#i wrote it way back in. march. 2020

[bigboobshaunt]

The way Ruki's character arc accidentally feels like a commentary on the "hypercompetent badass female character with no personality" stereotype that formed largely years after her is very interesting to me, and that perception meant that her journey as a character seems to be accepted a lot better now than it ever was a few years after the show ended and all the way to the 2010's (at least that I saw, and I saw a lot of people saying it was a "downgrade" back then.)

It's not just because the way she was at the start already displayed a lot more interiority than a lot of characters with her archetype ever did (especially when talking about female characters around her time and even more so in a franchise that vied primarily an audience of young boys... you got why she was the way she was and the walls she erected around herself) but also because the way she develops is both natural and in some ways surprisingly subtle, which I guess fits Tamers quite well - her empathy for Impmon and how she sees him after his fuckups is pretty clearly meant to parallel how she was at the start of the show and displays how far she's come that she's able to demonstrate acts of kindness towards others at no personal gain.

This all coincides with her shift to being someone who deeply cares about her friends, and not coincidentally her Mega form when fused with her partner Digimon is focused on supporting her allies instead of the offense-based build she favored at the start... this is all to say that yes, even though the shirt with the whole heart is significantly less iconic than her broken heart shirt, the scene in which she gets it to match the one her mom bought always made me tear up... my baby is all grown up and ready to be vulnerable (but she's still snarky as is her right and we love her for it.)

[f-t-e]

I started watching SUPERNATURAL in November 2020. I know, I know. My partner and I had been isolating alone since March. The timing felt right. I went though a wild amount of upheaval and trauma over the next year and SPN was there for me through it all. It was THE show at THE time and it kept me afloat when I needed it the most. Since November 2021 I've written just about 110,000 words of SPN fanfic, a number that seems unbelievable to me, and that too has been a real blessing to my creative life, no matter what haters say. (why didn't I write my own novels in that time? Because I have a hobby, Karen, and I love it.) And I've read about 500000x that much fanfic, which has been the biggest blessing of all. (ETA: oh right, if you want to read my fic, you can find my stuff here, I wrote a fic where Dean reads books. Lots of books.)

I know I'm a nobody in this fandom but I thought on this, our #DestielDay, I would submit my own humble rec list. I've curated this very deliberately: every fic here has just about 4000 hits or less (most under 3000) and all were published in 2020 or after. So, sort of a rec list for some lesser known and newer fics, something you maybe haven't stumbled on yet. Especially thank you to @jewishcharliebradbury, her rec lists gave me a place to start back in the day and I have tried to model the depth and quality they brought to their lists. I tried to link to everyone's tumblr, but if I missed one, let me know.

Most of all, thank you to everyone who has EVER created something for this fandom, from 2005 to 2023. I am so thankful and, honestly, honored to be among your number. You're not supposed to be cringe and say a show saved your life...but SUPERNATURAL saved me, it really did. See y'all when the movie/reboot drops, to quote Ryan Gosling in The Notebook: IT WASN'T OVER, IT STILL ISN'T OVER. And I'm glad.

-----

Finale Fix-It & S15 and Beyond

What The Moon Was Saying by Amiril (@runawaymarbles)

This is hands-down one of the coolest “Dean Rescues Cas from the Empty” fics I have ever read and the concept is brilliantly structured to mirror the literal and metaphorical things Dean needs to give up and let go to get free. Every scenario is very satisfying and they make sense, is there any better feeling? Dean is very open in this, but in a believable way that still has edges. And, oh, the reunion is so good. Plus all the family stuff. Just excellent, exactly what you want in a fic like this: lovely, well-written, smart, fulfilling, all the pieces clicking, the show but better.

Awake and Annoying by skycruise

I love the use and passage of time in this one, it has some real impact, and I love the way Dean gets into the Empty (so smart, fits just right) and what I REALLY love in this one is the way it lets Dean be really clear-eyed and honest about his relationship with Sam, both the strengths and the weaknesses. And the last line, very clever and moving inverse of one of fandom’s favorite things. 

Living the life you chose by allthismusic

THEEEEE post finale Sam Winchester-Outsider-POV this fandom needs. Sam is absolutely awesome in this, the most believable, loving, realistic mix of “I knew all along” and “I had no idea” versions of Sam, landing somewhere I think that’s really true and in character. It fills in and develops so many gaps and silences in what the show let Sam know in the absolute best way. Best Brother Sam is a weakness of mine and he really shines here, there for Dean in the best ways but also coming into his own, I love it so very much. (this author also has a very great 2022 Big Bang fic, hugely recommend that one too.)

your ear to the wound that whispers by EmandFandems (@lazarusemma)

Who doesn’t love a HANDPRINT FIC?!? And boy this is such a good one. It follows Dean and his thoughts on the handprint from the first touch all the way to fixing the finale and it simply buzzes with longing and desire, tenderness and rawness. It’s great insight in lot of ways into Dean’s journey. It’s short but fulfilling and oh that very perfect last line. (this author also has a lot of great Jupernatural content.)  

Somewhere Off in the Dark by magickastiel 

Another awesome fic that traces Dean’s shifting/growing feelings for Cas from when he shows up in his hotel rooms to a HEA fix it after canon. Dean, again, is handled so deftly in this one, his confusion and sorrow at all the times Cas is slipping away from him all the way through the things he won’t let himself know. He feels really true in this one, sharp and tender in the best Dean ways. Also it has an agonizingly romantic end, you love to end up there.

Pins and Feathers by theskywasblue (@buttherewasnogod)

This author has so many freaking good SPN fics, omg it was almost impossible to pick just one to include on this list. Go treat yourself with their entire list because there’s so much good stuff there! But this one, oh I am a sucker for a finale fix-it that lets Dean be this tender. While I LOVE fics where he just jumps right into Cas’s arms (and write them lol) I also feel like this is so true to Dean too: that “maybe I misunderstood, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, maybe he doesn’t still –” And on top of all that, it’s a “they go the beach” fic and it gets the details of it so right, sand in your toes and all. Tender, amazing slow-burn, real, hot, full of heart and longing and everything unspoken and just waiting. Very satisfying!

i loved you first by kalmialatifolia

A set of four short fics that create an entire world of feeling and emotion. These feel like little whispered stories told under the covers, very atmospheric. There’s one very sexy one, a haircutting one (so good) and they’re just intimate. All together a great set and did I mention they’re in the “Cas saves himself” genre which is mmmm an underrated treasure.

no other faith is light enough for this place by anonymous 

A fix-it fic that has a particularly unique and beautiful visual of both how and why Cas comes back. The mechanics behind it are fairly standard but the way this author creates the visual of it, the sheer emotion and force behind it and how it happens, it really stood out to me and stuck with me. It’s Dean being brave enough to really feel and the way that just blossoms – lovely, aching, full-tilt wonderful.

 no proof, one touch by TakeThisWaltz (@watchinghimrakeleaves)

One thing I absolutely cannot get enough of is fic where Cas is hiding out from Dean in heaven. It just hits. And the only thing better is Dean chasing him down and the WAY he does it in this fic, methodically and – well the method (sobs) it is so endearing and OBVIOUS and gives Dean a chance to shout in all the best ways. This one is just real sweet and kind of goofy and if they have to be in heaven, I want them to still be these same two dorks.

Stay by redbrickrose

This is a post S15x18 from Cas’s POV and I think it’s very true to where he would be in the moment of getting yanked out of the Empty: resigned, hesitant about what he has in front of him, still a little in shock. And then. And then. Sweet and simple and Dean gets a chance to say, say, say it. This author has a good post series AU and a lovely little spate of S15 codas, all good. And then wrote this in real-time in the week after 15x18 Despair and right before 15x19 Inherit the Earth aired (could you just sob over the possibilities?!) and then hasn’t wrote anything since and that’s a shame but, like, yeah I get it.

like a one-two punch by Muir_Wolf (@muirmarie)

Don’t you love a short fic that feels like it’s a whole novel? This goes AU after 14x20 Moriah but it is a truly delightful twist on how Chuck could’ve reacted there and it makes Dean sharp as a knife, which is one really resonant image woven through this fic. Great imagery here and so many clever solutions for the lazy plotting of S15, including simply one of my all-time favorites in any fic ever solutions to Cas’s deal (genius) and getting rid of Chuck. Brilliant like a puzzle box yet still full of so much fucking joy.

maybe i like pleasure pain by tothewillofthepeople (@kvothes)

The fact that this was written in October 2023 and is so agonizingly good fills my heart with joy and tells me Destiel will never die lol. Cas, in particular, is great in this – he’s having a hard time adjusting to being in a body and with all the fuzz of the world. I love fics where Cas struggles with coming back from the Empty and this uses a really unique approach to it: Cas facing sensory overload and not knowing how to feel but wanting it all. Lovely, hot, Dean is just right in this too.

