a faith-forgotten land” (Swift et al.).[5] The graveyard functions as a safe place for the two to get together, removed from the public eye and from the expectations of “the living.” Among the dead, the illicit affair of “ivy” is allowed to flourish, as the speaker sings, “my house of stone / your ivy grows, / and now I’m covered in you” (Swift et al).

Using botanical imagery, the speaker describes an organic infiltration of the “magnificently cursed” lover, or unruly ivy, on the married, heterosexual home. Further, the speaker sings, “the old widow goes to the stone every day / But I don’t, I just sit here and wait / Grieving for the living” (Swift et al.). With its affinity for the dead, this secret relationship thus appears unconcerned with linear time and social realities. The speaker grieves for their living relationship, which has yet to end, then happily escapes to “your dreamland” (Swift et al.). Emily Dickinson wrote many poems about death, graves,[6] and privacy.[7] Although we push back on the idea of Dickinson as recluse, Dickinson’s life-long romantic relationship with Susan was certainly enjoyed in private. Similarly, the contentedly secret relationship of “ivy” defies heterosexual expectations of public interpellation. Rather than become legible to friends (as the three seem to travel in similar circles) and family, the two, “a goddamn blaze in the dark,” endure.

Swift is known for leaving self-referential clues throughout her corpus, so it’s worth noting that evermore might not contain her first nod to Dickinson. repuation, Swift’s album most explicitly about her struggles with fame and social media, ends with the album’s most romantic and sole piano track, “New Year’s Day.” In the song, the speaker sings to another “you,” the morning after a New Year’s Eve party. A similar reflection on the duration of romantic relationships, Swift implores them, “Don’t read the last page,” and tells of what remains following the celebration:

There’s glitter on the floor

After the party

Girls carrying their shoes

Down in the lobby

Candle wax and Polaroids

On the hardwood floor

…you and me, forevermore

Here, again, Swift uses “forevermore” to describe hope for the endurance of an intimate relationship, just as she uses the phrase in “long story short” and “evermore.” “New Year’s Day” emerges as the album’s most cathartic moment. After numerous tracks about Swift’s most arduous years in the spotlight, “New Year’s Day” finishes the album as a song solely about her intentionally private relationship with current partner Joe Alwyn (Stanton). In addition to repeating the desire for a forevermore relationship, the more transparent “long story short” explicitly references these same reputation moments from Swift’s life and discography, offering a quick account of Swift’s romantic troubles and a longer reflection on Swift’s falling out of public favor. As one critic writes, “conceptually, it [“long story short”] retreads reputation ground,” (Ahlgrim and Larocca) featuring clear autobiographic elements and expressing a frustration with the attention and misogynistic demonization that accompanies fame: “And I fell from the pedestal / Right down the rabbit hole / Long story short, it was a bad time” (Dessner and Swift).

Rather than continue to pick apart evermore’s lyrics for possible references to Dickinson’s poetry (as there are plenty more[8]), we should turn to overlapping and interacting thematics and conditions of production. In social media posts and interviews, Taylor Swift emphasized the conditions of the sister albums’ production; that is, she underlined the fact that both were created “in isolation,” in relatively quick succession, and secretly amid a small circle of collaborators (@taylorswift13). Swift told Entertainment Weekly: “I wasn’t making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn’t process it as an album. This was just my daydream space” (Suskind). Emily Dickinson did not write her poetry during a global pandemic, but she did often write in a kind of isolation, disseminating her poetry among close friends and family with less regard for the expectations of print publishing (Smith). Isolation here means, of course, not the sequestration of the individual artist, but the cultivation of a small, trusted collective through which the artist’s work is circulated and workshopped. Their works-of-isolation now commercial and widely distributed art objects, both Dickinson and Swift have grown into infamous public figures, onto whom their readers, listeners, and critics project personalities, intentions, and rumors.

