#so it's like he can narrate in the present to transition to the *big* moments

[flythesail]

I want to start writing the next chapter but Qimir's backstory needs to cook a bit longer

[paladin-of-nerd-fandom65]

That was pretty quick lol I got some more if that’s ok?

1: if there was a starburst comic/cartoon/manga, how would you write it? Do two volumes for both kids separately showing their origins & before they meet and then bring them together in like the third volume/chapter?

2: since you mention they like to wrestle, what’s their favorite wrestling move; also to perform on goons?

3: what’s the power level gap between mar’i & Jake? Since both are probably already in the puberty stage, I can see Jake being a little bit more powerful due to the fact boys are stronger than girls with our bone density & stuff. (Unless tamaranians are build different lol)

4: even though they don’t kill due to being heroes, if they were in mortal kombat, what fatalities would you give to the boys? I can see Chris summoning the Nightwing entity and have the dragon eat the upper half of the opponent similar to liu kangs dragon fatality.

5: silly question :p you mention earlier that Chris gets powerful when the moon is out, does he get powerful when he looks at someone’s bare butt? Get it full moon XD I can see Jake or Conner making that type of joke & making Chris laugh.

Bring it all on my friend @gothicghost2000 XD. I got plenty of imagination to o come around

1. I think that’s an ideal approach enough though if we take into account that first issues/volumes of any comic are meant to entice the reader into the actual team themselves, I’d do their respective origins on one or two pages each of that volume, with narration from Chris and Jake themselves to help give the reader their points of view before then cutting to the present day for their first adventure shown in the pages.

2. Chris Kent by his the nature of powers is an absolute powerhouse and despite having some acrobatic moments, has a fighting style that reflects that. Hence his wrestling finisher of choice and one of his go to finishers against crooks and goons would be the Jackhammer Slam, a suplex which he carries his opponent on one arm up high before then slamming them on the ground back first. Best demonstrated by real life pro wrestler, Bill Goldberg

Now as for Jake, being more nimble and flexible, his preferred wrestling finisher of choice would be the Diamond Cutter aka the RKO. Here, he’d have a well placed headlock with his hands on the back of his opponent’s head, then slide forward onto his back, slamming the opponent face first onto the ground. Part of its charm for Jake is that he can strike with that move out of nowhere and anywhere, his stealthiness being utilized to great potential. Pioneered by wrestler Diamond Dallas Page and refined by Randy Keith Orton

When the play wrestle and spar in some of their free time, the Duo would also perform these moves albeit dialing back the intensity to sure they don’t hurt each other for real

3.I’d say Mar’i by a very thin margin has a little bit more power than her baby brother only though since she’s about to enter puberty (or as the Tamaraneans dub it ‘Gradual Transition into the Transformation’) while Jake has about two to three years to go before he can do so as well. That being said, other than that small margin, the Grayson siblings are somewhat even in terms of combat prowess and ability

4. Oh yes, Chris would do that for a MK fatality while for Jake, his would be charging up an esrcima with a starbolt, ramming the taster tip of it onto his opponent’s chest, unleashing it’s full blast, frying the guy but truly finishing them off with another supercharged escrima starbolt on the back to compliment the front one, finally causing the unfortunate opponent to explode in a blue blast of electricity and fire, leaving behind only a lower body with its top charred to a crisp

5. As hilarious it sounds, naturally Chris won’t be gaining a charge up of his powers via someone’s rear end anytime soon lol. And yes, his brothers and best friend would tease him about it but he’d take it in good fun. He’d probably quip that if those ‘full moons’ did count, they’re be a lot more werewolves during the nighttime hours of the city since that’s what Mom Lois told him about when he’s curious about what are ���Adult Clubs’ all about.

[bowie-boy]

please tell me how the narrator is a trans man

@originalpatrolsheep @undeadbreeze I’m @ing you here because I actually received this ask first!

FIGHT CLUB SPOILERS BELOW

Without further ado, here is my explanation as to how Fight Club is a trans metaphor!

The Narrator is a trans man

At the beginning of the film, the narrator is an insomniac and is wildly depressed. He can’t sleep. He starts visiting a center for men with testicular cancer. This is where he meets Bob, a man with no testicles and with breasts. Despite this, Bob is still seen as a man. It’s only in Bob’s arms that the Narrator, saying “We are still men,” can cry and therefore sleep. The Narrator feels gender euphoria when he is with Bob, a cis man with feminine features who is still considered male.

Everything changes when Marla Singer, a woman, begins to attend the same centers as the Narrator. It is only when she arrives that the Narrator feels like an impostor there and becomes hyperaware of his own lies amongst the people at the centers. Therefore, the Narrator cannot cry anymore and can no longer sleep. (In real life, some trans people may feel uncomfortable spending time with those that are the opposite gender as them for fear of being seen as part of that group and getting misgendered, which is partially what I believe spooks the Narrator here.)

Marla Singer represents the Narrator’s relationship with his own femininity, something he unwillingly ties to his dysphoria. Despite his love-hate relationship with her throughout the film, she remains one of his staunchest allies and is perhaps the only thing keeping him grounded in who he is and who he used to be throughout the film.

Shortly after meeting Marla, the Narrator meets (creates) Tyler Durden. Tyler describes himself to the Narrator later in the film: “All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look. I fuck like you wanna fuck. I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.” Trans much? Tyler Durden is the idealized cis man, the prototype for masculinity that everyone in society is fed at an early age. (These representations affect and even especially affect trans men.) Tyler is the standard that the Narrator’s internalized transphobia makes him feel like he must live up to, or else he isn’t a real man.

The Narrator’s relationship with Tyler eventually leads to the creation of Fight Club, a hub of toxic masculinity that attracts all sorts of men. All of them have one thing in common—they want to prove themselves. Tyler repeatedly says that the men in Fight Club are “the most manly men” he has ever seen, a wonderfully effective way for the Narrator to validate himself. What’s more, no women are allowed. The Narrator doesn’t have to face his own femininity in Fight Club, and he doesn’t have to face that side of his dysphoria.

It’s around this point in the movie that Tyler and Marla become involved in a sexual relationship. This is symbolic in itself in the sense that the Narrator’s internalized transphobia is “dominating” his femininity and dysphoria. Even more important is the fact that the Narrator can never see Tyler and Marla in the same room. This is because, to the Narrator, they cannot coexist. The Narrator can no longer comprehend his masculinity and his femininity coexisting in him. He can deal with one or the other at one time, but he forgets that he can have both at once. The Narrator himself believes that neither is taking over his life and neither is being lost. This is what ultimately leads to his downfall.

(This is a little unrelated but it’s important to note that the solution of Tyler and toxic masculinity never helps the Narrator sleep as well as the centers at the beginning of the film did. The Narrator learns that he was never sleeping when he was with Tyler, he was just taking on a new side of himself. Internalized transphobia also led the Narrator to self-harm in many ways (the chemical burn, the fighting, the car crash). Hypermasculinity was not a helpful solution.)

It’s at this point in the film that the ongoing symbol of testicles (I know it sounds silly but hear me out) shows up again. This time, testicles are not something trivial on a man that have nothing to do with his masculinity and maleness. They are used as a threat. Tyler and some members of his army meet up with an official in the city, someone who challenges their ability to destroy buildings and public works. Tyler makes the official an offer: he can save his city or he can save his balls. The official chooses the latter. This is incredibly telling, as the men the Narrator associated with at the beginning of the film had no choice but to remove their testicles. This didn’t make them any less manly in the eyes of the Narrator. Now, though, the Narrator’s own projected sense of internalized transphobia presents a strong message: testicles are important to your status as a man.

It’s shortly after this that the Narrator views Tyler Durden’s relationship with Angel Face, someone who can be described as nothing else but a pretty boy. Tyler, despite being the epitome of toxic and hypermasculinity, respects and adores the somewhat feminine Angel Face. How does the Narrator react? By beating Angel Face until he is bloody and fully disfigured. This represents the Narrator’s resentment of society’s treatment of trans men. The Narrator does not see himself in Angel Face the way that he once saw himself in Bob. He feels that cis men can easily balance femininity and masculinity, that these two things can coexist without an issue for them. For trans men, masculinity must win out, or else society (or at the very least internalized transphobia) will never accept them. Tyler drives the Narrator much harder than Angel Face with much less payoff, and so the Narrator must destroy Angel Face as revenge.

The Narrator seems to have everything he wants until Bob shows up in the film again. The Narrator asks Bob if he’s still attending the centers they met at, to which Bob replies no—he’s now joined Fight Club. At first, this is validating for the Narrator. Bob is feminine still, with no testicles and large breasts, but he’s still considered man enough for Fight Club. The Narrator more or less lets Tyler (AKA unchecked toxic masculinity) do what he likes with Bob. This ends with Bob getting killed. In fact, Bob’s brains are blown out as he tries to follow one of Tyler’s orders. Bob represented a chance at normalcy for the Narrator, proof that men with breasts and without balls were worth just as much as other men. But Bob dies at the hands of the Narrator’s toxic masculinity, and it is this event that leads the Narrator to realize just how much he’s lost to his own feelings of inadequacy.

It’s at this point that the Narrator starts to question his toxic masculinity and his internalized transphobia. He realizes that he’s no longer even himself anymore, just a copy-and-pasted blueprint of the man society has told him that he should be. He can’t recognize himself anymore, can’t keep track of what he really feels and what he only tries to, and he realizes that he needs to end his hypermasculinity before it’s too late.

There’s only one person the Narrator can turn to to get his old self back: Marla. He visits her, apologizing for his behavior towards her. He even tells her that deep down, he really really likes her. This is a big moment for the Narrator. He admits here that his feminine side isn’t something he despises, but rather something he fears getting close to. The other important thing is that Tyler, who was once sleeping with Marla and deeply invested in her, now views her as a threat. The Narrator’s femininity threatens to overtake his masculinity, his dysphoria and euphoria threaten to overrule his internalized masculinity. Tyler wants to destroy Marla, and the Narrator wants to protect her.

For the last time in this film, the symbol of testicles appears. This solidifies how far the Narrator has fallen, how deeply he’s lost himself to self-hatred and feelings of inadequacy. Upon trying to destroy Tyler’s plan, Tyler’s army of men turns on the Narrator and tells him they’re going to cut off his balls. To them and to Tyler, this represents that the Narrator has turned against his brothers, his maleness. The loss of his testicles will show this to everyone. The Narrator, horrified, manages to escape this fate, but without his pants. He spends the final act in his underwear, somewhat symbolic of the trans body he’s worked so hard to achieve and has spent so much of the film despising.

At last, the final fight of the film. The Narrator faces off with Tyler, and must attempt to regain control of his own head. The Narrator struggles at first, unable to accept the fact that him and his internalized transphobia are one in the same, and that he has the power to overrule it. Finally giving into himself, the consequences of his actions, and the messiness of gender and his own expression as a human being, the Narrator takes control and shoots himself. With this, Tyler dies, and so does the Narrator’s internalized transphobia. His toxic masculinity is no more. He’s given himself permission to display his masculinity as much as he wants, and in any way he wants. Internalized transphobia has power over him no more.

Marla then enters the room. She expresses concern for him, the simple Narrator she met at the beginning of the film now so torn up and injured. This is representative of the Narrator’s past pre-transition self looking at his most transitioned self. He’s bruised and broken, a lot different than before. But he insists that he’s okay, and he truly means it. The Narrator is now more himself than ever. It’s in this confidence that the Narrator’s takes Marla’s hand, finally accepting his own femininity, dysphoria, and the full scope of his gender expression. “You met me at a very strange time in my life.”

In a final image, the buildings all around the Narrator and Marla explode and collapse, leaving nothing behind. The Narrator could not stop this total destruction. But the film does not make this a sad moment. It’s rather somewhat wistful, perhaps even hopeful. The Narrator had to destroy himself in order to be reborn as his full and true self. A rebirth. Isn’t that was being trans is?

Thank you for the ask! I hope you enjoy my analysis :)

[prashantt-guptha]

He has Risen … and so are people!

These past few days, leading upto Easter Sunday, have been days of tremendous spiritual ascension globally. Not only amongst various regions and sub cultures within India, but globally from Christianity to Hinduism to Islam. Including a Full Moon, which I read was supposed to be a Pink Moon? Hardly visible in Mumbai’s nightsky. I settled with a pink Himalayan salt bath.

In the phase of these days, I wonder what the cosmic alignment looks like from NASA’s point of view. I wonder what Earth looks like from Heaven’s point of view. But the POV most intriguing at the moment is that of people and the conversations I seem to be manifesting the last few days. A friend who hadn’t called in ages, messaged to ask if I can be spoken to. Only to ask ‘How are you?’, which led to a 40 minute conversation about happiness, taking it easy, a revelation about a very fake person and having a good feeling about the times ahead. Very dear ones know I’m in the midst of a deep transformation and transition, and the last few months upto the present have been a healing journey out of certain deep mental woes. But the more people I talk to, the more I realize how connected we all are. So I’ve finally started meditating, albeit 15 minutes day and night, and learning a lot from Dr. Joe Dispenza and Neville Goddard. I feel a slight shift, more so, a good feeling about a big one on its way clearing a whole lot of cycles and residue.

But what’s most amazing are the conversations across the board I’m having with people from all walks of life, be it through text or voice, in a dubbing studio for my next film or from the director who came home to narrate the wackiest love story I’ve heard till date. People as young their 30’s/40’s are having senior ‘citizenish’ awakenings of wanting to simplify life, move away from toxic energies, eliminate all things n’ people fake, enjoy the now and realize their own true worth. Many want to get out of Mumbai, but that’s a different story. What explains this shift, I wonder, and isn’t it a beautiful blessing to want to attain the mindset of the things mentioned above? Do you relate to this, and if so, was it a hard phase that pushed you through and to this? You can tell me. Remember I said we’re all connected, walking each other home … 🙏🏻❤️😊

Happy Easter Sunday! 🙌

[askmerriauthor]

Jedi: Fallen Order thoughts 1/?

So, having just finished what is apparently a canon entry into the current Star Wars lore, I'm left with some feelings about the story itself and some choices it made as a game. Spoilers after the jump.

I mean, it's a really impressive tech demo?

The game's developers are clearly trying to flaunt a lot of really impressive visuals and dynamic elements within the game. Some work, some don't. They're seemingly very proud of their lighting engine, the main character's hair rendering, the "no loading screen" transition between zones. All of which are commendable and fairly impressive on a technical matter. The problem shows up when they actually manage to interfere with the story, or when the game gets too big for its own britches. Some graphics-heavy areas looked amazing while others - the Wookie planet of Kashyyyk in particular - choked my XBone to the point that it rendered out a stuttering slide show and actually hard crashed my entire system.

So, like, presentation first. We'll discuss the story after that.

The game is very pretty, no doubt there. Excellent visuals and a number of specific scenes - done in mid-gameplay rather than as cutscenes - were genuinely impressive cinematic beats. There's two particular dream/hallucination scenes where our main character, Cal, has the entire setting around him transition smoothly into a different scenario as the player sweeps the camera around back into view and they both were used to great impact. There's a handful of moments where the game itself takes camera control away from the player to help tell the story as the player controls Cal's movements as well, and those are each stand-out beats. It's obvious there's a lot of intention behind this game to make something evocative, and I really appreciate that.

The story is the stumbling point, however, as well as how the presentation gets in the way of the narrative.

Ostensibly, "Fallen Order" tries to tell a found family tale where a group of misfits full of their own hang-ups and trauma come together to defy the odds and achieve something greater. Solid base right from the get-go. Love the trope, love the stories it can tell. The trouble is that "Fallen Order"'s dynamic loading system directly contradicts that story. Throughout ambient dialogue chatter given off by Cal throughout gameplay, the impression is given that he's spending time with the cast and developing that found family relationship. Idly talking about how he questions the cooking skill of the ship's pilot, or downtime spent alongside his fellow former Jedi on the ship. The issue is that the game's presentation never gives any opportunity for that to happen at all. The game's camera is perpetually set just over Cal's shoulder and never leaves his immediate presence. There's no point where the audience's view slips away in a "fade to black" transition where time passes unseen, or where we hop over to a completely different part of the story to see what another character or villain is up to. The only time the camera ever directly leaves Cal is to show the establishing shot of the ship or room he's currently inside and about to step out of.

There's no point of time where we're not directly observing Cal, so it becomes really obvious that, no, you sure as hell didn't question the pilot's cooking or spend time with your fellow Jedi because we've been here with you the entire time. Hell, Cal doesn't ever actually eat at all during the game and because there's no day/night cycle or transitionary period in the narrative, it makes it seem like the entire story takes place over a single day. The narration and dialogue wants to tell us that this is all taking place over a long period of time, and that these characters have off-screen interactions. But the actual presentation of the game itself completely defies that.

Like, for instance, something Star Wars itself does in its other forms of media is give moments where the scene wipes away, often when characters are traveling into Hyperspace. It's assumed by we the audience that the characters are doing stuff in the meantime of travel, like Obi-wan training Luke with a targeting droid or Chewie losing a board game. "Fallen Order" wants to show off its seamless loading times and has the entire process of choosing a destination, traveling to it, and arriving done completely on-screen in real time with no cuts. So the game itself unintentionally yet actively prevents us from having any reasonable point where we could assume the characters are having downtime moments together.

It just ends up being a really wonky choice as far as direction is concerned and, in the end, I suppose it can be overlooked. Anyone who really wanted to speculate on the found family dynamic of the characters could very easily just set aside the actual gameplay, after all.

As for the actual story itself, it's... I don't know. Meh? It's there, it happens, it's apparently canon. But the problem is that it's 100% pointless because the events of the story are entirely self-enclosed, do absolutely nothing to progress the setting, and firmly entrench the status quo at the end. Basically if Disney wanted to use any of these characters or events in the future, fans who played this game could go "Ooh, I know who that is!" for a bit of a continuity nod. But, at the same time, Disney could completely ignore "Fallen Order" entirely from here on out and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to the setting. If you're going to make a canon contribution to a larger pre-existing lore, it should always expand the canon. It should always move things forward or open up different pathways to explore. "Fallen Order" doesn't do that at all. Its story renders itself pointless by the end and basically all the characters spend the entire time getting up to a point where they can have forward momentum... right as the credits roll.

This post is already running very long, so I think I'll save the actual narrative discussion for a follow-up post. I've got a particular bone to pick with the "illusion of choice" method this game uses and I know I can ramble a long while on that alone. I'll link back to this one after it goes up.

[lesyeuxdeflwr]

NOTRE AMOUR INTERDIT. [ OUR FORBIDDEN LOVE. ]

☆ warnings : cursing ( probably ) BOLD IS NARRATOR’S DIALOGUE. BOLD ITALIC IS [BLONDIE] RED LOCKS’ CHANNEL. Character names are kind of cringey since I based it on Ever After High characters.

☆ pairing : kuroo tetsurou x reader <3

☆ AU : EVER AFTER HIGH! x HAIKYUU!

★ sypnosis : You and kuroo weren’t the least ideal pairing if you were to be a teensy weensy honest to your own uneasy and scattered thoughts. Okay maybe SCARTCH THAT, you had to be MASSIVELY honest. I mean for real, the daughter of Belle and the Beast, a royal; coupled up with the son of the vicious Gaston, a rebel? Both of your parents and Headmaster Grimm thinks the both of you can seriously do much better. "If you’re a Royal. You must marry a Royal. If you’re a Rebel, you must marry a Rebel." The bullshit they would say. Apparently Kuroo and you thought the opposite.

★ author’s note : I haven’t wrote in so long 😇🙏 I myself find this absolutely cringe worthy but I tried 😬😬. I was and still absolutely in love with Ever After High so I just wanted to give it a try, like the idea just popped into my mind and wow "seems cool" 😱😔🙏😯✋🤨❌😐🙏

You and kuroo never wished to be stucked in both of your parents wretched legacies. It was something you never asked for and will never ever need. And ever since you knew you were destined to dump his ass just for a so Prince Charming and for you to be able to live happily ever after with that so called 'Prince', it was an definite no. Your story was just like any other tragic heck of of a love story. Just like Romeo and Juliet..but definitely without the dying part, you thought. And this time you were dedicated to stop the multiple dragging of the stereotypical cycle that had been stretched on for long ages and decades, it had absolutely sicken you to death. Kuroo and you were just teenagers. Both who love each other to death to even have the biggest confidence to rebel against your parents. Plus Kuroo wasn’t anything like his dad. His dad was arrogant, vicious, overly narcissistic, obsessive, and chauvinistic. While, him. He was everything you wanted. They never deciphered who he was, to them he was the exact embodiment of his old man. But to you he was just another smart closeted nerd who gave unfunny jokes, to you he was a dorky simp who’d make flower crowns whenever you had dreamy secret garden dates, to you he looked just about like a puppy when waking up with his unusually messier bed hair, to you he was your twin flame, your other half. Though definitely he was surely narcissistic from time to time but he was nothing too overbearing. It wouldn’t make sense if he was Gaston’s son and wasn’t at all manifesting and voicing out his arrogant opinions about his looks once in a while, right?

But you couldn’t really blame him either, he was just out-rightly plain handsome. You giggled lightly a hand over your mouth, that was your first thought about him. In your first meeting. It wasn’t really a fond memory of yours at first, before you started seeing each other. You two clashed bad, hardly any space to confine in between the both your petty arguments towards each other. You were as sensitive as him as he was as sarcastic as you. You’ve never even thought of about standing two feet near his as you’d say before 'Rebel ass'. But now here you were stroking his abnormally large rooster bed hair lightly while he had his head laid on your lap humming a cute song that had been both of your favorite song ever since you’ve introduced him to the diverse beauty of music. You should thank the Cupid of Ever After High, Yachi Hitoka for having you slowly grown off your slow burn wattpad kind of story and into the land of sweetness and absolute love. "Have you ever heard of the song 'Line without a hook'?" Kuroo had asked you kissing the top of your right, soft, and feminine hand as he stood up into a sitting position, laying his head on your comfortable and long neck. "No? Is that like a type of figure of speech or a slang term I missed hearing about? I swear Alisa always tells me the new slangs." Kuroo nodded through the crook of your warm neck. "It’s kind of like me telling you that I don’t think I’ll be able to live without you. You’re a big deal, a Royal, a princess, and I’m just a Rebel, a villain whose job was to ruin everything they surrounded. I’m a line without a hook, except I do have the hook. You. you were and will always be the hook to my line. But I’m beginning to wonder if you would really want to be with me. I mean you’re just so wonderful? So beautiful, so admirable—" Before he could even process on with his ramble you’ve already chapped his lips on yours, kissing him desperately like it was the end of the cruel world— a demanding but soft kiss. It wasn’t the even the first time you kissed but holy fuck, Kuroo had still heard his loud heart beating, enough to get him into a frenzy as he felt his knees grow weaker and weaker to your touch. The way you curled your fingers around his own, your own fragrance that he loved ever since, smelled like books with a hint of freshly baked cinnamon and strawberries. He wasn’t sure if nature rooted for this moment or if his mind tricked him into a perfect present, but every breath he took smelled like jasmine and for the first time since he’d known himself, he didn’t feel insecure because you who had been there for him, although he was too blinded with his own doubtful thoughts to see. Had basked him with affection and the warmth your body gave off. This time around he draped both arms around your own small frame and met your lips again halfway.

You’ve finally decided to rip the both of your lips from each other as you made eye contact with his soft hazel eyes, it reflecting so ethereally under the winsome hues of orange tangerine, mellow yellow, murky red the sunset had offered. "To start with I choose you and I will never choose anyone else, Kuroo. I will never not love you. You are so beautiful, so handsome. My love for you is so strong that neither a bank full of riches could break it down. Kuroo I love you, and I always will. Let’s go through this together, yeah? You don’t need to carry the burden for your own self, love. We’re in this, the two of us, together." Kuroo couldn’t help but spread a euphoric grin to his face as he tackled you into a tight hug under the cherry blossom tea. "I love you so much."

Lunch had came to Ever After High as you and Kuroo had pretended to despise each other through your expressions but something was different. He wasn’t as intense with his glares, it looked more nervous than it should have. Wait why is he standing up? Why is he carrying an enormous amount of pink roses in a big bouquet? Why are birds dropping petals around him, singing angelic and melodic tunes? Is he going towards your direction? You thought he wanted the both of you to be an unknown secret? Thoughts go through your thick head as you hadn’t notice Kuroo had already been in front of you. "You had made me realize that maybe, just maybe, we can be able to defy against all odds and stop the stereotypical cicrcle once and for all. So will you Beauty Y/n accept my public confession and mark this as our first day of not having to spend days and nights planning out hidden dates?" Before you could have comprehend your own body was not cooperating, your legs giving out as you find yourself already wrapped in kuroo’s sweet smell as he held you high up twirling you around, arms balancing you, and two goofy smiles plastered on your face. "Y/n? You and Kuroo a-are dating?" Alisa Haiba White, daughter of Snow White had asked so hesitantly. "B-but you’re a Royal? And he’s a..Rebel?!" She had opened both of her hands that looked like she was offering, transitioning over to you and Kuroo. "Totally awkward!" Terushima Yuuji Hood, son of Robin hood. Singing as he played a small rock tune on his guitar along with it. You ignored her and Hood as you stroll to the opposite side of their direction pulling Kuroo with you, he gave her an apologetic look shrugging his shoulders and obediently following you.

"A Royal dating a Rebel? That’s just not how the tale is told."

"The followed their true hearts! After all that’s kind of the things you do in True heart’s day? It’s in the title!"

"So fellow Fairy Tales! Red Locks here aka Tendou Satori, to give you reaction to the Royal Rebellious romance!"

"I think it’s hexcellent! Y/n and Kuroo decided to rewrite their destinies, what’s wrong with that?" Alisa can be heard and seen from the back, her cries and tantrums shown throughout the interview. — Interview answered by Sugawara Queen Koushi, son of the Evil Queen.

"I feel for them. I mean keeping secrets is hard.." Terushima can be seen trying to steal Kenma’s food failing as the red hooded boy, threatened him with his piercing gold eyes. —Interview answered by Kenma Kozume Hood, son of Red Riding Hood.

"A Royal and a Rebel? Heh. They’re from two different worlds—" Hot blazing fire shots towards Oikawa’s strong shield, a big and buff dragon towering over him. "I am trying to do an interview here!" He threw the shield on the ground as the dragon let out a whimper and sulked in fear. — Interview answered by Prince Oikawa Tooru Charming, son of Prince Charming.

"I’m worried about Y/n and Kuroo. If they don’t follow their destinies, their books could close...forever." — Interview answered by Alisa Haiba White, daughter of Snow White.

"Remember our quiz tomorrow, on Tiara sighs and future neck problems." You begrudgingly stride towards your best friend. "Alisa we need to talk." Alisa stopd up a sorrowful and worried look plastered on her face. "N/n this is hard for me. Which is a first because I usually handle everything so very well. I’m just surprised you didn’t trust me enough to tell me." Alisa’s hand shapes into a small crunched heart as she places it under her chin midway, into her second sentence. "I know. I just didn’t think you’d understand, well mostly because you’re very much strict in following our own destinies." Alisa creases both her eyebrows hand staying staying still under her chin. "I guess I don’t? It just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to someone I care so much about." At this point Alisa’s arms were crosses against each other the clash of her eyebrows going even deeper.

"And so you’re telling me all these heart-shaped cakes are for your play...?" Headmaster Grimm had asked as he opened the white boxes that was offered. Cute shades of pink are shown throughout the exquisite designs of the heart-shaped cakes as it is shown in his line of sight. "Y-yeah for the play! T-they’re for the really funny scene, where Suna throws them at Yamomoto!" Yamomoto Taketora, the son of the Frog Prince. Had looked so done with his life blustering out a small, "Excuse me?!" Suna Rintarou, son of sleeping beauty. Went down the the Headmaster, as he winds up his shoulder throwing the heart-shaped cake at Yamomoto. "Very well." Both Yachi, Suna, and Yamomoto had sauntered down their shoulders a hard sigh of relief passing through their throats and out their mouths.

You walked through the rocky roads as multiple clothing, hair, shoe shops surrounded every corner of the side roads. You stopped at the shop Alisa was in your right hand touching the window as your longing gaze intenses, of course you would miss your best friend. "Hi Y/n." Duch Kōrai Hoshiumi, son of the Swan Queen had appeared in front of you suddenly as his voice held a gentle and almost desperate tone. "Duch. What do you want?" You let go of your lingering touch on the window as you walked to the opposite direction of the latter. "What do I want? My own happily every after, of course! And now that everyone knows that you’re dating a Rebel it looks like there’s one available. No hard cover books for you, boo." You look at him hurt and worried. You didn’t know whether to be worried of how he was so invested in ruining others life just because he won’t have his own happily ever after. Or be hurt by the way he told you that publicly dating Kuroo was the biggest mistake of you life. Why not just write your own destiny, like me, like Kuroo, like the both of us? "So you’re happy about Kuroo and I are dating, while my best friends aren’t happy? Maybe I did make a mistake..." Hoshiumi widens his eyes mentally slapping himself as the guilt slips in, he shakes his head. Not like he would tell anyone what he was actually feeling. "What?! No! You’re totally doing the right thing! Follow your heart...and..uh all of that.. sappy stuff.." He was too late for you were already running around the corners, laying in your shared dorm room with Suna. Am I taking back what I said to him? Am I doing the opposite of what I’ve promised to him myself? Am I going to stop ‘never not loving him'? But I can’t. I love him too much. But what about Alisa. You know what, fuck this. If she can’t accept who I love it’s not worth it to continue our friendship. We’ll keep on holding on to the person who we thought each other was rather than the present persona we have right now.

