#terrifying not only because that’s something we NEVER do but also because of the mortifying ordeal of people seeing me eat

[squeakadeeks]

merry christmas my gift to you is telling a terrible tale since I think enough time has passed (ie over a decade) that i can tell you this without exploding.

when i was like 12 and starting out with art, i was so excited to open commissions just like a ✨real artist✨ and it being deviantart in the 2010's, within about a month i got someone asking for furry inflation fetish art. being a kid and having no sex ed, let alone the insanely specific sex ed that would be needed for me to understand what that is, i didnt flag it as inappropriate. I thought it would just be a "cool anatomy exercise like ✨real✨ artists do!" i was so ready and i took it on for 200 llamabucks or w/e the onsite currency was at the time. i did it, i drew it, whatever. well sure enough after posting it i quickly learned what furry inflation art actually was and i was mortified. being in like.....7th grade i was still terrified of sex and i was worried about my parents finding out so i took the entire sketchbook and buried it under my mattress. I lived in fear for months afterwards and felt like i deserved to be shot for falling for it and making something sinful.

the proceeding events happen in a confusing haze because my mother is an utterly puzzling woman so some suspension of disbelief is required but believe me when i say. i wish this was apocryphal. I dont know how or why, but some how some way my mom not only finds the sketchbook under my mattress, goes through the entire thing, finds the one singular offending sketch, then in a concerning mystery i will invest not a single iota of effort to solve due to the implications, immediately clocked that it was sexual fetish art. the one saving grace of a spherical wolf being niche enough that people wouldnt understand the dark deed i had done was out the window. She rips the page out, goes downstairs and parades it to the rest of the family like: "oh my god! look what ____ drew! lets all look at this! lets all look at this right now and laugh at it!" even with just this, i'm full on bursting into heavy hiccuping tears. as a kid this was the ultimate nightmare. you did something bad, you did something really bad, and your primary authority figure not only found it, but is now making sure everyone else you care about also knows the horrible shameful thing you did. except. there was something i couldnt have fathomed at the time that was about to get much, much worse.

my grandfather was dying of parkinson's at the time. when my mother took the sketch and displayed it to everyone like an auctioneer with a high ticket item, i ran out of the room sobbing so i never saw what happened to the blue inflated wolf with punk bangs. Well we all went to visit grandpa. we're all sitting around grandpa who used to be a famous local artist and was a big inspiration to me as a kid. and my mom goes "hey. ____ also wants to be an artist. Do you want to see what they drew?" and you'll never fucking guess what she pulls out of her pocket. hes barely able to turn and look over only to see that goddamn motherfucking wolf again. unlike before where i was crying so hard i couldn't breathe i remember being dead silent and stone still in shock. i dont think i blinked for 5 minutes but when i got up i threw up in the bathroom lol. I cant remember how but this time i did actually get the sketch back and i tore it to pieces and buried it in the yard. it haunted me for YEARS

but anyway now i have a memory of my mother showing my dying grandfather furry inflation art that i accidentally made when i was in middle school because i wanted a rainbow llama badge on deviantart.

[cammie]

i can’t tell if i think using the kitchen when other people are is embarrassing because i’m just crazy in general or because i have an eating disorder. i guess we’ll never know...

[taylor-on-your-dash]

Writing of 1989 Timeline

1989 changed Taylor's career forever. If Red had just sprinkles of pop sounds, 1989 was marketed as a pure pop album from the get-go.

While many fans and critics kind of expected that, it seems like:

Taylor didn't have a clear direction from the start (except for the cohesiveness): “I wanted it to be a sonically cohesive album, and it ended up really being the first I’ve done since Fearless. I also wanted the songs to sound exactly how the emotions felt. I know that’s pretty vague, so I really didn’t know where it was going to go, but I knew that I wanted to work with the collaborators I had such crazy electricity with on Red, like Max Martin. I wanted to do some things that sounded nothing like what we had done before.”

She knew that she didn't want another Red: “When people say that they like one of my albums, like when people told me that Red was their favorite album I'd done, I didn't take that as, 'So, I should make that again'. I took that as, 'Great, awsome, now I wanna make them like this new album just as much if not more than the last album.' But I want them to like it for different reasons.”

She was worried about the change of direction of her music: “I worry about everything. Some days I wake up in a mind-set of, like, ‘Okay, it’s been a good run.’ By afternoon, I could have a change of mood and feel like anything is possible and I can’t wait to make this kind of music I’ve never made before. And then by evening, I could be terrified of the whole thing again. And then at night, I’ll write a song before bed.”

October 17, 2012: [From a Lover Journal] Taylor writes This Love in LA. This will be the last song produced by Nathan Chapman and the only one recorded in Nashville.

“The last time I wrote a poem that ended up being a song, I was writing in my journal and I was writing about something that had happened in my life – it was about a year ago – and I just wrote this really really short poem. It said, 'This love is good /this love is bad / this love is alive back from the dead / these hands had to let it go free / and this love came back to me.' And I just wrote it down, closed the book and put it back on my night stand […] All of a sudden in my head I just started hearing this melody happen, and then I realized that it was going to be a song.”

Handwritten lyrics:

November 18, 2012: Taylor meets Jack Antonoff and his band, fun., for the first time in Frankfurt, Germany, while at the MTV Europe Music Awards. They bond over 80s music.

January 4, 2013: Taylor is seen in a boat without Harry Styles, ready to return to LA from the Virgin Islands.

She will wear the same dress in the Out Of The Woods music video (and also in Look What You Made Me Do)

January 10, 2013: Taylor tweets "Back in the studio. Uh oh...". She will confirm that the song was All You Had To Do Was Stay on October 27, 2014 on Tumblr.

Candids here;

“There’s a song on my album called 'All You Had To Do Was Stay.' I was having this dream, that was actually one of those embarrassing dreams, where you’re mortified in the dream, you’re like humiliated. In the dream, my ex had come to the door to beg for me to talk to him or whatever, and I opened up the door and I went to go say, 'Hi,' or 'What are you doing here?' or something — something normal — but all that came out was this high-pitched singing that said, 'Stay!' It was almost operatic. So I wrote this song, and I used that sound in the song. Weird, right? I woke up from the dream, saying the weird part into my phone, figuring I had to include it in something because it was just too strange not to. In pop, it’s fun to play around with little weird noises like that.”

January 11, 2013: Taylor is seen again at Conway Studios, likely to continue working on All You Had To Do Was Stay.

January 15, 2013: Taylor posts a picture of herself in the studio, with the caption "Somewhere in LA". She'll later reveal that she was writing How You Get The Girl.

“The song ‘How You Get The Girl’ is a song that I wrote about how you get the girl back if you ruined the relationship somehow and she won’t talk to you anymore. Like, if you broke up with her and left her on her own for six months and then you realize you miss her. All the steps you have to do to edge your way back into her life, because she’s probably pretty mad at you. So it’s kind of a tutorial. If you follow the directions in the song, chances are things will work out. Or you may get a restraining order.”

March 6, 2013: Taylor is seen going to a studio in LA.

March 23, 2013: Taylor posts a picture of herself playing guitar, which might mean that she was working on a new song: "Pre show. Columbia, South Carolina". This could be either Wonderland, New Romantics or a vault song.

May 27, 2013: While in Rhode Island for the Memorial Day weekend, Jack plays Taylor an instrumental track that will later become I Wish You Would.

“'I Wish You Would’ is a song that I wrote with Jack Antonoff and it was the first song we ever worked on together. I think, for this song, we wanted to create a sort of John Hughes movie visual with pining and, you know, one person’s over here and misses the other person but is too prideful and won’t say it. Meanwhile this other person is here and missing the same person; they’re missing each other but not saying it. And I had this happen in my life and so I wanted to kind of narrate it in a very cinematic way where it’s like you’re seeing two scenes play out and then in the bridge you’re seeing the final scene, where it resolves itself. So it says, 'It’s a crooked love in a straight line down, makes you wanna run and hide but it makes you turn right back around.’ It kind of is like that dramatic love that’s never really quite where it needs to be and that tension it creates.”

[Voice Memo Intro Transcript] “This is another way I’ve written songs recently. This is a song I did with Jack Antonoff, and Jack is one of my friends and so were hanging out and he pulled out his phone and goes ‘I made this amazing track the other day. It’s so cool, I love these guitar sounds.’ And he played it for me and immediately I could hear this finished song in my head, and I just said ‘Please, please let me have that. Let me play with it, send it to me.’ And so he sent it to me and I was on tour and this was me playing the track on my laptop recording me singing the vocal into my phone and it ended up being a song called 'I Wish You Would', because Jack wrote back and said ‘I love that’. So this is another way of writing, it’s writing to track.”

[Secret Sessions] “Taylor said that she wrote ‘I Wish You Would’ a couple of months after her and Harry Styles broke up, and they decided to become friends again and she said this was the first time she had become friends with an ex, to the point where they were comfortable enough to talk about why the relationship didn’t work out. She said he told her about how, after they broke up, he bought a house literally one road adjacent to hers. Every day he would drive home, and accidentally turn into her street, and he told her how he just wanted to stop at her house and see her, but he never did. She said this song is about while he was in the car making the decision to get out the car and see her, she was sitting in her bedroom, wishing he would make the move and go back to her and just pitch up at her house. She compared it to a classic John Hughes movie where both parties want the same thing but neither has the guts to say anything. Honestly, she spoke so fondly of that relationship.” [this is from a secret sessioner and therefore it should be taken with a grain of salt]

Between May 28 and June 2, 2013: Taylor writes I Wish You Would. She settled in Rhode Island basically all summer, so it's possible that she went to Jack's studio in New York by car without being seen and especially photographed, cause I couldn't find any pictures with the same outfit. Conway Studios are also credited but it's possible that she recorded background vocals there. Taylor was in LA in late August.

June 7, 2013: During an interview at the CMA Music Festival, Taylor confirms that she has started writing her next album.

[Transcript by me] “[The new album] is starting, all the anxiety is starting and when the anxiety starts, then the writing happens right afterward usually. I like to write for about two years before I'm finished with an album because at this point I kind of know that whenever I read in the first year is going to get away, because I'm going to like it but it's going to sound a little bit like the last project I had, and the second year usually ends up sounding like the next project. So I think at this point I feel like staying the same is the easy way to go but it's not the way that I want to go creatively. I think you need to challenge yourself, I think you need to change up your influences, I think you need to be inspired by different things that you've been inspired by before. It's harder to call people you don't know, it's harder to think of topics you haven't covered and think of new ways to say old emotions that everyone feels. I think one of the things that I'm happiest with in the last year is the acceptance level in country music for me experimenting and for me trying to evolve and challenge myself musically because I think it's never felt better to be on that stadium stage performing knowing that and so welcoming of change.”

July 13, 2013: After a show in New Jersey, Taylor has an interview with Rolling Stone, where she says that she has been writing a lot.

