#stream of consciousness or whatever

[decaffeinatedpartymuggoop]

Hazel has a deep love for Jazz and bands in general.

She not only grew up in New Orleans, but in the French Quarter, where there are lives bands performing all day, trying to make it big and get fast cash.

She was probably very disheartened to see the city after the storm. HOO takes place in, what, 2009? 2010 maybe? Doesn’t matter, it was after Katrina.

Like imagine coming to an unknown world that’s set 70 years in the future, but not only is your home not the same, the best parts are underwater or destroyed.

Hazel’s accent is probably very unique because while French has mostly left the vernacular of the people, she’s from a time where it was still around, if only a little bit. So it’s southern, yes, but it as vowels and pronunciations that belong to the French.

She speaks French, buts it’s mostly broken, because again, the language has started to leave the city and its people.

She likes coffee with bread and will eat spaghetti or red beans seven days out the week.

I like to think Nico brought her a beignet at some point after her resurrection, because one, it’s delicious, and two, it reminds her of home.

Her favorite time of the year was Madi Gras back when she was alive, the first time at least. She loved hearing the bands play and she got front row seats since the parades come through the Quarter.

[soullistrations]

the thing about haikyuu is it’s a love story. but it’s everybody’s love story. it’s asahi saying, “when have my friends ever been a burden,” and kageyama saying, “with me you’re invincible,” and the neighborhood association laughing about him saying that and then putting hours and hours into teaching and supporting these kids who love the same sport they do, and it’s kenma saying, “thank you for getting me into volleyball,” and it’s hinata screaming with joy because his friend is having fun, and it’s tsukishima learning to give his all to something even if there’s more risk in actually caring, and it’s in kageyama and hinata counting and counting and counting their victories and defeats, and it’s in kita telling his team he’s proud of them, and it’s in kageyama saying he wished he could have gone further with this team, and it’s in shimizu stumbling through a simple good luck speech, and it’s in coach ukai reminding his kids to eat well, and it’s in. everything. i could pull a hundred more love stories from these characters but it’s just. it’s in everything.

[uncanny-tranny]

A lot of cis people may not want to hear this, but here goes:

You are going to have more in common with trans people who have a similar gender identity to you than you think. Trans people are reliable narrators of their own experiences, and whether you like it or not, we will have similar or even identical experiences to yours. Cis people don't have a monopoly over their gender or the experiences people have as a result of their gender.

[pinkeoni]

S1 and s2 (but especially s1) feel so intimate and grounded and personal. I am watching these character’s lives.

But s3 and s4 (ESPECIALLY s3) feels fake and removed. I’m watching a tv show.

[jellicores]

duck duck goose - a quick, mostly-silent, minicomic

[try-set-me-on-fire]

that makes calamity of so long life

rated t // 1901 words

The afternoon sun sneaking through the curtain lights him right up, glowing in his curls and against his cheek like the air itself can’t help but touch him. It makes Tommy feel kind of out of breath, kind of out of his depth. “Sometimes I think I must have made you up," he says, because the walls aren't melting but this still feels like a dream.

“I was.” Buck says it softly, and then blinks, like the words were out of his mouth before his brain could catch them. “Made up,” he says, a clarification that doesn’t make anything clearer.

--

Tommy learns about Daniel, and thinks about life and safety and caring about things

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Screaming from the crypt (or how the past haunts the present on Midnights)

I know it's been discussed so much since Midnights came out but just.

I love how there is such a clear narrative throughout the album (and perhaps especially on the 3am/Vault tracks). About questioning and regret and choices and coming to terms with all of it. It is one long story about how we're all a mosaic of the choices we make, each one taking something from us and leaving something else in its place.

(And now a disclaimer: I'm looking at this mostly through a narrator/subject lens, and trying not to dive too deeply into real-life events or speculation except for in a general sense. For this purpose I like to look at the body of work as art, like literature, because I find it makes it easier to see the common threads in the different songs and cohesion in the narrative.)

In looking at the 3am+ tracks in particular, it's fascinating how some turns of phrases or themes repeat themselves in different songs, in different contexts. (I'm only focusing on the non-standard tracks because there are too many songs and I'd be here all day but I bet I could do a part two lol.) I know many people have pointed out the parallels throughout her discography already and I’m not saying anything groundbreaking by writing this, but I love how these parallels run through in the same album, because it makes it seem like it's one long story, or at least, one long rumination on many different stories that are coalescing into a single narrative.