That’s what you thought.

"Sorry but I’m saving this for Y/n." Kuroo mutters placing a mirror frame with a picture of the both of you together, cuddly and kissy. The lanky teenage boy who had been rejected begins to find another seat but not without a nasty glare and an ugly leer to spare. Kuroo whistles a high pitches tune with his fingers between his lips. A squirrel and a bunny hop their way to the table wearing cute mini suits, arranging a fancy dinner plate set and an extra extravagant candle that lit up the moment it touches the table. "Hey Y/n!" Kuroo waves his thinly hand at you, clearing his dry throat. Two birds pass by you dropping your favorite kind of flowers. Tulips. And finally a hand-made flower crown is over her head, now dropping. He made the flower crown the way you like it. "Kuroo.. we need to talk." Kuroo has this sense of urgency, just from telling by the way you talked he could already comprehend it was something bad and he wasn’t ready. "Uhh..Y/n?" He never was and never will be. "I just— I thought this would be a good thing. You showing us we’re dating to the whole school. I thought it would take the pressure off but now...everything is worse." Kuroo can’t bare to look at you, if he did he would’ve broken down here and now. "W-what do you mean? I thought we were through this together? I thought I didn’t have to do this alone? Why does it feel like I’m drifting away from you again, but this time. This time it’s you whose the cause of it?" You could already feel the horror and grief you would during the aftermath of these heartbreaking events. "I-i don’t know, but what will happen to our stories, to our legacies, to our destinies. I swear I’m being such a hypocrite now but what if it is best? What if we really actually were not supposed to be for each other? I don’t want anything bad to happen to us, to you. I think— I think we should break-up."

"And so, as the Sun set in Ever After High. The students were getting fairest for the big dance."

You looked at the the side of your mirror a clear picture of you and Kuroo placed with a heart-shaped sticker. The frown on your face had become much more frowny, if that was even possible.

"Give it up for Semi Eita Piper!" Loud cheers of hilarity can be heard from the whole room as they danced to their hearts content to the cool music and beats Semi Eita Piper, the son of Peter Piper had in stored for them. "Now since True Heart’s Day hasn’t been spelebrated in such a long time I wanted to tell everyone what it’s all about. Once upon a time, there grew a very special tree. The Heart Tree. And even if the winter was harsh, and the other’s failed to bloom; the Heart Tree blossomed no matter what. And so, our Fairy Tale ancestors gave the blossoms to each other on True Heart’s Day. To show that even though it’s not always easy true love will always find a way. And so to encourage all of us to follow our true heart—" Petite and ethereal fairies fly all over the room dropping multiple numbers of hearts to the students inside each receiving colors of hot hot pink and lovely red. "Make sure to give yours to someone special to you!" Before you knew it you were already on stage with your friend, Yachi as you ask to take the mic from her and prepare for your small speech towards the only love of your life. "Excuse me— uhm can I? Kuroo? When I listened to my true heart, it tells me that you’re the only one. You’re my Prince Charming, villain or not. You’re my love, my everything, my twin flame. And I think you’re a fairy tale. I think you’re magical , and brave, and exquisite. And I hope you’ll let me be in your story once again." Kuroo was about to say something but Tendou beat him to it as his curious personality spikes him up as the son of Goldie Locks. "But how can you be a Royal and date Kuroo?" He looks at you intently as if waiting for your answer, hoping it would be a good one. "If writing our own 'Happily Ever After' means I can’t be a Royal then call me Beauty Y/n the Rebel!" You pointed your left pointing finger as the once worry wart look on your face had disappeared and was replaced with a jovial and confident smirk. "Kuroo? I want to give this to you, if you’ll have it." You grin at him awkwardly offering the small heart to him. "Of course I will, I can never resist you no matter what." He would’ve begged you either way to come back to him after the part but this was a hundred times better.

"Alisa! I-i’m so sorry I just had to do it and I love him so mu—" Alisa had approached you with a frown on her face offering her small heart just like how you offered Kuroo your own heart. "I might be worried about you, and I might think you’re doing the wrong thing, but I want you to know we’ll always be friends. That’s what’s in my True heart." You smiled widely at her, finally coming into good terms and resolved the issue once and for all. "Thank you Alisa!" You let out an insanely jovial glee at her. Dragging your bed headed boyfriend, you slow danced with him. "Do you think we could have cuddly sessions after these?" He asks hesitantly playing with the hem of your silk dress. "At our cottage in the forest Sir yes Sir." You bluntly said so serious that Kuroo can’t help but laugh because you were just absolutely too cute for your own good. He leans in your forehead, ignorant to both your height differences as he basks in his own enjoyment, happiness, and joy he is now currently feeling. He is happy, you are happy, both of you are happy.

[jamestaylorswift]

My giant goes with me wherever I go: a study of the geographic metanarrative of folklore

This topic has been rattling around in my brain ever since I first heard folklore and I think it’s endlessly fascinating. Cue this lengthy but (hopefully) intriguing piece.

I’m afraid the title may not be an accurate reflection of this essay’s content, so here’s a preview of talking points: geography, existence, metanarrative, making sense of the theme of death, the “peace”/“hoax”/“the lakes” trio, history/philosophy, and exactly one paragraph of rep/Lover analysis (as a treat).

I make the standard disclaimer that analysis is by definition subjective. Additionally, many thanks and credit to anyone else who has written analysis of folklore. I am sure my opinions have been influenced by yours, even subconsciously.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome, and thank you for taking the time to read :)

——

“Traveling is a fool’s paradise. We owe to our first journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me in the stern Fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

——

If Taylor Swift’s music is anything, it is highly geographic. Taylor has been a country, pop, and now alternative artist, yet a storyteller through and through—one with a special knack for developing the aesthetic of songs and even entire records through location. The people and places she writes about seem to mutually breathe life into each other.

It is plausible that Taylor, as a young storyteller, developed this talent by using places as veritable muses just like she did anything else. Furthermore, her confessional storytelling became much more geographic as she shifted to pop because of factors including (though certainly not limited to) purchasing real estate, traveling more, writing in a genre that canonically centers coastal cities, and dating individuals with their own established homes. The geographic motif in her work is so identifiable that all of the corresponding details are—for better or worse—commensurate to autobiography.

However, folklore is not autobiographical in the way that most understand her other albums to be. The relationship between people and places in folklore is likewise much less symbiotic.

The first two songs on the record illustrate this. We are at bare minimum forced to associate the characters of Betty and James with New York: the lyrics about the High Line imply a fraction of their relationship took place in this city. Even so, this does not imply Betty or James ever permanently resided in New York, or that Betty is in New York at the moment she is narrating the story of “cardigan.” Taylor places far more emphasis on James and the nostalgia of youth, with “I knew you” repeated as a hook, to develop the emotional tone of the song. Rhode Island also comes to life in “the last great american dynasty” because of Rebekah Harkness’ larger-than-life character. But Taylor, following Rebekah’s antagonism, states multiple times throughout the song that the person should be divorced from the place. folklore locations are never so revered that they gain the vibrancy of literal human life. Taylor refrains from saying a person is a place in the same way that she has said that she is New York or her lover is the West Village.

For an album undeniably with the most concrete references to location, it is highly irregular—even confusing, given that personification is such a powerful storytelling device—that Taylor does not equate location with personal ethos.

Regurgitating the truism that geography equals autobiography proves quite limiting for interpreting Taylor’s work. How, then, should geography influence our understanding of folklore?

I submit that the stories in folklore are not ‘about’ places but ‘of’ places which are not real. Taylor’s autobiographical fiction makes the settings of the songs similarly fictionalized, metaphorical, and otherwise symbolic of something much more than geography. It is this phenomenon which emotionally and philosophically distinguishes folklore from the rest of her oeuvre.

——

As a consequence of Taylor’s unusual treatment of location, real places in folklore become signposts for cultural-geographic abstractions. Reality is simply a set of worldbuilding training wheels.

Prominent geographic features define places, which define settings. The world of folklore is built from what I’ve dubbed as four archetypal settings: the Coastal Town, the Suburb, the City, and the Outside World.

Each has a couple defining geographic features:

Coastal Town: water, cliffs/a lookout

Suburb: homes, town

City: public areas, social/nightlife/entertainment venues

The Outside World serves as the logical complement of the other three settings.

Understanding that real location in folklore is neither interchangeable nor synonymous with setting is crucial. Rhode Island is like the Coastal Town, but the two settings are not one and the same. The Suburb is an idyllic mid-America setting like Nashville, St. Louis, or Pennsylvania; it is all of those places and none of them at the same time. The City may be New York City, but it is certainly not New York City in the way that Taylor has ever sung about New York City before. The Outside World is just away.

Put simply, folklore is antithetical to Taylor’s previous geographic doctrine. While we are not precluded from, for instance, imagining the City as New York City, we also cannot and should not be pigeonholed into doing so.

Note:

This album purports to embody the stereotypically American folkloric tradition. “Outside” means “anywhere that isn’t America” because the imagery and associations of the first three cultural-geographic settings indeed are very distinctly American.

While Nashville and St. Louis are relatively big cities, they are still orders of magnitude smaller than New York and LA, the urban centers that Taylor normally regards as big cities. In context of this essay, the former locations are Suburban.

In this essay, the purpose of the term ‘of’ is simply to replace the more strict term ‘about.’ ‘Of’ denotes significant emotion tied to a place, usually because of significant time spent there either in the past or present (tense matters). Not all songs are ‘of’ places—it may be ambiguous where action takes place—and some songs can be ‘of’ multiple places due to location changing throughout the story. (This does not automatically mean that songs with more than one location are ‘of’ two places. A passing mention of St. Louis does not qualify “the last great american dynasty” as ‘of’ the Suburb, for example.)

Each of the four archetypal settings must instead be understood as an amalgam of the aesthetics of every real location it could be. Setting then exists in conversation with metaphor because we have a shared understanding of what constitutes a generic Suburb, City, or Coastal Town.

Finally, by transitivity, the settings’ metaphorical significance entirely hinges upon the geographic features’ metaphorical significance. This is what Taylor authors.

The next part of the essay is concerned with deciphering geography in folklore per these guiding questions: how is an archetypal feature used as a metaphor? By proxy, what does that say about the setting defined by it? What theme, if any, unites the settings?

The Coastal Town: Water and Cliffs

The Coastal Town is defined by elemental features.

The first (brief) mentions of water occur on the first two tracks:

Roarin’ twenties, tossing pennies in the pool

Leavin’ like a father, running like water

“the last great american dynasty” introduces the setting to which the pool (water) feature belongs, our Rhode Island-like Coastal Town. It also incorporates a larger water feature, the ocean, and suggests the existence of a lookout or cliffs:

Rebekah gave up on the Rhode Island set forever

Flew in all her Bitch Pack friends from the city

Filled the pool with champagne and swam with the big names

//

They say she was seen on occasion

Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea

“seven” and “peace” also have brief mentions of water; however, note that these songs remain situated as ‘of’ the Suburb. (More on this later.)

I hit my peak at seven

Feet in the swing over the creek

I was too scared to jump in

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

“my tears ricochet” and “mad woman” with their nautical references pertain to the water metaphor:

I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace

And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves

Now I breathe flames each time I talk

My cannons all firin’ at your yacht

“epiphany” also counts, though with the understanding of “beaches” as Guadalcanal this song is ‘of’ the Outside World:

Crawling up the beaches now

“Sir, I think he’s bleeding out”

“this is me trying” and “hoax” reiterate the cliff/lookout geography:

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout

Could’ve followed my fears all the way down

Stood on the cliffside screaming, “Give me a reason”

Finally, “the lakes” features both water and cliffs:

Take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die

//

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

//

While I bathe in cliffside pools

With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

In folklore, water dovetails with permanent loss.

“epiphany” is the most egregious example. Crawling up the beaches of a war zone proves fatal. “the lakes” describes grieving in water, perhaps for the loss of one’s life because there exist cliffs from which to jump. “this is me trying” and “hoax” mirror that idea. On the other hand, in “peace,” death does not seem to have any connection to falling from a height.

Loss can also mean loss of sanity, such as with the eccentric character of Rebekah Harkness or Taylor as a “mad woman” firing cannons at (presumably) Scooter Braun’s yacht.

Subtler are the losses alluded to in “my tears ricochet” and “seven,” of identity or image and childhood audacity, respectively. And in the opening tracks water is at its most benign, aligned with loss of a relationship that has run its course in one’s young adulthood.

The most fascinating aspect of water in folklore is that it is an aberration from water as the symbol for life/birth/renewal, derived from maternity and the womb. folklore water taketh away, not giveth.

As of now, the greater significance of the Coastal Town—the meaning to which this contradiction alludes—remains to be seen.

The City: Nightlife, Entertainment, and Public Areas

Preeminent in Taylor’s pop work is the City; New York City, Los Angeles, and London are the locations most frequently extolled as Swiftian meccas. This archetypal setting is given a more understated role in folklore.

“cardigan,” ‘of’ the City, illustrates this setting using public environments and nightlife:

Vintage tee, brand new phone

High heels on cobblestones

//

But I knew you

Dancin’ in your Levi’s

Drunk under a streetlight

//

I knew you

Your heartbeat on the High Line

Once in twenty lifetimes

//

To kiss in cars and downtown bars

Was all we needed

“mirrorball” paints the clearest picture of the City’s nightlife/social venues by sheer quantity of lyrics:

I’m a mirrorball

I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight

I’ll get you out on the floor

Shimmering beautiful

//

You are not like the regulars

The masquerade revelers

Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten

//

And they called off the circus, burned the disco down

“invisible string” briefly mentions a bar:

A string that pulled me

Out of all the wrong arms, right into that dive bar

In addition, “this is me trying” implies that the speaker may currently be at a bar, making the song partially ‘of’ the City:

They told me all of my cages were mental

So I got wasted like all my potential

//

I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere

Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here

Pouring out my heart to a stranger

But I didn’t pour the whiskey

It goes almost without saying that the City at large is alcohol-soaked. Indeed, alcohol will help us understand this location.

Each of the aforementioned songs has a distinct narrator, like Betty in the case of “cardigan” or Taylor herself, at the very least in the case of “mirrorball” or at most all songs besides “cardigan.” And because the narrative character is so strong, I posit that the meaning of this geography is tied to what alcohol reveals about the speakers of the songs themselves.

“invisible string” and “mirrorball” are alike in the fact that the stories extend well beyond or even completely after nightlife. Meeting in a dive bar in “invisible string” is just the catalyst for a relationship that feels fated. Taylor, in her “mirrorball” musing, expresses concern about how she is perceived by someone close to her. Does existing after the fact (of public perception, at an entertainment venue) constitute an authentic existence? Alcohol, apparently a necessary part of City life, predates events which later haunt the speakers. Emotional torment is then what prompts the speakers to recount their stories.

On the other hand, alcohol directly reveals the emotional states of the speakers in “cardigan” and “this is me trying.” “cardigan” is Betty’s sepia-toned memory of her time with James, in which James’ careless, youthful spirit (“dancin’ in your Levi’s, drunk under a streetlight” and “heartbeat on the High Line”) inspires sadness and nostalgia for their ultimately temporary relationship (“once in twenty lifetimes”). “this is me trying” is tinged with the speaker’s bitterness; hopelessness and regret lead them to the bar and the destructive practice of drinking just to be numb.

These observations suggest that the City is also a site of grief or loss, though not for the same reason that the Coastal Town is. Whereas the Coastal Town is associated with a permanent ending such as death, the City reveals an ending that is more transitional and wistful, tantamount to a coming of age. There is a clear ‘before’ and ‘after’ to loss related to the City: life, though changed, goes on.

The Suburb: Homes and Towns

Noteworthy though the City and Coastal Town may be, the former in particular concerning the pop mythology of Taylor Swift, it is the Suburb which Taylor most frequently references in folklore and establishes as the geographical heart of the album.

The Suburb is defined by a home and town. A “home” encompasses entrances (front/side doors), back and front yards (gardens/lawns/trees/weeds/creeks), and interiors (rooms/halls/closets). The “town” is pretty self-explanatory, with a store, mall, movie theater, school, and yogurt shop.

Observe that the folklore Suburb is the aesthetic equivalent of the “small town” that provided the debut and Fearless albums’ milieu and inspired the country mythology of Taylor Swift. While Taylor primarily wrote about home and school on those albums (because, well, that was closer to her experience as a teenager), the “small town” and the folklore Suburb are functionally the same with regard to pace, quality, and monotonicity of life. Exhibit A: driving around and lingering on front doorsteps are the main attractions for young adults. (From my personal experience growing up in a Suburb, this is completely accurate. And yes, the only other attractions are the mall and the movie theater.)

The Suburb becomes a conduit for conflict.

Conflict that Taylor explores in this setting, including inner turmoil, dissension between characters, and friction between oneself and external (societal) expectations, naturally can be distinguished by distance [1] between the two forces in conflict. As an example, ‘person vs. self’ implies no distance between the sides because they are both oneself. ‘Person vs. society’ is conflict in which the sides are the farthest they could conceivably be from each other. Conflict with greater distance between the sides is usually harder to resolve. One must move bigger mountains, so to speak, to fix these problems.

The folklore Suburb is additionally constructed upon the notion of privacy or seclusion. We can imagine a gradient [2] of privacy illustrated by Suburban geography: the town is a less intimate setting than the outside of the home, which is less intimate than the inside of the home.

I combine these two ideas in the following claim: the Suburb relates distance between two forces in conflict inversely on the geographical privacy gradient. Put simply, the more intimate or ‘internal’ the setting, the farther the two sides in conflict are from each other.

(I offer this claim in the hopes that it will clarify the nebulous meaning of the Suburb in the next section.)

Salient references to the Suburban town can be divided into one of two categories:

Allowing oneself to hope

Allowing oneself to recall

“august” clearly belongs in the first category. Hope is central to August’s character and how she approaches her relationship with James:

Wanting was enough

For me, it was enough

To live for the hope of it all

Canceled plans just in case you’d call

And say, “Meet me behind the mall”

If we interpret the bus as a school bus then “the 1” also belongs in this first town category:

I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn’t though

//

I hit the ground running each night

I hit the Sunday matinee

“invisible string” indicates that the yogurt shop is equally innocent as Centennial Park. The store represents the hope of Taylor’s soul mate, parallel to her hope:

Green was the color of the grass

Where I used to read at Centennial Park

I used to think I would meet somebody there

Teal was the color of your shirt

When you were sixteen at the yogurt shop

You used to work at to make a little money

“cardigan” and “this is me trying” alternatively highlight the persistence of memory, with a relationship leaving an “indelible mark” on the narrators. These songs belong in the second category:

I knew I’d curse you for the longest time

Chasin’ shadows in the grocery line

You’re a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town

James’ recollection qualifies “betty” for the second category as well. This song shows that emotional weight falls behind the act of remembering:

Betty, I won’t make assumptions

About why you switched your homeroom, but

I think it’s ‘cause of me

Betty, one time I was riding on my skateboard

When I passed your house

It’s like I couldn’t breathe

//

Betty, I know where it all went wrong

Your favorite song was playing

From the far side of the gym

I was nowhere to be found

I hate the crowds, you know that

Plus, I saw you dance with him

The surprising common denominator of these two categories is that conflict is purely internal in public spaces. Regardless of whether the speakers feel positively or negatively (i.e. per category number), their feelings are entirely a product of their own decisions, such as revisiting a memory or avoiding confrontation. This gives credence to the theory that the Suburb inversely relates conflict distance with privacy.

On the other extreme, the home is a site of conflict larger than oneself, and often more conflict in general. Conflict which occurs in the most private setting, inside the house, is conflict where the two sides are most distanced from each other. Conflict near the house, though not strictly inside, is closer, interpersonal.

“my tears ricochet” is just an ‘indoors’ song. The opening line depicts a private, funeral-like atmosphere:

We gather here, we line up, weepin’ in a sunlit room

There are multiple interpretations of this song floating around. The two prevailing ones are about the death of Taylor Swift the persona and the sale of her masters. In either interpretation, society and culture are the foundation for the implied conflict. First, the caricature of Taylor Swift exists as a reflection of pop culture; second, the sale of global superstar Taylor Swift’s masters is a dispute of such magnitude that it is not simply an interpersonal squabble.

For the alternative interpretation that “my tears ricochet” is about a dissolved relationship, “and when you can’t sleep at night // you hear my stolen lullabies” implicates Taylor Swift’s public catalogue (and thus Taylor Swift the persona) as the entity haunting someone else, as opposed to Taylor Swift the former member of the relationship.

“mad woman” is just an ‘outdoors’ song because of the line about the neighbor’s lawn:

What do you sing on your drive home?

Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn?

Does she smile?

Or does she mouth, “Fuck you forever”

It’s clear Taylor has a lot of vitriol for Scooter Braun. Though it’s probably a bit of both at the end of the day, I am comfortable calling their feud more of the ‘person vs. person’ variety than the ‘person vs. society’ variety.

Consequently, the privacy gradient claim holds for both songs.

“illicit affairs” is one of two songs with a very clear ‘transformation’ of geography:

What started in beautiful rooms

Ends with meetings in parking lots

In context, this represents the devolution of the relationship. External conflict, the illegitimacy of the relationship, defined the affair when it was in “beautiful rooms.” Relocating to the parking lot (i.e. now referencing the Suburban town) coincides with discord turning inward. Any external shame or scorn for both lovers as a consequence of the affair is replaced by the end of the song with anger the lovers feel towards each other and, more importantly, themselves.

“seven” is the best example of how many types of conflict are present in and around the home:

I hit my peak at seven

Feet in the swing over the creek

I was too scared to jump in

//

And I’ve been meaning to tell you

I think your house is haunted

Your dad is always mad and that must be why

And I think you should come live with me

And we can be pirates

Then you won’t have to cry

Or hide in the closet

//

Please picture me in the weeds

Before I learned civility

I used to scream ferociously

Any time I wanted

The first few lines exemplify ‘person vs. self’ conflict, a fear of heights. The third segment introduces a ‘person vs. society’ dilemma, shrinking pains as a result of socialization into gender norms. (I am assuming that the child is a girl.) The second verse indicates strife between a child and a father. It leaves room for three interpretations:

The conflict is interpersonal, so the father’s anger is wholly or partially directed at the child because the father is an angry person

The conflict is sociological, so the father’s anger is a whole or partial consequence of the gendered roles which the father and child perform

Both

Is curious that we need not regard sadness and the closet in “seven” as mutually inclusive. The narrator says the child’s options are crying (logical) or hiding in the closet. Both the father’s temper and the closet are facts of the child’s life, either innocuous or traumatic or somewhere in between.

But we might—and perhaps should—go further and argue that conflict in “seven” is necessarily sociological, and specifically about being civilized to perform heterosexual femininity. For, taken to its logical extreme, if only gender identity and not sexual identity incites anger, then men must be socialized to become abusive to women, who must be socialized to become submissive to that abuse. Screaming “ferociously” at any time would also denote freedom to be oneself despite men, not freedom to be oneself for one’s own gratification. Yet the child surely enjoys the second freedom at the beginning of the song. While the patriarchy is indeed an oppressive societal force, the interpretation of the social conflict in “seven” as only gendered yields contradiction. This interpretation is much more tenuous than acknowledging that the closet is, in fact, The Closet.

(Mere mention of a closet, the universal symbol for hiding one’s sexuality, immediately justifies a queer interpretation of “seven” notwithstanding other sociological and/or semantic technicalities. A sizable chunk of Taylor’s extensive discography also lends itself to queer interpretation by extension of connection with this song—for instance, by a shared theme of socialization as a primary evil. To me it seems silly at best and homophobic at worst to eschew the reading of “seven” presented here.)

It is undeniable that “seven” represents many types of conflict and places them inversely on the privacy gradient. The father embodies societal conflict larger than the young child and introduces that conflict inside the house. The child faces internal conflict (i.e. a fear of heights) and no conflict at all (i.e. freedom to act fearlessly) outside.

Reconciling “august,” “exile,” and “betty” with the privacy gradient actually requires a queer interpretation of the songs. To avoid the complete logical fallacy of a circular proof, I reiterate that the privacy gradient is simply a means of illustrating how the Suburb functions as an archetypal location. Queer interpretation is a sufficient but not necessary condition for an interesting argument about Suburban spatial symbolism. Reaching a slightly weaker conclusion about the Suburb without the privacy gradient would not impact the conclusions about the other three archetypal locations. Finally, queer (sub)text is a noteworthy topic on its own.

“betty” situates the front porch as the venue where Betty must make a decision about her relationship with James:

But if I just showed up at your party

Would you have me? Would you want me?

Would you tell me to go fuck myself

Or lead me to the garden?

In the garden, would you trust me

If I told you it was just a summer thing?

//

Yeah, I showed up at your party

Will you have me? Will you love me?

Will you kiss me on the porch

In front of all your stupid friends?

If you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it?

Will it patch your broken wings?

Influencing Betty’s decision is her relationship with her “stupid” (read: homophobic) friends who don’t accept James (and/or the idea of James/Betty as a pair), her own internalized homophobia, and the trepidation with which she may regard James after the August escapade. The conflict at the front door is external/societal, interpersonal, and internal.

The garden differs from the front door as an area where James and Betty can privately discuss the August escapade. By moving to the garden, the supposed root of their conflict shifts from the oppressive force of homophobia to James’ behavior regarding the love triangle (“would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing?”). Much like in “illicit affairs,” motion along the privacy gradient underscores that micro-geography is inversely related to conflict distance.

Next, the implied settings of “august” are a bedroom and a private outdoor location such as a backyard:

Salt air, and the rust on your door

I never needed anything more

Whispers of "Are you sure?”

“Never have I ever before”

//

Your back beneath the sun

Wishin’ I could write my name on it

Will you call when you’re back at school?

I remember thinkin’ I had you

The backyard holds a mixture of ‘person vs. self’ and ‘person vs. person’ conflict. August’s doubts about James manifest as personal insecurities. However, James, by avoiding commitment, is equally responsible for planting that seed of doubt.

The song’s opening scene depicts a young adult losing their virginity. The bedroom can thus be conceptualized as a site of societal conflict because the queer love story expands this location to the geographical manifestation of escapism and denial. James runs off with August as a means to ignore externalized homophobia from a relationship with Betty, who has homophobic friends. Yet they eventually ditch August for Betty, either because of intense feelings for Betty or internalized homophobia—the relationship with August was too perfect, too easy.

“betty” and “august” are consistent with the gradient theory provided we interpret the love triangle narrative as queer. Identity engenders conflict in these songs. The characters then confront the conflict vis-à-vis location. ‘Indoors’ becomes the arena for confronting issues farther from the self, namely concerning homophobia. ‘Outdoors’ scopes cause and therefore possible resolution to individuals’ choices.

Last but not least, consider “exile,” the song with strange staging:

And it took you five whole minutes

To pack us up and leave me with it

Holdin’ all this love out here in the hall

//

You were my crown, now I’m in exile, seein’ you out

I think I’ve seen this film before

So I’m leaving out the side door

“I’m in exile, seein’ you out” and “I’m leaving out the side door” contradict each other. The speaker, “I,” seeing their lover out means that the speaker remains inside the house while their lover leaves. But the “I” also leaves through the side door. Does the speaker follow their lover out? If so, then whose house are they leaving? It is most likely a shared residence. They plan on coming back.

Taylor said in an interview [3] that the verses, sung by different people, represent the perspectives of the two lovers. The “me” in the first segment is the “you” in the second. So our “I” is left in the hall too. Both individuals  in the relationship are implied to leave and stay at different times.

An explanation for this inconsistency lies in the distinction between doors. A front door in folklore is symbolic of trust, that which makes or breaks a relationship (see: Betty’s front door and the door in “hoax”). It also forces sociological conflict to be resolved at the interpersonal level, lest serious problems hang out in the open. Fixing the world at large is usually impossible, and so front doors only create more issues. (The mountains, as they say, are too big to move.) The main entrance is thus a site for volatility and high stakes.

“exile” suggests that a shared side door is for persistent, dull, aching pain. This door symbolizes shame which is inherent to a relationship. It forces the partners to come and go quietly, to hide the existence of their love. Inferred from a queer reading of “exile” is that it is homophobia that erases the relationship. Conflict with society as evinced in individuals is once again consistent with the staging at the home.

Note that few (though multiple) explanations could resolve the paradox between intense shame in a relationship and the setting of a permanent shared home. Racism, for example, may be a reason individuals hide the existence of a loving relationship. Nevertheless, the overall effect of Taylor’s writing is that it is believable autobiography. It is unlikely that she’s speaking about racism here, least of all because there are two other male characters in the song. So a slightly more uncouth name for “exile” would be “the last great american mutual bearding anthem.”

To summarize, the Suburb is an archetypal setting constructed upon the notion of privacy. Taylor makes the folklore Suburb the primary home (no pun intended) of conflict of all kinds. Through an intimate, inverse relationship between drama and constitutive geography, Taylor argues that unrest and incongruity are central to what the Suburb represents.

The Outside World

The final archetypal setting is the complement to the first three—a physical and symbolic alternative.

The Guadalcanal beaches in “epiphany” (which are also alluded to in “peace”) contrast the homeland in “exile” through a metaphor about war. The Lake District in England is opposite America, the setting of most of folklore. The Moon, Saturn, and India are far away from Pennsylvania, the setting of “seven.” India quantifies the lengths to which the speaker of the song would go to protect the child character, while astronomy abstracts the magnitude of the speaker’s love.

