#its about what comes after
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currently SCREAMING about how the episode titles change from red only references to different colours once red john dies. actually fucking screaming
#its no longer about him#or the chase for him i guess#its about what comes after#the healing#the mentalist#the mentalist spoilers#red john#UGH
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just thinking about hair and faces
#art#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland spoilers#twisted wonderland episode 7 spoilers#twisted wonderland book 7 spoilers#i don't THINK this counts as face horror but just in case#face horror#for your daily dose of me losing my mind over anime characters#i don't know why the hair thing surprised me so much. i think because i thought it was funny that lilia named silver after his hair color.#like ha ha lilia is hilariously bad at names how cute and silly!#oh. oh it's kind of a Thing.#anyway i am excited to see where the heck all of this stuff with silver's various dads ends up!#we still don't actually know who killed meleanor!#we still don't know literally anything about dad draconia! (dadconia? dradconia?)#we don't know what happened to the macguffin gem with its magical dad-saving powers!#(surely this will not come back to save a certain dad at a later point. of course not.)#man i was not expecting episode 7 to be all dads all the time#i mean i'm here for it but#hey remember when the highest stakes were who was gonna win the big talent show#then robots started kidnapping people and now we've just escalated from there#episode 8 our cat is going to turn into a drippy ink kaiju and we're going to have to mecha battle him to save the world or something#each member of diasomnia pilots a limb and we gattai into a giant robot dragon and hold on i gotta submit this spec script to aniplex brb
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jason and danny childhood friends au memes (mild spoilers)
#Will Danny's anger and rage over Jason's death ever be called pit rage in fic?? No. But from what i know OF pit rage and how its sometimes#shown in DPXDC thats *technically* what it is. But that's a very loose technically. i thought the meme was funny and its accurate *enough*#dpxdc#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dp x dc#dpxdc memes#dpxdc crossover#dp x dc crossover#childhood friends au#cfau#danny by all accounts IS a vengeful spirit in this and that's something i realized like last month while ranting to gen about it.#a vengeful spirit by definition is a ghost whose come back from the dead to enact revenge on the living for their unnatural or cruel death.#in some cases they come back as a vengeful spirit because of an improper burial or a lack of burial at all. regardless of either one they'r#both accurate because danny neither has a grave nor had a funeral and his fury over Jason's death would've been enough to bring him back as#a vengeful spirit regardless of becoming a halfa. they ARE two sides of the same coin after all :]#kudos to gen and much love she's been inflicted with SO many cfau character analysis rants <3
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OK but I really love how unhinged Neil comes off in other people's POV cause looking back at the first three novels he was so damn weird
Take what happened in Colombia
Imagine what Andrew was thinking
Holy crap this binder WTF?!?! OK he's sus as hell I've gotta test him, I'm gonna mess with the tags when I refold his clothes but like...I doubt even he's THAT crazy
*Neil barges in and starts shouting in FRENCH*
OK so he IS that crazy (and French?!)
OK I'm gonna spike his drink and get some answers in a minute just gonna leave him with Aaron and Nicky for a sec while I satisfy my Gay panic this runaway has inspired in me with Roland and then I'll just...WTF DID HE JUST PAY A GUY TO KNOCK HIM OUT?!
OK I'm gonna pick up some breakfast and when I get back to the house I can interrogate the....OK ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THIS DUBIOUS TWINK CRAWLED OUT OF THE BATHROOM WINDOW?!
OK so he's not around let's get back to Palmetto he probably got a ride from one of the upperclassmen
OK he didn't...did he run away? I guess that makes some sens... OK wait he HITCHHIKED?! THE FUCK?!
OK THIS ASSHOLE SPEAKS GERMAN TOO?!
OK he's on the run from the mob...there are a lot of holes in this story but at this point I'm gonna take his word for it that he's isn't a danger to my people cause I don't have the energy to continue to pursue this anymore. This fucking guy is more unhinged than what I was prepared to deal with this weekend.
#aftg#all for the game#tsc#the sunshine court#neil josten#andrew minyard#andrew was more tired than Neil was after that weekend 🤣#you won the batttle kind of andrew but neil won that war#not to shade nicky and aaron but wingus and dingus were not the ones you should have left neil with TWICE#also its cracker dust not truth serum it was a weird plan to start with and nicky and aaron were more high and more drunk than neil was#they were not the ones who should have been left in charge#also by letting neil out of sight for all those hours he hitchhiked let him come up with a plausible lie#that held up until BALTIMORE#like my dude you had the binder you should have hid it and threatened to burn a page wverytime neil lied#cause if the money was from riko paying neil to be a mole he would NOT want it burned#and what hes gonna go to the cops about his ill gotten cash and fake ids? you could have had him andrew#ps i imagine neil saying all of this to Andrew when that first time in Colombia is ever brought up#just critiquing his methods#andrew isnt one for regret but neil picking holes in his plan and pointing out what HE would have done makes him feel pretty damn close#he probably finds it annoyingly attractive too tho
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Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between
#to be or not to be. that is the question#ty adam for being my model for dramatic vampire moment#musings on the thinkings about:#when to live you are required to hurt others. you must repeatedly ask yourself what the value of your life is#To sleep... perchance to dream...#ah. THERES THE RUB.#ok I actually couldnt come up with too many thoughts. I had a lot more while I was drawing this but I guess I put them in the painting LOL#reading that soliloquy and being like damn this is just like vampires#the reality of course is that the soliloquy is a debate over suicide and ultimately making the choice to live#even if just out of fear of the unknown#and vampires are about dying and then in undeath choosing to continue to live#despite the fear of eternity and loneliness and hurting others#theyre not the same. but like let me thiiink come onnnn I'm allowed to thiiink and have incomplete thoughts#I would have to write like a proper essay about this to organize my thoughts. this is the tags on a tumblr post.#anyways finished episode 79#working on patreon stickers for this month (and next month soon)#and working on book 4. taking a pause from episodes cause I've got 3 weeks of buffer now... UGH#I'm so mad that they changed it. it would have been 5 weeks before but it's fine it's whatever#anyways yeah taking a break from episodes to make my book now!#its good stuff.#and this painting is good stuff#banger after banger from me tbh#this was a little relaxing giving myself a couple hours to muse#it's necessary for my health and I always forget that til I do a painting...#I loved doing the little landscape in the background too I should do that more! I love how plants are just like whatever shape you want#like you can make up any plant you want and not only does that plant PROBABLY exist somewhere#a weirder plant exists somewhere too. so. literally whatever you want#ok bye again for a few days while I get back to work
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You should stay away from me. I'm no longer with the gang. I didn't agree. Our boss already agreed four years ago. Pull over and let me out of the car. I'm your boss!
KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 01 / Ep. 09
#kiseki: dear to me#kisekiedit#kdtm#kiseki dear to me#ai di x chen yi#chen yi x ai di#nat chen#chen bowen#louis chiang#chiang tien#jiang dian#userspring#uservid#userrain#userspicy#userjjessi#pdribs#*cajedit#*gif#again. INSANE that they opened the show with this and then were like. 'these are side characters' like. NO! (& wild how the finale was 90%#them being happy while zherui was getting stabbed. like. clearly the writers knew who the true main characters were lmaooo)#ok anyway i honestly really love the breath chen yi lets out once he gets the door shut. like. its real. its happening.#the RELIEF as well as the determination to have ai di for real in front of him again#and also insane that the first time they touch after four years is chen yi putting ai di's whole body over his shoulder#like. last time they touched was ai di touching chen yi's hair while he slept#does anyone else think about that. does anyone think about the fact that the last time they touched was when they slept together#does anyone else think abt what ai di is experiencing trying to keep chen yi from touching him#but also loving him for coming to pick him up from prison. do you think about the combination of ai di's desperation and dread#compared to chen yi's desperation and relief. like does anyone else think about the combination of gentle and rough or just me#i made half of this while on an airplane yesterday thats how insane for them i am <3
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a little family
#buddy daddies#my art#doodles#sometimes a family is an two misfit assassins and the daughter of the guy you offed and thats a okay#but lets not talk about that#we love healing in this house and how do you heal if not after suffering#reis journey through depression and kazukis journey through grief#what 1 little girl does to a man#its 5 am all i can offer are doodles but i love them very much#i know we do reasonably get to call them cowards for not making it gay (esp at the end bc come on)#but i do love whatever relationship they have going becuase theyre just. Thats marriage babe....#theyre not going to be doing any dating with that committment that is the most domestic ass setting ive ever seen#everyone and their mother assumes theyre married/dating and doesnt even question it because theres NO QUESTION T O ASK#only the people involved apparently dont know theyre married#ok nvm they were cowards for not making it gay. but again. theyre clearly married your honor. theyre just a little stupid
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totally normal about the 'wedding?' response continuing to evolve even though it's only been 5 shows. at this point i'm convinced the grand plan behind tit is to convince dan via exposure therapy that he's allowed to want to get married
#going from being afraid of commitment and anti-traditional to not doing it because of spite and pettiness about peoples' expectations...#it's not weak to want it dan. you dont 'lose' simply bc our desire for you comes true#the only reason we *want* it is bc we want you to be happy#and while yes thats tied up in tradition for a lot of us. and theres a lot to unpack there about society and norms and whatnot.#it's rooted in this deep want for you to get your happy ending. and while life doesnt *end* after marraige.#it's a hell of a fuck you to everyone who thought you couldnt make it. it's a hell of a fuck yeah as a celebration of how far you've come#it means the walls you built to keep yourself safe. that maybe have started to feel claustrophobic these past 5 years. can come down.#idk. its up to you to decide.#imo it all comes back to that same thing. dan wants something. but he cant have it bc what will society say about him for wanting it?#so he has to play it down and partake in this convoluted dance to say he doesnt want it thatd be ridiculous#and then folds anyway. bc denial only lasts so long when desire is strong. and it feels like he should be punished for liking it#yk how wad was about carving the words into his head that we get to live? this is like him hearing over and over we want good things for him#titspoilers#dnp#c.text#dan and phil#phan#dnptit
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And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.
#ffxiv#sketch#wol#meteor survivor#zenos yae galvus#adventurer zenos#oh no#its the consequences of his actions#everything is fine until the only man on the star you care about looks at you with the same contempt your father did#(Meteor's not doing it intentionally- its a reflex after he comes back for quite a bit)#and zenos is getting bodied because its been a while since... you know... him being able to really feel anything at all#and no- its not him regretting anything that had to do with varis- just him regretting the thought meteor could look at him like that#little does Meteor know he's emotionally bodying the man he's trying to be cordial with#its a little okay because in how I write adventurer zenos this serves as one of his main wake-up calls to make some changes#and realizing both the mistakes he's made with meteor and that meteor hating him in any way is actually -not at all- what he wants#but not okay on the end that every time meteor does this he has to watch zenos actively dissociate right in front of him#until zenos just kinda autopilots and walks away#the second time (or perhaps third) in the last 11 years that zenos has felt regret to any major capacity-#on meteor's end I just enjoy seeing the progression of the WoL through subtext#and why meteor is willing to even entertain the idea despite how much he hates zenos- his decisions and the path he's walked#is the realization that there is high chance that he could actually be a direct catalyst for zenos' growth#and the realization the wol has that they were the only one zenos has ever genuinely reached out to#besides- i just like the idea of having your equal other half fighting back to back with you- or being able to handle threats you cant#and i find their dynamic neat- of meteor not forgiving zenos but giving him his last chance- and growing to enjoy being around him#and zenos being able to work on moving past being the weapon or the monster- finding the connections he's longed for#and giving himself purpose to finally truly just live- for him to learn to experience and have the freedom to find what he enjoys#(and curiously him having estinien's brand of accidently helping people even in StB gives me ideas...)#but enough tag ranting- ill get to zenos' actual adventuring in another post lol
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Uhhh
Text + Inspo:
#undertale yellow#uty#staroba#ceroba ketsukane#starlo uty#ceroba uty#is this a bit corny??? a bit cheesy??? yeah. but what r u gonna do abt it.#brought to you by me thinking about how quickly star reaches out to tell ceroba they can work through this. how fast he comes to her side#to lift her up. being so comforting and understanding even after everything she’s just done. to him. to clover.#her lies and secrets turning everything he thought he knew about her on its head. but that’s okay. I’ll learn about you all over again and#again…#it was seeing that random quote on my dash that made me.. well. yknow.#gekkos art
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The TTPD Deep Dive (Part ?)
It’s no secret that I have a lot of Thoughts about The Tortured Poets Department and it has lived rent-free in my head since it came out earlier this year. I’m absolutely blown away by how underneath the chaos, it’s actually an exceptionally cohesive story and is probably the closest to a concept album Taylor has ever done.
There are so many themes that have stood out to me over the last five months, and there’s one in particular that I think not only drives the entire album, but ties into previous albums to help deepen understanding of it.
This is it, my fangirl magnum opus, my months of posts consolidated into one place. This is also my disclaimer that this is just my interpretation of the album, and my summary of the story it tells, and I don’t pretend to have any special insight or authority. I’m not saying I’m correct at all, do not take any of this as fact, it’s just what it sounds like to me, and these are my silly not-so-little thoughts about it.
(Under a cut because it’s way too long and involves discussion many may not care for or be sick of.)
Come one, come all, it's happening again (I'm thinking too hard about Taylor music)
The overarching theme in TTPD to me is: Grief. If you’re looking at TTPD as a story being told (instead of just as someone’s real life), the inciting incident of TTPD is loss, and the grief from that loss is what drives the narrator’s actions and the fallout, as well as unpacks those complicated feelings and how they apply to the her life in general. By the end of the standard album, it’s also about recovering from that pain, moving on from it and learning from it.
The loss specifically is the loss of the dream of having a family (with one’s partner). One thing that is abundantly clear both on the top line and under the surface in TTPD is how Taylor (as a person and as narrator) longed not only to for marriage but specifically parenthood, and the fear and then realization of losing that chance absolutely wrecked her— which is why the next lover’s (the conman's) wooing worked so well, because it preyed on that yearning. Yet that loss also dovetails into the grief of many things: of youth, of idealism, of relationships, of ideas, even of self, which causes almost a deconstruction of a belief system to piece one’s life back together by the end.