If Taylor Swift is a celebrity, then Emily Dickinson’s ghost is one as well. Dickinson’s ghost is the figure of Dickinson in and constructed by popular culture, shifting and disappearing into words and works like those discussed in this exhibition. By ghost, I mean the specter cast by fame, a formulation that Dickinson used in her own writing, “at a time when ghosts were ubiquitous within literary tourism and when a visit to the writer’s home or meeting with a celebrity was akin to a spiritual encounter” (Finnerty 34). Several speakers found in Dickinson’s poetry revere the dead like a fan might revere their favorite celebrity, visiting the star's birth place, home, and grave (Finnerty 45). The dead celebrity thus becomes a ghost, the product of public reverence or, to use a word from Swift’s lyrical vocabulary, the product of reputation. Though she did hope to publish, Dickinson ruminated on fame across many poems and letters, expressing a desire for it but also often a deep concern about the restrictions of print publishing (Reynolds, “I’m Nobody…”, Finnerty) and the potential misconstruing of the person by celebrity. Commercial publishing opens up the potential for a ghost, made immortal but out of the artist’s control, defined by critics, scholars, and other readers. In her lifetime, Dickinson’s handmade fascicles were self-published; she produced copies of poems, bound them together, and distributed them herself, but the fascicles on their own do not conjure the specters of Dickinson that we encounter today. Martin Greenup reads the inaccessible dead of Dickinson’s “Safe in their Alabaster chambers” as her own poems, the chambers her fascicles if she did not publish commercially (356). Without publishing, Dickinson and her poems would most likely not endure the unforgiving abyss of time, and her fascicles would remain untouched by generations of readers, safe but dead, we might say, “forevermore.”

Perhaps confirming her most serious anxieties and optimisms, Dickinson haunts writers and popular culture more than a hundred years after her death. Specters of her reputation emerge across these essays, making this exhibition a kind of graveyard of multiple Emily Dickinsons, none of them “true,” many of them contradictory. In Taylor Swift’s introduction to reputation, she writes that “gossip blogs will scour the lyrics” to explain the meaning of each song, connecting them to Swift’s ex-boyfriends and paparazzi photos. She concludes with a critique of celebrity and identity itself: “We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us. There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation” (Swift). Much of the same can be said about Emily Dickinson, whose poetry and larger archive has been scoured for evidence of male lovers, proof of her supposed isolation, and combed through for final, stable versions of her poems.[9] Despite these attempts at discerning the facts, there will only ever be Dickinson’s reputation, as constructed by her readers. We might respond to Swift’s assertion by asking what we do, then, with the archive. How should we interpret the archive of the living (or dead) person? Let us turn, one last time, to Dickinson’s own lyrics:

Fame is the one that does not stay —

It’s occupant must die

Or out of sight of estimate

Ascend incessantly —

Or be that most insolvent thing

A Lightning in the Germ —

Electrical the embryo

But we demand the Flame

The speaker is uninterested in fame, which remains at the mercy of cultural interest and the status of its dead occupant. Instead, the speaker urges us to “demand the Flame.” What Flame of Dickinson’s must we demand? Perhaps the Flame is another kind of ghost, but one that is much more difficult to make out. The Flame might be the stubborn specter that endures in spite of attempts at erasure or adjustment. Despite Mabel Loomis Todd, Higginson, and others’ efforts to shape Dickinson’s legacy into one more marketable, more heterosexual, and more conservative, there remains a stubborn ghost, a “goddamn blaze in the dark,” (Swift et al) deep in the archive. She appears only in flickers, but she endures, just as we must demand, over and over, to see her.

Swift’s evermore is only the most recent iteration of Dickinson in music; numerous artists and songwriters have been inspired by the poet. For a selection of these, explore the exhibition's curated Spotify playlist.

#gaylor #emily dickinson #literary references #evermore #folklore #ivy #reputation #new year's day #new years day #joe alwyn #gaylorarchive

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fan-clan-fun · 4 months

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A Quick Story From Fanclan Folklore!

Hi!! I`m Steve, I was an anonymously who submitted something about a character named Branchprowl back in summer.

Well, I`m currently working on some Fanclans and I`ve figured out a story that`s passed around about a vampire cat named Eleanor(short-haired black tuxedo with amber eyes)

Quick map I made so locations mentioned can be visualized(not super detailed)

-Vast Unknown is north of CarinClan camp and is just a huge stretch of tall crops. The Clans do not enter it due to stories told about monsters living in it.