This archetypal setting is symbolic of disengagement and breaking free from limitations. Moving to India in “seven” is how the speaker and child could escape problems at the child’s home. Analogizing war with the pandemic in “epiphany” removes geographical and chronological constraints from trauma.

The Lake District is where Taylor, a poet, goes to die. The line “I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you” could also suggest that this location is where Taylor and her muse break free from being outcasts (i.e. they find belonging). Regardless, the Lake District is where she disengages from the ultimate limitation of life itself.

——

How is an archetypal feature used as a metaphor? By proxy, what does that say about the setting defined by said feature?

Analysis of each archetypal feature yielded the following:

The Coastal Town is representative of permanent loss/endings

The City is representative of transitional loss/endings

The Suburb is the site of character-defining conflict

The Outside World is freedom from the constraints of the other settings

What theme unites these settings?

Though the majority of songs in folklore are anachronistic, the album has a temporal spirit. Geography seems to humanize and animate folklore: the meanings of the settings mirror the stages of life.

(The theoretical foundation for this claim is a topology of being; that the nature of being [4] is an event of place.)

The City, characterized by transition, is the coming-of-age and the Coastal Town, characterized by permanent endings, is death.

The Outside World, an alternative to life itself, is hence a rebirth. (After all, Romantic poets experienced a spiritual and occupational rebirth upon retiring to the Lakes to die. We remember them by their retreat.)

Outwardly, the Suburb is ambiguous. It could be representative of adolescence or adulthood—before or after the City. Analysis shows that this setting is nothing if not complex. Adult Taylor writes about the Suburb as someone whose opinion of this setting has unquestionably soured since adolescence. Yet she also approaches the Suburb with the singular goal of creating nuance, specifically by exposing unrest and incongruity which the setting usually obfuscates. This setting, ironically one that is (culturally) ruled by haughty adolescents, is where she explores the myriad subtleties and uncertainties coloring adulthood. The Suburb thus cannot be for adolescence because James is 17 and doesn’t know anything. Taylor intentionally situates the Suburb between the City and Coastal Town as the geographic stand-in for a complicated adulthood.

Despite genre shifts, Taylor has always excelled at establishing a clear setting for her songs. She is arguably even required to establish setting more clearly for folkloric storytelling than for her brand of confessional pop. If we can’t fully distinguish between reality and fiction, we must be able to supplement our understanding of a story with strong characterization, which is ultimately a byproduct of setting. Geography is a prima facie necessity for creating folklore.

This further suggests that the ‘life story’ told through geography is the thing closest to a metanarrative of folklore.

I use this term to refer to an album’s overarching narrative structure which Taylor creates (maybe subconsciously) in service of artistic self-expression. Interrogating ‘metanarrative’ should not be confused with the protean, impossible, and distracting task of deciphering Taylor Swift’s life. True metanarrative is always worth exploring. Also, though some conclusions about metanarrative may seem more plausible than others, at the end of the day all relevant arguments are untenable. Only Taylor knows exactly which metanarrative(s) her albums follow, if any. It is simply worth appreciating that folklore allows an interesting discussion about metanarrative in the first place; that it is both possible to find patterns sewn into the fabric of the work and to resonate with that which one believes those patterns illustrate. I digress.

folklore is highly geographic but orthogonal to all of our geographic expectations of mood or tone. Through metaphor, Taylor upends our assumptions about the archetypal settings.

The Outside World is usually a setting which represents a brief and peaceful respite for travelers. Here, it is the setting for complete and permanent disengagement. Hiding and running away was a panacea in reputation/Lover, but in folklore, finding peace in running and hiding becomes impossible.

The City is usually regarded as a modern Fountain of Youth and, in Taylor’s work, a home. However, the folklore City’s shelter is temporary and its energy brittle, like the relationship between the characters that inhabit it. The City has lost its glow.

One would expect the Coastal Town to be peaceful and serene given its small size and proximity to water. Taylor makes it the primary site of death, insanity, permanent loss. The place where one cannot go with grace is hardly peaceful.

The Suburb is not the romanticized-by-necessity dead end that it is in a Bildungsroman like Fearless. Rather, it is the site of great conflict as a consequence of individual identity. The American suburb is monolithic by design; Taylor points the finger of blame back at this design for erasing hurt and trauma. By writing against the gradient of privacy, she obviates all simplicity and serenity for which this location is known. Bedrooms no longer illustrate the dancing-in-pjs-before-school and floodplain-of-tears binary. Front porches become more sinister than the place to meet a future partner and rock a baby. Characters’ choices—often between two undesirable options in situations complicated by misalignment of the self and the world at large—become their biggest mistakes. It is with near masochistic fascination that Taylor dissects how the picturesque Suburban façade disguises misery.

If we have come to expect anything from Taylor, it is that she will make lustrous even the most mundane feelings and places. (And she is very good at her job.) folklore is a departure from this practice. She replaces erstwhile veneration of geography itself with nostalgia, bitterness, sadness, or disdain for any given setting. folklore is orthogonal to our primary expectation of Taylor Swift.

Yet another fascinating aspect of folklore is the air of death. It’s understandable. Taylor has ‘killed’ relationships, her own image, and surely parts of her inner self an unknowable number of times. Others have tarnished her reputation, stolen her songs, and deserted her in personal and professional life. She perishes frequently, both by her own hand and by the hands of others. The losses compound.

I’ve lost track of the number of posts I’ve seen saying that folklore is Taylor mourning friendships, love, a past self, youth…x, y, z. It has literally never been easier to project onto a Taylor Swift album, folks! At the same time, it is very difficult to to pinpoint what, exactly, Taylor is mourning. To me, listing things is a far too limited understanding of folklore. The lists simply do not do the album justice.

Death’s omnipresence has intrigued many, and I assert for good geographic reason. Reinforcing the album’s macabre undertone is nonlinear spatial symbolism: each setting bares a grief-soaked stage of a single life. From the City to the Suburb, Coastal Town, and Outside World, we perceive one’s sadness and depression, anger and helplessness, frustration and scorn, and acceptance, respectively. folklore holds a raw, primal grief at its core.

The geographic metanarrative justifies Taylor’s unabridged grieving process as that over the death of her own Romanticism. For the album’s torment is not as simple as in aging or metamorphosis of identity, not as glorified or irreverent as in a typical Swiftian murder-suicide, not as overt as in a loss with something or someone to blame. folklore is Taylor’s reckoning with what can only be described as artistic mortality.

——

To summarize up until this point: geography in folklore is not literal but metaphorical. The artistic treatment of folklore settings evinces a ‘geographic metanarrative,’ a close connection between settings and the stages of a life spent grieving. I propose that this life tracks Taylor’s relationship to her Romanticism. folklore follows the stages of Taylor’s artistic grief, so we will see that the conclusion of the album brings the death of Taylor’s Romanticism.

It is important to distinguish between the death of Romanticism in general and the death of Taylor’s Romanticism. folklore presents an argument for the latter.

A central conceit of Romanticism is its philosophy of style:

The most characteristic romantic commitment is to the idea that the character of art and beauty and of our engagement with them should shape all aspects of human life.…if the romantic ideal is to materialize, aesthetics should permeate and shape human life. [5]

Romanticism is realized through imagination:

The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind.…The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate “shaping” or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity. It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions. Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality…we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling…imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty, enabling humans to reconcile differences and opposites in the world of appearance. [6]

Imagination then engenders an artist-hero lifestyle [7]. This is similar—if not identical—to what we perceive of Taylor Swift’s life:

By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within.…The “poetic speaker” became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet.…The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.

Taylor’s Romanticism is thus her imagination deified as her artist-hero.

Moreover, the discrepancy between perceptions of grief in folklore is a consequence of the death of her Romanticism.

We (i.e. outsiders) naturally perceive the death of the Romantic as the death of Romantic aesthetics. Hence the lists upon lists of things that Taylor mourns instead of celebrates.

Taylor seems to grieve her Romantic artist-hero. Imaginative capacity predicates an artist-hero self-image, so conversely the death of the Romantic strips imagination of its power. The projected “fantasy, history, and memory” [8] of folklore indeed unnerves rather than comforts. The best example of this is from a corollary of the geographic metanarrative. Grief traces geography which traces life, and life leaks from densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas (it begins in the City and ends in the Outside World). Metaphorical setting, a product of imagination, aids the Romantic’s unbecoming. So, imagination is not a “synthesizing faculty” for reconciling difference; it is instead a faculty that divides.

Discriminating between the death of Romanticism in general and the death of Taylor’s Romanticism contextualizes folklore’s highly individualized grief. It is hard to argue that Taylor Swift will ever be unimaginative. But if we assume that she subscribes to a Romantic philosophy, then it follows that confronting the limits of the imagination is, to her, akin to a reckoning with mortality, a limit of the self.

——

folklore follows the stages of Taylor’s artistic grief. The album ends with Taylor accepting of the death of her Romanticism and being reborn into a new life. The final trio of songs, set ‘of’ the Suburb, Coastal Town, and Outside World in turn, frame the album’s solitary denouement.

In truth, “peace” is hardly grounded in Suburban geography. The nuance in it certainly makes it a thematic contemporary of other songs belonging to the Suburb, however. And consider: the events of “peace” are after the coming-of-age, the City; defining geographic features of the Coastal Town and Outside World are referenced in the future tense; an interior wall, the closest thing to Suburban home geography, is referenced in the present tense:

Our coming-of-age has come and gone

//

But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade ocean wave blues come

//

You paint dreamscapes on the wall

//

And you know that I’d swing with you for the fences

Sit with you in the trenches

Per tense and the geographic metanarrative, “peace” is Suburban and is the first story of this trio. “hoax” and “the lakes” trivially follow (in that order) by their own geography.

The trio is clearly a story about Taylor and her muse. Understanding perspective in these songs will help us reconcile the lovers’ story and the geographic metanarrative.

We must compare lines in “peace” and “hoax” to determine who is speaking in those songs and when. Oft-repeated imagery makes it challenging to find a distinguishing detail local only to the trio. I draw attention to the affectionate nickname “darling”:

And it’s just around the corner, darlin’

'Cause it lives in me

Darling, this was just as hard

As when they pulled me apart

These two mentions are the only such ones in folklore. Whoever sings the first verse of “peace” must sing the bridge of “hoax” too.

“hoax” adds that the chorus singer’s melancholy is because of their faithless lover:

Don't want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Augmenting Lover is an undercurrent of sadness to which Taylor alludes with the color blue. By a basic understanding of that album, Taylor sings the “hoax” chorus.

The fire and color metaphors in tandem make the “hoax” verse(s) and bridge from the perspective of the lover who is burned and dimmed by the energy of their partner, the “peace” chorus singer:

I am ash from your fire

//

But what you did was just as dark

But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

Finally, a motif of an unraveling aligns the “hoax” verse(s) and bridge singer:

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

//

My kingdom come undone

The “hoax” verse(s), chorus, and bridge are all sung by the same person.

In sum: Taylor sings the first verse of “peace” and her lover sings the chorus of “peace.” (See this post for more on “peace.”) Taylor alone sings “hoax.” “the lakes” is undoubtedly from Taylor’s perspective too.

Now let’s examine “peace” more closely:

Our coming-of-age has come and gone

Suddenly this summer, it’s clear

I never had the courage of my convictions

As long as danger is near

And it’s just around the corner, darlin’

‘Cause it lives in me

No, I could never give you peace

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

All these people think love’s for show

But I would die for you in secret

The devil’s in the details, but you got a friend in me

Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

Taylor’s lover has the temerity to die for her in secret. We can infer from the first verse that Taylor’s coming-of-age brings not the courage her lover possesses but clarity about an unsustainable habit. She realizes that she cherishes youthful fantasies of life (such as “this summer,” à la “august”) for mettle. This apparently knocks her out of her reverie.

The recognition that being an artist-hero hurts her muse frames the death of Taylor’s Romanticism. It is impossible for Taylor to both manage an unpleasant reality and construct a more peaceful one using her Romantic imagination. The rift between her true lived experience (“interior journey”) and the experience of her art (“development of the self”) is what fuels alienation from Romance. The artist is unstitched from the hero.

“hoax” continues along this line of reasoning. In this song, she admits that she has been hurt by herself:

My twisted knife

My sleepless night

My winless fight

This has frozen my ground

As well as by her lover:

My best laid plan

Your sleight of hand

My barren land

I am ash from your fire

And by others:

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

The bridge marks is the turning point where she lets go of of her youth and adulthood, both of which are tied to her Romanticism through geography:

You know I left a part of me back in New York

You knew the hero died so what’s the movie for?

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

You knew the password so I let you in the door

You knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score?

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

Of utmost importance is the very first line. The muse to whom Taylor addresses “hoax” is said to have been present at Taylor’s side through all of her struggles (“you knew”). The first line reveals that the lover did not know that Taylor left a part of herself back in New York (“you know [now]”). Taylor is only sharing her newfound realization as she stands on the precipice of the Coastal Town.

Nearly imperceptible though this syntactic difference is, it is an unmistakable reprise of the effect of the verses and chorus of “cardigan.” (Coincidentally, references to New York connect the songs.) “Knew” and “know” in both songs underscore a difference between what a character remembers (or had previously experienced) and what they understand in the current moment (or have just come to realize). Betty realizes at the very moment that she narrates “cardigan” that it was a mistake to excuse James’ behavior as total ignorance and youthful selfishness. Taylor realizes in “hoax” that she can no longer cling to youth, the romanticization of her youth, or romanticization of the romanticization of her youth. The youth in her is gone forever because she is no longer attached to the City. The adult in her has also matured for she is past the Suburb as well. The Coastal Town thus very appropriately stages the death of her Romantic.

Anyone who listens to Taylor’s music has been trained to connect geography to the vitality of Romantic artist-hero Taylor. In short, aestheticized geography renders Taylor’s Romantic autobiography. By letting go of the parts of her connected to geography, Taylor abandons the Romantic aesthetics both she and listeners associate with location. Divorcing from aesthetics also pre-empts romanticization of location in the future. The bridge of “hoax” is thus most easily summarized as the moment when any fondness for and predisposition towards Romance crumbles completely.

Lastly, we must pay special attention to micro-geography in the “hoax” chorus. We recall from “the last great american dynasty” and “this is me trying” the insanity that consumes the characters who contemplate the cliffs. The Coastal Town is not a beautiful place to die; one is graceless when moribund:

They say she was seen on occasion

Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea

I’ve been having a hard time adjusting

//

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout

Could’ve followed my fears all the way down

From “peace” we know that Taylor’s lover is willing to die for her, in particular if Taylor’s sadness becomes too great (i.e. if she goes to the sea).

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

All these people think love’s for show

But I would die for you in secret

The “hoax” chorus is when Taylor’s sadness balloons. Taylor the Romantic is ready to die:

Stood on the cliffside screaming, "Give me a reason"

Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in

Don't want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Remember Rebekah, pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea. Taylor is in this same position, on the cliffs, facing the water. Why is she screaming? Taylor is yelling down at her lover, who has already died (in secret, of course) and is in the water below waiting to catch her. (“I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below,” anyone?) Taylor’s singular faith is in her lover, and Taylor wants them to promise to catch her when she falls. In the end, though, the inherent danger nullifies what the lover could do to convince Taylor that the two would reunite safely below.

Taylor examines the water and realizes that her lover’s hue is combined with the blue of the sea. The sea cannot promise to catch her. Already mentally reeling, the admixture of sadnesses—in the setting which represents the culmination of life—makes Taylor recalcitrant. The Coastal Town has too much metaphorical baggage. It is not the place Taylor leaps from the cliffs. The first line of the “hoax” chorus uses “stood,” which implies that Taylor is reflecting on this dilemma after the fact.

The outro reinforces that the Coastal Town is where Taylor the Romantic comes to term with death but does not actually die:

My only one

My kingdom come undone

My broken drum

You have beaten my heart

Don’t want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Romantic imagination cannot protect Taylor from all the hurt she has suffered in reality. A calm settles over her as the chords modulate to the relative major key. She reflects on her journey: “my only one” corresponds to the first verse which introduces her solemn situation; “my kingdom come undone” ties to the self-inflicted hurt that froze her ground; “my broken drum // you have beaten my heart” supplements the second verse about suffering from her lover’s duplicity. The last lines are again her rationale for not jumping from the rocks. Finally, after the album-long grieving period, Taylor the Romantic has made peace with her inevitable death.

Romanticism is Taylor’s giant which goes with her wherever she goes. Running, hiding, traveling, and uprooting are indeed the fool’s paradise in her previous albums. Impermanence of setting—roaming the world for self-culture, amusement, intoxication of beauty, and loss of sadness [9]—engenders an impermanence of self, which fuels the instinct to cling tightly to what does remain constant. Naturally, then, Romanticism is Taylor’s only enduring companion. It becomes the lens through which she understands the world, yet the rose-colored one which by virtue inspires problems on top of problems. Forevermore does her Romantic inspire a cycle of catharsis that plays out in real life. Thy beautiful kingdom come, then tragically come undone.

Taylor chooses to go to the Lakes to escape from the constraints of this cycle:

Take me to the Lakes where all the poets went to die

I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

I’m setting off, but not without my muse

Of the death story in the “peace”/“hoax”/“the lakes” trio, it is impossible to ignore the mutualism of Taylor and her muse. Neither of them belong of this life—and ‘of’ American geography—anymore. Taylor’s last wish is to go to the Outside World and jump (“[set] off”) from the Windermere peaks with her muse, who is ever willing to both lead Taylor to the dark and follow her into it.

Taylor bids a final goodbye—appropriately, in the tongue of Romance—to the philosophy which has anchored her all this time:

I want auroras and sad prose

I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet

'Cause I haven’t moved in years

And I want you right here

Romanticism, her art and life in tandem, brought Taylor what she values: union with her muse in the privacy of nature and her imagination. The final ode holds respect.

Finally, her death. The journey of grief concludes with Taylor both accepting death and, fascinatingly, being reborn into a new life:

A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground

With no one around to tweet it

While I bathe in cliffside pools

With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

In keeping with metaphorical geography, old life dwindling in water is exactly concurrent with new life flourishing on land.

Observe that the rebirth concerns ice frozen ground, an element of “hoax,” which is set in the Coastal Town. The rebirth must happen back in America even though the death happens at the Lakes.

Despite the imagery, this is not a Romantic rebirth. Begetting a new life is the juxtaposition of two things Taylor once romanticized toward opposite extremes—a red rose for beauty and an ice frozen ground for tragedy—with her simple refusal that either be distorted as externalities of her experience.

This final stanza is wide open for interpretation with regards to the story of the two lovers. It allows a priori all permutations of Taylor and/or her muse experiencing rebirth as the red rose and/or the frozen ground:

Taylor and her lover experience a rebirth together

Taylor is the red rose and her lover is the ice frozen ground

Taylor is the ice frozen ground and her lover is the red rose

Taylor and her lover are indivisible: they are both the rose and the frozen ground

Taylor alone experiences a rebirth

Taylor is the rose

Taylor is the ice frozen ground

Taylor is the rose + ice frozen ground

The lover alone experiences a rebirth

The lover is the rose

The lover is the ice frozen ground

The lover is the rose + frozen ground

(2) and (3) make death at the end of “the lakes” purely sacrificial. This is inconsistent with the disproportionate emphasis placed on the lovers’ mutualism. I am thus inclined to dismiss (2) and (3) as consequences of combinatorics.

There are also two interpretations of the final lines of the bridge:

Taylor the Romantic is the implied ‘I’ overcome with grief; her muse is her calamitous love with whom she bathes

Taylor the Romantic possesses both calamitous love and insurmountable grief; her lover, as per usual, dies with her in secret

It is unclear which is the truth. Still, (1) is relatively straightforward: there are two entities said to bathe in the Lakes and two entities said to be involved in reincarnation.

There need not be ‘parity’ between old life and new (reincarnated) life with respect to the lovers’ relationship status. If Taylor’s muse dies, does her relationship dissolve? Or must her muse, who dies at Taylor’s side, be reborn at her side too? If Taylor declares her devotion to her lover before her death, does that ensure that they are together in perpetuity? Or is that sentiment purely a relic of her past life, in which case her love disappears anew? Perhaps the invisible string tying the lovers together bonds them in eternal life. Perhaps the string snaps. Which is the blessing and which is the curse?

Whatever you make of ‘parity’ in reincarnation, it is important to remember that Taylor insists the relationship between her and her muse is at least a spiritual or divine one—if not also a worldly one—for it exists in conjunction with her own metaphysic.

How does reincarnation betray Romanticism?

A. Taylor is the red rose and the lover is the ice frozen ground.

Taylor as the rose does not trivially align with a bygone Romanticism, for the rose epitomizes Romance. Key, therefore, is the line about tweeting. Taylor abhors the practice of cataloguing and oversharing in service of knowing something completely—effectively ‘modern’ Romanticism.

Digital overexposure is an occupational hazard [10], but Taylor refuses to let ‘modern’ Romanticism to become invasive this time around. New life shall not be defiled by social media. It shall remain pure by individual will. Though Taylor’s rebirth into a new life happens on land in America, that it does not become a hyperbole of local Twitter is the proverbial nail in the coffin of Romanticism, distortion in service of aesthetic.

Rose imagery also draws a direct parallel to “The Lucky One,” Taylor’s self-proclaimed meditation [11] on her worst fears of stardom. The “Rose Garden” in this song contextualizes the “lucky” one’s disappearance from the spotlight:

It was a few years later

I showed up here

And they still tell the legend of how you disappeared

How you took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out

They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere

Chose the Rose Garden over Madison Square

And it took some time, but I understand it now

Emphasis on individual choice in the aforementioned star’s return to normalcy bears a striking resemblance to the individualistic philosophy of “the lakes,” as exemplified by Taylor and her muse choosing to jump from the Windermere peaks and Taylor keeping her rose off social media. Mention of a “legend” that describes disappearance and simultaneous return elsewhere is another connection to the “the lakes.”

Taylor as the rose could alternatively represent a chromatic devolution of true love (“I once believed love was burnin’ red // but it’s golden”). That is, becoming a rose suggests she may have changed her mind back to believing that love is burning red. This more generally represents returning to the beginning of a journey that began in the Red era. Perhaps Taylor sees Red as the beginning of her calamitous Romanticism. She realizes by folklore the fears which she surveyed in “The Lucky One,” so choosing a new life presents an opportunity to protect post-Speak Now Taylor from self-inflicted wounds which fester and prove fatal to her Romantic. (In essence…time travel.)

Taylor’s lover, ice frozen ground, is reborn frigid not blazing, the opposite of their raging fire. Taming the lover’s wild essence renders it impossible for them to be a Romantic muse in a new life. If the two lovers do indeed share an eternal love, then death reveals a conscious choice not to glorify it.

Additionally, Taylor’s artist-hero imagination has no power in her new life. Taylor and her lover have effectively switched spots. All we previously knew of the lover’s secrets and secret death was from what Taylor wrote, so Taylor (for lack of a better phrase) concealed her lover. The lover, ice frozen ground, is now the one concealing Taylor, the rose. As a smothering but not razing force, Taylor’s lover thus is reincarnated into the role of a public protector. Reincarnation reveals that the death of Romanticism is abetted through the death of secrecy, which always allows distortion of truth.

Another possibility: the secrecy surrounding the lover is that they were the ice frozen ground. If Taylor confirms that the lover was something ‘tragic’ before, then after the death of Romanticism they counterintuitively may become beautiful. Or, the lover continues to be tragic, and paramount again is Taylor’s choice not to sensationalize her muse.

B. Taylor is the ice frozen ground and the lover is the red rose.

Many of the themes above apply to this interpretation too.

Taylor reborn as ice frozen ground does not change her essence from “hoax.” By not ‘shaking off’ a sadness with her rebirth, she subverts the usual expectation—a product of the many years devoted to fixing any and all criticism [12]—of artist-hero Taylor Swift.

The lover reborn as the red rose means their being surfaces where they once were hidden and/or that they are not the golden love they had been in reputation, Lover, and “invisible string.” New life brings the bright, burning “red” emotions. Either what was once very bad is now very good and vice versa, or these emotions are simply not very anything because Taylor doesn’t want to sensationalize them as a pastiche of Red. If Taylor’s love is eternal, then she will be more subdued when sharing it; if it is not eternal, then she will simply move on.

This interpretation implies that Taylor’s Rose Garden is eternal love without the necessity of elevating her partner to Romantic muse status. No one being around to tweet the rose bursting through the ice means that Taylor alone gets to appreciate her lover for their pure essence before modern society does—lest the lover be perceived at all.

C. Taylor and her lover are indivisible: they are both the rose and the frozen ground

Taylor’s “twisted knife”/“sleepless night”/“winless fight” froze her ground but her lover’s “sleight of hand” made the land barren, unable to sustain life. The two lovers are emotionally at odds, but Romanticism acts as the “synthesizing faculty” which unites them in their old life.

The metaphor of the rose and frozen ground does not work without each part. It is possible that the lovers remain equally united in their new life; the lovers’ spiritual connection yields unity after reincarnation. Abiogenesis is therefore the phenomenon which betrays Romanticism. The lovers exist alongside each other naturally, not because they are opposites which Romanticism has forced together.

This is probably the most lighthearted interpretation of the last stanza in “the lakes.” Extreme hardship helps the lovers grow, and they remain intertwined through eternity.

——

The geographic elegy of folklore is that for Taylor’s giant, her Romantic, something both treasured and despised right until its end. (How appropriately meta.)

This raises the question: what replaces it?

Nothing.

folklore can—and perhaps should—be understood as a Transcendental work rather than a Romantic one. From this angle, Romanticism is that which prevented Taylor from connecting with something deeper within herself, something more eternal.

“Transcendental” does not mean “transcendent” or beyond human experience altogether, but something through which experience is made possible. [13]

Transcendentalism and Romanticism were two literary and philosophical movements that occurred during roughly the same time period [14].  Romanticism dominated England, Germany, and France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries slightly before Transcendentalism swept through America in the mid-1800s.

The two movements heavily influenced [15] each other. Transcendentalists and Romantics shared an appreciation for nature, doubt of (Calvinist) religious dogma, and an ambivalence or dislike of society and its institutions as corrupting forces. We see Taylor align herself with these ideas by the end of the album. “the lakes” holds a reverence of the natural world, disregard of predestination, and contempt for Twitter.

But Transcendentalism sharply diverged from Romanticism along the axis of faith. Transcendentalism thrived as a religious movement that emphasized individualism as a means for self-growth and, in particular, achieving a personal, highly spiritualized [16] understanding of God:

For many of the transcendentalists the term “transcendentalism” represented nothing so technical as an inquiry into the presuppositions of human experience, but a new confidence in and appreciation of the mind’s powers, and a modern, non-doctrinal spirituality. The transcendentalist, Emerson states, believes in miracles, conceived as “the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power…”

Romantics, for instance, viewed nature as a source of imagination, inspiration, and enlightenment, whereas Transcendentalists saw nature as a vessel for exploring spirituality. Transcendentalists believed in an innate goodness of people for possession of a divine inner light [17]. Occupied with the perverse and disparate, Romantics believed people were capable both of great good and terrible evil.

It’s tempting to scope Taylor’s shift from Romanticism to Transcendentalism to this album alone. It’s true that folklore is filled with individualism, a hallmark of Transcendentalist philosophy. However, I argue that spirituality reveals a journey towards Transcendentalism that began well before folklore.

Consider the evolution of faith from reputation to Lover. Taylor places more emphasis on personal spirituality as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with organized religion/religious dogma. In “Don’t Blame Me,” Taylor defies religious convictions in favor of chasing the high of her forbidden love. Then her quiet and private life with her lover in “Cornelia Street” advances whatever traditional religious beliefs she possessed towards a self-defined spirituality (“sacred new beginnings that became my religion”). Individual spiritual enlightenment and religious conviction become mutually exclusive by the end of Lover, for the lovers would still worship their love even if it is a “false god.”

The final scene proves most important for establishing the album’s philosophy. In the end of “the lakes.” Taylor chooses death and is reincarnated into new life, kept pure also by individual will. (It should be noted that Transcendentalism was heavily influenced [18] by Indian religions, of which reincarnation is a central tenet.) Choosing reincarnation—to the extent that one even can—reflects a greater understanding of oneself. Choice, the ultimate power granted in the self, engenders spirituality. It is the means by which one follows a divine, guiding spark (i.e. “inner light”) in search of connection with others and the natural world. The album’s ending marries individualism with spirituality, which makes Taylor a true champion of Transcendentalism.

——

Transcendentalism is considered one of the most dominant American intellectual movements. Exploring the significance of Transcendentalist Taylor Swift is a rather unimaginative end to this essay. If we try hard enough, we will always be able to connect its philosophy to any art that exists in conversation with American culture.

Perhaps a more gripping conclusion comes from the assertion that philosophy doesn’t matter…

…at least, not in the way this essay regards philosophy as the ultimate Point.

So identifiable is the geographic motif in Taylor’s work that it is nearly impossible to ignore. This is especially true for folklore, an album that would literally not be folkloric if not for the blending of reality and fiction, real location and setting elevated as metaphor. So moving, moreover, is the grief at folklore’s core that it is natural to wonder what else it could represent. Hence, this essay’s charade of poking around both to see if they convey a deeper meaning.

