#folklore love triangle story

[youareinlove]

preview of the finished part of the teenage triangle story 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

i heard swifties like puzzles, so here you go

come back to me when you solve it hehe, feel free to phone some friends 🤪

[yunsound]

Chinese Mythology: The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl

Romeo and Juliet? Guinevere and Lancelot? Honestly, even Shrek and Fiona?

Forbidden romance always captures the hearts and minds of the people. Love deemed unsightly or unnatural by powerful natural forces often develops into folklore legends and famous tales of romance. 

We see this in the tale of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. Probably China’s most famous love story, it’s the inspiration behind the Qixi Festival (Chinese Valentine’s Day), which is celebrated as Tanabata in Japan and Chilseok in Korea. 

Qixi is celebrated on the 7th day of the 7th lunisolar month (NOT the lunar calendar, in the same way that Chinese New Year is NOT Lunar New Year). The tale is derived from a famous Song Dynasty poem and also from celestial phenomena. 

^ A picture of the Chinese lunisolar calendar (I might make a post explicitly on this calendar)

Maybe you’ve heard of the Summer Triangle, a phenomena in which three stars (Vega, Altair and Deneb) glow especially bright during the summer and form a beautiful triangle in the night sky. Qixi/ The Cowherd and Weaver Girl came about from the appearance of Vega and Altair as well as the Milky Way. Many Chinese legends are born of creating romantic/whimsical stories out of natural phenomena, such as the sun and the moon (Chang’e and Hou Yi, coming soon- stay tuned).

You can see in this picture that the Milky Way is in-between Altair and Vega!

The Weaver Girl is Vega, and the Cowherd is Altair. Every year in the summer these stars glow brighter, and seem to “outshine” the Milky Way- ancient Chinese people wrote poems about a possible legend behind why this is the case.

This is also the mythological explanation behind why there is a Milky Way in the sky- it appears like a river of stars, and ancient people obviously didn’t know what a galaxy was, so they interpreted it as a literal silver river of stars in the sky. (This is why the Milky Way Galaxy is called the Silver River Galaxy in Chinese today). 

Doesn't this look a little like a river, seperating two lovers?

The story goes like this: The Weaver Girl, either a granddaughter of the Jade Emperor or a seamstress (thus, weaver girl) immortal in the Heavenly Court, is bathing in a spring with several other ladies of the Court. A human cowherd, wandering the lands with his cow, sees her and is entranced by her beauty. The two fall in love and marry (with some versions of the story involving the cowherd stealing the weaver girl’s silk clothes, which symbolise her profession as a weaver in heaven and thus making her human). 

Fun fact: heavenly seamstresses/weaver girls aren’t normal seamstresses/weaver girls. They don’t make actual silk clothes- they make silk clothes out of the clouds and the stars. Perhaps this is just a metaphor for how beautiful the heavenly officials’ clothes are, but this is also sometimes attributed as the reason behind nebulas and constellations, as well as the light-scattering effect around bright stars which sometimes looks like clouds up in outer space- it’s these stars’ fancy silk robes!

See that brownish-green light-scattering effect?

Modern interpretations dismiss the “steal her silk clothes” part of the myth as made-up because it’s distasteful and implies a certain lack of consent. The Cowherd and Weaver Girl are the epitome of a loving couple- their tale should not involve a hint of unwillingness.

As such, we can ignore the “steal her clothes” part- it’s not the most popular interpretation of the tale anyway, I just thought I should mention it to emphasize that the two of them are very much in love- there is no forcing. 

There are other versions of the tale: sometimes, the weaver girl is entranced by the cowherd singing/playing music and the two begin a clandestine romance, and sometimes they meet while simply taking a walk. Regardless- the origin of their romance isn’t as important as the nature of it.

As with many other stories (see Erlang Shen’s backstory), an immortal and a human mortal marrying is very strictly against the rules of the Heavenly Court. The Jade Emperor banishes the weaver girl and the cowherd to opposing sides of the galaxy.

Either he sends officials to capture the weaver girl back to the Court, or he imprisons them in the sky very far away from each other. Either way- they don’t get to see each other anymore.

