#but i mean do you know how many sapphic couples are getting this same exact trope before getting together? yeah

[haught-ish]

oh i’m SO into imogen and sahar getting together… their slowburn is already amazing but it can still evolve into something life chanching

[tuiyla]

Do you have any idea why F/F ships are the only ones that appeal to you? I'm sapphic myself and in every fandom I've been in, it seems like all the sapphic fans only ship F/F ships, and that's always confused me so much because I've never felt the same way. I have het, M/M and F/F ships that I've loved, and though I do often seek out media with F/F ships, I don't always end up liking those ships and sometimes end up more invested in the het/mlm ships instead. I guess if I like a pairing, I don't really focus on the identities (race, gender, etc) of the characters, just who they are as people and how their personalities work together. So I really do wonder why there are so many sapphics that can only feel drawn to F/F dynamics.

No judgement here of course - this is just something I've been interested in for a really long time bc I can't relate - and I'd love to hear your take on this.

I've been telling myself that I'll answer when I have a spare half an hour at work but I never ended up getting that spare time oops so apologies that this is so late. I know the rep discussion was like two weeks ago but I hope you're reading this Anon and that you're well.

I did think about what I could say and listen, could I go on, yes, but at the core of it? I don't think I can provide a good explanation. And thinking about that did cause a small existential crisis haha because what you're asking is literally what I did my dissertation research on - specifically the Gay Migration, but you know that was essentially asking WLW fans the question why they gravitate so heavily towards WLW, alternatively F/F ships. And I guess a dissertation and 3 years later I'm still not sure?

Speaking in general terms, of course. Personally, I could and will answer in a moment, but even then I think it's just one of those preferences you can't really explain. I can liken it to certain colours appealing to certain people. There is an added layer of being able to relate and looking for rep in that sense for sure, but like your example shows, that's not an automatic thing. A WLW person won't inherently prefer and seek out WLW stories.

I'd also like to note that, speaking for myself and people I interviewed for my research, it's not that only F/F ships appeal to them or they can only feel drawn to them. It's just a preference, which doesn't necessarily mean all others are invalid and there's no connection. I have non-WLW ships; they just don't tend to be the ones I go all out for, but tbh I'm only really crazy about a select few ships anyway. I could list like maybe 5 I'd say I'm actively shipping at the moment, but it's more like 3. I like plenty more, and I don't focus as such on identities in those cases.

But I do think aspects of characters' identities, and honestly especially the intersections can enhance a story for a viewer from a marginalized group. And this really is just speaking for myself now, but I think even stories that are now considered to be tired and cliché can become interesting when we put different characters in those well-known situations. What I mean is... the damsel in distress trope but she's rescued by a lady knight. Putting the emphasis on a different, for a long time marginalized perspective, telling stories that couldn't be told in the past, I think there's an inherent catharsis in that. It's that narrative power being afforded to minorities. Because it’s inevitably, inherently different to het couples, even if the same story beats are present. So I might feel more drawn to a F/F couple with the exact storyline and tropes as a het couple, because I've seen straight people in that story a million times but now we're innovating it with something new.

Even beyond what my personal identity is and what I could relate to, representation isn't always about that. I love plenty of stories I can't personally relate to, but I enjoy viewing them and I enjoy dissecting them because they're fascinating stories. Sorry I can't link rn but I often talk about Brittana's transgression, for example, which in and of itself is something that elevates them in my eyes. That's not to say I don't value other stories, het or M/M or whatever, and of course M/M couples in particular or anything involving a less binary look at things can and does have that power too. It's just that my story-loving brain is usually drawn to the juiciness of subverting something by putting two women there, by defying the odds, overcoming trauma, all that. But hey maybe being able to relate does come in which is what tilts the scale in favour of WLW as opposed to MLM, for me personally. But also, just to say, I can relate to certain things about, for example Quick, just as much as I can to Brittana. I'd say what I'm thinking of in particular but this is getting long anyway and that's a different topic lol.

Anyway I'd love to hear a reflection if you're reading this and have any thoughts. Sorry this comes quite late and not at all as comprehensive as I wanted it to be. At the end of the day, people want different things in their media. Your perspective is perfectly valid, and to specifically look for stories one can relate to is also valid. I really think all this warrants further discussion and further academic research, too. I’d like to think I did my bit but if I was still in academia I’d love to do more and just, explore audience and fandom studies further.There’s lots of good stuff out there on fandom and representation but afaik WLW fandom has only been in the academic consciousness since The 100 and Lexa, basically, bar a few papers on Xena and Buffy. Wow I’m really trailing off can you tell why I wanted to do my diss on this lol.

[gascon-en-exil]

Who Can Say if I've Been Changed For the Better?: Ferdibert Does Wicked

This concept has been a bit in building. It started from a much-loved cover by Hubert and Ferdinand’s VAs inspired by their support line and the broad observation that these two are a musicals couple who absolutely would sing their feelings in all manner of theatrical AUs. It continued through my later observation that there’s ample material to carry that idea even further, albeit with a shift outside of Crimson Flower for a better tonal match. Still, I’m not quite sure what to call this project; it’s not really a headcanon nor is it fanfic by any means. I’ve written a handful of longform character/narrative explorations before, although when it comes to FE I’ve previously been inspired to do so only for Jugdral characters. That setting is somehow both underdeveloped and deceptively dense - and I suppose in a way you could say the same of Three Houses as well, insofar as it’s been incredibly popular for fan content of all sorts.

Regardless of what this post is in terms of my fandom output, the following isn’t exactly a Wicked AU as such. Rather, it’s how I would envision a hypothetical blend of the non-CF routes of FE16 centering around the Eagles trio and set to the structure and songs of the musical as organically as possible. There are no 1:1 analogues with characters and plotlines from Wicked, because few if any would exist without a lot of tweaking; to use the VA cover example, Ferdinand might be a decent proxy for G(a)linda, but the mere presence of Edelgard substantially complicates Hubert���s claim to the Elphaba role. The similarities only unravel further from there, but I did my best.

Writing this out gave me the opportunity to play around with Edelgard’s character as a way of addressing what I and many others in my circle have long considered to be some of the major problems with her canon presentation. For Ferdibert meanwhile I got to make use of my headcanons for how their relationship would develop outside of their support line, in a way that mostly preserves Hubert’s delightful evil wickedness. Add some ruminations on how one would splice together the non-CF routes in a dramatically satisfying fashion, some snark directed at the non-character of Byleth, and a bit of background Dimidue/Lions OT5 for spice and that just about sums it up. Enjoy this…whatever this is.