A strong philosophical foundation establishes the ethos of art, that with which we resonate. However, we will never know to what philosophy Taylor subscribes. The interaction between her beliefs, creative spirit, and innate sense of self will always be a mystery. Any and all conclusions about the philosophical foundations of her art thus (1) are highly subjective and (2) reveal more about the ones making them than about Taylor herself.

Ironically, it is paramount to appreciate Taylor’s (Romantic) style above all else. The ways she uses basic building blocks of literature—theme, imagery, mood, setting, to name a few—piques curiosity. After all, without those building blocks, one would not be able to cultivate (should they so desire) an interest in the metaphorical, philosophical, or otherwise profound.

——

Disclaimer: this essay references (explicitly and implicitly, by way of citing expanded theoretical work) the ideas of Emerson and Heidegger, two preeminent thinkers whose ideas have had especially deep and lasting impacts on society. They are also two individuals noted to have had poor and even abhorrent political/personal views. I do not condone their views by referencing any ideas connected to these individuals (done mostly in service of rigor). I furthermore leave the task of generating nuance to those who dedicate their lives to critical examination of these individuals’ personal philosophies and the impact of their work on society.

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Flashback time! And maybe the rest of the chapter, depending? Eh, we’ll see when we get there. 

Also, 100 follower hype! I did not realize how fast I would hit that number, so thank you all so much for coming along on this wild journey with me! <3

[No. 9 - Deku vs. Kacchan]

An Gremlin. 

Katsuki is prowling through the halls, pissed as hell, while also thinking about how defiant Izuku has been recently - both with the middle school scene where Izuku said he’d be going to UA, and the much more recent moment of Izuku telling him he’s the Deku who always does his best. Katsuki thinks of him as a pebble as we transition into the past.

Young Katsuki calls out how Izuku can’t do anything, and then we see him showing off by keeping a ball up in the air with his feet while Izuku and others watch on in awe. 

I get the feeling that Izuku had been trying to do it and failed, either getting bopped in the head with the ball or slipping and falling on his face in order to get that smudge across his forehead.

Anyways, Katsuki mentions how Izuku can be read as ‘Deku’, with one of the others (I think the kid with the extending neck) being impressed that he can read kanji, which Katsuki mocks with a ‘what? you can’t?’ 

Next comes a back and forth between flashback and narration - young Katsuki noting how ‘Deku’ means ‘someone who can’t do anything’ while the other kids are impressed and Izuku quietly mutters to knock it off, followed by current Katsuki wondering why Izuku can’t understand. We skip to another scene of Katsuki skipping rocks, with his record of seven, while Izuku is shaking as he admits he got no skips at all, then narration on Katsuki wondering why Izuku is such a loser. 

(Also here you can already see Tsubasa’s wings coming in, only to be full sized in the next panel.)

Another scene skip to when Katsuki’s explosions come in - already impressively showy - with the teacher complementing it and saying he could be a hero with a flashy quirk like it. Katsuki says it makes sense, since he’s awesome and better than everyone else. We get a fade out on the flashback temporarily as we see Izuku and Katsuki tromping through the woods, Izuku complementing Katsuki’s quirk and hoping for his own to come soon, while Katsuki says that no matter what he gets, it won’t be better than his own. 

We get a brief peek at current Katsuki turning a corner, calling Izuku a pebble again, and then we return to the past. The other kindergarteners gossip about Izuku’s lack of quirk and their pity for him while Izuku himself is completely lost in his own head, practically disassociating. You can already see how the kids gossip around him while he’s isolated and alone; Katsuki looks on and considers Izuku ‘not awesome at all’.

(-River scene river scene river scene river scene-)

Your options:

Take the hand

Regret later <==

But in full seriousness, this is actually pretty interesting as a scene. We see Katsuki acting as leader, full of confidence as per usual, up until he slips - and in that moment, we can see his face and his shock and fear. The others are shocked that he fell in, looking over the edge to see if he’s okay. Tsubasa notes that Kacchan’s strong, so he’s probably fine, and the kid with the stretchy fingers tells Katsuki to get back up there. Katsuki’s narration rants that he was just fine and that it was no big deal while his younger self rubs at his head and agrees that he’s okay.

In the next panel, we get Izuku down in the river with him and offers his hand, asking if he needs help, if he can stand, and hopes that he hadn’t hit his head. Young Katsuki gets pissed, while the narration asks why Izuku had looked at him that way. 

The next two panels transition back to the present, Katsuki recalling Izuku’s rescue of him with similar eyes, and then to the current events with Katsuki looking super emotionally constipated (shocker) as he mentions again how he’s better than Izuku. Almost like he’s not confident about his superiority anymore.

Anyways, we move onwards to Ochako having just found the room with the bomb and Tenya. She thinks about how she needs to stay hidden until Izuku shows up, only to get confused at whatever Tenya is muttering about. Which turns out to be about the exercise! He notes how Katsuki’s tendency towards troublemaking means the exercise is perfectly suited to him, while Tenya himself needs to also take on the role of a villain. He notes that he brings shame to the family name, he must commit to the training since it will help him become a better man. And then we get this:

A fucking dork. I love him so much. And Ochako can’t help but laugh as well at how serious he is about it - which unfortunately gets her caught by him, much to her embarrassment. He calls her out, and then states that it was within his calculations once Katsuki ran off. And since he knows her quirk works by levitating objects she touches, he countered her by cleaning up the entire floor of any possible objects she could use against him. With an evil laugh, he declares that her tricks won’t work there and that she’s miscalculated, while she cringes and notes that he’s really getting into it.

We shift over to Izuku, who’s still waiting in the same spot. He thinks about how Katsuki knew Izuku was reading him, so led with a kick instead. With his guard up, it won’t be easy to get past his defenses, so Izuku needs a strategy. Ochako calls him over the headset, letting him know Tenya found her and that she’s inching back, but… 

Izuku asks where she is while Tenya approaches her, the latter thinking about how he doesn’t want to get rough with her. 

(Interesting that this is not the last time we’ll obviously see the ‘don’t be rough with her’ that others seem to believe versus cases like Katsuki who take her entirely seriously - and Ochako herself, who proves as time goes on to be a very determined and capable hero in her own right.)

Ochako tells Izuku she’s in the center of the fifth floor, which Izuku notes is right above him. He also notes that there’s not much time left, and the villains win with the timer running out. He thinks about how he doesn’t want to lose here, while Katsuki shows up with a show of his gauntlet (which is fucking HUGE what the hell) which he states is loaded up. 

He stares down Izuku from the other side of the corridor, asking why Izuku isn’t using his quirk, and whether he’s mocking him. Izuku is startled, and Katsuki is pretty fucking manic at this point. Izuku is sweating as he thinks that it’s now or never, and that he can do it. He tells Katsuki again that he’s not afraid anymore, and Katsuki starts mentioning that ‘Izuku probably knows this from his stalking’ before going into the details of his quirk - that the sweat glands on his palms secrete ‘something like nitroglycerin’, which is how he makes his explosions. 

Izuku is confused why Katsuki is bringing it up, while Katsuki locks and loads his right gauntlet. He says that if the support company honored his design requests, the gauntlets have been storing that fluid. All Might catches on to what’s about to happen, and tells Katsuki to stop it, asking if he’s trying to kill Izuku. 

Jesus fucking christ, Katsuki, Izuku had nowhere to dodge to with that! 

Tenya and Ochako struggle to keep their balance as the building shakes. Kirishima is freaked out himself and thought it had just been practice, while All Might is is shocked and worried about Izuku. Izuku is in the middle of the debris, just half a foot to the side of the huge hole blasted in the wall, and pants as he sits up to stare at Katsuki with newfound fear, wondering (much like us) why they gave Katsuki that kind of firepower.

⇒ Katsuki: Go completely fucking unhinged.

Well then! What a panel to end a chapter on, yeah? This definitely isn’t a face that ends up in Izuku’s nightmares or anything. But hey, probably only for the next few days, which is good, right?

(cough)

Anyways, see y’all next time for the conclusion to this fight (I think), with only a bit more until we get to the USJ and our first introduction to the greater plot of the series!

[wangxiangiftexchange]

Lunar New Year Gift for vedrividia!

Pairing: Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji; past Wei Wuxian/Other (implied) Rating: Mature Warnings: brief depiction of sexual harassment, brief instance of misgendering, implied/referenced past suicide attempt, implied/referenced past sexual assault (off-screen), implied/referenced past forced pregnancy (off screen), implied/referenced underage sex & pregnancy (off-screen), alcoholism, coming out, implied/referenced homophobia Other Tags: trans male character, disabled character, gay male character, open ending, unreliable narrator, angst, tender, chance meeting, confession, reunion, character with incomplete spinal cord injury, iSCI, it probably sounds darker than it is

Summary: On the last eve before spring Wei Ying finds himself at the end of a road. What awaits him on the other side depends on the steps he takes to cross it. Someone walks beside him.

Disclaimer: I am neither Chinese, trans nor disabled. All of the portrayal in this fic is based on research. It's not my intent to offend and I'm open to critique as long as it's respectful and constructive. Wei Ying's journey is his own and does not represent all of the disabled or trans community. The fic is set in a world that closely resembles ours, but where corona never happened and maybe China's laws are just a little less restrictive (but still very phobic), so bear that in mind. I do not own any of the characters.

Notes - Beginning: The idea of trans male Wei Ying had been stuck in my head for a while now, and I've been wanting to try my hand at a trans story, because I've never done that before. This assignment was an opening to do that in a darker, more serious setting. I have also wanted to explore Wei Ying's suicidal issues while translating his story into a modern setting for some time (it was supposed to be a coffee shop AU, only the coffee shop never appeared hah). It was simultaneously hard and fun to write, and I'm grateful for it. @vedrividia​, I hope you like it!

In the past I didn't feel like I could do a good job at representing anyone of an identity I couldn't quite empathize with. Since then I've surrounded myself with trans inclusive media, and followed transgender blogs and channels, and I hope that this fic does right by all of them.

I am aware of some of the potentially problematic topics, but I also didn't want to ignore all the challenges and abuse and trauma that trans folk are forced to endure on a daily basis. (Did you know that trans people have some of the highest suicide rates, and likely to have alcohol issues? Making everyone happy and nothing hurt felt all kinds of wrong knowing that.) I believe that representing both - an ideal world alongside the real and flawed one - is important.

Positive stories are also important - this is one. Or at least I hope I was able to make it one.

On a more cheerful note, there are pictures that served as an inspiration for this story, namely this photoset (especially the pic in the leather jacket, the one on the couch and the close up) done in faceapp by a genius, this brain-frying picture, and of course this picture from the Harper's Bazaar Photoshoot that none of us are over. I completely blame Xiao Zhan's androgyny.

Last but not least, I owe a massive thanks to Laura for the amazing beta they did on a rather short notice and brought this fic to another level. Thank you for your hard work!!! :)

End notes: Wei Ying has an incomplete spinal cord injury in the lumbar area (at L1 or L2). I didn't realize that I played myself when I gave him an incomplete injury, because the lack of references and information is in terms of quantity a total opposite to everything available on complete SCI. Which in turn made the telling of such a story feel even more important. If any of you know of a good resource for the daily life of people with iSCI, I'm all ears.

Even researching the walking aides was a challenge, since most information is on wheelchair dependent people, which Wei Ying is not. He has a wheelchair but he refuses to use it, for several reasons, one of them being image, another being worry of atrophy. He likes a good walk, and there's progress thanks to physical therapy, most of which is covered by insurance. I was debating an exoskeleton/brace for him, but from what I gathered they aren't really useful for SCI (I welcome any additional info about this), and those that would be cost a ton and aren't covered by insurance - which is a big factor for Wei Ying. The toss ended up being between forearm crutches and a walking frame, but in the end I decided on crutches, because it seemed like Wei Ying would prefer them? For now? With crutches he can pretend, and I also didn't know to what extent a walking frame would be insurance covered (in China), and whether he'd be at a point where he would accept one. (I imagine the simple ones would be covered by insurance, the question is whether they make a huge difference to crutches, and whether a rollator - with wheels and a seat is something that would count as 'necessary' in this case.)

However, once again, I am not adequately educated on all that goes into the decision making here. No one ever mentions things like these in success stories. In the end I left it as a room for future development. I'm pretty sure Wen Qing is trying to convince him to get one.

I was debating whether to tag dysphoria. While it is not explicitly stated in the fic, Wei Ying does experience it, although this has gotten better since he realized being trans, came out and started testosterone. His decision to not transition fully is one that many trans people make at a point in their lives, for any number of reasons. This does not mean he'll never change his mind, or won't explore other forms of expression. It's a choice that the current Wei Ying is making, completely independent of future Wei Ying.

It's possible in China to get a gender confirmation surgery, but the requirements sound like a nightmare. The first thing you have to do is get diagnosed with 'gender disorder', be five years in (unsuccessful) therapy for it, at least 20 and unmarried. If he decides to transition fully to a male presenting body he can only marry someone who is biologically female in the future, under Chinese law. (Imagine having to divorce your significant other in order to be who you are. Imagine having to make this decision. It makes me want to write fic about it.)

It also costs a ton, as none of it is covered by insurance. You can only start hormone therapy in order to get surgery, which leads a lot of trans people to acquire hormones illegally and without medical counseling. I purposefully did not decide where Wei Ying gets his T from. I didn't want him to not have it, but I left the how undecided. For the most part I headcanon it as one of the things that make my world a little different, since hormone therapy is a thing that exists outside of transitioning as well. E.g. many female athletes use testosterone to boost their performance, and many other women take it for various medical reasons. I feel like WWX could find ways to acquire some. Now, whether this would be legal or not is left open.

By the way? Never, EVER deadname. Just don't. The moment someone comes out to you as trans, tells you their pronouns and name, that's what you use. You forget everything that came prior to that, wipe it out of your memory, it's ashes on the sands of time unless stated otherwise BY THEM, got it?

Now, Wei Ying's case. I was hesitant about how to approach this, but from the start I knew two things. I wanted the same kind of intimacy of WWX & LWJ calling each other by their birth names as in canon, but I also didn't want to go the way most authors go in this case i.e. splitting the names to pre- and post- transition. It is my understanding that most Chinese names are unisex (if anyone has more info on this, I'd love to have it), or can be used for all genders, and I didn't want to force a gender issue where there wasn't one. However, I also wanted something parallel that could be used in a similar way. What I came up with is what you see in text. While Wei Ying did change his name, the only reason why it's still somewhat okay to use 'Wuxian' is because he explicitly says he likes it. In fact, in my head somewhere in the imagined future of this verse, he and JFM have a conversation about it where JFM tells him if he wants it, it can still be his name - he didn't give it to an image, but a person. IDK how well any of this works, or translates to actual trans or Chinese (or trans and Chinese) people, so if you have words for me, let me know.

On a side note, in 2015 China lifted the one-child policy in favor of a two-child policy. A-Yuan was born in 2017.

Wei Ying attempted suicide between the 4th and 8th week of his pregnancy. During the early weeks the probability of a fetus surviving a major fall (even a fall from stairs) is significantly higher than later in the pregnancy, and the scaffolding he jumped from wasn't actually that high. I'm also considering that there might have been something to cushion the fall that he hadn't noticed (a stray rope, or a net) or been aware of (like padding on the stage), but that's a detail I decided to leave to your imagination. On the other hand, sustaining a SCI during early pregnancy is likely to have fatal consequences, as I found out a week before the deadline. In the end, they both got very lucky. Wei Ying spent the next 3 months in a coma. When he woke up it was too late to terminate. Jiang Fengmian had been adamant that the decision not be made without Wei Ying's consent, which was nice of him, but also ended up making the decision for Wei Ying regardless.

Last but not least, if you've read this and feel like you have something to add, I love any kind of comments, whether you wanna review the fic, have some useful information for me, would like to discuss a point or just like to say hi! :)

*****

Transverse

If asked, Wei Ying wouldn't have remembered how he had gotten to the bar. He didn't remember taking a different route on the short walk back home, he hadn't even been aware there was a bar in the first place. He only remembered suddenly standing in front of it, aching to his bones, limbs leaden with a familiar exhaustion, morose and longing for nothing more than a little break. His back was on fire, his leg was throbbing, the skin underneath his binder wouldn’t stop itching and to top it off his stomach had been cramping in a way it wasn't supposed to anymore. His body had decided to give him a wonderful gift for the holiday. Wei Ying wouldn't wish this on his worst enemy, and that spoke volumes to anyone who knew who occupied that position.

Needless to say, he was desperate for a drink.

The bar was almost empty so early in the afternoon, and shortly before the holiday, all the regulars had likely gone home to see their families. It was the time of reunions, the golden week of spring knocking on the door. The whole town looked empty, seemingly asleep and abuzz at the same time, a strange kind of liminal space born in the atmosphere of the coming celebrations, quiet with contained impatience. He had been painfully aware of it the entire week, the turning of another year leaving him nothing to do but watch people go where Wei Ying couldn't return anymore.

The Lunar New Year always made him hurt worse than usual, in more ways than purely physical. Wei Ying had felt that strange air peak today, even in the confines of his tiny office at the back of the Pacific Coffee branch he had been working at for a little over two months. It was a tiny thing on the busiest street of their small town, smelling of comfort in the wee hours of the morning and of salvation late in the evening. The staff had needed support with handling the supply chain, so that they could focus on serving the staggering amount of customers that came in all day.

It had seemed perfect when Wei Ying had first limped inside on his forearm crutches, with a letter of recommendation, feeling smaller than an ant but significantly less tough. The reintegration program had been a lifeline thrown to a drowning man when he had first heard about it. It had been the opportunity to restart his life. Earn an income. Be independent. In time maybe even repay his friends for the kindness they had shown when he had nowhere to go. Now? Now he wasn't sure that he'd still have a job after the holiday was over.

"This really can't go on," his boss had said, midway through the most gruesome shift the shop had ever witnessed. "Half the supplies came in wrong, for the third time this week!"

Sometimes, Wei Ying wondered why he still bothered. He could probably survive on aid and love for himself, and the Wens made enough to take care of the rest. It just… It could have been nice. To be the one to take care of the people he cared about, for a change.

He really needed that drink.

The whiskey looked enticing from where he was half-sitting, half-leaning on a stool, crutches stashed between his legs. He could almost taste it, the phantom of the sharp flavor burning his tongue.

"Hi, darling." An unfamiliar voice startled him out of his thoughts, causing him to tense. He had been aware of the middle-aged man at the counter, but he hadn't been paying him much attention until now. "Can I buy you a drink? How about Sex on the Beach?"

It was difficult to control himself at that tasteless, juvenile joke. Wei Ying could almost taste the bile rising in his throat and the beginnings of what would no doubt become a pounding headache throbbing in his temples. Great. Just what he had needed.

The whiskey bottle called out to him again, beckoning him to the bitter burn.

A drink. That was what he needed - a drink.

Do you really? Need it? The voice of his therapist came to his mind, sudden and uninvited.

"Hey bartender!" The man called out in the most unwelcome case of accidental telepathy in the history of mankind, sneaking one arm around Wei Ying’s waist, a sweaty hand settling on his hip. "One Sex on the Beach for the miss, on my tab!"

There was the rising bile again, tension squeezing his muscles, and the flash of a haughty smirk at the furthest back of his mind. This wasn't what he wanted. None of it. Neither the touch nor the drink, no matter what his mind wanted to convince him of.

It's easier to need than the things that take hard work, the ones you have to earn. It had taken him a long time to admit that.

"I don't drink." Wei Ying said, angling his head as much as the muscles of his neck permitted to look at the guy invading his personal space squarely. "Remove your hand now."

The guy bristled.

"Hey, chill out, sweetheart." He was quick to regain his composure with an awkward laugh and not enough common sense. Wei Ying supposed he must have been used to rejection. Too bad. "You're so tense… Maybe a virgin cocktail then."

His crutch shot up before the full sentence was out.

The man stumbled back with a startled yelp as the rubber point connected with his chest in a sharp jab.

"Hey! What's your problem?!"

"I said I don't drink." Wei Ying was completely unapologetic, still holding his crutch like a sword, but the guy was already walking away, muttering ‘fucking bitch’ under his breath.

"You alright there, girl?"

His gut clenched at the words.

He looked up to meet the only slightly worried, but otherwise unbothered gaze of the bartender and told himself it wasn't her fault. She probably wasn't even aware. He knew he didn't… There was no way for him to pass. There was nothing he could do about that, had already decided not to, not at this time, not in this country. Wei Ying didn't expect people to know on sight. He didn't. It didn't change the fact though that every single misnomer felt like someone was peeling his skin off.

"I'm not a girl," he said to her almost too quietly, but he knew she heard when he met her gaze. A strained silence passed between them in which Wei Ying watched her frown in confusion, then sputter with the loss of words, before awkwardly shuffling off. He smiled wryly. How funny. It really wasn't anything complicated, and yet… So few were able to comprehend.

Wordlessly, Wei Ying slid off the stool and made his way out of the bar as quick as his crutches let him be.

Once outside, the crisp air mercilessly purifying, he realized how close to the edge he had gotten once again. He had to stop doing this. He couldn't afford another fall, another spiral back down the drain. Not when he had just clawed his way out. Not when he had people depending on him now. Tiny people with curious gray eyes, so much like his own. Waiting for him at home.

Something icy touched his face and instinctively he looked up only to find it snowing.

That explained the ache.

The cold always made him feel sore, although he knew at least some of it was phantom pain. He hadn’t retained a whole lot of feeling in his left leg, beyond a tingle that had become almost constant and the occasional twitch. His right leg was fine, it just tended to ache a lot, to a point where Wei Ying sometimes found himself wishing it wasn't better off than the other one. But then he wouldn't get away with 'forgetting' his wheelchair at home, so he quickly dismissed that thought. Besides, there were plenty of people who had it worse. He, at least, could still walk. He could still stand. Kinda. He had no room to complain.

After all, he had done this to himself.

'It's better this way.' He remembered thinking, standing on the top of the catwalk stairs backstage of the high school auditorium. 'A-jie, Jiang Cheng,… Lan Zhan. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you. I love you. I'll get out of your hair now.'

In the end it had been easy to tip backwards and let himself fall.

Waking up had been the hard part. Not only had he failed, but every reason that had pushed him to end it all had only been made worse. Worse still, after. He had lived though, so that was that. There was no utility in regret. He couldn't go back. The only way was forward now, step by painful step. Standing around and staring at the snow falling was nice, but it wouldn't make the walk shorter. Home wasn't far away. He'd take it slow. He'd be there before he knew it.

He barely took three steps before he felt someone's broad shoulder bump against his, his equilibrium yanked roughly from under his feet.

He remembered falling.

Not the act of it, nor every thought and feeling that preceded it, but he remembered the soft pressure at his skull as he tipped backwards, the endless instant of the free fall, a moment frozen in time. Not the impact, but the inevitability of it, coming, coming, almost there. The loss of control. The frightening, exhilarating realization of his absolute surrender. Not the oblivion that followed but the fragments of muddled awareness afterwards. Disorientation, rock bottom and the overwhelming sense of failure.

It had felt nothing like now.

He felt the loss of ground beneath his feet, the scrape of concrete against his palms, as he all but starfished onto the pavement. A sharp pain. The frustrated annoyance of another thing gone wrong in the long list that made up the day.

Only the failure felt the same, funny that.

"I'm sorry!" Said a deep voice. "I wasn't looking."

"Yeah, no shit." He chuckled, because really, who could have guessed.

"Here, let me help." There were hands on his arm, just as he propped himself up, but he yanked it away.

"I'm fine!" He wasn't helpless. He wasn't, dammit! He had his arms, his abdominals, and most of his legs. Getting up from the ground wasn't such a herculean task for him as for those who depended on a wheelchair. He didn't have to call an ambulance just because he starfished. He didn't need any help at all here, especially not the help of some ditzy stranger with their head in the clouds…

"Wei Ying?"

Wei Ying froze.

Few people on this Earth called him that, and none of them had a voice like that. He looked up to see glowing amber on a face carved out of a dream.

"Lan Zhan?"

Of all the people to be in town today of all days, the least likely would have to be Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, his former senior, Lan Zhan, his best friend. Lan Zhan, whom he had told his secrets, Lan Zhan, who he… who he…

"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan… Can I kiss you? I understand you don't like me that way, and it's fine, I'm fine, really, but… uhm… It's supposed to be special. The first kiss. I… I want it to be yours. Just one kiss." A child he barely remembered had wanted and wanted, never satisfied. "Ah, it's okay if you don't want to. I get it. It's fine. I'm just being selfish."

But that had been a long time ago. A person he didn't know, a past life that had never truly been. Not for him in any case.

Lan Zhan was looking at him like a ghost had appeared in front of him.

Although, ghosts didn't need crutches. Honestly, Wei Ying did wish he could float quite frequently.

Face twisted in sardonic amusement at that childish wish, he pulled himself up with some maneuvering and a lot of effort. This seemed to wake Lan Zhan from his daze as he quickly followed. Wei Ying didn't miss the sweeping gaze as his once friend took him in, wondering what he saw. A stranger, perhaps? A new person? Him? Wei Ying knew he hadn't changed much on the outside, aside the obvious and maybe in his weight distribution, but Lan Zhan had always had the ability to look past the surface. Was he still able to do that? Or was he just taking in his appearance, assessing his matted, worn out body that seemed to show every year that had passed multiplied by ten? Wei Ying was aware that time had not been the kindest to him, but he was hanging on. He was past the worst now. He was doing better. He was!

He wondered if Lan Zhan still could see that too.

"Wei Ying." His name again, spoken with enough wonder to give Wei Ying the courage to meet his gaze. There was an unspoken question in it.

"Yeah," Wei Ying answered and felt the cusp of a smile pull at the corners of his lips. "Long time no see, Lan Zhan. Fancy meeting you here."

"I really like you, Lan Zhan," the person he didn't know had said, red faced with embarrassment and a shaking voice. "I mean like… like like."

Back then he had believed that moment to be the most nerve-wracking experience he was ever going to survive. Today he missed his naivety.

Lan Zhan gave him a look like he just realized it was really Wei Ying standing in front of him. Like he still could barely believe it. It unraveled a completely different ache in Wei Ying. They had been close once, and though they had always shared their secrets, Wei Ying had seen him so open and unguarded but once.

"I...like...boys," had been the answer. The refusal so, so gentle, unable to accept, thus giving something of equal value in return instead. A truth for a truth, a secret for a secret. "Wei Ying, I'm gay."

Lan Zhan, always figuring things out so quickly, always willing to accept reality no matter how hard it was. Wei Ying hadn't known back then. If he had known… Who knew what would have been then. It didn't matter anymore. It was a life long gone. What remained of it were a few good memories, some of them he wasn't sure were real.

Now, chance had made them cross paths once again, at a liminal space transversing through time.

"Are you hurt?" Lan Zhan's voice brought him back from his thoughts, and Wei Ying looked where he was reaching for his scraped hands and knees.

Lan Zhan, always the same Lan Zhan… "Not selfish."

So wonderful and kind and warm.

"Eh, I'm fine. Nothing Wen Qing can't fix." He brushed his former friend off, noticing how Lan Zhan's eyebrow seemed to go up infinitesimally at the mention of his old classmate and promptly changed the subject. "What brings you to Yiling, Lan Zhan? Shouldn't you be with your family for Chun Jie?"

"I…" Lan Zhan looked away. "Didn't get an earlier flight."

That sounded suspicious, especially since the Lan Zhan Wei Ying knew liked to plan ahead. But Wei Ying wasn't the same he had been, maybe Lan Zhan wasn't either. People were allowed to change. It also didn't answer what he was doing in Yiling in the first place, but Wei Ying wasn't forcing him to tell. Wei Ying had never wanted to force Lan Zhan into anything, he wasn't going to start now.

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan looked at him again, this time meeting his eyes squarely. He paused. "How have you been?"

Wei Ying felt the loom of a shadow over him, and his gaze dropped to the ground for a second.

"As you can see." He put a reassuring smile on his face as he summoned enough will to hold Lan Zhan's gaze. "Still alive and kicking."

Which was probably much more than the last time Lan Zhan had heard of him.

"I was looking for you. I wanted to see you. After." The what remained unspoken. Lan Zhan's kind heart hadn't changed. Wei Ying sought comfort in it, warmed by the thought of his best friend trying to get in touch even after everything went to hell. "I was told you… left."

Wei Ying made a soft sound of affirmation through the small smile that had spread on his face. "I moved out on my eighteenth birthday. Aunt Yu… I was supposed to stay till graduation, but... ah. I fucked up. Colossally."

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan remained the only person Wei Ying knew who managed to frown without a single crease on his face. "You were recovering."

"It was fine, Lan Zhan." Wei Ying chuckled even as he held back a sigh. Lan Zhan didn't know half of it. "I moved in with the Wens."

There was a pause.

"With Wen Qing?" Lan Zhan asked and Wei Ying realized that small detail wouldn't have been immediately clear to him, all things considered.

"With Wen Qing and her family." He nodded. After a moment of thought he added. "Not Wen Chao. I know nothing about that douchebag."

"Mn," Lan Zhan agreed and it sounded so wholehearted that it startled a laugh out of Wei Ying.

"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, feeling truly light for the first time in a long time. The smile he gave Lan Zhan felt warm and genuine. He hoped Lan Zhan saw it too, and didn't think Wei Ying was trying to shake him off, when he spoke next. "It's so good to see you. You're the best thing that happened to me today. I would love to catch up, but they're waiting for me at home and I'm already late."

"Mn." Lan Zhan nodded. There was a pause. Then, just as Wei Ying was about to ask for his number, "I could. Walk you. If you like."

