#( musings: ivy. ) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

libraryofgage · 1 year ago

Text

Harlequin Prince (2)

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually

This part was line-jumped on Ko-Fi, which means y'all got it sooner than I originally planned!

If you want to line jump your favorite series, you can learn more here

Ironically, even tho the post says about a week of turn around, I get so excited that somebody wants to line jump that I just write it immediately lmao

Steve finally gets a good fight in this one, but it ends way too soon the poor boy. Either way, he also gets to meet some of the party!

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ;)

-------

Steve knew his dad wasn't in the picture, but he never knew why. He never asked, but he started to get this horrible feeling after a while. Harley Quinn's past was well known to Steve, her previous...associate and her relationship with him isn't exactly a secret, no matter how much his mother tried to keep them from him. She couldn't protect him at school, and she couldn't protect him from hearing people talking on the streets.

So, yeah, from the age of nine, Steve walked around with this horrendous knowledge in his gut, a knowledge that he wanted to think was just him being paranoid. But it wasn't. He knew it wasn't. He just couldn't admit that to himself, and he couldn't ask his mother because he didn't want to send her down that particular lane of memories. So it festered, and Steve pretended it didn't exist at all.

Until, that is, his 13th birthday. It was held at Uncle Bruce's mansion because his mother wanted to go all out. It was as much a celebration for her (a full three years without getting sent to Arkham!) as it was for him (managing to stay alive for 13 years in Gotham with Harley Quinn for a mother). Steve hadn't minded, either, especially when he saw the absolute joy she had when picking out the hugest bounce-house she could find with Uncle Bruce's sleek black credit card.

The party was catered by Steve's favorite Indian restaurant, the guests were limited to immediate friends and family, the bounce-house was extra bouncy, and a table was practically buckling under the weight of the gifts piled on top of it. It was, by far, Steve's best birthday, surpassing even the one he spent in Arkham after letting Poison Ivy out of her cell.

"Hey, Dumplin'!" his mother shouted, waving at him from the top of the bounce house she'd managed to climb. When Steve looked at her, she grinned even brighter and jumped, launching off turrets and rolling down sloped walls before landing on her feet on the ground. "Let's get to them presents!"

Steve laughed, looked at the table eagerly, and nodded. Her grin somehow getting wider, Harley turned, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted, "GET YOUR ASSES IN GEAR, EVERYONE! STEVIE'S OPENIN' PRESENTS!"

Soon enough, Steve was standing in front of the table, surrounded by everyone, and not at all sure where to start with the mountain of presents. "You should open mine first," Jason said, grinning as he gestured to a bike-shaped package.

It was, in fact, a bike. A motorcycle, specifically, with a red and black helmet and the promise of lessons from Jason whenever he wanted. Steve loved it immediately and ignored Uncle Bruce muttering about driving laws and how Steve couldn't operate any motorized vehicle until he was fifteen. "Well," he said, "as long as I don't get caught by Batman, who's gonna know?"

That had earned him a laugh and his mother's hand ruffling his hair. "Go on, Dumplin', choose another."

Dick got him a literal outfit's worth of Wonder Woman merch, accessories included, that made Bruce look ready to pop a blood vessel. Tim gave him small tracking pins and a hacked handheld game console to watch the trackers with the promise of free upgrades anytime he wanted. Damien gave him daggers since he "wasn't good enough for real swords, but everyone should have a blade" on them, just in case. Cass, Steph, and Barbara pooled their skills together (and Alfred, they borrowed Alfred a lot) to make him an Unofficial Robin costume, complete with shorts only slightly less scandalous than Dick's original costume.

Bruce, when he finally stopped glaring at the three of them, gave Steve a fingerprint panic button shaped like a bat and easily attached to a key ring. "For emergencies, Steve," he said, "Just hold your thumb to it for three seconds."

"This is perfect for the next time we run out of ice cream," Steve said, grinning as he attached it to his key chain.

"Emergencies."

"Oh. So if we run out of mint chip, specifically. Got it."

Bruce merely sighed and let him return to opening gifts.

Alfred gave him a tin of homemade cookies that Steve immediately had to protect from the others. Poison Ivy gave him a Venus flytrap and the promise to help him grow it properly. Selina couldn't be there, but Bruce passed along her gift: a pair of goggles Bruce had handed over with a sigh and quiet request for him to use them responsibly.

Steve opened Duke's present last, eyes widening at the red leather jacket. "Wait, seriously?" he asked, holding it up as he looked at Duke.

"You're gonna be a troublemaker, Steve," Duke said. "Might as well make sure you're bulletproof for it."

Steve grinned wider and pulled on the jacket, swimming in the leather but eager to grow into it all the same.