Act I

“No One Mourns the Wicked”

The show opens on the citizens of Adrestia celebrating the death of their emperor and the end of her bloody war. Ferdinand rides in, resplendent on his steed, and is hailed as the new Duke Aegir as he relates to the crowd the news of Edelgard’s death at the hands of the combined army of liberators. The “Are people born wicked?” flashback sequence is replaced with a summary mostly in pantomime of Edelgard’s backstory: the Insurrection, her being taken to Faerghus and then returning, and then being experimented on by the Agarthans before agreeing to work with them. Notably Hubert is not named or referenced anywhere in this song, appearing only as a boy at Edelgard’s side at appropriate times during the flashback.

“Dear Old Shiz”

Someone in the crowd finally brings up Hubert, the emperor’s vile and murderous minister, and accuses Ferdinand of having been his friend. With Ferdinand even more flustered than Glinda since his “It depends on what you mean by friend” definitely carries sexual undertones, so begins the flashback to Part 1. There’s an equivalent intro of Garreg Mach, so one may feel free to insert any headcanons for school songs here. The following dialogue scene establishes the student body in general and the dynamic of the Eagles trio in particular: Ferdinand pompous and eager to one-up Edelgard at any opportunity, and Edelgard and Hubert cold and dismissive toward his antics and just about everyone else for that matter. Edelgard is instantly enamored of the quiet new professor, of course. Because the room assignment conflict doesn’t make a lot of sense with the monastery’s setup, instead Ferdinand is incensed that Edelgard is chosen as the Eagles’ house leader over him even though it’s been ages since a Hresvelg has attended. Neither Nessarose nor Morrible has an exact equivalent (although Seteth can act in Morrible’s role as the academy’s main authority figure), so the segue into the next song ends there.

“The Wizard and I”

Now alone together, Edelgard and Hubert have a brief dialogue outlining their villainous plans for the school year. This establishes Hubert’s hypercompetency but also how detached and professional Edelgard is around him. Then comes the song, now “My Lady and I,” which serves as Hubert’s character introduction. In tones more sinister than Elphaba ever reaches - you know he’d have fun with “When people see me they will scream” - he outlines his history with his lady, that he delights in serving her because she validates his work ethic and gives him an outlet for his ruthlessness and cruelty. Where Elphaba fantasizes about the Wizard removing her green skin, Hubert instead goes full Nice Guy, believing that once he’s given Edelgard her continental empire and crushed all her enemies she’ll be so grateful that of course she’ll put out for him.

“What Is This Feeling?”

You could rip the tone of this one directly from the Ferdibert C support and change nothing - homoerotic subtext included. I like the thought of Hubert replacing Elphaba’s deadpan one-word summation of Galinda with a mocking imitation of Ferdinand's most memetic line: "He is Ferdinand von Aegir!". The chorus can be made up of any number of other students excluding Edelgard, who’d happily agree that Hubert is ugly, creepy, and downright unpleasant.

“Something Bad”

The content of this song and surrounding scenes would have to be completely altered, but they work as a necessary reminder that the plot of Part 1 is still going on in the background of all the school drama. Seteth runs through the major events up to Chapter 9 of the game, including the bandit threat, Flayn’s kidnapping, and the experiments on the Remire villagers. The audience/accompaniment for this exposition dump ought to be Dimitri and Claude with Byleth as a silent observer (more on them later), with Edelgard brushing off the news and eventually being the one to shut down the song as Morrible does. There could be some small side character moments in here as well particularly involving the Lions and Deer since they get so little focus in this story.

“Dancing Through Life”

Speaking of which, this was an awkward sequence to place. It matches up chronologically with the ball in Chapter 9 and the main part, Fiyero’s, is a dead ringer for Sylvain and his flirty, hedonistic nihilism (“Nothing matters / but knowing nothing matters!”), but it’s hard to tie into what’s going on with the Eagles trio particularly with the Ferdibert timeframe preserved, i.e. unlike Elphaba and Galinda they don’t become closer until after the timeskip.

As such I see this song as an opportunity for little vignettes with the other students: Dimitri angry over how Dedue’s talked about and hoping they can share a dance (fitting contrast with the coldness of Edelbert), Felix prickly between Dimitri’s recent outbursts and Sylvain’s showboating, Claude hinting toward the bigger picture with Hilda flitting between her excitement over the dance and knowing more than she's letting on, Dorothea casually taking note of Edelgard’s fascination with Byleth (see just below), Bernadetta as a wallflower who doesn’t want to be disturbed (a setup for Act II), etc. Thanks to one of the Forging Bonds events in Heroes I had the thought that the "You/we deserve each other" through line that later gets attached to Nessarose can become one for Dimitri's relationships, with Felix initially throwing it out at him and Dedue and the two of them then turning "We deserve each other" into a romantic line...and then an ironic one and finally a triumphant one come Act II, by that point with Felix et al included as well.

I’m not sure that the following scene of Galinda and Elphaba bonding on the dance floor really needs an equivalent, although it could be altered to something Edeleth-related. In any case Ferdinand ought to get a dance scene of some nature, so he can try to show up Edelgard as he brags about in canon.

“Popular”

It would be a travesty to have a musical starring FE16’s cast and not give Dorothea and/or Manuela a solo. This song works quite well for the former, and it doesn’t intrude on the Ferdibert development with the aforementioned timeframe and how the lightly sapphic vibe doesn’t translate well to two guys. Dorothea has taken note of her good friend Edie’s crush on their mysteriously wooden professor, and she senses the opportunity for a makeover. Not as exaggerated as Dorothea trying to make over Hubert, naturally, but I still think this works out well. Also, Galinda’s observation on leaders, “Did they have brains or knowledge? / Don’t make me laugh! They were popular!”, is darkly comedic when said to Edelgard.

