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lillywillow · 10 months

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Blessed by a Goddess

Summary: You had never felt secure about your body but when you meet a renowned artist, you suddenly start to feel more beautiful than ever

Word Count: 1633

Pairings: Artist!Loki x Chubby!Female Reader

Warnings: Body insecurities, mild nudity

Being a plus-sized woman in the modern world could be cruel. Everyone seemed to have certain ideas on how you should look or dress or make ‘helpful’ comments. That’s why you took solace in the art world. Looking at all those fuller figured women from days gone by… it sometimes made you feel like you were born into the wrong era. You would see people admire the works of Ruben but when they turn to look at you, it was completely different. Oh, how you wished you could be one of those paintings.

…

Recently, you had heard about an art exhibit that was being put on at a nearby gallery. You had heard many wonderful things about the artist so you decided to go. As you walked around the gallery, you were in awe of the many wonderful things on display. Most of the works were Nordic inspired. There were intricately braided chains to make exquisite necklaces. Clay models of long boats with finely crafted designs on the sails. Tapestries depicting various Viking tales. The thing that struck you most about them the most is that every woman in the works, whether they be painted or clay, were all plump. You were admiring one of the pieces when you heard a voice behind you speak.

“Breathtaking…”

You turned to see the artist himself smiling at you. Loki was every bit as handsome as he was in his pictures. He circled you, looking at you with the same level of reverence you were looking at the artwork with.

“Yes, I do believe I have found my next masterpiece,” he softly smiled with a thoughtful tone.

“E-excuse me?” you stammered.

“Forgive my musings, my dear. It isn’t very often I see such beauty in real life…”

“You must say that to all the girls,” you muttered, feeling your face heat up.

“No, not all of them. I seldom find true beauty such as yours… I would love to use your likeness in one of my next pieces, if I may. There is no pressure if you decline,” he explained, handing you a business card.

You took it and barely had a chance to introduce yourself when Loki was called away by an art blogger who wanted to speak to him about his current exhibition. He kissed your hand and bowed to you before walking away. As you looked at the card in your hands, you wondered if you should go through with being a model for him. It was obvious from both his works and the way he looked at you he had a certain healthy respect for plus sized women… and the people here saw the beauty of his pieces… but could your really do it? Could you put your likeness out there for the world to see and to be admired like they were? You decided, you would have to get to know Loki a little more before you committed to anything.

…

A few days after the exhibition, you decided to stop by Loki’s studio. You felt butterflies in the pit of your stomach as you waited for the door to open. Once again you felt nervous as a handsome, golden-haired man answered.

“He-hello, I’m Y/N. I met Loki a few days ago at his show,” you explained, wringing your hands.

The man smiled warmly and welcomed you in.

“You must be the goddess my brother met!” he exclaimed.

“G-goddess? I’m sure he must say that to a lot of women…”

“Not at all! My brother respects all women of course but when it comes to putting them in his art… he can be very selective… Forgive me, I have yet to introduce myself. I’m Loki’s older brother, Thor.”

Thor led you inside to where Loki was sitting at his desk working on his sketches. When Thor announced your arrival, he looked up and smiled at you.

“Welcome,” he beamed. “I’m so glad you decided to come. Please, take a seat.”

Loki offered you a comfortable looking chair to sit in.

“Can I offer you some tea?”

You accepted and Loki busied himself making a pot for the pair of you.

“Thank you for inviting me,” you stated, taking the cup he handed you.

“My pleasure,” he smiled, sitting in the seat near you.

“I… I’m not quite sure if I feel ready to pose for a man I just met,” you stated.

“I completely understand. I’m still happy to see you again,” he softly smiled.

Loki seemed so kind and genuine.

“I… I wanted to ask you… What made you decide on me?” you voiced after a while.

“Growing up in Asgard, there was a goddess by the name of Freya. I always thought she was so beautiful with her soft curves… to be perfectly honest, I felt a little intimidated by her and I could never work up the courage to ask her to dance…”

“When I first came to Midgard, I would see women with similar figures to her and I had often wondered if Freya had blessed them with her beauty… I could see it everywhere. In the Italian Renaissance paintings, in that actress Marilyn Munroe… I find it sad that in modern times, that beauty was lost and rejected so I try to keep it alive in my art…”

You couldn’t help but smile as you listened to Loki speak. His words made your heart beat faster like no man has ever done before.

“Wow, Loki… you certainly have an amazing view of women…” he breathed.

“I meant every word I said,” he softly smiled. “I also meant what I said before; I truly do believe you would make a stunning work of art but if you do not feel comfortable, there is no pressure to pose.”

“Thank you for being so understanding… I think… I think I would like to but… I’m just not ready yet. I would like to get to know you a little more first.”

Loki nodded and agreed this would be the best idea. He was pleased you were considering posing for him but also wanted to respect your boundaries.

…

Over the next few weeks, you spent a lot of time with Loki, spending hours talking about various subjects. Through so much conversation, it began to feel like you had known him your entire life. When you came to the decision to pose for Loki’s art, he went out of his way to make you feel comfortable. He gave you a robe to wear in between sketching, kept his studio warm enough so you wouldn’t be chilled and gave strict instructions that anyone who wished to speak with him while he was working had to knock and wait until he answered the door.

Loki spent hours sketching you from every angle. Not once did you feel uneasy under his intense gaze; in fact, it was quite the opposite. He made you feel more beautiful than any of your past boyfriends ever made you feel. Once Loki had finished creating all the sketches he needed, he promised to contact you for the grand unveiling of his next masterpiece.

…

A few weeks had passed since Loki had sent you away to work on his sculpture. You understood he was busy working so you didn’t take it to heart when you didn’t hear from him in a while but he did send Thor to keep you updated on how he was going.

One day, you received a personal invitation from Loki to his next exhibition. You were both nervous and excited to see what he had done with all the sketches he had created.

On the day of the unveiling, you were more nervous than anyone. In just a few moments, the whole gallery would see what you try to hide from the world. Every stretch mark, every dimple, every roll and curve everything that made you feel insecure would be on full display. Behind you, you could hear some nasty whispered comments about you but that all went away when Loki found you.

“There you are, darling,” he smiled, taking your hand to kiss. “Come along. I want you to be by my side as I show the world how beautiful you are.”

You had to admit, seeing the looks of shock and jealousy on the faces of the ones making the horrid comments made you feel great. Loki walked you to the front of the room in front of the covered sculpture.

“Everyone… there is someone very special I would like you to meet,” Loki announced, calling the people to attention.

“This is Y/N. My muse, my goddess and the inspiration behind my latest work…”

Without further notice, Loki pulled the sheet off the sculpture. As you gazed upon the piece for the first time, you couldn’t help but tear up a little in joy. The figure was as gorgeous as the works of yore. You felt as beautiful as Venus herself. People started talking animatedly about the sculpture and cameras started flashing.

“Of course, this is incomparable to the real thing,” Loki smiled at you.

Before you could stop yourself, you kissed him. Loki was a little caught off guard but slowly kissed back, holding you close once the shock wore off.

“So… will you continue to be my muse,” he breathed once he pulled away.

“Of course, I will,” you smiled.

Loki was a truly masterful artist. He could make you feel beautiful in a room full of people. With him, all those insecurities melted away. You were his goddess.

#Marvel #marvel one shot #marvel fanfiction #loki #Artist!Loki #loki x reader #Art #chubby reader #Blessed by a Goddess

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comicaurora · 1 year

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I don't wanna stick my head into an ongoing argument especially as a non-artist but it frustrated me how quickly you got dismissed out of hand despite. Idk. Also being a content creator and artist who relies on people seeing and engaging with your work, both with Aurora and OSP

I was not expecting a full adult blogger whose posts I like and respect to publicly dunk on me for things I did not say and opinions I do not hold because my two-sentence post about something unrelated pinged the little "this is about me so I am justified to scold" sensor, and I was not expecting them to double down into condescension, and then I was further disappointed to conclude that they probably blocked me, because my two attempts at reblogging with a de-escalation and apology vanished into the tumblr error dimension and I didn't have it in me to rewrite the whole thing a third time.

Tumblr's reading comprehension is poor for sure, but I think the larger problem is how the platform is optimized for sweeping statements to be read as intensely personal. If a generalized statement crosses my dash that could be read as in some way negative or dismissive of me or an identity I hold, it's easy to feel like there's nothing in the world but me and that poster purposefully sniping at me personally. If that were the reality, maybe it would be fine for me to retaliate. But the fact is, that poster doesn't know me, the post is presumably about what it says it's about, and reading farther into it would require context it's impossible for me to know.

In this case, for instance, this person doesn't seem to know anything about me, so they don't know that I am myself an artist, that I know a little something about building an audience, and that I enjoy having a platform that enables me to draw attention to lesser-known but extremely high quality work. Instead, they saw my flippant two-post "kinda rude and entitled when this very specific rude thing happens" and decided I was an ignorant child who needed schooling because I was being rude and dismissive to the struggles of them and theirs.

I know why this happens. Tumblr, for all its size, feels intensely personal. It feels significantly worse when it actually GETS personal, like their responses were to me. Their post makes good points and I'm glad it's raising awareness for lesser-known artists and workers in need of support, but I don't enjoy being turned into a strawman and paraded for ridicule, especially by someone whose experience on this platform runs deeper than mine. Frankly, I expected them to be experienced enough to be kind.

It feels very shitty, obviously. Like many neurodivergent people - not to play that card, but, ya know - I am very, very used to being misunderstood and then bullied or ridiculed for whatever misinterpretation is funniest or sounds the snappiest for a crowd. I am prone to overexplaining to avoid this - in case this post didn't make that obvious already. Of course, overexplaining is not a healthy solution and it doesn't even work. It took me a very long time to even begin to accept that ultimately I had no control.

The conclusion I eventually came to, after years of trying to find the perfect way to comport myself so I would never, ever be hurt in this way again, is that there is no way to do that. People can always choose to read you in the most uncharitable way possible, to disregard your personhood and turn you into a posterboy for whatever crack or hot take they want to use you for. However, the flawed premise I was operating under was that, if I failed to be 100% understood, I would deserve whatever shittiness followed because I had failed to prevent it.

And I don't. Nobody does, ever. Pain is not a thing made okay by deserving. I understand why they reacted the way they did to me, but what they did was wrong. It was unnecessarily cruel and harsh and it came unprovoked. I feel bad right now because someone hurt me because they thought it was morally righteous to do so, and even if I didn't comport myself flawlessly and beyond reproach, I didn't deserve to be hurt.

So I feel shitty right now, but I managed to have a nice evening regardless and hopefully I can digest this bad mood fast enough that I stop dreading checking my notes. Thanks to the people who unprompted sent me cute pet pics.

#asks #not aurora #personal

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megatrons-husband · 6 months

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Hello, I just saw this in the tags and wanted to add my own input. I am an abuse survivor and also a megastar shipper. Megastar is one of my tops, and that’s because they are both abuse victims and I see myself through both of them. When I ship them, I generally ship them as healing past the abuse and trauma they’ve both been through and make them happy, and able to heal and grow together, I always felt that if I was able to see those two heal and be happy, and being victims of abuse (megatron abused thru slavery, starscream abused thru megatron) then I would be able to heal myself. Being able to portray megatron and starscream break the cycle of abuse makes me happy in a way and even tho we don’t get it canonically, I try and portray it with what I write.