“The floodgates just opened the last couple weeks,” she says of the songwriting process. “I’m getting to that point where I’m irritating to be around because I’ll be with you for half the conversation and then the second half of the conversation I’m clearly editing the second verse of whatever I’m writing in my head. I really loved collaborating: you work with a lot of different people and you find the people you have this dream connection with in the studio. I know those people and I know the ones I want to go back to. But I also have a really long list of the people I admire and I would really love to go and contact. So that’s kind of where that is. I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point? It’s so overwhelming that when you’re starting a project there are such endless possibilities if you’re willing to evolve and experiment. If you’re willing to become a different version of yourself, you can really go anywhere with it. And that’s kind of where I am. The kind of the laboratory experimental stage of really catching onto a new thing that I’m liking.”

Somewhere around June and early September 2013: Taylor and Jack write Sweeter Than Fiction. No credits are available but we know that it's the second song on which Taylor and Jack worked, so that places it before I Wish You Would and Out Of The Woods.

In 2014, Lena Dunham (Jack's girlfriend at the time) posted this photo of Jack and Taylor working on the song at Jack's house.

September 15, 2013: Jack completes the instrumental track that will later become Out Of The Woods, after his show was cancelled.

[Jack Antonoff] “When I did the track for Out of the Woods, which is a Taylor song that I'm really proud of, there was some issue at a venue and our show was canceled that night and I didn't have my stuff, I had left it on the bus, so I only had these old samples on what was on my laptop, and caught up that 'oh oh'' thing, and I only had one drum kit on there, and these dumb little things sometimes turn into a great song.”

Somewhere around September and October 2013: Taylor writes Out Of The Woods.

Voice memo here;

[Jack Antonoff] Although Antonoff and Swift shared studio time for some of their other 1989 songs while working throughout 2014, “Out of the Woods” was completed as a long-distance collaboration. “She’s very natural -— when she gets an idea, it just happens very quickly. I would send her these tracks, and when an idea would happen, we’d be 5,000 miles apart or whatever, but she would start emailing me these voice notes like crazy and it would just be happening so quickly that there’d be this excitement. There’s a frantic feeling in the song,” he says. “What’s interesting about ‘Out of the Woods’ is that it doesn’t really let up. It starts with a pretty big anthemic vocal sample that’s me, and then there’s a drum sample that kicks in that’s kind of huge, and then you don’t really know how you’re going to get any bigger, but then the chorus hits and it just explodes even larger. And then the bridge hits, and it gets even more huge.“When I was working on the track, I was thinking a lot about My Morning Jacket,” Antonoff continues, “and how everything they do, every sound is louder than the last, and somehow it feels like everything is just f—ing massive. And that’s the feeling that I went for. It started out big, and then I think the obvious move would have been to do a down chorus, but the idea was to keep pushing.” Antonoff is excited to share the rest of his work with Swift on 1989, but he views “Out of the Woods” as a highlight on the project. “This song means a great deal to me. On a production level, on a writing level, Taylor’s lyrics and her melodies — there’s something very important about this song.”

[Jack Antonoff] “After 'I Wish You Would' and 'Sweeter Than Fiction', we did 'Out Of The Woods'. So it was the third thing we worked on together, and probably the easiest. I sent her the track for it, and she sent back a voice note with the verse and chorus in what felt like five seconds. And it was just perfect. It's eerie how similar it is to what the final product is.”

“It kind of conjured up all these feelings of anxiety I had in a relationship where everybody was watching, everybody was commenting on it. You’re constantly just feeling like, ‘Are we out of the woods yet? What’s the next thing gonna be? What’s the next hurdle we’re gonna have to jump over?’ It was interesting to write about a relationship where you’re just honestly like, ‘This is probably not gonna last, but how long is it gonna last?’ Those fragile relationships... It doesn’t mean they’re not supposed to happen. The whole time we were having happy memories, or crazy memories, or ridiculously anxious times, in my head it was just like, ‘Are we okay yet? Are we there yet? Are we out of this yet?’”

“That line is in there because it's not only the actual, literal narration of what happened in a particular relationship I was in, it's also a metaphor. 'Hit the brakes too soon' could mean the literal sense of, we got in an accident and we had to deal with the aftermath. But also, the relationship ended sooner than it should've because there was a lot of fear involved. And that song touches on a huge sense of anxiety that was, kind of, coursing through that particular relationship, because we really felt the heat of every single person in the media thinking they could draw up the narrative of what we were going through and debate and speculate. I don't think it's ever going to be easy for me to find love and block out all those screaming voices.”

October 21, 2013: Sweeter Than Fiction is released. Big Machine was originally not on board with the release since they wanted a dormant period between album releases.

Late 2013: Taylor writes Bad Blood, after Katy Perry announces her Prismatic World Tour.

“For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends,or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’ Then last year, the other star crossed a line. She did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”

“That was about losing a friend... But then people cryptically tweet about what you meant. I never said anything that would point a finger in the specific direction of one specific person, and I can sleep at night knowing that. I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn’t want to be labeled with this song. It was not a song about heartbreak. It was about the loss of friendship.”

October 20 to 22, 2013: Taylor is in Cape Town (South Africa) shooting The Giver. One of the members of the cast is Alexsander Skarsgård. He is said to have inspired Wildest Dreams (or at least he's the most popular theory, as far as I know), because the music video is set in Africa and it features Clint Eastwood's son Scott as love interest, just like Alexsander is actor Stellan Skarsgård's son, but we don't actually know more about the song.

“I think the way I used to approach relationships was very idealistic. I used to go into them thinking, ‘Maybe this is the one – we’ll get married and have a family, this could be forever’. Whereas now I go in thinking, ‘How long do we have on the clock – before something comes along and puts a wrench in it, or your publicist calls and says this isn’t a good idea?’”

Note: Selena Gomez was present when Taylor wrote this song.

Handwritten lyrics:

November 19, 2013: Taylor records Blank Space. This is based on the wall behind her on an Instagram post from this day, the credits, and the behind the scenes clip.

Voice memo here;

Behind the Scenes here;

“Every few years, the media finds something they unanimously agree is annoying about me. 2012-2013 they thought I was dating too much, because I dated two people in a year and a half. ‘Oh, a serial dater. She only writes songs to get emotional revenge on guys. She’s a man-hater, don’t let her near your boyfriend.’ It was kind of excessive and at first it was hurtful, but then I found a little bit of comedy in it. This character is so interesting, though. If you read these gossip sites, they describe how I am so opposite to my actual life: I’m clingy, and I’m awful, and I throw fits, and there’s drama. An emotionally fragile, unpredictable mess. I painted a whole picture of this character. She lives in a mansion with marble floors, she wears Dolce & Gabbana around the house, and she wears animal print unironically. So I created this whole character and I had fun doing it.”

November 21, 2013: While at the American Music Awards, Taylor tells Billboard that she has around seven or eight songs ready.

[Transcript] “We got a lot already,” says Swift. “There are probably seven or eight songs that I know I want on the record. It’s really ahead of schedule for me. I’m just stoked because it’s already evolved into a new sound, and that’s all I wanted. And I would have taken two years to make that happen, but it just kind of happened naturally, so that’s all I could really ask for.”

December 2013: Taylor meets Diane Warren and they write Say, Don't Go.

[Diane Warren to Rolling Stone] Warren, who typically writes on her own, says the two of them “sat down and wrote the song,” which was released Friday as one of 1989 (Taylor’s Version)‘s vault tracks, “from scratch” during the last few days of 2013. She remembers being impressed with how specific Swift was with her lyricism and how considerate she was about how her fans might receive it. “She was very particular about how she said certain things. It was a really interesting experience. She gets her audience,” Warren says. “She’s deeply aware of how her fans want to hear something. I can’t explain it, but that’s probably why she’s the biggest fucking star in the world.”

2013: Taylor writes New Romantics and Wonderland. Not much is known about these songs, except that they were both written in 2013.

[About New Romantics] “People will say, 'Let me set you up with someone', and I’m just sitting there saying, ‘That’s not what I’m doing. I’m not lonely. I’m not looking.’ They just don’t get it. I’ve learned that just because someone is cute and wants to date you, that’s not a reason to sacrifice your independence and allow everyone to say whatever they want about you. I’m not doing that anymore. It’d take someone really special for me to undergo the circumstances I have to go through to experience a date. I don’t know how I would ever have another person in my world trying to have a relationship with me, or a family.”

New Romantics handwritten lyrics:

Wonderland Handwritten lyrics:

January 1, 2014: Taylor records Say, Don't Go.

[Diane Warren to Rolling Stone] Several days after writing the song together, they got into Warren’s office to record a demo, where Swift played it on her acoustic guitar. “We demoed it on New Year’s Day. And I’m a workaholic, and that’s fine for me,” she says. “But I remember being impressed that she did, too. Everybody’s on vacation, but she showed up.”

January 6, 2014: Taylor decides to look for a house in New York.

[Lover Journal] LA. So I've decided I want to look at places in New York. I know I went through this phase months ago, but it has to mean something that i've circled back to it, right? You know what they say, if you love something let it go and if it comes back... blah blah blah. so I'm leaving the day after tomorrow. Dating is awful. Love is fiction/ a myth. I'm over it all.

January 21, 2014: Taylor sends Ryan Tedder the I Know Places Voice Memo.

January 22, 2014: [From the 1989 Booklet] Taylor and Ryan finish and record I Know Places.

“I had this idea of like, when you’re in love, along the lines of 'Out of the Woods’, it’s very precious, it’s fragile. As soon as the world gets ahold of it, whether it’s your friends or people around town hear about it... it’s kind of like the first thing people want to do when they hear that people are in love is just kind of try to ruin it. I kind of was in a place where I was like, ‘No one is gonna sign up for this. There are just too many cameras pointed at me. There are too many ridiculous elaborations on my life. It’s just not ever gonna work.‘ But I decided to write a love song, just kind of like, ‘What would I say if I met someone really awesome and they were like, hey, I’m worried about all this attention you get?’ So I wrote this song called ‘I Know Places’ about, ‘Hey, I know places we can hide. We could outrun them.’ I’m so happy that it sounds like the urgency that it sings.”

January 23, 2014: Taylor and Ryan Tedder write Welcome To New York. Ryan produces a demo in three hours. This demo is the one included in the album.

“I wanted to start 1989 with this song because New York has been an important landscape and location for the story of my life in the last couple of years. I dreamt and obsessed over moving to New York, and then I did it. The inspiration that I found in that city is hard to describe and to compare to any other force of inspiration I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s an electric city.”

[Ryan Tedder] “I thought we were going to walk in and start something from scratch because that's what I was used to. Then she calls me and says, 'Is it cool if I already have an idea?' I said, 'Sure.' She said, 'I have this song, I'm obsessed with New York and I just moved there, I want to write an ode to New York because no one's done it in a long time.' And then she sent me a voice memo. She's like, 'I want it to sound like the 1980s.' So the next day I brought in a Juno-106, which is a very 1980s keyboard, and I literally programmed that entire song right in front of her. It was very much on the fly, and that song was done in about three hours. And I did the rest of the production I think later that week.”

