oh god what a heavy question. a good one, but damn, okay.

i think my best advice for when you lose someone is to definitely be ready for literally any emotion about it. grief is an amalgamation of every overwhelming feeling you could possibly feel at once, and whichever one's strongest is the one you've gotta roll with when it hits. I spent time angry, miserably sad, uncomfortably relieved, and lost. lost, lost, lost. all of it makes you feel like you're going to die, too, but none of it will kill you. you just gotta sit with the feelings and feel them. the only way out is through.

you never stop grieving either! three years on, i'm not constantly drowning, but birthdays, holidays, and the day she died are still "hide under the blankets" days. shit, my birthday's in less than a week and it's already bittersweet. and it's always gonna be the same thought: "they should be here. it's fucking unfair that they're not here." it's true every time.

reach out to people. talk about it with your family, or find a local group, or just hit up someone who went through it, too. losing family at any age fucking sucks. losing them young is genuinely the goddamn worst

also, don't be afraid to look into grief counseling or therapy. that shit's MADE for helping you unpack and process everything you're feeling.

and, last bit: find a way to feel connected to them. i'm not particularly religious, but i think there's a million ways to feel someone's with you after they're gone. i pay more attention to politics and science and tech because i know she liked staying in the know. i watch weird movies and YouTube drama because it's what she did with a lot of her time. i got back into photography because she would be proud that i didn't give up after all.

But I feel like the movie itself was based around a lot of halseys experiences with pregnancy, I fucking loved what you might call the "impregnation" scene, idk, something something, self induced body horror.

I don't know if it was worth the 12 bucks on amazon, but my sister bought it for me lol. Fall out boys movie was free on YouTube and also had some boobs, but maybe 12 bucks is the price you pay for imax and full frontal nudity from the artist themselves. I know nudity is more so relevant for ratings but for some reason my brain is correlating that with the cost lmfao

I really liked it too! I was a bit apprehensive, just because it was such a huge undertaking. I'd also seen Melanie's movie at that point, and of course jumped on the Lemonade train with Beyonce as soon as I could. Janelle Monae did a movie for their album Dirty Computer, too (which I adored.) So I was prepared for the whole "concept album film" thing, and I figured since Halsey already makes very cinematic music, they had a good chance of making a really cool film.

And I think IICHLIWP is a great film! I really loved the whole storyline about Lila and her pregnancy and how that was tied to her royalty. All the little hints and glimpses about the "Lilith" character, especially whenever Lila saw her in the mirror - it just made for a really cool kind of "legend" style story, when it all ends with Lila dying and Lilith coming to life. I think it gave Halsey a chance to work through their own complicated feelings about motherhood, pregnancy, and the way these things are both incredibly liberating and horrifying and limiting all at once. It's also just a very visually interesting film and I love the costumes and the makeup. (And hey, shoutout to Halsey's pregnancy titties, they looked so good 😂😂)

I will agree though with some of the criticism H has gotten around their acting. I think they're an incredible artist - they can paint, sing, dance, create incredible visual worlds, do gorgeous makeup, write beautiful poetry... it's probably okay that they aren't also the most talented actor in the world, lol. I tend to think that she's really good with like, facial expressions and body language, but something about her line reads often comes across as just a little stilted to me.

That being said, I also haven't seen her in Americana. And they were clearly talented enough to land a role in Maxxxine, which is a pretty big deal. Maybe she's grown and worked on it, like you said.