The cowherd’s cow (which is somehow magical now: either the weaver girl infused some of her powers into it, or some other gods took pity on the young couple and made the cow magical) tells the cowherd that its skin can be made as a tool to fly to see the weaver girl.

The cowherd sheds tears for his friend the cow, who has been with him all this time, but the cow reassures him that it’s just another animal, and that his love is important. Thus, the cowherd sadly kills the cow and uses its skin to try to see the weaver girl.

Wow. Talk about dedication. The details about this part of the tale (whether the cow actually dies, whether the cow was magical at all, whether the cowherd even flew up, whether it was the weaver girl who came to see him and not the other way around) are very iffy, so before you go blaming the cowherd for being an asshole to his friend the cow, just remember that it’s not necessarily the original tale, just one version of it.

Essentially, the cowherd and weaver girl wish to meet, so they try to sneak across the sky to see each other, but the Queen Mother of the West (a high-ranking deity in the Court) draws the Silver River (the Chinese name for the Milky Way) across the sky in order to separate them.

Being unable to cross the river, the two are sadly separated. In some interpretations it’s the Jade Emperor himself who draws the Silver River, in some interpretations it’s the weaver girl’s mother- either way, that’s how the Milky Way was created.

Source: Lin Lin

Vega and Altair are on opposite sides of the Milky Way, just as the cowherd and weaver girl are trapped on opposite sides of the Silver River.��

I'm sorry if you're getting tired of the Vega-Altair pics, but you can see where this myth came from, yeah?

However, their romance moves the hearts of many earthly and heavenly creatures. Once every year, when the Queen Mother of the West/the Jade Emperor aren’t looking, millions of magpies fly up to the sky and use their bodies to form a bridge across the Silver River (across the Milky Way) in order to allow the cowherd and weaver girl to meet for just one day.

This is the explanation behind the Summer Triangle- every summer, the two stars shine especially bright. (The triangle that Vega and Altair form with Deneb isn’t important, just the fact that these two stars are able to “meet”).

This day is the 7th day of the 7th lunisolar month, and is the day of Qixi. As I’ve mentioned, Qixi is Chinese Valentine’s Day, the day that couples celebrate by making grand romantic gestures to prove their love is as everlasting as the cowherd and weaver girls’.

Young girls also tend to pray to the weaver girl (to the star Vega) on this day to wish for a love like hers. I didn’t do this as a kid since I was a bit of a little shit and thought that was stupid, but a lot of my friends did! 

If we do take the cow dying and the clothes-stealing parts literally, the story becomes much less attractive and romantic to us modern people (the same way that Romeo and Juliet becomes much less romantic when you find out that Juliet is 13 and Romeo is around 18). These unsavoury aspects of the tale are also gaining more and more attention among young people.

However, we must remember this was written thousands of years ago when the idea of stealing someone’s clothes wasn’t really seen as problematic the way it is today. Ignoring the less-appealing parts of the tale to appeal to the spirit of the romance is not a problem considering that the cowherd and the weaver girl aren’t real.

Also, poor cow. 

Regardless. Their story is basically seen as the epitome of romance. Before Shakespeare came up with the term star-crossed lovers, they were the original star-crossed lovers, LITERALLY crossing stars to see each other. If your boyfriend/girlfriend is Chinese, consider doing something sweet for them on Qixi (August 19 this year, from what Google says). 

Another version of *Chinese Valentine’s Day* is May 20th, which is the date 5/20. This is because 520 is pronounced as wu-er-ling in Chinese, which sounds like wo-ai-ni (I love you). As such, May 20 is also celebrated as a romantic day, although not one with nearly as much cultural history behind it as Qixi. 520 is a romantic number, as is 1314 (yi-san-yi-si, which sounds like yi-shen-yi-shi, meaning “forever” or “eternal love”). 

[youreonyourownkid]

nothing will ever grab my attention more than extra lore to the TTDS/dorothea storyline

[thefolklorecardigan]

⋆.ೃ࿔⁀➷･betty

city girl, new romantics & mirrorball, eats sushi for breakfast, scorpio, has a collection of cardigans, cat person, bookworm, tulips are her favorite flowers, high school senior, cheerleader, has been dating james since freshman year, best friends with inez, has three younger siblings, the golden child.