Handwritten lyrics:

January 26, 2014: Night of the 56th Grammy Awards. Taylor delivers a legendary performance of All Too Well, but loses the Album Of The Year Award to Random Access Memory by Daft Punk. This will prompt Taylor to make a "sonically cohesive" pop album.

[Lover Journal] January 25th. LA. It's the middle of the night and I was at the Clive Davis Party tonight which means... the Grammys are tomorrow. Never have I felt so good about our chances. Never have I wanted something as badly as I want to hear them say 'Red' is the Album of the Year.

“It was the night of the Grammys this year. I remember going home and playing a lot of the new music I had recorded for some of my backup singers and one of my best friends. We were all sitting in the kitchen and I was playing them all this music, and they were just saying, ‘You know, this is very eighties. It’s very clear to us that this is so eighties.’ We were just talking and talking about how it’s kind of a rebirth in a new genre, how that’s a big, bold step. Kind of starting a part of your career over. When they left that night, I just had this very clear moment of, ‘It’s gotta be called 1989.’”

“I woke up one morning at 4 a.m. and I decided the album is called 1989. I’ve been making ‘80s synth pop, I’m just gonna do that. I’m calling it a pop record. I’m not listening to anyone at my label. I’m starting tomorrow. I liked the idea of collaborating. But with 1989 I decided to narrow down the list. It wasn’t going to be 10 producers, it was going to be a very small team of four or five people I always wanted to work with, or loved working with. And Max Martin and I were going to oversee it, and we were going to make a sonically cohesive record again.”

January 2014: Taylor writes You Are In Love. This is actually speculation but it's based on (1) Taylor going to NY in early January and (2) Jack Antonoff confirming that it was the fourth song they did and (3) it's the only Antonoff-produced song that is copyrighted in 2014. Based on the credits, I'm pretty sure that Taylor and Jack worked on the song separately, with Jack recording the instrumental at the Jungle City Studios in NY (which is a studio that Jack used in 2014 to record Bleachers' first album Strange Desire) and Taylor recording the vocals at Conway Studio in LA.

“I wrote it with my friend Jack Antonoff who’s dating my friend Lena. Jack sent me this song, it was just an instrumental track he was working on and immediately I knew the song it needed to be. And I wrote it as a kind of commentary on what their relationship has been like. So it’s actually me looking and going, ‘This happened and that happened, then that happened and that’s how you knew you are in love.’”

“I’ve never had that, so I wrote that song about things that Lena Dunham has told me about her and Jack Antonoff. That’s just basically stuff she’s told me. And I think that that kind of relationship — God, it sounds like it would just be so beautiful — would also be hard. It would also be mundane at times.”

“We first worked on that song together and realized we kind of have a good thing, and the next thing we did was ‘Sweeter Than Fiction,’ which was on the [One Chance] soundtrack, and after that we did ‘Out of the Woods’ and another song called ‘You Are in Love.’

January 26, 2014: At the Grammy's, Diane Warren reveals that she and Taylor wrote a song together (aka Say, Don't Go).

[Transcript] “I worked with Taylor Swift on a great song. I don't even know what she's done [for her next album], I'm excited about the one that we did, it's pretty cool.”

[Billboard 2016 Interview] “I know [Swift] likes it, so hopefully it will see the light of day. I know she really likes the song. She didn’t want me to give it away, so hopefully that means she wants it.”

February 9, 2014: [From the 1989 Booklet] While in London, during the European leg of the Red Tour, Taylor and Imogen Heap write Clean in just 9 hours at Imogen's home studio. Taylor will sing the song just two times.

Voice memo here;

“'Clean' I wrote as I was walking out of Liberty in London. Someone I used to date – it hit me that I’d been in the same city as him for two weeks and I hadn’t thought about it. When it did hit me, it was like, ‘Oh, I hope he’s doing well’. And nothing else. And you know how it is when you’re going through heartbreak. A heartbroken person is unlike any other person. Their time moves at a completely different pace than ours. It’s this mental, physical, emotional ache and feeling so conflicted. Nothing distracts you from it. Then time passes, and the more you live your life and create new habits, you get used to not having a text message every morning saying, ‘Hello, beautiful. Good morning.’ You get used to not calling someone at night to tell them how your day was. You replace these old habits with new habits, like texting your friends in a group chat all day, and planning fun dinner parties, and going out on adventures with your girlfriends, and then all of a sudden one day you’re in London and you realize you’ve been in the same place as your ex for two weeks and you’re fine. And you hope he’s fine. The first thought that came to my mind was – I’m finally clean.”

“'Clean' is the last song on the album for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it felt like the complication of this emotional process I’ve been going through for the last couple of years. You know, I feel like my personal life was really, really discussed, and criticized, and debated, and talked about to a point where it made me feel almost kind of tarnished, in a way. And the discussion wasn’t about music. It broke my heart that I had made an album that I was proud of, and I was touring the world, and playing sold-out stadiums, and still they managed to only want to talk about my personal life. At a certain point I felt a switch and it was at the end of recording this album that I began to feel like my life was mine again and my music was at the forefront again. I was living my life on my own terms and I really no longer cared what people were saying about me. That was when I started so see people talk less about the things that didn’t matter.”

“I had this metaphor in my head about being in this house, there’s been a drought but you feel like there’s a storm coming. Instead of trying to block out the storm you punch a hole in the roof and just let all the rain come in, and when you wake up in the morning, it’s washed away.”

[Imogen Heap] “We met at my studio in London. She had the bare bones of “Clean.” She had the lyric, the chorus and the chords. I thought it was brilliant.I was really writing the tiniest amount just to help her do what she does. I put some noises, played various instruments on it, including drums, and anytime she expressed she liked something I was doing, I did it more. It was a really fun day. She recorded all her vocals during that one session. She did two takes, and the second take was it. We always thought she would probably re-record it, because we thought it can’t possibly be that easy. But after we lived with it for a few months, we felt it was great. I knew she loved it. She said she loved it and her mum loved it. But I wasn’t sure it would be included on the album. But everyone felt it had something special. It came together really magically.”

Imogen's detailed blog entry about this songwriting session.

[Taylor about Imogen Heap] “The coolest thing about Imogen for me was that there was no one else in the studio. There was no assistant; there was no engineer. It was her doing everything.”

February 11, 2014: Taylor gets a haircut. (I'm including this for funsies)

February 15, 2014: Taylor, Max Martin and Shellback write Shake It Off.

Voice memo here;

[Lover Journal] LA. This week I've been in the studio with Max and Johan every day and it has been the most creatively successful and fulfilling time. The first day, Johan just made a really up tempo drum beat because we decided we needed something up and light. We worked at it for a few hours before i just started singing "shake it off, shake it off, shake it off" And then the best way i know how to describe it is that the chorus just fell out of the sky. It ended up being this song about doing your own thing even though haters are gonna hate, and you just have to dance to your own beat. We all went home and I wrote the first and second verses and brought them in the next day. We wrote this chanty cheer leader bridge that I absolutely LOVE. We spent all day doing vocals and the next day recording the background vocals. I think it'll end up being the first single and Max said it's his favorite song he's ever been a part of.

[Max Martin during the lawsuit] “Shellback started out with a drumbeat. Shellback, Taylor, and I then collaboratively developed the melody and other lines of ‘Shake It Off’ to Shellback’s drumbeat. I did not write or provide any input into any lyrics in ‘Shake It Off,’ which were written entirely by Taylor.”

“I've had every part of my life dissected – my choices, my actions, my words, my body, my style, my music. When you live your life under that kind of scrutiny, you can either let it break you, or you can get really good at dodging punches. And when one lands, you know how to deal with it. And I guess the way that I deal with it is to shake it off.”

“The message in the song is a problem I think we all deal with and an issue we deal with on a daily basis. We don’t live just in a celebrity takedown culture, we live in a takedown culture. People will find anything about you and twist it to where it’s weird or wrong or annoying or strange or bad. You have to not only live your life in spite of people who don’t understand you, you have to have more fun than they do.”

February 19, 2014: Taylor, Max Martin, Shellback and Ali Payami write Style. This is the last song made for the album.

“I loved comparing these timeless visuals with a feeling that never goes out of style. It's basically one of those relationships that's always a bit off. The two people are trying to forget each other. So, it's like, 'All right, I heard you went off with her, and well, I've done that, too.' My previous albums have also been sort of like, 'I was right, you were wrong, you did this, it made me feel like this' – a righteous sense of right and wrong in a relationship. What happens when you grow up is you realize the rules in a relationship are very blurred and that it gets very complicated very quickly, and there's not a case of who was right or who was wrong.”

“This song is about those relationships that are never really done. You always kind of have that person, that one person who you feel might interrupt your wedding and be like, ‘Don’t do it cause we’re not over yet.'”

[Guitarist Niklas Ljungfelt] “I played on “Style,” a song I started with Ali Payami for ourselves. He was playing it for Max Martin at his studio; Taylor overheard it and loved it. She and Max wrote new lyrics. But I recorded the guitar on it before it was a Taylor song. It was an instrumental. I didn’t have a clue that Taylor would sing on it. The inspiration came from Daft Punk and funky electronic music.”

1989 is officially done!

[Taylor On Ryan Seacrest] “I'm pretty sure after we finished this one I knew the record was done. Shake It Off and Style were the last two songs to be written for 1989.”

February 19, 2014: While on tour, Ryan Tedder produces another three versions of Welcome To New York.

[Ryan Tedder interview] “I was in Switzerland on a tour bus, and I did four versions of 'Welcome to New York,' one of which I liked personally more, but the thing about artists is they become very obsessed with the demo. She was in love with the demo so no matter how hard I fought, she brought it back to the demo, so really what you hear is what I did on the first day.”

March 22, 2014: Billboard reports that Taylor and Ryan Tedder have worked together in LA in January

March 24, 2014: [From a Lover Journal] Taylor moves to New York.

[Lover Journal] So in the last few weeks, I've completely moved into my apartment in Tribeca. That's right, I'm writing this from my new bed in my new place, watching Law and Order with Meredith. Strangely, I've never felt more busy.

May 1, 2014: 1989 Photoshoot.

Behind the scenes photo shared by the photographers Sarah Barlow and her husband Stephen Schofield.

May 29, 2014: [From a Lover Journal] Taylor chooses another photo for the cover, after having a nightmare of the previous one being not enough.

May 30, 2014: Taylor chooses the album cover.

