#um idk if i will write more?

[izuqi]

kinda just stalked ur whole page and would kill for a kenma oneshot literally could be anything

"c'mon pretty, i know you can take more." kenma sighs, looking down at you with a smirk on his face, almost like he's laughing at your pathetic attempts to take him all in your mouth.

you pull off of him with a slight whimper, looking up at him, tears beginning to fall. "i-i can't do it." you sniffle. kenma things you look so beautiful, the smudged mascara under your eyes, the tears streaming down your face, and the drool falling down from your swollen lips.

"don't cry baby," kenma says, feigned sympathy laced in his voice. he wipes away a tear from your cheek. "it's okay pretty, i'll help you." kenma smiles down at your embarrassing state. he twirls your hair into a makeshift ponytail, pushing you back down onto his cock, till your nose comes in contact with his pelvis. tears start to fall quicker, you can feel your throat burn as he pushes your head for you, completely controlling your movements.

kenma felt amazing. it was sloppy, extremely sloppy. spit and precum everywhere, on his dick, on his legs, on your face, and kenma loved it. "god, your fucking mouth is so sloppy." he groans. starting to bob your head faster, "fucking love it so much." you moan around his cock, grabbing onto his thighs for stability. kenma whimpers. the feeling is so euphoric for him, everything about it, even just looking at your face. you look so beautiful looking up at him. "i'm gunna cum," he pants "take it all for me-" his eyes squeeze shut and he bucks his hips up.

he cums, so much, so much into your mouth. it reminds just you how bad he eats.

[helixcraft]

the fish that keeps appearing all over my recommended only that he's out of jail and happy

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The TTPD Deep Dive (Part ?)

It’s no secret that I have a lot of Thoughts about The Tortured Poets Department and it has lived rent-free in my head since it came out earlier this year. I’m absolutely blown away by how underneath the chaos, it’s actually an exceptionally cohesive story and is probably the closest to a concept album Taylor has ever done.

There are so many themes that have stood out to me over the last five months, and there’s one in particular that I think not only drives the entire album, but ties into previous albums to help deepen understanding of it.

This is it, my fangirl magnum opus, my months of posts consolidated into one place. This is also my disclaimer that this is just my interpretation of the album, and my summary of the story it tells, and I don’t pretend to have any special insight or authority. I’m not saying I’m correct at all, do not take any of this as fact, it’s just what it sounds like to me, and these are my silly not-so-little thoughts about it.

(Under a cut because it’s way too long and involves discussion many may not care for or be sick of.)

Come one, come all, it's happening again (I'm thinking too hard about Taylor music)

The overarching theme in TTPD to me is: Grief. If you’re looking at TTPD as a story being told (instead of just as someone’s real life), the inciting incident of TTPD is loss, and the grief from that loss is what drives the narrator’s actions and the fallout, as well as unpacks those complicated feelings and how they apply to the her life in general. By the end of the standard album, it’s also about recovering from that pain, moving on from it and learning from it.

The loss specifically is the loss of the dream of having a family (with one’s partner). One thing that is abundantly clear both on the top line and under the surface in TTPD is how Taylor (as a person and as narrator) longed not only to for marriage but specifically parenthood, and the fear and then realization of losing that chance absolutely wrecked her— which is why the next lover’s (the conman's) wooing worked so well, because it preyed on that yearning. Yet that loss also dovetails into the grief of many things: of youth, of idealism, of relationships, of ideas, even of self, which causes almost a deconstruction of a belief system to piece one’s life back together by the end.

THE CONTEXT

TTPD weaves in the topics of marriage and motherhood both explicitly and in the subtext, in various forms and scenarios. The cheating husband in “Fortnight.” The wedding ring line in “TTPD” the song. “He saw forever so he smashed it up” in “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.” All of “So Long, London.” Running away with her wild boy in “But Daddy I Love Him,” fantasizing about weddings and joking about babies. The imaginary rings in “Fresh Out The Slammer.” The cheating husband (again) and the friends who smell like weed or “little babies” in “Florida!!!” “You and I go from one kiss to getting married,” “Talking rings and talking cradles,” and “our field of dreams engulfed in fire” in “loml.” (And arguably: “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”) “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short,” in “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.” They may not sound like much on their own, but they paint a picture about how the topics pervaded her thoughts and her writing, and in many cases express her desires, and her pain.

It’s something that goes back several albums when you pick up on context clues. You get the first hints on Reputation with “New Year’s Day,” and “you and me forevermore.” Then Lover is very forward with it: “Lover” is basically wedding vows, “Paper Rings” is very engagement-coded, “I Think He Knows” is cheeky but low-key “you better put a ring on it,” “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” has wedding/marriage imagery in the last verse. As a self-professed diaristic writer, it’s the type of stuff one presumably doesn’t put out there unless those conversations have already happened, and she was very excited about it at the time it was released.

Then the pandemic happens and folklore comes out, and while there is still happy love there (“invisible string”), there are also the first indications that something has happened to put a halt to whatever future she once dreamed of (“hoax,” “the lakes”) and that she’s trying to reassure herself and him that it can still happen even if she’s scared it might not (“peace”). Notably, as far as I can remember it’s the first time Taylor explicitly brings up the idea of family (with her partner) with “you know that I’d give you my wild, give you a child,” which stood out at the time because it’s so incredibly vulnerable, but it’s even more poignant when you really take in that the whole song is like a confession of her deepest worries, and this is her vowing to give him these things that she holds most sacred if he’ll let her. These are what she cherishes most dearly and wants to return in kind: her youth and commitment (my wild), the family she craves (a child), unconditional support (swing for the fences/sit in the trenches) and understanding/compassion (silence that only comes when two people know each other).

Evermore follows an even darker path, and suddenly the album explores relationships that end and grappling with loss. There are toxic relationships (“tolerate it”), dangerous marriages (“no body, no crime,” “ivy”), failing/broken relationships (“Coney Island,” “champagne problems,” “happiness,” “‘tis the damn season”), as well as grief (“Marjorie,” “evermore”). Even some of the happy songs have uncertainty in them: in “willow” she’s begging for him to take her lead, like she’s still trying to decipher him and ask him to commit; in “cowboy like me,” still a beautiful love song, she’s thinking, “this wasn’t supposed to work and we were supposed to bail on each other but we fell in love instead”; “evermore” is about the depths of severe depression (and more) with the love story being the one saving grace in her darkest hour. And it’s also notable that after all the “fiction” writing, shortly after this album she writes “Renegade” where she’s telling the subject: I’m ready to start the next phase of our life now, why aren’t you? Is it me you don’t want after all? It’s like there’s something telling her that this stall might not just be a stall.

Midnights is a jumble (in a good, but in hindsight, also sad way) with the “sleepless nights” concept, but it seems pretty clear now that the themes and events and relationships she was revisiting tied into a lot of what she was feeling in her present life. I wrote the cliff notes version awhile back, but she’s questioning so much of her life that’s reflected in past events and relationships. Am I actually always the problem? How did we lose sight of each other and what we had? We only seem to work when we block out everyone and everything else. Can we ever go back to when things were good? Why are you neglecting me? I once thought I was going to lose everything but you saved me in the nick of time, can that happen again? I chased my career, but did I give up my chance at having a family in the process? Nobody knows what I really suffer from behind closed doors and I’m all alone.

And so on, which in retrospect now that we have TTPD, is very much what she was grappling with in private while writing and releasing the album. The inspiration behind the songs may have been different events and muses, but regardless of their origins they all end up feeling too familiar, like she's seen this film before (ahem). We’re seeing her view of commitment change too, or rather how she writes about it: she’s not making the outright declarations of it like on Lover, or even the implied ones on folklore, nor is she talking of the dark side of it like evermore. For the most part it’s a return to the early days of some relationships, before things got hard, or the end of them when there was nothing left, and also pushing away the discussion of it altogether by the outside world. “Sweet Nothing” is a sweet slice of life, but even at that, it’s the peace of the home in conflict with the pressure of the outside world. Now that we have “You’re Losing Me,” which was written at the same time as the rest of the album, we can probably deduce that she was going back to the start because something happened that made her doubt the future.

THE SETUP

So much of Midnights directly ties into TTPD, and I said in the post I linked that it’s like Midnights is asking the questions that TTPD answers. But there’s one song in particular on Midnights that sticks out to me as being key in the broadest sense to understanding the state of mind that led to the events of TTPD, and that’s “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” because the way it expresses grief is reflected in the theme of mourning a life built and the dreams along with it that are never realized in TTPD. There are several instances in TTPD that are basically variations of: “every single thing to come has turned into ashes,” and that’s what makes her snap, and leaves her vulnerable to someone who promises her those things when she’s bereaved at losing them in the first place. (In other words: “the deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling.”) The song tells a story about how that loss of hope colours one’s entire mindset, and in some ways is a bridge to TTPD to understand what such a low point feels like.

I think that that grief, and most importantly losing hope for an imagined future in its wake, is fundamental to understanding TTPD on so many levels: both the decline with one partner that kept her hanging on then led her such a dark path, and why she fell for the conman's apparent bullshitting because it offered an express pass to what she was losing with her partner. And I also feel like it plays a part into the ruminating she’s doing all over Midnights, trying to make sense of where she finds herself when she’s writing the album, which directly leads to “You’re Losing Me.” Loss permeates so many of the stories on Midnights: of lovers, of innocence, of youth, of faith, of control, of life’s work, etc. “BTTWS” is just one of the ways in which it is expressed so fully, capturing that deep depression and subsequent extinction of faith in something that once felt assured and very much wanted. (Which is also mentioned in her writing process in the “Depression” playlist on Apple Music.)