“I’m Not That Girl”

This song comes with preceding dialogue scenes for setup, so those first. Edelgard emerges fresh from her makeover (given her general hot for teacher fixation, I’m thinking she’d lean pretty hard on the naughty schoolgirl look) to Byleth silently grieving Jeralt’s death - bad timing there. She’s as callous about it as she is in canon, only now with more clumsy flirting, and while it’s impossible as always to tell if Byleth notices or cares Hubert most certainly does. The scene segues into the Eagles trio together, with Edelgard alluding to the upcoming events in the Sealed Forest and indicating that Hubert should meet up with her later for some more villainous scheming after he’s ditched Ferdinand. Ferdinand, indignant about being left out of the loop as he is in canon, grumpily points out that he was a much more splendid dancer at the ball than Edelgard, makeover or not. To his utter surprise, Hubert acknowledges that this is true before leaving. This leads into the actual song, altered from homoerotic via triangulation of desire to an outright sexual awakening for Ferdinand. He realizes that part of his jealousy toward Edelgard is that he wishes Hubert were devoted to him instead, and tells himself not to get his hopes up because he’s, well, not that girl or even a girl. We shall of course leave aside how anyone could be attracted to someone as repulsive as Hubert; that’s part of the inherent comedy of this pairing.

“One Short Day”

This was the hardest song to place in this whole project. The touristy trip to the Emerald City just doesn’t have an analogue in the story of Three Houses, especially not late in Part 1 when tension is mounting toward the upcoming reveal and war. It took me a while to realize that it works wonderfully as an Edeleth piece: Edelgard invites Byleth to Enbarr for her coronation, but that scene is left offscreen in favor of a light romp through the city that further highlights Edelgard’s crush as well as her emotional immaturity in spite of everything she’s about to do. She just wants to have a fun day out and take in the sights and eat sweets with her beloved teacher, and it’s all very “Edge of Dawn”-esque where Edelgard knows she’s about to do terrible things that will change everything forever and hopes to prolong the time until she has to take that step. Adjustments to the lyrics could even work in reference to that song to make the similarities more apparent. An awkward/funny issue here is that I envision Byleth to be totally silent throughout this musical with no sung or spoken parts, which would naturally make them having a duet impossible and make Edelgard’s fascination with them even weirder. Even their gender should be left ambiguous throughout, somehow never confirmed if it’s m!Byleth or f!Byleth. It would take a lot of reworking, but I can see the value in it.

“A Sentimental Man”

The core of the Wizard’s character is not all that different from Rhea’s. Both were thrust unexpectedly into positions of authority that required them to enact a large-scale deception to maintain their power/safety, and both are driven somewhat by parental feelings. The tone of the Wizard’s songs doesn’t align well with Rhea, but once you cut out the vaudeville and do some rewording I could see this one working as Rhea addressing her child (among other things) Byleth at the Holy Tomb just before the Flame Emperor reveal. Of course the dramatic irony hits differently; Rhea knows who and what Byleth is whereas the Wizard doesn’t learn about Elphaba until the end of the show. Nonetheless this would still establish Rhea’s character and motivations as well as set the stage for the impending betrayal.

“Defying Gravity”

Said betrayal being Byleth’s, who decides to stand by Rhea and condemn Edelgard as the Flame Emperor when she arrives with her army. This is another song in parts that would need to be broken up. Edelgard gets the bulk of it, but the middle sections between Elphaba and Glinda could work as a kind of separated duet with Edelgard and Hubert attempting to convince Byleth and Ferdinand respectively to join them. Because of Byleth’s silence only Ferdinand can reply in song; only he and Edelgard add the “my friend” bit to the end of this segment, to illustrate the unevenness of Edeleth and Ferdibert at this point in the story. Then things turn to full bombast, albeit darker than in Wicked proper. Edelgard does the belting, Hubert’s sinister laughter reverberates below her (would it be too tasteless for him to be leering up her skirt the whole time?), Ferdinand has Glinda’s mournful “I hope you’re happy!” toward Hubert, and through this and the reprise of “No One Mourns the Wicked” the major events of the timeskip are enacted in pantomime or silhouette. Byleth tumbles off a cliff, Rhea is taken captive as is Dimitri but Dedue rushes after him, and Claude makes a tactical retreat. Side note: “And if I’m flying solo, / at least I’m flying free” is classic Edelgard fixating on Byleth and forgetting that Hubert exists.

Act II

“Thank Goodness”

A surprisingly tough one here. The core of the song, pivoting around the double meaning of “I couldn’t be happier,” suits early Part 2 Ferdinand perfectly, second-guessing his choice and, outside of CF, melancholy about fighting his homeland. In terms of plot it’s an easy translation too, with the crowd announcing the terrible things the Empire has been doing to win its war - persecuting believers, abducting civilians and turning them into Demonic beasts, consorting with inhuman shadowy figures who can disguise themselves as ordinary people - and the assembly working as a way to bring together the leads of the three routes: Byleth, Dimitri (who had Dedue always at his side and thus never had a full psychotic break), Claude, and Seteth, with Ferdinand representing the Adrestian resistance. It’s only the wedding announcement that’s hard to pin down, and I toyed with a number of ideas including Dimidue making yet another public declaration of devotion to one another or Ferdinand planning to follow through with his arranged marriage to Bernadetta they have in their supports (which makes more sense in light of the following sequence). In the end though I don’t think the marriage element is strictly necessary, leaving the song as a means of catching up with the cast five years later and seeing them united against Edelgard - with Ferdinand’s private regrets the only sour note.

“Wicked Witch of the East”

More a dialogue than a song, but still important. Bernadetta is arguably the Eagle other than Hubert most comfortable supporting Edelgard, because all Edelgard has to do is put Count Varley under house arrest for Bernadetta to sing the emperor’s praises. I can also see her as the same sort of self-centered, negligent ruler that Nessarose becomes in Wicked, not because of an unrequited attraction but because of her reclusive desire to be left alone. I see this scene playing out as Hubert surprising Bernadetta at her estate, angry about rumors that she may be helping the rebels and/or engaged to Ferdinand if going with that plot point after Edelgard has done her the favor of locking up her father. He’s fully prepared to, ahem, “persuade” Bernadetta, but before he can break out the torture implements Ferdinand arrives asking for her to support the rebels’ cause.