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 38

James: October 1, 2023

Well, well, well. Lacey got in trouble again - this time, with Writer’s Delight.

Vivian emailed me about Lacey’s DMs with her from about a week earlier at this point a day back. She wanted to know if Lacey told anyone about the aforementioned DMs; particularly, me. As a result, I decided to try to get Lacey to tell me who the vaguely referenced writer was from Writer's Delight all the while insinuating I already knew. Once I successfully extracted her confession that it was Vivian, I messaged the latter back.

Archer J (10/01/23, 7:59 PM): Hey Vivian. As it turns out, Lacey really did sort of leak your DMs with her to me in an odd, roundabout way.

I then sent her my screenshotted DMs with Lacey. She didn’t react well, to say the least.

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:06 PM): Seriously? After I explicitly told her to keep quiet?

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:07 PM): I guess so. 

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:09 PM): I have to be in some sort of fever dream right now, man.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:10 PM): Well, have you taken any drugs or drank any alcohol in the past few hours?

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:12 PM): No.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:14 PM): Have you tried slapping yourself hard?

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:15 PM): Yes, and I’m still here.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:17 PM): Then this is your unfortunate reality.

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:19 PM): Don’t worry, Archer, I’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time a writer from a publication I edit for has tried leaking private conversations I had with them. It could be worse; I mean, Lacey didn’t even leak that much compared to some people I’ve seen. I’m just..surprised that someone with a small following like her would try and pull this shit.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:20 PM): Are you going to talk to her?

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:22 PM): Ehhh, I don’t know. Assuming the screenshots Alfred sent me are accurate, I think he and Jonathan beat the point enough into Lacey to scare her off from really ever trying this with us again. Me humiliating her about it feels a bit like overkill at this point. But on the other hand, I gotta do what I gotta do. I’ll talk to her later.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:23 PM): That’s the Vivian I know!

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:25 PM): I never went away, did I?

I spent a few moments basking in my little victory. After all, I was one step closer to potentially getting Lacey removed from Writer’s Delight, with Vivian hesitating to side with her. 

However, I couldn’t fully relax just yet. Maria was still lurking in the shadows somewhere with her cryptic comments - one of which I hadn’t fully opened yet. Asides from the one Oscar sent a few days earlier which ranted about some more private stuff from the old Code Javelin group chat (much to Oscar’s confusion), Maria sent another multi-part screed about my supposed inherent malice. 

Part one, which I had already read, was about how everything I had ever done during my online presence has been out of pure selfishness. It was honestly rather unusual for a Maria comment, as she was typically more composed and at least tried to sound somewhat sane. On the other hand, part two was more on par with her usual comments. With that, though, came more worrying information.

AveMaria69 (3 hours ago): Look who it is! Me again! Anyways, this is part two of the other comment I wrote earlier on your video about AI generated code. Of course, my comment there had nothing to do with said video - and neither will this one. Anyways, I know a lot more about what Cori and Sanjay were up to last year than you ever will. I’ve seen their passion, their chemistry, and most importantly of all: what they really thought of you during that time. At this point, it’s no secret that they hated you then. But what you don’t know is just how much time and effort they put into hating you. Did you know that Sanjay actually wanted to find out where you worked IRL and reveal your online nonsense to them? You probably didn’t - and neither did Cori. I’m not going to reveal to you what Cori had said about you last year which you don’t know just yet. But you better watch out.

All of this, from Sanjay’s attempted plan to Corianna’s real name, was actually stuff that I already knew but didn’t tell the public I knew. Things that no one other than my close friends, recent past and present, and I are supposed to know. Given Eleanor’s lack of ties to us for the past few years, it was highly unlikely she’d know any of this. It wasn’t discussed in either public documents regarding my drama or the Code Javelin group chat, after all.

I was about to tell Darian and Corianna the news about what I had just found. However, a sudden text from Lacey put those plans to a halt.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:48 PM): What did you just do?