If you understand why that feeling of loss in general across so many parts of life is so important to Midnights, then it illuminates so much about the “narrative” in TTPD too. If on Midnights she’s wrestling with the seeds of grief and loss (on multiple fronts), TTPD is her reckoning with it in its full form. “So Long, London” is the song that is the most explicit about it: How much sad did you think I had in me? How much tragedy? Just how low did you think I’d go before I’d have to go be free? You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof. It’s the sequel to “You’re Losing Me.” It’s, the air is thick with loss and indecision, I know my pain is such an imposition, I’m getting tired even for a phoenix, all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, I’ve got nothing left to believe unless you’re choosing me, my heart won’t start anymore, but from the other side of the break.

This is highly speculative, but if you follow the thread about the topic and the relationship as told from Rep through TTPD, in broad strokes it goes: young love with a serious connection (Rep) -> growing up and making life plans (Lover) -> something happens that delays those plans or makes them grind to a halt (folklore) -> serious doubts arise and cause a loss of faith in their future (evermore) -> struggling with the loss of that future and trying to make sense of the problems in a last ditch attempt to save the relationship (Midnights) -> fallout from that grief after the blowup of the relationship (TTPD). Understanding that progression of events (through the music) explains not only the storytelling side of TTPD (e.g. the jump from the partner to the conman) but also how the experiences/muses blend in the music, and how the music that on the surface is about the short-term relationship is really driven by the destruction of the long-term one.

Following the music, it’s IMO implied that Taylor (the narrator) was holding out for marriage and family with her partner, for years, and it seems like it was at one point a shared dream until something happened to pump the brakes, and seemingly on her partner’s end. And extrapolating further, given how the sorrow expressed in former albums bleeds into TTPD, it sounds like a plan that had been concrete in some form before it had fallen apart, and losing something that once felt so tangible is what drives her in her grief to find any kind of respite from the pain. Which is why the situation with the conman becomes so appealing as the one with the partner splinters further and further.

(If everything you’ve once touched is sick with sadness and you don’t want to be sad anymore, what are you left to do?)

THE STORY

So (one part of) the story kind of sounds like this from the standard album: the relationship with her partner as well as his mental health slowly deteriorate and he withdraws emotionally (“London,” “Fresh Out The Slammer”) and physically (again, “London,” and “Guilty As Sin?”) and takes his resentment out on her (“London” and arguably “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” even though I don't want to get into muse speculation here). As she sinks deeper into her own depression as a result, the weight of the failing relationship starts feeling like a cage— or a noose (“London,” “Guilty”), but coming to terms with the loss of their life together and the future they’d dreamed of was killing her (again, “London,” but also “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”).

Enter the conman who she reconnects with at the very point where this is coming to a head (knowing that IRL she reconnected with him around the time Midnights was being worked on) , and if you read between the lines, she confides some deeply personal things to him (“Down Bad” and “hostile takes overs”/“encounters closer and closer,” “Smallest Man” and the entire sleeper cell spy imagery which is one of my favourite things and I could write a whole essay about the meaning of it, “loml” and “A con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme”). Then after she’s confided these secrets to him, he insinuates himself back into her life (“Guilty,” “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man”) and sells her a dream that HE can give her all these things she hopes for (again, “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man,” “loml,” song “TTPD,” “Broken Heart”).

But the thing is, he only knows these are the things she wants because she’s revealed it to him, and presumably, told him that was what she was losing by staying with her partner. And instead of the normal response of, “that is really sad that your partner is not supporting you and you deserve to be treated better,” to a friend in growing distress, it seems like it was, “well I can give you all those things!!!! Right now!!!! Trust me!!!!” And worked on her until she believed it, and jumped at the chance at a precarious time in her life. And one thing I want to underscore is: Taylor has agency in the situation always, it’s not like she’s been kidnapped and brainwashed. (In fact, she implores on songs like “But Daddy” that SHE is in charge of her own choices, good or bad.) She chose to rekindle the friendship and then relationship, and she chose to eventually leave her long term relationship for another man, and she reiterates on the album that she owns this all. But it’s also: nothing exists in a vacuum, and she makes choices based on emotions and information she has at the time, which is why it gives so much whiplash.

THE ALBUM

When you look at it as, the situation with the conman only happens because of what happened with the partner first and that the appeal of the conman and the fantasy he sells her is a direct reaction to that, it makes the “swirliness” of the music make so much more sense. And for much of it, even many of the “conman” songs on the surface are really “partner” songs underneath.

Fortnight

A suburban gothic allegory about a broken marriage with a distant husband with a wandering eye, which makes the rekindled romance with the neighbor so appealing. She’s miserable caged in her stifling house because she’s been abandoned by her spouse, so the reappearance of this past love reignites the passion that’s dead at home.

TTPD

“So tell me, who else is gonna know me?” “I chose this cyclone with you.” I’m gonna kill myself if you ever leave. Everyone knows we’re crazy. She’s laying it out there that she’s already in a dangerous state of mind, and she’s actively putting herself in more danger by pursuing the conman. “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding,” spells this whole thing out so clearly: whether it’s an actual event (likely) or a metaphor for the promise he makes to her, the reason why it makes her heart explode is because it’s the thing she’s been waiting for forever with no movement, and here this person comes in and slips it on her finger in an instant like it’s nothing. (And eventually, as we’ll come to know, it is absolutely nothing to him.) You mean it could have been this easy this whole time?! (Well, no. Not until a certain other suitor makes his appearance later.) It feels like she’s finally getting everything she wanted in the blink of an eye! How lucky! How convenient! What was that about the get-love-quick scheme you say? (Unsaid: the reason why this feels so urgent is because there’s a sense that time is running out in so many aspects of her life and not just the obvious. Which reappears later on.)

Down Bad

“Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” sets the scene for this euphoric experience in the moment that starts to feel violating once the dust settles (which is then followed up in “Smallest Man” and the spy mission on her). The bridge spells out how he weaselled his way into her life, preyed upon (intentionally or not) her emotional state, sold her a dream and then vanished, without the benefit of hindsight yet we see later in the album.

The alien abduction metaphor is pretty brilliant, because it shows both how she was desperate to escape the place she found herself in, and how much it screwed her brain to then be left stranded when the affair was over. “[I loved your] hostile takeovers, encounters closer and closer,” is so evocative because it details how the situation came to be: his overtures under the guise of friendship blurred lines until he made her an offer that she eventually couldn’t refuse (hostile takeovers) as he infiltrated her life more and more intimately. The sad thing is that the song has parallels to how her relationship with the partner started too in earlier albums, in that they ran away to live in their own bubble (or planet) only for him to metaphorically abandon her as the years went on. (Oven, meet microwave.)

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

Being continually emotionally broken down by a person who knows he’s hurting you but still acts the way he does. (The original voice memo version makes this even clearer and it’s rather heartbreaking.) “He saw forever so he smashed it up,” speaks to the loss of a future the person became scared of, and the original lyrics (“he saw forever so he blew it up”) somehow cut even deeper to me because it feels so much more intentional.

Also in the original version, “he was my best friend and that was the worst part,” also speaks not only to the loss of an entire partnership in the wake of this hurt, but also to the feelings of betrayal that the person you trust so deeply has the ability to hurt you in this way too, and how it’s a one-two punch of not only losing the relationship but also your closest confidant. (It’s like the sequel to “Renegade” and the missiles firing to me.) Again, there are shades of both/many situations in the song, pointing to an unfortunate pattern in some ways. The situation in “My Boy” is part of why she was so low, and why the “get love quick scheme” was so appealing later on. And it dovetails nicely into…

So Long, London

The most explicitly “partner” song that puts a coda on “You’re Losing Me,” and is Track 5 because it’s the emotional underpinning of how she got to where she was, and drives the events of the rest of the album. It spells everything out: He withdrew, she tried to fix it for both of them, eventually even that stopped working, he was oblivious to or minimized how badly she was suffering and his (in)actions couldn’t reassure her, he wouldn’t move forward on their future plans and stewed in his own struggles, she was spiralling out of control trying to hang on and ultimately felt like she was going to die if she didn’t leave.

But Daddy I Love Him

Like a direct reaction to “So Long, London” in that she breaks free from the death of one relationship and throws herself with reckless abandon to the next, fuck the haters. How dare you judge me, when the relationship you think I should have stayed in was killing me? (Dutiful daughter all the plans were laid. All you want is gray for me.) Fuck all of you, I’m going to choose whoever I want! (So what if I have a baby with HIM, huh?! I tried doing it the proper way and look where that got me so now we're back to square one) It’s again her imagining how wonderful and freeing this “wild boy” is going to be for her, and how wrong she’ll prove everyone. THIS TIME she definitely got it right. So what if she has to run away! So what if she scandalizes the whole town! They don’t know what she really wants or needs anyway! She’s the only one of her (hee-hee-hee) and she’s the only who gets to decides how this goes. (Because: she longs for control in a situation she’ll eventually realize she has little of it in, which we’ll find out is a recurring theme in her life.)