"I thought you had a flight to catch." Wei Ying wanted to smack his mouth for how hopeful he sounded.

"Mn," Lan Zhan said. "In the evening."

"Lan Zhan!" He startled, amused and surprised at the same time. "And here I thought your bedtime was nine! Don't tell me you crossed to the dark side."

"It is Chuxi." Lan Zhan's voice was soft with a playful note, and Wei Ying felt his heart turn all over again even as he laughed.

"Aiya, Lan Zhan…" A smile spread on his face. "Alright then. I'd love to have your company. If you're sure."

"I am," Lan Zhan answered. "I would… very much like to… catch up with you."

"Well then." Wei Ying's smile broadened and started again in the direction he was heading earlier. "Right this way, sir. But I'm warning you. I'm basically a snail now."

For a beat there was silence, in which Wei Ying figured that Lan Zhan was probably looking for a proper response. He still didn't know how to handle self-deprecating humor, then. Wei Ying chuckled quietly to himself. The more things change…

"That is alright," Lan Zhan finally said. "I have time."

"Oh, do you? That's great!" Wei Ying grinned from ear to ear, marveling at how easy it suddenly was. "Aah, Lan Zhan I really missed this!"

"Mn," Lan Zhan agreed but didn't say anything else.

For a few moments silence reigned again, of a comfortable kind. One that allowed Wei Ying to bask in the startling, almost miraculous presence of his best friend. Or it would have been, had Wei Ying not been keenly aware of Lan Zhan's intense stare.

"Do I really look that bad?" He teased, hoping to give Lan Zhan the opening he probably needed to ask whatever questions he had. "I've actually gained weight over Dongzhi you know."

Lan Zhan blinked, as if startled to be called out. Wasn't he aware that he had been staring? Or had he not expected Wei Ying to say something?

"You look…" he started, then swept his gaze over Wei Ying.

"Tired?" Wei Ying offered, keeping the humor in his words. The last thing he wanted Lan Zhan to think was that he needed to sugar coat his words around him now. "Stressed? Battle worn?"

"Different," Lan Zhan finished.

"Ah." Wei Ying breathed out, something in his chest tightening. "Good different, or bad different?"

Lan Zhan looked at him for a long moment.

"Different you," he finally answered. A pause. "More you."

Wei Ying's breath stuttered, a small questioning sound dragging itself up his throat.

"Wei Ying…" Lan Zhan hesitated for a brief moment, unsure. "May I know your pronouns?"

Always so straight to the point.

"Pro… Pronouns?!" Wei Ying chuckled but even he could hear the nerves buzzing through that sound. "How did you figure that?"

Lan Zhan just kept looking at him. Wei Ying swallowed.

"I…"

He had to know. Since he actually asked, he had to already know. Or at least suspect. Be aware. In general, or about Wei Ying? Had he realized in their years apart, or was there something about Wei Ying now that made him guess? No one has ever been able to tell upon glance. No one.

Something fluttered deep in his chest, like the jingles of a tambourine reverberating. It gave him courage.

Wei Ying took a deep, steadying breath. "He, him, Lan Zhan. It's he, him."

He managed to swallow the thousand words that dragged themselves up his throat instead of that one, simple truth. To his credit, Lan Zhan let him, waiting patiently and with complete silence for Wei Ying to say his part.

"I'm trans," Wei Ying added, finding it easier to say after the initial confession. "As in full time, on actual testosterone, trans male."

Their eyes met. A heartbeat of silence.

"Mn." Lan Zhan nodded. "Makes sense."

Wei Ying had not expected that.

In his defense, no one had ever replied like that to him coming out.

"What?" He choked out, bewildered. Lan Zhan was giving him a gentle look, a diametrical opposite of Wei Ying's wide eyes. "Why does that make sense, Lan Zhan?"

"It didn't before." Lan Zhan's gaze dropped. "Now it does."

"What? Why?" Wei Ying repeated, not comprehending a single word his friend had said. At the back of his mind he knew he should be happy and relieved that as dear a friend as Lan Zhan accepted him, and he would be later, but now he was just confused. "Lan Zhan, what are you saying?"

"You confounded me. Before. I didn't understand. It didn't. Add up." He didn't even expect an answer beyond a shrug and an 'It just does', and yet Lan Zhan gave him one, trying to explain like he wanted Wei Ying to understand something important. Important enough to bring it up at their first chance meeting in years. It still didn't clear anything up. The way he was dragging his words out seemed odd too, for how upfront Lan Zhan usually was.

"What didn't add up?" Wei Ying asked again. What about him had confused Lan Zhan?

"I didn't know you were a boy. So it didn't make sense," Lan Zhan answered without looking up and Wei Ying felt dread tighten his stomach into a knot. "But now it does."

"What?" He frowned, the rush of blood pounding in his ears. "Lan Zhan, what are you talking about?"

Lan Zhan finally looked up at him and Wei Ying suddenly felt light headed. The grip on his crutches must have gone knuckle white from how firmly he was gripping the handles. It couldn't be…

"I was confused why I liked you," Lan Zhan whispered, dropping his gaze again. "Why I enjoyed kissing you."

Wei Ying's brain was white static.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, "No!"

His whole body wanted to recoil with shock.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan pleaded but was cut short.

"I confessed to you! I told you I liked you!" He saw the bob of Lan Zhan's throat, how his eyes fell shut as he swallowed. Wei Ying despaired for words that could express the entire scale of emotions he felt, from betrayal to hope, but mostly just... shock. "You said you… You've never… And now, after everything… Do you even… Lan Zhan!!!"

"Wei Ying," he said his name like it was all he was capable of saying, with a hitch of sudden hesitance on the last syllable, a minuscule frown around his eyes, like he realized something important. "Do you still call yourself Wei Ying?"

The quiet question conjured up another memory, of an occasion much kinder.

"It's my birth name," he heard his youthful voice, still too high although most had described it as low. Lan Zhan had raised an eyebrow at him, even more puzzled than before. Wei Ying had laughed as he went to explain. "Same character as in 'infant'. Wuxian is the name uncle Jiang gave me so that I have a better name than, you know, 'baby'. It's a cool name! I mean, 'no envy' come on! Like I have no match in the world! Totally rad, you know, uncle Jiang's naming sense is A+."

"But you prefer Wei Ying." Lan Zhan had looked at him then, searchingly and Wei Ying had looked away with a snort, to hide his swallow.

"It's a terrible name. Who the hell names their baby 'baby'?"

Lan Zhan hadn't replied anything to that, and Wei Ying still remembered his next words, and how they had burned on his tongue, how he couldn't hold them back.

"It's what the people who loved me had called me."

In the present, Wei Ying found himself laughing in spite of the utter shock. Only Lan Zhan. Only Lan Zhan would give him a heart attack first then go make sure he wasn't deadnaming him on top of everything.

"Lan Zhan!!!" He cried out. "That's so not the point right now! But, yes, I do. I changed it back, actually. Officially, I mean."

"You dislike it." It sounded more like a question than a statement, so Wei Ying answered.

"Don't get me wrong, I still think Wuxian is way cooler, and my siblings still call me that, but…" His gaze fell away from Lan Zhan to something more distant, beyond his focus as he struggled over his words, drawing them out only with great difficulty from where they were rooted deep inside of him. "It's the name given to the image of a person that never really existed. Like… the painting of a person you met in a dream. And I sorta… I like to imagine that, regardless of who I am… They would still love me."

They. The people who gave him that horrible, unimaginative name.

"Mn," Lan Zhan agreed like there had never been any doubt about it. Wei Ying snorted.

"Wei Ying," there it was again, his name, spoken so kindly, if not hesitantly as Lan Zhan too seemed to be struggling for words. "I would like to apologize. I hurt you. I have been looking for you to tell you this."

All at once, Wei Ying felt his shock settle into something more profound, like the wave that had swallowed him revealing the depth of the ocean. There was nothing Lan Zhan had to apologize for. Not for the lack of awareness, and certainly not for his feelings. Even their conflicts had always stemmed from a place of deep care.

"No." Wei Ying shook his head. "Not more than I hurt myself, Lan Zhan. Even when you scolded me, you never hurt me."

Had Lan Zhan broken his heart? Yeah, he had. So what? Did that mean he could be held accountable for it? Wei Ying's feelings were his own shit to deal with, not Lan Zhan's. Returning them wasn't Lan Zhan's duty. Even if he returned them, would it be fair to fault him for running away from them? For feeling insecure and anxious about his own attraction? For not knowing these things weren't as clear cut as all the adults around them had wanted to make them believe? It wasn't like Wei Ying had known either back then. He had, perhaps, understood himself even less than Lan Zhan. Most importantly, it was all in the past now. It couldn't be changed. What they made of it now was what mattered.

"None of my bullshit is your fault," he added. "You didn't go and tell me to fuck up my life. That was all on me."

"You wrote," Lan Zhan started, then paused, hesitating, then started again. "In your letter, you wrote…"

Wei Ying picked up on the question immediately.

"Not you," he said, the same words he had penned all those years ago in what was one of only two letters. "Never you. I had my reasons, but none of them were about you. In fact, I thought of you as the last good thing in my life at that point. The one true friend I still had left."

Lan Zhan's gaze fell on his crutches, but he didn't ask. Wei Ying was grateful.

"Come on, I need to get a move on," he said, starting to walk again, smiling at the surprised expression Lan Zhan had given him, when he realized he was still welcome to accompany him. Maybe it was something about that look that made Wei Ying add, after another second of thought, "There are people waiting for my return."

"Mn," Lan Zhan hummed, falling back in step next to him. "That's good. You should have people waiting for you at home."

Wei Ying couldn't help but smile.

"Say, Lan Zhan,…" he said after a few seconds of silence, when all what Lan Zhan has confessed slowly sunk in. "When you say you've been looking for me… You mean all this time?"

"Mn." Lan Zhan nodded. Wei Ying watched him gather his thoughts, the snow fluttering all around them. "I wanted to see you. Ask how you were doing. See if… If you needed support. Apologize. For not being a good friend to you before."

"Lan Zhan…" Wei Ying listened to him, and when Lan Zhan finally looked up at him his gaze was so sincere that his heart ached with it.

"I wanted to tell you the truth." Lan Zhan didn't let himself be interrupted. "That I liked you back. Without any expectations. That I didn't understand, but that it didn't matter. That I could like you without understanding why. That I wasn't asking for anything, just wanted you to know. That I wanted to help, in any way you'd let me."

"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan…" Wei Ying sighed, vision suddenly blurred. He drew a deep breath. "But I wasn't there."

"Mn." Lan Zhan nodded. "I asked your sister where I could find you…"

"But she didn't know," Wei Ying finished for him. No one knew, except one person. "And Jiang Cheng wouldn't give you my address if you held him at gunpoint."

"Your brother knows you're here." It had the structure of a question but it was spoken as a statement, the same kind of incredulous as the look Lan Zhan was giving him. All things considered, it was kinda fair, Wei Wuxian thought as he barked a laugh.

"Yeah," he said, shoulders shaking a little as he snickered. "He's the designated secret keeper."

Lan Zhan just stared, wordlessly.

Wei Ying's smile gained an edge at the unspoken question. He had to clear his throat before he answered. "We're… not quite alright yet, but… Ah, how do I say this? He's the better judge of the situation? With, uhm, aunt Yu, I mean. It's… complicated."

Honestly, when wasn't it?

"I… see." Lan Zhan really didn't sound like he did, but didn't press, continuing his story instead. "Your sister was able to tell me which city you were in. So I… applied for a job."

Wait. Pause. Rewind.

"You work here?!" Wei Ying felt his jaw go slack.

"As an attorney. At 'Xiao and Song'," Lan Zhan confirmed, then looked back at Wei Ying. "Civil law. With focus on LGBTQ+ rights. I passed the bar last year."

"You…" There was so much to unpack in that statement that Wei Ying couldn't quite get the words together fast enough. At the back of his mind he was aware he should probably congratulate Lan Zhan on his degree but he was too stunned by the other, more important implications. "You've moved here? For work? All because… Because… You were looking for me?"

"Mn."

"Lan Zhan!" His amazing friend who, for some reason, in spite of having a great new life had been desperate to find him. "But you… But I…"

"Wei Ying," he spoke so, so softly, but with clear intent to stop any protest Wei Ying might have wanted to utter. It worked. Wei Ying's mouth fell shut, taking his friend in with a bright, wide gaze. "I missed you. I have no expectations. I just… missed you."

Warmth spread in Wei Ying's chest over the tender words, like a dying flame rekindled.

"Lan Zhan..." He didn't quite know what to say, oddly touched. "It's how you knew, isn't it? I'm not the only trans person you've met."

"There was a client," Lan Zhan admitted. "They made me think of you. I have wanted to ask you since. I wanted to know if… If I made a mistake."

He didn't specify what mistake he feared being guilty of. He didn't really have to.

For a while Wei Ying just looked at him.

"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan…" He sighed, a small but genuine smile stealing itself onto his lips. "You… you're something else, you know that?"

Lan Zhan didn't reply, but there was something vulnerable in his expression.

"I missed you too."

Lan Zhan's eyes snapped back to Wei Ying's face, full of naked hope and a surprise so honest and pure that Wei Ying's heartstrings almost snapped. He could accept it. He could accept a friend longing for his company, even as his heart hammered against his chest like it was trying to escape its utter desolation.

"I couldn't have expected you to know something I didn't realize until much later." He hadn't realized there was tension around his friend's eyes until it relaxed.

Wei Ying took him in, his entire appearance and noted that although perfectly poised and immaculately dressed, beneath it all there was an exhaustion, a tension he didn't recognize. He thought about their meeting – the collision of two bodies launched out of their orbit – and everything else Lan Zhan had told him and a question dragged itself on his tongue that refused to be swallowed back in.

"Say, Lan Zhan… Since we are being so honest..." He asked before he could have thought better of it. "Why aren't you in Suzhou yet, for real? You always went home at least two weeks ahead of the festival. Did something happen?"

If there was something happening with Lan Zhan's family… Well, Wei Ying had missed enough opportunities to be a good friend in all the years they had been apart, or even before that. If Lan Zhan wanted to be his friend, Wei Ying was returning that tenfold. A secret for a secret, a truth for a truth.

If Lan Zhan wanted, that was.

For a second Wei Ying wasn't sure, but then the broad shoulders slumped, heaving like a weight was being lifted off them.

"I didn't always intend to go," Lan Zhan admitted. "Brother convinced me at the last moment. I wish he hadn't."

Their eyes met and Wei Ying felt a sudden heat spread through his cheeks at the intensity of Lan Zhan's gaze. He didn't take the bait, waiting patiently instead.

"I came out to my uncle. After the bar." Lan Zhan's gaze fell to the ground again, and Wei Ying already knew what he was about to say, aching dread settling painfully in his chest. "He did not… react well. He tried to set me up immediately afterwards."

"Aw man..." Wei Ying tried to sound both gentle and sympathetic without being too pitying. In his experience that never helped. "Yeah, I get that you didn't want to go home after that."

"Mn." Lan Zhan nodded, but said no more.

"Was she at least pretty?" Wei Ying tried to joke, unable to bear that forlorn expression on Lan Zhan's face and incapable of thinking of anything better to cheer his friend up. It would have been easy in the past, but now, with years containing entire lifetimes between them he didn't know anymore how to make Lan Zhan laugh.

But then Lan Zhan's lips twitched a little, so maybe not all was lost.

"Luo Qingyang," he answered, like Wei Ying was supposed to know the vaguely familiar name. Lan Zhan responded to his confused frown with his own and went on to explain. "You were in the drama club together. She was… Juliet. To your Romeo."

Very few guys had been in the drama club at that time, so Wei Ying had usually gotten the main male protagonist. He had loved it. It had been one of the reasons why he had joined the drama club in the first place. His co-star in all of that...

"Mianmian!" He exclaimed, eyes bright with delight. "It's been ages since I've last…"...Seen her. Seen anyone, he didn't say, schooled his expression and laughed instead. "I can't believe they tried to set you up with Mianmian! How is she?"

"Mn," Lan Zhan made a small sound out agreement that amused Wei Ying, before he answered. "She is well. Studying. Also law. She will take the bar next year."

"All of you are so smart…" Wei Ying chuckled, fond with more memories. "You know I made out with her once?" He promptly laughed at Lan Zhan's expression. "Relax, it wasn't as good as with you."

Their eyes met again and Wei Ying saw something like hope spark in Lan Zhan's eyes, which…

Wei Ying stopped. He let his gaze wander around, collecting his thoughts. He startled as he realized he was almost home, the agonizing minutes he usually needed reduced to nothing in the presence of his friend. The ache that had gnawed at his limbs earlier had all but disappeared, replaced by a longing ache in his heart.

"Lan Zhan," he found himself speaking without the input of his mind. "You said you liked me, so you should know… I don't intend to have surgery." He saw Lan Zhan open his mouth, probably to assure him once more of his pure intentions, which Wei Ying didn't need to hear. "I know, I know, you have no expectations, and I'm not saying we have to, but… My feelings for you never changed. I still like you, but I'm also… I'm a man Lan Zhan, but I'm not adjusting my body. Not to that degree."

"Is it a financial issue?" Lan Zhan asked after a pause and Wei Ying cut him off before he could continue with something ridiculous like an offer to pay.

"It's… not not about money, but…" He thought for a moment about how to say what he wanted to say. "Regardless of that, I refuse to go through all the legal hoops that this government would demand of me, like I'm supposed to beg them just to be who I am. And... Besides that…" He took a deep breath. "I think I'd like to have another child."

"Another…" There was a strangled sound, which he ignored, forcing himself to voice what he'd been struggling to put into words for a while now.

"I want to give it one more try. Voluntarily," Wei Ying found it difficult to say, despite the thought of a baby in his arms filling him with a warmth he wouldn't have expected mere years ago. "With someone I actually like this time."

"This time." There was something very wrong with the tone of Lan Zhan's voice, and as Wei Ying looked up at him, realization hit him with the force of a freight train.

"Oh! Oh no!" Lan Zhan's eyes were akin to saucers, and Wei Ying vaguely thought he had never seen his friend express shock so openly. "Fuck, I'm so dumb! Of course you don't know! How would you know?!"

Of course that very same moment, before Lan Zhan had any chance of collecting himself, a cheerful shout echoed through the street in an all too familiar, youthful voice. "BABA!!!"

Wei Ying winced. In the way life usually was – his life in particular – before Wei Ying could come up with a single word of explanation, there was the flurry of movement, and a warmth enveloping his leg – the better one.

"Baba, baba, you're home!"

Wei Ying's eyes fell down to the source of the excited noise to have two mischievous gray eyes reflected back at him. An unbidden smile spread on his face.

"A-Yuan!" He shifted around a little until he could safely run his fingers through the child's hair, even as he was keenly aware of the man next to him. "Have you been waiting for me?"

There was a twinkle and a nod, his very own baby's face beaming up at him with unabashed adoration. A tiny hand wrapped itself around his wrist and just like that the last of the day's stress fell away. He looked back at Lan Zhan. It was difficult to describe the expression his friend was giving him, frozen with disbelief, shock and something too close to horror, as his mind seemed to be rearranging and reevaluating every piece of information known to him. Finding no point in delaying the inevitable, Wei Ying braced himself and went for it.

"Lan Zhan, this is a-Yuan. He's mine. Gave birth to him and all." He made a point to smile, although Lan Zhan's expression remained unchanged. Deciding to give him the space he needed to get himself together, Wei Ying turned his attention back to his child. "A-Yuan, this is Lan Zhan. He's an old friend of mine from school. Want to introduce yourself?"

"Hello!" A-Yuan said before Wei Ying even finished the sentence. "I'm a-Yuan and I'm already four years old! I like butterflies and bunnies! Baba gave me Radish and a coloring book for my birthday. I was four last month! I love my baba bestest! But I love xiao-shushu und Qing-guma and granny and uncle Shi lotsa too!"

It was an altogether perfect introduction, and Wei Ying felt pride and love thrumming through his heart with a strength he hadn't believed to be possible. He watched the mental math behind Lan Zhan's eyes, a complicated expression spreading on his friend's face. He decided to give him another moment to complete the mental calculations and focused on something else that a-Yuan had reminded him of.

"Speaking of, where's your xiao-shushu?" Wei Ying looked around, then with growing suspicion back at the child still wrapped around his leg. "Did you ditch him again?"

Mischief spread on a-Yuan's face as he hid in Wei Ying's thigh.

"A-Yuan." Wei Ying narrowed his eyes at him, gently scolding. "We've talked about this. No walking around on your own. What if something happened?"

"But I'm with you," came the simple answer. "I have to help you walk. You said! To help you walk I have to take your hand. I saw you and gege wasn't holding your hand, so I came to help."

"Ah, so filial, a-Yuan…" Wei Ying looked up to the skies, silently begging the heavens for strength while fighting a ferocious blush. This child of his was as much a blessing as he was a huge trouble. The best kind of trouble, if Wei Ying was honest.

"A-Yuan!"

He was still busy trying to change his smile into something more stern, when as if on cue the uncle in question appeared around the corner, calling for his nephew, looking just as frantic as Wei Ying expected him to be. He waited for Wen Ning's eyes to find them, before he looked back down at a-Yuan.

"See how worried Wen Ning is? You can't do this, a-Yuan." The child's expression fell. "Go tell him you're alright and apologize for running away."

A-Yuan didn't waste a single second, rocketing towards his uncle with an excited call.

With his child safe in the most dependable arms that there were, Wei Ying turned to Lan Zhan again. His friend's eyes were closed, face pulled into a tight expression, lips pressed into a thin line, all of which told him what conclusion Lan Zhan had reached.

"It was part of the reason," Wei Ying said, because he knew Lan Zhan would never ask and he wanted his friend to know. "But it wasn't all of it."

Lan Zhan's eyes opened, his look agonized but not pitying, Wei Ying realized.

"There were many things going on," he said. "It was all so fucked up… I knew I couldn't keep him, and somehow I figured… Might as well go together. In the end we both survived, funny that."

"The father. The father is…" Lan Zhan trailed off, couldn't bring himself to say the name, but he didn't have to. Just as Wei Ying didn't have to answer other than with a rueful smile. After all, there was only one option. Lan Zhan drew a deep breath. "Was it… Did he…"

Here too, Wei Ying knew what he was asking, felt it like the edge of a knife against his skin.

"I don't want to talk about it." He swallowed, a prickling at the corners of his eyelids. "Not yet, at least. I'll tell you the story another time."

Lan Zhan nodded. Worried his jaw. Wei Ying waited.

"Was that why you… left?" His voice was so quiet that if Wei Ying wasn't paying attention, he probably wouldn't have noticed he had said anything at all.

"To put it in the words of aunt Yu, whores aren't welcome under her roof. She threatened to leave uncle Jiang, if he kept supporting me. It's fine," he added quickly when he saw Lan Zhan's face darkening. "Uncle Jiang gave me the trust fund he had for me, which wasn't little, I have a job and I get some aid from the government too. There's also granny's pension and everyone else is working. You don't have to worry, Lan Zhan, we get by."

Lan Zhan looked like he wanted to say something cutting, but luckily they were interrupted by Wen Ning joining them, a-Yuan in his arms. He was probably getting too big for that, but he knew first hand that Wen Ning could lift a full-sized adult without breaking a sweat so he wasn't very worried for either of them.

"Wei-ge, welcome home," Wen Ning greeted him. His eyes wandered to Lan Zhan for a brief moment, then to Wei Ying's hands which were still scraped. "Is everything alright?"

"More than!" Wei Ying ignored the look, grinning and watched a-Yuan beam at him. "Everything's perfect, look who I met in town! You remember Lan Zhan, right? He was in the same class with Wen Qing. Turns out he works here!"

Wei Ying managed to say all of that in one breath before he even realized he was doing it, yet consciously leaving out the bar and without bothering to detail exactly how the 'bumping' went down. Wen Ning took it all in, then gave Lan Zhan a polite smile, his dark eyes meeting Lan Zhan's squarely.

"I know of Lan-xianbei," he said slowly, cautiously polite, before his expression settled into a smile and he inclined his head in greeting. "We've never met officially."

There was a brief round of long overdue introductions, which Wei Ying was happy to ignore in favor of watching a-Yuan grow increasingly fascinated with Lan Zhan. It etched the lines around Wei Ying's smile deeper into his features, in a way he hasn't felt for a long time.

"A-Yuan." he couldn't help but pinch one of the chubby cheeks, after a little shifting of weight. "You keep looking at Lan Zhan like that, he'll think you like him."

"Pretty gege," was all a-Yuan had to say to that, a smile splitting his face, while Lan Zhan's ears turned red. Wei Ying laughed, alight with surprise that the one tell-tale sign of his shyness still remained. Lan Zhan was looking at a-Yuan with increasing curiosity, that pained line from earlier disappearing from his features, slowly replaced by wonder instead.

Wei Ying only looked away when he felt a tiny finger poke at his cheek, angling his head towards a-Yuan to listen to whatever secret his son wanted to share.

"Will pretty gege stay for dinner?" A-Yuan whispered through his hands, causing a complicated set of feelings to run through Wei Ying's chest.

"Sorry, sweetheart, but Lan-shushu can't stay." Wei Ying mock pouted at his son. "He has a flight to catch later."

"Why?" A-Yuan asked, as he did all the time.

"He has to visit his family," Wei Ying answered.

"Oh…" A-Yuan's face fell. There was no doubt in Wei Ying's mind had the answer been anything else, he would have kept asking, but if there was one word a-Yuan understood better than anyone, it was 'family'. It didn't mean he liked it. "But… But I heard! I heard that we will have a party tonight! I cleaned my room, and I did a picture for teacher, and helped granny bake! I was the bestest and uncle said I could stay up extra long tonight 'cause then baba would live forever!"

"I didn't say forever," Wen Ning corrected him timidly, but neither of them paid attention to him, the poor soul. A-Yuan only heard what he wanted to hear, and Wei Ying was too busy making sure his heart didn't burst. He still sometimes couldn't quite believe how much he loved this child.

"Me too." It came unexpectedly from beside him, and when Wei Ying turned to look he found Lan Zhan looking almost as surprised as he felt. "I mean, I also usually stay up longer on Chuxi."

A-Yuan's smile eclipsed the sun. Lan Zhan returned it with an expression so impossibly soft that Wei Ying's heart almost did burst then.

"Pretty gege can stay, and his family can come too, and I will draw everyone a picture!" A-Yuan all but vibrated with bare excitement that Wei Ying felt bad that he had to chide him.

"A-Yuan, do we tell people what they can and can't do, or do we ask?" He had picked the gentlest way possible, but his son still hid his face in his uncle's neck, utterly dejected.

To be fair, Lan Zhan looked rather stricken himself. It was adorable to watch and Wei Ying… Wei Ying knew that no matter whatever feelings he might be harboring, he only came as a set with his son. There was no possible way of heaping that responsibility on another person from the get go, on top of everything else, and yet. And yet. Lan Zhan was regarding a-Yuan with such fondness that it did strange things to Wei Ying's heart, and just like that courage bloomed in Wei Ying's chest.

"How about a compromise? Lan Zhan," he asked carefully. "You still have a few hours left until you have to be at the airport, don't you? Would you… Would you like to come inside?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Please, pretty gege, pretty please." A-Yuan loved the idea, immediately reaching his arms out in silent demand to be held. Wei Ying could only watch as Wen Ning oh so carefully leaned forward and tightened his hold so that a-Yuan could safely launch himself into Lan Zhan's open, waiting arms. He bet Lan Zhan hadn't even noticed how he held them out in a response that had seemed completely automatic.

"A-Yuan," Wei Ying reprimanded him gently, doing everything he could to ignore the adorable pout that pressed into Lan Zhan's shoulder. It was difficult to do with his heart singing like that.

"I would hate to intrude," Lan Zhan replied hesitantly, his eyes not leaving a-Yuan for a second and Wei Ying felt his heart constrict.

"I don't think anyone would mind," Wen Ning said, smiling gently.

"It won't be an issue, Lan Zhan, really." Their eyes met. "We still have a lot to… catch up on."

There was a spark that darkened Lan Zhan's eyes briefly, something heavy settling in the air between the two of them. Chance had brought Lan Zhan back into his life, and Wei Ying wanted to hold on. In any way he was allowed to. As long as he was allowed to.

"And you could meet… You could meet my family." Warmth spread deep in Wei Ying's chest as the word 'family' echoed in his mind, before he added in a whisper. "If you like."

"Wei Ying…" Finally, after what felt like an entire eternity, Lan Zhan spoke, the softest of smiles spreading on his face, gentle as the first rays of the sun on a misty morning. "I would very much love to meet your family."

"Great!" Wei Ying felt the smile split his face from one ear to another and amidst the cheers of his child that echoed the ones in his heart and started towards the door that Wen Ning held open for him. "Come on in then! Let's give everyone the shock of their life that I brought home such a handsome man!"

"Wei Ying…" It was spoken as a reprimand but it sounded like a chuckle.

"Hi, handsome! You're Lan Zhan, right? I've heard all about you!" Somewhere in his memory a cheerful voice greeted the most beautiful youth that there ever was. "I'm Wei Wuxian. I'll let you call me Wei Ying."

The door fell shut to the sound of Wei Ying's laugh.

[hardlyfatal]

gary’s writing workshop: lesson 6: point of view, part 2

aka: POVs/Subplots Are My OTP

To discuss the connection between POVs and subplots, first we must revisit the topics of plot structure, flow, continuity, purpose, and readability.