Ugh, I thought, not this now.

I had to settle things first with Lacey before going to my actual friends with my new discoveries about Maria.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:50 PM): I gave some DMs of ours to Vivian. She was concerned about your messages with her being leaked when I realized you were talking to me about her all along.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:52 PM): For the record, I never told anyone about Vivian being the other party in that infamous conversation about the Writer’s Delight changes. No one was ever supposed to put two and two together.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:54 PM): You sure did a bad job at anonymizing her identity, then.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:56 PM): How was I supposed to respond to your statement that you already knew it was Vivian that I talked to you about?

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:57 PM): You could have just…ignored my DM.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:58 PM): That definitely wouldn’t make me look suspicious! Of course!

Archer J (10/01/23, 9:00 PM): Alright, I get that you’re mad at me. But I promise you it’s nothing. I’m sure if you apologize to Vivian, she’ll let you stay in Writer’s Delight and make sure the others do too. I’ve been friends with her long enough to know that she gives a lot of second chances. 

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 9:01 PM): Oh yeah, she’s still in contact with me. We talked it out and she understands. I could just show her our conversation.

Archer J (10/01/23, 9:03 PM): I really wouldn’t do that if I were you. What do our DMs prove? That you gave a response to a message you could have technically ignored? Besides, I am an official editor in Music Refined.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 9:06 PM): You have a good point. I won’t reveal anything between the two of us in the foreseeable future, on one condition. Will you promise not to lie about or take me wildly out of context?

Archer J (10/01/23, 9:07 PM): On my life.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 9:09 PM): Thank you.

That was a doozy, I thought.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1542716473-lacey-chapter-38)

[maudlin-scribbler]

i have this super cool idea for a story i came up with while writing a fanfic (an AU that's like so AU it's very far from canon lol) and I want to eventually get myself into the right headspace to write it and even publish it (after i write it).

[simmerrrosess]

I know I miss you…

He spotted Betty across the room, her laughter brittle, her eyes distant. The music pulsed around them, but all he could hear was the silence between them, the summer secrets that now hung heavy in the air.

She glanced up, their eyes locking for a moment. A second. In that glance, James saw the pain he’d caused, and the love that once was. Her gaze lingered, not with warmth, but with a quiet resignation.

She turned away, leaving James standing alone, knowing that the bridge between them had burned in the heat of that lost summer.

[folkloregirlfriend]

i love dorothea but i feel like ttds and dorothea don't belong together. like dorothea is a completely different story to me even though the situation is similar, and i think ttds deserved a better second person pov than dorothea

[pep-rambles]

So no one else sees the potential for poly folklore love triangle?

That's fine I guess.

[youareinlove]

alsooo i haven't decided whether or not james and betty end up together after the apology yet (i know they did to taylor but respectfully, minds change like the weather)

[hauntingmesostunningly]

my oc headcanons

!! this is an exercise i’m doing with OC’s i’ve created for fics i’m writing, I do this to get to know my characters better and to help develop them into deeper and more complex characters. !!

(highly recommend doing if you’re any type of a creative writer its vv fun)

James O’Connell from Just a Summer Thing

17

hikes with his dog, sasha every weekend.

a bit of a homie-hopper

LOVES to fish

lacrosse boy (ick)

loves boating, swimming, and fishing in the lake in his town.

very popular

skateboards everywhere

takes sasha on her walks but skating with her running by his side

obsessed with dogs

his obsession with his pup and how good he is with little kids makes him pull hella bitches

has a little sister that he loves more than anything, he spoils her

works at the small business, local-run home depot type store in his town

has two moms

Augusta (August) Taylor from Just a Summer Thing

17

moved to the town from manhattan, nyc with her dad and dog

severe anxiety

bakes to forget her feelings

her mom died of cancer when august was 3

wants to be a baker when she grows up

has a wiener dog named weenie whom she loves very much

bikes everywhere

reads reads reads and reads more

stresses to get good grades

very close with her dad and is an only child

bisexual with a female preference. even tho her dad is accepting she’s not out.