Fresh Out The Slammer

Also spells out what happened with the partner in the first verse and the pre-choruses, which is what makes the conman so appealing as the imagined jailbreak. The bitter loneliness vs. the sultry passion she builds up in her head as she awaits her release from prison is key to understanding the two sides of the story in the album. There’s this whole outlaw imagery (which is also carried through in “I Can Fix Him”), but it’s contrasted in the end with her and her reunited lover sitting on park swings like children with “imaginary rings” — because “Ain't no way I'm gonna screw up now that I know what's at stake.” What’s at stake is lasting love and the promises that come with it (marriage/family) that are precious and time-sensitive. The imaginary rings are both a nod to the youthful dreams of her and her new/old lover, but also has a double meaning to me because those promises aren’t built on anything together; they're made up, intangible. (They’re no more concrete than the plans that went up in smoke with the partner.) Like with most of the conman situation, it’s all a fantasy in her head that has yet to happen, and as we find out later in the album, reality ends up leaving much to be desired.

Florida!!!

Broadly speaking, it’s running away from your problems and wanting to disappear from your life. (But again: the life she’s disappearing from is the cheating husband she may or may not be feeding to the swamp-- another miserable marriage.) What kind of flies under the radar though is the “I don’t want to exist,” line, which points to her dire state of mind that led her to fleeing to that metaphorical timeshare down in Destin. In many ways about cheating death.

Guilty As Sin

Yes it’s the “masturbation song,” but again the nuance is that she’s left to pleasure herself because her partner has abandoned her emotionally and even physically, i.e. “my boredom’s bone deep.” To be blunt: they aren’t even intimate anymore, so she starts fantasizing about the guy she used to have chemistry with who’s reentered her life and is making moves on her. And realizing that she’s now finding release in another man (albeit imaginary) breaks her even as it reinvigorates her because she finally understands that the relationship she’s in is effectively dead. (“Am I allowed to cry?”)

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me

This isn’t about relationships, but about society and its reaction to them in a general sense. But again, she’s left to stew in all this anger and hurt as she’s been abandoned at home, then abandoned by public opinion, and the public attack on her is part of the origin as well as the end of that story. The trauma inflicted upon her detailed in the song is the reason why she felt trapped in the first place, which led to the decisions she’s made and habits she’s leaned on ever since.

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

This is one of the few songs that is the most completely conman-coded, and shows when the delusion finally breaks at the end of the song. She spends the whole song being like, “no really, I alone can make him better! You’ll see! I know he’s gross, but he’s mine! It’ll be fine I swear! You don’t know anything! Uuuuuum hmm wait actually what the fuck—“

Loml

Oof. THE song. Again the surface reading is about the “conman” who comes in and sells her the lie, but the pain is because all the dreams she writes about are HER dreams and implied that they were the dreams she built with her partner that the conman sold back to her. I could do a deeper dive on this but most of the song is applicable to both relationships, which not only shows the “swirliness” of her writing, but also how they both ultimately did the same thing to her in different shades.

The bridge and the last chorus are kind of fundamental to understanding it all, and her ending it with “you’re the loss of my life” is about, among other things, how falling for this trap blew up the life she built and dreamed of for good. (I could talk about this one forever.) “You shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles” to “Our field of dreams engulfed in fire” is a hell of a line and progression, and again, indicative of what the real driving force behind the whole album is. The shit-talking is because he took her dreams (of marriage and children) and hyped it back up to her tenfold whether in a moment of his own delusion or for more nefarious reasons — much like how the man prior kept promising these things but never followed through, which left her vulnerable to someone who appeared to offer them enthusiastically. The field of dreams isn’t just the one with the conman, it’s the one with the longterm relationship she’d built the dream with in the first place, because the conman’s actions are part of the reason the LTR went up in smoke. (Not the reason for the rift, but the consequence of the final break.) And THAT is why it’s the loss of her life, so completely.

When she says “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all,” IMO it’s not just the fake future that the conman lures her into, but also (and perhaps mainly) the once-real one she had with her partner and the loss of which that made her susceptible to falling for the con in the first place. There’s honestly so much between the lines in this song that covers every theme and speaks to the grief of seeing the life she imagined slip away, slowly by the first man then annihilated by the second.

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

The juxtaposition of “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short” and “He said he’d love me for all time, but that time was quite short” sums it up to me (and parallels “loml”), because they are two different situations, but they cut her just the same. In the first, “that life” IMO was the life they’d built with the dreams that went along with it and it was too short because he never followed through, and in the second, the “time” was quite short because it was the frenzy of the whirlwind romance that fizzled as quickly as it began. The life that was too short led to the time that was quite short.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

This is definitely THE conman song. The rage, the shame, the violation, it’s all in there. But the key to it is the bridge and the espionage imagery woven through it. A honeypot scheme is when spies target a mark and seduce them to gain their trust and their privileged information for their homeland. So her likening him to a sleeper cell spy who set her up just to mine her deepest secrets and use them against her is a heavy, loaded statement. And implied: that valuable information she unknowingly held were her longings of marriage and family (the aforementioned shit-talking about rings and cradles she never got to have), and more importantly, those dreams preceded him reentering her life and then beginning his mission on her.

The insinuation then is: she confesses these are her deepest wishes which are now seemingly unattainable in her current situation (e.g. with her partner) -> he convinces her HE will give them to her and make the dreams she pines for come true -> she falls for him and blows up her life to make it happen -> he gets what he wants (thrill of the chase/sex/the idea of her/whatever his intent was) -> he abandons her when he gets what he wants, or rather it isn’t what he wants or can handle -> she’s left a) all alone b) with dreams unfulfilled c) with no answers d) feeling used at having her most sacred wishes used against her.

Again, the song is unquestionably about the way the conman absolutely destroyed her, but he was able to do that because there was this thing she wanted more than anything, that was dying in her previous relationship, that he was able to prey upon to seduce her, then discarded her and her dreams as soon as it was inconvenient for him while absolutely hollowing her inside out. (And again: the devastating thing is that this also applies to other relationships she’s written about, in different ways.)

The Alchemy

Not about either the partner or the conman directly, but it (loosely) touches on her finding herself after the whole oven-to-microwave experience and opening herself up to life and love again. #GoodForHer

Clara Bow

This isn’t about the romantic relationships on the surface, but it is about how damaging the entertainment industry and public life are on women, and how women are only valued for their beauty as commodities until they can be discarded and destroyed in the process. Which I think plays into the circumstances that led her to make the decisions that she did years ago, and why she makes the ones she does now. (But also, being valued for physical traits and appeal for the male gaze brings us to…)

The Manuscript

The “original sin” that kicks off all of this. Again, at first light this isn’t about the partner or the conman, but the person it is about is the reason why she has made all the decisions she has ever since in relationships (and that’s Mr. Plaid Shirt Days from “All Too Well”). The realization that her first serious adult relationship is what cemented these patterns, and this view of herself and her worthiness in relationships, is profoundly sad. An older man who valued her for being so mature for her age and implying that the mature activities ahem associated with that were the performance benchmarks in her ability to carry a relationship, only to leave her, was earth shattering. She placed her faith in this person, but then the way he treated her changed her view of love and of herself.

She took his innuendo about “pushing strollers” as a sign of potential commitment, whereas he ultimately meant it as foreplay, and she was too young and naive to know the difference. So not only did she learn from that that this man (and men) didn’t view commitment and family the way she did and that it was something to be toyed with, but she also learned that her value to them among other things was sex. Imagine being an idealistic 20 year old and your boyfriend ten years your senior tells you, “if the sex is anywhere near as good as our dates have been, we’re going to be making babies before you know it,” (e.g. this is relationship is serious) and then he dumps you: does that imply that the sex was not in fact that good? (E.g. that you’re not worthy after all?)

No, obviously from this side of life, it’s because he was a commitment-phobic playboy, even if he did love her, but she couldn’t have known that at 20 and instead internalized that shame. But, it did send her on a path of how she approached sex and love and relationships for over a decade afterwards. And her coming to the realization that that first act of (perhaps unintentional) manipulation is what informed her actions thereafter helped her break the pattern. Her worth to men is not just sex, she has value and her hopes and dreams have value, she doesn’t have to change into a different person to please anyone, because if that is what they want, they won’t ever want her anyway.

It’s been described here on Tumblr by people more eloquent and astute than I as a song that encapsulates the album as this: one did it slow (partner), one did it fast (conman), and one did it first (first love)— and that is haunting. After years of men minimizing her dreams and desires, if not outright using them against her, she’s finally at the point where she can let it all go and move on for good. (There’s a whole other tangent about consent and shame and manipulation, but that’s an entirely different kind of discussion. But it is so devastatingly contrasted with “you said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine, and that made me want to die.”)

THE SUMMATION

This is just my interpretation of it, but in going through the standard album, it feels pretty clear how cohesive the album is about a story of love and loss and grief, then reckoning with what caused it all in the first place that set a person on this path. It’s a formative experience at a young age that was traumatic and led to certain coping mechanisms and a shaping of one’s self-perception, as well as the reaction to external pressures that try to dictate behaviours and influence how one feels one deserves out of love which makes it harder to know when one absolutely deserves more and better. And leaves one struggling to cope with loss when there isn’t anything else to hold onto. Then in light of one’s life blowing up, learning to find oneself in the aftermath all over again.