Subplots add complexity and depth to a story.

They give the writer the opportunity to show another aspect of the main character’s personality, how people can wear multiple hats in their lives. Brienne is a fearsome warrior, but she’s also sensitive and gentle. Jaime is a snarkmaster deluxe, but he’s also a huge romantic and secret chivalric hero.

Unless you can find a main plot that somehow showcases all of the above at once – not easy – you need to add a subplot or two in order to provide opportunities to display all the facets of their personalities, not just the ones that are used in the main plot. If you don’t, you run the risk of a story that feels monotonous and characters that feel flat.

Likewise, when a story gains the complexity of subplots, it can start to feel unrealistic, too busy, or even claustrophobic when everything is from a single character’s POV. She’s everywhere at once, has a finger in every pie and no time off. My recommendation is that no main character should be the POV of more than two plots. If your story has more than two plots, it might be best to have the third one related by another character, to permit some fresh air into the narrative.

In the Plot Structuring lesson, we discussed how scenes need to have a purpose: they must connect the prior scenes to the next, and push the plot forward in a substantive way. They need to make sense within the timeline, in forming one in a series of steps from the story’s start to its finish. Similarly, scenes need to make sense regarding whose POV they are placed in.

Who Should Get a POV?

Choosing who gets a POV in a story is a very big and important decision, because they are the character(s) who the story will be filtered through. Their thoughts and feelings and motivations will be visible to us in ways they will not be to the other characters.

The strength of narration tends to become weakened with each character added, because the reader becomes used to one person’s headspace, and then you’re shoving them into someone else. And many writers get so invested in the ratio of POV trade-off1 that the plot’s needs are ignored in order to follow this pattern. Instead of carrying through with the momentum created from the prior chapter, “It’s a Jaime chapter!” they exclaim, and so they switch to him even though they really should be sticking with Brienne, etc.

In other words, there should be a point to why we’re in another person all of a sudden, and that point should not be “It’s easier to describe this scene from the other characters’s POV”. POVs should belong to characters who are either primary in the main plot, or primary in their own subplot. In a romance, that would probably be two people: both halves of the romantic couple. In non-romantic plots or sub-plots, whoever are primary2 characters in them might have the POV.

If you do choose to have multiple POVs in a story, it shouldn’t just be for a single scene or chapter – POVs should not be squandered, as they’re more integral to the flow and continuity of a story than many people think. Shoehorning in a new POV for only one chapter can be a Chekhov’s Gun; if there’s no future to the person having their own POV, if there won’t be follow-through later on, it weakens the story. The reader is left wondering why we’ve been granted access to the new POV character’s head, only to never visit it again.

Exceptions: Sometimes at the beginning or end of a story, an alternate POV can serve as a quasi-omniscient POV, serving to provide information that the main characters have no access to but with a more personal touch, thanks to the character’s limited POV. I’ve done this twice, and looking back, I’m not sure I’d do it again, because in hindsight it feels like one of them is a Chekhov’s Gun and the other is a Deux Ex Machina.

Questions to ask yourself when deciding whether or not to add another POV to a story:

What inner voice/narrative/introspection is so important for the reader to witness that it justifies adding another POV to the story?

What inner voice/narrative/introspection is so important for the reader to witness that it justifies adding another POV to the story?

Will the story lose something if you don’t have access to the other character’s POV?

Is suspense an integral part of your story? If so, this is an especially important decision, because including other POVs can kill the mystery you need to maintain. OR will the suspense be enhanced because switching to another POV means that the cliffhanger you left the previous chapter on will be permitted to ripen?

If the conclusion you draw to these is that yes, adding another POV to the story will be a good idea, then go for it.

Headhopping

Headhopping is frequent switching of POV from one character to the next. How you define ‘frequent’ is subjective; IMO, more than twice a chapter is too much. Unless there’s a damned good reason for it – i.e. there are multiple strong and important subplots that take place in different locations3 – it’s best to limit the number of narrating characters to the minimum required to write a good story, without dumping in superfluous POV just ‘cuz.

Otherwise, you run the risk of the story feeling chaotic and disorganized to the reader: who’s the main character? Who are we supposed to identify with? Oh, we’re back to the first guy now? Who’s next? If your reader is questioning what’s going on, you’ve killed your readability4.

Having many characters as focal points can prevent the reader from making a connection with them, with the result that they become acquainted but don’t really get to know and identify with any, and thus they don’t become too emotionally invested, losing the compulsion to keep reading. Worse, they might take a disliking to a character and skip chapters featuring him/her5.

Pantser alert: I find that people who don’t plan out their plots, and whose POV each chapter will be written in, ahead of time end up being headhoppers. They’re just writing the story as it occurs to them, one chapter at a time, and when they hit a snag, or can’t figure out how to describe something they want to show, they hit on switching POVs as the solution instead of restructuring.

This tends to result in not only a weaker narrative but also weak characterization in the new additions, since little to no thought was put into it and there’s little actual function the new POV provides besides fixing the corner the author wrote themselves into.

If you want to reveal an event occurring without the main character(s) being present, instead of introducing yet another character6, maybe try to restructure the plot instead; can it be captured on video that the character can see later? Featured on the news/in the paper? Recounted by another character who was there? If the character is perceptive/deductive/good at drawing conclusions, perhaps include hints and signs of what occurred and have them figure it out on their own?

Bottom line: Including more than two characters without compromising the flow of the narrative and without becoming chaotic is possible, of course. It’s just not as easy as many people think it is and often can lead to a weak story. Be critical and selective when you choose to add another POV to your story, and see if there are alternatives, first.

How Many Is Too Many?

There’s no law stating how many – or how few – POVs you are allowed to have. However, a general rule of thumb is that the shorter the story, the fewer subplots (and thus, the fewer POVs) your story should have. More POVs = more complexity, and shorter stories just don’t have the length needed to do each of them justice. You need time to develop a character’s inner voice, and it’s just not possible7 with fewer than ~5,000 words per POV.

Here’s a rough idea of how long various types of stories are, and a recommended maximum number of POVs in each.

Drabble: 250 – 1,000 words. One POV, one plot.

Short story: 1,000 – 10,000. One POV, one plot.

Novelette: 10,000 – 30,000. Up to two POVs, max of two plots if done carefully, otherwise one plot.

Novella: 30,000 – 60,000. One or two POVs, at least two plots.

Novel: 60,000 – 80,000. At least two POVs, at least two plots and max of three plots.

Super Novel: 80,000 – 100,000. At least two POVs, at least two plots and max of four plots.

Epic: 100,000+. At least two POVs, at least three plots.

Switching POVs

Making your way, as a writer, from one character’s POV to another can be done in two ways: a hard, clear break, such as beginning a new chapter or inserting a scene break; and a gradual, smooth transition in the middle of the narrative.

I used to use the latter, and you can see it frequently in my Bleach fic, Become A Ghost. I have come to feel that it weakens the narrative because when you a read a scene, you become accustomed and settle into the mindset of one character… and then sliiiiiide into another’s, and it causes a moment of realization that you’re now in the head of someone else.

It’s not hugely objectionable, but I think it does compromise the readability of the story, and thus I’ve come to eliminate it. My stories now only feature hard POV switches, or don’t switch at all, remaining in a single character’s POV the entire time.

Deep POV

Deep POV is a narrative technique that works to eliminate the distance between the reader and the POV character. There is no headhopping, no visible narrator, and as few marks of authorship as possible. Its purpose is to coax the reader to submerge themselves in the character’s perspective and ‘become one’ with the character as much as possible.

Marks of authorship are things like filter words, dialogue tags8, and any wording that would be unnatural to a character’s narrative. To write with Deep POV, you have to commit to limiting the character’s knowledge to only what they’d personally be aware of.

The first Jaime POV scene in Desperado is a decent example of Deep POV because it’s very introspective and mostly avoids these characteristics. Some still exist, however, so I’ve revised instances of them to be more in line with a deep POV. 

Depending on word choice, it can be as purple9 as you want… or not. Just tone it down, if you have concerns about things becoming too overwrought.

Footnotes

1 1:1, 2:2, etc. i.e. a chapter featuring one main character, then a chapter with the other main character, then the first again, back and forth, etc.

2 This doesn’t mean “anyone who has any involvement whatsoever in the sub-plot”, just those to whom it pertains critically.

3 For example, in the A Song of Ice and Fire series of books, Jon’s at the Wall, Sansa’s in King’s Landing, Daenerys is in Essos, Brienne and Jaime are fucking about in the Riverlands, Sandor and Arya are fucking about in the Vale, Bran is prancing about the North, Tyrion is all over the damned place, etc.

4 Readability being defined, as mentioned in prior lessons, as how effortlessly a reader can become immersed in a story and move without interruption through it. Readability means there are the fewest number possible of things that can snag the reader’s attention, confuse them, or otherwise drag them back out of the story to the real world. Our goal as writers is to infuse our work with as much effortless readability as possible.

5 As someone who has been told many times that readers are skipping chapters in one story because they feature characters or pairings they don’t like, it’s really fucking annoying. You work so hard to create a complex story, build people and relationships, and weave the plot and subplots through it all in a way that’s at least marginally coherent, and you get “LOL I just haaaaate this character, I don’t read those chapters!” and “Gawd, these other characters bore me, I skip those! Tee hee!”. Well, fuck you very much.

6 Especially if you’ll only be using them for a single scene in the middle of the story: that’s a Chekhov’s Gun situation where the character his/herself is the gun, and not an item or situation.  

7 At least, it’s not possible to do well with fewer than ~5,000 words per POV.

8 We will go over both filter words and dialogue tags in more detail in later lessons.

9 Prose can be called “purple” when it’s so overblown, ornate, or fancy that it distracts the reader and draws attention to itself, and not in a good way.

© 2019 to me

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2019 Day 19: Holiday Fics

Where Things Grow | @castielslostwings Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 7730 Main Tags and Warnings: Domestiel, Human Castiel, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gardener!Castiel, Beekeeper!Castiel, Sweet Dean Winchester, Good boyfriend Dean, Holidays, Holiday Fic, Christmas, Christmas activities, TFW 2.0 bonding, Mistletoe, Ice-Skating, Hot Chocolate, Boys Kissing, Christmas presents, Fluff, Tooth-rotting fluff, canon-divergent, allusions to post-canon setting. Summary: Holiday fic! A newly fallen Castiel is having some trouble adjusting, so Dean makes it his mission to find him a hobby. But what happens when winter comes and the only activity he's interested in is buried under ice? Dean to the rescue (again). An ambiguously-set canon-divergent fic circa season 13-14. No big bads, no Michael/Lucifer, established DeanCas.

Christmas Time is About Loving You | @wingsdestiel Rating: General Word Count: 2938 Main Tags and Warnings: Christmas Fluff, Falling Castiel, Men of Letters Bunker, Christmas Presents, Fluff Summary: Castiel wants to fully experience the holiday season, Dean has a realization, and feelings happen.

Winchester Sleeping | @spinnerjen Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 15343 Main Tags and Warnings: slow build, christmas, coma, awkward romance, smut Summary: Summary: Based strongly on the 1995 movie - 'While you were Sleeping' Meet Castiel - A hopeless romantic Chicago Transit Authority token collector who is mistaken for the fiance of a coma patient.

Mistletoe for Hugs | @noiproksa Rating: General Word Count: 1917 Main Tags and Warnings: Christmas Fluff, Team Free Will, Family Feels Summary: Dean and Sam explain Christmas traditions to a confused Cas. When they substitute kisses under mistletoes for hugs, cuddling ensues. (Intended as gen, but can be read as Destiel pre-slash.)

The Christmas Date | @fangirlingtodeath513 Rating: General Word Count: 10829 Main Tags and Warnings: Platonic Bed Sharing, Mentions of Homophobic Family Summary: Christmas is one of Dean's favorite times of the year. It means spending some quality time with his family and enjoying their company, even though it's only for a few days. So when Cas mentions he's not going home for Christmas, the thought's barely crossed his mind before he's asking Cas to come with him to Kansas. Maybe there was an ulterior motive, like spending more time with the guy he's come to like a little more than just a roommate, but Cas doesn't need to know that. At least, if Dean's kind but meddlesome family can stay out of his business, that is.

A Christmas Day Proposal | @roobear68 Rating: General Word Count: 3231 Main Tags and Warnings: Kid fic, best friends, marriage proposal Summary: As soon as 5 year old Cas discovered that one was “supposed" to marry one's best friend, he did what any boy in his situation would do. He decided to propose.

This Dance | @deans-jiggly-pudding Rating: General Word Count: 2213 Main Tags and Warnings: Christmas fluff, high school dance, Secret Santa Summary: Cas has been wanting to approach Dean for months, and the perfect opportunity presents itself at the school holiday dance. There's only one problem: What if Dean says no? Cas can't bear it and is ready to let the chance pass him by, when he is shocked to learn the identity of his Secret Santa.

New Traditions | @pherryt Rating: General Word Count: 49872 Main Tags and Warnings: Christmas, alone at Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Coming Out, Forced coming out, First Kiss, Christmas traditions, making new traditions, Ice Skating, cheesy Christmas decorations, Hurt/Comfort, bed sharing, not the standard Christmas tree, Happy Ending, Disowning, Pining, Mutual Pining, near years, good news, valentines day, mix tape, Confessions, Cuddling, Kissing, Easter, Easter Eggs, charity work, Fourth of July, Fireworks, Sparklers, Fluff, Trick or Treating, Good Neighbors, pneumonia, Halloween, Thanksgiving, canceled plans, Weather, Surprise Guests, Power Outage, Friendsgiving, Wedding, proposal, Years Later, Summary: Cas's Christmas season is fraught with ups and downs. He's not going home to visit his family - which is great for avoiding drama - but now that means he's going to be celebrating it alone - which isn't so great just in general. And to top it off, none of his roommates seem to be in the holiday spirit. But he's determined to enjoy the holiday, alone or not. Good thing he won't be as alone as he thinks.

Maybe it's the Great Pumpkin | @DesiraeLovesDestiel Rating: Explicit Word Count: 7862 Main Tags and Warnings: Halloween, established Dean/Cas, Case fic, fluff, humor, smut Summary: “Ah,” Cas piped up, as they pulled up to a red light. “You are referencing the Charles M. Schulz comic strip series that features a young boy with an unhealthy attachment to his blanket and a bullied child with an ineptitude for football.” For a moment, Sam and Dean just stared at Castiel, unblinking. “Fucking Metadouche,” Dean finally muttered. Team free Will finds themselves back in New England as they travel to Lyndon, New Hampshire to investigate at the infamous Spooky land. Boasting a haunted mansion, zombie paintball, and a corn maze, the carnival-fun vibe of the Halloween themed park is a playground for teens and horror lovers alike. When some of the patrons start disappearing from the attractions, it is up to the boys to figure out if these people left on their own or if something more supernatural is happening.

A Christmas Wish | @sheinthatfandom Rating: General Word Count: 6606 Main Tags and Warnings: kid fic, christmas, fluff, single parent cas, car accident, christmas eve, santa, strangers to lovers Summary: Castiel is a single father who lives for his daughter and making her happy. Grace is a wonderful kind and loving little girl who just wants to see Santa to make one more wish for Christmas. On their way to the city where the tree lighting is to take place and Santa will put in one last appearance the pair get into a car accident during a blizzard and have to rely on the kindness of a stranger home alone for the holidays. Can Dean Winchester help do Santa's job and give the pair what they need?

They Were Blue | @castielsangel-blade Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 4240 Main Tags and Warnings: Dean and Cas have feelings, holiday fic, side Sam/Eileen Summary: Dean is flying to Washington to spend the Holidays with his brother and his girlfriend. He'll have to take a plane to get there, which isn't his idea of a good time. But maybe a little bad weather can help.

Matchmaker | @thebloggerbloggerfun Rating: General Word Count: 4242 Main Tags and Warnings: High School AU, Misunderstandings Summary: Every year for Valentine's Day, Castiel's high school offers a matchmaking fundraiser service that tells each person which student they're most compatible with. Heterosexual results only, of course. Enter: Charlie Bradbury with a brilliant idea to switch names on their Matchmaker quiz so that they'll both get the result they want. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

The three times food was a big deal and the one time it wasn’t | @marian-elisa Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1426 Main Tags and Warnings: Valentine's Day, Fluff, 3 + 1 things, Canon Universe, friends to lovers Summary: Dean and Cas + saying “I love you” 3 times without meaning it, and one time getting it right.

Kinda Like a Taylor Swift Song | @lemonsorbae Rating: General Word Count: 1736 Main Tags and Warnings: Fluff, Mutual Pining, Alternate Universe, High School AU, Grocery Store AU, Valentine's Day, First Kiss Summary: Everything was fine, and then Castiel walked into his life and now somehow Dean's life ended up kinda like a Taylor Swift song.

amāre et amārī | @thursdays-fallen-angel Rating: Mature Word Count: 15919 Main Tags and Warnings: Cupid!Cas, Baker!Dean Summary: One moment, Castiel is flying. The sky is lit only by the soft light of the crescent moon and the distant stars. Beneath him, the earth is mostly dark. The town, whichever one it may be, is sleeping—not that he pays it much mind. He has a job to complete, and a timeline to do it in. Destinies must be set in motion. And then his peace is shattered. Something dense hits him from above, striking right between his wings. It jolts him, snapping him out of the idle thoughts he tends to settle into while on duty. Thankfully, he only loses a few feet of altitude before he recovers. He twists in the air, trying to catch a glimpse of his assailant, but all he sees is a flash of white feathers before he’s hit again, this time by an arrow skewering through one of his wings. Now, there’s no recovering. One moment, Castiel is flying. The next, he’s falling.

Hocus Pocus | @thursdays-fallen-angel Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 4622 Main Tags and Warnings: Witch!Cas, Hunter!Dean Summary: Halloween season is always a hassle. It has its charms, of course, and no one can deny that it’s great for Hocus Pocus’ sales, but that doesn’t mean that Castiel has to like it overall. Not everything is about his shop. And currently, he very much does not like it. The fact that his ex then decides to show up unannounced is the icing on top of an already rough day.

McMansion Hell | @mittensmorgul Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 20877 Main Tags and Warnings: Christmas Fluff, Case Fic, SPN Holiday Mixtape 2018, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Crack Treated Seriously Summary: It's a few weeks before Christmas, and all seems relatively quiet in the bunker. Sam is preoccupied with kitten videos on youtube, and Dean and Cas have been tap dancing around each other with a slightly more holly-jolly theme. As Dean teaches Cas the true meaning of Christmas pie, Sam finds them a case just brimming with holiday cheer-- a ghost with his own highly individual style who doesn't deal well with critics. Let's watch as they all learn their lessons, with fondly exasperated commentary from a slightly frazzled narrator who shares your pine-scented pain.

It Fits | @friedlieb-ferdinand-runge Rating: General Word Count: 1278 Main Tags and Warnings:christmas fluff, proposal fic Summary: A proposal one shot in which Dean is hella awkward.

Castle | @friedlieb-ferdinand-runge Rating: General Word Count: 1269 Main Tags and Warnings:toddler!claire novak, toddler!jack kline, christmas fluff Summary: little Claire and Jack have some Christmas adventures and Cas and Dean are hella tired parents.

Chocolates at 9am | @envydean  Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1201 Main Tags and Warnings: Boss!Dean, Asssistant!Cas, Valentine's Day, Office Romance, Rule Breaking, Chocolates and Roses, not so secret admirers, Fluff Summary: Dean gets in early to place a rose on his assistant's desk under the guise of a secret admirer. Except that it turns out the admiration is both not so secret and mutual.

Father's Day | @babybluecas Rating: General Word Count: 2143 Main Tags and Warnings: canon divergent, fluff, kidfic Summary: The morning of the Father's Day goes just slightly differently than Dean planned it.

I'm Dreamin' of a Grey Christmas | @almaasi Rating: General Word Count: 4744 Main Tags and Warnings: Fluff, Snowball Fight, Christmas, Team Free Will 2.0, Falling Castiel, Human Castiel, Mutual Pining, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Growing Old Together, Canon Divergent, Fix-It Coda, Alternate Season 14 Summary: Coming in from the snow, Dean notices Cas now has a streak of grey in his hair. Angels don't get older. But Cas has been getting older for years. Is this a loophole that can save him from his deal with the Empty? Or is "adorably middle-aged" just another thing to add to the seven million reasons Dean wants to kiss him?

Barbershop Duet | @almaasi Rating: Explicit Word Count: 22515 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe - Barbershop, Christmas Eve, Christmas, Fluff, Romance, Smut, Dean thinks he's straight, Dean Has a Sexuality Crisis, Bisexual Dean, Barber Castiel, Demisexual Castiel, Professionals Being Unprofessional, Friends to Lovers, Facial Shaving, Shaving Kink, Marathon Sex, Family Gatherings, Domestic Fluff, New Year, Switch Dean, Switch Castiel Summary: Whenever Dean wants to feel pampered and cared-for, he goes to Castiel's barbershop for a proper shave. Right before the shop closes on Christmas Eve, Dean shows up in dire need of Castiel's magic touch. Although Dean is totally, completely, unquestionably heterosexual – when Castiel confesses he's feeling lonely, and then tries (and fails) to hide a boner, Dean refuses to be the heartless Christmas-ruiner who'd let a friend go home unfulfilled. Except maybe Dean enjoys their intimate experiment a little more than he cares to admit...

The Emporium of Christmas Enchantments | @almaasi Rating: General Word Count: 28062 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe, Sentient Toys, Christmas, Fluff, Romance, Cute Overload, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Magic, Miniature Dean, Toy Soldier Dean, Mute Dean, Smart Dean, Biromantic Dean, Miniature Castiel, Cowboy Castiel, Mute Castiel, Pining, Team Free Will, Holding Hands, Emotional Dean, Deaf Character, Sign Language, First Kiss Summary: Every night when the clock strikes twelve, all the toys in the toymaker’s workshop come to life. Dean is a little wooden soldier, so easily distracted by the pretty dolls. However, in the nights leading up to Christmas, he feels drawn to a very different kind of toy: Castiel, a kindhearted cowboy displayed on the other side of the store. Dean and Castiel spend all their time together, spreading joy and festive cheer throughout their miniature community. But once the Christmas rush comes around, will fate allow them to stay together? (Perhaps... with a little sprinkling of Christmas magic, even the wishes of simple toys can come true.)

Trick Or Oh No, Please Don't Cry | @babybluecas Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1360 Main Tags and Warnings: alternate universe, fluff, halloween, kidfic Summary: Dean expected the Halloween night, spent on giving out candy, to be rather uneventful. And it was, at least, until the tiny disaster happened.

Garbage Cookies | @sternchencas Rating: General Word Count: 2389 Main Tags and Warnings: Christmas Eve, fluff, neighbours AU Summary: Both Dean and Castiel aren't very fond of Christmas. They don't even put up Christmas lights, incuring their neighbors disapproval. But when Castiel notices Dean's sadness, he decides to bring a little light in the other man's life.

7 days of hunting | @itsmajel Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 13018 Main Tags and Warnings: No warnings, christmas, family, case fic, season 12 divergent Summary: When Mary Winchester insists on a traditional family holiday, Dean knows life is going to throw sticks and stones their way the moment a pine tree moves into the bunker. Thus, it's not a surprise when the days leading up to Christmas are indeed filled with monsters and obscurities. What Dean doesn’t expect is that, between fairies and Christmas cookie baking, long-overdue confessions and werewolves and anxious first steps, they might just manage to find their own version of Christmas.

The Perks of Being a Human | @relucant Rating: Explicit Word Count: 12451 Main Tags and Warnings: christmas AU, fluff, friends to lovers Summary: "Down here!" Dean yelled breathlessly, and Sam gripped the knife tighter; anything strong enough to get into the bunker and get Dean at a disadvantage was bound to be a nasty piece of work. But when he got to the kitchen he stopped in the doorway with a start, mouth hanging open. "Uh… Dean?" "What?" Dean snapped, trying to maneuver the massive Douglas fir through the door. "Jesus, I swear this thing didn't look so big on the lot." "You… bought a Christmas tree?"

Me Too | @relucant Rating: Explicit Word Count: 1680 Main Tags and Warnings: valentine's day, anal sex, idiots in love Summary: Cas could handle the sex. Yeah, he was next-door to a virgin, cosmically-speaking, but he'd been watching over humanity for millennia. Cultural and chronological quirks came and went, sure, but the basics were pretty consistent. And he liked to think he was a decently fast learner. The first time he fucked Dean, yeah, Dean had had to walk him through it, biting his lip and telling Cas when to add another finger, when to finally guide his cock inside. But Cas catalogued every one of Dean's reactions to every single thing he did, and adjusted his actions accordingly. Cas watched the way Dean lay breathless and sated and staring at him with soft, satisfied eyes, and Cas was pretty sure that he was a fast learner. But when it came to courtship -- and he shuddered to think what Dean would say if he used the word -- that varied as widely as every human civilization since the dawn of time, and he still floundered trying to figure out what was appropriate for the American Midwest in the twenty-first century.

[jonsafan-blog]

How Leaks Work

Most highly paid professionals would never leak the ending of a show anonymously. The main cast, the most important part of production... just not happening. They have too many legal risks to do so.

That’s why the majority of leaks have occurred in two waves:

First Wave - Before the episode is sent out to television networks to be closed captioned and prepared for their servers, leaks seem to only occur when a lot of lowly paid people are involved with the scene. The reason we knew so many details about 8x05 is because it took place almost entirely outdoors with a lot of extras and a lot of special effects. Scenes that are filmed indoors without special effects (like Daenerys mourning over Missandei and Varys sending letters) don’t make these early leaks most of the time.

Second Wave - About 1-3 weeks before an episode airs we start getting really accurate leaks, and this occurs primarily because non-studio people all over the world become involved with subtitling and closed-captioning the episode. It takes a lot of people to get these done, and since they are not immediately in the general circle of the showrunners it is difficult to determine who leaked and prosecute them over other borders. This is why most second wave leakers actually tend to be non-English speakers. They can get away with it better. However, many of these leakers wait until the last possible moment to share... likely because it lowers the risk of their managers choosing to punish them. That’s why we only see leaks that take place between a handful of top actors on a closed set the day of or the day before (solar scene and sex scenes).

So what about the leaks going forward?

Here’s what we know.

Jon snow finally sees Arya after they reach the Irone Throne in King's Landing. (I think this means that he hasn't seen her since she left Winterfell ahead of him) Dany starts executing everyone in Kings landing (Tyrion and Jon are upset) Dany has Tyrion arrested for freeing his brother. (his trial is supposed to have neither Dany or Jon present) Tyrion tries to convince Jon to turn on Dany. His family will never be safe because it threatens Dany's legitimacy. Jon is horrified by what Dany has done to King's Landing, and she gives speeches about how she'll keep doing it to free slaves from their chains. He's also convinced by Tyrion that his family will never be safe because he presents a threat to her rule. Jon tries to talk to Dany but she ignores him thinking she is justified. Jon pledges himself to Dany, then stabs her, and surrenders himself. Very traumatic for Jon because he does love her. Drogon should melt the Iron Throne after her death.

All these leaks require a lot of extras to be present or some level of special effects.

However, given the rather concise but comprehensive narrative... I think it likely plays out rather sequentially above, though I think it is going to be prefaced with some sort of Arya telling Jon Dany needs to die and it being reinforced by Tyrion’s public arrest. I also suspect a Jon and Davos conservation before he meets Arya or directly afterward. Those scenes would likely have been private without special effects, so filmed separately from extras without a large production crew involved.

I also believe that Daenerys will be killed with Arya’s dagger. It’s the only way I can imagine Jon getting close enough without raising the suspicion of her men.

There are also three possible endings:

Ending 1

King's Council: A council gets formed to decide who the King should be. Tyrion gives a speech and everyone votes on Bran to become King. The end. In the Epilogue, Jon takes the black again for killing Dany. (I think this is penance for regicide and guilt. People take the black to avoid the death penalty and he would be the 1,000th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch) Arya leaves. (she told Clegane she would) Sansa rules the North. When they're deciding who to elect as king, Sam suggests holding a democratic election and the other nobles laugh at him. That's before they vote on Bran. Bran oversees his council of Tyrion, Davos, Sam, and Bronn. The Unsullied leave to cross the sea and start liberating slave cities on their own, because that's Dany's plan before Jon kills her -- she has this big speech scene, after sacking King's Landing, where she's talking about wrecking the world, liberating all of the slaves from their masters 

Tyrion's fate after the beginning of the episode is uncertain, but I think it is confirmed his trial does not happen before Dany's death. Ending 1 does not address Tyrion's trial, but it does have multiple scenes which would have required a lot of extras to achieve, though no special effects:

The council would be formed with numerous bit actors and extras serving as guards. An easy enough leak to imagine. That said, there does seem to be a rather large public vote on Bran becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms, so I think this is pretty much confirmed. Sam also clearly says a lot of lines to confirm this to the extras. Tyrion is also present for this council... likely representing the Westerlands, and Bronn probably does actually get Highgarden.

However, Jon taking the black and there being no trial suggests that Jon simply chooses to leave King's Landing and is not forced to. He likely tells his family on or off screen and then Jon is in the North for a lineless "ending" in which he is reunited with Wildlings and Night's Watch. Extras involved in filming probably were led to believe this was his final ending, and once Daenerys’s death was leaked, him “taking the black” was assumed.