Farcical, sure, but it gets the two of them together again after five years and underscores how strong their UST has become in their time apart, with Hubert too flabbergasted to attack a known enemy and Ferdinand expressing how happy he is to see Hubert again despite everything. Each learns that the other isn’t as happy about his chosen path as he’d hoped, in Hubert’s case because his lady has grown ever more distant from him as the war has dragged on. Bernadetta cuts through the tension by bringing things back to the song (sort of) and blurting out that she knows both sides are marshalling their forces near Gronder Field. Ferdinand is too caught up in the fraught romance angle to do more than leave with this new information, but Hubert recovers enough to condemn Bernadetta for her flagrant misrule (venting by inference his frustrations toward Edelgard in the process) and resolve to set her on fire for her treachery.

“I’m Not That Girl (Reprise)”

The Gronder rematch happened offscreen - and Bernadetta was indeed set on fire - and on the Imperial side Edelgard is left increasingly frustrated over her losses and hurt that Byleth still refuses to listen to her and continues to fight her regime. You may notice that I’ve shuffled around the middle of Act II, necessary at this point in order to better line up with FE16’s story and Hubert and Edelgard’s separate narrative climaxes while also ensuring that those climaxes don’t overlap too much. This song is only a brief reprise, but it’s a significant one; Hubert finally realizes that Edelgard will never love him. It’s also kept gender-neutral, because Byleth.

“As Long as You’re Mine”

That segues naturally into this moment. Ferdinand sneaks into Enbarr using his unexpected stealth powers (I usually talk about Dedue having them, but Ferdinand shows he’s no slouch in his Mercedes supports) and encounters Hubert. Their UST boils over in a furor of awkward, impassioned sex and also this song. I like the idea of rewording some of Fiyero's lines to incorporate Hubert's acidic snark: “Maybe you’re brainless, / maybe you’re wise.” It’s all very desperate and sensual, ending with Ferdinand taking Elphaba’s line about feeling wicked for the first time - which will have a dark reverberation two songs from now.

“Wonderful”

Again, axe the vaudeville and it’s a solid Rhea song. There’s just the small problem of Rhea being captured at this point in the plot; I thought about moving this number toward the very end at first before reconsidering. While Hubert and Ferdinand are rolling in the sheets, a distraught Edelgard confronts Rhea in prison. Rhea responds to Edelgard’s frustrations with Byleth with her backstory in song, much more somber than the Wizard but, like him, still willing to rehabilitate her estranged listener. The bits of this song about the nature of history are especially relevant to what Edelgard falsely believes about the church and what she views as her own legacy, so I could see this as an interesting character study on what Edelgard actually wanted with her war apart from dragon genocide. There’s a lot that could be done here in the dialogue surrounding those revelations.

“No Good Deed”

However the interrogation of Rhea turns out, Edelgard takes a leaf out of SS Dimitri’s book and visits Byleth alone at the monastery, only to be as harshly rebuffed as is possible to be without the rebuffer speaking. Then comes this song, which was incidentally the one where I realized that Edelgard would need a major role in FE16-does-Wicked even with the Ferdibert focus. Hubert fully embraced his evil wickedness long ago and wouldn’t think twice about being wicked or being perceived as such, but Edelgard is a different matter. Here she breaks down, admitting that her good intentions were largely selfish and that she regrets that her war has cost her any relationship she could have had with Byleth (continuing the joke at his expense, Hubert goes unmentioned when Edelgard names the people she’s lost/failed). It ends with a foreshadowing of her Hegemon form, the sign that she’s abandoned all pretense of goodness and become truly wicked.

“March of the Witch Hunters”

Another ensemble/vignette piece, checking in with the various members of Byleth’s army as they prepare to storm Enbarr. Dimitri hopes for the chance to forgive his stepsister, Claude has big plans for the continent and wants to remove the threat Edelgard poses, Seteth is desperate to find Rhea, and Byleth…is there. As in many of the songs, the self-righteousness of the crowd here rings more sincere and less hypocritical than in Wicked given Three Houses has actual villains, but it still works.

“For Good”

The song that inspired this whole thing, now with many paragraphs of context to set it up instead of only some fluff based on the Ferdibert A+ support. Ferdinand sneaks into Enbarr (again) ahead of the battle, and their second love ballad is more somber as they resign themselves to their fates. As in the VA cover, Hubert refuses to ask forgiveness for anything and Ferdinand is fine with that.

“Finale”

Wicked reduces the final battle from The Wizard of Oz to silhouettes backed by sections of “No One Mourns the Wicked,” and that’s what comes here: Ferdinand and Hubert facing each other in battle, Edelgard becoming the Hegemon before being defeated and then dying as in AM’s final cutscene, and Dimitri taking the throne with Dedue at his side and proclaiming his intention to do all he can to restore both the Kingdom and Duscur - and that his first act as king is to announce that he and Dedue have decided to open their marriage up. This is met with much manly cheering and stripping and someone (Ashe?) saying incredulously that he didn’t even know they were married. End silhouettes.

The final scene with the Wizard and Morrible becomes Claude, Seteth, and Byleth rescuing Rhea. Rhea names Byleth her successor as leader of the church and says that she will go into quiet seclusion and do what she can to correct her mistakes. This all suits Claude just fine, who tells everyone that he’s off to take care of some other business and that Byleth will make a great archbishop - and also they can have the Alliance, no big deal. As with the King of Faerghus’s gay orgies, the King of Almyra’s grand ambitions are too large for this story to do more than allude to.

Next, Ferdibert does a version of the Elphaba/Fiyero scene, with Ferdinand revealing that he had Hubert spared on the condition that he help root out any remaining Agarthans and that he remain under house arrest at the Aegir estate. Ferdinand was also required to assume governance of the Empire, because Dimitri wasn’t getting that dumped on him as well. They can be together, but the general population can’t know that Hubert survived lest Ferdinand’s reputation and basic ethics be compromised…which in a darkly funny hypocritical twist then segues to Ferdinand pontificating before the crowd at the beginning of the show, reprising “For Good” with Hubert until they’re drowned out by “No One Mourns the Wicked.” Thus the story concludes on one of my favorite things about Ferdibert: perhaps even in this non-CF continuity Ferdinand wasn’t changed for the better by falling in love with the Most Wicked Man in Fódlan, but they’ve both been changed….