THE CONTEXT
TTPD weaves in the topics of marriage and motherhood both explicitly and in the subtext, in various forms and scenarios. The cheating husband in “Fortnight.” The wedding ring line in “TTPD” the song. “He saw forever so he smashed it up” in “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.” All of “So Long, London.” Running away with her wild boy in “But Daddy I Love Him,” fantasizing about weddings and joking about babies. The imaginary rings in “Fresh Out The Slammer.” The cheating husband (again) and the friends who smell like weed or “little babies” in “Florida!!!” “You and I go from one kiss to getting married,” “Talking rings and talking cradles,” and “our field of dreams engulfed in fire” in “loml.” (And arguably: “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”) “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short,” in “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.” They may not sound like much on their own, but they paint a picture about how the topics pervaded her thoughts and her writing, and in many cases express her desires, and her pain.
It’s something that goes back several albums when you pick up on context clues. You get the first hints on Reputation with “New Year’s Day,” and “you and me forevermore.” Then Lover is very forward with it: “Lover” is basically wedding vows, “Paper Rings” is very engagement-coded, “I Think He Knows” is cheeky but low-key “you better put a ring on it,” “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” has wedding/marriage imagery in the last verse. As a self-professed diaristic writer, it’s the type of stuff one presumably doesn’t put out there unless those conversations have already happened, and she was very excited about it at the time it was released.
Then the pandemic happens and folklore comes out, and while there is still happy love there (“invisible string”), there are also the first indications that something has happened to put a halt to whatever future she once dreamed of (“hoax,” “the lakes”) and that she’s trying to reassure herself and him that it can still happen even if she’s scared it might not (“peace”). Notably, as far as I can remember it’s the first time Taylor explicitly brings up the idea of family (with her partner) with “you know that I’d give you my wild, give you a child,” which stood out at the time because it’s so incredibly vulnerable, but it’s even more poignant when you really take in that the whole song is like a confession of her deepest worries, and this is her vowing to give him these things that she holds most sacred if he’ll let her. These are what she cherishes most dearly and wants to return in kind: her youth and commitment (my wild), the family she craves (a child), unconditional support (swing for the fences/sit in the trenches) and understanding/compassion (silence that only comes when two people know each other).
Evermore follows an even darker path, and suddenly the album explores relationships that end and grappling with loss. There are toxic relationships (“tolerate it”), dangerous marriages (“no body, no crime,” “ivy”), failing/broken relationships (“Coney Island,” “champagne problems,” “happiness,” “‘tis the damn season”), as well as grief (“Marjorie,” “evermore”). Even some of the happy songs have uncertainty in them: in “willow” she’s begging for him to take her lead, like she’s still trying to decipher him and ask him to commit; in “cowboy like me,” still a beautiful love song, she’s thinking, “this wasn’t supposed to work and we were supposed to bail on each other but we fell in love instead”; “evermore” is about the depths of severe depression (and more) with the love story being the one saving grace in her darkest hour. And it’s also notable that after all the “fiction” writing, shortly after this album she writes “Renegade” where she’s telling the subject: I’m ready to start the next phase of our life now, why aren’t you? Is it me you don’t want after all? It’s like there’s something telling her that this stall might not just be a stall.
Midnights is a jumble (in a good, but in hindsight, also sad way) with the “sleepless nights” concept, but it seems pretty clear now that the themes and events and relationships she was revisiting tied into a lot of what she was feeling in her present life. I wrote the cliff notes version awhile back, but she’s questioning so much of her life that’s reflected in past events and relationships. Am I actually always the problem? How did we lose sight of each other and what we had? We only seem to work when we block out everyone and everything else. Can we ever go back to when things were good? Why are you neglecting me? I once thought I was going to lose everything but you saved me in the nick of time, can that happen again? I chased my career, but did I give up my chance at having a family in the process? Nobody knows what I really suffer from behind closed doors and I’m all alone.
And so on, which in retrospect now that we have TTPD, is very much what she was grappling with in private while writing and releasing the album. The inspiration behind the songs may have been different events and muses, but regardless of their origins they all end up feeling too familiar, like she's seen this film before (ahem). We’re seeing her view of commitment change too, or rather how she writes about it: she’s not making the outright declarations of it like on Lover, or even the implied ones on folklore, nor is she talking of the dark side of it like evermore. For the most part it’s a return to the early days of some relationships, before things got hard, or the end of them when there was nothing left, and also pushing away the discussion of it altogether by the outside world. “Sweet Nothing” is a sweet slice of life, but even at that, it’s the peace of the home in conflict with the pressure of the outside world. Now that we have “You’re Losing Me,” which was written at the same time as the rest of the album, we can probably deduce that she was going back to the start because something happened that made her doubt the future.
THE SETUP
So much of Midnights directly ties into TTPD, and I said in the post I linked that it’s like Midnights is asking the questions that TTPD answers. But there’s one song in particular on Midnights that sticks out to me as being key in the broadest sense to understanding the state of mind that led to the events of TTPD, and that’s “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” because the way it expresses grief is reflected in the theme of mourning a life built and the dreams along with it that are never realized in TTPD. There are several instances in TTPD that are basically variations of: “every single thing to come has turned into ashes,” and that’s what makes her snap, and leaves her vulnerable to someone who promises her those things when she’s bereaved at losing them in the first place. (In other words: “the deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling.”) The song tells a story about how that loss of hope colours one’s entire mindset, and in some ways is a bridge to TTPD to understand what such a low point feels like.
I think that that grief, and most importantly losing hope for an imagined future in its wake, is fundamental to understanding TTPD on so many levels: both the decline with one partner that kept her hanging on then led her such a dark path, and why she fell for the conman's apparent bullshitting because it offered an express pass to what she was losing with her partner. And I also feel like it plays a part into the ruminating she’s doing all over Midnights, trying to make sense of where she finds herself when she’s writing the album, which directly leads to “You’re Losing Me.” Loss permeates so many of the stories on Midnights: of lovers, of innocence, of youth, of faith, of control, of life’s work, etc. “BTTWS” is just one of the ways in which it is expressed so fully, capturing that deep depression and subsequent extinction of faith in something that once felt assured and very much wanted. (Which is also mentioned in her writing process in the “Depression” playlist on Apple Music.)
If you understand why that feeling of loss in general across so many parts of life is so important to Midnights, then it illuminates so much about the “narrative” in TTPD too. If on Midnights she’s wrestling with the seeds of grief and loss (on multiple fronts), TTPD is her reckoning with it in its full form. “So Long, London” is the song that is the most explicit about it: How much sad did you think I had in me? How much tragedy? Just how low did you think I’d go before I’d have to go be free? You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof. It’s the sequel to “You’re Losing Me.” It’s, the air is thick with loss and indecision, I know my pain is such an imposition, I’m getting tired even for a phoenix, all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, I’ve got nothing left to believe unless you’re choosing me, my heart won’t start anymore, but from the other side of the break.