Earlier Canon (pre S15)

Proverbs 13:12 by starlingcas (@angelcasendgame)

Many might say I am biased because Renu has beta’ed everything I have written in the SPN fandom and they can read my brain and make everything I write better. But it’s not just that. Renu has done something beautiful and delicate in this fic, which is about Dean and Cas getting trapped in a net together (forced proximity trope, yes please) and weaves a web of its own; pulling you in just as they are pulled together. This is set mostly in early S14 (before fixing the finale in the most heart-healing way) and captures that feeling so well. There’s so much that’s unsaid between them yet still conveyed and Renu absolutely nails that, along with the tender longing that was always there. This is a fic to relish.

you may tire of me (as our december sun is setting) by deludedfantasy

You know how the show just sometimes is like “uh so anyway uh then Cas…uh…left.” and it just doesn’t make one lick of sense? FINALLY FINALLY a fic where Dean says “I’ll go with you,” and then goes because he actually would do that. This is a post Tombstone fic so it is exactly where/when he WOULD go and it is tender and hesitant and aching in just all the ways it would be between the two of them at this time. It’s about needing to keep someone in sight, it’s about having another chance to say something so important, it’s slow and soft and just right for the characters in this place. I could read this one about 100 times.

the anatomy of flightless birds by cowlovely (@dollhousemary)

This fic is basically the way you feel when you get all cozy and snug underneath your favorite blanket. This is a domestic-life-in-the Bunker S9 fic where everyone behaves like they are in character and not just like they have to get Cas off screen because the writers panicked. You’ll just want to curl up in this fic and savor it the way you wrap your fingers around a hot beverage on a very cold day, there’s no better way to describe it.

virtue by JenTheSweetie

I think I’ve read this about 100 times and it still gets me everytime? It’s a five things fic about Dean and Cas hooking up and it’s all you’ve ever wished for. This is set in an amorphous S8 and it is not just agonizingly hot but also romantic and very funny. It feels really in character! Sam is hilarious, Dean is clueless but bowled over and letting himself be swept up, Cas is delighting in every second and smarter than he lets on and it ALL feels fated and lovely and sexy and just splendid. (this author only has 3 SPN fics but they are all so good and if you try sometimes, well you just might find is an absolutely brilliant deconstruction of Dean learning the differences between “needing” and “wanting.”)

Romance at the Motel 6 by shelia_amour 

This fic makes me feel like Stefon from SNL. This fic has everything: Cas and Sam pretending to be married, just the right amount of jealous Dean, Dean randomly pretending to be married to Cas, Dean realizing maybe this isn’t so fake after all, motel vibes, Cas in Dean’s clothes, Cas getting bee slippers. If you are not sold on this already, we are very different people. So good, aches just right. (set in a kind of “whenever” of canon, but I like to put it somewhere in S8.)

que sera sera by Purple_Starflower (@hauntedpearl)

The epitome of how fanfic unfolds for us all the things that COULD happen. You can’t PROVE to me Dean and Cas never snuck off to snuggle and feed Dean’s touch-starvation early in S13. I had to check when I finished because I just couldn’t believe this fic was under 4000 words because it feels so full of touch, longing, the things unspoken, and all the ways Dean was reaching, reaching, reaching. The best kind of ache, and everything by this author is lovely. 

the hard edge that you’re settling for by lesspopped (@trekkiedean)

This is some S10 Demon!Dean that made my stomach hurt and my heart ache and I absolutely loved it and I absolutely hated it and it all felt so REAL with who Demon!Dean was and could have been. There’s a TW for mildly dubious consent in this, but to me, Cas was so agonizingly true to who he was/where he was at this point in canon too. This fic is gloriously, claustrophobically intimate. I say unbearable because as a reader you know that this closeness, this intimacy, is what Dean wants/craves/deserves but can only give himself as a demon and the author does an exquisite job at getting all that across. Hurts so good! 

four of swords by sundryvillians (eurythmix) (@perenial)

Can the world ever have enough post 12x12 fic? The answer is, of course, no. Dean and Cas bake bread and in the soft space of creating something with their own hands, get so close to the words Cas said. It’s about healing and anger and making something just because you are so tired of everything breaking. If that alone isn’t enough to convince you, let me also throw in this is another one of those “possible off-screen moments in canon” that gives them something honest and tender and raw and it feels so very possible. 

Fifteen Prayers From the Faithless by koyas_cat

Short, achy, that sweet sting. A set of prayers for Cas from the beginning to the end, full of all the things Dean doesn’t let himself say outloud and just reflecting the changes in their connection over alllll the years. So good.

[hachibani]

i'd never seen a dog tear up

I don't think i ever wrote about it here but Bianca died on march 5th of 2021, she got diagnosed cancer in 2020 just before lockdown and major pandemic events and unfortunately every treatment I could get her in such times were not enough or too late and the moment her metastasis became unresponsive to pain medicine i decided to let her go

i know i didn't talk about her a lot here since twitter became my main site of activity for years but i remember when she had her accident back in 2016 i posted about her here too, i got a lot of support and commissions to pay for her treatment and thankfully i got support as well when i opened comms there to pay for her chemo and surgeries, and for that i will always be thankful. I don't know why but I kind of had thought if I ever post about Bianca again here in this little old blog it'd be about her beating her cancer, something happy

i really regret the fact i didn't post more about her when she was alive and once she died my depression got so bad i was either unavailable or tried to ignore the pain by focusing on personal work... to this day it still hurts to think of everything that i could or should have done even if there's no way i cannot go back in time

losing bianca after almost 13 years of being together and more than half of my life at the time with her was more traumatic than i'd like to admit, so i try to rationalize little things like not being able to replace her picture even after so long, the most i've done is sell her stroller and i still kind of regret that haha;; but neither of her brothers fit in and at some point it became too much of a reminder of her illness and last days it felt like i had to, but just that one

(even thinking she was part of my life for 1/2+ of it and that that fraction will become smaller as time passes feels so wrong it might make me cry again)

i didn't get to draw her as much as i wished either, i thought i could never capture her cuteness (i still struggle) but since i drew her again on her first death anniversary i thought "i could somewhat get her to look cute" and i try to draw her looking like this from then on https://twitter.com/hachibani/status/1500315555215126536

because of her i started drawing pets more often, my goal for this year was to draw her at least once a month but... i didn't draw her at all in february, i think i'd like to make up and draw her again this month if my free time allows it, i never thought i'd get to complete a comic (albeit short) about these feelings i've had, i have still, i don't know for how long i'll have

doing personal art like this has never been easy but i somehow feel less heavy now, maybe it's bc of the wall of text i'm leaving haha

[watsondcsj]

SINSON IS JON KENT

Not metaphorically. Not philosophically. Canonically. Solicits dropped last week, and to my dismay, the description of Sinister Sons #6 mentioned no addition of a third kid joining the story as I had surmised previously. It took me a bit to figure out what it meant, but we got there. I have been convinced since March 2022 that DC was eventually going to pull the old switcheroo and reinstate the better™️ Jon Kent into the main canon after Tomasi's Superman & Robin Special gave us a really strange and kinda stilted adventure of Jon and Damian in the Fortress of Solitude. That book took me two months to figure out what it was saying: two versions of Jon Kent were coming. I didn't know when. I didn't know how, but I knew this promise would be upheld.

1. Vibe Check

Ever since Bendis was on the outs in 2020, DC has hinted very un-subtlely that everything he and Dan DiDio had planned was going out of the window from Drake to 5G. Super Sons megafans might remember that one time Bendis tweeted that your favorite comics were ass and the upcoming Legion book was the second coming of Christ. They might also remember that Challenge of the Super Sons opens with an inside joke mocking that very same tweet.

But Tomasi wasn't alone. Bendis himself would bemoan the future in his Justice League run, implying that nothing he had planned would come to pass.

The wheels of change were turning even back in 2020/2022. I was so confident in this that I wrote a gigantic essay (that I won an award for) before Dark Crisis had released, and I listed all of this out and much more before. At the time, I was convinced that we'd have two Jons by the time Dark Crisis ended. Alas, it's two years later, and no such luck. I still stand by the premise of that essay; that Superman: Son of Kal-El was an apology to readers for mistreating a fan-favorite character. I was incorrect in my assumption that the teenager Jon Kent we'd been told was the same one that had left Earth with Jor-El in Bendis's Man of Steel mini was actually the New 52 Superboy or his original, Jonathan Lane Kent. Although we have yet to be told his full name since Bendis essentially became the DC Comics showrunner, we are still supposed to assume our newest Superman is Jonathan Samuel Kent, but I know better. He's not the Jon born during Convergence. Son of Kal-El showed us he was born in the Fortress of Solitude like they showed off in Superman Reborn, not the Flashpoint Batcave. It's important to distinguish that these two are different and distinct characters. Really, the fact that Zod's son Lor hasn't found himself aged to match the newest Superman gives me suspicion enough that something is up.

2. "Last we left off..." - Matthew Mercer

Since I published my essay, Jon has been busy. He got his dad back. He announced he was going steady with his boyfriend to the entire world. He got his secret identity back. He went to another Earth to fight his tormentor of five years. Everything's coming up Milhouse for Jon.

And I'm bored.

Jon hasn't done anything self-motivated for what seems like years. No, it literally has been years. His boyfriend came to him and instigated their relationship. He didn't do anything to get Clark back. He didn't do anything to resolve anything with Ultraman. He left the man who brought him to that Earth in the Phantom Zone and was cross-faded back to his own after waggling his finger disapprovingly at the Injustice version of Clark. His scrappy impishness has left. His devil-may-care attitude towards his own safety is gone. Thankfully, Dan Jurgens and Lee Weeks made a sequel series to their mini that introduced Jon in the back-ups of Action Comics.