[bisluthq]

Hello! So, I am a two muse theory doubter (yes read realistic Kay too a couple of times). Like, I want to believe. I have even tried to force it in my mind but it doesn’t take. The reason is - TMT fails to consider the fluctuations of emotional highs, lows, love and lust over the initial 2 year period of a relationship. Like, I am a semi profesh song writer with a muse. The variety of POV I write from are extensive. Life is an emotional pendulum and our experiences make it swing. On any given day, our perspectives and emotions can complete change for a given moment towards a muse. I can love my muse for the rest of my life but hate them with the same passion on any given day, go to my piano and write it into a song and feel indifferent to it later (the good and bad end up in songs). When I listen to Rep, it’s range of intensities I easily apply to my one muse. Taylor herself saying Dress, Delicate, CIWYW & NYD her true story on the album reads like she is just pointing to her average daily experiences with 1 muse. If Delicate is Joe & Dress is Karlie - Taylor separated her finding “love amongst the chaos” into loving two people in her true story. If you actually timeline those particular songs it’s Dress (a lustful hook up), to Delicate (wanting to make it official), CIWYW (the pressure of making it official) and NYD (the challenge of commitment). Unless “Dress” leads her to “Delicate”, why include it at all in her true love story line up? Like, was it a last minute attempt to hetsplain that song years after it came out?🤷‍♀️ by her including NYD in her true love story of Rep, it ties via the ‘squeeze my hand three times in taxi’ lines to cruel summers crying in the backseat lines (which is also the circumstantial vibe of CIWYW). The backseat crying lines of Cruel Summer ties to the Cornelia Street vibe (which Taylor writes later as a reflection of the whatever happened after the Delicate moment) which ties back to Delicate via the bar lines and forward later in time to Gold Rush via the creaks / wooden in the floor lines. I mean, all this says to me there is 1 muse of her true story - which could be Joe (but that cancels out the sapphic nature of dress) or Karlie (which means this illicit affair on joshy-boy really did happen somewhere between 100 and a million times). Tbh, I tend to believe the later. So you’ll be like okay what about LSS, Invisable String then fruitcake? (Fair call future sleuth haha). Or what about babygate and joshlie marriage?! Like, wbk that affair was at least long and messy AF. Folklore and Evermore were written last year and Lover period was fairly chaotic and clunky at best (presumably because of masters heist). Like, they MUST have broken up (FG, DBATC, Daylight, The 1, Cardigan saga, TIMT, Hoax, Peace, Exile, Coney Is, Evermore, RWYLM, CP, Happiness, TTDS). Like, they all have 1 muse energy of losing someone you love through messiness (could be joe🤷‍♀️ we’ll never know for sure). But many of these songs refer to a third person being involved which screams Joshlie to me because of ivy, illicit affair, the bitterness of “The Man”. Baby, you say? Like it’s pretty simple - Karlie went back to Josh, married him and had a baby and Taylor’s like “uhh, what a fucking joke” and processed it last year through writing two albums about it all. Invisable string, LSS - like these are both songs which come from a POV of self-reflection after hope is lost. Maybe reunited after preggo-gate? Maybe consolidated love after break up into friendship aka Dorothea? WB - quite simply - WB is the model to which Taylor writes about whatever she wants to (triangulation of desire). Good for her, great writing strategy. Is it a strategy needed? Well ya, but only if it’s born of having 1 muse and a very obvious story Taylor is trying to obscure. Like, come at me sleuth cuz I reallllly want to believe in two muse story. I wouldn’t even had bothered writing this if I didn’t. What am I missing?

Hey Sim here. So Nat broke protocol and sent me this one to answer because I too am a writer and I too at one point reached that point in the lyric analysis where I literally could not fathom any timeline I was hearing that made sense due to the connections in the lyrics between Reputation and Lover. I have a whole spreadsheet called “Car Bar Roof” where I’m just trying to make sense of a series of events through lyrics alone and I nearly drove myself crazy doing it.

With that being said, I want to give a disclaimer: Nothing wrong with you interpreting things your own way! I know Nat can come off kind of brash sometimes, but both of us are always hyper-aware that we are discussing what essentially amounts to a “Taylor Swift Is Gay” conspiracy theory and because it’s a conspiracy theory and we don’t know these people, no analysis is ever going to be 100% correct. If you don’t hear two muses on Rep, that’s totally fine! I’m sure we have some Toe/Swiftwyn readers who would agree with you there!

I do want to caution against relying entirely on lyric parallels to create a timeline, however. You’re going to dig yourself into a rabbithole that’s very hard to get out of. I think a lot of people don’t realize that Taylor has been using a lot of metaphors (especially the car and the bar) her entire career. It ends up being a big stretch to assume that just because two events in two different songs both take place in a car or a bar, Taylor is talking about the exact same moments. Like, let’s be real, how many times have any of us ever been in a car? Wouldn’t it be kind of ridiculous for a critic of our work to assume everything we write involving a car is about the same specific time we were in a car?

It is also incredibly easy to construct false narratives when you rely only on song analysis. I’ll give you an example using Taylor’s first high school boyfriend, Drew. Whether you believe it or not, he’s often cited as the inspiration for Tim McGraw. The song Tim McGraw has a variety of common themes with Taylor’s other work, the main ones being summer, dancing, the moon, a little black dress, a truck, a creek/river, and going back to school. If we follow song parallel logic, I could connect Tim McGraw to folkmore songs and, because of this, could say Taylor is still dating/writing about Drew from high school.

The little black dress in Tim McGraw is also mentioned in unreleased Live for the Little Things and The Other Side of the Door. In both Tim McGraw and Live for the Little Things, Taylor mentions a black dress and dances with her lover under the moon. A summer love that ends with going back to school can also be found in August, and Cruel Summer and August are very similar songs, in that both are about a summer love that can’t last and isn’t being taken as seriously by one person as another. The Other Side of the Door is almost the exact same premise of an ex at your doorway as I Almost Do, Dark Blue Tennessee, All You Had to Do Was Stay, and exile, meaning all those songs must be connected as well. Dancing with someone in the middle of the night can also be found in Everything Has Changed, 22, and Dancing With Our Hands Tied. As a bonus, trucks and dancing are also mentioned in Champagne Problems, which connects to Gold Rush, So It Goes, and Dancing With Our Hands tied through the use of the color Gold. So It Goes also mentions wearing black and meeting someone in the middle of the night. So all those songs have to be about Drew as well.

So here’s the narrative that makes: Taylor and Drew dated over a summer then broke up when he went back to school but at some point he came back to her door and they got back together. They mostly hung out in the middle of the night, driving around and dancing. Unfortunately, when he proposed, Taylor couldn’t say yes, and literally left him stranded on the dance floor and is now #foreveralone and writing folkmore to process these events.