[Lover Journal] Shanghai. So we got to China at around 2pm and I knew it would completely ruin me if I slept when i got to the hotel, so I decided to work out. WHY IS THIS PEN RUNNING OUT?! Just went to my purse and got my pen. So a crazy story unfolded in the last 24 hours. Last night, I had this vivid dream where the photo I'd chosen for the album cover wasn't good enough, intriguing enough, artful enough. it woke me up. I couldn't shake it and it stayed with me all day. Because that nagging feeling I'd been pushing back for weeks was now confirmed in my gut... it wasn't good enough. I went to the venue, mind racing, wandering if I'd have to do an entirely new photo shoot... I got to my dressing room with newer versions of the "cover" I looked at it and felt nothing. The team pulled up this new scanned file of the polaroids we had taken during the shoot. I saw it within 10 seconds. The shot. The cover. It's a polaroid of me sitting against a beige wall with a blue seagull sweatshirt on. You can see my red lips but the photo cuts off my eyes. For some reason unknown to me it's the most intriguing photo i've seen. I think it's the mystery of not seeing my eyes. Maybe it just looks effortlessly cool. The craziest moment came when something caught my eye. The cover photo is photo 13. I kid you not. I played a sold out show in Shanghai tonight and the crowd was amazing. Tomorrow we go to Tokyo, where they'll have the whole ticker tape parade at the airport. Smile and wave...

Mid To Late 2014: Taylor and Jack write Now That We Don't Talk.

[Tumblr Music] "Now That We Don't Talk is one of my favorite songs that was left behind. It was so hard to leave it behind, but I think we wrote it a little bit towards the end of the process, and we couldn't get the production right at the time. But we had tons of time to perfect the production this time, and figure out what we wanted the song to sound like, and I just think it's, I think it's the shortest song I've ever had. I think it packs a punch. I think it really goes in for the short amount of time we have, I think it makes its point."

Conclusive notes

What 1989 represented for Taylor:

“The 1980s was a very experimental time in pop music. People realized songs didn't have to be this standard drums-guitar-bass-whatever. We can make a song with synths and a drum pad. We can do group vocals for the entire song. We can do so many different things. And I think what you saw happening with music was also happening in our culture, where people were just wearing whatever crazy colors they wanted to, because why not? There just seemed to be this energy about endless opportunities, endless possibilities, endless ways you could live your life. And so with this record, I thought, 'There are no rules to this. I don't need to use the same musicians I've used, or the same band, or the same producers, or the same formula. I can make whatever record I want.'”

“In the past, I've written mostly about heartbreak or pain that was caused by someone else and felt by me. On this album, I'm writing about more complex relationships, where the blame is kind of split 50–50 ... even if you find the right situation relationship-wise, it's always going to be a daily struggle to make it work.”

Bonus: Secret Messages

Author's note: I wrote this timeline around 2 years ago. While I found some dates later on, this is 100% my research. If you use this timeline for your posts, research or whatever, PLEASE, credit me! I'd be very thankful. This is 2 years of work.

Links to my other Timelines:

Writing of Fearless Timeline

Writing of Speak Now Timeline

Writing of Red Timeline

My Spreadsheet with a timeline overview

Credits:

Most of the quotes have been copy-pasted from Taylor Swift Switzerland.

Taylor Swift Pictures for the candids.

Heather from Nerdy by Nature for the WTNY handwritten lyrics picture.

[thrashkink-coven]

Lucifer came to me last night.

He must have intruded on a dream, because I remember I was standing in a grocery store, taking to this cashier and buying apples. The cashier then looked straight at me, completely blank faced, and started saying Lucifer’s enn “Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Lucifer”. I remember saying something like “huh? what was that?” and then the cashier opened her mouth, and a big blast of white light erupted from it. Strange.

I was then in some kind of a temple, surrounded by candles with lots of incense smoke in the air, and what I think was snow falling from the roof. And I was laying in a shallow bath filled with blood. It covered me up to my chest, and my hair was soaked in it. It was a very ethereal scene actually, I should try drawing it. I’ve more or less become immune to images of blood and gore as my work progressed with Lord Cerbere, so I wasn’t alarmed in any way. Not sure what that says about me lol.

Then there was Lucifer, who appeared as a beautiful androgynous figure with long black hair, enveloped in gold and white light, sitting at the other end of the tub with only his feet in the blood. He was absolutely stunning as always. His voice came as a whisper, it was deeper than usual, and he said:

“Did you you know that Pain is a God?”

I shook my head no.

“Oh, It very much is, It is a God who is tethered to the Dark Side of your Mother.”

I believe that he was referencing Goddess Venus, Inanna, the mother of pleasure and love.

“You know this well, don’t you? The God of Pain is the Dark Sister of the Goddess of Pleasure. It follows her wherever She goes. There is the mortifying ordeal of being known before one can be loved and cherished, is there not?”

I remember he moved closer to me, and I could feel his touch along my chest and cheeks. He felt like a warm flame.

“And there is also pleasure in this world, made more delicious by the prospect of pain. To edge oneself through suffering to be rewarded with absolute pleasure is often referred to as sadomasochism. Are you a sadomasochist, my love?”

Looking back on it, this scene looked very gothic. Lucifer is an incredibly alluring and sensual energy. We were embracing each other there, covered head to toe in blood. I’ve never thought of myself as a sadomasochist. I don’t really have a pain kink. Actually, I’m extremely averted to pain in general, so I said no.

He touched my chest, which in this place did not resemble my chest in the waking world. I had top surgery scars and tattoos, and it was a beautiful sight, my dream body. It made me feel something very intense. Orgasmic.

“Oh, but you are, in some ways. I’ve been with you all your life, my love. I have watched you grow into the proud, beautiful creature that you are now, and will continue to be. I have seen you through every agonizing moment.

There is a horrific pain that comes with owning flesh that you do not desire, the terrifying ordeal of being judged for what you are, and the violence in destroying the parts of yourself that do not serve you. You wear the blood of your own suffering proudly, the history of your trauma, as rites of passage, and in this act, you honour the God of Pain.”

Lucifer and I have talked about transness before, usually in reference to my insecurities around dysphoria. But never before has he approached me and spoken about it in this way. I felt deeply understood in a way I never have. My chest felt very warm, and he consumed me with a bright, exciting and loving energy. I was so overjoyed that I began to cry. I was shedding tears in a state of grief and happiness. I don’t really know how to describe that feeling. I felt the crushing pain of all the dysphoria I have ever felt; all those angry, agonizing nights alone, as well as the peaceful beauty of euphoria; every piece of confidence and power I have ever felt, both at the same time, and somehow, they were almost indistinguishable. My senses were completely overwhelmed, and I just fell into Lucifer’s embrace for support. He soothed me.

Love, Grief, Pain and Pleasure, I was.

“What are you now?” he asked. I was too consumed to give an answer.

“You are ecstasy. You have honoured the God of Pain, and you will honour It until you are no longer. It has made you a vessel of Pleasure. This is a True Pleasure that many may never know, only to be bestowed through the tribulations of this Pain. Love for the self that exceeds the pain of the flesh is holy, divine in nature and practice. Remember this now, you will make your body violently and passionately yours. In these acts you will know the duality of the divine. You are a living, feeling thing, experiencing the unbearable torture and the eternal bliss. Both are infinite in you. Mistake this not for a curse, for it is a holy blessing. This is what makes you mine. This is why you are a child of the Goddess of Love. This is why she takes you queers as her chosen people. Understand this, your pain belongs not to you alone. It is the blessing of a God who bestows you sweet suffering in order to achieve the ultimate satisfaction. Become accepting of this pain, and you will be the inheritor of the Truest Pleasure.”

I was a mess. Crying and laughing all at the same time. Leviathan had mentioned something to me about having to go through trials of Pain through my initiation with him, as I had gone through trials of Death with Prince Cerbere. My extreme aversion to physical pain made me really nervous about that. But now I see exactly what he was talking about. I have known a great pain that is unique to my trans and queer experience, and it is agonizing. I didn’t need to have my hands cut off or my skin peeled off to understand that pain. It is more violent than that could ever be. More lonely and frustrating. Embarrassing. Shameful.

Lucifer continued to comfort me, saying:

“Oh, my dearest love, you are my sweet devotee. Wear my pride. Keep it with you always as a reminder of this principle. Be Proud. Be Prouder now than you have ever been. You are Pride and I am within you. This is why you are mine.”

We sat in silence for a while. I can still remember what his hands felt like on my hair, comforting and soothing me while I worked through these feelings. Lucifer admitted that there is great pain in my future, as I continue discovering and inventing myself I will come to know it well.

“Pain will encourage you to fight, to struggle and to improve. It will reveal your most vulnerable self, and your darkest shadows- and you will live through it, and you will be wealthy in pleasure, this I know.”

After some more time, I thanked him and he thanked me. He told me that I was to continue my work with Leviathan. He explained this lesson would usually be an intense and incredibly painful initiation ritual between Leviathan and I, but Lucifer decided that he wanted to do this lesson with me instead. My understanding of this concept as a queer needed to be delivered uniquely, in a way that only he could give me.

This experience ended with me exhausted, laying back in the blood and allowing myself to just float. Eventually I went under, and blood filled my ears and nose. I knew then that this was my own blood, I was laying in a pool of myself. My pain and my pleasure. I surrendered to all of it.

When I inhaled the blood into my mouth, I breathed in air, and I was back in my bed, awaking from my sleep. When I looked in the mirror this morning I felt different in a way I do not know how to describe. I’ve always wanted top surgery, my date has been pushed back multiple times due to medical shenanigans. I sometimes feel like I am being tortured…

Something about this suffering will make the day that I finally look in the mirror and feel complete all the more euphoric. So until that day, I will continue to honour this Pain, and wear my Holy Father’s Pride without shame or fear.

I am ecstasy.

Thank you, Lucifer.

and thank Me, for being who who I am.

[bonnieisaway]

hi scissor seven fandom. i still have not watched season four and i'm going insane in the membrane so i'm here to discuss how we dont talk about this scene enough

anyway so i was editing again and i got put off because i found this specific screenshot again

and i was put off about it because he smiles here. he smiles. this like absolutely mortifying, fucked up smile. and i went back and now i think it's really fucking cool (atleast by my interpretation)

ANYWAYS: to jog your memory Redtooth just fucking MAIMED Dai Bo and Xiao Fei and now Seven is next- and he has this internal dialogue with 'his past self' in his head. A few episodes before this, Seven says to Dai Bo that he has "An idea" of how he used to be- though, "My memory is still choppy." And this scene, when he looks to talk to his past self, I think illustrates what he can remember now:

We see an unnamed woman dying, and then Seven standing at, presumably, her unmarked grave. Then we see Seven approaching the Killers League- or another building in Xuanwu- and after that, the day the girl in white stabbed Seven. The last 'memory' (though, this one might just be more of a conceptualization of what he thinks he was,) is Seven standing on top of a pile of broken swords and bones, and this is the last 'memory' we see

These, and what Seven has been told by others like Captain Jack, are what Seven uses to form this concept of his past self. Notably, in Captain Jack's nightmares, past Seven is also depicted as smiling- when in reality, he had only ever smiled once, with the girl in white.