Lois & Clark: Doom Rising is in many ways Jurgens and Weeks' response to Brian Bendis' Superman stories. Set some time before the Kents moved back to Metropolis and well before his fateful encounter with Jor-El, Jon is approached by a mysterious space person who asks him to join them as they go into the cosmos to right wrongs, but instead of sitting idly as it became clear his life was in danger, Jon attempts an escape. Clark is kept occupied by a big bruiser so he can't come to Jon's rescue, but with Lois' help (incontrast to the complacency Bendis wrote for her) Clark eventually takes chase to rescue their boy. I got a lot of joy from that story. It also gave me another reason to believe my theory was still valid. After crash landing, Jon rescues his fellow survivor from the fiery wreckage but is severely burned in the process. I ask you: How can a boy who spent five entire years in a volcano prison leave unscathed if mere fire messed up his arms? (I'd also like to ask Bendis how his power of flight was sapped immediately under the volcanic ash plume but remained invulnerable for all five years, but I digress.)

The mini also ends on a line fit for canned laughter to follow as Jon says, "Awesome! Maybe I should get kidnapped more often!" in response to getting bacon and pancakes for breakfast as he returns home. They knew what they were doing. I admit that on its own, these things may not be indicative of anything. It may be the whims of Jon's creators to let off some steam and DC's corporate offices obliging, knowing there is an audience for the younger Jon Kent. Or that's what I would have said if the other story DC published starring the older Jon Kent didn't have a few nuggets of its own.

Tom Taylor wrote Adventures of Superman Jon Kent as a kind of epilogue to Superman Son of Kal-El to mixed reception to put it lightly. I'm not here to talk about the climax of the final issue as tempting, as that may be. Instead, I want to focus on the beginning when Jon is in the company of Val-Zod, the Superman of Earth-2. Jon states that he knows that Val is from another Earth because he can see the differences in his molecular structure. I believe this is a useful tidbit for later when Jon needs to identify his double is not from a different Earth than his. Then when they get to the Earth they've tracked Ultraman in response to Jon asking why they needed him specifically and not any other Jon in the multiverse, Val says that time is a constant across the multiverse which calls into question how Jon was thrown backward in time to an Earth-3 with a Crime Syndicate that the audience had seen die. Then, as if to disperse any lingering theory that Jon may be the son of Ultraman and not a true son of Clark Kent, Tom has Jon say, "I was never your Jon!" Finally, near the end of issue 5, Jon says he's been practicing sneaking up on Damian for years (plural) while holding the Lasso of Truth when he should only have had a single year between meeting Damian and getting lost in the vastness of space. Another potential plot hole if this were the same Jon that we knew before, which I hope to have convinced you at this point that he's not.

3. Pavlov's Orphan

And now to substantiate my Sinson claim. I suppose all of my previous theories have been fueled by vibes, but this more than the others feels that way, yet it feels the most salient. So, who is Sinson? He thinks he's the abandoned son of Thaal Sinestro left on some rock out in space. That's probably not true, just based on how much we've dwelled on how much Sinson wants it to be the case, but also because Sinestro already had a secret child that he hid out in space. Soranik Natu was created by Geoff Johns during his time on Green Lantern, but her big backstory reveal was handled by Peter Tomasi, notably one of the creators of Rebirth's Super Sons and writer for Sinister Sons. I find it very unlikely that he would purposely reuse a plot point he had already visited for another child of the same character. What's more, Sinister Sons has taken inspiration from the classic Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. Sinson is in an orphan situation like when Oliver gets to London. He's encouraged to steal to line the pockets of the adult giving him food and shelter. This guy is called Nagaf, which is Fagin backward if you change a letter to avoid being dangerously close to a slur. Oliver Twist ends with Oliver going to live with a living relative he didn't know he had, another reason that Sinson likely isn't Sinestro's kid.

Nearly unprompted, Nagaf tells the boy that he was left at his orphanage six years ago by a woman who said she'd be back without leaving a name to call him by. "Oh, shoot. I guess that means he can't be Jon," is what an IDIOT would say! Two things: nothing is saying that that planet makes its full revolution around its star at the same rate as Earth does and in a metanarrative sense, six years ago irl from 2024 is 2018 which is the year that Bendis was Coming. Between Son of Kal-El, Lois & Clark 2, Superman & Robin Special, and Challenge of the Super Sons, all of those writers have more than happy to reply in kind to Bendis' multiple in-comic responses to fan discontent for his work. This would be Tomasi's third time and rightly justified since Bendis' infamous tweet directly insulted his work, and Tomasi clearly wasn't too happy about the decisions made when he was removed from Superman.

One of the more blatant times Tomasi would voice his dismay was later in Challenge of the Super Sons when Jon makes a comment that he didn't "instantly forget" some mental torture he went through in a subtle jab at the writing of the current Superman Jon Kent's ability to compartmentalize his own trauma. Really, this pair of panels may have held more foreshadowing than I initially caught.

So then why does Sinson look like he is from Korugar? My guess is he suffered some burns escaping from his volcano prison. Jurgens left us that little nugget last year, and his Jon certainly wouldn't have just sat in that crater for five years before trying to escape. Why doesn't he have the powers of a Kryptonian? When Lor-Zod gets to the planet Sinson lives, his Kryptonian powers disappear quickly. Why doesn't he seem to remember anything about who he is and where he comes from then? Why does he think his father is a villain? I'll say amnesia and mixing his time with Ultraman with Nagaf telling him he was from Korugar, but Sinson has more pathos hidden deep in his subconscious that betrays his true self.

Sinson chooses this name for himself which could be a really on-the-nose descriptor of his truth that he is Sinestro's son or it could be Jon's impetus for leaving with Jor-El coming out, that there is something wrong with him and that's why the Teen Titans rejected him. To this point, throughout the backups in Green Lantern where he was introduced, Sinson has soliloquies revealing that he begs to be taken seriously by his peers. When he overthrows Nagaf, he quickly builds a Sinestro Corps from his fellow orphans and paints big ol' "S" shapes on all of their chests (and shoulders like the current Superman family's jackets). He is good with technology enough to build a taser and a rocket, which again Jon is also known for. The opening scene even parallels Superman #8 with the boys using that sci-fi engineer zappy stick to make or fix something. He's able to futz with Lor-Zod's Kryptonian space pod very easily which presumably would not be easy for a boy who is unfamiliar with that flavor of technology. He has an affinity with dogs which Jon is known to have. He's cocky and fallible like Jon. He's got long hair like Jon, though much longer than the last time a story was published about him. All of the issue covers give him glasses that he doesn't wear in the story proper as if they're trying to imply that this is a secret identity i.e. Clark Kent. Sinson and Sinestro are not drawn with the same shaped ears in the mini, either. What I think is most significant, though, is that throughout the backups, Sinson acts more similar to Batman than to Sinestro. He's not going around causing fear to assert his dominance over the seedy underbelly he's robbing. He's righting wrongs. He's stealing drug money to skim creds off the top for his rocket, sure, but he's also returning organs to the hospital they were stolen from. This is the work of a kid who wants to do good, but his words do not match his actions. It's going to take a journey inside a giant TIME-TRAVELING SPACE WHALE (wink wink nudge nudge) to sort it all out. The cover and solicit for the sixth issue promise as much.

I didn't even have time to mention this time the chalkboard in Flashpoint Beyond that Jeremy Adams worked on promised that a supposed "he" would find "his son" and that the Time Masters were warned not to interfere, or that the recent Flash issue 797 implied that the Super Sons cameoing in the issue were from the main universe and had just finished their battle with Rex Luthor in Adventures of the Super Sons and how important that mini is to the continuity of this theory. I also could have brought up that every Tom King miniseries since Batman/Catwoman has led to an element he wrote end up in the main canon of the DCU, and that he's currently writing Super Sons in the backup feature of his Wonder Woman run. Everything is coming back around, and I feel confident we'll see its fruition come June or July.

[someoneintheshadow456]

I said before, now that Cait Corrain’s true self has come out, I can finally elaborate on what happened with her. To put a long story short, I was one of her very first victims - long before she became an original fiction author and back when she was known as Enterprisingly on AO3 - the author of Play to Win.

I know that #reviewbombgate was back in December, but at the time, I did not know about it because I’m not involved in BookTok. However, I WAS involved with the Reylo fandom, albeit indirectly.

The final chapters of Play to Win went on a tangent that seemed bizarre to me at the time. In fact, it seemed so strange that I brushed it off almost completely. It was only when I found Play to Win’s Wayback Machine page after recalling memories of the Reylo fandom last year when I read the chapter properly (instead of skipping ahead to get to the Reylo scenes). And a proper reading made me realize what was so unnerving about it:

Anyone who has engaged with my blog (especially from 2015-2019, when I used to post a lot more content about my personal life) can see the strangely... specific way this character was described. In order to go into this level of depth, one has to have been following me intently and keeping tabs of all the personal things I posted.

And then, she goes from eerily specific descriptions, to straight up maliciously lying about me:

Keep in mind, this screed takes up an ENTIRE chapter in itself. Said character, Ejya Fjord, is a background NPC who is mentioned a total of 121 times in a 161,000 word story. In fact, her name is mentioned so little that you could be forgiven for not remembering her at all:

You'd think, if someone would do something like this, I had to have done something terrible to her, or even just gave her a negative review. But I never did.

As you can see here, I have only engaged positively with her. Since Play to Win was also taken down and you can’t see old comments on Wayback Machine. Unfortunately after this, I can only give my word without receipts.

Play to Win was published first in 2018. I reviewed her story in March of 2018, possibly even earlier. In my review, I praised the writing, worldbuilding, and dialogues, but gave a small constructive criticism in that the politics could be better integrated into the story without feeling disjointed.