I do agree a lot of depictions of megastar are extremely abusive, esp tfp depictions. I myself don’t really interact with fandom content that makes them out to be abusive. I do admit that there are a lot of people who glorify the abuse in the ship and that was a reason I just, didn’t interact with the fan version of it. At the end of the day, each to their own but I resonate with this answer.

I agree with everything you said and I think you offered a very kind and nuanced answer.

That said, at the end of the day I think that most all transformers ships have the ability to be priorship or abusive and it always irks me or at least, saddens me when people just go after megastar shippers. I mean, despite being an abuse survivor myself and going out of my way to portray the ship in a unique way to me, Ive had people tell me to kill myself. I remember there was a megastar story board artist who worked on Earthspark, and people were telling her to kill herself and to get hit by a bus. Ive realized that in the tf fandom it’s like ‘okay’ to harass megastar shippers even this elf us who don’t ship the ship in an abusive way, but other shippers tend to be exempt from this,.

lIKE I also like MegaOP, but MegaOp also has incredibly abusive foundations too. Especially TFP MegaOP, where Megatron quite literally took advantage of Optimus when he had no memories and just in general, some of the things he’s done to Optimus, short of torturing him and even killing and hurting his friends just o hurt him, are abusive and reminds me of things that happened to me. And people tend to romanticize that, and call them like ‘crazy husbands’ or exes or something like that, and I realize that it’s so common to romanticize the abuse in MegaOP, just like proshippers do, but its’ almost never called out the same way megastar is. Hell, some of the people bashing Megastar are the same people who think it’s romantic when Optimus is gettin beat and nearly killed by Megatron, or when Megatron kills and hurts those close to Optimus.

I don’t mean to rant to you, I just noticed how ship hate and suicide baiting is so acceptable to do to megastar shippers. It’s so common, even if we *don’t* ship the ship in an abusive way. And there aren’t that many megastar shippers compared to others. It’s a very isolating experience because I realize this fandom is ‘friendly’ until people have double standards over a ship you like. Like i said, I'm an actual abuse survivor, and in a place where I still have to live with my abuser, so writing megatron and starscream working thru their own traumas and loving one another is kinda healing to me. BUT being told to kill myself over it, sometimes by popular bloggers in the TF fandom, and then seeing them glorify abuse in other ships is not fun.

SORRY i just wanted to send this to you because i agree with your ask. originally i was gonna respond to your post but i was anxious

Ok first i would like to say your absolutely AMAZING. You are a poet becuse this is the most accurate opinion of transformers ships ive seen in awhile, twitter users a shakering is there boots right know!! And your view of megastar is perfect and the way you described your writings of them sounds amasing and a great and healthy way to potray them, also i very glad that it helps you. : ] And just puting this out there as a abuse survivor to i get you. Id like to touch on megop to since you mentioned it! Iam not going hate anyone fore it because once again to each there own, but i hate the double stander for megstar shipers, when megop is just as bad! People really need to understand that both have the opportunity to be awful horribly portrayed ships, or beautiful heartfelt relationship with great story telling! And one last thing that i would like to add is when you said that ever transformers ship has the opportunity to be proship, and yes i agree strongly with this. the transformers fandom has a very bad problem of fetishizing relationship and just around makeing really bad and gross ships. But something id like to say is some ships will never be heathy, and cant be. There are some ships that are just gross and overall cant be labled as anything other than proship. For instance, somthing that makes me absolutely sick is people who ship overlord and Fortress Maximus, specifically there idw/mtmte portrayals. A little background if some have never read the comics, Fortress Maximus was a warden at this prison basically and overlord came a over ran the place, killing tons of bot and taking many captive. Maximus was one of said bots and overlord wanted some information that only Maximus had and for 3 and a half years torture, abused, and lobotomized him. The amont of trama that Maximus gained from that, form overlord, alone should show how awful of a ship it is to began with. There is no way that it could be written to be heathy for either bot because its shown alot just how much Maximus HATES Overlords guts. But iam a stop there, or iam a write a hole essay. Thank you for shareing your opinion on the matter! It was really well written!! Hope you have a good day or night! :]

#transformers #megatron #megaop #megastar #hate proshipers #anti proshitter #fuck proshitters #proshitters dni #starscream #Fortress Maximus #overlord

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ourodroouros · 16 hours

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AYE NIGGA(S) LISTEN UP

back in days of old, rap and hip hop was seen as a foolish endeavor; a moronic art form made by black people. whites did not gaf about it. thankfully while that’s changed… tumblr one of the only social medias i use to keep in contact with the outside world. i’ve seen the dumbest, stupidest posts because tumblr is a white hell. there are basically next to no black bloggers. they’re either dead or they abandoned the site or they were banned during that whole russian bot shit and whatever remains of black tumblr is a decrepit grave that i wish i experienced—but thanks to the hostilities of the white userbase and the staff’s oppressive nature towards blacks first and foremost, most of us are gone. i have been on this site for approximately a year or two and i have only accrued a few black people on this site. every other thing i see is traditionally antiblackness laced in progressive language, clear unbridled ignorance of black phrases, substitutions of “nigga” for the euphemism “f slur” and especially because of kendrick lamar’s beef with drake extending across the entire internet and worldwide; tumblr the “hating” website gets ahold of it. for the first time, people experience the lyricisms of kendrick and the banality of drake on full display…

and then instead, tumblr users (predominantly white) complain about the innate violence of rap, comparing fucking kendrick to LEMON DEMON (nigga who listens to LEMON DEMON????), saying some stupid shit about how rap boring as fuck, etc. etc., and it’s exhausting its so exhausting because so many people on this site refuse to acknowledge rap as a real music form and instead gas up their metal bands basically ran by neo nazi whiteboys and still are terrified of blackness. and even when they dip their toes into the art, they back away. i know everyone rn is flaming each other over this but this website is notorious for it’s systemic bigotry against blacks. we are not property and vehicles for ideological rhetoric. we are not hapless. we aren’t slaves. we are people. listen to our music nigga. you don’t like it? move on. don’t say nothing. don’t go on posts like some people have been doing and going: “oooohhhh rap lame as fuck!”. learn culture bro. and i dont want nobody to feel any white guilt but so many of you on tumblr are just so fucking bigoted for no reason towards black people (even those hardcore marxists on here). i just dont wanna see another post about a white person tweaking out over rap. go listen to black artists and support black people. support black men. support black women. support black transmascs and black transfems. support black intersex people. support all black queers. support ALL black people.

#antiblackness #antiblackness racism #antiblackness tw #racism #racism tw #black tumblr #kendrick lamar #drake #kendrick diss #rap #I WARD AWAY THE WHITE DEVILS: NIGGAPOSTING #tumblr culture #whiteness

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klissblog · 4 months

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Are Saiki and Teruhashi based off Asō-sensei and Furukawa-san?

This post will make you know more about Asou-sensei and Furukawa-san, and perhaps about Japanese manga characters. Sorry some information you might have seen it already.

How mangaka based off their characters?

1 appearance

When people saw Asō-sensei, he got comments saying he looked like Saiki Kusuo. The same as Nishizawa, the author of 5mm (西沢５ミリ、Nishizawa 5miri).

「こちらの写真の一番左に映ってるメガネの方が麻生周一先生になります。

どことなく斉木楠雄に似ているような…..」

→The person with glasses on the far left in this picture is Asō Shūichi sensei.

He looks somewhat like Saiki Kusuo......　

Ps. I have never read 5mm, but this went viral, So I knew about it.

If you want to read more about the author, here is the link https://mangakasan.com/asoshuichi-565

Some other characters that resemble the real people. The author of one piece, Oda-sensei, had confirmed some of these.

2 characters based on personality or anything else besides appearance.

This´s quite difficult. The author has to admit it or you must really know that character.

The author of Berserk did give an interview in 1996.

“For the relationship between Guts and Griffith, I'm using myself and my close friend and fellow manga artist Koji Mori (Suicide Island, etc.) as a model. Which one of us is Guts and which is Griffith switches from time to time, but I think it serves as a symbol of male friendship. Guts' friends in the Band of [the Falcon] are actually based on my friends from college. But if it's about Guts' personality or his belief... I guess some of it comes from myself.”

Source: https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/Interviews

NBA players were the model for the characters in slam dunk. I'm not into sports, but many redditors had theories about these because they knew about different styles of play in basketball. A Japanese blogger said that the author of slam dunk did not admit or deny when he was asked if slam dunk characters were from NBA players. That means there is no right or wrong answer. The author said the readers could imagine who was the model. But the blogger said its not true because he watched NBA for a long time and he had theories to prove that.

Source: https://happynarublog.com/slam-dunk-who-is-the-nba-player-who-became-the-model-of-the-characters/

Is teruhashi based on the author's wife Furukawa-san or is she a model for teruhashi? (Whatever the correct word is, sorry 😢 ).

We knew from the last two posts that the author started basing teruhashi on his wife after they met in 2014. The author made Teruhashi loves one, have a fan club and be able to sing from 2014.

When the author drew someone else as kokomi, Furukawa-san tweeted right away.

In 2016, his wife tweeted 「おっふしてもいいんだからね！」 → it´s okay (if you’re going) to offu!

To prove that she´s the real kokomi.

In 2018, his wife tweeted

「斉木楠雄のΨ難、麻生先生描き下ろしジャケ！

照橋さん枠はえいたそだったのか、、、！

けるくんも可愛く描いてくれています。サイズ感ぴったり！どんどんメディア進出！麻生先生！ありがとうございます！！すてき！！」

“The CD jacket newly drawn by Asō-sensei, the author of “The Disastrous Life of Saiki K”!

Teruhashi-san's quota (yellow frame) was Eitaso (nickname of Eimi), huh? It has a cute drawing of Keru-kun (her pet) too. The size is perfect! More and more media coverage! Asō-sensei! Thank you!! It's so nice!!”

And then Furukawa-san tweeted again with excuses that Eitaso wasn´t teruhashi because….

いや、えいたそ＝後光 → No, Eitaso = Halo, aureole

照橋さん＝オーラ → Teruhashi-san = Aura

だからちとものが違うか、、、→ so maybe it’s a bit different...

Well, Furukawa-san thought she was Teruhashi and couldn't stand if someone else was Teruhashi. There must be something in Saiki k that made her believe/sure about it. It's between the author and Furukawa-san. The question about Furukawa-san is Teruhashi. She has already given the answer!

Think why the author made Kokomi have fan club and kusuo a tsundere in 2014? Coincidences? Why did his wife have so much confidence about she’s Kokomi? Why didn't the author do that in the beginning of Saiki k? Why started basing them in 2014 the year he met his wife?

Is Saiki based on the author or is he a model for him? After the author met his wife in 2014, Saiki admitted that he is a tsundere.

Q: Is the author a tsundere?

I would like you to find out what a tsundere is on the internet. So you will understand more about it.