On another tangent that is somewhat related to the theme of loss, the way she writes about the two main muses on the standard album also ties into how the situations converged to create absolute carnage on her emotional and mental well-being. With one situation, she’s talking about a concrete life that crumbles under the weight of their struggles; with the other, the entire thing is a fantasy that she builds up in her head, and when it comes to fruition it falls far, far short.

If you look at the “microwave” (conman) relationship, you realize that almost everything she writes about it happens before it actually becomes reality, and it’s mostly her imagining how great it’ll be, but with few exceptions, when she writes about what actually occurred, it doesn’t even come close to living up to her expectations. “Fortnight” is an imagined future where she escapes to Florida and his touch finally starts her stalled engine (ahem). “TTPD” is perhaps the most positive retelling of their time together, but even that implies he was better off stoned and when he sobered up he succumbed to his demons all over again, and more importantly she conveys how she also is in extreme distress, barely concealed by the veneer of being infatuated with him. (E.g. saying to that she’ll kill herself if he ever leaves her — the implication is that she is absolutely serious about it when she “felt seen.”) And that the warning bells are going off in her head, but she feels like this person is the only one she can be with (because they’re equally fucked up and the chaos he brings into her life makes her feel alive when she felt so close to death).

“Down Bad” is the most explicit about being in love, but she’s also left completely confused and disoriented by him disappearing, wondering if any of it was real and the seeds of violation creep into her consciousness (“did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” “Waking up in blood.”). “But Daddy” is her imagining she can tell everyone to fuck off for telling her what to do with her life. “Fresh Out The Slammer” is her fantasizing about this man while feeling trapped in her relationship — but never in the song is she actually reunited with him; she’s using him as the projection of all the things she’ll make right after being wronged by her partner. “Guilty As Sin?” Is very obviously about her fantasizing about sleeping with him, but again it’s such a minefield for her because it hasn’t happened yet; they’ve only just reconnected. “I Can Fix Him” is the only song other than “TTPD” that shows them actually together, and it’s the one where she keeps saying, essentially, “I know he’s gross but I can rehabilitate him into an upstanding person, trust me,” until the mic drop at the end of the song where it finally hits her that no, she can’t, because this is who he is, not the person she’s built him up to be.

“Loml” is when it all comes crashing down, and the song emphasizes everything he did and told her, e.g. that she’s the love of his life, but she doesn’t return the sentiment in the song about their time together. Because now that it’s past tense, she knows it wasn’t actually love. (And says as much in the album epilogue poem.) “Broken Heart” is her reeling in the aftermath, but again, it’s “he said,” not “I loved.” And then there’s “The Smallest Man,” where she eviscerates him: he also pursued an idea of her but didn’t care much for the real her in front of him (who else is gonna know me?), he love bombed her only to hurt her (crushing her dreams), he was constantly stoned (and not just in the funny munchies kind of way), and he wasn’t even a good lover (despite the fantasy she’d created before). That last point is especially striking because she spent albums singing about the importance of and pleasure in (sexual) intimacy in the relationship with her partner (sometimes to both their own detriment) and how it was at times the only way they could connect, but in this case, the idea she hyped up and acted on in her head about this lover never panned out in practice. She spells it out in the epilogue: it wasn’t a love affair, it was a mutual manic phase.

In contrast, there’s a lot more tangible action in the “oven” (partner) parts of the album, showing how hard she tried to make the relationship work in real life instead of just in her head. All of “So Long, London” is her detailing how she tried to break through to him and support him, even when he rejected it and pushed her away, thinking she could carry them both until they ultimately sank, but she did it because she “loved this place for so long.” (The place? Not just the city, but the home and perhaps most importantly, him.) In “Slammer” she stayed with him even as things disintegrated for “one hour of sunshine.” (E.g. holding onto the rarer good times even as they were fewer and further between, hoping things would eventually turn around.) And like in “London,” she held on despite people in her life pleading with her that it was hurting her. (Which is also echoed in “Slammer.”) In “Guilty” her boredom is “bone deep” because the passion that once drove their relationship (and papered over their problems) has finally gone out too, so there’s nothing left to hold onto, leading to her fantasizing about the new suitor, which makes her realize her relationship has passed the point of no return. “Loml” is about the conman on the surface, but the undercurrent of all the things she says about him is that he was co-opting the dreams that she was clinging onto for dear life in the previous relationship, which is why the con is so painful; the field of dreams he sets ablaze isn’t just the fake painting he sold to her, but the original artifact (her life with her partner) too.

All the physical and emotional labour she puts into the relationship with her partner ends up reflected in the fantasizing she does in the one with the conman, which is why it is so confusing in the moment and so lethal when he leaves her without any answers. She wants to get married and start a family with her partner which keeps getting stalled; the conman mock-proposes which makes her think he’s immediately serious (“TTPD,” “loml”). She feels caged by having to hide with her partner and shrink herself; the conman promises he’ll stand by her side publicly and let her shine (“Smallest Man”). She sinks into a deep depression in her loneliness as the relationship with her partner careens off a cliff; the conman convinces her they’re meant for each other in a them-against-the-world way (“Down Bad”). The intimacy (in all senses of the word) in her relationship with her partner fizzles; the conman stokes the fire by sending her secret messages and reigniting passion (“Guilty”). She spent years trying to help her partner to no avail; the conman makes her think she has the power to reform him (“loml”). She feels misunderstood by her partner; the conman acts like he’s the (only) one who truly gets her (“TTPD,” “loml”).

In short: there’s nothing that the conman does or says that isn’t a direct response to what her partner did first, and it’s even worse because the conman knew how much her partner’s actions hurt her and he used that privileged information to paint a picture of what he could give her, but in doing so in some ways aimed at her heart with even deadlier accuracy. (I’ve likened it to him borrowing someone else’s life for his own joyride, until he crashes the rental car and flees the scene.) It’s why in the aftermath, the difference in emotions are so different: she feels nothing but rage and violation towards the conman for getting in her head and using her, whereas her feelings towards her partner are more complicated. There’s anger (at her lost youth and being taken for granted), but there’s also sorrow (at their lost life and future), disappointment (that he never could step up the way he’d promised or she’d needed), even compassion (towards his struggles) and a tiny measure of appreciation (for the good times they did share).

When you look at the bigger picture, the story the album paints is just so painfully normal. You have two people (Taylor and her partner) who once loved each other deeply, and despite warning signs early on telling them they have fundamentally different needs and ways of living their lives they fight like hell to make it work (the epilogue) until those warning signs become grenades that destroy their home (“My Boy,” “London,” “Slammer,” arguably “loml”). Having already been through at least one rough patch/break/breakup that she felt almost destroyed her (harkening back to Midnights on “You’re Losing Me,” “The Great War” and “Hits Different”), the final and fatal downward spiral of the relationship (“YLM,” “London”) and the grief over losing that future sends her into a tailspin, just at the time where a flame from the past (the conman) reenters her life and tells her all the things she’s been longing to hear and feel (“TTPD,” “Down Bad,” “Guilty,” “loml”) and, crucially, missing from the relationship that was once her entire life.

So in her panic, she falls prey to the (empty) promises of the past lover (“loml,” “Smallest Man”) and decides he’s actually what will save her from the free fall, because the alternative (that she will end up in a situation she doesn’t think she can survive) is too painful to bear. When she finally acts on these circumstances (leaves her partner/runs to the conman), she snaps, acting on pure emotion and adrenaline (“But Daddy”), but before she knows it, the new lover abandons her, and she’s left to reckon with the fallout of the episode and process everything that has happened (“Down Bad,” “loml”) — with the conman, with her partner, with the choices made in her adult life personally and professionally which leads her back to the moment she feels set her down that road at the start.

The TL;DR of this unintentionally long essay is that the reason the conman affair was so serious was precisely because it was meant to fulfill the promise of what was her life with her partner. To me, a large part of the story is that she projected that life onto the conman (or he projected her life back to her for his own purposes) because she wasn’t ready to deal with that massive grief and the life raft he offered felt like the only alternative to an even darker end. Whether the conman actually believed what he told her, or he went along with it or encouraged it because it served his purpose, we’ll never know, just like we’ll never know the finer details of what went on (nor should we). But no matter what, the album is just an extreme deep dive into all the ways grief can consume us, and whether it’s a long, drawn-out death or a sudden, inexplicable one, it can turn a person’s life into such a trainwreck that they act in ways unfathomable to even them, let alone the people around them. It can also unleash repressed trauma and mental illness that can crater your sense of self. And when those situations are compounded? It makes for a nearly impossible type of breakdown to unpack. (Which is why you might need a 31 song album to process it.)

[triangular-static]

irregular

just read flatland and i am 10x less normal about bill cipher now. it's so interesting to think about passages of this book with him in mind

(and also as its own book it's very interesting to read as an examination of dimensions and as a satire of victorian society, i very much enjoyed it)

but one of the first things that i noticed when my friend was looking at website codes at the same time i was reading the first half of the book was:

the code for bill cipher's mugshots is irregular. having read flatland this being the code seems like a reference to how shapes with irregular sides are labelled as criminals and morality is very heavily judged on whether your angles are equal or not. the term REALLY sticks out to me having read the book, given it carries. a lot of weight there.