'Past Seven' approaches the current him and asks, "You've been looking for me, haven't you?" Which, more literally, would mean Seven's been searching for these memories, and the remnant of who this person was in himself today. The first time we see this Seven's face, he is smiling. This massive, terrifying grin.

fucking christ bro put that away

Seven tells himself that he cannot escape this- he will never escape the Shadow Killers, and he tells himself that he has to let this part of him 'take over.' To be clear, this is not to paint Seven as having a split personality, but more to represent that he is at war with himself. When Seven smiles and slashes Redtooth, that is not a different person, but Seven, what he thinks is, regressing to that person that he used to be.

But notably, I think, this is not the Seven that he used to be. This is, by no means, who he was in the past. Seven, in the past, never smiled, nor had shown any emotion indicating that he took pleasure in these things. The only times Seven is painted this way is from other characters who are inherently unreliable narrators, because they themselves do not know the full story of who Seven was. Season 3, with the help of 'Two Heroes' from Season 2, paints past Seven as somebody who was going through to motions: he did what he needed to do, and that was it. And sometimes, through this, he is compassionate or merciful- though only in a way that is obvious when you have the bigger picture. Beyond this, the 'past Seven' we see here says something that directly conflicts with what he had truly believed: "You cannot escape your past."

Younger Seven does not speak enough to actively say he does not agree with this, but I think he did believe he could because of what happened with the Girl in White. Seven here, in his scattered memories, sees her entirely as a catalyst for him to put his emotions aside. Seven in the past directly betrayed the organization and fought every killer in Xuanwu for her. If Seven believed that he could never escape his fate, that he would never be able to run far enough from the organization, I don't think he ever would have risked everything for the Girl in White. If he never believed that, if his emotions had never won, he never would have walked into what he KNEW was a trap to save her- he never would have done anything and everything for her, because he would have believed it would've been pointless in the end.

This 'past self' that Seven forces himself to embrace, the one that smiles when he draws his sword against an enemy that logically, he should've known was nigh impossible to beat, was never Seven. This was the ideal of who he was, and he himself can hardly even try and stick to this: Not even moments later, he stares down at his sword once again and thinks in silence, questioning who he is.

This past Seven, the ideal of who he was, once again tells him that his emotions will weaken him, but even if that's what Seven had been taught all his life, somehow, through the Girl in White, this belief had began to unravel. And beyond that, objectively, he is wrong about this- this ideal Seven tries to force himself to embody does not stand a chance against Redtooth, and his forced apathy gets him nowhere. Redtooth- who did not even recognize this Seven who smiled at him, but when he stood the same way he did before- directly says Seven's sword must be weaker than he thought.

Green Phoenix says "He's out of practice- that isn't how you use the blade." And, originally, I took this line to sound a bit snooty, because technically, this looks no different than how Seven has used the sword in the past, and fuck if Green Phoenix knows how to use the thing, but I think this line is a lot better when you read it as "That isn't how Seven used the blade." I don't know if that's really how it was meant to be translated, or if I'm looking to deep into it, but it's a nice touch.

Seven does not stand a chance in defeating Redtooth until he forgets what he's told himself, and reaffirms to himself once again: he is not that person he (thought he) once was.

Seven, evidently, still loses here: he nearly pushes Redtooth to his very limit, but this is the closest he gets to defeating him, this is where Seven is his strongest, when he uses his emotions to reaffirm who he is today.

I think Seven is still very much stuck exploring who he once was: and he may not ever truly know that he's never actually been this cold, unfeeling villain, but this episode goes so far to show how Seven learns that he will always choose the island, his friends and his emotions above all else, and the small ways it shows us this isn't even who Seven really was, and it's so so fucking cool and I absolutely adore it.

if i watch season 4 and it actually just smacks me in the face and contradicts everything i say here i'm going to blow up a building also i still haven't watched it so let's pray i dont get notes that spoil it

[florserence]

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Dagger

It was freshman year, first or second day of school, and we were in art class. We were doing the dreaded “introduce yourself and your art” and it had gotten to him. There was just. . . Something.

About him, I mean. He was timid presenting his work, forced by systemic school social pressure, and I was intrigued. His work glittered in my eyes and wrapped me within his world immediately. When we had become friends shortly after my persisting, his energy was addicting. I wanted to see what was behind his wall, his wall that was created to survive living in this world.

Later on, it was during the period of world-wide social isolation that I thought of him as my solution. I could feel myself falling further, whether it was love is something I’ll never be sure of. It was like the sculpture, where Psyche is revived by Cupid’s kiss. His timid person and art were my limerent obsession that lasted even long after we broke away from each other.

Loving him- or rather perhaps a better phrase- loving the idea of him had consumed me. It was disastrous, because once I had broken the wall it was a never ending black hole. He was a supernova. Who knows when he exploded though, because I only existed through his emptiness. Existing in a black hole is terrifying to say the least. You lose sense of yourself, time, reality, everything. He himself was even losing touch with that.

I do think that I loved him. Through his struggle of reality, there were moments when he would try to be kind and understanding, despite everything begging him not to be. I’m not always sure if he loved me, however, maybe I reflected his own instability. “And me, I am her dagger, too numb to feel her pain,” Slowdive sang and he repeated. He saw me as his angel, his sunshine girl.

He communicated through art instead of language. It was the only way I could ever see the light on his true self, a reflective surface. The problem he experienced was of his making, a reflection of others’ and never knowing what was behind it. But when art’s light shined upon him, he glittered beautifully. It didn’t matter his words, because he didn’t have to speak for me to understand. When he painted us together, it’s what kept me addicted to the pain. It was light of what we wished we could be. The light reflected his love back to me. But unfortunately, the light also reflected his pain.

Humans are not built for black holes. My guts were ripped out of me and I felt even my exterior stripping away. I had lost my insides by trying to morph myself into what would help his pain. All I ever wanted was to be able to help him in these moments, but losing your organs slowly decays your flesh. I was numb to the pain by this point, but my skin was decaying enough for my animatronic-like bones to give away hidden masochistic desperation. It was truly painful to be with him and I tried to just survive.

But there was one day where my attempts at bandaging with toy doll PVC material couldn’t sustain us any longer. It wasn’t until I was caught being broken to my last bits of bones in my car, when my curated malleable playtoy persona had been destroyed. He saw what had become of myself.

It was humiliating. To be so ripped apart by a black hole and then to see my limbs strewn about by string. He saw what had become of me. The greenery outside had turned to white when he called me, saying he saw me in the car and asked if I was okay. I don’t even remember what I said, but I knew it was too late. Our conversation blurred together, the only parts I remember being the feeling of my bones rattling through the crushing sobs erupting out of my broken voice box that was so used to playing scratched records.

He was comforting me for once! It was embarrassing, to finally be seen for how I truly was. Having concealed myself with gentle-spoken phrases when pulling my toy string attached to my spine for so long, I was mortified. There was nothing prepared for this moment from the voice box. I realized what had become but didn’t want to leave. I knew, funnily enough, that he would be the one to end it. It was painful because, now, after all this time of trying to love his pain, he couldn’t handle my own. He and I knew he couldn’t, not when it was this far, which is why he ended it.

I was crazy obsessed. I was a masochist in love with a masochist. They may attract for their shared love for pain, but there is only so much pain that one can endure before suicide. I think that’s why it was so wrong to me that he thought he was my dagger. For it was the opposite, I the Knife and him the Drug. He did teach me, however, that through all of the pain, I would rather be used for cooking than for stabbing.

[moon-alight]

Hi!! Could I request of how Jo from &team reacts and handle the situation of his s/o having a nightmare?

Hello! Jo is my second bias so of course I could. Hope you like it. :)

Nightmares - &team Jo

Synopsis: Reader has a nightmare when she stays over at the dorms and Jo comforts her.

Warnings: afab reader, fluff

Word Count: 682

Masterlist

It wasn't your first time staying over at the dorms but it was your first night being here. You initially hadn't had any doubts so when you woke up suddenly your heart almost beating out of your chest and your body shaking, you were mortified.

You didn't want to wake up your boyfriend, he doesn't get much sleep as it is so why would you ever wake him? But the dark room and walls that are closing you in made it hard to breathe.

This hasn't happened before, at least you believe so. You close your eyes, trying to calm down but it only made you more scared. You have tears bottling up in your eyes and you try your hardest to stay quiet. Not only don't you want to wake up Jo, you also don't want to wake up his two roommates Yuma and EJ.

Your sniffling has caught the attention of Jo who had just woken up. He frowns, thinking he's dreaming until he remembers you being next to him. He quickly sits up, looking through the dark to see you.

"y/n?" His voice is barely above a whisper, if the rest of the room wasn't as quiet as it is now, you wouldn't have heard it. "What's wrong?" He turns on a small light which is not enough to light up the entire room but just enough to see each other.

"N-nightmare." You whisper back, suddenly feeling stupid. At this point you should be old enough not to be scared of simple nightmares anymore. Jo wraps his arms around you in a tight hug, you rest your head against his chest, calming a little by the sound of his heartbeat.

"Do you need anything? I can go grab it."

"Please don't go." Yep, you're sure it must sound pathetic but Jo has never judged you before so he probably wouldn't now either.

"Don't worry, princess, I'm not going anywhere." He gently strokes your hair. You would be lying if you said it didn't bring you absolute comfort. "Want to talk about it?"

"I was alone and... there was this fire alarm that went off. I couldn't escape the flames and..." You cut yourself off. Jo knows how terrified of fire you are, everyone is at least a little scared of it, so he knows what you're going through. "I'm sorry for waking you up."

"What? No, no, no. I want you to wake me up when you have a hard time. It's what I'm here for."

"But you already don't sleep enough and you're always working so hard. I don't want to make it worse."

"I get nightmares sometimes too, you're not wrong for asking for comfort." He admits.

"What are your nightmares about?"

"Losing you." Two words. Two very simple words yet it made such a difference. You grab onto the fabric of his shirt and press yourself closer against him just to hear him chuckle lowly. "Sometimes you break up with me and sometimes I do something to scare you away but the nightmare always ends with me without you."

"You're gonna have to do a whole lot of weird stuff to scare me away, Jo. You're not getting rid of me so easily." He smiles and presses a kiss on the top of your head. "It's more likely for my nightmare to come true then yours." You mumble.

"Just know I'd run right into that burning building to get to you." Jo tells you, you smile. Suddenly you hear someone groan.

"We get it! You're lovesick fools! Go to sleep!"

"Yuma! Let them have their moment!" EJ replies, throwing a pillow to the younger boy.

"No! I'm not going to listen to another word of that!" Yuma states loudly.

"Jealous much?" You ask, looking over.

"Yes! That must be it!" Yuma exaggerates sarcastically. "I'm jealous because I don't have someone to talk to in the middle of the Goddamn night! Go. To. Sleep!" Jo and you look at each other with goofy smiles on your faces. "And turn the damn light off!"

"Shut up, Yuma!"