Battle (let’s go)

For instance, the one that jumped out at me when I started writing this post the other week was, "Tore your banners down, took the battle underground," in The Great War and "If clarity's in death, then why won't this die? Years of tearing down our banners, you and I," in Would've, Could've Should've. It's a story about staying stuck in the same cycle of reliving trauma and coping mechanisms and bad habits over and over again and fantasizing about how taking the “antagonist” out and gaining the upper hand for good would bring closure (WCS), but the truth is that nothing ever will. All that cycle does, though, is repeat itself in other situations, and in this case pushes someone away the narrator cares for (TGW). The difference is that the imagined battle in WCS is a two-way street in her mind (that is ultimately unwinnable because it was never a fair fight), but in TGW it's one-sided -- she's the one fighting dirty, taking shots, the way she'd been doing in her imagination (or nightmares) all these years. But the person in front of her isn't fighting back the way the person in her mind in WCS would, because their intentions are honourable instead of exploitative.

And that's paralleled in another pair of lyrics from the two songs, "And maybe it's the past talking, screaming from the crypt, telling me to punish you for things you never did," (in TGW) and "The tomb won't close, I fight with you in my sleep," (in WCS). In both cases, the funeral imagery makes it seem like this past event should be dead and buried in WCS, but it keeps rising from the dead, haunting her no matter what she does and in TGW, another (or perhaps the same?) tomb that won't close keeps unleashing new ways to hurt her and in turn the new person in her life. In other words, the trauma from the past continues to bleed into the present.

(Again from a literary point of view, I'm not saying the events of the two songs are linked IRL, but they're fascinating textual parallels on the album as a string of chapters, which is why Dear Reader is so compelling, but that's a whole other essay.)

To keep the battle motif going, there’s yet another parallel, this time between TGW’s "[You were a] soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honor and truth," and You’re Losing Me’s "All I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, fighting in only your army.” In the former, the subject is laying down his armour in the war she’s projecting onto him, waving the white flag, and she realizes that she’s about to destroy something if she doesn’t put her sword down too. By the time we get to YLM, the roles are almost reversed; at the very least they’re supposed to be on the same team, but in this case she’s doing all the heavy lifting, fighting for their relationship in contrast to his apathy killing it. It’s also pretty interesting (if not outright intentional) that one of the 3am+ editions of the albums starts with The Great War, where they find themselves in conflict (even if it’s in her head) that ends in a truce, and ends with You’re Losing Me signalling the end of the relationship, evidence that the resolution in the first song wasn’t an ending but merely a ceasefire before the last battle.

Putting the rest under a cut because this is waaaaay too long now ⤵️

(There’s also another metaphor there in The Great War with its battle imagery: World War I, aka The Great War, was supposed to be the war to end all wars, because loss on its scale was never seen before and when it ended, most thought never again would the world embroil itself in such battle, the horrors and implications were so devastating. Two decades later, the world found itself in WWII, with an even larger scope and more horrific consequences, the intervening time between the two a period of festering conflicts and resentment leading to some of the worst acts the world would see. Bringing real life into it for a second, there’s something a little poetic, though sad, about The Great War the song being about a fight that could have ended the relationship that they ultimately resolved and was meant to be evidence of the strength of their love, but so too did it end up being a period of détente, the greater battle coming for them years later. But that is not the point of this post.)

If one thing had been different

Another major theme in these editions is pondering the "what ifs?" of life, but I think it takes on even more significance in the broader context of the album in the lyrics of "I'm never gonna meet what could've been, would've been, should've been you," in Bigger than the Whole Sky and the repetition of would've/could've in Would've, Could've, Should've (I would've looked away at the first glance, I would've stayed on my knees, I would've gone along with the righteous, I could've gone on as I was, would've could've should've if I'd only played it safe, etc.) In both songs, the narrator is mourning an alternate course their life could have taken* and questioning what they could have done differently, in the aftermath of trauma and loss, and the regret that comes with that loss, and with the loss of agency in the situation because ultimately it was never in their hands. In an album full of questions, wondering about the path not taken, or the forks in the road that have led to a different version of your life, it's digging deeper into the contrast of choice vs. fate, action vs. reaction, dwelling on the past vs. moving on. When you're supposed to let go of the past, what do you do when it is holding your future hostage?