This is highly speculative, but if you follow the thread about the topic and the relationship as told from Rep through TTPD, in broad strokes it goes: young love with a serious connection (Rep) -> growing up and making life plans (Lover) -> something happens that delays those plans or makes them grind to a halt (folklore) -> serious doubts arise and cause a loss of faith in their future (evermore) -> struggling with the loss of that future and trying to make sense of the problems in a last ditch attempt to save the relationship (Midnights) -> fallout from that grief after the blowup of the relationship (TTPD). Understanding that progression of events (through the music) explains not only the storytelling side of TTPD (e.g. the jump from the partner to the conman) but also how the experiences/muses blend in the music, and how the music that on the surface is about the short-term relationship is really driven by the destruction of the long-term one.
Following the music, it’s IMO implied that Taylor (the narrator) was holding out for marriage and family with her partner, for years, and it seems like it was at one point a shared dream until something happened to pump the brakes, and seemingly on her partner’s end. And extrapolating further, given how the sorrow expressed in former albums bleeds into TTPD, it sounds like a plan that had been concrete in some form before it had fallen apart, and losing something that once felt so tangible is what drives her in her grief to find any kind of respite from the pain. Which is why the situation with the conman becomes so appealing as the one with the partner splinters further and further.
(If everything you’ve once touched is sick with sadness and you don’t want to be sad anymore, what are you left to do?)
THE STORY
So (one part of) the story kind of sounds like this from the standard album: the relationship with her partner as well as his mental health slowly deteriorate and he withdraws emotionally (“London,” “Fresh Out The Slammer”) and physically (again, “London,” and “Guilty As Sin?”) and takes his resentment out on her (“London” and arguably “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” even though I don't want to get into muse speculation here). As she sinks deeper into her own depression as a result, the weight of the failing relationship starts feeling like a cage— or a noose (“London,” “Guilty”), but coming to terms with the loss of their life together and the future they’d dreamed of was killing her (again, “London,” but also “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”).
Enter the conman who she reconnects with at the very point where this is coming to a head (knowing that IRL she reconnected with him around the time Midnights was being worked on) , and if you read between the lines, she confides some deeply personal things to him (“Down Bad” and “hostile takes overs”/“encounters closer and closer,” “Smallest Man” and the entire sleeper cell spy imagery which is one of my favourite things and I could write a whole essay about the meaning of it, “loml” and “A con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme”). Then after she’s confided these secrets to him, he insinuates himself back into her life (“Guilty,” “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man”) and sells her a dream that HE can give her all these things she hopes for (again, “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man,” “loml,” song “TTPD,” “Broken Heart”).
But the thing is, he only knows these are the things she wants because she’s revealed it to him, and presumably, told him that was what she was losing by staying with her partner. And instead of the normal response of, “that is really sad that your partner is not supporting you and you deserve to be treated better,” to a friend in growing distress, it seems like it was, “well I can give you all those things!!!! Right now!!!! Trust me!!!!” And worked on her until she believed it, and jumped at the chance at a precarious time in her life. And one thing I want to underscore is: Taylor has agency in the situation always, it’s not like she’s been kidnapped and brainwashed. (In fact, she implores on songs like “But Daddy” that SHE is in charge of her own choices, good or bad.) She chose to rekindle the friendship and then relationship, and she chose to eventually leave her long term relationship for another man, and she reiterates on the album that she owns this all. But it’s also: nothing exists in a vacuum, and she makes choices based on emotions and information she has at the time, which is why it gives so much whiplash.
THE ALBUM
When you look at it as, the situation with the conman only happens because of what happened with the partner first and that the appeal of the conman and the fantasy he sells her is a direct reaction to that, it makes the “swirliness” of the music make so much more sense. And for much of it, even many of the “conman” songs on the surface are really “partner” songs underneath.
Fortnight
A suburban gothic allegory about a broken marriage with a distant husband with a wandering eye, which makes the rekindled romance with the neighbor so appealing. She’s miserable caged in her stifling house because she’s been abandoned by her spouse, so the reappearance of this past love reignites the passion that’s dead at home.
TTPD
“So tell me, who else is gonna know me?” “I chose this cyclone with you.” I’m gonna kill myself if you ever leave. Everyone knows we’re crazy. She’s laying it out there that she’s already in a dangerous state of mind, and she’s actively putting herself in more danger by pursuing the conman. “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding,” spells this whole thing out so clearly: whether it’s an actual event (likely) or a metaphor for the promise he makes to her, the reason why it makes her heart explode is because it’s the thing she’s been waiting for forever with no movement, and here this person comes in and slips it on her finger in an instant like it’s nothing. (And eventually, as we’ll come to know, it is absolutely nothing to him.) You mean it could have been this easy this whole time?! (Well, no. Not until a certain other suitor makes his appearance later.) It feels like she’s finally getting everything she wanted in the blink of an eye! How lucky! How convenient! What was that about the get-love-quick scheme you say? (Unsaid: the reason why this feels so urgent is because there’s a sense that time is running out in so many aspects of her life and not just the obvious. Which reappears later on.)
Down Bad
“Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” sets the scene for this euphoric experience in the moment that starts to feel violating once the dust settles (which is then followed up in “Smallest Man” and the spy mission on her). The bridge spells out how he weaselled his way into her life, preyed upon (intentionally or not) her emotional state, sold her a dream and then vanished, without the benefit of hindsight yet we see later in the album.
The alien abduction metaphor is pretty brilliant, because it shows both how she was desperate to escape the place she found herself in, and how much it screwed her brain to then be left stranded when the affair was over. “[I loved your] hostile takeovers, encounters closer and closer,” is so evocative because it details how the situation came to be: his overtures under the guise of friendship blurred lines until he made her an offer that she eventually couldn’t refuse (hostile takeovers) as he infiltrated her life more and more intimately. The sad thing is that the song has parallels to how her relationship with the partner started too in earlier albums, in that they ran away to live in their own bubble (or planet) only for him to metaphorically abandon her as the years went on. (Oven, meet microwave.)
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
Being continually emotionally broken down by a person who knows he’s hurting you but still acts the way he does. (The original voice memo version makes this even clearer and it’s rather heartbreaking.) “He saw forever so he smashed it up,” speaks to the loss of a future the person became scared of, and the original lyrics (“he saw forever so he blew it up”) somehow cut even deeper to me because it feels so much more intentional.
Also in the original version, “he was my best friend and that was the worst part,” also speaks not only to the loss of an entire partnership in the wake of this hurt, but also to the feelings of betrayal that the person you trust so deeply has the ability to hurt you in this way too, and how it’s a one-two punch of not only losing the relationship but also your closest confidant. (It’s like the sequel to “Renegade” and the missiles firing to me.) Again, there are shades of both/many situations in the song, pointing to an unfortunate pattern in some ways. The situation in “My Boy” is part of why she was so low, and why the “get love quick scheme” was so appealing later on. And it dovetails nicely into…
So Long, London
The most explicitly “partner” song that puts a coda on “You’re Losing Me,” and is Track 5 because it’s the emotional underpinning of how she got to where she was, and drives the events of the rest of the album. It spells everything out: He withdrew, she tried to fix it for both of them, eventually even that stopped working, he was oblivious to or minimized how badly she was suffering and his (in)actions couldn’t reassure her, he wouldn’t move forward on their future plans and stewed in his own struggles, she was spiralling out of control trying to hang on and ultimately felt like she was going to die if she didn’t leave.