-CarinClan territory is short grass, covered in clusters of rocks. The camp is a slight dip in the ground and it has a few patches of toxic flowers near the fence(thin white line).

Warning for mentions of blood and death!

Four cats from CarinClan were doing a late night border patrol along the Vast Unknown, where a molly came speeding out of the crops. This molly collided with the patrol leader, another molly named Crowstripe(Short-furred black classic with amber eyes and a white chest).

The rest of the patrol was quick to attack the loner and pulled her off of Crowstripe. Just as a cat raised a paw to strike the loner`s throat, she pleaded for her life and manipulated the patrol into bringing her to their home.

The patrol agreed, but first asked her name. She stated that it was Eleanor, then the patrol led her to CarinClan camp. As soon as Eleanor stepped foot in the camp, cats were quick to catch onto her smell and came out of their dens.

Most of CarinClan were hissing and spitting, but Eleanor charmed them rather quickly into liking her by telling a tale of how she saved lost kits from a beast that lurked in the Vast Unknown. The leader at the time, Patchstar, agreed to Eleanor joining.

CaninClan began to train her into a warrior and under the mentorship of Crowstripe. Around this time, many corpses were being found all over the territory: From small mice to multiple coyotes.

Crowstripe was hesitant around Eleanor, believing that she was the one who left all of the corpses around. Although she wasn`t too sure how Eleanor could kill coyotes...

Crowstripe went to her mate, Petalsky, and the two discussed this. Petalsky agreed to ask Eleanor about the myserious deaths. He followed her scent out of camp.

Crowstripe got concerned when Petalsky never returned home. So, she went out after him and came across a horrific sight.

By the border to the Vast Planes, Petalsky was on his flank, his throat shredded and two sharp teeth marks dug into the side of his neck. Standing over him was Eleanor, covered in blood from her chest to her muzzle. However, she wasn`t wounded.

Immediately, Crowstripe knew her suspicions were correct. To avenge her mate, Crowstripe attacked Eleanor-- pinning Eleanor to the floor and tearing open her chest. However, Eleanor bit Crowstripe back.

When Crowstripe checked up on Petalsky`s body, she was shocked to realize that he was completely drained of his blood. Crowstripe dragged Petalsky`s body back to camp and announced this with sorrow.

CarinClan was glad that Crowstripe saved them by killing Eleanor, but noticed the strange bite mark on her foreleg. The Clan was quick to guess that Eleanor had spread whatever she had to Crowstripe. So, Crowstripe was executed(she even agreed to it happening) with a quick blow to the throat.

To this day, the Clan kills cats with oddly sharp teeth, even kittens. It is better to be safe than sorry.

THE TRUE STORY

Eleanor and Crowstripe`s tale has been twisted throughout the generations of cats. It actually takes place a few years after the Clans were founded, a time where the Clans were completely open to letting a loner join if it meant opening up the gene pool and expanding the cat count.

In reality, Eleanor never actually manipulated her way into the Clan, she wasn`t even a vampire! Crowstripe was actually the cat to invite her to join. But, the Clans being Clans, twisted it to look like Eleanor was a complete villain.

The prey being found dead were simply just diseased, and the coyotes had eaten this prey and died themselves.

Crowstripe did get concerned about this and asked Eleanor about it, but Eleanor was just as confused as she was.

So, did Crowstripe kill Eleanor? Yes. This is because she found Eleanor by the border late in her training-- standing over the corpse of Petalsky in horror(a coyote had gotten to him). Crowstripe believed Petalsky was killed by Eleanor, so she attacked the former loner and killed her.

Eleanor barely even fought back. She was in too much shock, so she only managed to bite Crowstripe before being killed.

I hope you enjoyed this!! I had a lot of fun typing it out. How would you rate it on a scale of 1-10?

While I'm not comfortable rating anything, as I don't believe it's actually conducive to encouraging growth, I will say I appreciated the fact that you pull on superstition and confusion. People don't communicate very well in general, and as a result rumors and confusion run rampant. Paired with folklore in the local area, it makes sense that this is how the story ended, but can also serve as a caution tale for telling kits!