(*I know there are different interpretations/speculation about BTTWS which I am not getting into on main. I'm just saying that whatever the song is about, it's grieving something that never came to be. The literal origin of the song is less important to the album than the sense of loss it portrays. Whatever the inspiration is, it's crafted to tell part of the story of Midnights of ruminating over how, to borrow from her previous work, if one thing had been different, would everything be different?)

(Also I was today years old when I realized that the words are inverted in the two songs. Apparently I've been hearing BTTWS wrong this whole time.)

There's also an interesting tangent in the role of faith in both songs: in WCS, the events of the story cause her to lose her faith (e.g. "All I used to do was pray," "you're a crisis of my faith,") and question all the things she felt had been unquestionable until that point in her life (e.g. "I could have gone along with the righteous"), whereas in BTTWS, she questions whether that very lack of faith is to blame for the loss in that song ("did some force take you because I didn't pray? [...] It's not meant to be, so I'll say words I don't believe"). It's like pinpointing the moment her life changed and upended her beliefs (WCS), but as a result then leaving her unmoored in times of crisis because ultimately there's no explanation or comfort to be taken from what she used to hold true before that (BTTWS). The words she once relied upon to guide her have long since lost their meaning, but in times of trouble it leaves her wondering if that faith she once held then lost could have prevented this pain.

(Shoutout to WCS for being Catholic guilt personified lol.)

To keep on with the vaguely faith-y notions, an obvious parallel is the line in Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve about, “I damn sure never would've danced with the devil at nineteen,” and, "When you aim at the devil, make sure you don't miss," in Dear Reader. All of WCS is about her fighting with an antagonist who haunts her, with whom she wholly regrets ever becoming involved. DR could be seen as a reflection on that fall from grace, warning the audience that if you choose to go after the person (or thing) haunting you, make sure you do so clearheaded enough to be decisive. Again, these “devils” may not be related in real life: the IRL devil in DR could be speaking about her naysayers, or Kim*ye, or Scott & Scooter B, etc., meaning not to cross your enemies until you know you can win. But taking real life out of it and looking at it textually, I am intrigued by the link between WCS and DR, so that’s what I’m going with here. And perhaps that’s even the point in a wider sense; there will be multiple “devils” in your life, or threats to your well-being. If you’re going to commit to taking them down — whether it’s an actual person, or the demons inside you that refuse to let you go — make sure you have the right ammo so that they can no longer hurt you. (Of course, one lesson from these experiences is that sometimes you can’t win, and you have to live with the fallout.)

(Sidebar: I know that “dancing with the devil” is a turn of phrase that means being led into temptation and engaging in risky behaviour, as opposed to describing the actual person. Given the religious metaphors in the song, that could very well be/is the intention, particularly when it’s preceded by, “I would have stayed on my knees” as in she would have continued to follow her faith — in whatever sense that means — had she never met this person, which could also be a more eloquent way of saying she would have continued to be live her life in a way that was righteous (even naive) and seen the world in black and white. Either way, it’s a force she wholly rejects. Like I said, multiple devils, same fight.)

Regret comes up too: in WCS, she says, "I regret you all the time," obviously directed at the person who manipulated her and led to her perceived downfall, citing him as the one impulse she wished she'd never followed, because it won't leave her no matter how hard she’s tried. In High Infidelity, she tells the person to, "put on your records and regret me," and on the surface, it’s like she’s turning the tables, painting herself as the one now causing the regret in someone else, the one inflicting the pain this time. Yet the verse preceding it and the lines following it in the chorus depict a partner who is also emotionally manipulative and vindictive like in WCS (“you said I was freeloading, I didn’t know you were keeping count,” “put on your headphones and burn my city,”). It’s not so much that she’s intentionally harming the person (the way the person in WCS does to her), but rather that the venom in the subject’s feelings towards her seeps through; she’s imagining the way he’s going to feel about her when she leaves, hating her just for by being who she is. (There could be another tangent about how in both songs she’s there to be a “token” in a game for both of the men, who play her for their own purposes.) The regret is dripping with disdain. It’s as though she’s picturing how the person is going to hate her for doing what she’s thinking of doing the way she hates the person who first hurt her.