But Daddy I Love Him
Like a direct reaction to “So Long, London” in that she breaks free from the death of one relationship and throws herself with reckless abandon to the next, fuck the haters. How dare you judge me, when the relationship you think I should have stayed in was killing me? (Dutiful daughter all the plans were laid. All you want is gray for me.) Fuck all of you, I’m going to choose whoever I want! (So what if I have a baby with HIM, huh?! I tried doing it the proper way and look where that got me so now we're back to square one) It’s again her imagining how wonderful and freeing this “wild boy” is going to be for her, and how wrong she’ll prove everyone. THIS TIME she definitely got it right. So what if she has to run away! So what if she scandalizes the whole town! They don’t know what she really wants or needs anyway! She’s the only one of her (hee-hee-hee) and she’s the only who gets to decides how this goes. (Because: she longs for control in a situation she’ll eventually realize she has little of it in, which we’ll find out is a recurring theme in her life.)
Fresh Out The Slammer
Also spells out what happened with the partner in the first verse and the pre-choruses, which is what makes the conman so appealing as the imagined jailbreak. The bitter loneliness vs. the sultry passion she builds up in her head as she awaits her release from prison is key to understanding the two sides of the story in the album. There’s this whole outlaw imagery (which is also carried through in “I Can Fix Him”), but it’s contrasted in the end with her and her reunited lover sitting on park swings like children with “imaginary rings” — because “Ain't no way I'm gonna screw up now that I know what's at stake.” What’s at stake is lasting love and the promises that come with it (marriage/family) that are precious and time-sensitive. The imaginary rings are both a nod to the youthful dreams of her and her new/old lover, but also has a double meaning to me because those promises aren’t built on anything together; they're made up, intangible. (They’re no more concrete than the plans that went up in smoke with the partner.) Like with most of the conman situation, it’s all a fantasy in her head that has yet to happen, and as we find out later in the album, reality ends up leaving much to be desired.
Florida!!!
Broadly speaking, it’s running away from your problems and wanting to disappear from your life. (But again: the life she’s disappearing from is the cheating husband she may or may not be feeding to the swamp-- another miserable marriage.) What kind of flies under the radar though is the “I don’t want to exist,” line, which points to her dire state of mind that led her to fleeing to that metaphorical timeshare down in Destin. In many ways about cheating death.
Guilty As Sin
Yes it’s the “masturbation song,” but again the nuance is that she’s left to pleasure herself because her partner has abandoned her emotionally and even physically, i.e. “my boredom’s bone deep.” To be blunt: they aren’t even intimate anymore, so she starts fantasizing about the guy she used to have chemistry with who’s reentered her life and is making moves on her. And realizing that she’s now finding release in another man (albeit imaginary) breaks her even as it reinvigorates her because she finally understands that the relationship she’s in is effectively dead. (“Am I allowed to cry?”)
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me
This isn’t about relationships, but about society and its reaction to them in a general sense. But again, she’s left to stew in all this anger and hurt as she’s been abandoned at home, then abandoned by public opinion, and the public attack on her is part of the origin as well as the end of that story. The trauma inflicted upon her detailed in the song is the reason why she felt trapped in the first place, which led to the decisions she’s made and habits she’s leaned on ever since.
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
This is one of the few songs that is the most completely conman-coded, and shows when the delusion finally breaks at the end of the song. She spends the whole song being like, “no really, I alone can make him better! You’ll see! I know he’s gross, but he’s mine! It’ll be fine I swear! You don’t know anything! Uuuuuum hmm wait actually what the fuck—“
Loml
Oof. THE song. Again the surface reading is about the “conman” who comes in and sells her the lie, but the pain is because all the dreams she writes about are HER dreams and implied that they were the dreams she built with her partner that the conman sold back to her. I could do a deeper dive on this but most of the song is applicable to both relationships, which not only shows the “swirliness” of her writing, but also how they both ultimately did the same thing to her in different shades.
The bridge and the last chorus are kind of fundamental to understanding it all, and her ending it with “you’re the loss of my life” is about, among other things, how falling for this trap blew up the life she built and dreamed of for good. (I could talk about this one forever.) “You shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles” to “Our field of dreams engulfed in fire” is a hell of a line and progression, and again, indicative of what the real driving force behind the whole album is. The shit-talking is because he took her dreams (of marriage and children) and hyped it back up to her tenfold whether in a moment of his own delusion or for more nefarious reasons — much like how the man prior kept promising these things but never followed through, which left her vulnerable to someone who appeared to offer them enthusiastically. The field of dreams isn’t just the one with the conman, it’s the one with the longterm relationship she’d built the dream with in the first place, because the conman’s actions are part of the reason the LTR went up in smoke. (Not the reason for the rift, but the consequence of the final break.) And THAT is why it’s the loss of her life, so completely.
When she says “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all,” IMO it’s not just the fake future that the conman lures her into, but also (and perhaps mainly) the once-real one she had with her partner and the loss of which that made her susceptible to falling for the con in the first place. There’s honestly so much between the lines in this song that covers every theme and speaks to the grief of seeing the life she imagined slip away, slowly by the first man then annihilated by the second.
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
The juxtaposition of “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short” and “He said he’d love me for all time, but that time was quite short” sums it up to me (and parallels “loml”), because they are two different situations, but they cut her just the same. In the first, “that life” IMO was the life they’d built with the dreams that went along with it and it was too short because he never followed through, and in the second, the “time” was quite short because it was the frenzy of the whirlwind romance that fizzled as quickly as it began. The life that was too short led to the time that was quite short.
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
This is definitely THE conman song. The rage, the shame, the violation, it’s all in there. But the key to it is the bridge and the espionage imagery woven through it. A honeypot scheme is when spies target a mark and seduce them to gain their trust and their privileged information for their homeland. So her likening him to a sleeper cell spy who set her up just to mine her deepest secrets and use them against her is a heavy, loaded statement. And implied: that valuable information she unknowingly held were her longings of marriage and family (the aforementioned shit-talking about rings and cradles she never got to have), and more importantly, those dreams preceded him reentering her life and then beginning his mission on her.
The insinuation then is: she confesses these are her deepest wishes which are now seemingly unattainable in her current situation (e.g. with her partner) -> he convinces her HE will give them to her and make the dreams she pines for come true -> she falls for him and blows up her life to make it happen -> he gets what he wants (thrill of the chase/sex/the idea of her/whatever his intent was) -> he abandons her when he gets what he wants, or rather it isn’t what he wants or can handle -> she’s left a) all alone b) with dreams unfulfilled c) with no answers d) feeling used at having her most sacred wishes used against her.
Again, the song is unquestionably about the way the conman absolutely destroyed her, but he was able to do that because there was this thing she wanted more than anything, that was dying in her previous relationship, that he was able to prey upon to seduce her, then discarded her and her dreams as soon as it was inconvenient for him while absolutely hollowing her inside out. (And again: the devastating thing is that this also applies to other relationships she’s written about, in different ways.)