In the very early chapters, Ejya was clearly intended to be 100% Swedish - as one can tell from the name. However, at some point in the later half of the story, she retroactively became mixed race and a rival for Ben's affections, while Ben seems to be having none of it. It's clear these choices were made to portray me as some kind of horny fangirl for Kylo Ren who will stomp on other girls for his sake:

When I read the last chapter first, I was horrified. But now I'm just... bemused that someone would ever see me as some kind of calculating vixen who dresses like a Euphoria high school student and only likes masculine hobbies to pick up dudes. When in reality it took me until 2020 to be able to type the word "sex" without having heart attack and have never so much as posted a selfie on here.

It's also funny that Ejya is petite and flat chested while my actual body type is the exact opposite... which she would know since she stalked my blog so thoroughly. Almost as though she's implying something about her own insecurities...

Initially, I was under the impression that Corrain targeted me because of my association with @ainomica - due to her ruffling the Reylo fandom’s feathers (and ending up on Corrain’s hit list) over her opinions on John Boyega. However, that controversy happened in 2020. When Corrain wrote this libel about me, @ainomica wasn’t even on her radar, not to mention it was a year before we had ever even met. This libel was done to target me, and me exclusively.

In essence - Corrain weaved libel about me into her story because my existence pissed her off. We know now that Corrain had a penchant for targeting sapphic authors and WOC almost exclusively. So it's safe to say she was just being a typical white saviour liberal who shows what she actually thinks of minorities when they don't toe the line.

While this does make her less unhinged in my eyes than using me to target someone else, it still means that Corrain was, and always has been capable of aggression towards anyone she’s remotely offended by. Especially if said person happens to be a minority of some kind.

[aectpen]

𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 ❆ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍

m.list

pairing: sunghoon x ex figure skater->idol!fem oc

synopsis: 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧'𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐲 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐲 𝐤𝐩𝐨𝐩 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩, 𝐤𝐚𝐲𝐨, 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐇𝐘𝐁𝐄.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬.

chapter four: dear diary

in the spirit of reminiscing on the old times, once chaerin got back to the dorm, she opened up her "home" box. its where she kept her valuable items that brought her comfort away from home. the items include her diary, photos, jewelry, and more precious items. she hasn't written in her diary in a while, but its a relic of all her experiences. she was especially into journaling during her figure skating and trainee years.

as she sifted through the pages, she landed on a page that stood out. her fingers trailed over the tear smudged ink. her anger was evident through the force she used while writing the entry, almost tearing through the page. she felt like she teleported back to the moment she wrote it.

february 4, 2020 dear diary, i hate park sunghoon. i thought he was playing a sick prank on me, but he never turned around. how will i compete without him? how could he do that to me??? after how hard we worked.. i've never met anyone more selfish than him. he just laid it on me like it wasn't that big of a deal i'm gonna burn everything that has to do with him.

chaerin paused her reading to look back into the box. she most definitely didn't burn nor throw away anything that had to do with him. she picked up a polaroid she took with him on a day out. they went to the movies and got milkshakes afterwards. she put whipped cream on his nose and snapped the photo while he pouted and she smiled. it was the first time they had hung out outside of skating. it was the day they became friends rather than just partners. they realized they liked each other's company much more when they weren't so serious.

i'm crying but i'm not sad.. i'm angry i have cried out of frustration and obviously sadness but i never cry when i'm mad but honestly he will regret it when i'm at the olympics and he is in the dungeon training to be a flop idol god i really hate him fuck park sunghoon

"wow," chaerin whispered to herself. she forgot just how harsh her feelings toward sunghoon were. she continued flipping since she was so immersed in the angst of it all.

march 8, 2020 dear diary, i miss sunghoon skating is so boring it feels like a chore and my new partner is way too serious like wtf today i laughed after i fell on my ass and he was all like "is this a joke to you?" all stern boy bye i know sunghoon would've mocked his voice and we would laugh about it i was angry before but now im sad he was more than my partner, he was my friend and now i miss my friend sunghoon

chaerin reached for their good luck bracelet they made during practice. their initials separated by beads. they always wore it during competitions. they were undefeated since they made them, so they swore it was magic.

a month after writing that entry, she threw in the towel. she quit after a competition she had placed first in. she knew it was over when everyone was happy, but her.

june 1, 2020 dear diary, so today my friend told me about that new mnet survival show i-land right and i'm like okay i like txt so i'll tune in and today they revealed some trainees and you won't believe who i saw PARK SUNGHOON like you have to be kidding me my fantasy about him being a flop idol won't come true i will NOT be tuning in

june 26, 2020 dear diary, i lied i tuned in he looked okay i guess.. alright he looked good and he was really good perhaps i guess so maybe fans are loving the whole ex figure skater thing but its triggering me i kinda regret quitting figure skating. i could've went to the olympics and rubbed it in his face i thought i stopped hating him but i didn't. seeing his smug smile while everyone praises him and here i am hate-watching from my bedroom. if he didn't quit on me i would be so much more productive with my life i still hate park sunghoon.

september 18, 2020 dear diary, does the universe hate me? i cracked my phone, lost my keys, missed the bus, got an F, and park sunghoon made it to the debut lineup. i know one is not like the other but it was the cherry on top to my suffering :( i feel like an absolute failure doing nothing with my life while he's a famous idol my mom said i was used to be the child a mom would brag about, but now i'm the child you don't mention she said it so casually but i went to my room and cried for an hour straight i really have nothing going for myself

chaerin felt guilty looking back on how she treated sunghoon's success. she felt nothing but jealousy and hatred. how could he leave her and be successful? she thought he was making a big mistake quitting, but the truth was that was the best decision he could've made and she hated that. she wanted it to hurt him the way it hurt her, but not everyone gets what they want.

sunghoon's members began teasing him when they found out who he was with when he went missing for an hour.

"streets are saying sunghoon is already making a move on chaerin," niki announced.

"is sunoo's nickname streets now?" jay laughed.

sunghoon put his hands up in defense "oh come on, i was just catching up with her."

sunoo gasped "catching up? we missed out on some sunghoon lore."

"elaborate," heeseung crossed his arms.

"she was my figure skating partner."

"and they were figure skating partners." jake mocked.

"so you don't have a crush on her? i was really gonna take credit for introducing you guys." jungwon scoffed.

"i don't have a crush on chaerin."

the same was happening at kayo's dorm.

"chaerin!" haru barged into chaerin's room.

chaerin scrambled to put all the items back into her box, but she missed one.

"what's this?" haru asked picking up chaerin's polaroid with sunghoon. "oh my god? is that? that has to be a look alike."

"come on give it back!" chaerin chased after her.

"you guys have to see this." haru passed the polaroid to jie.

everyone gathered around to see while chaerin watched their reactions.

"how do you date park sunghoon and not tell us?" sujin shook her head in disbelief.

"i didn't date him, he was my figure skating partner."

"emphasis on partner, this is totally a boyfriend girlfriend pic," zena laughed.

"we were just friends that's all."

"no wonder you two were so buddy buddy earlier," jie was now much more confident in her prediction.

chaerin stared at the ceiling, trying to sleep, but she couldn't stop thinking about sunghoon. the time she spent with him reversed all those feelings she angrily wrote down. her thoughts were interrupted when her phone buzzed beside her pillow.

[unknown] are you up? [chaerin] and this is? [unknown] sunghoon

[foxes-that-run]

Daylight

Harry said Daylight is about infatuation with troubled things. He sings about a long distance relationship where his muse, to me Taylor, keeps him at a distance, he wants to be with them and wants more than his muse gives him. In a theme for his work at that time Harry sings of cocaine, travelling the world and romantic encounters but he really just wants his muse to love him back. Yet knowing they keep him at a distance Harry can't help wanting to be with them.

The lyric video has Sunflowers with their heads are dropped :( this happens when they don’t have water, a reference to Taylor Swifts Clean (When the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst) and Sunflower Vol 6.

Music video

The music video for Daylight is fantastic and full of Haylor easter eggs in these:

@womanexile has detail in part 1 and part 2,

@this-daydream-is-dangerous-13 post about the timeline for making the video and the James Corden $300 video showing it was made May 22 before it’s July 23 release. The Olivia tattoo is seen in it. and

This post about seven and the video

Title and Track list

Daylight is also the name of the last song on Taylor Swift's album Lover. It was originally the title track, and Taylor hinted at it in the Red Liner notes while she was still dating Harry. Taylor’s Daylight is about true love, the last sung verse of Taylors Daylight is [love] "it's golden like daylight". Harry then opened Fine Line with Golden. Daylight is track 5 of Harry's House.

What Harry has said

Howard Stern (8:10) Harry said:

"Daylight was quite an early song on the album, it's one of my favourites and it was kind of a stream of consciousness writing that happened kind of late. It was one of those songs that very much captures a moment of what was happening in the studio. We were kind of all talking about going to bed and then we started this song and it felt like if we go to bed and do it tomorrow it's not going to be the same as it would be if we finished it now. So you found a way to stay up. I think sometimes there are things that can feel like we have to find a way to finish this now. We did an all nighter, finished it and went out the beach to watch the sun come up and it was a nice moment of this album." Stern 'this is about some woman that didn't pay attention to you. He reads the line with cocaine before asking. There is a frustration in this song' Harry confirms it is about one woman. And responds "I think it is kind of like an infatuation with chasing troubled things"

Stern continues, 'You know Taylor Swift has a song called Daylight, maybe she's the girl in the thing?' To which Harry says "here we go, mm hm." and looks away. Stern, seeing the answer, offers, 'or am I reading too much into it.' which Harry agrees with, Stern comments on his smile Harry adds "You know I'd love to tell you that your spot on, but I can't" smiles and exchanges a knowing look with Mitch. Call me as convinced as Stern, what Harry said was he couldn't confirm that, especially after Stern read the cocaine line.