Sadness, unsurprisingly, shows up in a few lyrics. In BTTWS, “Everything I touch becomes sick with sadness,” sets the scene of a person so overcome with grief that it permeates everything around them; they cannot see their way out of it and feel like the fog will never lift. In Hits Different, it’s, “My sadness is contagious,” the result of a breakup where the person’s grief again touches everything and everyone around them, pushing them further in their despair and loneliness. The reason behind the grief in either case may vary, but regardless of the source, the feeling is overpowering and isolating. They may be different chapters in the story, but the devastation is hauntingly familiar. (As is a recurring theme in Midnights as a whole: there are situations and feelings that present themselves at different points in her journey and colour in the lines in different ways along the road. Like revisiting an old vice and realizing the hit isn’t quite the same as it was in the past.)

Death by a thousand cuts

She also writes about wounds on this album, which isn't surprising I suppose given that the whole conceit is that these are things that have kept her up at night over the years. WCS is perhaps the driving narrative on this never ending hurt when she sings, “The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign, I regret you all the time,” suggesting that no matter what she does, the pain of this experience has permeated everything she’s done afterwards. (Not unlike the overwhelming grief in BTTWS, for instance.) Elsewhere, in High Infidelity she sings, "Lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token," and in Hits Different, "Make it make some sense why the wound is still bleeding.” Again I'm not suggesting they're about the same events; the line in HI is about a situation where a partner crosses a boundary, hits below the belt, picks at an insecurity (or creates a new one) and treats the relationship like it's transactional, opening the floodgates in turn. In HD, the wound seems to be more self-inflicted, where she's pushed the person away. (Over a situation real or imagined she feels she needs distance from.) But again, something has picked at her like a raw nerve, and just like in the past, she's hurting, even in a different time and place and person. Almost like the wounds of the past break open over and over again to create new scars. If one were to extrapolate further, it wouldn’t be the biggest leap to wonder if the wound open in WCS, then torn apart in HI makes the one in HD hurt even more.

(I once wrote a post about how I think as time goes on, WCS is going to turn into one of those songs that will be found to drive so much of her work, because it’s just… kind of the unsaid thesis statement of so much of her songwriting.)

Another repeated theme is that of the empty home and loneliness. In High Infidelity, she sings, "At the house lonely, good money I'd pay if you just know me, seemed like the right thing at the time," painting a picture of someone who may have everything they'd want to the outside world, but in reality feels metaphorically trapped in their home (or at least alone amidst abundance), a symbol of a relationship gone sour and a failure to build connection. She just wants someone to understand her, want her for her, but as she's written earlier in the song, she's just a pawn in the game, a trophy from the hunt. Home, in this case, is lonely, isolated, an emblem of her fears. In Dear Reader, she continues this thread, then singing, "You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where I was walking, to a house not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there, where I pace in my pen and my friends found friends who care, no one sees you lose when you're playing solitaire." It's the same idea, admitting to listeners that the gilded cage she lived in kept her distanced from her loved ones and real connection, keeping her struggles close to the vest but feeling desperately lonely amidst her crowning success. She's pushed people away and it may have felt like the right thing at the time, but in the end maybe felt like she was trapped. And when you push people away, eventually they take you at your word and stop pushing back; you’re a victim of your own success at isolating yourself. What starts out of self-preservation then further perpetuates the underlying problems.

(There's another interesting link about "home" also feeling unsafe with HI's "Your picket fence is sharp as knives," which further leads into the theme of marriage/domesticity feeling dangerous, which is a whole other thing I won't get into here because it's another discussion and may derail this already gargantuan word salad.)

In a slightly similar vein, we have the metaphor of bad weather for a rocky road or unstable relationship, in High Infidelity again with, "Storm coming, good husband, bad omen, dragged my feet right down the aisle" and You’re Losing Me’s "every morning I glared at you with storms in my eyes.” They aren’t speaking of the same situation or even same kind of breakdown, but it is pretty interesting how the idea of clouds/storms/floods/etc. play such a role in Taylor’s music to signal depression, apprehension, fear, uncertainty, etc. In HI, I think the “storm” coming is the looming threat of commitment to a partner who makes the narrator uneasy (if not fearful). In this case, the idea of making a life with this person is not one that incites joy or comfort, but instead makes the narrator feel that dark times are ahead if she continues down this path. Perhaps in some way, the “storms” in YLM have made good on the threat in HI in a different way; it’s a different home, a different relationship, but the clouds have settled in regardless, and some of her fears have come to fruition in ways she did not expect. The person she once trusted no longer sees her or her struggles (or worse, doesn’t care), and the resentment and pain build with each passing day.