The Alchemy
Not about either the partner or the conman directly, but it (loosely) touches on her finding herself after the whole oven-to-microwave experience and opening herself up to life and love again. #GoodForHer
Clara Bow
This isn’t about the romantic relationships on the surface, but it is about how damaging the entertainment industry and public life are on women, and how women are only valued for their beauty as commodities until they can be discarded and destroyed in the process. Which I think plays into the circumstances that led her to make the decisions that she did years ago, and why she makes the ones she does now. (But also, being valued for physical traits and appeal for the male gaze brings us to…)
The Manuscript
The “original sin” that kicks off all of this. Again, at first light this isn’t about the partner or the conman, but the person it is about is the reason why she has made all the decisions she has ever since in relationships (and that’s Mr. Plaid Shirt Days from “All Too Well”). The realization that her first serious adult relationship is what cemented these patterns, and this view of herself and her worthiness in relationships, is profoundly sad. An older man who valued her for being so mature for her age and implying that the mature activities ahem associated with that were the performance benchmarks in her ability to carry a relationship, only to leave her, was earth shattering. She placed her faith in this person, but then the way he treated her changed her view of love and of herself.
She took his innuendo about “pushing strollers” as a sign of potential commitment, whereas he ultimately meant it as foreplay, and she was too young and naive to know the difference. So not only did she learn from that that this man (and men) didn’t view commitment and family the way she did and that it was something to be toyed with, but she also learned that her value to them among other things was sex. Imagine being an idealistic 20 year old and your boyfriend ten years your senior tells you, “if the sex is anywhere near as good as our dates have been, we’re going to be making babies before you know it,” (e.g. this is relationship is serious) and then he dumps you: does that imply that the sex was not in fact that good? (E.g. that you’re not worthy after all?)
No, obviously from this side of life, it’s because he was a commitment-phobic playboy, even if he did love her, but she couldn’t have known that at 20 and instead internalized that shame. But, it did send her on a path of how she approached sex and love and relationships for over a decade afterwards. And her coming to the realization that that first act of (perhaps unintentional) manipulation is what informed her actions thereafter helped her break the pattern. Her worth to men is not just sex, she has value and her hopes and dreams have value, she doesn’t have to change into a different person to please anyone, because if that is what they want, they won’t ever want her anyway.
It’s been described here on Tumblr by people more eloquent and astute than I as a song that encapsulates the album as this: one did it slow (partner), one did it fast (conman), and one did it first (first love)— and that is haunting. After years of men minimizing her dreams and desires, if not outright using them against her, she’s finally at the point where she can let it all go and move on for good. (There’s a whole other tangent about consent and shame and manipulation, but that’s an entirely different kind of discussion. But it is so devastatingly contrasted with “you said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine, and that made me want to die.”)
THE SUMMATION
This is just my interpretation of it, but in going through the standard album, it feels pretty clear how cohesive the album is about a story of love and loss and grief, then reckoning with what caused it all in the first place that set a person on this path. It’s a formative experience at a young age that was traumatic and led to certain coping mechanisms and a shaping of one’s self-perception, as well as the reaction to external pressures that try to dictate behaviours and influence how one feels one deserves out of love which makes it harder to know when one absolutely deserves more and better. And leaves one struggling to cope with loss when there isn’t anything else to hold onto. Then in light of one’s life blowing up, learning to find oneself in the aftermath all over again.
On another tangent that is somewhat related to the theme of loss, the way she writes about the two main muses on the standard album also ties into how the situations converged to create absolute carnage on her emotional and mental well-being. With one situation, she’s talking about a concrete life that crumbles under the weight of their struggles; with the other, the entire thing is a fantasy that she builds up in her head, and when it comes to fruition it falls far, far short.
If you look at the “microwave” (conman) relationship, you realize that almost everything she writes about it happens before it actually becomes reality, and it’s mostly her imagining how great it’ll be, but with few exceptions, when she writes about what actually occurred, it doesn’t even come close to living up to her expectations. “Fortnight” is an imagined future where she escapes to Florida and his touch finally starts her stalled engine (ahem). “TTPD” is perhaps the most positive retelling of their time together, but even that implies he was better off stoned and when he sobered up he succumbed to his demons all over again, and more importantly she conveys how she also is in extreme distress, barely concealed by the veneer of being infatuated with him. (E.g. saying to that she’ll kill herself if he ever leaves her — the implication is that she is absolutely serious about it when she “felt seen.”) And that the warning bells are going off in her head, but she feels like this person is the only one she can be with (because they’re equally fucked up and the chaos he brings into her life makes her feel alive when she felt so close to death).
“Down Bad” is the most explicit about being in love, but she’s also left completely confused and disoriented by him disappearing, wondering if any of it was real and the seeds of violation creep into her consciousness (��did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” “Waking up in blood.”). “But Daddy” is her imagining she can tell everyone to fuck off for telling her what to do with her life. “Fresh Out The Slammer” is her fantasizing about this man while feeling trapped in her relationship — but never in the song is she actually reunited with him; she’s using him as the projection of all the things she’ll make right after being wronged by her partner. “Guilty As Sin?” Is very obviously about her fantasizing about sleeping with him, but again it’s such a minefield for her because it hasn’t happened yet; they’ve only just reconnected. “I Can Fix Him” is the only song other than “TTPD” that shows them actually together, and it’s the one where she keeps saying, essentially, “I know he’s gross but I can rehabilitate him into an upstanding person, trust me,” until the mic drop at the end of the song where it finally hits her that no, she can’t, because this is who he is, not the person she’s built him up to be.
“Loml” is when it all comes crashing down, and the song emphasizes everything he did and told her, e.g. that she’s the love of his life, but she doesn’t return the sentiment in the song about their time together. Because now that it’s past tense, she knows it wasn’t actually love. (And says as much in the album epilogue poem.) “Broken Heart” is her reeling in the aftermath, but again, it’s “he said,” not “I loved.” And then there’s “The Smallest Man,” where she eviscerates him: he also pursued an idea of her but didn’t care much for the real her in front of him (who else is gonna know me?), he love bombed her only to hurt her (crushing her dreams), he was constantly stoned (and not just in the funny munchies kind of way), and he wasn’t even a good lover (despite the fantasy she’d created before). That last point is especially striking because she spent albums singing about the importance of and pleasure in (sexual) intimacy in the relationship with her partner (sometimes to both their own detriment) and how it was at times the only way they could connect, but in this case, the idea she hyped up and acted on in her head about this lover never panned out in practice. She spells it out in the epilogue: it wasn’t a love affair, it was a mutual manic phase.
In contrast, there’s a lot more tangible action in the “oven” (partner) parts of the album, showing how hard she tried to make the relationship work in real life instead of just in her head. All of “So Long, London” is her detailing how she tried to break through to him and support him, even when he rejected it and pushed her away, thinking she could carry them both until they ultimately sank, but she did it because she “loved this place for so long.” (The place? Not just the city, but the home and perhaps most importantly, him.) In “Slammer” she stayed with him even as things disintegrated for “one hour of sunshine.” (E.g. holding onto the rarer good times even as they were fewer and further between, hoping things would eventually turn around.) And like in “London,” she held on despite people in her life pleading with her that it was hurting her. (Which is also echoed in “Slammer.”) In “Guilty” her boredom is “bone deep” because the passion that once drove their relationship (and papered over their problems) has finally gone out too, so there’s nothing left to hold onto, leading to her fantasizing about the new suitor, which makes her realize her relationship has passed the point of no return. “Loml” is about the conman on the surface, but the undercurrent of all the things she says about him is that he was co-opting the dreams that she was clinging onto for dear life in the previous relationship, which is why the con is so painful; the field of dreams he sets ablaze isn’t just the fake painting he sold to her, but the original artifact (her life with her partner) too.