Nendō pet is based on/kind of like Furukawa-san's pet because keru-kun uses her hand as a toilet.

Source: https://natalie.mu/music/column/307931

the author said 「りさ推しよりの箱推しです！今日はライブです！」→My Oshi is the whole group, even though I prefer Risa a little more! Today is the live concert!

ps. Ppl/fans who don’t know him in person thought Aso-sensei liked Risa-san until they announced that they gonna get married.

Here are some comments

もっとも麻生さん本人は、15年の時点ではツイッターで、「りさ推しよりの箱推しです！」と投稿しているなど、メンバーの中では古川さんより相沢梨紗さんの方が「推し」だったようである。これもでんぱ組.incのファンには知られており、

→ However, Aso himself seemed to have his “Oshi” as Risa than for Furukawa-san, as he posted on Twitter in 2015, “My Oshi is the whole group, even though I prefer Risa a little!” This is also known to fans of Denmagumi.inc,

「推しアイドルと結婚相手って別なんだろうね」 → “I guess the Oshi idol and the person you're marrying are two different things.”

「麻生先生チケ代払ってでもでんぱガチガチで遠征してるヲタクで相沢梨紗推しのはずがまさかのみりんちゃんと結婚」

→“Asou-sensei, an otaku who pays for tickets and goes to meet Dempa in far places. I thought he had an Oshi as Risa, but surprise surprise, he’s married to Mirin-chan.”

「麻生先生でんぱ組好きって言ってて結婚はすげぇな　推しとは違ったらしいけど」

→“I knew that Asou-sensei liked Dempagumi, but marriage is surprising. But looks like the partner wasn’t his Oshi.”

と、むしろ推しメンバーと結婚相手に分別をつけた選択として、好意的に受け止められている様子だ。

→Rather, this seems to be favorably received as a sensible choice between an Oshi member and a marriage partner.

Source: https://www.j-cast.com/2019/09/19367999.html?p=all

If I were Furukawa-san and read these comments….. I felt hurt. There were some comments on x (twitter) saying that Aso-sensei likes Risa-chan or his oshi was Risa-chan from 2015-2019 (her first response to the author was in 2016). As a woman, I read comments that say my boyfriend likes my friend. Did people think I stole him from my friend or my friend rejected him so he chose me and ended up marrying me. Was I his second choice??? No wonder Furukawa-san couldn't accept when someone else was kokomi.

However, colleagues confirmed their relationship No. 3&4.

2. In 2018, the marriage purpose. No. 3 「でんぱぐみのだれかと（けっこん）」 → (Marry) someone in Dempagumi(.inc). The word “marry” was coverd by Nendou´s hand.

P.S. If anyone thinks it's a word other than the word marry …hmmm. That person doesn't understand Japanese in context (that chapter).

3. His assistant, Mitsuhara-san mentioned that Furukawa´s his favorite member and Asou-sensei replied his comment (without denying it) saying

「わー！忙しいのにわざわざ漫画まで描いてくれてありがとー！！あれはそういう策略だったのか…w」

→ Wow! Thanks for drawing all those manga even though you're so busy! (Now I know) what kind of strategy was that...lol

(You can read his manga in English at the end of this post)

What Asō-sensei did to Furukawa-san

Didn´t say his feeling to Furukawa-san. He said he preferred Risa. But his coworker, Mitsuhara-san said Furukawa was his favourite member. Asou-sensei attended dempagumi.inc activities/events, but he wanna leave after he talked to his wife for a word or two. At first I thought their relationship had to be a secret. he could write about Risa-san but Furukawa-san. <(ꐦㅍ _ㅍ)> ……… tsundere.

Did tease his wife by drawing someone else as Teruhashi. He drew dempagumi.inc only 2 pics and teased his wife both of them. Aso-sensei drew Furukawa-san with arms crossed. ʱªʱªʱª (ᕑᗢूᓫ∗)

Source: the same link as above (telling that he drew Dempagumi two pics) https://www.j-cast.com/2019/09/19367999.html?p=all

Didn´t write the word “marry” in a marriage proposal. I wondered when I read it, but now everything is resolved. What a tsundere! Finally, he grouped his wife with Teruhashi even though he wrote the word "someone" on no. 3 instead of Furukawa-san (because of idol status). However, it’s really sweet of him to do it in anime and it will stay forever.

4. His coworker, 大石浩二、Ōishi-san (mangaka) who works at Shonen Jump+ said

麻生先生&みりんちゃん結婚おめでとうございます。前から知ってはいましたが、未だにえっマジで！！？なんだその漫画みたいな展開！！って思ってます。みりんちゃんのハートにＢダッシュした麻生先生。末永くお幸せに🎊

Congratulations to Asō-sensei & Mirin-chan on their marriage. I've known about it for a while, but I'm still thinking "What Really!!? What a manga-like development!!” Aso-sensei made a B-dash into Mirin-chan's heart. I wish you a long and happy life🎊.

However, Ōishi-san compared them to a manga. What manga? Did he mean Saiki k manga? I don't know much information about Aso-sensei and Furukawa-san compare to Oishi-san, but I knew Asō-sensei is an otaku and his wife is an idol. So I think otaku & idol. That's why the author did a self-insert to Saiki k manga. Plus, he did mentioned himself (as an otaku) made his favorite idol sang the theme songs in 2016 (chapter 234).

When they were in a relationship in 2016, The author asked their friends, family and co-worker for the vote (to make Saiteru got 1&2 place) because they (ppl who knows him) knew about Furukawa-san. He wanted their votes instead of votes from readers. Who the hell didn't know that he's saiteru?

It doesn’t matter how long you know Saiki k. If I ask my brother (who is really into manga/anime for his whole life; otaku and taught me about manga; publisher and author’s hints) to read it, he knows right away Teruhashi is favored by god/author and terusai ends up together because of author’s hints and at the end of story.

To answer the question of if the author based on Saiki or using him as a model.

- In terms of appearance, I'm not the only one who thinks the author looks like Saiki.

- For the personality, what he did to Furukawa-san (2015-2018), the author’s a tsundere to me.

My point with this post is that it´s not strange or stupid that the manga creators/mangaka use the real people as models for their characters in the manga or based on themselves. It doesn't mean that characters are 100% like the authors, and have to be a warrior like Guts from Berserk. The author said “Guts' personality or his beliefs... I guess some of that comes from myself.” So did Asō sensei and Saiki about tsundere.

I hope this post will make you understand about mangaka and their characters. Thank you. ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

Wanne read about how Asō sensei became a big fan (otaku) of Dempagumi.inc. Read below.

This message below is for someone who claimed to be asō-sensei number 1 fan and posted about me. The rest of you please ignore this.

I hope you get to know the author better and find it interesting, rather than saying misinformation without sources and lying to others because you have no knowledge and no information about manga. Real people are models for/based on manga characters existed before you were even born. Shocking? This has never happened before. Still think this information isn´t credible? And want the the author to admit or deny that he and his wife based on Saiki and Teruhashi. Good luck with that, a tsundere like him who never told/said Furukawa-san his feelings online (direct way) until they announced their marriage. He isn't a criminal he has to accept or refuse this if he doesn't want to. The author never said about it, but it doesn’t mean his wife and coworkers wouldn’t say anything. I’d rather believe his wife and coworker than you. The one who knows nothing about the author is you. How could you claim to be a big fan of the author? You believe info from his wife and coworkers were not good enough. You don’t even listen and respect his wife and coworkers. On top of that you spread this´s misinfo, don’t you feel ashamed at all. Next time, please find info by yourself before accusing others, so you can learn about Japanese or practice your Japanese language. Didn’t you say so?

I asked you about did you read what Japanese people said about him and what his wife said, but you avoided to answer it for 3 days because you couldn’t answer it. Then meow’s blog who also believed you deleted my comments. I wonder why they believed you without sources. Because you claimed to be a fan of the author? Anyways, your comment about “nope 1. misinfo 2. hella fucking weird compare these two.” was delete after I posted this. Did you delete it? Huh?

I thought I did make it clear about last two post and I thought I didn’t need to write more about it. This story seems so exaggerate and hard to believe. So some people think they know about the author and think it´s misinfo. Please don’t judge Japanese manga with your different background/culture, but try to understand it. You asked for souces, I gave you. Where are your sources saying misinfo, or you are full of bias? Huh?

#saiteru #terusai #saiki kusuo #saiki no psi nan #saiki x teruhashi #teruhashi kokomi #god i hate when terusai haters are biased and have no info but telling lies & saying this’s misinfo and shove this take everywhere #oh my god it makes me so angry anytime terusai haters Are only biased and spreads rumors sorry i probably overreacted #Normally I don’t use bad word but call someone else stupid asshole and weirdo but you don’t know that you’re an asshole.#Where is your source? Bias doesn’t count as sources or proofs. Manga virgins.#I don't care if you ship torisai but call ppl weirdo stupid because of basing real ppl & ship terusai. Dont you look at yourself #Which is more possible canon: TeruSai or ToriSai? Bias makes u dont see Aso-sensei&Furukawa-san like Teruhashi-san. TeruSai is canon!#You started argument. Posted about me on reddit&deleted it. U didn't know that I saw? Then posted and commented about me on tumblr.#YOU MAKE TUMBLR LIKE REDDIT!! I never said sth bad about u on reddit. This is the 1st time. U said reddit is bad.Look at yourself YOU R BAD

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ticklygiggles · 1 year

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Top 22 of 2022

I've been meaning to do this before the end of the year for obvious reasons, but I just didn't have the chance until now! Thank you everyone who had tagged me, you all are so sweet

I apologize in advance, though. My memory sucks and my perception of time is broken sdjfjdhf

Part 1: Fandom Faves

01. Favorite new fandoms of the year: SPY x FAMILY, Demon Slayer

02. Favorite new ships since this year: SPYxFAMILY - Twiyor, Cynari, ScaraLumi - Genshin Impact

03. Favorite anime/TV show of the year: Extraordinary Attorney Woo, SPY x FAMILY, Pokémon Journeys

04. Favorite movie of the year: Hmm, I honestly don't watch many movies, so this one's hard... maybe Turning Red? Haha

05. Favorite character of the year: Scaramouche/Wandered, Tighnari - Genshin Impact. Uzui Tengen, Rengoku Kyojuro - Demon Slayer. Seo HyunSoo - XXX Buddy.

06. Favorite soundtrack of the year: One of my favorite soundtrack every year will always be Liyue OST - Genshin Impact!

07. Favorite book/manga/comic of the year: sajkhfjdf this year I read lots of new Manhwas and also a few books. Some of my favorite manhwas were Define the Relationship, Perfect Buddy, Actually, I was the real one, Who made me a Princess?, Under the Oak Tree, Love so Pure (side story), Forget About My Husband, I'd Rather Go Make Money, The Marriage Business and mooore.

I didn't like the books I read this year that much, but I guess my favorite was Six Crimson Cranes. Also read some light novels and they were The Marriage Business and I'll be the Warrior's Mother.