(trust me, there were many excerpts i could have chosen from. even the narrator is very biased against irregular shapes. like. from the way it's used it pretty much reads as a flatland slur)

yeah. i don't know if the unfair link between morality and irregularity existed in euclydia, but with this as a code? it's not impossible. euclydia is not identical to flatland from what we know, but there are still places where they match other than just the base concept.

bill being implied equilateral by the axolotl makes this interesting. while he could definitely be labelled irregular in other ways (his eye), being equilateral would mean he doesn't fit the main flatland definition. but that doesn't mean they wouldn't use it as an insult anyway.

his exact angles could have shifted, which is possible in flatland (and he shapeshifts to forms that look far less equilateral in the show, so i don't think he's really that confined in shape at least currently), but i think him being equilateral yet being the one to destroy euclydia could also be interesting as a subversion of the flatland bias. though him being irregular by a small amount would also align with themes he already has. i think both could work.

but, if irregularity IS as heavily punished in euclydia as it is in flatland, one of his parents being named scalene (a term that is notably quite absent from the book! instead they use phrases like "irregular isosceles", from what i could see. i love when things are made significant by omission), is very interesting as well, if it's more than just a name.

given scalene seems? to be able to lead what seems a fairly normal life from the bare snippets we have? i think if there is discrimination of this nature in euclydia, it could be less extreme, and may be one of the cases where the worlds are different.

but irregular being used in relation to bill as a criminal makes it seem like something in his universe, at least. or maybe it got picked up from a different 2d world and applied to bill later?

at the very least, it adds a layer to his aversion to answering this question in the ama:

TL;DR: the website code "irregular" leading to the color version of the mugshots is likely a reference to flatland connecting it with criminality. which is interesting if that means being irregular is a notable thing in euclydia as well, but even if it's not, it's an interesting reference!

[love-anddeepression]

It’s like I’m wasting your honour.

first drabble based on peace by taylor swift.

He's perfect.

It's a fact about the man you call your partner. He's literal sunshine incarnate, loved and respected by everyone around him. He's responsible for so much and shoulders everyone's problems on his shoulders because that's how good of a leader he is.

He's everything. He's too good for you.

You're just..there, and you know that if you were even half the person he was, your life would look vastly different. . t's hard to function sometimes, when you know just how looked up to Ume is. It's easy to feel like you're wrong for him, like he deserves someone who knows his vision and understands him in and out.

It's not that you don't understand him, over the course of being together, you have learned every part of him, just as he does yours. It's precisely why you feel this way.

He's infuriatingly good in every way. You can never compare to him.

He's out there, everyday, making sure the town is safe and happy and you're with your friends in your own class, talking shit about something and you feel like you're just wasting his time. Wasting his honour.

He deserves someone like him.

"Baby, you aren't eating anything?" he tilts his head at you, and you look up from your plate of steaming food to meet his blue eyes that stare at you in concern.

You chuckle, "Sorry, I was lost in thought."

He smiles and nods, his eyes shut sweetly as he shoves another spoon of Omurice into his mouth.

Your own eyes soften, you rest your chin on the palm of your hand as you stare at him making conversation with Hiragi.

I'm so in love with you.

Hiragi only glances at you with a smile smirk, making you look away with your face flushed and warm. tea already getting a little cold.

“I see what you were thinking about.” he says teasingly.

He chuckles when you smack his shoulder and take a bite of your food, adamant on avoiding eye contact with him or your boyfriend.

Umemiya only laughs, taking your hand in his and squeezing it. You relish in its warmth, a warmth you believe from the depth of your heart that you don’t deserve.

As lovely of a cook as Kotoha is, you can’t taste your food the entirety of the evening.

——————————-

[myokk]

Her whole body was on fire.

Not the pleasant, tingling sort of fire that had been consuming her as she kissed Sebastian just moments before.

These were terrible, burning flames that made her nerves scream in agony as her body tried to purge itself of the curse. Once her coughing stopped she tried her hardest to straighten her spine and pretend that it wasn't what they both knew it was. But everything hurt so badly, and she knew she wasn't fooling Sebastian.

Eloise was terrified. She had seen how Anne's body had wasted away due to the curse, and Eloise wasn't hopeful she would survive. Even if Sebastian hadn't given up hope when his sister was cursed, he had already been researching relentlessly for a cure for over a year without any breakthroughs - and his research was in addition to Nurse Blainey and St. Mungo's fruitless attempts to heal her.

But...she could take a small measure of comfort from the fact that she had managed to save Anne.

Even if it was at the expense of her own well-being.

"What did you do?" Sebastian whispered, voice raspy, eyes wide and horrified as he looked at her.

Her eyes darted away from his accusing glare, down to the white sleeve that was now peppered with tiny spots of the blood she had just coughed up. They were slowly growing, the tiny spatters expanding and mingling with each other. "I..."

Throat constricting, tears welling up in her eyes, a sob that she was trying to swallow back down.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Eloise shook her head helplessly. "I have no idea."

She wasn't lying. When she had run to help Anne in Feldcroft all those weeks ago, she had been acting on pure instinct. Just as she had when Leander had hit Sebastian with diffindo. It was the most natural thing in the world to dip into whatever ancient magic reserves she was privy to and just use them. Even if she didn't fully understand these instincts.

"What did you do?" Sebastian repeated, voice rising with every word. He started pacing in front of the fireplace, running an agitated hand through hair that Eloise had already messed up. "I...oh, god. This can't be happening again."

"I would do it again. I saved Anne." Eloise's voice sounded very small to her ears and she shrunk away at the expression on his face when he turned to look at her. It was incredulous and devastated and furious and she couldn't look at him any more. She turned her head to watch the flames. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his agitated, jerky movements.

"At the expense of your own health! Merlin, this is all my fault. I -"

Eloise couldn't hear whatever Sebastian was about to say as his words were lost to another fit of coughing. His anger slipped away and was immediately replaced with concern as he moved to stand in front of her, gently reaching out a hand to her shoulder.

She was lost to the pain and flames screaming - was she screaming? - their way up her throat, the hacking coughs so gratingly painful that it was all she could focus on.

"Fuck," she heard Sebastian say. "Wait..."

He put an arm around her waist and helped her move the short distance to the bed. As soon as he let go of his hold on her, she fell to her side. Her arms were useless at the moment, and the side of her face met the mattress as she fell without being able to catch herself. Tears were streaming down her face as she coughed and coughed and coughed and -

"Here. Please..." A reassuringly solid presence at her side, leaning her body against his chest, her head lying limply across his shoulder. A gentle hand grabbed her jaw and then forced a potion down her throat.

Eloise immediately started gagging and tried to wrest herself from his grasp. The potion was thick and viscous and tasted like mud, slowly sliding its way down her throat. If the curse had manifested itself in all-encompassing flames, this potion was its antidote in the form of shards of ice that burned in an entirely different way. Her ears were ringing and her head swam in pain as she whimpered.

But...

The coughing had stopped.

Her eyes slowly opened.

Sebastian's face swam in and out of her vision as she blinked away the tears. There was a sharp stab of pain through her head when she tried to focus her vision, so she just closed her eyes again and moved her face into the crook of his neck.

Her breath came out in ragged gasps, but at least she wasn't coughing anymore.

She felt his arms tighten around her, one of his hands starting to massage the base of her neck as he cradled her body to his. Sebastian was warm, reassuring, solid. That, she could focus on. Eloise breathed in deeply, and the faint smell of cinnamon mixed with what she was now recognizing as Sebastian filled her senses. She tried to move an arm so she could caress him the way he was, but her arms were numb and tingling and she was just so tired.

She felt herself drifting off to sleep in his arms, the overwhelming feeling of safety and comfort being her last fleeting thoughts before sleep overcame her.

the scene after their first kiss, that I drew a while ago😇😇😇

[oceanwithouthermoon]

ive come to realise that i dont actually hate kubokai, i just hate the way people write them

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Something really great about the persona 2 cast is that they all individually fucking SUCK to talk to casually. Every single one of them. They are all infuriating. We have:

Tatsuya, who will stare at you blankly if you try to initiate conversation (IS) and will dip without saying a word afterward (EP)

Batsuya, who will scoff and brush you off/otherwise act dismissive

Eikichi, who might honestly be the best to talk to in the IS crew and that is not saying much, who WILL talk extremely loudly over you (probably not on purpose?) and will not be paying particularly close attention to the conversation beyond whatever he wants to say (gets points for talking about his gf. gets points taken away for constantly talking about his gf)

Lisa, who will automatically assume bad faith and will be rude to you the entire conversation unless you manage to defuse her temper (good luck)

Jun, who is uncommunicative at BEST and requires an encyclopedic knowledge of flowers, metaphor and body language just to get a HINT on what he’s thinking, and who will be extremely polite but completely unhelpful. If you tried asking him what he wants for dinner I guarantee it will be the longest 30 minutes of your life as he goes “oh I have no opinion :) whatever you want. :))” EXCEPT HE DOES HAVE OPINIONS. He has SO MANY OPINIONS. He is Expecting you to be able to pick up on his “obvious” clues. He will be passive aggressive if you don’t. (Jun babygirl you suck so bad I love u)

Maya, who is a delight but will very quickly become grating if you try to talk to her about anything serious as she hits you with the white suburban mom's "how to live a happy, healthy life" lifecoach slogans. You can’t even mention, like, stepping in a puddle or something without her hitting you with the positivity beam.

Yukino is great actually. 10/10. She’s fabulous we love her. Incredible conversationalist, chill and fun and easy to get along with. But she’s from Persona One, she doesn’t Count.