All the physical and emotional labour she puts into the relationship with her partner ends up reflected in the fantasizing she does in the one with the conman, which is why it is so confusing in the moment and so lethal when he leaves her without any answers. She wants to get married and start a family with her partner which keeps getting stalled; the conman mock-proposes which makes her think he’s immediately serious (“TTPD,” “loml”). She feels caged by having to hide with her partner and shrink herself; the conman promises he’ll stand by her side publicly and let her shine (“Smallest Man”). She sinks into a deep depression in her loneliness as the relationship with her partner careens off a cliff; the conman convinces her they’re meant for each other in a them-against-the-world way (“Down Bad”). The intimacy (in all senses of the word) in her relationship with her partner fizzles; the conman stokes the fire by sending her secret messages and reigniting passion (“Guilty”). She spent years trying to help her partner to no avail; the conman makes her think she has the power to reform him (“loml”). She feels misunderstood by her partner; the conman acts like he’s the (only) one who truly gets her (“TTPD,” “loml”).
In short: there’s nothing that the conman does or says that isn’t a direct response to what her partner did first, and it’s even worse because the conman knew how much her partner’s actions hurt her and he used that privileged information to paint a picture of what he could give her, but in doing so in some ways aimed at her heart with even deadlier accuracy. (I’ve likened it to him borrowing someone else’s life for his own joyride, until he crashes the rental car and flees the scene.) It’s why in the aftermath, the difference in emotions are so different: she feels nothing but rage and violation towards the conman for getting in her head and using her, whereas her feelings towards her partner are more complicated. There’s anger (at her lost youth and being taken for granted), but there’s also sorrow (at their lost life and future), disappointment (that he never could step up the way he’d promised or she’d needed), even compassion (towards his struggles) and a tiny measure of appreciation (for the good times they did share).
When you look at the bigger picture, the story the album paints is just so painfully normal. You have two people (Taylor and her partner) who once loved each other deeply, and despite warning signs early on telling them they have fundamentally different needs and ways of living their lives they fight like hell to make it work (the epilogue) until those warning signs become grenades that destroy their home (“My Boy,” “London,” “Slammer,” arguably “loml”). Having already been through at least one rough patch/break/breakup that she felt almost destroyed her (harkening back to Midnights on “You’re Losing Me,” “The Great War” and “Hits Different”), the final and fatal downward spiral of the relationship (“YLM,” “London”) and the grief over losing that future sends her into a tailspin, just at the time where a flame from the past (the conman) reenters her life and tells her all the things she’s been longing to hear and feel (“TTPD,” “Down Bad,” “Guilty,” “loml”) and, crucially, missing from the relationship that was once her entire life.
So in her panic, she falls prey to the (empty) promises of the past lover (“loml,” “Smallest Man”) and decides he’s actually what will save her from the free fall, because the alternative (that she will end up in a situation she doesn’t think she can survive) is too painful to bear. When she finally acts on these circumstances (leaves her partner/runs to the conman), she snaps, acting on pure emotion and adrenaline (“But Daddy”), but before she knows it, the new lover abandons her, and she’s left to reckon with the fallout of the episode and process everything that has happened (“Down Bad,” “loml”) — with the conman, with her partner, with the choices made in her adult life personally and professionally which leads her back to the moment she feels set her down that road at the start.
The TL;DR of this unintentionally long essay is that the reason the conman affair was so serious was precisely because it was meant to fulfill the promise of what was her life with her partner. To me, a large part of the story is that she projected that life onto the conman (or he projected her life back to her for his own purposes) because she wasn’t ready to deal with that massive grief and the life raft he offered felt like the only alternative to an even darker end. Whether the conman actually believed what he told her, or he went along with it or encouraged it because it served his purpose, we’ll never know, just like we’ll never know the finer details of what went on (nor should we). But no matter what, the album is just an extreme deep dive into all the ways grief can consume us, and whether it’s a long, drawn-out death or a sudden, inexplicable one, it can turn a person’s life into such a trainwreck that they act in ways unfathomable to even them, let alone the people around them. It can also unleash repressed trauma and mental illness that can crater your sense of self. And when those situations are compounded? It makes for a nearly impossible type of breakdown to unpack. (Which is why you might need a 31 song album to process it.)
#What if i told you I’m back lol#Time for me to finally just post the thing after it’s been sitting in my drafts for so long so I can rid myself of it lol#Writing letters addressed to the fire#the tortured poets department#Consider this a treat before Eras comes back for its swan song leg idk#Would you believe that as long as this is#i deleted quite a few chunks of it from the original draft i sent to a friend(s) in the interest of ~propriety~#Because they were a little too rambly and um— ~speculative~/personal/etc and we are flying too close to the sun#And i tried to be as tactful and more or less stick to things we can point to in the music and such#So hope people catch my drift lmao but also iykyk i guess#I have so many other themes I want to talk about but I never have any time#I have so much more i want to say and yet#wavesoutbeingtossed: The Anthology#Also if things get weird i will turn off reblogs/delete the post tbd#This is not an invitation to get into muse ranting or debate in my inbox and I ask that you please respect my boundaries :)#Midnights#lover#folklore#evermore
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Saw you were looking for Tim robin getting sold to Jason fics and I don't have any recs for you, but I do have typin fingers so have a hastily written and drastically unedited snippet :3
"You fucking BOUGHT me?!" Tim snarls in disgust the moment that Jason rips the duct tape off his mouth. "We've been cleaning up the corpses of traffickers you carved up for weeks now, but the second it's me you waltz in as a paying customer?!"
Jason scoffs and tosses his helmet into the corner of the spartan safehouse. "Better learn some fuckin gratitude or else I might just grant that little wish of yours."
He squirms against the ropes hog tying him. They haven't budged an inch the last twenty times he's tried that, but it's the principle of the thing.
"Yeah, right. You are such a godsdamned hypocrite. You talk so much shit about Batman not avenging you, but the second anyone else puts on the uniform you're just fine with them being put in all sorts of danger!"
Suddenly Jason grips his chin in a hold that would be shockingly affectionate if it weren't so bruisingly tight and stares directly into Tim's eyes with manic intensity.
Tim freezes.
Jason speaks low and quiet and quick. "This is not banter; this is not a joke; this is not a threat; you are going to respond to my next question seriously and with nothing but the plain truth. Do you understand me?"
"...Yes."
"Do you want me to hurt them for what they did to you?"
There is something frightening in Jason's gaze beyond just its intensity - something devotional, something like a prayer, something a little like the taunt of 'make my day' but sincere in its pleading and as vulnerable as a confession.
So yes, his gaze is frightening, but Tim is far more afraid of the wanting he's suddenly found within himself. He had only been complaining flippantly, but honestly? Deep down? Tim is jealous of the people Jason kills for.