08. Favorite game of the year: Genshin Impact and Obey me!

09. Highlight of this year to remember: March 7th when I went to Disneyland JSAFHJ

Part 2: Community Review

10. Favorite Tumblr moments of 2022: Tickletober, my 2k milestone. @vqler and @dokidoki-muffin return aaaand... I think that's the most I can remember hahaah

11. Favorite fan art of the year: I have been blessed with so much fanart this year omg, some of my faves were this one, of course because it's the first time someone drew art for one of my fics!

Also this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one, but honestly, there are so many aaaa

12. Favorite fic of the year: I read good fics this year, I can't choose, but definitely some of my faves are these beautiful fics I got from my dearest friends in my birthday and Christmas, here, here and here.

13. Favorite ask game of the year: The tickly alphabet, this one and the 3 sentence fic

14. My top achievements as a writer/artist/creator/blogger: Participating in Tickletober for the first time! I didn't finish all days, but I'm happy with the result haha. Also getting to finish my 2k milestone event!

15. My own best fic/post of the year: I think I wrote a lot this year, but one of my faves to write was this Koi ga Ochitara one because I've been wanting to write one with them for sooo long!

16. My most underappreciated fic/post of the year: Probably not the "most", but this Mafuyu x Ritsuka x Yuki one?

17. A post of mine that got more popularity than expected: Omg these three Tickletober fics because they don't have a large popularity in the community, but they got more attention that I expected!

Koi Ga Ochitara, Junai Drop Out, Sign

18. Something I changed on my blog since this year: I think I did write more this year, so that was nice!

Part 3: Next Year

19. Something I didn’t post this year but would like to do next year: I'd like to work on this little AU idea thingy I have been neglecting because I feel unsure to write and post, but we'll see!

20. Goals for next year: As for this blog... maybe getting into more fandoms to keep writing haha. Also, Ginny girl is trying to write less trash, but I'd like to keep collaborating with her, because I just love how well we write together aaaa

21. 2023 releases I look forward to the most: MAHOUTSUKAI NO YOME SEASON 2! Aaaand more Genshin updates and also Obey me cards that I can actually get LOL

Part 4: Spreading Love

22. Shoutouts to people who made my 2022 a better year:

Goodness, here comes the fun part haha:

@otomiya-tickles of course my sweetie girl precious baby boo. I already told you this, but thank you for making my 2022 a loooot better, thank you for your endless support and your love! You are the best and I'm so happy to talk to you every single day! You are so so talented and smart and amazing and I love you!

@ragewerthers my frieeeend, I always have so much fun talking with you! From just daily life activities to our endless hcs about our precious Toshi *teary emoji* you definitely did my 2022 a lot better too and I hope we can still talk lots this 2023!

@wertzunge Maaaax, I think this year we talked more than any other time haha, I'm happy we're both excited about Mahoutsukai no Yome sdbfhsdf I already said this to you, but I hope we get to talk some more this year as well! Thank you for your friendship!! (Also thank you for your kind support during commisions!)

@vqler @dokidoki-muffin we barely interact with each other BUT I wanted to say that you both are amazing and super talented people and I admire your abilities and your creativity and it's so so nice to have you back in the community! You both are GREAT and I get excited every time I see art from you both. Such talented people, let me give you a respectful kiss on your forehead.

@ticklystuff omg hi! I know we don't talk much, but I just wanted to say that I really like you and you are so so so so SO good at writing ome such talent! I love seeing you in my dash and seeing all the cool amazing stuff you write aaaaa I think of you every time I see Childe, no lies. Thank you for being amazing!

@happyandticklish Queen of writing. No words just admiration. Honestly, you are so so so GOOD. I wish I could write like you and you're so kind and amazing help askdjskf We've talked a bit before and I apologize for my awkwardness aaaaa Thank you for showing us all how cool you are and for being a cupcake!

@myreygn Reeeeey! I honestly get so so shy when you mention how you fangirled when I followed you back ahahaha, thank you for always being so supportive with me! You are amazing and I like chatting with yoouuu! I hope we get to talk some more during 2023!!

@thornoisdono Thank you for the generous support in kofi aaaaa, I love every single fic you requested and hopefully, you'll see them up in the next couple of days! Thank you!

@intheticklecloset @zeke-ism @lovelynim @xsezzie @bloominggiggles @ticklish-v-93 @soft-tk-fluff @chibimochii @nnainai @tickles-tea @looneytickles @tiredleekaz @ssnicker-doodless @spongeboblevel25 @justmaybee @itslittlegiggle @tiklart @lovelymessybubbly @italeean @ticklishfanart - whether we had talked before or not, I'm so thankful for you all! I love seeing and interacting with your content. You all are amazing and make my stay in tumblr so much better! I'd love to get to know you all more this year, but I'll be always be awkward, but I want you to know that you are some of my favorite blogs EVER.

#end of the year tag #top22of2022 #this took me two hours to finish omg #it was really fun though #i can't believe it's 2023 already #i hope this year is better for all of us guys

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a-chlolix-blog · 1 year

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Scarabée and Kitty Claws AU

Mr Pigeon. An upset Bird Dad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a couple of days since Adrien's birthday and he happily posted about the many gifts from his new friends.

The rapid fangirls weren't very happy, but his classmates were quite happy for him.

What caught a few of them off guard was that Chloé Bourgeois of all people thought of something as nice and personal as a photo collage of the two of them.

💙Mari-Caroon🥐: Did you guys see what Chloé made Adrien?

❤Best Blogger📱: Oh please! She probably made Sabrina do ALL the work!

💥Alix the Awesome🥇: All that matters is that Mr. Sunshine had a happy birthday!

👑Princess Rose🌹: Yeah! And besides maybe Chloé's trying to change. She hasn't pulled any of her infamous pranks on us yet.

💜Priceless Jule💎: It's still quite early in the school year, Sweetie.

🎥Mylegend♻️: Who knows what she'll have planned....

Alix puts her phone away as she got ready for class.

Tikki: Is this Chloé girl REALLY that bad?

Alix: It's complicated Tikki... very complicated.

At Le Grand Paris, Chloé was still over the moon that Adrien loved her gift enough to post it on Instagram.

The two happily texted each other.

🐱Catty-Chlo💛: I'm so happy you loved your gift, Sunshine!

🌟Princely Sunshine☀️: It's beautiful, Chlo! I gotta repay on your birthday. How about I get Scarabée to make an appearance? It'll be tough without an Akuma Attack to find her, but I'll find a way!

Chloé couldn't help but blush as she read the text from Adrien.

🐱Catty-Chlo💛: Shut up and get ready for school!

🌟Princely Sunshine☀️: So mean! Let's hope Scarabée doesn't see this side of you!

Chloé rolls her eyes before putting her phone in her purse.

Chloé wasn't looking forward to her own birthday, but she was happy that Adrien had fun on his.

~~~~~At School~~~~~~

Mr. Damocles is in Miss Bustier's classroom, telling the students about a design competition being hosted at the school.

The objective of the competition is to design and create a derby hat, which will be judged by fashion designer Gabriel Agreste.

Marinette, Juleka with Rose, Mylène, and Alix decide to enter the competition.

The five of them were taking about the competition during lunch.

Alya: Ladies! How does it feel to have the opportunity to create something to be judged by Gabriel Agreste?

Marinette: Very nervous! I haven't made a derby hat before, but for my dream, I'll have to try.

Rose: I'm supporting Juleka. So I know for a fact she's gonna be great!

Juleka, blushing: Thanks...

Mylène: I decided to get outta my comfort zone. So I'm hoping to have fun.

The group then notices how quiet Alix has been.

Alix: Out of all of us, I know I'm the least likely to win, given my style. But it's been a while since I applied my artistic style to clothing. So I wanna have fun too!

Rose: I'm sure Mr. Agreste will LOVE your style!

Chloé and Sabrina could hear the two from their table (Gabriel makes Adrien eat lunch at home).

Chloé wasn't entering the competition and only Sabrina and Adrien knew why.

Chloé, internally: Although it's unlikely that she'll win. I bet Ally-Kins' hat will be incredible.

Little did they know, a certain someone was planning on coping their derby hat ideas!

And her name was Brigiette Alarie!

Brigiette, internally: Once I beautifully outdo every "talented and creative" girl in Adrien's class, Mr. Agreste will see me as the PERFECT daughter in-law!

So she followed the girls around and asks to about their hat ideas, to make sure "they don't copy her idea!"

~Juleka and Rose while they're walking to class~

Juleka: Well-

Rose: It's a surprise! But it'll be super cute! Just like my Juleka!

~Mylène after she closes her locker~

Mylène: Can't say! It's a surprise and I want everyone to be surprised.

~Alix during gym class~

Alix: Even if I were to tell you, I'm only entering for fun, not to win.

~Marinette before the final day of the day~

Marinette: Since I haven't designed a Derby Hat before, I don't know just yet...

Brigiette, internally: OUT OF ALL PEOPLE, YOU'D THINK MARINETTE WOULD HAVE A DESIGN READY!

After school, the girls when home to work on their derby hats.

Except for Marinette, who goes to the Trocadéro for inspiration (unaware that Brigiette decided to follow her).

Marinette sits outside at the Trocadéro with her sketchbook open on her lap.

She sketches various versions of derby hats before ripping them out and crumpling them beside her.

Brigiette watches from afar as she does this.

Brigiette, internally: Only the very best for Mr. Agreste and my dearest Adrien.

As she becomes more dejected, a man appears, moving his arms like wings and cooing to the pigeons.

Xavier Ramier sits on a bench and calls the pigeons to him with a whistle.

He then brings out a bag of bird food, tossing it to the pigeons.

Roger Raincomprix stalks over and yells at Xavier for feeding the pigeons, stating that, if he continues to feed them, they will crowd the park and leave their droppings everywhere.

Confiscating the bird food, Roger kicks Xavier out of the park. Marinette feels sorry for him.

After noticing the many pigeon feathers on the ground, Marinette becomes quite inspired and starts hurriedly sketching the idea.

Meanwhile, Xavier sits on a bench overlooking the Seine, dejected.

Hawk Moth senses Xavier's sorrow and sends an akuma to him, which enters his bird call.

Hawk Moth tells Xavier that the police and park keepers should not be allowed to stop him from taking care of his pigeons and offers him the chance to take revenge on them.

Xavier grins, turning into the villain, Mr. Pigeon.

He takes off, flapping his arms and cooing.

At the same time, Marinette finishes her sketch.

When she holds up her book to admire it in the light, Brigiette takes a picture of the sketch with her phone and hugs it to her chest.

Brigiette, whispering: Yes! Mr. Agreste's praise and Adrien's love are MINE!

At The Louvre, Alix was working on her own hat and was almost done.

She was able to sew in her signature street art style light blue and black A into the dark blue derby hat, but felt like something think was missing.

Alix, internally: Damnit, it needs one more thing. But what?

Tikki, giving Alix a pear: You can think of something, Alix!

Alim, knocking on the door: Alix? Are you still working on your hat? I could come back later.

Tikki: *quickly hides under Alix's pillow*

Alix: Come in, I'm just taking a quick break!

When he walks into the room holding a small box, Alim's quite impressed by Alix's derby hat.

Alim: Are you sure you aren't trying to wait, Sweetie? This hat looks incredible!

Alix: It'd be even more incredible if I found out what I was missing!

Alim: I had a feeling you'd get Artist's Block. So I got these. *puts the box on Alix's desk*

Alix: What's this? *opens the box and starts to tear up* Dad... are these...?

Alim: You and Jalil loved making these little feather swords with your mother and I when you were younger. Maybe they can help inspire you?

Alix: *hugs Alim tightly* Thanks dad!

Alim, hugging her back: No problem. Now pick one! I can't wait to see which one you pick for the hat!

Alix then picks up a cerulean feather sword and attaches it to the derby hat.

Alim: Just as I thought. Perfect.

Alix: I know right?

Alim leaves Alix's room with a smile before closing the door.

Alim, looking at his own feather sword: I know you're proud of them, Dalia...

Tikki, flying up to Alix: Since you're done, let's go great cookies to celebrate!

Alix: Of course you'd think of that as a way to celebrate. Guess I'll get some macaroons to go with the smoothie I wanna make. Let's go!

Just as Alix walks up to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery, Marinette runs out in a hurry.

Alix: Whoa Marinette! What's the hurry?

Marinette: I need a pigeon feather for my derby hat!

Alix: I'll help you find one. I finished my hat before coming here.

Marinette: Thanks!

The two run to the Eiffel Tower, disturbing the pigeons until Marinette grabs a feather.

Alix walks alongside Marinette, who happily skips before bumping into officer Roger.

Roger, however, goes on his merry way after Marinette apologizes.

The two then sees a dark cloud of birds hovering over him before taking him away.

Marinette: Did you see that?

Alix: Yeah... *thinks to herself* Guess those cookies and macaroons will have to wait. I gotta make sure Marinette gets home safe. Can't risk those birds carrying her away too.

Marinette: Scarabée and Kitty Claws will handle this.

Alix: Let's just get you home. Your place is close!

While Marinette and Alix are on the bus, Alix asks the driver why they can't go faster.

The driver says that they have a situation and tells the people to get off the bus.

Marinette and Alix sees that pigeons are causing the traffic jam, along with other problems all over Paris.

Nadja Chamack, on a nearby screen, reports on the pigeons and is then told that Mr. Pigeon will make an announcement: Paris belongs to the pigeons.

Alix: Marinette, run home now!

Marinette: What about you?!

Alix: You know I'll be fine. Go!

Once Marinette was out of sight, Alix quickly runs to the subway and quickly transforms into Scarabée.

Kitty Claws was on a roof top waiting for Scarabée.

Kitty Claws: I'm so happy I don't have Adrien's feather allergy. I hope he's doing okay... With all the pigeons outside and all the presents he got for his birthday, he was more than happy to stay home.

Scarabée runs along Paris' rooftops until she sees hordes of pigeons flying in the sky, all in the shape of airplanes.

She then notices Kitty Claws a few rooftops away and leaps over to her.

Scarabée: Got any info on this situation, KC?

Kitty Claws: Park Keepers are disappearing and there are pigeons everywhere? You wouldn't happen to be allergic to feathers, would you?

Scarabée: Nope! But I do know for a fact that pigeons are taking Police Officers and thanks to your info, Park Keepers.

Kitty Claws: Where Could they have taken them all?

Scarabée: Don't know, but I got a plan on how we could find out.