Ulala, who WILL bring up her relationship problems in every conversation within 10 minutes at least once. Any longer and she will start talking about Maya.

Do I even need to explain Baofu. Have you seen him.

And finally, Katsuya, who is a cop and a kiss ass and Very Obvious about these things. Also he can't talk to women. He can barely talk to men. Help Him.

And yet they all work wonderfully as a group. They are so annoying I love them

[spctrsgf]

a confession

summary: dreaming about losing the one person you couldn’t was bad enough, but now you can’t look at him without seeing that very image. and your counterpart isn’t gonna take that lightly.

word count: 3.5k

warnings: language, descriptions of blood and death, nightmares, PTSD of a sort?, angsty and then fluffy, friends to lovers cus im a sucker for it hehehe

a/n: i sincerely apologize for all the old (as in i initially wrote them a while ago) fics i've been posting, i've been working on this one oscar fic but i'm so demotivated to write it since i haven't seen scenes of a marriage and i need to a bit to write it :/

but enjoy din in honor of season three!

The kid tugged on your shirt, reaching for the piece of meat you were dangling over his head, garbling angrily. You laughed at his antics, lowering the treat and letting him eat it ferociously. Your gaze drifted to the hull door again, worry gnawing in your stomach in the wake of Din’s absence. 

As if thinking of the man summoned him, the hatch creaked to life, lowering to reveal your companion. Your shoulders slumped and a smile caressed your lips at the sight of him in all his glory. You rushed over, taking the quarry in a hurry to have him to yourself. The quarry grumbled as you yanked her by the arm, shoving her in the carbonite chamber with no hesitation. 

You slammed a hand on the button to your left, sealing her in. You turned around then, bouncing on your toes in excitement to spend time with your favorite person in the universe. You expected to see him standing near his armory, disposing himself of a few of his weapons. But instead you found him crumpled and on the floor, frantically fidgeting with his chest plate. “Din?!” You scrambled over, helping him pull off the offending piece of armor.

You worked diligently to get off the rest of his armor, growing increasingly worried at his labored breathing and shaky hands. You pulled off his shirt, bracing yourself for the damage-

No.

No amount of preparation could brace you for this.

A bullet wound punctured through his paling skin, gnarly and red. “Din, oh my god-“ you shot up to grab the bacta, huffing at the mere seconds you lost from getting up and grabbing it. You fell to your knees, tears falling freely from your eyes as you willed yourself to move as quickly as possible. “You’ll be okay.” You murmured.

“I-“ Din tried to gasp out words, but was cut off by a sharp inhale of pain.

“Don’t speak, please.” Your voice was hitched with alarm as sprayed him with bacta.

“Y/n.” He was barely breathing now.

“No,” you shook your head and sprayed more bacta. “You are going to be okay. I won’t let you die out on me-“

“Cy- cyare.”

“No, Din, do not give up on me!” Your hands cradled the beskar helmet. “I can't do this without you-“

“I’m s-“ his chest barely lifted and his grip on your hand was loosening. “Sorry.”

“Din Djarin, don’t you dare-“ your eyes fell to his chest, watching it inflate one last, shaky time before settling down to a stop. His hand dropped from yours, lifeless. 

“No,” you gathered his hand in yours again. “No no no no-“ you dug through the med kit, looking for anything that could bring him back to life. Your fingers shook and your vision blurred and your heart pounded in your ears, but you still came up empty handed. You cradled his body in your arms, sobbing hysterically at the loss of the man you loved.

“Din, you stupid oblivious idiot, I loved you. I still do, and I always will.”

You shot up abruptly from your makeshift bed, nearly screaming at the sudden change of scenery. Your face was soaked with tears and your body with sweat as you regained your bearings. Your previously tense shoulders fell in relief when you couldn’t find your beskar covered companion covered in blood on the floor. 

You stood up from the floor, running a hand through your tousled hair. The fresher was a few steps away, and you walked in to come face to face with yourself in the mirror. You could see the bags hugging the bottoms of your eyes, as well as the small sheen of sweat and your red eyes from crying. Your hands shook slightly as you attempted to tame your appearance.

Your hands. 

You whipped them down and into your line of sight, flipping them this way and that to check if there was any blood. When you found none, you deemed yourself presentable enough to leave the room. 

You ventured back into the hull and through your daily chores, falling into mindless motions. You hummed a tune, hoping it would erase your previous nightmares.

It was so real. You could feel the brush of his gloved fingers, smooth and worn, smell the mix of the woods and metallic blood, see every flash of the hull lights on his beskar. You could hear his labored breathing loud and clear, even though you weren’t dreaming anymore. You could hear the nickname he’d never called you in real life but the one you’d found out was a word in Mando’a.

You shouldn’t be dreaming about this, it was crazy. You and Din weren’t- he didn’t feel the same. Din was quiet, but he was assertive. If he felt something, he would tell you. Right? Had the years of solitude caught up to him? He was never nervous, he caught people for a living. There was no way he would be worried about this. You were delusional, you decided. This was crazy and he didn’t feel the same.

You realized at that moment that you hadn’t seen Din all morning. Your breath caught again as you shoved down your fear, telling yourself it was for the better. You didn’t know what would spur from you after seeing his helmet, whether it would be waves of relief or crushing pain. 

The sound of a garble echoed from your right side, following the sound of the hull door opening. You could hear the heavy footsteps of the very man that had been occupying your thoughts all morning.

Speak of the devil. 

Your hands tightened around the sheet you’d been folding, holding your breath for the words he’d never say. You held still in the exact same position, the only part of your body moving being the rise and fall of your chest. Din’s movements slowed to a stop, and you could feel his gaze on you. “Sorry we’ve been gone,” he started, causing you to jump in surprise. “I went to take the kid for a walk.” 

Your jaw tightened, but you managed out an “it’s alright.”

He paused again. “Are you okay?”

You nodded, forcing your hands to work again at folding the sheet. 

You expected him to let it go. He always did: never pushed and prodded, just let you mellow out until your feelings subsided. But instead he came up beside you, grabbing one edge of the sheet and folding it in towards yourself. You swallowed sharply and drilled your eyes into the sheets, only nodding in thanks.

He huffed. “Y/n.”

“Din.” You responded in the same even tone.

“You're gonna tell me what’s going on? Or am I gonna have to pry?”

You grabbed his end of the sheet, finishing the fold. “Leave it be.”

“You’re not looking at me.”

You turned to place the sheet down at the edge of the bed. “Astute observation.”

He scoffed. “That’s not normal. You always look me in the eye.”

“Din,” you paused facing away from him, hands starting to shake. ”please.”

The next moments were a blur. One second he was behind you, the next he was in front of you, merely two inches away. You didn’t react quick enough, weren’t able to tear your gaze away from him. Your eyes met the thin strip of his visor, and oh boy-

The blood, running along the rim.

The way his head fell backwards in pain.

The shallow breaths, accentuated by the modulator.

“I’m- I’m sorry.”

You tore your eyes away with a startled gasp, turning and sprinting down the open hatch door. You had to get out, you had to get away from it. Everything about him was too much like a nightmare, it was too real. The image had to be imprinted onto the back of your eyes, it was so vivid. 

You willed your breath to slow and calm as you walked, but even the thought of that was hard. You ventured a little ways away from the Razor Crest, finding a nice rock expertly placed between two trees. You settled against it with a rattled sigh, gazing out into the forest. If you squinted, you could see the ocean from here: it’s shimmery sheen and the deep cobalt blue that filled it. 

The thought was calming. Seeing the wilderness in a way you hadn’t before, learning to appreciate the little things you’d been lucky enough to see and experience on this never ending ride with Din.

Din.

Shit. The calm left you as soon as it came, swept away by gnawing guilt and unsaid feelings. All those things he would have been able to experience, all of the things you needed to tell him but never quite could. It was too late.

You shot up abruptly, sending a sharp pain to your head and tunneling your vision. You shook your head with a groan, deciding to venture away from the spot that now reminded you of him. Of what you could have shown him-

No. You scolded yourself for going down that track, focusing on putting on foot in front of the other. You met the silver metal of the Razor Crest some five minutes after, leaning against it in hopes to take some of its cold for yourself. The feeling also calmed you, but you were sure it’d be gone as soon as it came. This was Din’s-

The crunching of boots cuts your thoughts short. 

You considered running. It would be fruitless, though, even if he couldn’t see your legs right now; he was undoubtedly faster than you. You considered yelling at him to stay away as well, but did you really want him to? You compromised, turning and giving him your back. You curled into yourself, hunched over slightly as he rounded the corner. 

To say Din was confused was an understatement. You’d been acting weird all morning, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done something to upset you. Even now, when he passed the last of the ship obscuring his view, you hid from his gaze. What did he do? What should he do? He didn’t like this, the cold shoulder, not one bit. He had to fix this. 

You could feel it on your back, his inquisitive gaze. You knew what the silent look meant. You sighed quietly as you waited for his evaluation, knowing he’d nail it on the dot. You waited for the quick sentence, the sounds of his footsteps squelching receding into the distance.

But he didn’t do that this time.

This time was different. He knew it, you knew it. You both knew that this wasn’t just a dream about losing your family or having to run away from your home or the kid, it was deeper, the pain was deeper. You knew from the sharp intake of his breath that he wasn’t going anywhere unless he got a real answer from you, and you weren’t sure if you were ready to give it yet. 