Tim has had to be strong for so very long - a mother who died young, a father he had to caretake and avoid, a mentor he had to monitor and guide to better health, a predecessor he had to be stronger than in order to withstand what Jason had not survived.
Tim has been left craving this kind of protection. This force of wild, brutal, impassioned retribution in his name, for his sake, done to give Tim alone some piece of mind or personal satisfaction... especially from the very force which had compelled him to believe that he needed to be strong enough not to need such protection.
He had thought that Jason simply would not or could not feel that protectiveness for him, that taking on the mantle had rendered him ineligible for care from anyone altogether, but he stares into the abyss of Jason's eyes and he sees that it was only not extended to him out of respect for his convictions.
It's not enough to see it there. He knows that if he doesn't test this, doesn't have concrete evidence of this carved into someone's flesh, that the second he looks away he'll stop believing Jason's offer was ever real. He can't stand it. He needs to know. He needs to see someone demand that he is worth it.
In a moment of weakness he chooses to be intolerably selfish.
"Please. They deserve it. I deserve it."
Jason smiles, and looks at him like he's his very own miracle. His grip relaxes into a caress of Tim's cheek.
"Then I'll give you water, and I'll feed you, and I'll put you somewhere where you'll be comfortable while you wait for me to get back. Then I will go out and I will make them pay."
---
So yeah! Hope that was enjoyable :3
-redhoodinternaldialectical writing in from my "main" blog
!!!!!!! you just made my day 🥰🥰
very enjoyable 💜💜💜 thank you so much for sharing!!
#jaytim#timjay#in my brain when jason says he'll put tim somewhere more comfortable while he waits hes tying him to the bed instead#he tells himself its cause its just not as much strain on tims muscles#but rly its cause he wants to see him laid out for him#and then when he comes back after hes taken care of those guys#tims all worked up from thinking about what jasons doing for him#hehehe#melody answers#hellispeacefulandempty#redhoodinternaldialectical
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love for love's sake || episode three
#love for love's sake#love supremacy zone#rowan gifs#*showcase#lfls episode sets#userbon#tostrangers#uservid#tuseralexa#lextag#samblr#the episodening continues#love how many times myungha had to run after a runner in this one. echoes mirrors indeed#the first gif was. so very bad to color and i still dont like what i did but i had to include it..... i had to..........#but what Really makes me sad about this one is that there Is a significant hand shot#(myungha's hand falling away from yeowoon's arm after they argue about the present)#but it isnt very giffable (not many frames + odd angle)#sigh. so sad. its ok. more hands coming soon
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I got so insanely mad while drawing this
+ closeup and normalness
#alek art#zane julien#previous master of ice#ninjago#lego ninjago#2024#aka the scene i wish we got in snake jaguar ...#zane is like 30 here#im mostly thinking about dr juliens perspective on this night. we have very little to go off of but he was very weirded out#random very sick old man shows up at your door and takes an “interest” in your son. he isnt even over for an entire day. with him comes col#he was striken with winter and something about him felt off. he leaves without a word. after his arrival your son begins acting weird.#then another old man arrives. asking for your son. wonder what happened there#for anything about passing on powers or losing them its always some big event... hm#i think the previous master really did need shetler. we know he was old and died shortly after the power giving. i dont know what about#zane caught his eye. i do think its very interesting that this man of few words was so obviously fascinated that dr julien noticed.#dr julien isnt the most socially aware and in the little bit he said about the previous master... he sounded concerned#imagine weirding out the weirdest man alive#i think zane caught on too. he felt eyes on him the entire night. they ate dinner with the man.. gave him shelter... but he felt he wanted#more. sometime that day he gave zane the power of ice. which effectively changed the course of his entire life. zane and dr julien hadnt a#clue what happened. 'yesterday a man arrived' so not even within a day did he see zane and decide that he was the one#thinking about how zane acting like his self now is 'strange' and was out of the ordinary. what was he like before? how do you even pass a#power down. we see people get their powers stolen and its always a spectacle and its so exhausting and so on. how did dr julien not see#anything. there was no questions? he just noticed the previous master found his son interesting and then he left ?#goddddd im insane i wanna write a fic about zane pre series
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Idk who needs to hear this but time and time again isn't over!!!
Webtoon removed the "time and time again will return!!!" Banner and I don't know why, but it's not over!!! There's still another 1/3 of the comic to go! There's a lot more stuff that I'm working on and it'll be coming back soon!
Please be patient with me, I know it's been a long time... But the stuff I'm making is really good and there's a lot of reasons it's taken this long. I promise I want it back more than anyone.
I'm trying to come back around the end of October. I'm doing my best to get everything ready in time, so no promises, but I'm on track to do so! I'm just one person writing and drawing everything, and my editor was fired so I'm not even getting any notes anymore. It's literally just me. I'm doing my best I promise!
#im so frustrated that banner has been gone#and people think the comic is over because of that#which is reasonable to think#but it... idk#its already an uphill battle to try snd retain audience after a hiatus this long#let alone when webtoon is actively building thr expectation that theres no need to come back...#im so frustrated#every day there is something new with them its so exhausting#this isnt even the thing I've been majorly stressed about this is a fresh new frustration#i feel like they're not just being unhelpful#at this point i feel like theyre actively sabotaging my career.#im not allowed to promote my books#i can't make my links too big so no one can find me#people dont even know i have a patreon#i can't make any announcements on the comic#and now people think th whole thing is over and it isnt!#im so ;_;#im so frustrated and demoralized#and people complete reasonably are losing patience and interest#and. ah... it's fine. like genuinely it is fine.#it will come back soon and i am doing a good job#and everyone who sees it's back will be happy with what ive done#cause it's good. its really good...#but. yeah. idk. webtoon has been actively keeping me down since the beginning and im so over them#I've been so mistreated aysudjejjdjdjdj#i just want to finish the series and go ;_;#taking all my power to not **** ******#just gotta power through and get the fuck out#text post#update
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No greater horror than going to reread one of your favourite fics only to realize it was fucking deleted.
BUT THEN YOU REMEMBER THAT YOU SAVED IT ALL A WHILE BACK AND FIND THE SAVED COPY
So now Im just staring at the fucking PDF file of the fic, absolutely flabbergasted and shocked. This is it. This is the only way I'll ever be able to read it now. Holy shit 😭
The author deleted their entire accout too, so I guess they just wanted to get rid of everything. Which, I mean, is fine, it is their work after all. They can do whatever they want with it.
BUT MAN, Im gonna be saving stuff all the time from now on.
#I have NEVER experienced this before#sure some fics I liked in the past got deleted and I was sad about it#but having a copy of it saved????#this is a whole new level of emotions#what the hell#you bet your ass Im gonna go and save SO MANY fics now after this#had to come here and rant cause Im feeling things rn#like Im so sad they deleted it but I have a copy so Im good??#but its still evoking this somberness???#idk man I wasn't expecting this#Im just gonna go read this smut fic now LMAO#ahhh but I just realized there was ANOTHER fic by this author I really liked... and I dont have it saved ☹#FUCK#really learning the hard way today#save your faves everybody!#you never know...#random post
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