~~~~~~At the Place des Vosges ~~~~~~

Kitty Claws, dressed as a Park Keeper: Itty-Bitty, you should've told me you like a girl in uniform~

Scarabée, blushing while holding Kitty Claws' jacket: I told you to put on JUST the hat! The outfit was all you! Just act natural!!

Kitty Claws: I can't help that I'm naturally good looking~

A pigeon sees her and flies off to report to Mr. Pigeon.

Mr. Pigeon praises the pigeon for telling him. A flock of pigeons takes Mr. Pigeon away.

Scarabée: Where is he?

Kitty Claws: Do you think he'll show- *gets carried away by a cloud of pigeons*

Scarabée follows the cloud to the ceiling of the hotel Le Grand Paris.

Scarabée and a now freed Kitty Claws find themselves surrounded by pigeons as Mr. Pigeon reveals himself to the two while standing on a flock of pigeons.

The pigeons surround Scarabée and Kitty Claws, trapping them in a massive bird cage.

Mr. Pigeon, under Hawkmoth's command: Give up your Miraculouses or my pigeons will attack with their poop!

Scarabée and Kitty Claws: EWWWWWW!!!!

Kitty Claws: CATACLYSM!!!!

Kitty Claws quickly uses her cataclysm on the mental bar, quickly rusting them before they fell apart.

Freeing the two heroines, who stepped closer to Mr. Pigeon.

As soon as they come close to Mr. Pigeon, he escapes by walking off the side of the hotel, shouting, "Merry Christmas."

He sends the remaining pigeons to attack the two heroes.

Scarabée and Kitty Claws run inside, slamming the door shut on the pigeons.

They head downstairs, but Kitty Claws' ring beeps; she has 4 minutes left before her transformation deactivates.

They head to the ground floor finding Mayor André Bourgeois.

André: Scarabée! Kitty Claws! These pigeons are scaring all the tourists! Please tell me you'll be able to fix this?!

Scarabée: Of course, but we'll need-

Kitty Claws, bouncing up and down: An empty room and runny camembert please!

André: Of course Miss Class! Get her to the Royal Suite!

One of the hotel's servents got a plate of runny camembert cheese and walked Kitty Claws to the Royal Suite.

Kitty Claws, to Servent: No need to wait at the door! I'll be fine! *quickly closes the door before transforming back*

Plagg, exhausted: *laying on the pillow* You need to get some of these pillows for your room!

Chloé: Hurry up and eat the cheese! If I leave Scarabée alone with my dad for too long, he'll show her pictures of me at my ballet recital when I was eight!

Plagg, with his mouth full: How do you know?

Chloé: He does it with every important person he meets!

~~~With André and Scarabée~~~

André, picking up a big book: I hope my Chloé's okay! If you haven't noticed my daughter means the world to me.

Scarabée: As a girl with a loving dad, I'm sure you mean the world to her too.

André, caught off guard: Thank you... how about I show you some of her-

Kitty Claws, quickly running up to the two: COME ON, SCARABÉE! LET'S GO GET THIS AKUMA!!! *grabs Scarabée's hand and leaves*

Scarabée and Kitty Claws, at a higher vantage point, glances out a window and sees that the pigeons are flying in the same direction and they follow the pigeons.

They reach the Grand Palais and find the park keepers caged inside. They climb up to the roof to enter the Palais from a window.

The two make themselves known to Mr. Pigeon and their battle begins!

He attacks with his pigeons, sending Scarabée and Kitty Claws into the park keepers' cage's bars.

Scarabée uses her Lucky Charm, and a coin appears.

Using her lucky vision, Scarabée spots a support beam and a vending machine.

Scarabée runs toward Mr. Pigeon, sliding underneath him while her yo-yo wraps around his ankle.

She then jumps up to the support beam, swinging over it once, wrapping up her yo-yo's string.

Scarabée runs ahead, putting the coin into the vending machine and buying a small bag of popcorn.

She throws the bag in the air and Kitty Claws uses his staff to break it.

Most of the popcorn lands on Mr. Pigeon.

The pigeons surround Mr. Pigeon and eat the popcorn off of him.

As he is distracted, Scarabée yanks on her yo-yo, pulling Mr. Pigeon into the air.

The bird call slips from his neck, landing on the ground.

Scarabée, Kitty Claws, and Mr. Pigeon go after it.

They grab it simultaneously, Mr. Pigeon's hand directly on top of it, then Kitty Claws', then Scarabée's.

Scarabée grabs Kitty Claws' hand and smashes it down on Mr. Pigeon's hand, breaking the bird call. The akuma flies out from it.

Scarabée catches it, purifies it, and uses Miraculous Cure to return everything back to normal.

Mr. Pigeon turns back into Mr. Ramier. Hawk Moth swears revenge on Scarabée and pigeons.

Scarabée: Perfect job as usual, KC!

Kitty Claws: Thanks Itty-Bitty! *pulls her into a side hug and takes the picture with her baton*

After transform back Alix makes her way to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery to buy her macaroons and Tikki's cookies.

Marinette, running down the stairs: Alix! You're okay!

Alix: Sorry I didn't call, I was too busy dodging pigeon shit.

Marinette: EWWWW!!!

Alix: I know right? So, are you done with your hat?

Marinette: Yeah! It looks awesome! I can't wait for you all to see it!!

Alix: Knowing your skills, you're probably gonna win.

Marinette: Thanks.

Alix then buys her tasty treats and leaves.

~~~~~~The Next Day~~~~~~

At the school, the design competition is about to begin.

Nathalie introduces herself to Mr. Damocles, and he wonders where Gabriel Agreste is.

Nathalie shows that he is going to be judging via her tablet. Gabriel orders Adrien to take Nathalie around the school.

Chloé was there as well, but only to watch with Sabrina.

She rolled her eyes as Brigiette glared daggers at her though.

Brigiette, internally: SHE'S NOT EVEN COMPETING! WHY IS SHE HERE?! No matter, after Mr. Agreste sees MY derby hat, I'll be the only girl allowed in Adrien's life!

Marinette and the others weren't very happy to see that Brigiette copied her derby hat.

But they had a plan for her.

Gabriel only glanced at most of the hats for a brief second before moving on to the next one.

Alix's hat was before Marinette's and Brigiette's.

Gabriel had Nathalie face the tablet to her hat for a bit longer then the others before moving on.

Which confused Alix quite abit.

Once Gabriel commented on how Marinette and Brigiette's derby hats were the same, Brigiette puts her crocodile tears to work.

Brigiette, fake crying: I can't believe you Marinette! How could you copy ME!?

Marinette: Actually I didn't. I can prove the hat is my original design.

Gabriel: Go ahead.

Marinette: Everything is handmade. From the embroidery to the weaving of the band, to the stitching off the brim. All done by myself. There's a special design that only the designer knows about. *shows them her signature on the hat* I signed mine.

Adrien, remembering that his scarf had her signature on it as well: She's right father!

Brigiette, shocked that Adrien took Marinette's side: WHA-

Alix: Hey, did she ask anyone else about their ideas for the competition yesterday or just me?

Marinette, Mylène, Juleka, and Rose: YEAH!

Brigiette: *runs away actually crying*

Gabriel: Very exquisite creation. You definitely have the laboring hands of a hat maker, Miss...

Adrien: Marinette!

Gabriel: Congratulations on your demonstration, Miss Marinette. You are the winner.

The other girls cheered while Alix gave Marinette a big hug.

Chloé wasn't surprised one bit.

Adrien: Great job, Marinette.

Marinette: Thanks, Adrien.

When Adrien goes to put on the hat, he starts sneezing.

Adrien: Sorry, I'm allergic to feathers.

Marinette, panicking: No, I'm sorry! I'll get a fake one as soon as I can!

Adrien, caught off guard: T-thanks.

Chloé, muttering: You better replace that feather, Dupain-Cheng.

Sabrina: Are you ready to go now, Chloé?