#warrior cats #non-canon clans #clan culture #warriors OC #submission

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essayofthoughts · 4 months

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Tag Nine People You'd Like To Get To Know Better Tag Game

I was tagged by @chamerionwrites over Here. I will be tagging no one, for I am where tag games go to die.

FAVOURITE COLOUR(s): As mentioned in the last tag game I completed (here) it's purple! I wear other colours more frequently, but I have a lot of small purple things around.

FAVOURITE FLAVOUR(s): That's hard. I like savoury and sweet at the same time, I suppose, and I like adding some confit garlic into a toastie because it just... elevates the savoury of the cheese with some extra umami. I like a good chai or a medieval spice mix - cinnamon, allspice, ginger, cloves. In the UK they're so often used specifically at Christmas but they're such a good combo all year round.

FAVOURITE MUSIC: I am... bad, at genres. I like what I like and the music I like tends to be... melodic but textured? It's not just one instrument or type of instrument, I like the roughness of a more metal guitar over the smoothness of a rounded backing beat or melodic synth, and I like more melodic tunes than pure beats - this is why I don't gel with a lot of rap or hip-hop. They can be lyrically very impressive, but I listen to music for music, and I've got to be in the right mood for a spoken word poem over a beat. I also just... don't like Musicals in general. I'm not opposed to songs with stories - one of my most-listened to songs is Aviators' Godhunter which is about someone revered by a god who's waiting to be hunted by the person who's killed the rest of their "godly" kin - but I just don't like musicals in general, so musical songs are more miss than hit for me.

FAVOURITE MOVIE(s): Crimson Peak. Guillermo del Toro's films do not miss, and this is the one that dragged me into the gothic horror/romance pit and made me realise that while I don't like standard "thriller", shock-value horror, I like things that go "Hey, isn't this fucked up? Do you want to see how more fucked up it can get?". Things that are aware of the awfulness and don't revel in it but use it to show you and teach you and help you see.

FAVOURITE BOOK(s): Probably the Several on my trauma reading list, honestly, with right now A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson being tops. For all of you hyped by @theabigailthorn's "Dracula's Ex Girlfriend" announcement who wants something of that premise while they wait, it's a fantastic look at abusive relationships and is told from the perspective of one of Dracula's brides after she and the others have murdered him. Exceptionally good and crunchily fucked up.

FAVOURITE SERIES(es): I don't know, actually. I don't think I have a singular series I enjoy (Well. I did. But then the author went to shit, so it's kind of tainted now). Or- no actually. The Gotham TV Show. Started as a dull as dishwater police procedural set in Gotham and by the time it gets to multiply resurrecting definitely not the Joker you're not sure how it got there but the tonal shift makes perfect sense somehow. Fantastic style, fantastic cast, why are Nygma and Penguin so perfect as bickering, acrimonious exes.

LAST SONG: When I like I song, I listen to it on loop. It is still:

youtube

LAST SERIES: That I actually finished was probably Raven of the Inner Palace which is an extremely good anime! Magical worldbuilding and mystery, slowbuilding relationships and fun court drama. It's like Apothecary Diaries but with more magic, and has a similar style to it's worldbuilding as Mars Red - where that slowly dripfed you information on the vampires and makes a rewatch well worth one's time, this also sets stuff up and lets you start to figure it out as it slips in more lore. Highly recommend it.

LAST MOVIE: As said in the last post - it would be Barbie, last week's film night pick. Was good.

CURRENTLY READING: A book called Old Gods, about Finnish wildlife and folklore. I like folklore a lot, so seeing how folklore affects how people have historically seen the world is really cool!

CURRENTLY WATCHING: The latest dubbed episode of Apothecary Diaries (yes, I watch dub. Sadly, I am bad at paying attention when it's subbed because I like to multitask).

CURRENTLY WORKING ON: Several fic projects. Currently aiming to finish up the Kash backstory fic.

#chamerionwrites #tag games #about me #Youtube

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