[girlstressed]

hi zo! thank you for being so kind to me last time! :) your posts about not being able to believe others when they tell you they like you sound like echoes of my thoughts. sorry if this is long, just spewing words! :) I'm a chronic overthinker and it's taken me an almost painful amount of time to somewhat believe people when they say they like me and want to spend time with me, because ultimately, I might not ever truly understand it and I can't control the whys and hows around their feelings. :) their feelings are their own and no amount of worry will change them. if anything, worrying about what they think/feel about me only puts me on edge when I'm talking to/being around them, which doesn't do our relationship any good. when really what I should be worrying about is if I like them. truly, the only thing I can and should have to do is be myself and figure out my own feelings and opinions about them, and let them do the same on their side. and always to believe their actions more than their words. and if they end up not liking me that much, that's okay. I am lovable, loving and loved, always and forever. but to reap the rewards of being loved, I have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known. which is exactly that, mortifying. but the right people will appreciate my vulnerability and fall head over heels for my honesty :) when I look back, I think I used to want to be loved but not known. I used to think something was seriously broken about me, because the idea of being known entirely was so scary to me, for exactly the same reason you mention – I was afraid they would change their mind and terrified that it would solidify my belief that I never stood a chance. I don't know it all yet, but I know that regardless of what life offers me, ultimately I want to be loved wholly, for who I am exactly, through to the bones, by someone I also love, in completeness. and for that I have to be known, again and again <3

omg ive kept this in my onbox for so long because i just like reading it its crazy that we have so many of the same thought processes (like wanting to be loved but not known)!! im glad u are working towards being able to accept love for urself <3 <3

[thoughtsat3amconstantly]

Donuts pt.2

“This one shall do.” You were found alone somewhere in Hopeland, but nobody had found you yet. You at least looked about two months old. Something made Knives captivated by you. He wasn’t sure why that was, but it wasn’t important to him. All that matters was that you prevented Vash from escaping. After the Doctor ran some tests on you, Knives deemed you worthy for Vash. Deep down, he had already deemed you worthy, but the tests ran were just to solidify his decision.

“You’re perfect. My brother would also find you perfect as well. I find nothing but the best!” He says so proudly. “Why am I all of a sudden talking to a baby? You can’t even speak bac- oh forget it, it’s time to take you to Vash.”

Vash heard footsteps approaching his cell. Ok Vash, this time steel your resolve, don’t take the donuts anymore! If it’s Legato, ignore him. He gets upset if no one acknowledges him, I can use that to my advantage. I’ll just have to take whatever damage he dishes out on me. “Hello Vash.” It’s my brother Nai! “Nai I won’t take any more of your donuts! I’m getting out of here wether you like or not!” That’s right Nai, I can’t be bought with donuts anymore! “I came to give this instead of donuts. I got this so that way you don’t eat nothing but donuts. Seriously Vash, you have problem.”

“Hey! Donuts are amazing! And I don’t have a problem!” Vash was about to continue more when he noticed cooing noises coming from the bundle Knives was holding. “Nai, what do you have?!” Knives tilled his head just a little with a smile and said, “a human baby.” He was so casual about it that it terrified Vash to no end. Why does he have a baby?! What’s he going to do with them?!

“You’re going to take care of this baby, I trust that you can do that. I only brought the baby so that way you can’t escape, it would be difficult. Besides, no one else will take care of it even if you leave the baby behind. You wouldn’t want that now would you Vash?” Vash was mortified. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing! Dammit Nai! How could you be so cruel?! “NAI HOW COULD YOU BE SO CRUEL! THIS IS JUST A BABY! YOU DIDN’T NEED TO BRING A BABY INTO THIS! DID YOU-” He interrupted by little whimpering noises. “Vash you’re scaring it, I suggest you soothe it because I’m not going to.” He said as he handed the baby to Vash. He had begun to rock the baby gently to calm it down.

“You’ll be in charge of taking care of it. We will supply whatever you need to take care of it.” Vash’s thoughts were racing, he had barely any idea on how to raise a baby, let alone in this environment! But one look at you made him determined to keep you safe and cared for. I will keep you safe, I promise. “I have no choice but to stay, but don’t think I won’t come up with a plan to escape Nai!” Knives was amused by this notion that he could escape. “How funny, really Vash I would have thought that you were smarter than that. You’ll be monitored heavily here, Legato will still keep an eye out on you. I don’t think you want to subject a baby to stress or harm. You’re going to stay here Vash, whether you like it or not. Your big brother knows best.”

Fuck! He hadn’t thought about that. This is going to be rough. Now I really need to get us out of this situation. I need to make sure the baby never knows about why they’re in this situation. I’ve got to protect them!

“You should name it. What will its name be?” Vash looked down at you with a soft smile and said “(Y/N).” It came off the tongue so nicely. It was a lovely name Vash heard before.

“Very well then, (Y/N) it shall be. Come along Vash, I’ll show you where you both will be staying. It will have the accommodations you’ll need. This cell won’t do.”

Don’t worry (Y/N) I’ll take good care of you.

A/N: This has been in my drafts for a little bit, sorry if there are any mistakes. I really hope you enjoyed it. I’m also calling this the Donuts au. I also have my ask open, so feel free to ask anything. Please let me know if it’s not working.

[revengegarden]

i love these childrens' drawings lynda barry shares in her making comics syllabus book... not realistic, pretty, but so raw & imaginative & gorgeous

If I love drawings like this, why can't I draw like this?

It's like an alarm trips in my body if I try to draw without some guarantee for the outcome, I need references, I need to think so much, and then my mind is so overwhelmed in half-thoughts and stuck and frozen and I feel mentally empty which feels miserable, so I avoid drawing. I have to think up some immense brilliant scheme, or intersecting array of schemes, in my head every time I go to draw, which actually means I can't draw, despite always wanting to.

I wonder what am I afraid of? When did it start?

I think the truth in these wild mystical childrens' drawings is that they come from the body, they're movement as much as thought. they're thought as movement... that's what drawing is.

there are so many different strategies and "low" art mediums i've tried, thinking, this will be free of the loaded baggage of art school and i can make art again without the anxiety shutting me down. when i got into fandom i thought that it would free me to draw something again.

but now i feel like fan art just made me fear ugliness. mostly the fandom drawings i see are so precisely good, legible, lovely. but i love love drawings that revel in ugliness... i'm obsessed with monsters, art that is monstrous, heavy, bad, bold. i want to do it but when it's my own hand i panic, i freeze, i can't move, my mind feels barren and awful

i have this vivid memory when i was in kindergarden (4-5 years old) of sitting at a table and having a paper plate with a gingerbread man cookie put in front of me. i had no idea why this was happening or what i was supposed to do. everyone else had a gingerbread man in front of them too, we were all sitting there, waiting. I took a bite out of it. in a few minutes they started passing out icing, candies, sprinkles... we were supposed to decorate them. a kid near me noticed my gingerbread man and said with a smirk "you bit your cookie?" I felt panicked and said no even though everyone could see i had, and I spent the decorating activity feeling so mortified and trying to conceal the shameful little chunk missing from my cookie's arm.

the (undiagonsed until adulthood) adhd kid i was maybe there had been instructions at some point i didn't notice. the few memories i have of that age at school are just ... a torrent of overwhelming sounds and sensory details crashing in on me, confusion, overstimulation.. and this constant anxiety that compounded on that of trying to pretend it was all fine, everyone else seemed ok, seemed to understand things, it was my job to pretend i did too. if i didn't act normal, my father might get mad at me too, and he could be terrifying. i probably learned how to mask at first at home.

i don't remember drawing when i was a kid, when i was in high school i never took art, even though i adored it. i think drawing reveals so much about you, you can only do it if you can be open to what it reveals, and the delicate ecosystem i'd built to protect myself at home and school as a kid depended on not doing that.

i didn't try to do any visual art of my own free will until i was in my early 20s. i had just broken up with someone who said i couldn't understand them because i wasn't 'in the arts'. as revenge, i signed up for a class in drawing (also bought a musical saw and learned how to play it ... eventually). after that i volunteered at a local gallery who put me in charge of the logistics for the chaotic BYOB life drawing sessions they had every week, and other than booking the model, setting up and taking people's cash i was free to draw with everyone ... my drawings had no training in anatomy or anything else about drawing really, but i loved them. the artists around me were so enthusiastic and encouraging about how distorted and free they were, it was sweet and fun. i loved drawing.

in a few years i went back to school for art and somewhere along the way i became totally fucked up about drawing and masking and neurodivergence and shame and fear all over again.

so the last few weeks i've been trying to draw like these kids in lynda barry's book seem to, just following their body, feeling an impulse in their bones and doing it, witnessing their desires express themselves openly, finding a place in it after.

i want to do something rough and strange and sparse and vivid and alive and monstrous and bad and whatever else ...

p.s. i'm just remembering, there was an infamous family photo of my first birthday cake - with a little bite take out of it. apparently when they had inexplicably paraded it toward me singing and then set it down in front of me, i looked around in confusion and then cautiously leaned forward to take a bite ... my response when i was young when presented with a baked item expectantly for a ritual i didn't understand seemed to be to take a bite out of it.

[screemnch]

I have… Probably over a hundred different little stories that I come up with as someone who definitely isn’t a maladaptive daydreamer… most of them are indulgent wish fulfillment that will never see the light of day and don’t actually go into the same categories as the stories that I plan on turning into books so…

On subjecting myself and my characters to the mortifying ordeal of being known I shall start with these casual little stories, and not my proper ones, starting with the most recent thing that my brain has been occupied with, namely…

These losers.

Read about them if you want, I guess. Though uh… Do be forewarned that this story touches upon things like transphobia and homophobia. Because we can’t have nice things.

In my head this is a bit of a… Coming of age story? The main focus would be on the characters on the right - Luke and Jade, who are siblings growing up in an… extremely conservative family. Their regular normal people life becomes a bit more complicated as Jade comes out as a tans girl. In the illustration I decided to draw her a bit later on in the story, once she is a little further along her transition, but as you could expect in the beginning it… Doesn’t really go over well. Her parents even consider sending her off to a conversion camp, though fortunately are convinced not to.

Luke is Jade’s older brother who, aside from taking after his parents, is also very easily influenced by his friends (who, unfortunately, aren’t very good people). He’s a textbook jock, with most people thinking his only possible future lies in a sports career. The only person unaware of this opinion is Luke himself, who is still invested in his studies, even when his teachers don’t have high hopes for him. Jade coming out was quite literally his first time putting any actual thought into his parents’ and his own biases. He… Doesn’t react well, at first. Eventually he does come around and makes up for the damage he’s caused.

Jade is about two years younger than the rest of the gang. There are… A few obvious things that she’s going through. At first she is quite literally alone against everyone and really really scared, but throughout the story she finds her confidence and learns to strike a balance between prioritizing her safety and genuine self expression. She comes across as shy to most people, but that’s only because she is under a lot of mental strain. In a comfortable environment she is a little goofball.