Chloé: Yeah.

As the two walk towards the exit, Chloé couldn't help but admire Alix's derby hat abit more.

She then notices a rather familiar accessory.

Chloé, shocked: Is that...?

When Chloé got home, she immediately runs to her room and pulls a box from under her box.

Instead this box was pictures of Chloé and Alix when they were young, prize toys Alix won for her at kiddie games, and a small cerulean feather sword.

Chloé didn't know she was crying until her tears fell into the box.

"We made so many of these with Dalia..."

Inspired by: @emdoddles @princess-of-the-corner @muggle-born-princess @dcschart @justanotherpersonsuniverse @symphonic-scream

#Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir #AUs #Scarabée and Kitty Claws AU #Chloé Bourgeois #Chloe Bourgeois #Alix Kubdel #Chloe x Alix #Chlolix #Aloé #Other Characters

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peppertaemint · 6 months

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A couple of months ago I sent you an ask talking about how crazy it was that even though they've been friends for years we barely got to know about jiminxtaemin and their dynamic... look at us now, who would've thought? They're so sweet and goofy, as expected, but I love that we get to see some of that! Bad thing is that now I got greedy and I want to see more MinMin, please don't take them away from me again!

And regarding the BTS blogger who wants the members to enlist already, I honestly cannot believe the nerve that armys been having lately. The amount of tiktoks I've seen with hundreds of thousands of likes saying exactly that. I thought they were here for the music and the art? They're truly desperate for them to stop exploring their individual artistry and go back to being miserable. What are they so afraid of? I blame this on Hybe tho and it will end up biting them in the ass

Listen, I'm gonna starve at the lack of MinMin we're about to have. My only hope is that Jimin releases something like, next month or January, and Taemin does whatever the dance challenge is with him. And, that the powers that be allow Taemin to have the YouTube channel he wants, where he can do the vlogs and dance focused content he's thinking about. 🐥🐥🙏

And seriously... the nerve I've seen on so many BTS accounts. I'm on vacation so I popped around and looked at some. ??? If it's not "enlist so the horrible solo era ends," it's barely hidden shade against other artists in comparison. I saw someone comparing JK's Standing Next To You to TM's Guilty and I was like... what planet? I love them both but pls keep them in their lanes. Anyway, the whole enlist already attitude is deeply weird. People are wayyyyy too comfortable about something that has nothing do with them.

#kpop ask #ask #MinMin

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cyberpunkboytoy · 1 year

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7 and 11 !

(for the Danganronpa Ask Meme)

7. You get the chance to reassign five characters new talents. Who do you choose, and which new talents do they get?

oh god, thinking---

Rantaro is now the Ultimate E-boy because I want that to be true.

Ibuki is now the Ultimate Hyperpop Artist bc I understand it more from a personal, cultural level and also it's funny.

Mahiru is now the Ultimate Blogger because she never utilized her photography enough for me. She blogs about awful gender politics btw. She has so many annoying opinions and people continue to like her for some reason (just like in canon!)

Sayaka is the ultimate ballerina because I love ballet and I think she'd do good at it.

and Sonia (because being a Princess isn't a talent, it's an inherited title with no effort or specialization involved) is the ultimate Drives A Tank (I really wanted her to drive the tank in DR2. You have no idea how much I was SURE that would become relevant and how crushed I was when it didn't happen.)

11. Which was your favorite trial from SDR2?

Nagito's sticks out to me because it's the only murder in the entire series I figured out on my own before the answers were given to me...but I think the first trial is the one I enjoy rewatching the most.

People hiding underneath the floorboards. "The Hellhound earring." Teruteru's voice reveal. The general state of chaos that was the imposter's mystery. Man that trial was good.

#I think the trials in DR2 are the weakest of the series imo...but still good #1 probably had the best trials tho. Those ruled.#ask meme #danganronpa

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buttercuparry · 9 months

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I've heard about a bnf who drew jeyne poole as a poc and then people defended them when actual poc were upset that a character with so much suffering in her story was hc as poc just for the "aesthetic". Why don't they ever hc their faves as poc? And why don't they stop trying to claim they include poc in their art while at the same time shutting them down? I guess it's easier to like fictional poc because they'll do whatever you want them to.

I found out that in the most recent case the artist themselves are a poc, so it's not like how I thought it to be previously. But yes there is a general trend in the fandom to HC some particular characters as PoCs for ✨reasons✨and I have always admired how so many of my favourite poc bloggers have actively spoken out against this ( jacko being one of them).

But yeah in this case at least this wasn't a white artist fetishizing the idea of the poc.

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shimenchus · 2 years

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...I haven't seen a single toku blog receive any ask about a thea someone? And I follow quite a lot. So unless you're hanging out in some really weird circle of it... (after all, due to various reasons, toku tumblr is more like a bunch of bubbles instead of one monolith.)

What I HAVE seen are a lot of them still reblogging satoryuga's gifsets with positive tags, even to this day. From what I understand, most of them are pretty sure that she isn't a terf, and are against the re-uploader. However, they're not sure who is behind it. And judging by how this re-uploader has the means to doxx extremely personal info of random Tumblr users and create loads of sockpuppets, anything is possible. (For all we know, that person could be the re-uploader, or it could be some distraction to hide the real re-uploader's identity.)

This is also why--out of the fans I've spoken to--they've been trying to deal with the situation quietly (reporting hate comments, leaving supportive DMs to satoryuga, etc). We've already seen from the re-uploader's 2nd blog post (where they @ 'd a few people that were against the re-uploader for different reasons) that they're willing to threaten others too. If anything, I think the more accurate thing to do is ask why they would @ those users in particular (since by @ -ing them, they're turning those bloggers into targets). Clearly the re-uploader sees those people as either threats or easy targets to have beef with.

i'm not hanging out in any weird circles i promise you, everyone i follow in the fandom are just other girls who like sentai. yesterday i saw quite a few people getting told to "block and dni" with thea-nymo which is the real account of the reuploader if you didn't know that, there were even people outside of the fandom getting asks which makes no sense because people who don't know what sentai is definitely wouldn't know who satoryuga is lol

i get the fear around the doxxing, i don't think anybody should be forced to do anything they're uncomfortable with and if there's people in the fandom who aren't liking or making shady posts about satoryuga and have privately reached out to her because that's what they're comfortable with then that's great, more power to them.

i mean, i never in my life got so many grown adults telling me to get graphically and violently raped and murdered until i called them out on harassing satoryuga, i know most people would not have the stomach for that kind of stuff so i fully understand the ones who don't want to openly say anything.

but the ones who are leaning into the "i'm not looking at any evidence because someone told me satoryuga = bad = she should get raped and murdered because i can't think for myself" crowd can find a tall tree to get caught up in.

and most of the people that got @ by the reuploader weren't people who against him, it was people he was against lol considering neckspike got @ and that loser was the first person starting the "this is a hoax none of this is real it's a psychop" stuff against satoryuga.

i think stacaesar and diamondsketches are the only people who got @ that the reuploader was purposely trying to draw attention to, to get the cult to attack them too, because much like satoryuga, neither of them did anything wrong.

neckspike and whatever that artist's name was (they blocked me after calling me a crackhead so i don't remember lmao) are super anti-satoryuga and couldn't make a single argument against her/against the people supporting her without resorting to racism and misogyny, so if anybody sent those two even 1 threat... well, babygirl that's on them lol

thanks for the nice message though, i wasn't expecting someone else from the fandom to see it and give a response like this that wasn't another rape threat/"slit your wrists terf" type message.

#and for your reference anon one of them was radroller who is also friends with thea-nymo #who said that misgendering a transwoman is worse than said transwoman doxxing/wanting to rape&kill a woman #look in the likes of that ask - those are also the people who have said bad things about satoryuga lol #it's not hard to find anti-satoryuga people really #most of them are friends with each other #only non-rape apologists should get to enjoy donbrothers :)

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lizzygrantarchives · 1 year

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Rolling Stone UK, March 9, 2023

After a decade of feeling unexcited after the critical response to her debut album Born to Die, the greatest American songwriter of the 21st century is finally inspired about her career and life again. Rolling Stone UK meets her in LA to discuss the “overculture”, romance and her new album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd.

Lana Del Rey had not felt enthusiastic for more than a decade. Her career wasn’t animating her like it used to. Everything felt like an endurance test. This went on for a terribly long time, she says, but it’s over now. It ended three months ago, actually. She and her younger brother Charles, with whom she is highly energetically in tune, went to a mall in the Valley with their sister Caroline’s baby. It was a slow day of total serenity. They breezed through the aisles with their face masks on, invisible to people. After they pulled out of the parking area in separate vehicles, Charles called her and said, “Do you feel like something’s different?”

And Lana Del Rey took an emotional and metaphysical reading of her atmosphere and said, “That’s so funny. I really, really do.”

There was no obvious logic to why this change occurred. “That’s the funniest thing about life,” she tells me in her breathy Old Hollywood voice, sitting on an outdoor sofa in a backyard in Los Angeles. “You can pray and pray and pray to feel unburdened, but for no explanation for why and when, all of a sudden everything lifts.”

Del Rey’s persistent lack of excitement began with the scathing critical reception of her 2012 debut album, Born to Die. Despite its hit status with the public and immediate cult relevance to fans,the hip-hop-inspired orchestral pop album was initially mis-assessed by music journalists and bloggers. Her detractors said she was a hack, a fraud, a rich kid whose entire identity was a construct of a major label and her management. Last-minute changes to the album’s production altered it drastically, which didn’t help in framing who she was. “I was like: ‘This sounds really, really different now. Ballads sound like pop bangers.’ For that reason, instead of being assessed as a more left, thought-based, diaristic or whatever artist, it was assessed on a regular level, which was challenging,” Del Rey recalls. “Having such a heavy critique makes it harder to progress in a cheerful way.”

Her ideas were before their time and heralded a new era of alt-pop where Lorde, Halsey, Sky Ferreira and the next generation’s biggest pop star, Billie Eilish, emerged young, moody and sad. Maybe if some people her own age — Del Rey was then 27 years old — had reviewed and written about her, it might have been different, she thinks. That’s not to say that some critics couldn’t recognise her distinct star power. In an article in the Guardian — one of many that circled the unimportant question of her ‘authenticity’ — a pop-culture magazine editor defended her, saying, “I think she cares about the art that she is creating. I don’t think that’s fake at all,” and adding that, “Lana Del Rey can go anywhere she wants to go. She’s going to one day be the cover of Rolling Stone.”

The year of the album’s release, Del Rey left New York, the state she grew up in, for LA to escape the media and people on the street who treated her with visceral negativity. Experiences and encounters throughout her mid-twenties to mid-thirties further compounded the feeling that the world was not reflecting how she felt about herself. “It was like being in upside-down land,” she remembers. The driving impulse behind her work was no longer self-expression, which was true of that debut and, to a dwindling degree, her follow-up, 2014’s melancholic, stripped-back Ultraviolence. “It was not about anything other than surviving and trying to add a little bit of glamour and explanation of how I planned to get through some of the stuff I was singing about,” she says. In the case of Ultraviolence, that was contemptuous romance, being the ‘other woman’, isolation and loss. Later, it would be co-dependency, passivity in relationships, fame and her complicated connections to men, her mother and America.