iced latte addict

moved to the town after her dad got a new job working at a real estate firm

her dad started seeing this lady named Claire who worked at the same firm and August HATES claire.

claire hates weenie which only makes august hate her more and august tries to be a good sport but her dad and her fight about claire a lot.

suffers with disordered eating when she’s anxious, and tends to accidentally go days without eating when life is hectic

is a super helpless romantic

Bettilyn (Betty) Hugo from Just a Summer Thing

17

divorced parents but her dad lives in chicago so she lives with her mom and three little sisters

has lived in this town her whole life

natural redhead and hates it

bisexual and demigirl

she / they

lives on a farm with ducks, cows, alpacas, barn cats, horses, goats, sheep, a couple dogs and lots of chickens—though her family doesn’t profit off of it

loves animals more than people

when she’s anxious she’ll go out on the cow pasture and just sit.

used to get in trouble because she’d go missing for hours just for her parents to find her in the fields talking to the animals

refuses to see a therapist and claims that cows are great listeners thank you very much

has a special bond with a certain alpaca named willow

works at the coffee shop slash cat cafe slash book store chaos that her mom runs, and she hates it when the popular girls from her school come in

is a firm believer that skinny dipping is good for the soul

hates the party + drug + alcohol scene with a passion

has only 2 close friends, Ivy and Dorothea; and that’s all she needs.

Emmeria (Emma) Cohen from When Emma Falls In Love

23

speaks hebrew with her family

very successful actress

always cusses out the paparazzi in hebrew and finds it hilarious when they don’t understand what she’s saying

lives part time in LA and part time in New York, though her parents live in Tennessee

grew up in Memphis tennesee, since thats where her parents moved when they immigrated from israel

has naturally super curly hair but hardly anyone knows since she always keeps it straightened

emmy winning actress for her lead role in ‘The Last Star Of Endor’

lesbian but not out publicly

throws herself into her work unhealthily when everything else is spiraling

always goes and celebrates hanukkah with her sister (and her wife) and their parents to see their extended family in Haifa (Israel)

is gluten free

goes by emma because she gets less questions then if she goes by Emmeria

has a dog back home named cracker, who she named when she was six because “cracker” is the first word she learned in english

she always mixes up english and hebrew in her sentances

hates nepotism babies with a passion because her parents had to work so hard to even survive here in the us and provide for emma and her sister, and then emma had to work 3 times as hard to earn her spot in the industry and some people were just handed everything on a plate

chronically late and her publicist hates her for it

cannot follow interview training whatsoever so she always says random shit and leaves a mess for her publicist vera to help fix, but vera just finds it funny

thinks coffee is a sin to the mortal world

best friends with her costar, Star and very close with her sister and parents.

Elliara (Ellie) Cohen from When Emma Falls In Love

26

Emma’s older sister

works for the idf (israeli defense forces)

works as a K9-unit with her K9 Luna

loves her sister but is secretly scared that she wont be able to handle the pressure from the media

bisexual but hides it from her parents even if they are accepting of Emma, Ellie just can’t let go of that oldest sibling perfectionism

secretly has a girlfriend who she met working in Israel, they’ve been dating for three years and no one in Ellie’s family knows

Ellie and her girlfriend Miriam have talked about marriage but Ellie’s scared as shit of telling her parents that she not only dated a girl in secret for three years but also found the one she wants to be with forever and the one she wants to start a family with.

while working, Ellie’s sector was bombed and in the bombing while helping civilians to the bomb shelter, she injured her leg to the point of amputation. in the hospital there, Miriam went face to face with Emma and Ellie’s parents

after recovering from the surgery, Ellie trained Luna to be her Ptsd service dog, and ellie, luna, and miriam moved to the us to be closer to ellie’s family and to start their own.

is very content working at the israeli comfort meets american comfort food diner she and miriam started while miriam is pregnant with their first child.