Coming back to heartbreak, one of the obvious "full circle" moments is the beginning of a relationship in Paris, where she says that, "I'm so in love that I might stop breathing," clearly enthralled in a new love that allows her to shut the world out and grow in private, capturing the all-encompassing nature of the relationship. This infatuation has consumed her in the most wonderful way (in contrast to the sorrow of some of the previous songs), and it feels like a life-altering (or even life-sustaining?) force that is so strong she may forget what it’s like to breathe. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) By the end of the album, though, in You're Losing Me, that heart-stopping love has become a threat: "my heart won't start anymore for you." In the former, her racing heart is full of excitement, but by the latter, her heart has given out completely under the weight of the pain she bears. (YLM is full of death/illness imagery which I already wrote about awhile ago so I won't hear, but needless to say that song deserves its own essay for so many reasons.) She's gone from the unbridled joy of the beginnings of a relationship to the unrelenting sorrow of its end, two sides of the same coin.

Love as death appears elsewhere in the music too, for instance, in High Infidelity’s, “You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough" and You’re Losing Me’s “How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying? […] My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick.” Though not completely analogous situations, they both tell the tale of one partner’s apathy (or at least denial) destroying the other. In the former, the partner’s actions (or inaction) are more insidious, if not sinister; in the latter, the lack of momentum (or admission of a problem) is passive. In both cases, the end result is the narrator’s demise; it’s a drawn out affair that chips away at her morale and her health and her sense of self. (Breaking my own rule about bringing in alleged actual events into the discussion, but the idea that the relationship in High Infidelity, which was obviously fraught with unease and even fear, ended in a similarly excruciatingly slow and hurtful death by a thousand cuts as the relationship in You’re Losing Me almost did at that time must have been so painful. It almost feels like YLM is wondering why what used to be a source of light in her life was mirroring a situation that caused her such pain in the past.)

From the same little breaks in your soul

I said early on that part of what is so compelling about Midnights is that it feels like an album about ruminating — on choices, on events, on people — and the two final “bonus” tracks of the album depict that as well. In Hits Different, she sings that, “they say if it’s right, you know,” an ode to the confusion of a breakup and struggling with the aftermath of calling it quits. It’s a line that has always intrigued me, because the typical use of the phrase is in the sense of, “you’ll know when you meet the one,” but here it seems to have a double meaning, a reassurance perhaps from the friends (who later on tell her that "love is a lie") that she’ll know if she’s made the right decision in calling it off, but could also be her wondering if the relationship is right, she’ll know, and want to reconcile. In the final bonus track, You’re Losing Me, she sings, “now I just sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time,” this time leaving no doubt about the dilemma she faces, though it’s no less fraught. She’s wondering, perhaps for the last time, if now is finally the moment to end the relationship for good. They say that if it’s right she’ll know, and now she’s wondering if that feeling inside her (that once told her her partner was the one, which is why it hit differently), is telling her that it’s time to go for good. Wait Alexa play “It’s Time To Go.” These are not only the things that keep her up at night, but the things that play over in her mind like a film reel in her waking hours.

Midnights as a whole is a deeply personal album, as is most of Taylor's work, but the 3am+ edition tracks seem to dig even deeper to a lot of the issues raised on the standard album. Almost like the standard tracks are the things she wonders about on sleepless nights, but the bonus tracks are the things that haunt her in the aftermath. The regret, anger, sadness, grief, relief, even joy— they’re the price she pays for the memories she keeps reliving. Midnights might be the most cohesive narrative of all her albums, and really does feel like we’re watching someone work through her journal over time, stopping short of outright naming those giant fears and intrusive thoughts (except for when she does) but making them plain as day when you connect the songs together, and perhaps never more clearly than in the expanded album. It’s incredible how the songs stand on their own to relay a specific moment in time, but that they are also self-referential to each other (whether thematically or overtly) to weave a larger web over the entire work. We’re so lucky as fans to have these stories and to keep peeling back these layers as time passes. (And my literature-analysis-loving ass loves her even more for it.)