As Del Rey explains how she regained her former lust for life, she wonders in real time if the way we currently relate to each other more positively around mental health and trauma could have contributed. “It’s almost like no one can do any wrong, unless you’re Kanye talking about Nazis, which is, you know, a problem. But other than that, you can kind of be like, ‘Well, when I was ten, a tree fell and ever since then I haven’t felt that I could walk to the store…’. Everyone has these nuanced but specific stories that are so universal to people, and I think the culture shifting and softening had something to do with it, without me knowing about it.”

It’s a good thing because Del Rey was really wondering, ‘Where’s the regeneration period?’ Finally, she beams, after 11 years she is excited again.

Meeting Lana Del Rey in person is strange given the degree of iconography around her. She’s not in monochrome or sepia tones, nor is she wearing one of her favoured white dresses complete with palpable A-list aura. Instead, you have the uncanny sense of experiencing a deceptively understated human being like a David Lynch or Joan Didion or Patti Smith: an artist who either created a world, documented the world or really lived in the world. If you’re Del Rey, you simultaneously and prolifically do all three.

It’s mid-afternoon a few days before Valentine’s Day. I’m in the garden of a modern West Hollywood home seemingly made of stone, glass and pure light. Del Rey is exactly as any fan obsessed with her everyday paparazzi photos would hope. When she steps out through the patio doors for our interview, she’s dressed in a white V-neck, brown zip-up hoodie and yoga pants, bare-faced except for light kohl and eyelash extensions and with her long brunette hair down like a gorgeous off-duty soccer mom. She juggles a red vape, the keys to her truck, a venti Starbucks cup and an iPhone she smashed on the way here. In short, this is the most normal genius you’ve ever seen.

Del Rey moves as she speaks, with the mannerisms of a 50s luminary transported to a world of Brandy Melville, Sephora and Instagram. Her answers to questions are elusive and seem to curl and drift away like a wisp of smoke, which only underlines the fact that we don’t know much about her. She’s funny in the unsanitised and undecipherable ways your favourite creative friend would be if they were famous, like when she tweeted Azealia Banks, the rapper who started a feud with her: “U know the addy. Pull up anytime.” Or when she did an Instagram live from a Denny’s restaurant with her then-boyfriend as he gave presidential election updates to her and her fans. Or, if the rumours are to be believed, when she paid for a billboard to promote her upcoming album in an ex’s hometown — and only that town. Her casualness is at unambiguous odds with her image in photoshoots and music videos — the coiffed brunette housewife meets movie star — because she’s predominantly a songwriter and, since the release of 2019’s ambitious state-of-the-nation folk-pop album Norman Fucking Rockwell!, widely considered one of the best currently working today.

Daily life for Del Rey is just as basic and uncomplicated. Her friend and the producer of some of her most recent and best work, Jack Antonoff, is a constant witness to this. “Lana is in her truck at a gas station in LA, thinking and writing some lyrics, FaceTiming me, going to visit her friend, going to a different gas station, just sitting in the parking lot in her truck and thinking. It’s not a ‘bit’, that’s not a character,” he says. “People often don’t understand this about her, because so many people are playing characters these days. She’s just a wild soul.” As she said in an interview with Billboard a few years ago, when the muse takes her, she’s writing, but when it leaves her alone, she’s just in Starbucks, talking shit with her friends.

The mystical ordinariness of Lana Del Rey has been heightened by the fact that she decided to escape the “overculture” sometime in 2021. That year she announced she would be leaving Instagram to focus on her creative projects. She continued to use a private Instagram account, where she posts to the two million fans who didn’t miss the brief periods it was made public and accessible. The idea of an overculture — as coined by psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés to mean the dominant culture we try to navigate without being over-assimilated into, thereby losing our unusual talents — was presented to Del Rey by her psychic Tessa Dipietro, who she sees weekly every Thursday. “I was talking to Tessa about feeling that there just wasn’t really a place for me to land, physically and psyche-wise,” she says. “I think if you’re a singer and people’s opinions of the work change so many times, you kind of realise: OK, there’s something to be learned from what you hear. At the same time, I’m definitely not one who thrives from outside validation, other than from a few people. It was very important to me to not have any influence from the outside culture that didn’t resonate with me. I always knew that I was going to do something else as well, aside from singing. To be more connected to what that path was going to be, I just needed to tune in more to my gut.”

By retreating, she believes she has begun to see the culture more clearly. Her albums have followed suit, increasingly humorous and observational in their commentary. Meanwhile, regardless of genre, her sound has distilled into something that is pure Lana: classic and glamorous with her trademark airy, theatrical vocals. She found a fellow partially off-grid companion in Antonoff. “Jack Antonoff and I are super similar in the way we know about so much that’s going on culturally, but we have no idea how. We definitely don’t read that much about it or hear that much about it, but all of those turning points in culture, somehow we’re always aware,” she explains. Often, she and Antonoff will sit together in the studio and discuss what they’re doing to try to survive the negative waves of trends in tech, self-promotion, music and society. “I think even if I was in a remote area, I would always know what’s going on and I’ve always had a little bit of an intuitive finger on the pulse of culture,” she continues. “Even when I started singing, I knew it wouldn’t completely jive right away.”

A spiritual instinct is ever-present in Del Rey, the person. As soon as she sits down, we’re laughing about astrology and the time she tweeted her birth time and everyone realised — along with her — that she’s a Cancer, not a Gemini. “Once I had a thousand dollars, I bought this beautiful Gemini medallion which is no longer relevant to me,” she hoots, clapping her hands together. She’s so impressed with her regular psychic that every time someone tells her that she must be proud of her music, she thinks, “‘You should see what these people in the wellness community can do’ — especially in LA, it’s the mecca.” Singing is a talent too, but psychic abilities to her are magic. “It’s so validating when I meet someone like that because it’s very affirmative that there’s so much more going on.”

This fascination with the otherworldly began when she was young growing up in Lake Placid, New York. “I had fun playing sports and meeting new friends, but I was concerned about why there were no television shows or talks from people and parents about where they thought we came from and why they thought we were here. It deeply troubled me from the age of four,” she remembers. “So, my parents did have their hands full with a lot of esoteric questions. I think that’s just a predisposition.” Attending a Catholic elementary school only encouraged this search for knowledge, as did her philosophy class at age 15. In the mid-00s, she went to Fordham University in the Bronx to study for a degree in philosophy with a specialism in metaphysics. “I tried to get as many questions answered in four years as I could,” she says, sagely. “And then I was taught that philosophy was a study of questions, not answers. There were no answers, which almost made things worse.”

Plenty of girls who were drawn to the idea of being looked after by a divine plan grow up to become women who exist with the exclusive purpose of knowing an all-encompassing romantic love. An impassioned relationship offers escape from the greyscale existence of living out the complicated family dynamics they typically grew up with. Del Rey announced herself as one of these women with her first artistic statement: “They say that the world was built for two / Only worth living if somebody is loving you.”

That first single ‘Video Games’ captivated restless listeners with its repeated, self-abandoning call of “It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you”. Of that sentiment Del Rey can only say, “We were in a town of 600 for most of my life, so that seemed like what the trajectory was: school, junior college, trade school… get married?”

If you made a Venn diagram of people who narrativise their pain to survive and those who make a man the protagonist of their lives and encourage his self-mythologising, you’d find Lana Del Rey acolytes in the intersection. For obvious reasons, young women and gay men were largely possessed by the dark star of Americana when she debuted. Her early music synthesised the all-consuming concerns of my late teens and early twenties: seeking out money and nurturing from men, the ways in which sex (and the withholding of sex) was weaponised and how I resented and desired that, the exhausting and obsessive project of love that could be so easily dismissed by an idiot playing video games. In the female empowerment era of the 2010s, Del Rey represented the pleasure and fun of being a woman but also the indignity of being one when you believe romantic love will solve any material or emotional problem.

When I mention this adoring cohort of fans from the Born to Die era, Del Rey responds with a breathy gasp: “I thought it was going to be for the boys! But again, it’s funny how it turned out to be the opposite. What an amazing lesson to foray into your people: The Girls.” Her eyes widen conspiratorially. “Love the girls. Girl’s girl. How awesome is that? But no, I definitely wrote Born to Die for the boys.” A big laugh from Del Rey at how ironic this is. “I mean, if you listen to it, it’s kind of…” This impression of herself she does almost inaudibly: “Pick me! Listen to me!”

From Ultraviolence onwards, male and female critics accused Del Rey of glamourising abusive relationships. Meanwhile, other women — including Del Rey and her fans — were living out those common painful or toxic relationships. “The one thing I’ve never been spared from is having these normal, somewhat contentious relationships,” explains Del Rey, punctuating thoughts with raised eyebrows or a pointed tone. “It’s not like if you become a singer, when you date people, they feel like they have to be nice to you because if they’re not, maybe they’d be called out. That never happens. They’re still themselves completely. And I think that’s why some people might call some of my stuff polarising, because either you’ve been in a contentious family dynamic or interpersonal relationships, or you haven’t. So, if you haven’t you might use the words or phrases I’ve heard like ‘feigning fragility’, or ‘glorifying being submissive’. OK. Maybe it’s also just trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel?” To bring these narratives into a musical context and make them sonically depressing or the accompanying visuals unappealing wouldn’t work for Del Rey. “You’re writing what happened but you’re also trying to lift it up a little bit, maybe melodically in the chorus,” she says.

If emotionally abusive relationships are all you’ve ever known, there are relational lessons that have to be completed to proceed to healthier dynamics. That’s probably why Del Rey’s songs are increasingly self-possessed and full of humour about these relationships (“God damn, man child,” she practically winks to us as she opens ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’). Often these lessons come directly from specific people, Del Rey says, referring to a relationship with one particular man: “The lesson was so shocking and it didn’t even really take the sting out of it. But I realised only that person with that particular look and stature and cheerful disposition that people considered him to have — that almost made me look like I wasn’t the positive one — only that kind of person could’ve brought me to my knees in the way that I needed to see what else I could add to my life to have a baseline foundation so that I could always come back to myself.”

In a poem from her first collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, she describes desperately travelling to an AA meeting, knowing that she must leave her unpleasant relationship with a secretive man. She cries to the women and rehab teens while she tells her story. Del Rey ends ‘Thanks to the Locals’ with the lines: “I don’t have a pretty couplet to give resolution to this poem / nothing very eloquent to say / except that I was brave / and it would’ve been easier to stay”.

This was completely autobiographical and it’s amusing to Del Rey that no one knows she and this man were in an on-off relationship for years because they were never pictured together. “There’s also a lot of carnage that can come from being the partner to the person who is the funniest, sparkliest bar fly in the room,” she says of this relationship, laughing when she adds, “Now I’m like, ‘Get your sparkle away from me.’” She considers this person briefly, looking across to the swimming pool that takes up most of the backyard. “Everybody wants you…” Which is funny, she says, because you’d think as a singer that everyone would want her, pay her attention, not her partner. “That’s probably why I am interested in those kinds of people because it’s never about me in those cases, it’s always about them. And I love that because I don’t have to think about what people are thinking.”