To be clear, I don’t actually believe any of this. I don’t think anyone else does either, but since neither Taylor nor Drew have publicly interacted in over a decade, this can be easily disproved, despite the “obvious” way the songs connect. Taylor just likes certain themes. Cars and bars. Nature. The contrast of light and dark. Sparks and fire. I guarantee if you go over her unreleased songs and first two albums with the same fine tooth comb you’ve gone over Folkmore/Lover/Reputation/1989 with, you’ll find just as many lyric parallels, and it’s not because she’s only writing about one person.

Occams Razor tells me Kaylor’s not on good terms anymore. It also tells me Karlie and Josh are actually having a child together. From the outside, it looks like things have been bad since at least the Masters Heist, if not before, and the more digging we’ve done, the more evidence we find of that. Now, you don’t have to believe that if you don’t want to! As long as you don’t go around harassing people we’ve got no beef with you. Just know you’re always going to find song parallels to back up whatever you want because Taylor’s such a prolific songwriter who loves to use the same themes again and again. That’s just deductive reasoning, baby. Thanks for the discourse though! LMK if you wanna chat song analysis sometime!

[fiesta-freddie]

Love in Disguise - (George Harrison x Reader)

Okay so this is the first part of a new George series I’m starting! This chapter is a little shorter than all the rest because its only an intro. I put down both my Beatles taglist and the Love in Disguise taglist. If you’d like to be added to either let me know! Enjoy!

Words: 1k

Pairing: George Harrison x American!Reader

Summary: You’ve just moved to London for college. But your current job doesn’t exactly get you by. Your friend Archie has an idea to put a little extra cash in your pocket, but are you willing to follow through with it?

————

To say you were in need of a job was an understatement. 

Of course, you had one. The only problem was that working at a coffee shop, that got a handful of customers a day, wasn't exactly enough to get by. 

Being an art major from America and going to school in London seemed like a fine idea, until you got to the point where your dreams weren’t turning into the reality you had hoped.

“Good Morning Y/N!” A voice called from the door. You looked up from the book you were reading to be greeted by the warm smile of your friend Archie.

Since you had moved to London four months ago, Archie had been one of the few friends you had made. Every morning he would deliver the newspapers to the shop and in return you’d give him a coffee or pastry. 

“Good morning Arch, got anything good for me?” you asked him sarcastically, as you took the papers from his hand and began to skim through them.

“Eh,” he said with a shrug, leaning up against the counter and resting his forearm across the top “I hardly read the things myself, I’m just the delivery boy.”

You giggled at his words before continuing. “So, what’ll it be today? Coffee? Muffin?”

“Coffee, double shot.”

You nodded and began to work your newly-obtained barista magic.

While you continued to make his coffee, Archie had picked up the paper you were reading only moments ago and leaned against the counter, beginning to look through it himself. “Ya’ know, maybe I should start reading these papers. Quite interesting actually.”

“Why do you say that?” You asked him, quickly glancing away from the coffee machine.

“Well, says here The Beatles are in town.” Archie said looking over at you.

You knew vaguely of who he was talking about. Since your arrival in London the big thing among younger people seemed to be a boy band who called themselves The Beatles. 

Yes, you knew who they were and you had listened to a few of their songs, which you had to admit weren’t too bad, but you weren’t exactly sure why every teenage girl obsessed and fantasized about them like it was their religion.

“Oh really?” you asked lacking enthusiasm “That’s neat.”

“Yeah, says here they’ll be in town for a a couple of days. Concert or something I suppose.” Archie read from the paper.

You placed his coffee down on the counter, but within less than three seconds, it was down on the floor.

 “HOLY HELL Y/N, LOOK AT THIS!” He exclaimed. His sudden movements spilling the coffee everywhere.

“Archie!” You yelped out as the hot liquid ran down the front of your apron.

He peeked from behind the newspaper at the yell of his name, a sympathetic expression across his face along with a mouthed ‘I’m sorry’. You gave him a stern look in return “Geez Arch, what got into you all of the sudden?” You said more than asked, grabbing a washcloth to wipe the liquid off from your apron before it could leak through to your clothes.

“Sorry about that Y/N, but look at this!” he said handing you the paper and pointing at an article that read ‘New Assistant Needed for The Beatles! Interviews until Sunday afternoon. MALES ONLY!’ 

“Okay?” you questioned clearly confused

“That’s all you’re going to say is okay?”

“Well what do you want me to say? The Beatles are looking for a new assistant, big deal.” You shrugged, handing him the paper back and wiping off the counter

“No no Y/N your missing the point. You see, you’re always telling me how you’re in need of another job. This is perfect!” Archie said excitedly

You sigh and reached over, pointing to the article “Arch, you must not have read the whole thing. It said males only.” 

“No no I read that part too.” He said reassuringly 

“So then why did you bring it up?”

“Well I don’t know?”

“You don’t know why you brought up me being The Beatles assistant?”

“I guess I thought because you’re new around here and don’t know a lot about them or who they are-”

“I should still go in anyways?” You said, cutting him off

“Yes exactly that!”

You crossed your arms and raised your eyebrows at his words.

“Well I mean, think about it.” Archie began, using his hands to add emphasis to his point. “Your not a crazily obsessed teenager like all the other girls. You’re new to London. New to Beatlemania. You’re perfect for the job! All you have to do, is go in there and explain to them that you aren’t like the other crazy girls. Because for one, you’re not a horny teenager, you’re older and you’re also more mature. And two, you’re American! So that sets you apart from every other applicant right there!”

You sighed deeply before speaking “Arch, do you realize how many other girls will probably walk into that interview with the same exact story? Besides the ad said Males Only for a reason.” You explained “I’ll just stick with this job for now until something better comes along.”

“Better than an assistant for The Beatles?” He questioned knowingly, with a grin

“Archie, I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying here. I. Can’t. Apply. For. The. Job” you said spacing out the words “Besides, even if I really wanted to how could I, they’re only seeking male assistance.”

Archie stopped for a moment, seemingly to process your words. The expression on his face however, indicated that he was doing more than just that. He seemed as though he was also thinking. But of what?