To Zane Lowe Harry (41 mins) told a similar story about staying up to complete it and told the surfing/song writing metaphor. Zane approached it along with As it Was and Grapejuice as a suite he sees as expressing pain and vice dependency. Harry moved on to talk about As It Was.

Timeline

Harry was in LA promoting Fine Line when the COVID travel ban was introduced 17 March 2020. Harry told Zane Lowe (24 Mins) he stayed home for 6 weeks then booked and went to Shangri-la studio to record. LNT, Daylight, Keep Driving and Sushi were in this group, to Stern and Lowe he said Daylight was one of the first. That places these songs between 28 April 2020 and 18 July 2020 (when Harry was back in the UK) Daylight at the earlier end of that time. The leaked too much sauce was recorded and Taylor wrote Folklore in that period also. See 2020 timeline.

Live Performances

Daylight was the 4th song on the Love on Tour Setlist, once Harry's House was released. Harry replaced it with Stockholm Syndrome for 18 shows from 18 May 2023, appearing in a handful of shows in June and July. The only shows with both were Wembley and the last show.

The tour visuals have a blue bird flying between LA and London. Harry also had a cloud background. Showing LA rather than NY is interesting when the song mentions NY.

What is the Bluebird Reference about

Bluebirds appeared in the opening to Love on Tour and may refer to:

Charles Bukowski's has a poem Bluebird, Harry is read Bukowski books and poems on stage. In the poem, the bird is a metaphor for Bukowski's emotions, articulated that he weeps in private. He keeps it hidden with whiskey to protect his image that sells books of misogynistic poetry, he opposes weeping with strength and cleverness. If Harry is referencing this, this is it is consistent with the reference to Harry's own work:

In "If I could Fly" Harry shared his vulnerability with his muse for their eyes only and hoped they would not run from him. In this same HH recording period, Harry has a series of songs that describe a rockstar lifestyle, referring to choking and cocaine, (Daylight, Keep Driving and (leaked) Too Much Sauce and (leaked) Make My Day) but that Harry actually just wishes his muse reciprocated his feelings and wanted to settle down and be happy.

When she was 14 Taylor Swift's was given her first record deal and performed at a writers night at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. She talks about it in this video when she returned to the cafe, there are photos of her 2004 performance with Scott Borchetta in the audience. The cafe has a chair with a plaque she included in the Taymoji set. Harry would have known this, however the Grammy museum also covered when she played there in 2018. Taylor also had a bluebird in the WANGBT video and on 17 June 2023 uploaded a single image to youtube with bluebirds promoting Eras in Mexico. This was a few weeks before Harry’s daylight MV was released.

This link lists songs about bluebirds. I think Paul McCartney's "Bluebird" and Joe Ely's "If you were a Bluebird" are both plausible.

In Summary I think the bluebird is a metaphor for Harry's inner feelings that he is someone who loves and wants to be loved back. He sees his rockstar trappings are a salve, not a life goal.

Lyrics

I'm on the roof, you're in your airplane seat I was nose-bleeding, looking for life out there Reading your horoscope, you were just doing cocaine In my kitchen, you never listen, I hope you're missing me by now

The opening verse expresses the frustration Stern referred to. Harry's muse and he are apart now, and he is missing them, almost indigently hoping they miss him too, yet he cares, he’s reading their horoscope. This sounds to me like a disagreement or unsatisfying parting and Harry wants to be with them.

I hear the first lines as a double meaning:

Harry is high (on the roof, nose-bleeding) but his muse is higher (in the sky).

his muse has also now flown away in their own airplane seat and left him waiting - they are separated by distance.

'Nose bleeding, looking for life' reminds me of Kiwi "Holland Tunnel for a nose, it's always backed up" and Satellite's name and "You got a new life". "Out there" and the tour visuals showing LA rather also remind me of Satellite's 'L.A. Mood'.

In the music video here Harry climbs down from a ladder to the sky, which reminds me of Story of My Life's "But, baby, runnin' after you is like chasin' the clouds". Clouds appear in several of their videos, including Lavender Haze, where, on the Eras tour, Taylor climbs up a ladder to one:

If I was a bluebird, I would fly to you You'd be the spoon Dip you in honey so I could be sticking to you

To me, this lyric is most reminiscent of Harry's One Direction song, If I Could Fly and it has the similar meaning, Harry is separated from his muse and wishes he could fly home to them. While If I could fly is about sharing vulnerability and hoping they don't run from him, in Daylight his muse keeping him at a distance.

I love dip you in honey so I could be sticking to you, it's adorable and bittersweet and very Harry. Bittersweet because Harry wants to be with his muse, who at the start of the song was not listening to him and he was hoping was missing him. He wants to spend all his time with them and he doesn’t feel that is reciprocated.

In this part of the video, the muse in Red (Taylor's colour) takes shots at him (songs, antics in media) he is resigned that it may kill him, his muse gives a flirting smile when it doesn't. Harry then walks past muses in pink with a bored look. A Grapejuice reference "I'm so over whites and pinks" Harry only has eyes for his 'old and Red' muse, even though they enjoy taking shots at him.

Daylight, you got me cursing the daylight (ooh) Daylight, you got me cursing the daylight (ooh) Daylight, you got me calling at all times (ooh) Ain't gonna sleep 'til the daylight (ooh)

This lyric reminds me of Harry talking about staying up to finish the song, but also he's staying up late night talking and wanting to be with his muse all the time. Calling at all times could be a muse on a different timezone, or maybe one he can't keep from.

In the video Harry is trying to get to his muse, clowns (read: us) are in the way. He cries and we are on his side, because we are! Harry is commenting on fans getting in the way of his love. Sorry Harry. He is too loud for his muse dressed as Miss Americana (& the Heartbreak Prince) who leaves. This scene reminds me of Story of my life "holding on too tight"

Out of New York, I'm on the comedown speed We're on bicycles, saying, "There's life out there" You got the antidote, I'll take one to go, go, please Get the picture, cut out my middle You ain't got time for me right now

This verse is similar to the first, Harry is a parting from his muse, he feels incomplete when they are apart, but his muse is keeping him at a distance. The verse has similarities to several of Harry's songs:

Out of NY, comedown speed, I hear as Harry leaving NY and coming down, or feeling sad to be away from his muse.

Harry does refer to Bikes in Matilda, however to me, where Harry rides a penny farthing here in the video emphasises that this is a winding wheel reference. The spinning and 'life out there' also remind me of Satellite again. In the first verse Harry was looking for life out there and he has now found it.

Antidote is also in Golden "I can feel you take control (I can feel you take control) / Of who I am, and all I've ever known Lovin' you's the antidote", and Ever Since New York "Choose your words 'cause there's no antidote" a Medicine is also similar to an antidote. Also in End of the Day "Twenty minutes later, wound up in the hospital / The priest thinks it's the devil, my mum thinks it's the flu / But, girl, it's only you" Here Harry takes one to go because he's parting from his muse.

Finally, the last 2 lines are also reminiscent of Satellite "(Spinning out, waiting for ya) / I'm in an L.A. Mood / I don't wanna talk to you/ She said, "Give me a day or two"

[illusionsofcontrol]

Status Updateee

Time's been a weeeird thing for me these past few years. Since my memory's kinda meh, I'm not 100% sure how the timeline of this project has gone but I think it's been something like this:

2020 - decided to revamp WH, though at some point this became a complete reboot

2021 - 2022 ish - started working on writing reboot, finished maybe 2/3rds of "Part 01"

2023 - to be quite honest, don't think I wrote anything for THV due to a lot of things going on

2024 - decided to start over again, made lots of major changes to characters and plot stuff, finally started writing from scratch in March (?)

As of last weekend, I finally finished a draft of the first five chapters that consist of what I now call the "pilot episode" (aka the prologue section)! It's not much, and I still need to go back and change some things that aren't applicable anymore, but I'm way happier with these few chapters than I was with my first attempt at THV.

Thanks for your patience, everyone. Now I'm moving onto Season 1!

[mlobsters]

trying to adjust some s3 clips to have the look and feel more like s1-2 led me to reading this very long and interesting interview with serge ladouceur, director of photography on supernatural all 15 years and

There were all these wonderful daylight exteriors in the woods, as Sam and Dean search for missing campers who have been abducted by this creature. But the shadows are so crushed, it almost feels like they’re in moonlight as opposed to sunlight — it’s so dark and foreboding. It really gives the feeling of that contrast.  That episode is a very good example. This is the bleach-bypass look that we implemented, which we pulled back a little bit from over the course of the first two seasons, culminating in Season 3, which was almost full color, probably the most extreme in terms of color, going the other way. Because The CW at the time wanted the show to be more colorful, we complied. But by the beginning of Season 4, I wrote to Eric Kripke, “We should go back toward what we had, because this is the look of the show, this is what we’re all about, darkness and shadows.” And he agreed. So we went back closer to the look that we had at first, but for specific scenes, the scary ones, while keeping a good relationship with The CW! [Laughs.]  - Serge Ladouceur

Family Business: Supernatural March 8, 2020 in American Cinematographer by David E. Williams

so it's the cw's fault. good to know. i will direct all future bitching their way

i think the great orange-ing of s8 though is still falling somewhere on the crew's side

[raayllum]

me reading seven (7) fics i wrote pre-s5 where callum says he would do anything for rayla

and by he i mean me

"I’ll always do everything I can to keep you safe. Everything.” She caught his steady gaze, and frowned. “You can’t dabble in Dark Magic again.” “I will if I have to.” She grabbed his sleeve in her other hand, twisting her fingers around the fabric. “Callum, no, it’s not right—” “It doesn’t matter,” Callum said fiercely. “If it’s to save your life, then I’ll do it. Every time.” [...]