This is obviously by no means an exhaustive list, and I know there are more parallels and probably even stronger links (particularly when you add the standard version into the mix), but these were the ones that particularly struck me and I’m just glad I’ve had a chance to sit with this and think it through. ❤️

[resldue]

ok save me im officially doing it im writing a dipllinshipping fanfic

[iamjackstylerdurden]

ok but dennis’s hands shaking late at night while texting mac as johnny and he tells himself its bc the room is cold or hes stressed but its actually bc its getting more and more difficult to know where dennis ends and johnny begins. when johnnys texting mac all the things he loves about him but its really everything dennis loves about mac. and when mac texts all the things he loves about johnny its all the things he loves about dennis. because dennis made johnny just like him. he wants to be caught by mac because he cant catch himself. he knew from the start it wasnt sustainable. that wasnt the flaw in his plan, it was the climax

when he sees mac texted “gn ily” and for a second he prays mac sent it to his number and not johnnys. but he knows mac didnt bc mac already confessed and dennis said no. so macs trying to move on. when mac texts that and for a brief second dennis debates texting mac “i love u too” from his real number. he knows mac is in his bedroom. he wonders, if he did, how long it would be before he hears footsteps making their way to his door. what would be the first thing mac says as he makes eye contact with johnny for the first time

or when he sends mac to the motel and he sits outside of what he knows for a fact to be macs room. johnny texting excuses as to why hes not there while dennis is just feet away from the door. maybe once or twice he gets his hand on the handle before pulling back. the cold metal burning his skin like holy water hitting a demon (despite nothing about this being holy). sitting in his car in front of the window begging mac to look out the window. to see him. to recognize him. to make the first move bc dennis sure as hell cant

but he never texts “i love you” from his real number and mac never looks out the window and dennis never opens the door. so hes left there knowing exactly where mac is and a pretty good idea of what hes doing but never getting to be as happy as mac. bc mac is texting a fake man hes convinced hes going to have while dennis is texting the very real man hes convinced hes never going to have

always telling himself tomorrow. tomorrow he’ll go to macs bedroom or motel room and confess. lay out his soul and affection. but he can never make tomorrow happen. then mac has to go and tell everyone about johnny. and suddenly its real. mac is in schrodingers box and unknowingly blows it open and the universes collide. text mac and irl mac are one and dennis cant handle it so he doesnt get his grand confession. he gets his exasperated “i am him” but theres people around. he could maybe get his soul out in front of one person (one specific person) but not here at the bar in front of an audience (even if that audience is only one or two people)

so it ends. johnny doesnt exist (at least physically) and now mac knows. everyone pushes it behind them as some scheme abruptly ended as usual. no one pokes or prods at it too much bc why would they. so now that johnnys gone mac isnt tethered to anyone anymore and dennis has to sit through as mac uses his own system against him. so he has to make another elaborate private tactic because being another person is the closest dennis has ever got to being true to himself and mac. dear god he couldnt get anyones help with this because again, his soul only has room for one person. if he doesnt start something else this feeling with sit and sit and fester then die. he already has enough dead things inside of him and one more might start having consequences. he wonders if this is how mac felt all those years. if macs feelings festered and died. maybe he’ll never know

[pleuvoire]

i'm still in the locked tomb meta hole sorry.... i think it's really interesting that ntn as the third book in the series is such a jarring break from the atmosphere of the first two books, which was such a "decadent feuding court with swords and magic and shit (but like, in space and sci-fi)" type of setting, really elevated #aesthetic drama, and then ntn finds us living in an ordinary dirty crowded city among ordinary people trying to live their every day lives amidst the scarring of imperialist violence on one of the many planets said decadent feuding court has colonized, and suddenly all the elevated aristocratic sci-fantasy stuff starts feeling like it's off in another world, and suddenly people are fighting with guns and bombs instead of swords and bone magic. and this is insanely whiplashful and leaves you feeling like you're reading a whole different book series and i will confess is a factor in ntn not being my favorite book in the series, what can i say i love some decadent sword court drama, but i think it does what the decadent court drama genre often shies away from even when criticizing the decadent court in question, which is actually showing us the real people and worlds oppressed by said decadent court instead of relegating them to a far-off hypothetical, putting us down on the ground with how the 99.99999% live. and from the perspective of ntn, all the campy theatrical #aesthetic drama of the previous books that you just accept as part of the setting when you're situated within it starts to seem like ludicrous pageantry. the evil empire is larping and we all bought into it... i don't really have a conclusion to follow this train of thought to except that it's funny that criticisms of tlt as "fanfiction-y" often focus on this overdone #aesthetic and yet that very same thing starts to unravel as the Narrative of imperial power throughout the books starts to unravel in turn. also it reminds me of rgu and how much the #aesthetic in that show is directly a symbol of oppressive power (the swords, the flowers, etc) and it reminds me particularly of the imo quite viable interpretation/headcanon of rgu, that all the crazy surrealism happens within the bounds of ohtori academy specifically as a mechanism of the suffocating self-contained patriarchal system it is, and once you get out of there you're just in the normal regular world with no symbolism. tlt is like that but if ohtori academy was actively invading and colonizing everywhere else