“Look,” you continued, shifting your weight to one side and crossing your arms. “You and I both know how bad I need another job if I’m going to keep living here. Sure this whole assistant thing would be a great opportunity to put a little extra cash in my pocket and travel a few places here and there, but I don’t think-”

“Wait a second” Archie said, cutting you off

“Pardon?” You asked him, not unkindly

“I have an idea.” He said slowly. You could see a visible mix of fear and excitement in his eyes

“Alright then, Mr. Corcoran...what’s going on in that brain of yours?” You asked with a giggle

“Have you considered cross dressing?”

Your smile quickly dropped and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Cr-cross dressing?”

------

Taglist: @beatlevmania @givemequeen @my-dumbshit @john-lemonade @ineedyoubygeorgeharrison @princesof-theuniverse @geostarr @katiekitty261 @killerqueenisthebest

Love in Disguise taglist:  @motley-queen @littledarlingwellaway @thetimelordmeeps@killerqueenisthebest @lizvxx @edsloveshisrichie @beatlesdotcom @thiccjelly17 @viralwolf02 @givemequeen @bowiescocaine @julessworldd @sapphic-cupid @thegreat-annamaria @casafrass​

[fiere-violet]

I was tagged by @biscuit-drivels. You always write long answers, let’s see if these ones please you. Thank you ♡♡♡

1. What would be the title of your autobiography? I have two: “sadness and suffering because why not” or “she could have been a lady but chose the hermit life but at the same time complains about solitude and starts questioning choices”. I remember you thought of a title for me but I can’t remember it quite. Also, the great deal is what should be engraved as your epitaph (do let me know, I am interested).

2. Imagine you had a terribly bad day… how do you deal with it? Like I always say, the cure for everything is locking up in your house and hoping everything get solved by itself. Meanwhile one can eat a slice of cake and watch some shows.

3. Do you have a NOTP? Good question but I don’t have a clear answer for it because hey, I’m not a monster. I hated many couples before but are they my NOTPs?

4. Is there a movie you could watch over and over? I am not a fan of rewatching films so I don’t know, maybe Anne of Green Gables (1985)? Let that buried sapphic relationship sink in my core.

5. Do you agree with the statement that books are always better than their movie adaptations? Mostly yes. Suggestions, anyone?

6. Was there a time where you could actually feel your innocence packing it suitcase and leaving you? Of course, I have as well two stories. The first time was when my mother used a term she never used before in a conversation with me refering to intercourse, so I thought at that very exact time “what the fuck, woman???? why are you doing this to me? shove those words up and never spill them again”. And the second time is when I watched a nude photo and I went as “meh”; that meant I wasn’t a pure and naïve child anymore.

7. If you could move ro a foreign country immediately, which one would you pick? You know I am a tart for Switzerland.

8. Summer rain or autumn rain? Summer rain all the way! Rain in summer means I am not sweating while sleeping that night. It also means I have another excuse to don’t leave the house.

9. Do you still have your wisdom teeth? (do you still have both of your kidneys? *wink wink*) I have them in my nightstand’s drawer, wink, wink.

10. Oscar Wilde vs Byron, who would win? Byron’s bear

I’m not writing new questions as I’m a pièce d'ordure. I’m sorry. I don’t have that extended imagination either so what can I do?

[drink-n-watch]

  Genre : Romance, slice of life, Yuri, supernatural

Length: (10 – 30 hours)

Studio: Liar Soft 

  We’ve all been there. You’re just ambling along, enjoying your middle school life, being all eager and careless and happy when all the sudden, bam – you realize people can be sort of jerky. So, you put up your walls and vow not to make the same mistakes in high school. Determined to keep your head down and stay out of people’s way until you can graduate and move on. At least that was Yuna’s plan and it was coming along swimmingly until a pair of very energetic, and meddlesome ghosts happen to cross her path as she was just trying to enjoy her lunch on the school rooftop. Now, not only does an increasingly exasperated Yuna have to deal with a couple of clueless Yuri ghosts but just to get some peace she find herself compelled to stick her nose into other people’s business and help the hapless young ladies of Shirojo academy find love with each other. I hate it when that happens…

Here’s a very odd random fact about me. I tend to prefer my manga/anime yuri (not moe…) and my VNs yaoi. There’s a bunch of reasons for that, mainly though it’s just because I haven’t had a lot of luck with the Yuri Visual Novels. Either they were super short, visual novellas if you will, and often not that interesting, or they were plain old hentai without any real character development or storyline to speak of. Not saying there’s anything wrong with that, just that I prefer my hentai…hands free… As I’m expanding my repertoire, this bleak vision of Yuri VNs is slowly changing. And for a while there, the shining gold standard for what they could be was Kindred Spirits on the Roof.

we’re No. 1!

First off let’s get the disclaimers out of the way. Although the great majority of the story is more concerned with the emotional and social aspect of Yuri relationships, the game does explore a little of the physical side and some scenes could be considered explicit (generally everything is kept above the belt). Moreover, if you’re new here – welcome! And also, Yuri means lesbians, so there’s that…

Let me say that I’m a fan of Liar Soft. Not the type of fan that knows things about the company, just the type of fan that’s played a few of their games and generally enjoys them quite a bit. They seem to put some emphasis on writing and have taken risks with very interesting narrative structure, grammatical styles and intricate storylines. Although their VNs are usually 18+, sexual content is almost always kept at a minimum and definitely not the point. Kindred Spirits is no exception, and a PG version could easily be made without losing too much, although I admit that I enjoyed the frank depiction of sapphic sexuality. I like the word Sapphic – I don’t get many occasions to use it.

vocabulary! drives the girls crazy!

In general, Kindered Spirits is a sweet, somewhat naïve, depiction of young love blossoming between teenage girls. The use of several couples with very different personalities and experiences was a nice way to get a more complete view and to give everyone a chance to find a favorite.

The innocent art style and casual romantic progression presents us with stories about love, community and acceptance rather than lurid tales of sex and to me, there was something very sexy about that. Maybe this is a more distinctly feminine way of looking at it, but all the little moments of anticipation, fear and excitement that surround actual romantic interludes count for just as much, if not even more, in creating an exciting fantasy.  