Arya leaving can be a rather private scene as would her saying she is leaving, but likely assumed because she clearly survives the ending but is not present in anyone else's storyline. That is probably the last time we see her in the show.

Sansa rules the North... this leak happens in three ways. The first is that Sansa is simply referred to as the Lady of Winterfell or the Lady of the North or something like that. Extras could easily assume she rules the North even if she doesn't in this circumstance.

However, she could also be "ruling the north" if production saw her on the battlements. If she has a scene in the Great Hall, that would confirm it, but only if her vassals declare her as Lady of the North.

The Unsullied also set sail. We likely see Grey Worm talking to someone before he leaves among a lot of extras or even it just being mentioned in the council. It's possible Jon taking the black is mentioned in the castle, but I doubt it.

My theory for how these leaks came to be is that it was a combination of two factors:

The council with a lot of extras... and production special effects tying together a bunch of mostly dialogue-free shots of Westeros after the council.

Ending 2

Tyrion's Trial: Tyrion's trial in the dragonpit is a major scene and has no Jon, Dany, or dragons. Sir Davos is present not wearing the Hand of the King pin (he wasn't in 8x04 either) along with all 3 stark children. Samwell Tarly, Brienne, Robyn Aryn, Grey Worm, an unknown man wearing golden clothes (likely Dornish), and another unidentified man (an older short bearded one dressed in green) will be there as well. Bran will flash back to season 1 where Tyrion Lannister told Catelyn Stark, "I never bet against my family". Tyrion is filled with anger and resentment against the people of Kings Landing because he saved them against Stannis and they still turned on him. Thinks people of King's Landing deserved it. He saved them and were ungrateful (trial of Joffrey's murder) Will fall to his knees in the middle of the speech dragged down by the weight of his actions. His death was filmed in studio so not sure how he dies.

Tyrion's trial has a lot of extras... that's clear. A trial would need a lot of people present. I think it takes place before the council, and I think he ends up being declared innocent of the charges, but this, like so much of the season, happens off-screen.

I think it was written so that all the charges are laid against him and his jury are present to question him... but after the charges are given and Tyrion gives his public tirade, the director likely told the extras that the death would be filmed in studio. In reality, the ambiguous ending actually transitions to the council and we see Tyrion has been spared. I'm willing to bet his tirade about the city being ungrateful ends up being what saves him - he may have done what he did to save his family, but he tried to do it to save the city too.

Ending 3

Both Endings Combined: King's Council seems most likely as multiple scenes can be cheaply shot however few will have graphic effects or sound added. Friki's leaks were from the 7 months ago when they were filming. Friki is doubling down that it is a trial and because Tyrion's death isn't filmed, it may be both. Tyrion will have a trial, give a speech, and ultimately be spared and raised to the King's Council. On the other hand, if he is killed, it doesn't change the ending too much so it should be interesting. 

The person compiling the leaks on freefolk seem to think that one of the endings could be wrong (probably Tyrion’s trial) though I think it’s right to create a third ending in which both events happen... because they clearly do.

Tyrion is eventually vindicated offscreen and receives the Westerlands.

So How Does the Next Episode Go?

We only know about the scenes film with a lot of extras or that have some level of special effects. Any scenes which would be between two people in an ordinary room (like Jon and Sansa’s scene in the solar) would not have been included in the leak. I also suspect Bran is narrating over a montage of scenes.

So unless the entire scene is special effects or has a lot of extras... we have a number of missing scenes. Here is the likely order of events and my speculation on what is missing.

Exposition - establishing the episode’s “normal world”

Tyrion walks through the destruction of the city.

Jon and Davos approach the Red Keep as Daenerys prepares to give her victory speech. They have a tense conversation about the horrors they witnessed.

Arya and Tyrion approach the army as they congregate for Daenerys’s speech.

Inciting Incident - very first conflict that occurs in the plot

Daenerys declares her victory. The Dothraki and Unsullied go wild when she says she is going to keep conquering cities and liberating the people, and it is clear the speech isn’t meant for the people of Westeros she had “liberated” but her two armies - the Dothraki who want to pillage, and the Unsullied who want to end slavery.

We see the reactions of Jon, Davos, Arya, and Tyrion. None of them are happy. It’s clear that Arya has made a decision.

Rising Action - 3 major events leading to the climax

Tyrion is publically arrested and tells Jon that his family will never be safe if Daenerys is Queen.

WINTERFELL/DAENERYS SCENE - Daenerys sends a letter demanding Sansa come to King’s Landing or we see her preparing to deal with Sansa herself. Both scenes wouldn’t need a lot of people and likely be done lowkey in private rooms. However, the audience also needs to know the stakes of what Tyrion said, so there must be another scene involved not yet leaked.

Jon finally sees Arya. She gives him his dagger and confirms what Jon already knows what he must do - kill Daenerys. However, he’s not sure he can and it is uncertain to the audience if he will do it or not. As an audience, we still aren’t certain if Jon is going to just go along with Daenerys or not - though we suspect and hope he will take Arya’s dagger.

Climax - Most suspenseful part of the plot. The turning point for the main character.

Jon confronts Daenerys either because he goes there of his own free will or is summoned to her court in the destroyed throne room. He tries to convince Daenerys not to do what she plans on doing. It could be referring to continuing her war across the world or even just calling Sansa to answer for her crimes.

Clearly Jon says something for Daenerys to believe he is on her side, likely pledge himself to her cause... or maybe agree to Sansa’s execution. Something where the audience isn’t sure if Jon is really going to go through with what Arya asked him to do.

Daenerys believes Jon really is in love with her, and she gets close to him - and that is when he stabs her. It’s clear Jon is choosing his family/realm over Daenerys.

Jon is devastated over his action, and surrenders himself immediately. Grey Worm is likely the person to encounter him first, but hell breaks loose because Drogon likely senses Daenerys is dead/dying and incinerates the room itself, going crazy. It’s possibly Drogon is killed in this moment, and it may result in Grey Worm realizing what cause he nearly pledged himself to - he does seem to make it to end of the show, so I assume he isn’t killed in battle.

Falling Action - 3 events or less that unravel the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist to lead to the resolution.

Daenerys dying is clearly the climax... so what is Jon’s obstacle after her death? I think it’s going to be the guilt over killing her and everything that led up to that moment that Jon was involved in. He doesn’t think he is a good person. That means we have changed from Jon vs. the Night King and Jon. vs Daenerys to it really being Jon vs. himself - and the one thing he won’t accept about himself is being king... hmm...

The council is called to order from around Westeros, and we see Sansa, Arya, and Bran reunited. Arya probably tells Sansa that Jon has gone to the Wall to take the black... even though there is no more Night’s Watch. Sansa is probably devastated by this news. And also very confused... reminding her family and the audience that he should be King now.

We see Tyrion being put on trial, having been found imprisoned. It is used not to punish Tyrion, but as the final nail in the coffin to Dany’s madness when Tyrion goes into his tirade about trying to save the city. It’s left ambiguous as to what his sentence is.

Change to the council. Sam gives a speech about democracy, and the lords vote Bran in as the King of the Seven Kingdoms (or something like it) because he is memory or something? I think it’s going to be because Jon is supposed to be King, but he left, and now the lords of Westeros wonder what is going to happen to the leadership.

Either way, Sam probably gives a convincing argument. Tyrion is there as Lord of Casterly Rock. Bran gives a final speech, and we see a montage of everyone around Westeros rebuilding or leaving - The Unsullied go east (hopefully with the Dothraki!), and Arya leaves too. We see Sansa in the North. However, there is something clearly missing with this arrangement as Bran being King of the Seven Kingdoms and that doesn’t make much sense.

Let me ask you... has Jon’s final antagonist (himself) been addressed? Nope.

Resolution - The conflict is resolved and we see if the protagonist achieved his goal or not.

We see Jon at the Wall, but he’s not happy. He’s not fulfilled. He’s never accepted that Westeros needs a king like him, but something causes him to go back - probably Tormund.

Jon makes a decision to accept who he is and leaves the Wall because Westeros needs him. I think there is going to be some promise of another threat to Westeros, but I don’t know what it is yet.

Denoument - The tying of loose ends.

Jon still needs to become King. And a King needs a Queen.

Jon returns to Winterfell on his way south. He reunites with Sansa because she needs to reunite with someone to begin pledging his own cause as king... and who better than the woman who tried to make him king?

Jon is crowned in Winterfell alongside Sansa.

Perhaps a letter stating about him ascending to become King of the Seven Kingdoms is sent out, with Sansa as his queen.

I believe we may have a Jonsa ending because of what Sophie was given and has said about what she has given.

Sophie was gifted two items from the last episode: a scroll, and her storyboard. The scroll says something important, and the scroll looks like something banal or something that appears to have happened before.

However, Sophie also stated that it was a scene which resulted in every story arc coming to a really good close. While I may have some bones to pick with  that, I really think she is referencing the endings to major characters and specifically what happens to the characters involved in her final scene. Jon has no closure unless he becomes King, and Sansa marrying him just makes a lot of sense.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Moth Work Intro + False Idol | Writing Update

Hey People of Earth! 

Today I thought I’d do a writing update on a project I’ve mentioned a lot in my vlogs but haven’t mentioned as of yet on here! This is a personal ‘passion project’ that I’ve been picking away at since January and have recently taken on as my transition project from Rewired to my next book.

So yee! MOTH WORK (or ‘boys on a boat’ for those who keep up with the vlogs lols) has been my current project for the last few weeks since finishing REWIRED. I didn’t really mean to expand it as much as I have as it simply started off as a spinoff story of my boys Lonan and Harrison which I write every few months when I’m having a breakdown and need something to cheer me up. :-)

I’ve mentioned a few of these stories in the past (like Fishbowl and Mandarin), though this story is a bit different, as I’ve expanded it quite a lot more than I intended to! If you aren’t super caught up with Rewired, I’d definitely scroll through a few of my last updates so this one will make more sense! 

What’s it about? 

Moth Work is a FOSTERED spinoff story following Lonan and Harrison (dumb+dumber) at the peak of their relationship. I *was saying* that the plot went loosely as follows: after finding a photograph of a woman in Lonan’s father’s dark room, they set out to find her, HOWEVER, because I never stick to plans, I have yet to follow through with this main plot thread, lol. Vaguely, I’d just say the most important part of this story is their relationship at its most fragile because who is plot I don’t know her. 

Moth Work follows the events after REWIRED, and is a bit of a bridge between it and the next book. This makes it kind of hard to explain because a) it’s in a different POV, and b) context, but hopefully that makes sense! In essence: Lonan + Harrison’s relationship is big sad and Harrison tries to make it less big sad and it gets even more big sad. 

I’ll share a very quick profile of both of the boys so there’s some context for the following excerpts I’ll share!

Harrison

My boy

Generally very outgoing, tho around Lonan this fizzles. Only wants the best for Lonan despite their history. He’s the ‘main’ narrator of the piece (third limited to him though I’m guilty of head hopping lol), so the work has a softer tone than I’m used to. Though Harrison tries to be a Macho Man, around Lonan he’s most himself--mellow, a lil stupidly romantic, and vulnerable. 

Lonan

My problematic son/probably should be cancelled 

The “issue” in the relationship loool. He’s emotionally immature and lacks accountability, but because of his past, lacks the ability to recognize these faults and work on them. Because of this, he’s fundamentally stayed the same for the last few works he’s been in (if not gotten worse). Lonan requires a lot of emotional assistance, though he isn’t self-aware enough to recognize this. This is often the cause of much conflict. 

Conception:

Like I mentioned, I often write short spinoff stories following these boys because it’s a safe happy place for when I’m feeling stressed. This is basically how this piece started, though I’ve continued it for different reasons which I’ll get into. I don’t remember how the first scene was brainstormed, but I do know when I started writing this a few months ago, I wanted it to be a lot longer than my previous stories--a place where I could just dump my writing, even when it wasn’t good. I think I did this to cope with the stress of my writing class honestly, lol, I think I needed a break from ‘serious’ writing AKA a place I could just goof off and have some fun. 

The writing bit: 

Writing this story has been a bit inconsistent. I’ve been drafting it in little pieces since the beginning of the year, and only recently picked it up as more of a ‘full-time’ work. This is subject to change depending on whether or not I get more of book 7 done. I’ve gone from writing 20 words a day to 0 to 1000--there’s really no consistency with the drafting process here. 

I have recently decided that I’ll most likely expand this into either a novella or novel itself because there is literally so much tea left to explore and it’s surpassed 10k words. Drafting Moth Work has been so helpful in easing me back into the world of FOSTERED and piecing together the huge time gap from the end of book 6 to the start of book 7. I’ve been a bit anxious to really dive into book 7 for the fear of the unknown, so inching myself closer to that timeline through this project has been very helpful!

The editing bit:

I recently did an edit around the line level for this entire piece (it’s about 12k words right now) because a) it really needed it b) I was losing steam/starting to get embarrassed and c) I needed a refresher of what had happened because je suis tres forgetful. This edit made me feel so much better about the project. It initially started off as a work where the writing didn’t actually matter and this mentality was working until I got so embarrassed of the prose I found it difficult to read through old scenes to refresh myself and thus couldn’t productively draft. 

This project isn’t written exactly in my usual style--it’s pretty stripped back and actually reminds me a lot of how my style would’ve been in book 3 had I been a better writer four years ago lol. I think the looser style works for the voice/the story itself but I def wouldn’t categorize this as litfic (what I usually write). Although the prose isn’t very complex, it took me a really long time to get comfortable enough to edit?? But once I got into the rhythm of it a few days ago, I completed the edit fairly quickly, and I’m 100% feeling better about the project overall! Though the prose is still not my top priority I’m not as embarrassed of it currently lols. 

I also divided the project into chapters because it was getting pretty long to just be one mass of text. I currently have 3 chapters. This update will cover chapter 1. 

Playlist:

Yo this is literally the best part of writing this project, lol, I get to listen to so much different music?? I’ve made a comprehensive playlist for this story with a character by character breakdown (if anyone wants to see that/highlights, let me know!). This playlist pulls from every song from my library, so we span genres and artists like crazy. Nothing But Thieves has been the primary artist for this story (specifically their self-titled album). These songs (all NBT oop) are the most relevant if you want to get the general tone lol (anything with a star has explicitly inspired the project):

Excuse Me*

Honey Whiskey*

Tempt You (Evocatio)*

If I Get High (II)

Gods

Lover, Please Stay*

I Was Just A Kid*

Get Better

Hell, Yeah*

Afterlife

Reset Me

Particles

Sorry

Number 13

Excerpts:

I don’t have *many* because prose hasn’t really been a top priority for this project, but I’ll try to include at least one per scene. 

This is one of the opening paragraphs from chapter one which I’ve titled ‘False Idol’. In short, the chapter follows the boys first attempting to destroy the dark room and then getting distracted and eventually not pulling through after Harrison finds a picture of Ominous Lady. 

The chapter’s chronology is wild so we can break it up as follows:

Scene A

The boys enter the dark room with the intention of burning it down

Harrison reaches for his lighter and drops it which prompts him to find the photograph of Ominous Lady

Him and Lonan mildly argue about Ominous Lady until Lonan takes it too seriously and throws a tantrum :-DD

Scene B

Not really a full scene, just a bridge between scene A and C.

Harrison has been waiting for Lonan to return to their campsite for the entire day and he decides to at the very last moment

“hey so i’m unable to apologize for anything but also! cigarette! let’s share it! lungs!” 

Scene C

The boys exercising their canoeing skills

This leads us to our first “beat”.

Lonan interrupts Harrison’s peaceful evening by having a mild crisis

This takes place right after the events of Lolita, Lolita (chapter 16 of REWIRED). We then jump back to the fictive present.

 This alternates like 5 more times lol then the chapter is done!

The following excerpt describes their entry into the dark room. Don’t know how smart it is to be smoking in a room full of highly flammable material but we out here.

I don’t think she’s particularly special but I also don’t hate her so!! hoping an aesthetic photo will make it read better :’)) I ! don’t ! think ! it does ! but !

Harrison shoulders the door first, traps it open with the clip of his boot. Dust and streaks of light rake behind him as he pushes through cardboard boxes, mountains of photo paper on the ground. Lonan follows silently, still wearing Harrison’s jacket. Trails of smoke from his cigarette catch in the negatives hanging by the clothespins, chemical peel between the layers of ink. In one hand he tends to his cigarette, and in the next, lugs in the canister of gasoline they found in the cabin’s cellar. As Harrison fumbles for his flashlight, Lonan sets it down by the table so it sloshes like the Pacific. 

This is a bit of when Harrison finds the photograph of Ominous Lady:

He turns the photograph over, and shines the flashlight on it. It’s scratched and developed wrong, little bits of orange obscuring the woman’s face, but it’s very much a woman. A dark bob and bangs in her eyes, jewelry hanging from her septum. Sunshades enough to reflect the European street behind her. The discreet jet of ink on her skin, blues and greens peeking out from under her sleeve. Izzy, he recognizes. Lonan’s mother. 

Nudging Lonan with an elbow, “I didn’t know your mom has tattoos.” 

Lonan takes the photograph cautiously, holding it by the corners like it’ll burn him. His brow trembles, but it takes him only seconds to say, “That’s not my mom.” He takes the flashlight from Harrison and examines it closer, fingers nimble and tracing the edges. In the grey light of the dark room, he looks nullified. Just a monochromatic hum of chromosomes and skin. 

that’s not my MOM

After the boys find the photograph, Lonan gets triggered at Harrison’s suggestion to find the woman (he presumes her to be someone involved with his father) and promptly has a tantrum and exits. This leads us into the next scene where the boys! actually! get! on! boat! In this scene Lonan tries to say sorry for his tantrum by offering Harrison a cigarette (lol) and because Harrison is hopelessly romantic and also hopelessly dumb, says yeeeees sir! They go for a canoe ride on the water. Thought it was going to be sweet, ended up being a shitstorm but!

This paragraph is kind of toast but:

The canoe isn’t hard to get into the water. After a few nudges from the dock into the slow dip of tide, it stabilizes easily. Harrison is convinced it will capsize but Lonan knows it won’t. They take one ore each, and ignore the life jackets at the back of the shed.

The moon is large and mesmerizing. As Harrison and Lonan take turns pushing the canoe into the water, mast first, then its entire belly, it colours them silver. Lonan’s protected the cigarette in the pocket of his shirt. Harrison stares at its faint outline stretched under the fabric. Lonan steps into the canoe first, rocking with the current, and extends a hand for Harrison. He pulls him in and they row until the cabin is the size of a fingernail, the wave steady and dense. Each cut of the paddle feels like plunging a scalpel into flesh and Harrison watches Lonan do it easily. In the distance, the cabin doesn’t look so menacing. Reeve has left the lamp on by the loft, and it glimmers back like an eyeball, effervescent and tiny. Nothing but a reflective penny in the distance.

Here’s some Harrison being lame:

The water laps at the base of the canoe, and Ris reaches over and touches it like it’s holy. He makes the sign of the cross and it feels perverse, cold water dripping from forehead to chin.

For a while it’s quiet. Just the distant hum of crickets, the slash of the paddle, and the off-chance flash of something in the distance; an animal, a flashlight. Ris tries not to think about Lonan’s dad, like a dead man slithering through the water, following their boat. He picks at a saltine, sucks it between his tongue meditatively. Against the sky, Lonan is backlit and lovely and flecks of his hair peek up from around the jacket’s collar. Harrison wonders if as a child, everyone said he looked just like his father. 

On top of lacking accountability, Lonan is also a professional canoeist so he takes over while Harrison eats saltines and reminisces about an encounter they had weeks prior. This leads into the solid chunk of backstory that I weirdly jump in an out of for the entire chapter. :)

Backstory consists of drunk Lonan having a crisis while Harrison tries to have a peaceful evening of taping up his drawings to his bedroom ceiling. The following excerpt describes the moment right after Lonan enters the room.

Harrison’s lips secured around his cigarette, his hand mid-air with packing tape and line drawings of the moon. A tinny country song dribbled through the radio. The minute-meal he’d heat up in the microwave lying forgotten and cold on his desk. Harrison set the pile of drawings down and turned off the music.

“Emily left?” Lonan asked. He kept his face upward, stared clumsily at the ceiling. Harrison watched his eyes trace the new drawings, following the uncalculated pattern. 

This paragraph is made up of 5 similes and this is the only reason I’m sharing it :)))):

Lonan has stopped paddling. The canoe sits in the middle of the lake, lifeless, like a bone in the water. He’s turned so Harrison can see him in profile, and Ris can’t tell if it’s relieving or worrying to see his face. Lonan’s jaw is taut, like there are words he wants to say there but can’t. Filling up the hollow bone. He blinks slowly, like he’s trying to re-centre himself, his chest quivering with breaths meant to steady him. The water laps at the base of the canoe, whirling. Dark hair tangles down his cheeks like the fingers of a poltergeist. 

I think that’s a pretty good way to end this post lol! How many similes have you put in one paragraph? What’s your record lol this is probably mine!

Hope y’all enjoy the intro to MOTH WORK. I have two other chapters already written which I’ll update on in a separate post! For now I hope you like this more laid back project, let me know what you think!

---Rachel

[aion-rsa]

Stardust Is Still One of the Best Neil Gaiman Adaptations Out There

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Gaiman's work makes crossing mediums look easy, but the 2007 Stardust film remains one of the best adaptations of his work...

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Matthew Vaughn's film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust is more than a decade old, but it hasn't lost any of its magic. With an all-star cast that included Daredevil's Charlie Cox and Homeland's Claire Danes, a director who would go onto make X-Men: First Class and Kingsman: The Secret Service, and a story from the mind of Neil Gaiman, Stardust is a funny, clever, and heartfelt fairy tale of a movie that happens to be criminally underrated by most mainstream movie audiences.

See related 

Why The Princess Bride Is a Perfect Fantasy Movie

The Illusionist Pulls An Epic Love Story From Thin Air

In the wake of the excellent Good Omens adaptation, we're taking the time to talk about the reasons why Stardust remains one of the best Gaiman adaptations out there, even if the box office numbers didn't reflect that or if the story didn't remain faithful to the book...

The history of the book.

Stardust originally began publication life as a comic book — specifically a prestige-format, four-issue miniseries. With the story by Gaiman and the illustrations by Charles Vess, Stardust began life as an inherently visual tale, which is perhaps one of the reasons why it works so well as a film. 

read more: How Matthew Vaughn Made Stardust a Modern Fantasy

However, in 1999, Stardust was released as a more traditional novel by Gaiman without the illustrations from Hess. For me, this edition loses much of the story and magic of the original illustrated, comics-based version, which is perhaps why — when comparing the illustrations-less novel version of Stardust to the film version of Stardust — the former is left slightly wanting. 

Luckily for all fans of the original Stardust comic-based storybook, Vertigo released a new hardcover edition in 2007 (to roughly coincide with the release of the movie) with 50 new pages of material, including some new artwork. Thus far, the Matthew Vaughn film is the only screen adaptation of Stardust...

The story of Stardust.

Stardust is a surprisingly complex story for a fairy tale adventure film that was also marketing as a family-friendly movie. The heart of the story comes in the quest of young Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox), who ventures out of his small town of Wall into the magical kingdom of Stormhold that lies just next door, on the otherside of a wall.

Tristan is on the search for a star that has fallen from the sky, a gift for his lady crush Victoria. Things get complicated, however, when he discovers the star is not a piece of celestial rock, as he assumed, but rather a living, breathing woman in the form of Claire Danes' Yvaine. 

read more: Good Omens Ending Explained

Elsewhere in Stormhold, others are searching for the star. Michelle Pheiffer's witch Lamia wants to cut out the star's heart and eat it so she and her sisters can continue to enjoy immortal life. The kingdom's royalty — a gaggle of cutthrout princes — are also on the hunt, as their dying father made a proclamation that whoever retrieved the stone around the star's neck would ascend to the throne.

Stardust juggles these multiple, interweaving storylines beautifully through imaginative, kinetic editing (one of Vaughn's hallmarks as a director). And, though many people point to the changing of the story's ending in the film, I find the movie's ending much better-paced and complementary to the other subtle (and not so subtle) changes the film makes to the book's worldscape.

read more: Hot Fuzz is the Best of the Cornetto Trilogy

Stardust's specialty lies in upending tropes in unexpected ways, while also celebrating them. It reminds me a lot of Hot Fuzz in that way. It is a great example of the Have Its Cake and Eat It Too mode of self-aware storytelling. In a rather cynical age, it manages to give us a satisfying fairy tale by subverting enough of its tropes to lure us hypnotically into embracing other ones. It doesn't always succeed — there a few too many damsel-in-distress moments for my liking — but, for the most part, its few flaws are overshadowed by its innumberable charms.

A great cast, led by Claire Danes & Charlie Cox.

Many of Stardust's aforementioned charms come in the quality of its expansive cast. Seriously, everyone is in this movie and they are giving it their all, making the script come to life with complexity, humor, and heart. In the central love story, we have Charlie Cox and Claire Danes as Tristan and Yvaine. Past that, highlights include Michelle Pheiffer's Lamia, Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare, and Mark Strong's Prince Septimus. (Strong would also go on to star in Vaughn's Kingsman as Merlin.)

Past that, we get some fun, memorable performances from Rupert Evertt as Prince Secundus, Peter O'Toole as the King of Stormhold, Henry Cavill as the prissy Humphrey, Ricky Gervais as the comedic Ferdy the Fence, and Sienna Miller as the haughty Victoria. And have I mentioned that it is all narrated by Ian McKellen? Yeah, the extras are basically all played by Oscar-winners in this movie.

read more: Will There Be a Good Omens Season 2?

For me, one of the chief strengths of the film over the book lies with the realness and development of the characters. That is in no small part to the impressiveness of this cast, but it also has something to do with the screenplay. While Gaiman tends to be more interested in archeypes, themes and prose, the film — perhaps by necessity, as a product of Hollywood — has much more interest in making these characters three-dimensional and relatable.

Which emphasis you prefer all depends on what kind of story-consumer you are, but, for me, Gaiman's archetypal characters tend to be the least interesting part of his imaginative works.

The changes from the book.

Anyone who has read both the book and seen the movie will know that the Stardust film, co-written by Vaughn and frequent collaborator Jane Goldman, changes quite a bit from its source material. As is common with adaptations, a lot is simplified — on both sides of the wall.

Tristan's home community is much less vast and complex. Likewise, the world of Stormhold is less strange and magical. In the book, there are all manner of magical creatures. For the sake of narrative simplicity or perhaps for budgetary concerns, that same scope of magical-kind is much more limited in the film.

read more: Terry Pratchett's Influence on the Good Omens TV Show

The film also adds in an entire sequence around De Niro's Captain Shakespeare that is barely present in the book. For me, this is actually an important decision. Brushing past the potentially reductive depiction of Shakespeare's marginalized identity, for me, this is where the film makes one of its smartest decisions: the montage. I am a big proponent of the montage in Hollywood blockbusters that have any interest in building a believable, meaningful relationship for two characters who have just met.

A montage gives us the illusion that an indefinable amount of time has passed and (more importantly) that, in that time, a whole manner of significant interaction could have and probably has occurred. In a two-hour film, the montage can cover all manner of underdeveloped character and character dynamic sins, and more Hollywood blockbusters should take advantage of it.

In Stardust, there's no way the Captain Shakespeare montage could have lasted more than a few days at most, given that only a week passes over the course of Tristan's journey in Stormhold. However, this is where Tristan and Yvaine fall in love, this is where Tristan makes his transition from gawky shopboy to more confident man, this is where Stardust makes us believe in the true love it must to pull off its fairy tale ending.

The ending.

There is also the matter of the book vs. film's endings. In the book ending, Lamia finds Yvaine in the market town near the wall, but — when she tries to take Yvaine's heart — Yvaine explains that she can't because she has already given it to Tristan. This is different from the film's more action-geared ending, which includes a fight between the reanimated corpse of Septimus and Tristan, as well as some rather extensive glass-smashing.

Ultimately, it is Yvaine who saves the day by using her love for Tristan to let out a burst of starshine, killing Lamia. Perhaps the larger change to the book's story is found in the epilogue. In the book, Tristan and Yvaine leave Stormhold for a time, leaving Una (Tristan's mother in charge). They eventually return, Tristan lives out his life as ruler, and then dies, leaving a heartbroken Yvaine to return to the sky alone.

read more: The Distinctive Direction of The Good Omens TV Series

In the film, the two live into their old age together as rulers of Stormhold, then — when they are very old — ascend to the sky to live as stars together. It is a thoroughly happy ending, one that doesn't make Tristan give up his ties to his family and friends in Wall, and one some Gaiman fans have problems with. For me, it is a minor point that has less to do with the story than the ending that occurs in the more immediate sense, completing Tristan's quest and Tristan and Yvaine's love story. And that ending is much better-paced and climactic than the one we get in the book.

Of course, the book is interested in much different things than the movie, and the less climactic, quieter ending reflects that. While the Stardust book is much more interested in engaging with and challenging pre-Tolkien English fantasy at a novelistic and prose level, the film doesn't even try to do the same. It would be a foolish attempt, after all, to try to mimick and subvert a style that lives so entirely in the pre-cinematic world. Instead, the Stardust film sets its sights on subverting and celebrating the three-act Hollywood blockbuster.

Gaiman's role in the movie.