[divkazkdovikde]

life update

(a vomit of random thoughts)

my insomnia is kicking again, and i’ll be sooooo fucking tired when they’ll call me to the work during the day. but. anyway.

guys guys guys. i’m manifesting so hard rn. i’m looking for flats with my friend, okay. and we found the prefect one. and we fell so much in love with that flat? like we would have each our own room? with a fucking french windows? (french fucking windows!) and it’s only a little over our budget? and an ideal location just between our unis? huh what really oh my god?

yeah yeah yeah

we absolutely must get that flat. we have a tour planned in a week, so we hope everything goes alright and they’ll rent it to us. we’re not the only ones who want that flat, but damn we hope we’ll get it. so, manifesting. everyone must manifest in our favor. oh i’m begging the universe like i never did before.

yeah, hopeful very. i’ll go insane if this won’t work out, so it better will, because no one wants that to happen, me to go insane, that is.

also i’m currently slowly planning how i want to furnish etc my future room. my dad is a joiner, so i’ll have to ask him to help me re-do a bit of some of our old furniture that’s waiting for me to take to a new home. and there’s some stuff i’ll have to buy (really how fucking hard it’s to find an ideal chest of drawers? fucking hard and annoying, i’ll tell you. and too bloody expensive, for no fucking reason. i would have my dad make it but has enough work as it is, but goddammit, just let me have some nice drawers, i beg you.) and i’ll make some stuff myself too. can’t wait.

when we’re at spending money, i bought me marshall headphones last week, for no fucking reason. i absolutely didn’t need them, i had a perfectly fuctional headphones at home already. but nahh, little ol’ me decided she wants to throw some money out, but damn they cute and the sound? oh, i definitely do not regret it. i have the brown ones, so cute.

i’m currently reading a little life, guys. yeah… not doing okay, no. and i’m only at page 100-ish. i actually haven’t touched the book in two weeks. i needed a break already and now i don’t really have time to get back to it. but i will! it will destroy me, that’s for sure, though. also you know what i found out just yesterday? the name jude means among others also ‘praised’ and ‘prince’. and i haven’t been the same ever since. cuz like in the book, jude is basically everyone’s in the group centre of life, consciously or not. and if the author did this intentionaly? oh my, genius. if not, what a hell of coincidence.

oh and, i discovered this new theory about folklore by taylor swift. there’s this specific order in which you can listen to the album and it’s like a whole story based on the folklore love triangle betty-james-augustine. and it makes so much sense, it’s insane. so i absolutely have to pass it further. look look look:

insane. i know taylor said something else about the love triangle, but this absolutely makes sense too. also, i found this playlist on spotify, where are both folklore and evermore in a specific order, and that order makes such sense as well, it’s amazing.

4am now. i’m dead already. i’m so tired but can’t sleep, i hate this.

day before yesterday i saw my friend i have a huge crush on, and lemme tell you, i’m so deep in friendzone, he didn’t even need to say it. i actually don’t know shit. i have such huge mixed signals from him, i just wanna die. we were on a beer okay, didn’t see each other for a few months and it was a spontaneous rendezvous among friends. and he paid for me. you don’t do that on friends rendezvous dude- but like he did it so casually, jesus christ. also when we were saying goodbye, we hugged, which we normaly don’t do, cuz we have this weird history and thus we’re too awkward with each other in those stuff. see? mixed signals! and i’m not even talking about how much i enjoy talking to him. anyway. i freaked out about this to my friend after. then i calmed down and came to the conclusion, that he’s litterally just a guy and went on with my day.

hmmm. i made me four new playlists.

oh and i bought these georgeous rings and star-earings from this one small business and i’m so excited, they are so cute! i have the rings already, earing are on the way, yaaayy.

i really should stop spending so much money. i’m doung that a lot lately.

also i’m going to austria in two weeks. can’t wait. i love it there. but i’ll probably die on some hill there because i lost all my sport abilities since i stopped competing. my lungs will betray me, that’s for sure.

and i’m booked for another two tattoos! can’t wait for that either. especially since the tattoo artist is my friend and i haven’t seen her in a while. will be nice to catch up again!

mhm. there’s so much and nothing happening at the same time these days. it’s kind of weird. but, well, it is what it is. could be better, could be worse. ew, anyway. i’m too tired for talking deep shit. there will be time for it some other day. so i’ll go try to fall asleep. because, yeah, i’m surely gonna die at work today. wish me luck, bye.