The conversation moves towards our generation’s current inability to maintain a relationship. I ask if she thinks this is less because our ideals around marriage or commitment have changed and more because we’re conscious of ourselves and how we evolve which makes it harder to meet people and stay together for more than…

“…a year,” she says, finishing my sentence. “I never understood the saying ‘timing is everything’ but I get it now.” I suggest that you can torture yourself wondering if the timing had been right, you’d be together still. “That’s my whole thing. I’ve literally in the last couple of months left that whole question on the back burner. Because it would bother me.”

The metaphysical and the romantic are entwined in her mind. A recent relationship she had with someone entrenched in their own personal problems comes up and Del Rey describes the mysterious way the question of whether to go or to stay in a partnership can manifest change. “I was laying on the grass and I was so pleased with myself because I was committed to this idea that I was like, ‘It doesn’t really matter, things don’t have to be traditional or perfect, you love him, that’s fine,’” she recalls. “And as I committed, he came home and was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ Tessa always says as soon as the person who is somewhat ambivalent tries to put two feet into the relationship, if it’s not right the universe has a way to sweep both people out immediately.”

So, when I ask why the overarching theme in her work is romantic love, the answer seems so obvious, as though we’re repeating ourselves. “Everybody finds themselves in a different way,” she replies. “Some people really find themselves through their work, some people find themselves through travelling. I think my basic mode is that I learn more about myself from being with people, and so when it comes to the romantic side of things, if you’re monogamous and it’s one person you’re with, you just put a lot of importance on that.” It’s different to her now, though, as part of this puzzling mood shift. Now in life and in writing she is orientated towards what’s happening day to day, “not being reactive to what appears to be the reality of the current circumstance and being as proactive as you can but letting everything go.”

If you had wondered why Del Rey released two albums in 2021, it’s because one was a reactive album. It was a final decision to respond directly to circumstance. The Chemtrails over the Country Club cover art was a black and white photograph of a group of women, including Del Rey, sitting around a table presumably at one of these clubs. Some commented that given the political climate around Black Lives Matter it wouldn’t hurt for her to feature Black women on her album artwork (the women on the cover art were Del Rey’s friends and some of them were women of colour). Immediately after being condemned for her response to that criticism, Del Rey decided to create and release more music about the accusations of cultural appropriation and previous claims that she glamourised domestic abuse. “I was just like, ‘Let me try and write an album that maybe could explain why, if that was true, let’s say, I could potentially identify with certain modes of operating,’” she says. “So, Blue Banisters was more of an explanatory album, more of a defensive album, which is why I didn’t promote it, period, at all. I didn’t want anyone to listen to it. I just wanted it to be there in case anyone was ever curious for any information.”

Del Rey’s music once had a cool distance. It felt like she was melancholically singing over your shoulder. Now, however, her lines are played straight to the camera and then knock the fourth wall aside entirely to speak to you directly. There’s a playfulness, freedom and an honesty about her immediate reality on her new album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Tracks flow in a jazzlike trance; classic piano and acoustic songs blend into hip-hop, pop, gospel and choral numbers. Colloquial lyrics move as fast as a Beat writer’s poem: they seamlessly speak to a friend about culture, offer mundane updates on what’s going on in her daily life, present notes on dark relationships. But songs frequently, as Antonoff notes, come together with a “voice of God, some joy or hopefulness”.

Antonoff returns as a producer on multiple tracks. “You have a weird whiplash of not knowing what you’re supposed to feel,” says Antonoff of the second single, the horror folk meets internet rap track, ‘A&W’. “That sensation is across the album: you could dissect the tone of whether it’s hints of gospel or bringing back some of the 808s and the fucked-up side of things. But in the studio, it was just about finding what is shocking in the moment.”

The tunnel under Ocean Boulevard is a real place. In LA’s downtown Long Beach, the abandoned Jergins Tunnel will still gleam if you cast a light on its white, sand and caramel-coloured tiles and beige mosaics on the floor. People walk above today not knowing what lies beneath. In the late 60s, it was sealed off and closed to the public, but once upon a time it was a subway for holidaymakers to access the beach. Cotton candy and souvenir vendors lined those walls. Not to be too literal, Del Rey says of Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, but “would it be a worrisome concept to be boxed out and sealed up with all these beautiful things inside with no one able to gain access except maybe family?”

It’s a revealing query that shows Del Rey’s sensitivity around how she’s perceived and understood has softened but remains an enigmatic concern. “That was a question I had because that’s a very plausible thing that could happen with the music, with how pointed people’s perceptions of my music can be,” she explains further. “Would it probably, plausibly, get to the point where it became a body of work that made me a vessel that was sequestered to the point where only family would have access to the metaphorical tunnel?”

This album is a box of treasures of its own dedicated to family. You hear it in the constant reminders that this is what Del Rey calls a “name-out or call-out album”. She mentions her father, sister, brother, Caroline’s baby and all those loved ones around her to “keep them close in the music” because they’re with her every day. Some jokes and lines are drawn directly from conversations with her girlfriends, like on ‘Fishtail’ when a friend’s date promised he would come over to her house to braid her hair, but he never did. “If people think my music is good it’s because there’s other people involved in the songs and in the process of making it. So many people,” she says, with a smile at just how good it is.

On the title track and first single, Del Rey asks longingly, “When’s it gonna be my turn?” Though she says this refers to wondering when it’s her turn for anything to happen for her, the question of whether she will carry the family line on by being a mother and when (and whether marriage and love is included in that) appears multiple times across the album. As for maternal yearnings, she’ll only talk about the passage in The Bell Jar when Sylvia Plath’s protagonist considers the metaphorical tree of life choices that face a woman: marriage, children, career options and so on. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet, Plath wrote.

“It’s giving fig tree,” says Del Rey. “It’s giving Sylvia Plath, so many figs and if I don’t pick one first, they’ll all wither away and then there will be no figs to choose from.”

There are questions of knowing and not knowing when it comes to love on the album. On a fairground-style meditation that wouldn’t feel out of place on a remake of Amélie (‘Paris, Texas’), Del Rey travels from Paris to Alabama barely needing to wonder about her failing relationship back home anymore: “When you know, you know / The more you know, it’s time to go”. Later, on the delightfully rom-com-esque ‘Margaret’, we learn that The One is not a myth. It was written for Antonoff’s fiancé Margaret Qualley as the kind of song that could hypothetically be played at their wedding. “So if you don’t know, don’t give up / Because you never know what the new day might bring,” Del Rey says brightly to anyone not as sure as Antonoff and Qualley. For those still searching for their person, there is always the devotional love that overarches the 77 minutes in the form of God, preacher’s lessons, and a warm and wistful spiritualism.

In the vein of including the loved ones around her, Del Rey’s ex-boyfriend, the cameraman and DP Mike Hermosa, also features as a producer on the album. If it weren’t for him the album would not exist. Every Sunday, Hermosa would play his guitar around Del Rey, who began to sneakily record him. On one occasion, she asked if she could sing along and out came ‘Did You know’ in full. “Music is like a little bird who is always right on my shoulder,” she says. “Even when I’m looking for respite someone always comes in and plays a little tune and I’m like, ‘Shit, it’s happening again.’”

From then, every available Sunday, they’d record a song on her phone. Five of those appear on the album. “When we broke up, I was like, ‘You know at some point we’re going to have to talk about the fact that you have half of this album. It will come out,’” she says. Thankfully, Hermosa heard the finished album and called her to tell her he loved it. “The water is warm out there to be a couple of different things, so he’s definitely warmed-up to it. He has to be, he’s on the album sleeve smoking a vape. He’s fucked!”

That Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd feels once again so different from what she’s done before and yet a collage of everything she’s ever made — it even ends with the grimy, heavy, original and unheard version of ‘Venice Bitch’ — is testament to where Del Rey is nine studio albums into her career. “Lana is boundaryless,” says Antonoff. “She’s reached a point in her work, which is really my favourite place to work from, where there’s nowhere to go but way out into the fucking wilderness artistically. Go chase radio? That’d be so stupid. Go chase trends? So stupid. She created all the trends. It’s a freeing place, if you can accept it. The only place to go is to be a leader.” So, she sauntered ahead with the bird on her shoulder to create what was, according to her, the easiest album she’s ever made.

Do you know about telomeres? They’re the strange, hand-shaped nerve endings that shrink as you age. Experts think that within a decade we’ll be able to preserve them. During the creation of Did You know, Del Rey continued her research into telomeres and the concept of the extinction of death, wondering if she and her family will be all right, will they reach this ten-year mark? Something so freaky is naturally fascinating to Del Rey. “Why not have that be the focus: self-preservation. Just to stay around and see what happens, you know?” she says encouragingly, seeing my concerned expression. “It’s a good thing — or at least my dad has always said that it’s going to happen and he’s been waiting. He’s very in touch with the scientific revelations that have been happening throughout the past ten years, or more. But I keep seeing it now, there’s been two articles in the last two weeks.” Why not live forever!

She’s excited now, elegantly bulldozing away on a tangent. “No matter what happens from here on out, I already learned everything — I can tell — I’ve learned everything I need to know, I don’t need to experience anything else,” she says. “I’m just really happy that I pushed through all those turbulent times that were sometimes brought upon by myself and sometimes were suppressed onto me by other people and things to the point that I’m just so lucky that my heart isn’t fragmented all over the world, bits of it with other people who it doesn’t belong to, that my head is clear enough to not have my self-will run riot all the time.”

“And,” she says as a grin strikes her face, “to still enjoy the fucking fact that I’m on the cover of Rolling Stone. Are you kidding me?! To be able to enjoy that and also to know that it’s about the experience of it. To enjoy the fact, the fun literal fact, that you’re on the cover of Rolling Stone. The first time I was on the cover of US Rolling Stone, I couldn’t believe it but what’s more unbelievable is 11 years later to be on the cover of UK Rolling Stone. That’s unfathomable. I can’t actually even register it. It’s wild.” Later, she’ll pass through the patio doors into the open-plan kitchen and use her hands and upper body strength to spring off the table like a baby lamb, saying, “I’m on the cover of Rolling Stone!” It’s a jubilant surprise for anyone in the room who witnesses it.

The interview on the patio has essentially finished because we’ve segued into Lana Del Rey giving me advice on her specialist subject (men). We hunch over her iPhone to see a photo she took of a forgotten copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience that she discovered when going through her old belongings. Years ago, Del Rey wrote something on the sleeve. “What a beautiful concept: to have a bottom line of what you will not do. I myself would love to be with someone who doesn’t believe in pressure and someone who ignites passion not just safely, someone whose look reminds me of why I love living, a person whose naturalness reminds me of my own and that beauty is to be enjoyed.”

We sit back on the garden furniture, and she gives me the patient look of an older sister imparting knowledge. Then she says, delicately and so off-handedly it’s coy, “I had a lot of ideas there.”

Originally published on rollingstone.co.uk with the headline Lana Del Rey: she does it for the girls.

#2023 #Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd #Rolling Stone UK #Hannah Ewens

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