Hemlock and Colin are Luke’s classmates (the three of them are seniors at the start of the story), though they hardly ever spoke before the inciting incident. That incident being Colin breaking the nose of one of Luke’s friends and everyone having to go to the principal’s office.

Hemlock is a relatively chill person, though they participate quite regularly in activism. Them and Colin have been friends since middle school, which was partially thanks to that. As with many calm and sweet looking individuals, Hemlock is particularly terrifying when they get angry - not because they’re violent, but because they are willing to go to unreasonable extremes to do what they think is right. Being intersex (which is something I’d have to do a lot of research on if I wanted to make it into a story) they’ve had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and are eager to help others in need of support. When they hear about Jade’s transition, they immediately insert themselves into the situation.

Colin is the overly intense and angry counterpart to Hemlock’s chill and sweet personality. He also has a much shorter fuse than them and is quite a bit more violent. The kind of person that looks like they hate you even if they don’t. He grew up raised by a single mother and one of his big aspirations is to look like she did in her teenage years. He also does martial arts, though I’ve still yet to decide what kind. Despite his aggressive and hostile character, he gets along surprisingly well with Jade (through mostly making fun of her brother).

The story essentially kicks off a couple of days after Jade comes out and her parents are still contemplating sending her off to a conversion camp. Luke and his friends get into a bit of an altercation with Hemlock and Colin, which ends with said friend having his nose broken. While waiting at the principal’s office, through a bunch of shenanigans, Hemlock and Colin catch wind of what’s happening with Jade and decide that this is absolutely their business. The rest of the story is basically the four of these goofs clashing, goofing around and eventually becoming good friends. And maybe some found family. As a treat.

That’s… Extremely long for a short summary, but I’ve… Always wanted to share some of my oc concepts and stories, even if they’re a bit watery in terms of substance. I do intend to draw more of these characters, as well as potentially the characters from other stories and/or the dnd campaign I’m in. So yeah.

[courfeyracs-swordcane]

for rico: 1, 2, 5, 7, 14

1. What is your character's biggest fear, and how does it affect their actions and relationships?

HOOOO. she is simultaneously terrified of being close to people (mortifying ordeal of being known is a kind of power she doesn’t want anyone to have over her) and also because then she’s got weaknesses that can be used against her (girl who is determined to never watch anyone she cares about die ever again and has resolved to accomplish this by not caring about anybody anymore.)(top ten methods that Don’t Work and also then she fucks it up anyway but that’s kind of a long story)

There are other Big Fears but I’ve been typing forever (did these in reverse order) so I will come back if any of them stand out in my brain as an “oh god how could I forget that one”

2. What is something your character is deeply passionate about, and how does it drive their goals and motivations?

Okay I don’t know if it counts but besides the obvious. Going all in on the Decepticon cause (twice!), most of her goals and motivations are driven by her need to Move Forward? She pushed really hard on the idea of defecting once she’d heard some of the arguments— less for the idea of Leaving the Decepticon army and not even a little for the idea of joining the Autobots but for the sake of Seeing What Else Is Out There! Her and the whole unit (not Dyker. That’s a different problem) had spent their entire lives so far in one (1) building and/or ship (I don’t know that we ever decided where this was set?), they were built for the war effort and they work for the war effort and she believes in what they’re fighting for wholeheartedly but also it seems like a good idea to get some Contexts so she can have that identity and also know what it means!

And then from then on she goes BACK to the Decepticon army to climb her way up the ranks (well. She goes back bc she’s lonely and that’s where the only family she has left is, which ends the Worst Possible Way It Could Have for Her Specifically, and THEN she dives into climbing her way up the ranks) and she gets like. A normal amount and then fucks it all up reaching for too much (thinks she’s high enough up to get away with trying to assassinate the guy that killed Reefer. She Is Not.) and goes all the way back down to the bottom and also beat half to death about it. But she is not discouraged! (Yes she is.)(She got a lot of issues from that whole shebang.)

And then the war she was literally built for ends. And she’s on the wrong side. And megatron renounces the decepticons and tells them to all go their separate ways. And she has literally nothing to do with her life anymore. SO. she decides that She Is Going To Restart The War And Finish What He Started RIGHT this time. This also. Does not end well for her. I forgot what the question was I think I’ve strayed pretty far from actually answering it but here’s a plot summary

5. Does your character have any hidden talents or abilities that only a few people know about?

She was a medic for a while!!! Token guy in the original unit who knows how to do first aid and then when they all defected and Reefer (her platonic/familial Other Half) died and she dropped Hadron (her younger brother who she never really got along with and whom she is blaming all of this on because it was technically his idea in the first place and the other option is blaming herself) off with the Autobots she fucked off to go find some like. do transformers have Doctors Without Borders. Something like that.

7. How does your character handle failure or setbacks? Are they resilient or easily discouraged?

OH BOY HOWDY. she’s basically a series of failures in the shape of a girl (in the shape of a backhoe) and she takes them all Really Really Badly but also she hasn’t died yet, so 🤷‍♂️ (her main coping mechanism is throwing herself headfirst into whatever new questionable decision she’s making so she doesn’t have to look at her complete and utter lack of self-worth)(this goes. About as well as you might imagine.)

14. What is your character's preferred method of self-expression? Do they have any artistic talents or creative outlets?

God that would go a long way towards fixing her, wouldn’t it. No she does not but Roughhouse HAS 100% made the squad do Paint Nights on multiple occasions. She’s not good at it and it haunts and vexes her.

[yuukei-yikes]

Here’s a Harutaka ask for you! Do you think they’d get married? If yes what do you think their wedding would be like? Also I hope you feel better soon!

HIII if it isnt the little guy i watched slowly get into kagepro. whatsup. how are u holding up being into kagepro. ALSO THANK U im already a lil better i ate 1 single boiled egg and now im laying in bed

yes haruka and takane 10000% get so married. i have this silly headcanon that haruka is begging her from day 1 to get married because IDK he's just excited about being alive and takane liking him💗💗💗 and maybe he is also terrified of her changing her mind abt liking him and for some reason thinks getting married will solve that feeling of feeling not good enough for her💗💗💗 wait who said that. but takane's all like No haruka we're only like 20 and he's like AUUUUGGGHHH!!! fine

honestly its a hc born from a bit in the novels (im not sure u read them) where haruka says man i wish takane stopped swearing so much she's gonna have a hard time finding a husband💔💔💔 ITS SO FUNNY TO ME idk likeeee since he knew he'd die, he never imagined being an adult at all. this is more in the territory of the early twenties crisis he apparently has post str i guess. which is also hilarious.

i think haruka's like... he thinks of marriage of this weird alien thing bc as a teen he wont even entertain the idea of dating or anything bc HES DYING like he literally shoots down the acknowledgement of his feelings for takane BECAUSE he is dying. he's like man whats the fucking point if im just gonna die this sucks ASS

so marriage. well it's an adult thing. and he turns out to be alive!! and takane REALLY LIKES HIM FOR SOME REASON!!! and he's like WELL WERE ADULTS ARENT WE WHY THE HELL SHOULDNT WE GET MARRIED???? takane's like because we're BARELY adults like BARELY. and also IN SO MUCH NEED OF THERAPY. and haruka's like i dont see how that's related🙄🙄🙄 whatever takane ur such a bore🙄🙄🙄 its just a silly argument they laugh and tease each other about *rips hair out* theyre so CUTE AUGGHHH

yeah they do eventually get married. not IMMEDIATELY though but still probably rly young. like before their mid twenties young. LOL!!! as for a wedding i dont think they'd actually care about one??? because haruka and takane are really introverted ppl and being the center of attention mortifies both. well takane's used to attention bc streamer slay but its not. the same. like that's different BASICALLY i dont think takane would care to throw money in something like this and haruka is also like whatever man just sign the paper so i can officially be ur boywife. they still probably have like a little get together with the dan though. maybe they dont even tell them they're like OH BY THE WAY WE DID SOMETHING FUNNY TODAY wjxnoefuoendoefundkc call shintaro&ayano on the phone like can u come with us to sign as our witnesses. and shintaro and ayano are like WITNESSES OF WHAT? erm. haruka&takane engaged for exactly 14 hours when haruka asks takane to marry him for the millionth time and this time she's like uhhh. yeah alright👍

thats my harutaka wedding hc. that theyre too lazy to have a wedding🫡 ayano mourns it so much she's been like wedding planning her whole life for her siblings. seto&mary get ultra married as soon as theyre 18 im not getting into those hcs i already did but ayano goes so crazy with it. and then haruka&takane are next (tho years later) and ayano's like WH?? BUT IM?? SUPPOSED TO PLAN ANOTHER WEDDING????? WHAT DO U MEAN U WONT MAKE ONE???? and theyre like 🤷‍♂️ maybe she forces them and she organizes it alone and forces them to kiss in front of everyone and only then stops being annoying. sorry i love crazed wedding planner ayano

[thebittercorvus]

it was three in the morning when the realization that i really left hit me, alongside a wave of nausea and a headache that was forming in the deepest corner of my damaged brain.

to be completely fair, i've never been made for long distance trips. or short distance trips. or any trip at all because i've always hated leaving the confort and safety of the broom closet that i oftentimes found myself calling bedroom, even though it was more closely related to a cave or a glorified storage room with a bed crammed inside.

but, as i looked through the window and into the endless void of the night, and wondered why is that driving through a rural area always left me with such an unsettling feeling of being followed to the ends of the world, burdened with the knowledge that i packed everything i owned inside a school's backpack and yet everything i ever cared about was left behind alongside a decade of work stored inside a box, inside another box, and hidden away from my mother's treacherous hands and unprivy eyes that would undoubtely search through my most private thoughts under the guise of being worried, as mothers do, but was actually looking for yet another excuse to martyrize herself and in turn mortify me even further. mother, i would wish to say only to end up saying it to myself, if all of your problems can only be solved by blaming others, then i'm afraid none of them will ever get a solution you'll be happy about. somehow i've been to blame for everything and nothing at the same time ever since i was born, both dearly beloved and deeply detested but perhaps that's just something you gotta learn to live with when you're the eldest kid and also a woman.

i left everything behind and yet it felt as if i was carrying too much.

where i was going didn't matter as much as the fact as i was finally leaving, an idea as terrifying as the fact that what i carried with me was nothing more than three days worth of clean clothes, twenty bucks on cash and absolutely no phone, so that if i died no-one would be able to locate me- not that somebody would notice for at least a month really. and of course the fact that my past weigthed more than all the belongings i carried with me combined and those i had to bring, unlike all of the things i actually cared about, my own heart included which i ripped out of my chest and exchanged for a single chance, and that i left inside a box, inside another box, hidden under a stash of poetry books i've read a thousand of times trying to find exactly how my words should look like and barely protected with a prayer to the god of the unheard that, for all was unholy in my life, my family wouldn't decide to go through everything i left behind.

the driver would leave me in the border. from then on, we would be on our own.

it was more conforting knowing that we were on our own for sure, than thinking we could rely on something or someone just to realize it really didn't got our backs, unless it was to stab us of course. for that, we would eventually have a coyote, whom i would have to trust with my life for the entire course of the six hours i spent hidden inside the ruins of a shit smelling bathroom just outside of the military station right at the borders more than what i've trusted my father with a bottle of rum in his hands my entire twenty years of life.

i wonder if alcoholism and narcissism are as hereditary as depression and heart related diseases. i wonder if i can also hide those in a box, stored inside another box, and pray so that no-one will look inside.

i didnt see the light until i got to the other side, though there were plenty of sunrises. each day i wondered how the future would look like and if i would be able to eventually stop carrying my past. the light at the end of the tunnel could be freedom. could be another train coming at you. both ways are the end of a journey.

eventually i arrived to a place that was strange and hostile and made my skin dry out. they also blamed us for everything and nothing for reasons as creative as the place i was born and how it only gave birth to thieves, crooks and man stealing whores. it was better than waking up to the sound of a fight exploding right besides my glorified storage room, but it made me realize i loved greenery of my mountains, my mercury contaminated river and the unpolluted skies of my city that was really just a sligthly-bigger-than-average town a whole lot more than i loved myself.

one day i might be able to trade all of the time i've spent slaving myself away for the comfort and safety that can be found in her arms, and maybe on that day i'll finally find out if it's true that home is where the heart is.