[taylorswift-edit]

folklore is always going to be an album that I look back on with such pride, because it was really a different, it was a stepping stone in a different direction for me. And in a lot of ways, it was like an escape for me. I started writing folklore about two days into the pandemic, so it was like, for me it was more than just an album. It was like, this imaginary world that I was going into every single day, and creating different chapters to a story, and I don’t know if anyone has noticed this, but I have tended in the past to write very autobiographical songs. Has anyone ever noticed that? Yeah, and I probably always will, because it’s fun, but what is also fun is for the first time I really kind of took a step back as the main character, and kind of took on the role as narrator, and I started making up these characters, and creating these stories, and weaving the stories together, and it was just like, I think also like a way to stay connected to you guys, because we just didn’t know anything at that point, and I think we were all looking for methods of escape, and methods to connect with each other. And there’s this story arc on folklore called the teenage love triangle, and there’s a few songs that all kind of go together, and it’s about this drama that takes place in a small-town high school centered around a girl named betty.

[thefolklorecardigan]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷james

soon to be prom king, false god & illicit affairs, quarterback of the football team, gemini, thanks to football has a scholarship for college, loves museum dates (especially for the aesthetic), takes pictures 24/7, buying gifts for his favorite people is his love language, dramatic af, high school senior, had a crush on betty since junior school, has a twin brother who's president of the student school council, childhood friends with augustine.

[inmywritingera]

hi there

it’s been a while. A lot of shit has happened in the last few years lmao so I’m a huge swiftie and over the summer I got really into folklore. I was recently inspired to put The Teenage Love Triangle into a short (maybe long, idk yet since I’m drafting) story that I’ll be posting here for whoever may be interested. Part one is going up…now.

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 37

Lacy’s Diaries: September 30, 2023

Today is the last day of September - or as my old school would call it, Orange Shirt Day. Hardly anyone really wore anything orange, though, let alone orange shirts. I honestly always find it kind of surprising, given the end of September is literally just a month away from Halloween. It’s not like Pink Day, where much of the male population likely doesn’t own any fully pink clothes for obvious reasons. But hey - not everyone celebrates Halloween either.

The prime minister made it a federal holiday recently, which means that the delivery of Otto’s packages for Dina and I is set to be delayed by a day. None of us mind, as we all know we’re eventually getting them. But Dina’s pretty excited to receive hers - a box of cheerleading pom-poms for the squad she’s in. On the other hand…I’m not as enthusiastic. 

The last time I talked to Otto, he was wondering why I was absorbed in taking a call from my online mutuals while he was dealing with being the mediator between two Yale colleagues of his who were feuding with each other and trying to drag him into it. Otto and I talked things out, and he seemed to get the memo that I needed to make sure some online gossip I became the subject of didn’t spiral into a full on smear campaign. The feud also seems to have ended, with both of them now about to transfer to different universities. Still, I can’t help but feel a little guilty that I couldn’t be there when Otto needed help.

Anyways, I ended up getting into a Google Chat with Jonathan and Alfred about the emails I sent to them regarding the Writer’s Delight changes. They were unsurprisingly not too impressed with me. Needless to say, it was a pretty uncomfortable conversation.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:30 PM): What’s going on?

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:31 PM): I’m fairly sure you know exactly what’s going on.

No I don’t, I thought to myself, but ok.

Jonathan continued going on tangents as I exhaustedly tried to keep up.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:34 PM): You know, it’s funny. So many people have complained to us about our streamlining changes. Yet no one has been able to give a good reason as to why speeding up publishing is a bad idea. It’s what every publication writer dreams of, right? Being able to get their work out as soon as possible instead of having to be stuck on a neverending waitlist. I really don’t get it.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:36 PM): Maybe writers also care about the quality of where they’re writing as well. I mean, they wouldn’t want their output to be surrounded by creepy rants romanticizing unhealthy relationship dynamics and toxic positivity.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:38 PM): And why would they care? It’s not their work. Unless it is, in which case it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal most of the time.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:40 PM): Well, I can’t imagine everyone would be a-okay having their articles platform a publication where problematic content runs about.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:41 PM): …Are you saying we’re racist?