His hand landed on your shoulder in the midst of your thoughts, causing you to jump. “Maker, Din-“ you started your sentence, but were abruptly cut off by him spinning you around. You kept your eyes firmly at his feet, not wanting to spark another burst of panic. “Y/n.” His voice was surprisingly soft compared to his normal brisk tone.

You nodded.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s really nothing you need to concern yourself with, Din, I’ll be fine.”

He paused, and you wondered if he was going to take your sentence and leave you be. “Bullshit.”

Your eyes widened, and you nearly threw your head up to meet his visor. Din had sworn before, but never at you. “What?” 

“You heard me.” His voice was hard.

“I’m telling the truth.” You were not.

He chuckled, actually chuckled. “You’re a really bad liar, you know.”

“I know. I used to be really good.” You deflated. 

Din squeezed your shoulder. “You gotta talk about it, y/n, trust me. Solitude and nightmares are not a good combo.”

“You’re not gonna like it, Din.”

“Try me.”

Your hands clasped together so you could fidget with the ring on your finger. “It was- the kid and I were waiting for you after a mission. You were taking a while, I remember, and we were starting to get antsy. And then you came back and I was so excited to see you and I grabbed the quarry-“

“I wouldn’t let you do that.”

You huffed.

He sighed. “Sorry, go on.”

“I grabbed the quarry and put him in the carbonite chamber that you think I don’t know how to use but I do, and then I turned around,” your breaths became shaky. “You were on- on the floor. You were bleeding and you were barely breathing and you were struggling and you kept trying to talk and I was telling you to shut the fuck up because I was trying to save you and I tried and tried but I- I couldn’t. You were dead. You were gone and I couldn’t do anything and I tried everything in that stupid first aid kit, I tried the bacta and the gauze but you were- you weren’t with me and I swear my heart was ripped right out of my chest.” 

Your shoulders slumped in shame but also in relief, in letting go of that burden you’d been carrying for less than four hours but had ripped through every fiber of your being. Your declaration hung heavily in the misty air, Din not moving a single muscle. You assumed he was processing your words, but right now those very words were gnawing at your brain.

You waited patiently as he contemplated, or at least you thought he was. The slight incline of his helmet was leading you to think that, but he was slightly hard to read at the moment. You began to kick the ground as you stood rather awkwardly, not making full eye contact and rather looking over his shoulder. 

The shake of his helmet in your peripheral told you he was in fact alive and awake, easing some pressure you hadn’t even noticed was on your chest. His hand still rested on your shoulder, which twitched as if he wanted to move it but decided otherwise. “Wow.” He said finally. 

Your eyes went wide in fear. “You don’t have to say anything, we can go inside and pretend this never happened. I can do that.”

“No, no, it’s alright,” his helmet tilted up and away from your face. “That was just a lot.”

You smiled sadly, your eyes meeting the leafy ground. “Yeah.”

You two simmered in the silence for a while longer, him surely going back to thinking in his head. You didn’t know what to expect at this point: Din had surprised you so many times in the past ten minutes that you weren’t sure any of your old rules applied anymore. And frankly, that was making you very nervous. 

You were trying to train yourself for the unexpected when Din made his next move. His hand left your shoulder to cup your jaw, tilting it upwards to meet his visor. Your eyes automatically went left to trace the reflective surface of the Razor Crest, eliciting a huff. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“Because if I do, all I can see is your lifeless body and the smear of blood from where I grabbed your face.”

“Um, okay,” He frowned in defeat and then in confusion. “Wait, why are you so scared of losing me?”

You huffed. “Are you serious? Because I care about you, Din. More than I should, probably. You gave me a home, and you treated me as somebody. How could I not care, how could I not worry about losing you?”

Silence, and then-

“So you’re in love with me?” His voice was aloof, but you could hear the nervousness seeping in. 

Your head rotated to meet his visor, calculating the tilt and his stance. Your brain reeled and tried to shove your nightmares into your head, but you pushed them away from the foreground. “I am, got a problem with that?” You willed to match his tone with your own.

He drew back slightly, and you fretted, but you held your ground and waited. You weren’t going to run away from your feelings this time. He held your stare, stepping towards you. “Not at all.”

You swallowed. “Alright, I guess that’s settled.”

“Mhm.”

“So..”

“Yes?” 

Oh, so he was gonna make you say it? “Din. C’mon, don’t be this way.”

“Be what way?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“No, care to enlighten me?” You could hear the smile.

You gritted your teeth. “Fine, never mind. I’m going to check on the kid.” If he didn’t want to say it, then it wasn’t coming out.

You shook his hand from your jaw and pushed past him, making sure to bump his shoulder on the way out. Your breaths were heavy after the confessions and the lack of his own, fueling into anger as you stormed into the ship. The Child sat in his hammock, staring right at you. His pearly black eyes felt like they stared through you and relayed everything that had happened out in front of him.

You sighed, venturing over to him and sitting on the edge of Din’s cot. “What did I just do, Kid?”

He garbled eagerly.

“Yeah yeah,” you leaned against the frame. “I know.”

He garbled again. 

“Jeez, you don’t have to be rude about it! I know I fucked up.” Your eyes were shut in frustration.

The kid was silent.

“Kid?” 

The sound of the hatch door closing was the only response, and you opened your eyes to see the Mandalorian staring right at you.

Blood dripping down his-

No. Stop.

You shook your head to clear the nightmares, but it wasn’t working as well as you were hoping it would. You opted to tilting your head back again, closing your eyes. The silence ensued, and you could feel the heat of his gaze. “You gonna say something?” You asked, not moving.

“Yeah, I was.”

“Was?” You tilted your head.

“You look tired. Maybe later.”

You opened your eyes. “I’m listening.”

He sighed, and you could see him fidget with his gloves out of the corner of your eyes. “Do you know what you just declared to me?”

“That I loved you, yes.” It was out in the open now, no reason avoiding it.

“And if I say I love you too, you know what that means?”

“That we’ve got a romantic bond?” The Kid peeked over the edge of the hammock to stare at Din.

“No,” you scoffed and he glared at you. “Well, yes, obviously, but what I meant is that you’re committing to me, and vice versa. We’re bonded. For life.”

You nodded, looking at his visor, which was turned upwards. “Okay, yeah. What about it?”

“That means seeing-“ he met your gaze. “Seeing my face.”

Your eyes widened. “Your face?”

He nodded.

“No way,” You stood up and walked over to him, the shock tinting your vision. “Are you joking? Cus it’s not funny.”

“No, I’m not.” His voice sounded confused by your actions.

You pondered the hesitance in his voice with a fine toothed comb. “Do you not want to?”

“No, I want to, it’s just-“

You nodded. “No one has seen you without it.”

“No one in a very long time.” He confirmed.

“Whenever you’re ready,” you grabbed his hand. “You can tell me you love me if you do, you can take off your mask and show me that beautiful face of yours. Whenever you want, okay? I’ll be here, I’m not going anywhere.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay.” You smiled up at him, going to turn around, but then his hand was gripping your hip and halting you.

“I love you.”

Your head tilted in confusion. “But what about what you said-“

“Yeah. That’s right now.”

You full on grinned. “Really? Um, okay.”

“Are you ready?” His hands rested on the edge of his helmet.

“Never been more ready.”

And then you heard a whooshing sound, hardly audible over your pounding heart. Your hands twisted together as you waited in anticipation, excited and nervous. The prospect of putting a face to his voice and his name was thrilling, and the fact that you were the first to see his face in years? That left you with a fuzzy warmth in your stomach. 

You couldn’t pull your eyes away as the beskar was pulled upwards, revealing his face. Your gaze followed the path of the helmet as you saw his sharp jawline, the little speckles of his two day aftershave, the mustache that he seemed to be keeping in well order, the contour of his nose, his deep brown eyes, the mop of hair that was unruly but had been matted down by his helmet.

You met his eyes again, finding them on you wearily, his lip caught between his teeth as he gauged your reaction. Your breath caught at the real eye contact and the way he couldn’t conceal his feelings. You could see the nervousness in his face, even in his stance. Everything about him seemed so clear now, and you broke into a wide smile. 

“You’re beautiful.”

[old-stoneface]

[rosenfey]

things that are hard to find: writing advice that isn't condescending.

[sparky-is-spiders]

There’s something about s1 and pre-s1 je that just gets me, y’know? Part of it might just be that I want to chew on those power dynamics, sure. But there’s also the juxtaposition of what Jon knows and what we know. Best if it’s from Jon’s PoV I think, where the biggest concerns are whether this is why he got the archivist job and how he can hide this relationship from his coworkers. Where the weight of their future looms large, impossible to ignore yet somehow background noise. And maybe there’ll be that moment when Jon makes a little observation or Elias says one of those little in-jokes and you get a glimpse of everything that waits for them both. Their inevitable fate waiting for both of them.

[jasonsbruce]

Bruce Wayne has always put Gotham first—until Jason Todd.

Five times the people closest to Bruce saw cracks in his code, and one time it finally broke. just a long little brujay fic 🖤

[rainidayss]

just looked at my open tabs while writing fanfic

[neurotonic]

Ouh. I really like how out of all the antagonists in the series, Prism's motivations (and her turning to Zoraxis) are directly influenced by Phoenix's track record. She has the most personal beef with the agent, though it's a little ironic that her TK implant helped the agent's success. If it weren't for Prism, Phoenix wouldn't be the legend that they are known for.