[aglennco]

sketchbook, 14/09/2023

[wormchaser]

you are complaining about complaining too much while complaining about the fact that maybe people dont like you because you complain too much while complaining about being alone. just stop complaining and do something about it. talk to people. reach out. dont just wait for someone to come to you first.

i have tried reaching out to different people in the past year or so but it never works. i understand its my own fault for letting relationships decay because of my own insecurities and issues but that doesn't mean i can just will myself to think or believe different things about myself. it's a self fulfilling prophecy ; i think people don't like me so i don't reach out so people don't like me etc . i am sure you do not want to hear me list all the things i want to say in response so i will put them in the tags.

[uncanny-tranny]

The world is good because:

1. one million butch trans women

2. one million fem trans men

3. one million ethereal nonbinary people

[arainaizevran]

what if we used pain and self-imposed suffering as a way to guide ourselves to the "right" path? and we were both men?

[snackugaki]

Not me idly rerererererererererewatching Gargoyles and realizing I didn't post the Gargoyles AU shit that took me and @amutantturtleenthusiast (18+ blog) by our throats for... what was it, almost a month????

shit was wild, i'm still unwell

so unwell we still babble over it every now and then

we definitely mangled a few concepts for maximum drama

we hit everything, forbidden love, clan politics, clan betrayal, curses that lasted a 1,000 years, reincarnated lovers, stolen family, unethical genetic research, we had Anton Sevarius and Jasper Barlow for ultra fuckery, enraged glowy eyed action, tender romance, figuring out how the new york subway system works, overseas travel shenanigans when half your party turns to stone in the day, the implications of half your crew turning to stone during the day, hilarious clan-to-clan misunderstandings, revenge quests... hoo.

we had them replace the tengu who taught humans ninjutsu

they big as fuck

sprinkled a little Abe no Seimei seasoning on my Venus

My Donnie was metaphorically born in the wrong century, he's fine now he has gears, wrenches, and WiFi

...we gave them hair

Barlow and Sevarius got to a couple people... unfortunately

fkkn love that funky li'l gecko i reused it for my Mondo

the Manhattan clan is ...just somewhere in the background, away

[tavertianmindscape]

unfocused rambling thoughts about Lars ig??

The difference between Lars vs the other Mishimas is so fun to think about.

Despite the blood relation Lars is just. Not a Mishima. Biologically sure, but not really in any other way. He's got the hair and the lightning to show he's got the Mishima blood, but Lars is also just everything the Mishimas aren't.

He cares about others unprompted (unlike Jin who's an edgy loner, Kazuya who somehow bagged Jun, and Heihachi who's willing to throw away anybody he deems useless like his own father and Lee after the events of T2 ((altho we also still subscribe to our theory that Heihachi genuinely loved/loves Kazumi but her betrayal thanks to her devil gene fucked him up irrepairably)), he's always friendly unless he's up against an enemy (like how his T8 intro with Lee has them engaging in banter before their friendly but still no-holds-barred match), in T6 he's even willing to put aside his anger/hatred of Heihachi when he finds out his allies need help. Hell, he took like half of the entire Tekken Force with him when he defected because he was so beloved.

And we can believe it.

Lars is very focused on his overall goals but he's also willing to do what he can to protect civilians like when he refused Lee's help in T6 but was still more than happy to help Julia when Lee told him that she was in trouble. He's friendly and presonable, but he's also no pushover (he did knock a guy out by punching his sorry ass through a wall in the opening of T6, among many Many other things). And then when Victor shows up in T8 and is immediately respectful towards him. With how Victor has a bit of an "old-fashioned gentleman" thing about him (what with the way he talks to Reina and is constantly insulting and demeaning Claudio's bs without actually using any outright "vulgar" language), Lars is clearly someone Victor respects when it comes to his leadership and fighting capabilities. And Victor Chevalier has been around the block enough times to be able to tell if someone is worth respecting/trusting. (except maybe Reina, but he's still a French boomer so there's definitely gonna be some blind spots regarding women.)

Anyways, Lars is great and we love him lots even if Dragunov is still the number one Babygirl in our heart. UwU