Of course not, I thought and told the two editors. Although, I felt privately, y’all are starting to sound real obnoxious.

I continued texting the two popular admins - in spite of how much it drained me. Alas, I had little choice but to have the patience of Maryam123’s self-doodle poker-facing while secretly stressed and thinking of more offline matters.

Alfred Francois (Sep 30, 7:45 PM): Alright Lacey, let’s say for a moment that we have published problematic articles by others in the past. Can you give some examples?

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:48 PM): Oh, plenty. I could go into the forgiveness one which is just 1000 words of “forgive your abuser or die of loneliness!” (https://medium.com/jjiaikaka). Or the one about how women need to learn to cook, but men don’t (https://medium.com/qiaocnnfeuisisk). But honestly, I think this one about how cutting off friends in need if they’re queer and your religion is against it is okay really takes the cake: (https://medium.com/qjajsjsjsiowowowow). 

Alfred Francois (Sep 30, 7:49 PM): We at Writer’s Delight are all busy with hundreds of submissions per day. I understand your frustration, but it’s not like we actually condone what we skim through. 

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:50 PM): I do get that. That’s why I think getting more editors is probably a better solution than whatever automated checkers you’re primarily planning on using. 

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:51 PM): You know I am the owner and chief editor at Writer’s Delight, right? I’d much rather not have to lose a writer, but I will do what I have to do if worse comes to worst.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:52 PM): Am I being kicked out?

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:53 PM): Not for now. But you better be careful with pulling nonsense.

Alfred Francois (Sep 30, 7:54 PM): Jonathan, please don’t do anything rash. Our publication really doesn’t need more complaints rolling in because another writer thought poorly of our hard decisions.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:56 PM): We’re going to discuss this someplace else, Alfred.

To lighten up my mood a bit, I texted Betty and Carol. Carol spent some time discussing her mix of mild frustration and amusement at her little brother’s antics at school recently where his drawing of a ball was mistaken for a bomb. Betty showed us an abstract painting she was working on for her art class - which she otherwise increasingly started to find boring. I then vented some of my frustrations about my experiences with Jonathan and Alfred without revealing their names.

Lacey Hannah (09/30/23, 8:04 PM): Have y’all ever had bad experiences with editors at Medium publications where they’re really condescending and take you so out of context that whatever context was there is practically gone from their own twisted narrative of you?

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:05 PM): Lemme guess, this is about another Charlie situation?

Lacey Hannah (09/30/23, 8:06 PM): It doesn’t involve him, but it’s kinda like that.

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:08 PM): You’re going to meet a lot of people like him as you grow on Medium. Not great, but it could be worse. If you can’t handle that, be grateful that you’re not a publication admin like I am. God, are some of the people I’ve brought in over the years obnoxious. 

Lacey Hannah (09/30/23, 8:10 PM): True, I guess. 

Lovergirl (09/30/23, 8:12 PM): Carol, just because your job sucks sometimes doesn’t mean that Lacey can’t express her thoughts and feelings.

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:13 PM): I’m not saying she can’t. But she has to understand that trying to become a popular writer in large publications has drawbacks she can’t avoid. And the more power she has, the more responsibilities as well. She might as well choose another online community if she can’t tolerate the more unsavory people around here.

Lovergirl (09/30/23, 8:14 PM): Is that a Spider-Man reference?

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:15 PM): Sort of.

Does Carol really not think I’m suited for this? I wondered to myself. 

I was about to log out of my Discord account when I got a message from Archer.

Archer J (09/30/23, 8:20 PM): Did you say anything about Vivian?

Uh oh, I feared. He might have put two and two together somewhere.

I sent him a quick reply explaining that I didn’t reveal her name anywhere - just a vague account of events to some people that was never even supposed to spread as much as it did. He didn’t respond for a while, so I eventually logged out for real. Needless to say, I am not looking forward to what happens next when it comes to Writer’s Delight and me.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1540569093-lacey-chapter-37)