...Except...That's minimizing Phoenix's own ingenuity and skill with the implant, isn't it? It's a useful tool, yes! But in the end, it's just a tool. Phoenix was able to use it in unique ways, and that's not counting whatever else Phoenix has to do in the moment without TK. If it weren't for Phoenix's own efforts (and their strange ability to not Die), Prism wouldn't be forced to take revenge.

They're their own self-made people, but inevitably they left such a huge impact on each other before the third game...and if Prism wasn't the one who personally added the implant in Phoenix's head, then they haven't even interacted in person!

It could be seen as a little tragic, and it sorta is--Prism's desire for revenge is a little misplaced (and, yes, it is bolstered by Zor when she switches to their side). For all we know, Phoenix never intended to be the villain in Prism's story. But Prism's frustrated and angry and devastated about being reduced to the One Project she made. She just wanted to make something bigger than herself.

And it's really nice to see Phoenix help her once she recognizes that Zor's been using her all this time...even if it takes some time for Prism to really let them help her.

It takes the combination of their unique skills, brainpower, and their eventual trust in one another to destroy Zor's volcano kinesium base. Prism gets saved by the person she thought made her dreams impossible, and in return, Phoenix gets saved in the one IEYTD ending where they're not declared legally dead. I feel like that's something interesting? Because this is also the one finale where Phoenix has an active ally working with them close to their side (...as close as Prism and Phoenix could get, anyway).

Well. Anyway. What was I talking about? Enemies who are closely intertwined with one another's journeys end up becoming each other's most important allies? Okay, yeah. Let's go with that.

[romance-rambles]

godheim clarence | because it's you

On a seemingly normal day, as he's braiding your hair in the morning, your husband asks you if he should cut his hair. You try to be brave about it.

1.6k, post-clarence epilogue, misunderstandings + fluff, reader is mc, series: none

"SHALL I CUT MY HAIR short too?"

You register your husband's words as a joke at first. Why would you not? It flows so seamlessly from your own, after all—about how he might actually thank you for freeing up his time in the mornings if you chop off your long hair.

You know full well Clarence will not.

It is not enough to prevent you from chasing after your favorite kind of high. The one where he huffs exasperatedly and tells you as much, as a lovely but faint scarlet hue spreads across his cheek. The one that leaves you with the singleminded desire to kiss him, which you waste no time in doing—because you can.

So, expecting to see a hint of mirth in his blue eyes, you roll your eyes and watch him through the vanity's mirror with an unfaltering grin.

There is none.

Instead, the mirror reflects only the almost clumsy seriousness you've come to expect in his endeavors to prove himself worthy of being your husband. It is both flattering and worrying.

And sometimes, it makes you wonder if you were too harsh on him in the early days of your time together in the void, when you demanded apology after apology from him. Then, you remember that he's the same man who catches fishes only to free them in the end—and that this is simply sort of endearing idiot he is.

It helps immensely.

"Would you like to?" you ask carefully, concealing your silent insults with a half-awkward smile.

You would not like him to.

But it is rare for Clarence to express an interest in his appearance outside of what you make of it. His most frequently worn coat is the one you once complimented him, under a brightly-lit street lamp as he wrapped his scarf around you instead. He always buys the same fragrance, and only when it runs out, with a polite explanation of My wife likes this one the most that drives most merchants mad.

The only response he's ever offered when shopping for clothes is: If you like it, I'm fine with wearing it.

Biting back a scowl, you add, "I think you'd look good with short hair."

Of course he would. Even putting aside his hairstyle when he was younger, your husband is handsome enough to pull anything off.

You are, of course, very biased—it's an accusation you've never tried to deny.

"I see." With a pleased hum, Clarence ties off your braid. "Then I'll pick out a date. Would you like to come along?"

He's careful to adjust the hair tie first, concealing any stubborn tufts hair poking through between the gaps before he reaches for your usual red ribbon. Then, with a practiced ease that comes only with years' worth of repetition, he loops it through the hair tie and twists into a proper bow.

Today, you cannot find it in yourself to admire his careful movements through the mirror.

"I'm never going to hear the end of it if I do that," you answer, shuddering a little at the thought. The people at this village are mostly kind, but a few of the louder ones tend to comment on Clarence's tendencies a bit too frequently for your liking. "You remember what happened last time, don't you?"

Your fingers traverse down the full length of your neatly-braided hair to pull it over your shoulder. Their grasp on the end of it lasts for only a second before your hand falls to the edge of your stool. Gulping, you swivel around and soon find yourself properly face to face with your husband.

He smiles faintly. "In a sense, they weren't wrong."

To properly hold onto his face, you have to scoot closer to the edge. Clarence bends down slightly, further easing the burden on your arms. Your eyes narrow fondly at him before you ruin the moment by smushing his cheeks.

"They were insulting you," you correct him, indignation fueling your flat tone. "I'd say they were very wrong."

His expression grows helpless and fond. Wrapping his hands around your own, he settles down onto the hardwood floor. In doing so, he ignores your chiding entirely; instead, he looks at you with a hint of reverence in his gaze.

"Perhaps," Clarence agrees softly. "I've heard worse."

Inhaling sharply, you press your foreheads together. When you next speak up, your tone is softer. "Do you have a cut in mind?"

"The same as it was when I was younger, I suppose," he says, sounding a bit uncertain.

You do your best approximation of a nod. You're not entirely certain what brought this on, but that won't stop you from being the most supportive wife to ever be supportive. As you squeeze his hands gently, you hope he can sense your resolve.

"Alright," you say, a bit forcefully, as you press a kiss to his forehead. "—now get off the floor. It's my turn to do your hair."

IT'S WHEN YOU'RE CAREFULLY UNTANGLING your braid at night that you remember the conversation from that morning.

"Did you decide on a date?" you ask curiously.

Clarence hums. "I didn't get the chance to quite yet."

He's watching you from his side of the bed, both hands occupied by a book he stopped reading the moment you walked in after your nighttime routine. When you shake your hair back to normal and settle under the blankets, he wordlessly turns the lamps off, with only a flick of his hand.

Accepting his answer, you snuggle up against his chest, fully intent on going to sleep—

Except you can't.

Curiosity nags at you, offering you the same question over and over again in the hopes that you'll break. And break you do as you call out your husband's name.

You can't quite make out what his expression is, but you know he isn't asleep. It's only been a few years—just a little over a decade, to be precise—since they've reunited. Adjusting to a life within the bounds of time, you know, takes some time, especially for someone like Clarence who had seemingly outgrown the need to sleep even before he entered the nothingness.

"Clarence," you whisper, "what made you want to cut your hair?"

For a moment, he remains silent. You can hear his beating heart, and that is enough to let you know that he's flustered.

"Clarence?"

"You said I looked very handsome," he says finally. "The other day."

Upon hearing those words, your mind offers you nothing noteworthy. To you, calling your husband handsome is no different making sure your heart's intact. You think you might actually die if you don't tell him, but you haven't tested it before.

Your heart, however, is filled to the brim with affection for this man, the one you've searched nearly your entire life for.

Even if you do want to throttle him a little bit.

"You'll have to be more specific, dear," you tell him, gently touching his cheek. He's warm, you think. You're tempted to turn the lights back on. "I'm sure I say that every day. And why would that make you want to cut your hair?"

Clearing his throat, he adds, "To be more specific, you didn't say it to me necessarily. You were—" Clarence pauses, a hint of uncertainty to his next words. "—talking about my younger self."

Oh.

The gears in your head start to turn. Now, you can faintly recall the memory of you waxing poetically about the man whose image remains in use on one of the most popular and frequently sold-out stamps even now, centuries later. Mostly, you remember smiling through a comment about how carefully you must've chosen your husband—as if she hadn't pressured into picking a man other than your husband to gush about.

You would've chosen the Archmage who seemingly had no relation to your husband regardless, but it would've been nice to know ahead of time.

Because you do have eyes, Eliza. That's how you know there isn't a man alive that's more attractive than Clarence.

Still, there hadn't been any deeper meaning when you chose his younger self specifically. There'd been a stamp nearby and you'd used it as a reference, in the hopes that it would help the other ladies downplay your incredible knowledge of his features.

You're almost certain they think you're deranged.

"Clarence." You giggle, suddenly amused. "Clarence. You look very handsome today."

Clumsily, you press a loving kiss to his forehead. Then, to the mole under his eye, to the tip of his nose, to his other cheek, until finally, you kiss him on the lips. At some point, while you're busy being productive, he goes from laying on his side to laying on his back.

"What brought this on?"

He sounds bewildered. You think it's cute.

After taking a moment to compose yourself, you begin to explain. Throughout, he's mostly silent, save for the occasional acknowledgement. Still, you don't have to worry about whether he's listening or not.

Until the very end, his hands—still wrapped around you—give him away.

"I like your long hair just as much, because—" You give him another peck on the lips. "—I love you. No matter what, you're always the best-looking man in the room."

Clarence wastes no time in answering you, though he very nearly chokes on his words. "And I...you."

"Good." Feeling satisfied, you rest your head against his chest. "Do you still want to cut your hair? ...Clarence?"

"I think," he says, clearing his throat. "It's fine the way it is."

You don't try to point out why.