“Rayla told me you used Dark Magic,” Tinker said, more stiff and cold. Callum shrank a bit, but his eyes hardened. “I couldn’t just let her die.” “You’d do it again,” Tinker translated. The prince scowled. “I’m not like Aaravos. He twisted the primal to be like Dark Magic. I would never do that.” “Unless you felt like you had to,” Tinker reiterated. “To save Rayla.” “Wouldn’t you do anything to save the person you love?”

—chapter 5 and chapter 13 of in search of silver linings (we discovered gold), from march 2019 and july 2019, respectively

“I love you too.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you. You know that right?” “I do,” Rayla assured him. “You know I’d do anything for you?” She smiled a little. “You already have.” 

—chapter 2 of if time is money, i'll spend it all for you dec 2019 / january 2020

He squeezed her hand and then let go. “Of course,” he said, standing up and turning away so he wouldn’t have to look at her face. “I’d do anything for you, too.”

—chapter 6 of looking for a way to break in, april 2020

“Think we can snag a horse to ride tomorrow so we can sleep in shifts?” he asked. Ezran and Soren were sharing a horse, befitting of a king and his crownguard. “Maybe if you use your princely powers,” she said with something akin to a smirk, even if she knew he didn’t really like (read: feel too confident) pulling rank. But he would, for her. Of course he would. Callum laced their fingers together and raised her hand to kiss the back of it. “For you? Anything.” 

—your love is like a river that i am floating down, july 2020

“Mmhm.” She rolls her eyes, still with that sweet amused little smile on her face, like she’s chalked this up to him just being his usual weird self. “Can you light the fire with a fulminus after I set it up?” He’d do anything if she just asked, he thinks. Callum smiles and lets his elbow brush hers while she assembles the fire. “Of course.” 

—i don't believe that anybody feels the way i do about you now, december 2021

Rayla quiets, her smile faltering. “Um, anyway, I’ll let you get some rest.” She hovers for just a second, meeting his eye. “Thank you, again, for helping me with [the coins], I...”  He nods, because what else is there to say? No matter what they’ve been through, or where life takes them, they saved the world together. She still knows him better than anyone. They’ll always look out for each other. He’d still do anything for her, as she walks away.

—older, but just never wiser, january 2023

“Y’know, I think I might know a guy.” “Oh we couldn’t get him,” she puttered. “Too busy and in-demand.” “I dunno, I’m pretty good at drawing on connections.” She arched an eyebrow. “Are you now?” “Well yeah.” His big goofy grin softened, his fingers entwining themselves with hers. “Word is there’s this elf girl he’s got a big soft spot for—would do anything for her.”

—say the wind won't change on us, may 2023

[remembertheplunge]

Pandemic and Protest And an Altered State Of Living.June 2 to June 4 2020

June 2, 2020 Tuesday 6:14pm Jail Lobby

Barricades are up near the entry door to the lobby..Like, they are trying to protect from being rammed into.

I just invented a new term: Trump-demic! Inspired by the “oh fuck” Trump pandemic meteor hurtling at earth post card I sent to Zoe recently.

This edition of the Journal is the Protest edition. Protests rage across the country. 

Jared Is not happy that I spent $60 on this journal.

End of entry

Notes : 7/8/2024

I wrote the above entry in the lobby of the Stanislaus County Jail 5 miles West of Modesto. Large cement barricades had been set up to block an attempt to forcibly take the building by Black Lives Matter protesters.

My sister Zoe and I liked to send humorous post cards back and forth to one another. On portrayed a meteorite racing toward earth entitled “oh fuck”. It was the Trump Pandemic meteor!

I had paid $60 for the leather bound journal that I wrote the June 2020 entries in. Jared was my law clerk and business manager and was not happy with the investment.

________________________________________________________

6/3/2020 Wednesday 7:10pm 

NPR: Market Place is on. The Pandemic--Protest is in full swing!

I was up in Stockton at the jail. a fellow defense attorney said police are surrounding the court house. She told me not to come to Stockton tomorrow for court. Too dangerous. She will appear for me.

Meanwhile, Jared said a protest in Oakdale today went violent.

The feeling out here is shaky.

The protests flair here. The virus flairs there. But you never know where or when.

End of entry

Notes 7/8/2024

NPR was National Public radio and Market Place was a show on that station. I listened to Market Place a lot in the early =days of the pandemic. They had honest reporting of how the Pandemic was unfolding.

Oakdale is a town in eastern Stanislaus County, California. 

__________________________________________-

6/4/2020. Thursday 5:20pm Rasputiun’s

Cut. Cut. Gone The two trees marked for destruction are gone. Progress? Productivity? Pandemic and Protest Rage, cutting down 2 trees took priority.

Jerad and I had a beautiful talk with the female clerk at Preservation Coffee House this afternoon. She went to the Sunday 11am protest at 1010 10th (down town Modesto, California) and will go to one in Ripon. She told us that“We need to be willing to be injured to push for change.” .

Magnificent.

Jared said that during the Oakdale protest yesterday, Trump 2020 “all lives matter” stood across from “Black Lives Matter” protesters.

People are out in mobs now. 

I think 10,000 protested yesterday in San Fransisco, Thelma and Louise style, racing for the viral cliff’s edge.

I anticipate a spike in virus and in violence.

Mobile Art Gallery just passed

End of entries

Notes 7/8/2024;

Rasputin’s is a DVD record store located near highway 99 and the rail road tracks in Modesto. During the pandemic, when I could no longer write in coffee houses, I would sit in my car, listen to Mavis Staples songs, write and observe. I got to know the area of the parking lot that I would write in very well. Two young trees I often sat near had been marked to be cut down  with white paint rings around their trunks. On June 4, they were gone and I eulogized them in my entry.  There was another man who would at times park there, too in his hot yellow sports car. He would read his  newspaper. He never looked my way, but, I’m sure that he saw me. Pandamic exiles resorting to a parking lot for covid free reverie.

In 2020 I started noticing Graffiti on the trains as I drove up and down  Highway 99. In March 2020, when the State was in  lock down and the highway electronic signs were screaming out “Stay home and live!”.  I had to be out and drive for court. I never sheltered in place. Besides, I wanted to see the world in its grip of fear. It was fascinating. But, scary , too. And there were the trains. And the Graffiti art work on the train cars. And they were comforting. A message written from before the time of the plague , barreling along as if to say, come follow me . I will lead you to safely out of the virus veil. 

Preservation was Preservation Coffee in Modesto where pre pandemic I spent many hours writing. Post pandemic I have rarely returned and never to write there.

Thelma and Louise was a 1991 movie in which two wild intense women go on a crazy vacation that finds them hurling over  a cliff in the end.

[meta-squash]

Yet another fic post for @shamelessdvdcommentary because it's fun and I'm hoping it'll somehow inspire me to write another fic or something.

Proof Of What You Want Summary: Ian's on his goddamn mind all the time and this isn't like bruises or near misses with cops or his dad's fucked up punishments. It doesn't matter what he does. He's not thinking of anything else. You've never been like this. Slow and soft and someone asleep at your back. Vulnerable. Ever. There have been very few bright spots in your life: your mother, Mandy, Ian. You try and convince yourself it's not what you want. It is. It's what you want.

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc) I had the idea for it in December 2019, but I didn't start working on it until March 2020. It took me about 2 months of working on-and-off because the mechanic I used for this fic was a little weird so I had to be in the right headspace to work on it. It's a 7,331 word oneshot.

What was the initial inspiration for your story? My two initial inspirations were the storytelling mechanic -- third person POV and second person POV (both Mickey) switching back and forth, and examining the emotional difference between Mickey falling in love with Ian before 3x06 and his loneliness and trauma after Ian runs away to the army.

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character? Because poor Mickey went through so much trauma with the assault and then being forced to marry Svetlana and then Ian running off and he's trapped in this abusive household with a pregnant wife he doesn't want and is pretty much totally alone. And we don't see any of his feelings about that. And I've always thought that the night that Ian stayed over would have been a huge threshold crossed for Mickey, and that he was ready to start actually accepting himself and his feelings, and then the morning happened and that all came crashing down.

What was your favourite scene to write? The bit about Ian and Mickey in the dugouts, sharing a cigarette which is they way they kissed before they ever kissed for real. It's just a really warm and sweet scene. And I really liked writing that and then the crash into a less pleasant reality with the switch to "present". I did really enjoy writing sad and lonely Mickey too, because I think the conflict between his self-hatred and anger/anxiety vs the slow dawning that he misses and loves Ian, the softness of those Ian-feelings compared to the pain of the other ones is really interesting.

How did you come up with the title? Just that Mickey spends the entire fic thinking about Ian, either in the "past" segments as he's falling in love or in the "present" segments all lonely and worried and missing Ian. And that constant thought is proof that he does care about Ian and he does want him around, and he's starting to accept that after all that trauma even if it is scary.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this? The smut. I just so rarely write smut, I prefer character studies. When I read smut I often end up distracted by trying to figure out where the characters are in the space/in relation to each other, or if they do something that would be uncomfortable/unhealthy/physically impossible. I wanted to write the smut scene in a prettier way while also maintaining realism, and I wanted it to advance the plot. I concentrated less on making it sexy for the reader and more on making it a moment of emotional (and physical) first times for Mickey, which would help to heighten the feeling like some barrier had been crossed (which then reinforces how hard those walls slammed back up after the morning).