I wish I could whole heartedly recommend this game to anyone interested in the genre. Really it does a lot of things right. But there are a few shortcomings I can’t completely ignore.

just hear me out

On a technical basis, it’s a fairly wall made game. Good looking, fantastically translated and easy to navigate. A new fully voiced version has been announced but the one I played was only partly so, and the voice acting was hit or miss. This is in part due to the fact that the voiced scenes were few and you often got to know a character quite well before you ever hear their voice. As such, I had already created and associated a voice in my head for these people, and hearing something completely different created an odd dissonance (like hearing yourself on tape) that was jarring for me.

The soundtrack is decent but repetitive. What bothered me personally is the actual construction. The few choices you do have, have close to zero impact on the story but merely serve to unlock extra optional scenes. Now this isn’t unusual for a liar soft game but it also means that you have to replay exact same days over and over to pick every option and unlock every scene. This can become rather boring and using the skip text option makes you feel like you’re pushing buttons just to push buttons. Moreover the extra scenes are often a previous scene from a different character’s PoV, which is great but the exact same dialogue you’ve just read doesn’t count as previously played so you either have to manually fast forward it and risk missing something or reread long swathes of conversation over and over again.

this looks familiar…

Finally, considering the length there aren’t that many CGs. What I found most annoying was that there’s no easy way to track progress. No idea how many extra scenes you may have missed and where. For a completionist, this is heck!

There are also some thematic aspects I should warn you about. First, this is exploring romances of underaged high school girls. When they are dating each other, I found no issue with it, but one of the relationships is between a teacher and a student, and that’s just a big bag ‘o nopes for me. I don’t care that the teacher looks younger and is smaller or that the student initiated it, it’s still a concept I find difficult to accept at its core and I just couldn’t enjoy it.

As a slightly more capricious preference. I also really disliked the main couple. SLIGHT SPOILER KINDA…

you can just skip it if it’s that big a deal…

As Yuna, you play a helpful, slightly aloof but very capable girl who’s a little exhausted by all this romance nonsense. One of the rare relationships you do have is with your younger neighbor Hina. Right from the beginning, this relationship is portrayed as something parental. Yuna, cooks dinner for Hina and makes her school lunches. She frets about nutritional content. She makes sure Hina dresses warmly enough, nags her to do her homework and just generally mothers her. It’s completely one way. Yuna never seeks out Hina for help or advice, it’s always the younger girl who goes to her for comfort and reassurance. So when Yuna suddenly started having romantic feelings for her charge I was not on board.

See, I had been playing as Yuna so I kinda saw Hina as my kid as well. The moment Yuna started showing actual signs of jealousy over Hina, I was like: reign it in girl… this is NOT cool. I could never quite accept it. If I had my way it was team Ano 100%.

see – Ano is the best!

SPOILERS ARE OVER!!! Some things also worked out impressively well. The entire gay ghosts wanna watch girls get it on premise was shaky at best but Sacchi and Megumi themselves were very likable. By mid game Megumi somewhat candidly recalls her last minutes of life in her first year of high school, as her devastated mother is desperately trying to give her some comfort. There’s something shattering about how casually she talks about it and the moment haunted me (heh) for a long time.

Matsury and Miyu have been in a committed relationship for years and are running up against common problems that tend to affect most couples at some point. The tensions brought on by the clash of very different personalities as well as different levels of sexual appetite are handled deftly and discussed honestly in a way that’s just about unique to the medium. After all, we are far more interested by the courtship than the boring old relationship, so games almost exclusively focus on the wooing of new lovers.

you guys are all wrong – Youka rocks…

Although, I’m pretty much alone in this, I adored Youka. She’s the eager puppy dog archetype and I almost never see female versions. I loves me a silly deredere and I was utterly charmed. Also, she was pretty much exactly how I am when I get a crush. True story, I was discussing this game with a fellow blogger and I mentioned how much I loved Youka. They let me know they weren’t a fan before I got the chance to explain that it was because I identified so much with her…

Then, there’s the puzzle that is Maki. Well she’s a puzzle for me. I don’t like the kiddie types. Both lollies and shotas tend to get on my nerves, make me super uncomfortable in romantic contexts or just plain bore me in other situations. Sometimes all of the above at once. So I approached Maki’s character (the one on the couch with the pigtails) with a whole lot of doubt and prejudice. But man, this ball of unmitigated adorableness just stole my heart. I really loved her and enjoyed her storyline. Didn’t even cringe once. I really don’t know what witchery she used to enthrall me so but good work! Writing this type of character is very difficult so clearly, there were some talented authors involved.

and some talented artists

Finally there are the aspects that are just ok. There are no actual routes, you simply follow the various couples through intertwining vignettes. I did find the lack of actual romance a little disappointing. Most stories (except for the established couple) amount to one girl realizing her feelings, struggling with them for a long time, getting up the nerve to tell her crush, one kissy scene and one sexy scene – kkthxby. Maki and Miki have a bit of a longer courtship but it’s still no actual dating, more like getting to know each other as friends and the all the sudden – well kissy and sexy. I would have enjoyed a few more  moments, such as finding the perfect gift for your girlfriend or taking her out for a special evening. Arguably, maybe I’m just too lazy for coming up with my own romantic ideas and wanted to steal some… In any case, it did make the different couples feel like they were all having surprisingly similar experiences which takes away from the whole point of having such different couples to begin with.

WTL;IDNYFNR (that means: Way Too Long; I Don’t Blame You For Not Reading…)

Kindred Spirits on the Roof is not the perfect game. It’s not the best Yuri work out there. It has some obvious flaws that could really irritate people. But it also has a lot of strengths and if nothing else, it will give you a taste of the potential for these stories in visual novels.

and that’s definitely worth your time!

Favorite character: Youka – I already told you!

What this VN taught me: no one cares about your preferences as much as you do (or at least the shouldn’t…)

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you’re going to do a good job with it

Suggested drink: a Pink Lily

Every time Megumi threatens to curse someone – take a sip

Every time we are reminded the ghosts can’t go somewhere – take a sip

Every time we are introduced to a new girl – take a sip

Every time Yuna cooks – have a snack

Every time you get a sexy scene – fan yourself

Every time Nena is sleepy – take a sip

Every time Youka talks about rock – take a sip

Every time Hina is popular – take a sip

Every time Ano is the best – cheer

Kindred Spirits on the Roof and The Potential of Yuri Visual Novels   Genre : Romance, slice of life, Yuri, supernatural Length: (10 - 30 hours) Studio: Liar Soft