Montages and ending specifics aside, all of the changes from the book to the film were made with the blessing of Gaiman, who also acted as a producer on the film and had some say in creative decisions. Speaking on the changes made for the Stardust film to MTV, Gaiman said:

What I did with Matthew was this thing you must never do. Don't do this; it is very, very wrong: I gave him the option for nothing. I phoned him up and said, 'OK, Stardust is yours; I really trusted him, and you don't run into that very often. He offered me the script, but I said, 'No, I wrote the novel, but this is your film, your vision. But I will help you.'

The first thing I did was find him a writer, Jane Goldman, who hadn't written a script before but I loved her novels, I loved her journalism, and she got the book. I was involved with the casting and set locations too.

For me, Stardust is one of the few examples of a film adaptation that aren't afraid to make changes that work much better for the format. Personally, I like the Stardust film more than the Stardust novel — though both contain their own, separate joys. In an era of remakes and adaptations, more filmmakers and writers of adapted screenplays could learn from Matthew Vaughn's and Jane Goldman's example. 

What would a Stardust sequel have looked like?

Den of Geek chatted with Matthew Vaughn in 2015 about what a Stardust sequel would have looked like. The director already had a rough idea in place, if the movie had made enough money to warrant moving forward on another one — which, sadly, it did not.

Here's what Vaughn said:

I had a really crazy fun idea for a Stardust 2. The opening scene was Charlie Cox's character, being the king and throwing out the necklace. This time the necklace goes over the wall and bounces off Big Ben, and you're suddenly in London in the early 1960s, with these mad kings and princes and princesses running around London. All on the quest for the stone.

What sets Stardust apart.

Despite its status as both an adaptation of existing material and an interest in commenting on so many of the genre tropes that have come before, Stardust still feels like a wholly original work. It also manages to do the fairy tale genre with a commitment to whimsical sincerity that is rarely seen in today's media climate — especially for adults.

One needs look no further than Game of Thrones to see what kind of fantasy drama is valued in today's pop culture climate. It's downright refreshing to revisit a fantasy that doesn't let its use of irony ever endanger its commitment to comforting fairy tale values that are all-to-often dismissed as unimportant or childish.

No, Stardust manages to capture some of the silly self-awareness and unabashed sentimentalism of Princess Bride in a contemporary movie-making era where only one of those things is truly valued. For that — and for so much else — Stardust remains one of the best Neil Gaiman adaptations out there, even (and perhaps especially) when it's not particularly Gaiman-like at all.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature

Books

Kayti Burt

Aug 8, 2019

Stardust

Neil Gaiman

Matthew Vaughn

charlie cox

claire danes

from Books https://ift.tt/2GSLlmn

[daleisgreat]

Hulk Hogan’s Unreleased Collector’s Series

In recent years on this blog my wrestling entries have been dedicated to recent releases from the past year or two. I am dipping deep into the backlog today however by covering a 2009 WWE Home Video release: Hulk Hogan’s Unreleased Collector’s Series. I purchased this upon its release just over a decade ago and finally viewed it this past week. I remember the peculiar timing of this release because a couple weeks before its scheduled release TNA announced the signing of the Hulkster for his four year run there. That did not stop the WWE from still releasing this match anthology which at the time in 2009 consisted of previously unreleased matches on home video spanning Hulk’s entire career. Since 2009 some of these matches here have appeared in other collections and many can be tracked down conveniently on the WWE Network. Throughout the 80s and well into the 90s WWE filmed major-market live events and only aired them in that market around their original recording. A lot of these old-school cards either feature c or d-list announce teams or no commentary at all. I have seen interviews and reports from and about WWE’s archivists over the years on how they take tremendous care of their video library and the result here is 27 matches and six promos/interviews comprising the collection.

Since past Hogan DVD releases featured matches dominated by PPV and supercard main events we primarily associate with Hogan’s career, Unreleased Collector’s Series specializes in the aforementioned major-market live events and long forgotten TV main events from Nitro, RAW and Smackdown. There are brief 30-to-60 second narration packages setting up the next match and quickly touching on major moments that happened in Hulk’s career such as various world championship reigns and switching promotions. I greatly appreciate these quick video packages setting the table for Hulk’s next rival and showing where he was at in his career at the time. Another nice touch is each match has a quick graphic at the beginning listing the commentators. This compilation has one of the most diverse line of announcers ever. A lot of the major-market live events that feature c and d-list announcers are names I can barely recall, and some surprise past wrestlers I had no idea who take a stab at announcing. Here is a quick list of some of the announcers present throughout – Vince McMahon, Nick Bockwinkel, Bruno Sammartino, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schivane, Jimmy Hart, Alfred Hayes, Mongo McMichaels, Eric Bishoff, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. What stands out is that WWE brought in Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross to record all new commentary for three of the older matches that saw Hogan square off against Bob Backlund, Andre the Giant and Kamala. Both provide great insight on Hulk and how he evolved in those early stages in his career.

As far as highlights from the 27 matches included I will touch on several that stood out the most for me. There are four matches from Hulk’s first run in WWF in 1979 as the “Incredible” Hulk Hogan. Aside from a couple squash matches, there is that previously mentioned bout against Bob Backlund I highly suggest checking out which features all sorts of school technical prowess until Backlund winds up on the wrong end of an airplane spin. There is also a pre-Wrestlemania III encounter against Andre the Giant from 1980 that has a far-less broken down Andre and Hulk deliver a more intriguing match than their carefully paced Silverdome ‘epic.’ I was a little bummed to see only one match from Hogan’s AWA run included, and it is regrettably a dud handicap match against Bockwinkel & Heenan that sees lots of villain tomfoolery. The Hulk-a-Mania WWF era is unsurprisingly where the bulk of the content is. There is a must-see match against a fresh in his WWF run Macho Man from 1986 that marked the first time I saw a pinfall from a common ‘lift-the-leg’ counter to a top-rope move. Big Boss Man and Rick Rude also face Hogan here early in their WWF runs and have fairly good matches on the Hogan curve and mix in interesting spots with handcuffs and an impromptu arm wrestling contest, respectively. I had no recollection of seeing a Killer Kahn match before, so seeing him against Hogan was fascinating. What was not fascinating was about several of these matches have the standard formula of Hogan’s early fired up offense followed by a long villain beat down until eventually Hogan ‘Hulk’s Up’ for his comeback and hits the leg drop for the W. Some of the latter matches in this collection however found fun ways for Hulk’s opposition to counter his finishing sequence to freshen things up a bit.

I was delighted to see one of Hogan’s matches against Ric Flair towards the end of 1991 in Flair’s first WWF run. This took place during a run of several untelevised matches the two had only on live events to prepare for their expected Wrestlemania VIII battle until plans changed and opponents for both were swapped in the final weeks leading up to the event. I am still bummed those two never had a PPV clash from this moment in their careers, but was glad to finally see this match get resurrected from the archives. It is not paced like a traditional PPV headliner like one would assume, but instead as a brawl with the two frequently dueling outside the ring and exchanging more fists, chops and chokes than traditional holds. It resulted in a fired up encounter I was on board for from beginning to end. Definitely make that 1991 clash between the two one of the first to see from this collection. From there the Unreleased Collector’s Series transitions into Hogan’s WCW run. Unlike WWE, WCW did not film many of their live events/house shows from this time so the five WCW matches are from WCW PPVs and episodes of Nitro that were not released on WWE Home Video before. Highlights include the ’95 Slamboree main event I never saw before with Hogan & Savage taking on Vader & Flair with Arn Anderson and The Renegade as special ringside enforcers. There are two Nitro main events against Sting in 1995 and Bret Hart in 1998 that both feature actual good wrestling, but have screwy finishes that dominated Nitro at the time. I believe this Bret Hart match was the first time the two faced each other in the ring in singles competition and it was disheartening to see the ridiculous over-booked catastrophe it turned out to be.

From there the collection wraps up with four matches from RAW and SmackDown from Hulk’s first WWF return in 2002. For a well-aged Hogan at this point, he still managed to have watchable and borderline good matches against Ric Flair, Triple H and Kurt Angle. The match with Hunter stood out the most from his WWF return matches. Sadly, no matches from his 2003 run as Mr. America are included, or his handful of matches he did for WWE in 2005 and 2006. Also interspersed throughout the collection are six Hogan promos/interviews. A few of them are vintage backdrop solo promos from syndicated shows like Challenge where Hogan is in full on ‘Hulk’ mode which only Hulk can pull off and got me amped up reliving them again for this collection. In the bonus features are eight additional promos/interviews. Some of them are more Hogan nonsensical shouting against rivals like Sid Justice and Vader, and others have Hogan donning a creepy costume taunting the feared Dungeon of Doom. Part of me wanted more of these whacked-out solo backdrop Hogan promos, as I am obviously super nostalgic for them, and for younger fans unaware of them I highly suggest going down a YouTube hole of them immediately! Hulk Hogan’s Unreleased Collector’s Series is mostly a gratifying compilation of previously unreleased gems from Hogan’s career. There are certainly a few duds sprinkled in throughout, and it can be a bit of chore seeing several of the standard Hulk-Up comeback formula matches in a row. Other than that however I dug the variety of opponents and see Hulk evolve over the years and eventually barely hang in there for his 2002 return. I have a few more ‘Unreleased Series’ DVDs WWE released over the years I would like to cover soon that have been sitting in my backlog for a while. These are for Shawn Michaels, Randy Savage and a recently released one for Roddy Piper so be on the lookout for more entries in this series in the near future!

Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT: From Secret to Sensation NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge Sting: Into the Light Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division TLC 2017 TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 6. Argus Limited

This is a re-posting from Oct. 27th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Volume Six is here, folks! I am so very, stupidly excited for this season. Heartfelt thanks go out to my friend who was all, “lol yeah sure” when I begged to use their FIRST account to watch. There are heroes in this world and they’re one of them.

A quick note about recaps from here on out: they will (my productivity willing) be uploaded sometime on Thursday or Friday proceeding the new episode. This is partly so that I’m not scrambling to post immediately afterwards—stress and bad writing all around—and partly so that, you know, we can actually recap stuff before the next episode airs. So yeah, that’s the goal.

Let’s do it!

We open on a gorgeous, snowy scene with ROOSTER TEETH PRESENTS smack dab in the middle. You know that feeling you get when you hear the Harry Potter theme at the beginning of a new film and the whole theater loses their shit? Same with Doctor Who and Star Wars? Whatever your preferred fandom, the point is I get the same chills when RWBY comes back and it’s excellent.

The animation really is gorgeous though and I sigh happily whenever I see it, thinking back to the days when cookies disappeared directly into Ruby’s mouth. There’s nostalgia, sure, but it doesn’t beat this detail.

We hear the distant sound of a train and then we’re thrown into exactly what we’ve wanted for literal years now: Team RWBY back together again, fighting not creepy adults but just some good, old fashioned grimm. They’re chimeras and… griffins? Ngl I’m not entirely sure, but they’re big, flying, fire-breathing nasties, so that’s really all we need to know. Luckily everyone falls back into old habits, easily supporting one another and executing perfect attacks (a contrast to the residual tension we’ll see in just a bit). Ruby is so busy posing after a successful kill that she misses the grimm coming at her from behind. Weiss saves her ass with a cheeky, “Thank me later!” At the end of the fight we get a reversal wherein a hit nearly sends Weiss tumbling off the side of the train, though Ruby grabs her at the last second with her own, “Thank me later!” It’s a fun little exchange made better when we think back to the Vytal Tournament. Weiss still “had her back” then too, but was more resistant to Ruby’s proclamation that they’re BFFs. Now the teasing is on both ends.

Notably, Ruby saves Weiss by taking her into her semblance, creating a cloud of rose petals that are half red, half white. Now combined with the old team-ups and some shots in the new opening, this has led a number of fans (myself included) to wonder if a WhiteRose pairing is in our future. Which also means that the ship wars are in full swing. Needless to say I’m not about that nonsense and I’ll only point out here what I said episodes back: if it’s a queer relationship with one of our main girls, and not a random side character who was previously out to murder a whole family? I’m on board.

Back in the fight though. The rest of team RNJR appears with Nora exclaiming, “Why is it always something?” God that’s a mood. Welcome to adulthood, kid. It’s just one crisis after another—except in your case the crises are objectively more dangerous. Sorry about that. We get to see Jaune’s improved reflexes as he fends off all the fireballs with his shield while Ren and Nora team up to knock some of the monsters out.

Honestly, I love this trope in action stories. Where—as Nora does here—a character just shouts out a friend’s name to get their attention and they immediately know what kind of move they’re about to pull off. It’s made more hilarious to me given that RWBY once had attack names and Jaune at least made the attempt with JNPR...but apparently they're not needed anymore. So unrealistic, yet so very cool when used.

So yeah, things are going pretty smoothly… up until Oscar yells out “Tunnel!” Ruby saves Weiss from falling, they manage to get over or between the cars, and in the sudden darkness we transition to what we only realize later is a flashback. At least, I didn’t realize it until later. Totally thought we’d had a time skip and they were just hopping another train…

My stupidity aside, before we hit the train station we actually see a familiar hallway filled with angry voices discussing the disaster at Haven—one of which is Adam’s. I really enjoyed this technique, wherein we slowly pan across the room as the voices grow more frantic and the sounds of fighting break out, the camera revealing bodies scattered across the floor. By the time we reach the throne—and Adam on it— we realize that the fight occurred prior to this moment, something that Adam is now remembering. He goes all skyward scream on us as he howls menacingly. Okay, dude. Compared to Cinder and Salem you’re really not all that.

Now we’re at the train station where Qrow is narrating a letter to Ironwood. Hell yes, please bring back the badass, protective Ironwood who defended the students at Beacon and stood up for Weiss. I’d be very pleased if he joins the RWBY gang by the Volume’s end. Qrow’s optimistic about the trip—they’ve plans to reach Ironwood before the letter does, which says either good things about Remnant’s transportation or bad things about its mail—though of course we as the audience know it’s not going to be nearly that simple. We learn that only two weeks have passed since the battle, but people are still reeling from all the implications. Lionheart tragically lost his life defending the school and oh, some students coincidentally were there and did some stuff. Excellent choice in showing us the mindless crowds while we hear this, the naive masses who, yes, would absolutely believe a story like this.

It’s easy to criticize no one supposedly noticing Salem, magic, the finger Ozpin has in every pie, etc. but ultimately people believe what they’re told—especially when it’s much easier to swallow than the truth.

Enough of the doom and gloom though. Ruby is having the time of her life.

Qrow: “What’s with the running?”

Ruby: “What’s with the standing?!”

I love this girl so very much and it’s wonderful when we get to see her acting like the kid she is. She uses her semblance with abandon because yeah, if I could turn into rose petals I’d be doing that all the time too. Ruby teases Yang with something from the gift shop and I really hope we get to see what that is. Yes, we end the episode with everyone left stranded in the wilderness, but if Yang’s bike can survive then so can Ruby’s souvenirs.

(Seriously though they presumably lost all their luggage that sucks.)

Everyone else is in top, feel-good form too. Nora daydreams about hitting the beach, complete with a thought bubble of topless Ren and a beachball. Weiss quips about how she spent all last Volume getting out of Atlas, thanks, but Ruby reassures her that at least she’s back with the team now. When two jokers arrive boasting about how they’ll be the ones keeping the train safe from grimm, Ruby and Yang act exactly as nieces should when your cool uncle is telling them off. AKA, making fun of them behind his back.

God they must have been terrors as toddlers. I mean we already know Yang carted Ruby off into the woods one day so yeah, I’m pretty confident in expressing my surprise that Tai doesn’t have a full head of gray hair.

The two Nice Guys go on to specify that they’ll provide extra protection for a “generous tip,” which—while essentially a throwaway line—reminds us how most of the world functions outside of our close-knit cast. Money, and more specifically Schnee money, quite literally dictates who lives and who dies. Not everything about RWBY is fantasy oriented…

We learn that everyone is just waiting on Blake— “as usual”—and we cut to her with Ilia as the two of them say their goodbyes. Ilia will be helping Ghira lead the Faunus in a “new movement” and is supposedly 100% on the straight and narrow now. Cool? I guess? To be honest I’m fine with her taking a back seat for this Volume. There’s a moment where we get a shot of Ilia and Blake’s feet, the former’s angled forward in a classic kiss pose, and I was super glad to see that they were just sharing a hug. I really don’t want the first LGBTQIA kiss on RWBY to be iffy on consent, considering that Ilia knows Blake isn’t interested. Hug though? That was super sweet.

Sun and Neptune show up to say their goodbyes too. They’re heading to Vacuo to meet up with the rest of their team because, in Sun’s words, he’s the “worst leader” ever. You kinda are, dude? I loved Sun up until they had him following Blake without her permission and continuing to do so after she asked for space, all in the name of the guy supposedly knowing what the girl really needs. The reminder that Sun abandoned his team to do this just reinforces how much I dislike that plot-line.

Sun gets the kiss—on the cheek—and after leaving Neptune lectures him on “letting [Blake] go.” Except it’s not about you? Blake is off to quite literally save the world and the fact that these guys view that as a threat to any potential relationship is… icky. Ugh. Oh well. They’re presumably gonna be offscreen for a while.

The train finally arrives and everyone piles in. We’re back to bunk beds! And of course Team RWBY is situated exactly as they were in Beacon’s dorms. Weiss gets annoyed with Ruby’s cloak hanging down over the side. Blake has a book in her lap. Ruby challenges Yang to a video game. Cue nostalgia. I fully expect fluffy AU fics where they ride the train all the way to Atlas and treat the trip as one giant, dramatic sleepover. This is non-negotiable.

Tension seeps back in though when Yang moves to pull her luggage from the rack and Blake immediately hops up to help her. In a super guilty “I know I fucked up and now I’m gonna smother you” way. Really excellent voice acting here. Yang ends up reassuring her. No, things aren’t perfect between them yet… but they’re definitely improving.

While short, for me this scene was perfectly balanced between acknowledging the girls’ complicated relationship without totally undermining the happy mood. Nicely done.

Then Qrow shows up with a drink. A drink with a slice of orange on the side. I have never enjoyed a moment more and I was so surprised I didn't take a screenshot of it. Clearly I was too distracted and am I too lazy to go back for one now? You betcha. The point is everything is fine, dandy, and filled with alcohol.

So of course RT goes and ruins it for me. Something hits the train and in a split second everyone is on high alert. A quick peek out the window reveals grimm and Blake mutters darkly that it’s “just my luck.”

Qrow: “Not yours.”

Are they gonna leave the safety of the train to those bozos from before? Hell no. Especially when one guy is grabbed right when the fight starts. I mean, poor dude, but he also kinda sucked as a Huntsmen. He wouldn’t have even made it past Beacon’s initiation, let alone graduated.

…I guess he’s kind of like early Jaune? Useless, wannabe hero who acts more confident than he actually is? Aw, now I really do feel bad.

He’s grimm food though. Gotta move on with our lives.

The other dude isn’t doing too well either, though RWBY and NJR + Oscar quickly show up, coming full circle to where we began the episode. Oscar insists that he’s got this fight under control which tells me (hopefully) that in the past two weeks they’ve had serious conversations about if and when Ozpin gets to have control. That’s super great, though I do wish we could have seen it. Flashbacks, maybe?

As the fight begins Ruby announces that the plan amounts to “don’t let anyone else die.” Uh...Ruby? Buddy. Pal. This is why people die. Because they didn’t have plans! Pyrrha—god rest her reckless soul—went off after a freaking Maiden by herself. Jaune got Amber killed because he didn’t obey the plan of watching the door. Lionheart frantically calls Salem with no real plan for what he’s going to offer her in exchange for his life! Plans are important, Ruby. You’re the team strategist. It was a badass line, I grant you, but please do not.

Luckily, no one (else) dies. That would have been pretty brutal for a premier. +1 point for world building where we see that trains like this have built in defenses to fight off grimm. -2 points for how useless it ends up being. As Qrow quickly points out, the turrets are drawing all the grimm to the front of the train where the passengers are. So, not good. Oscar is charged with telling the surviving goon to knock it off already while Qrow faces off against the super fierce chimera grimm. Not gonna lie though, when its tail first started up I thought Qrow was getting attacked by a dove…

This time when we hit the tunnel everyone makes it back safely inside with the exception of Goon #2 who gets his arm injured in the scramble. He’s literally crying on the ground when, in a pretty harsh move, Qrow drags him up and demands to know what the hell all that was. Civility and benefit of the doubt? Not Qrow’s strong points. It allows Ruby to take control of the situation though. How do you make sure that your cast of kids is continually calling the shots?  A) isolate them and B) when you can’t do that have the adults act like children instead. We see that a fair bit in RWBY.  

Jaune steps in to heal the guy’s arm, which is an unexpected surprise. I honestly thought we'd get a whole Volume’s worth of him figuring out how to access and control his semblance, though I suppose once it manifests you’ve got the basics down. We’ve seen that semblances can be improved upon—Ruby turning other people she carries into petals; Ren dampening the emotions of a whole train—so presumably Jaune will be able to heal more complex and life-threatening things in the future. We also hear in the ensuing conversation that he can amplify someone else’s aura…to be decided what exactly that means, how it connects to healing, and what the limits of the skill is.

During some theorizing about the attack Ozpin brings up that grimm are attracted to the relic they’re carrying and… oh boy. Here we go. Is it tradition that every recap the fandom goes for Ozpin’s throat while I stand here defending him? Might be. Let’s create a (semi) comprehensive list:

This might have been less of a secret and more of a slip. The guy is thousands of years old and the forces they’re dealing with are stupidly complicated. He can’t info dump every detail of a multi-century war in one sitting. So—

He might have thought this was one of those innocuous things that shouldn’t take precedent right now. Not the sort of thing he needs to worry them with. He claims in the promo that he didn't lie to the group and he quite possibly didn't. There's a big difference between lying and not telling someone every single possible thing that might be pertinent. Especially when—

We know that grimm are already attracted to people/negative emotion and they’re sequestered within a whole train full of presumably stressed travelers. There’s no reason to think the artifact would put them in more danger than they already are and therefore isn't at the top of the list of revelations to dole out. Especially with—

Qrow and his bad luck semblance. He literally just implied that the grimm were there because of him. There’s a reason he didn’t want Ruby near him during the fight with Tyrian and now they’re all stuck together in close quarters. The grimm were coming anyway. Even if we didn't have Qrow's semblance and big crowds we can also assume as much because of—

Those turrets. They weren’t there for a fashion statement. The whole train was crazy armored. They’re clearly very used to getting attacked on this route. It's a normal thing.

All of which is to say that the relic is one of MANY reasons why they might have gotten a buttload of grimm on their tail. Ozpin mentions this as one possibility in a very “Here’s something else to consider” way and everyone (characters and fandom alike) jump on him like he’s solely responsible for this predicament. Besides, what would they have done differently? Not carry the relic? That’s not an option. Be more on guard? They’re already constantly on guard. None of their actions would have changed had they known.

Really though, it’s the keeping of secrets that people are mad about, not necessarily what the secret is. So if we ignore the possibility above that Ozpin legit didn’t think this was worth mentioning/even forgot about it, we have a) he withheld the information because it might have made them wary about traveling with others, but they need to get to Atlas as fast as possible and the train is the best way to do that. So yeah, that’s a possible change, though I agree with Ozpin’s theoretical logic here. It was worth the risk.

b) he didn’t tell them because—again—worry is a negative emotion and that might have just doubled their problem. Awful as it is, knowing you're carrying a thing that might attract more grimm is one of the best ways to make sure that you do, in fact, attract them. Knowing what the relic does is dangerous. 

c) he doesn’t trust them with all the information about these super powerful relics that are going to decide the fate of their world. Which honestly? Kind of fair. Yeah, I know he promised them no more secrets, but this is a centuries old, god-like entity making a promise to a child. It’s not even really a matter of trust anymore. We’ve got a core group of nine here and everyone has someone else they’re close to. Ruby isn’t going to keep secrets from Tai. Blake will probably fill Sun in when she sees him again. Weiss is close to her sister. Etc. In short, as soon as this many people know a secret it isn't a secret anymore. Ozpin is no doubt aware that anything he tells to their now massive group is fair game and he has to carefully consider what he wants to risk going public/landing in Salem's hands. A general doesn't tell every lieutenant the details of every plan. That's a good way to lose the war. Fate of the world vs. a promise made to Yang? C’mon. There are priorities here.

d) finally, we’ve seen evidence—particularly after the iconic food fight—that Ozpin desperately wants his students to be kids as long as they can. He might keep information to himself simply because he doesn’t want to burden them. And given all the reasons listed above for why they'd be dealing with grimm anyway, what's the harm in giving them what little peace he can? It's not perfect reasoning and if this is the case the others have a right to be annoyed, but it's understandable. It certainly doesn't make Ozpin the monster I see countless posts painting him as.

Plus, Yang? I’m not sure you have the right to get indignant about keeping secrets right now. Granted, there’s some ambiguity surrounding whether she’s mentioned Raven as the Spring Maiden, but regardless we haven’t seen any evidence that she’s told the group the details of what happened down in the vault. That’s a pretty big thing to be keeping to yourself.

A lot bigger than, “Oh yeah this relic attracts the thing we’re attracting anyway. My bad.”

Why the relic attracts grimm is another question. Because it’s connected to the original brothers? Just because Salem wants it and she seems to be the grimms’ creator? We’ll have to see.

Ruby interrupts everyone’s fury to point out that they have bigger issues at the moment and Ozpin’s expression kind of kills me? He looks so shocked to have anyone standing up for him, even if it’s a defense of practicality instead of his actions. I wonder if this Volume is going to have the team starting to lose a little faith in Ruby. Given the clear divide here (angry Ren, Nora, Weiss, Yang, and Blake on one side; Ruby, Oscar, Ozpin on the other) this might be a major theme moving forward. It would make a lot of sense too given Ruby's past relationship with Ozpin. To Yang he's just her headmaster; to Ruby he's the headmaster that let her into her dream school early. To Blake he's someone who wanted information from her before she was ready to give it; to Ruby he's the adult who gave her advice at the dance and was emotionally open with her about committing more mistakes "than any man, woman, or child." No matter how far she's come, they'll always be a part of Weiss that sees Ozpin as the teacher who didn't give her the leadership position she thought she deserved; to Ruby he's the man that has put a staggering amount of trust in her: by letting her into his school, giving her a team, sending her to Mountain Glenn, etc.

Now, it might be time for Ruby to put her trust in Ozpin.

Fight temporarily averted, they decide to separate the teams… which felt a little forced to me. I mean I get it. As said, giant group. It’s hard to write and keep track of that many, so let’s knock three offstage for a while. Jaune, Ren, and Nora will see the people to safety while Ruby and the rest of the gang eventually catch up. We get a glimpse of Maria—the old lady with awesome glasses—clearly plotting something and then everyone heads back to the roof to finish the fight with the grimm.

Blake has a quick vision of Adam; the last time she separated a train car. Excellent touch there. Ruby tells Ren to use his semblance through the scroll, but we also get a glimpse of their signals getting weaker. Another nice touch considering how important we know the scrolls are throughout the RWBY universe: how the team keeps in contact during the Volume Four short, the damage that the fall of the CCT tower has caused, etc.

We get a final, epic showdown with a massive grimm where everyone’s teamwork proves to be some top tier stuff. Blake and Yang capture it using Blake’s ribbon. Weiss freezes off its wings. Then—in a fantastic split screen—Ruby and Qrow both use their scythes to cut the creature in two. I’m here for the power family moves.

Only problem is that a final fireball from the grimm hits the train, derailing their section. Weiss keeps them all from dying an awful death, but now they’re kind of stranded.

I mean, they already were stranded before, but I guess the hope was the back of the train would have carried them farther down the tracks before losing momentum?

In the final scene we have an unexpected voice happily proclaiming that they’re still alive but boy, that was a close one! Maria hobbles out, having clearly planned to be with this group when they went their own way.

My personal theory? She knows (and to some extent recognizes) Ozpin. I can’t believe he wasn’t involved in a conflict like the Great War. Hell, he was probably at the center of it and Maria looks very old by RWBY standards. We have no concept of how long people in this world can live so I don’t think it’s a stretch to put her in her 90s or well over 100—old enough to have fought in the War and potentially recognize one of the central figures, even in a new reincarnation depending on her instincts, knowledge, and semblance. Her name lends a bit of credence to her age, if nothing else. As far as I know “Maria” doesn’t mean/isn’t evocative of a color… though I’m far from an expert. Could totally be wrong about that.

Regardless, we’ll see. More info arrives next week!

Other Details of Note

The grimm are at a distance when we first spot them and they actually look a lot like crows. The same motif we’ve seen with Raven and Qrow’s entrances but, you know, bad.

I really liked Qrow’s line to Ironwood about how they’re bringing “more than bad news.” It’s appropriately vague—can’t go admitting that Oz is back with the group—and at the same time quite up-lifting.

I personally take Ozpin’s “I hope they’re not from Beacon” as more of a joke than a true worry. If you’re telling me that this old as balls control freak doesn’t remember every student that’s ever passed through those doors… I don’t believe you.

When Blake is saying goodbye to Ilia and Sun we have lots of animation for her ears, helping to express her emotions. It says a lot about her character development that she hasn’t re-adopted the bow in such a crowded, human packed space.

Neptune is pursuing the “wrong tree” okay lol that was good.

When Neptune and Sun discuss re-uniting the team we briefly hear the soundtrack from their Vytal Festival match. Excellent.

Interestingly, Oscar gives Ozpin control immediately during the conversation about the relic, almost like he already knew what was going to be revealed and understood that it was important… I wonder how much they’re sharing thoughts now, two weeks later.

Here, have a beach Ren and happy birb. Yes, I went back for the screenshots...