Favourite line in the story? I don't have a favorite single line but this little section is one I really like: Waking up in the morning beside the Russian bitch, feeling her breath on his neck and his skin crawling underneath like there's ants in there? There's no manual for how to handle that. He hasn't slept a full night in weeks. And he doesn't know what to do with the way Ian sits there under his skin either. He wants it to crawl like she does. He wants it to itch. He wants to want to scratch it out. He wants to hate Ian. It just aches. Definitely doesn't feel like hate.

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story? I wasn't sure what I wanted to end on, if I wanted to end on a happy or a sad note. The second person POV "past" sections also jump around in time a little bit, so at first I thought I was going to do Ian and Mickey having a conversation at the obstacle course, something similar to the "he's not afraid to kiss me" conversation that indicates Mickey getting closer to accepting his feelings. But then I decided I didn't want that much dialogue; I wanted it mostly to just be Mickey's internal feelings.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc) How well the third person/second person POV mechanic worked! It was a total experiment, I don't even know how I got the idea. But having the second person POV as pre-3x06 Mickey falling in love and starting to open up vs third person POV as post-3x06 Mickey alone and depressed and worried ended up working sooo well. People really liked it!

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line? I think post 3x06 Mickey is such a tangle of emotions and I wanted to see how that gap between Mickey's trauma and his acceptance of himself in season 4 gets bridged. I wanted to explore Mickey's self-hatred and his feelings like he deserved to get hurt, and the way those feelings are vying with the dawning knowledge that he still cares about Ian, and the feeling that he didn't deserve any of what happened to him but that he's completely trapped in it. I just think Mickey is so messed up in seasons 3 and 4, with his feelings for Ian growing stronger and him becoming really properly conscious of them, but also being completely terrified of them and of the consequences of those feelings.

Would you ever write a sequel to this story? No, but I did unintentionally write a prequel, Abrade. That one explores the immediate aftermath of the morning of 3x06. It's also in second person POV, and it's very intense. They're not fics that are meant to be read together, but they fit together like an unintentional puzzle.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc? I have a headcanon that after the immediate events of 3x06, once both Ian and Terry left, Mickey vomited into the kitchen sink, on whatever dishes were there. I used it in this fic, and in Abrade, and maybe in another one as well (I think it's just implied in Scar Tissue). I think it's a detail that is nearly as visceral as the actual events, but it's a reaction rather than the actual moment. It really gets across how intense and traumatizing and awful the entire event was, without actually describing the details of rape.

Were you nervous or excited to post this story? A little nervous, actually, because of the weird mechanic. I just thought maybe people would click away from it once they saw the second person POV because I know it's kind of a weird way to write.

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story? Seasons 3 and 4 Mickey is fascinating to me because he's clearly depressed and scared and somewhat self-destructive and yet he's also so protective and willing to do stuff for Ian and because of Ian that I don't think he'd do otherwise. So I think the moments without Ian around in this fic are just him falling back into that misery -- but this time with a sort of awareness of how much Ian lightened everything for him without him really even realizing it at the time. Mickey's growth between seasons 3 and 5 is fascinating to me. I really think he's more introspective than people think, even though he does tend to act first. But I feel like with the important stuff, he mulls over it internally for a long while and does have thoughts and opinions, not just gut reactions.

[applesandbannas747]

If you lost all of the stories you’ve ever published on ao3 and were only able to recover five, which stories would they be, and why? (Top five across the board, but top five fence fics would be cool too) 📚✨

I completely welcome you to write a novel length answer 📝✨

okay HOW did I never see this one? This is such a fun and mean question!!

In no particular order:

Fairy Bound - this is my only current Artemis Fowl fic, but it's one of my favorite things I've ever written because it's everything I want in a series that was long finished when I wrote it. It's the ending and conclusion I wish the characters got (and I'm disappointed severely with the new canon material). It's also just full of tropes I love and has moments that have a soft spot in my heart. I also know it's meant as much to a good number of people in the fandom as it has to me, so it would be missed if it were lost

Truths - this took the cake for longest work I'd written for a long time before being dethroned, and it was a really cool experience to write. I think the Truths series was the last I wrote as I posted, which was really fun because some comments helped shape it if I remember correctly. It's where I really fleshed out a lot of my ideas about Fence and the characters and was a huge milestone in my writing abilitiy--it really helped me to improve in a lot of ways, and I think it was a milestone in my Fence era as well. I connected with a lot of people during its run that I've longsince lost contact with but will always love, and it's another one that people tell me from time to time really means something to them, which makes me love it extra for that--I don’t know, connection? And of course I used a lot of tropes I love and built up a lot of headcanons and lore that I still carry to this day!

Trouble - man this is where Eugesse started, and I can't abandon it even if I'd change so much about it if I wrote it again. I love a lot of moments from this fic and I indulged so much in building the Labaos and learning how to code to make text messages--it was a fic filled with so many firsts! But I also assumed it would be a fic filled with a lot of lasts--I truly didn't intend to write Eugesse again until we had more content on him because this was back during The Great Hiatus (but boy am I glad I didn't stick to that 💀💀💀)... So the iea with Trouble was that it got to be paced weirdly because there were so many moments, beats, and tropes I wanted to hit with Eugesse and this was my only chance, so I needed to fit them all in. So while this is the only fic I debated over including on this list because I think it's the weakest one here in terms of writing, it will always hold a special place in my heart, and it means a lot to me.

Promised Things - how could I not include the Things to Hold Onto series? In a very literal way if my house were burning to the ground, the physical bookbound (!!!!!) versions a friend made and sent me would be top priority after living things. This is another fic that I really strove to improve my writing with, and it's significant as well because it was the fic I wrote after an autistic meltdown over the ARC of Striking Distance I read, after which, I felt sick and conflicted whenever I thought about writing for Fence because the thought of adjusting my characterizations to fit canon made sent me spiraling. So I took a break and wrote a couple novels, including one that took the plot of an au I'd been looking forward to writing (if you're wondering when this 'break' took place, it was March-July 2020; I had enough backlog that there was never a break in my posting schedule to reflect the break I took in writing). But do you know what I found? I was more miserable not writing for Fence than anything, and even while I was actively writing novels in NaNoWriMo challenges, I found myself sneaking in writing time for Fence anyway--for Promised Things, specifically. And I found my love of Fence again through it, which sounds like such a conceited thing to say lmfao but I love who I thought the characters were and writing this fic helped me start to accept that it was okay to still write them the way I saw them. So on a meta level, this one means a lot to me. And on a writing level, I'm proud of the detail I put into it and the planning it took. Pull up any chapter in this series and I could find the day of the week it took place on. I've not quite achieved this level of detail since. It also got a lot of editing to improve it as we went along, and I'm happy with how it turned out and proud of the work that went into it. And, yeah, I'm lizardbrained too and the fact that this one got WAY more love than I ever expected in any way does (positively) effect how I see it. So this one's getting saved lol

Breakable Things - to this day, this fic is one of the stories I am proudest of, and I think it's a strong piece of writing in terms of character development. It was a long redemption arc for Jesse and I worked really hard on making it a successful one--and it is the number one fic I've had people tell me I won them over with Jesse in, so I like to think that it was a successful arc XD I've always said that in this series, Seiji and Jesse both grew up in hell, but they both view Jesse and Jesse only as the monster--and in Promised Things, we get Seiji's point of view, and Nick's, who is seeing through the damage done to Seiji and seeing a monster in Jesse through it. Which made writing Breakable Things so fucking fun because Eugene's the only perspective that doesn't cast Jesse as the villain. And, yeah, Jesse sees himself as a victim and likes to throw himself pity parties, but under it all, it's not Seiji he blames for anything, it's not his dad, it's hardly even Nick. and we get to see that in this fic and see how the damage he caused is just as real as before, but that his pain isn't less than Seiji's. And more than any other character in the series, Jesse works to confront the truth of who he is and figure it out and improve, a lot of the time, alone. Seiji fell into a situation that naturally healed him. Jesse dove head first into one that was intended to break everyone--but he was also put on an edge that Seiji wasn't, and that made all the difference. Anyway, I have a lot of feelings about Jesse and I had a lot of fun trying to redeem him/show his side and contrast it with Seiji's without making it feel like I was trying to tragic-backstory his ass out of accountability for the shit he did. Also! I wrote bits of this fic in tandem with Promised Things--any major scene with Jesse, I either had notes for Jesse's side, wrote Jesse's side right after, or even wrote Jesse's POV of it first, which was an interesting way of writing a sequel that I've never done any other time.