—the fate of the moon; [?] thebittercorvus

[getblackout503]

Chapter 20, I literally love this chapter cuz I took such a different direction I wasn’t expecting. I hope you guys enjoy this one

—————————

Hour one

As soon as we got into the truck Dante immediately wrapped his arm around me, he grabbed my left arm in a way that seemed innocent, but in reality he was gripping my arm so hard I was sure it would leave bruises. He told me things such as “I’ve missed you Amara.” And “you’ll be so happy once we arrive home.” But I doubt that, I truly do.

Hour two

We were halfway to the Zogratis estate, there I knew I would have no chance of ever escaping again. But in the end I guess this truly is the best outcome for everyone. They no longer have to deal with her nuisances and could live normal lives. Sure she would be leaving Zora, Vanessa, Yami…Gauche. No, they’re better off without her in their lives. Yes, truly this was the best outcome.

Hour three

We were now reaching the Zogratis estate, and all the memories of the years living there started re-entering in Grey’s head. The years of abuse, mistreatment, and a fate worse than death started reappearing. But she knew this and willingly went anyway, so she deserves this.

Right?

Hour four

Dante had ushered, or more so shoved her into the building and into the elevator, where they started heading to the very top. Once there she saw the same penthouse suite just as she remembered it, but it had a terrifying air to it. And now it was the complete opposite to when Grey first stepped into the suite, and by some almost cruel fate the same musical that played her first day there played once again.

‘I thought this time was different’

‘Why did I think he’d be different?’

‘but it’s NEVER’

‘EVER’

‘Different’

Six, heh what a cruel world indeed.

Hour five

After a shower that I somehow enjoyed, I was given the Zogratis trademark clothes, all black clothing. Once I, begrudgingly, exited the room I was greeted by Zenon, Dante, and Kira having a meeting in the living room. I was sure Kira was arrested once we leaked all his crimes, but here he was sitting at a table eating the most expensive food money could offer as if he wasn’t the reason thousands of women, men, and children fear for their lives in horrid smelling cages. But I wasn’t the only one upset to see a person, for when he saw me he threw a fit. Cursing me and threatening my life, only to be shut down by Dante. Not that it mattered, for anything Kira planned on doing Dante would do something hundred times worse.

Hour Six

I sat at the dinner table, it was terrifying not only because I didn’t know what they put into the food but also because Vanica had arrived. She was covered in bandages from the crash she had, and was giving off the feeling of blood lust, I swear I could see her playing with her knife while staring directly at me. Yet she couldn’t do anything without her brothers’ permission, and for some strange reason they seem to be calm, though Dante still gave off some feeling of resentment while Zenon just felt empty. I stared at the piece of steak with some vegetables on the side, I decided it would be best to eat as I didn’t know what would come and rather at least face it with a full stomach. But that didn’t make eating it any more easier.

Hour seven

We were all sitting in the living room and the air felt tense, like one wrong movement would set something off and I felt like I was the trigger. It was mortifying really, the fact that I didn’t know what they were planning and that I was at their mercy. But this is what I get for causing so much trouble to my friends, I’m sure they’re better off without me.

Hour eight

I have gotten any sleep yet, and morning is already arriving. Yet I don’t want to sleep or even got to bed at all, I fear what will happen if I enter that room, I fear what will happen if I close my eyes. Will I wake up in that same cage all those years ago? Will I wake up chained to my bed? Will I wake up and find myself being dissected by Vanica? My mind ran wild as those thoughts began to plague my brain, truly I could never find peace even in sleep.

Hour nine

The sleep deprivation is really getting to me and it shows, I’ve started dozing off, my muscles have been feeling weaker, I’m yawning more, and I’ve started seeing things. Things like Vanessa and I going out to go shopping, Zora and I going to Broadway to see a musical, Yami taking me to a park to enjoy the scenery, and Gauche…And Gauche…I closed my eyes as tears threatened to spill. He’s better off without me, he’ll forget me, he’ll find someone else, a better girl, that he’ll fall in love with instead, marry, have kids with….fuck I was making myself feel worse. That thought of that just made me fall deeper in despair, as I closed my eyes tighter I felt sleep take me.

Hour ten

I barely could move a muscle as I only slept for an hour, yet I still managed to get up. I woke up in my room or where I’ll be staying for the rest of my life. I didn’t know how I got into my room, but I did know that I may not want to question it. I checked my body to make sure everything seemed right, which it was. I looked outside a lo and behold it was morning, precisely 9 Am. The day had officially started, god knows what awaited me today.

Hour eleven

Staring out the window seemed to be my only sense of freedom, just peering out at the open world was my only escape from the hell I willingly threw myself into. I knew this would happen so I should just take it, no complaining, no getting upset…no more freedom. I immediately closed the blinds of the window.

Hour twelve

Just power through

Just power through

Just power through

Just power through

Just power through

Just power through

Just power through

Just power through

Just power through

Please Amara…just power through.

Hour thirteen

Who am I again?

……

…..

….

…

Oh right, I am

…

….

…..

……

Amara greyson

[snazzymolasses]

Story time!

So I once had this friend in 7th grade and we had just met so we'd only known each other for a few months. And for my birthday she wrapped up her favorite paperback book and when I opened it she said "So this is my favorite book ever, I actually want it back, but you seem like a really cool person and I trust you with it."

And as weird as a present that might sound like, at 13 years old it seemed really neat and I felt so honored that she trusted me and I started reading it and I kinda liked the story, I mean I was REALLY TRYING to like the story.

Anyway, it was a paperback and back then I had a really bad habit of cracking the spines back on paperback books as I read them like this:

So I went and did that and ALL THE PAGES FELL OUT.

ALL OF THEM.

THE ENITRE BOOK DISINTEGRATED AND BECAME JUST LOOSE PAGES ALL OVER THE FLOOR AND A DETATCHED COVER EMPTY IN MY HANDS

and I was TERRIFIED and MORTIFIED and felt SO GUILTY that I had ruined this kid's FAVORITE book that she had TRUSTED ME WITH

and I panicked and sobbed and cried and then calmed down and thought "I can fix this"

So I was like "Okay, first I should at least gather up all the pages and put them back in order, nbd"

THE PAGES. DID NOT. HAVE NUMBERS.

So I was forced to sit there and read EVERY PAGE of a story that I had only read the first quarter of, to try to figure out what went where.

It took me WEEKS.

Meanwhile, she's asking me at school "How do you like the story?" and I'm like "Oh I'm still at this part" (because it had taken me three days to find the next two pages to where I was up to), but ALSO I had read lots of spoilers? But out of order? And sometimes I forgot that and told her about a part that was ahead of where I was and she was like "But that didn't happen yet" she must have thought I was an absolute nutcase

ANYWAY, eventually I got all the pages back in order. And the only way my 13-year-old brain could think of to get these pages BACK between the covers and STAY THERE was to tape them. So I painstakingly started taping each page back against the spine, carefully putting one attached to the next, and it looked pretty good, until slowly it started to take on a pyramid shape, kinda like this?

So when I was done I had this MONSTROSITY that was obviously an UTTERLY DESTROYED book, and then she kept asking me for it back, and I kept saying I was still reading it, until one day she said something like "I really loved the part where [ending scene]" and I said "Yeah that was great" and she said "AH-HA! You DID finish it! I knew it! Now I want it back!"

And so I fessed up. Without showing it to her I said "I'm sorry, I know it was your favorite book and I REALLY tried to take care of it (lie), but like. The pages fell out. Like. All of them. And I tried to fix it, and it's kinda back together, but it's like, a mess."

And I stood out there on the precipice, waiting for this friendship to be over, for her to start screaming/crying/angering at me, and instead she says

"Oh, that's okay. The pages fell out on me all the time too. I read it too much."

I TRIED to feel relieved, but I was truly worried that I hadn't accurately described to her just HOW badly I had destroyed this book. But I didn't have a choice, I went and brought it to school the next day and I was REALLY trying to prepare her with phrases like "It's kinda sticky" and "it's not the right shape" and so on, but eventually I just had to pull this monster out of my backpack and hand it to her.

Her face was unreadable, I could tell she was NOT prepared for what she received, but she wasn't really reacting. So meekly I said "Yeah, so it looks awful, but you can still read it, right? Every page is there, I swear. And in order."

And then I'll never forget this part. She said "Wow, it looks like you tried really hard to fix it. This probably took forever." and I was like "Yeah. That's what took me so long. I actually read the whole thing months ago."

And then she said "So you really did care about my book. You put all this effort into fixing it. Nobody else has ever cared about my book this much. It feels really special. And you really DID read it!"

and I was like "I had to, there are no numbers on the pages." and then she looked and it dawned on her what I'd had to do to get the pages in order, and she started laughing, and then we both laughed, and then we started to talk about the story and bond over that and I knew the danger of her getting upset was over.

I think it was the first time in my life I experienced true forgiveness. Like. She didn't harp on the part where I messed up. She focused on the part where I tried to make it right. It was something special.

I wish I could say "and then we remained friends forever", but she ended up moving to another school the next year, and I never saw her again. But wow, do I remember that moment, when she forgave me, when I thought I had destroyed something someone else loved, but ended up making it better instead. I learned a lot about humanity, and about myself, and probably more lessons than I realize even now from that moment, all from a book that 'accidentally' fell apart which I tried to put back together.

The easiest lesson I learned though was to never crack a paperback spine ever again.

All the pages. Every one

hmmmmmmmmm. Death penalty