[mattnben-bennmatt]

Ben Affleck on how Good Will Hunting was created (March 2020)

The way that movie started was [Matt Damon] was in a— it was actually a directing class, but he had taken all the acting classes at college. And I had already moved out to L.A. to start acting and he was about to come out to L.A. that summer. And I came back into town and he said, "Do you want to come to my directing class? I want to do a scene," and I was like, "What is the scene that you want to do?" "I have this idea about a guy who's a really smart guy but he's not educated." He wanted to basically play a guy from South Boston who's really smart and people underestimated. And I was like, "That's a really good idea!" And we sat down and he wrote some stuff, a scene, for that. And then after we performed it for a guy named David Wheeler [...] nobody seemed to like the scene in the class. But we thought it was good. And we thought— we used to talk about "We should really write this! We should really write this!" And we were just young enough to be so incredibly stupid and naive that we thought we actually should do it and that someone might make it. Which would have been on its face a completely absurd idea. But we pursued it and we had fun. So he had come up with the idea of this character and he was like, "Who do you want to be?" "I want to do a guy who's the Mercutio; the funnier character who tells stories." I mean, yes, I definitely wasn't the first guy to come up with the funny-but-likable best friend guy, who the audience gives permission to be a little more outrageous than the protagonist in some ways. You know, sidekick. That role was juicy. All I ever get to audition for is the bully throwing kids into lockers. And I want to be funny. And I think you could be interesting— there's an interesting tension between a guy who grew up in the neighborhood but is destined for bigger things, and his friends reluctantly recognizing that. So that was built around the idea of a scene saying: it's his friend, in fact—not the Robin Williams character—that gets him to push off from where he's moored and sail off into the world. Where he feels like— even his best friend feels like, "Yeah, love you and want to hang out with you, but this is where you belong."

[ts1989fanatic]

Taylor Swift's fans are renowned for their loyalty and dedication.

Known colloquially as "Swifties," they sell out stadiums in minutes; spend weeks creating intricate outfits that pay tribute to her albums; comb through her lyrics to find Easter eggs and secret messages.

Back in November, the fandom received national attention for taking action after Ticketmaster bungled the Eras Tour presale.

The backlash was so loud and so fervent that the Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster's parent company. The power of Swifties became clearer than ever.

Indeed, the sheer passion of Swift's fans has helped make her the biggest pop star in the world — but that doesn't grant them absolute access to her life and personal space.

Recently, Swift obsessives have been exhibiting overzealous — and frankly concerning — behavior. Videos have circulated online that show swarms of people camping outside her home in New York City and Electric Lady Studios, where she's been spotted working in between tour dates. Other clips show fans chasing her car down the street.

It's one thing to wait for hours in the pouring rain to watch Swift deliver a spectacular concert. That's her job. It's another, more sinister thing to wait for hours on the sidewalk, just to film her car entering her home garage. That's her life.

Swift has been candid about fending off stalkers throughout her career, making this behavior particularly egregious for anyone who claims to care about her well-being.

"My fear of violence has continued into my personal life," she wrote for Elle in 2019. "I carry QuikClot army-grade bandage dressing, which is for gunshot or stab wounds. Websites and tabloids have taken it upon themselves to post every home address I've ever had online. You get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you kind of start prepping for bad things."

This is not to say that Swift's most fervent fans are all stalkers, but it's easy to see how this behavior could be triggering for someone who's been stalked. And as Swift said in her "Miss Americana" documentary in 2020, "There's a difference between 'I really connect with your lyrics' and 'I'm going to break in.'" Some Swifties clearly need to be reminded of where that line is.

This is also not the first time Swifties have overstepped. Some fans have been known to harass members of the LGBTQ community for analyzing Swift's songs through a queer lens. Others have sent insults and death threats to music critics for less-than-glowing reviews of Swift's music.

Of course, this behavior isn't unique to Swifties. But Swift's lack of admonition is uniquely strange. She has marketed herself as someone who's not afraid to speak up to defend her values, someone who has explicitly condemned homophobes and bullies in her music.

Swift has also said she's proud of her affectionate relationship with fans. She has invited Swifties to her Nashville home for album listening parties; sent personalized notes to celebrate milestones; donated money for college tuitions; protected concertgoers from aggressive security guards.

Unfortunately, a healthy relationship cannot be sustained with affection alone, be it interpersonal or parasocial.

At the risk of sounding like a wannabe therapist, constructive feedback is essential for growth — and when someone you love disrespects your boundaries, it's not constructive to say silent.

This is something that Phoebe Bridgers, Swift's friend and collaborator, knows all too well.

Although Bridgers experiences fame on a vastly different level than Swift, she has also been subjected to abuse and entitlement at the hands of "people with my picture as their Twitter picture."

In a March interview with Them, Bridgers said she was "bullied" in the midst of a speculative frenzy about her dating life — while she was on the way to her father's funeral.

"I've had people take more than I'm giving, and I'm giving a lot," Bridgers recently told the Wall Street Journal. "I'm pretty fucking transparent, because I would value that in someone whose music I liked when I was a kid. Seeing any representation of any feeling and anything true was awesome to me. To be punished for that is so dark."

"There's a higher chance that you'll meet a fan that you hate than a fan that you love," she added. "You're way more likely to be confronted with someone who just violated your privacy."

If these quotes rub you the wrong way, you may be the problem.

Connecting to a person's music does not give you the right to violate her privacy, and Bridgers isn't afraid to draw that line. I wish more musicians would follow suit.

Ahead of Bridgers' final performance at the Eras Tour on Sunday, I hope Swift is able to absorb some of her bravery and wisdom. It's OK to criticize people for bad behavior — and the fans who stick around are the ones worth keeping.

ts1989fanatic

Even the media can get it right on occasion, the recent behaviour by some so called swifties is bordering on STALKING and needs to stop.

Unless we all want to go back to why she disappeared again.

[9w1ft]

Hey 9.

I’ve been seeing a theme on your blog about rethinking things and looking back on kaylor with hindsight. I’ve been doing some of that recently too. For example I recently read about kaylor not hanging out publicly for 6 months from sept 2015 to Mar2016. Then they want back to hanging out again almost like it was 2014. Starting with the love locked down/anniversary locket. They didn’t hold hands on dates like they did in 2014. But we did see that heartbreaking video from Vegas with Karlie’s sisters chaperoning them to prevent another kissgate, Karlie grabbing Taylor’s boob and hand at the 4th of July party. And the Polaroids, in October 2016, including one with Taylor kissing kaylor on the cheek. Back then a lot of people thought they broke up for those 6 months before March, but others insisted this was just them taking the heat off because the rumors weren’t dying with Tayvin and Taylor was caught in that famous backstage footage where she chased Karlie, and only Karlie down the hall after winning the VMA in August 2015. So I was trying to tie in that silent period of 6 months to the one in Glitch. Their love blackout. But I got stuck and I was hoping you could help me work though if they are connected.

hi anon! thank you for this inquisitive ask ☺️

i think that the kaylor artifact you bring up —the locket— might help jog your thinking.

here is the locket post from 2016 that you are referencing:

※ taylor deleted her insta before rep era so there is not a way for me to retrieve a more proper screenshot that includes the date of this post —this is the one screenshot that i always use— but as you can tell from the language of the post, this was posted on 3/6/2016, signifying one year since the date on the necklace.

so from 3/6/2015 to 3/6/2016 marked “one year down” and while that may have included a time where they were not seen in public together, i don’t think that this necessarily implies there was a hiccup in their relationship, because of the nature of the language commemorating the year. karlie of course reciprocated similar language of her own that very day, while she was in paris:

which is why we consider this locket a kaylor artifact and the “locked down” language in taylor’s media to be kaylor adjacent. i guess i’ll throw in the pictures of her putting the lock on the bridge, with the K that looks like a sideways T, placed under a beam with the number 13 on it:

and while i’m add it i guess i will point out the locket references in her rep media: locket shapes in the lyric video for Gorgeous and the Locked Down phrase on the cover of the rep promo magazine:

oh and i guess i’ll point out the lover era media references in the form of the mural at her city of lover concert in paris, and the valentine’s day locket merch that came out in 2020.

and since then of course there is the “better lock it down” line in I Think He Knows and the “locked it down” line in Cowboy Like Me

incidentally, she released an ornament version of the locket this past year (2022) that is actually larger in size than the necklace, so it’s not as if they were repurposing leftover inventory. i haven’t taken a comparison picture yet but i do have both if people want to see a pic!

oh and i guess i’ll also point out how there was a locket taymoji on TSL, included in the You Are In Love pack. which would link the idea of this locket to 1989 era, and of course to karlie, as “on the way home” was something taylor wrote in an old post which @‘s karlie and is a picture of the two of them from their big sur trip.

okay. it’s interesting actually because your ask got me thinking about something. a lot of us think that this locket points to an anniversary date for kaylor, and indeed 3/6 has become a sort of kaylor holiday that we all celebrate, and that has been good and fine, but i had a thought which deviates from this a bit that i thought i might throw out there, the idea that perhaps 3/6/2015 was an important date to kaylor but not necessarily reflective of the day (or the anniversary of the day) that they got together.

what if, more simply, this locket date was the day that they “locked it down”

and i’m still thinking about what that means but if you think about it, you had kissgate happen almost exactly three months, a fiscal quarter, before this locket is dated, right? and after kissgate happened, things did change for them, although slowly. not just in terms of public appearances together —although as you point out they did get very touchy feely in the months leading up to the 2016 election— but also, it led to taylor starting a steady stream of boyfriends without so much as a breather, all after some time spent projecting the single girl image. she hasn’t been without a man since. so yeah, i dunno it just occurred to me… maybe the locket is symbolic of a sort of new “locked down” stage of their relationship.. am i making any sense???

as for the 6 year love blackout referenced in glitch, well, that points to a different caliber of invisibility, of which i think has been discussed on here very much in recent months. and actually to that end i find it interesting that taylor picked a new word, “blackout” to describe a period of six years that, for the joe inclined, should be interchangeable with “lockdown” if in fact her and joe have been a thing. and yet.. she didn’t say lockdown on glitch.. it’s curious..

okay okay i’m kinda rambling to myself now.. hopefully this helps you with your thought process, anon!!