There was nothing from his mother in the pile, but Steve figured the party itself was his present since she'd done all the planning. When she pulled him away to a secluded room in the manor after they'd all had cake, Steve realized it was just because she didn't want to share this moment with anyone.

She smiled at him, reaching up and gently tucking a few strands of hair behind Steve's ears. "You grew up so fast, Dumplin'," she said, sighing softly.

"Ivy says I'm like a weed."

"Ives is right," Harley said, nodding once before looking away. "Okay, ready for your present?"

"Wasn't the party my present?"

"No, no, Dumplin'. The party was for fun," she said, grinning as she reached behind her and pulled a comically-large mallet from seemingly nowhere. "This is your present."

Steve blinked, leaning over to look around Harley. "Where'd that even come from?" he asked.

"Jester Logic, Dumplin'. Don't worry about it. I'll teach you the trick later," she promised, holding the mallet out to Steve with an expectant expression.

When Steve took it, the weight threw him off. He frowned, shifted his grip, and suddenly had no problem holding it up. He took a closer look, noting the scratches and marks on the mallet and the faded paint. "This was yours," he said.

"Yeah, it was."

"I've never seen it before."

Harley sighed, tugging on one of her pigtails with a slight frown. "Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly a great person when I used it, Dumplin'. Tried to forget about that Harley and all," she explained.

"Then why give it to me?"

Harley looked back at Steve and smiled, reaching out to cup his cheek. "Cuz you're so much better than me," she said. "I think you'll do some great things, Dumplin', and maybe all the good you do will erase most of the bad this mallet's got."

Her words were so serious, her smile was so bittersweet, and she looked ready to cry and deny it. This was the closest he'd ever gotten to learning about her past straight from the source, a past he knew about it, a past that involved a certain person that haunts Steve's mind with terrifying potential. Suddenly, he had to know.

Steve didn't really think before blurting out, "Is the Joker my father?"

Harley froze, her shoulders tensing and her eyes widening as she stared at Steve. "You don't got a father, Dumplin'," she finally said, her voice quiet and her expression conflicted.

"Fine. Was he the sperm donor?"

With a sigh, Harley stepped closer and placed her hands on Steve's shoulders. "I won't lie," she said. "He is, but that don't mean a thing. His crazy ain't hereditary, Dumplin', and he's never gettin' anywhere near you."

"Does...does he know?" Steve whispered, "About me, I mean."

"It don't matter," Harley said, her voice firm and her eyes more serious than Steve had ever seen them. "I'll kill him before he gets near ya. Ives will kill him. Hell, Brucie wil---no, wait, he's got those pesky morals. Fine, Jason will kill him before he gets near ya. Actually, Jason'd kill him anyway, but the excuse will be good if Brucie scolds him for it."

Steve couldn't help laughing at that, feeling a little lighter when his mother smiled back at him. When his laughter trickled to nothing more than a smile, he asked, "Then, was I the reason you left?"

Harley nodded and gently tugged Steve into her arms, holding him to her and cradling the back of his head. "Yeah, you were," she said, her voice soft and soothing. "I was excited to tell 'im when I learned about you, but then I heard him talking to some goons. He was laughin' about running a kid over, breakin' their legs, and I realized...you wouldn't be special to him. You'd've been like his goons, all expendable and not even worth a glance. I couldn't put you through that, and I couldn't put me through it, either. So, I got us out the only way I knew how."

"By finding Uncle Bruce," Steve said.

He felt her nod. "By finding Brucie," she agreed. "He tried to deny bein' the Bat and all, but your mama ain't dumb, Dumplin'. I'd done my homework, and the butts matched. Once I explained it all, once I told him about you, he agreed to help."

Steve nodded, listening to his mother's heart beating against his ear. He glances down at the mallet again, tightens his grip, and takes a deep breath. "Thank you," he said, "for the gift and for telling me. I'll do good with it, I promise."

"That's my boy," Harley said, pulling back and ruffling his hair. "Now, lemme explain that Jester Logic to ya."

----------

Hawkins remains boring even after meeting Eddie. After all, Eddie's in high school (his second attempt at senior year, apparently), and Steve...isn't. He should be, probably, but there's no way he's stepping one foot in that suburban nightmare of a building. He can feel the normalcy, the utter boredom, oozing from the place, and he'd rather not subject himself to that.

So, he spends his day wandering around Hawkins, getting a feel for the little town until he could navigate the place blindfolded. He can do the same in Gotham, but it's more impressive there with the winding streets and sprawling sidewalks. Here, it's nothing special.

The most interesting part of his day is when he's sitting on the roof of a video store, one leg dangling over the edge with the other pulled to his chest so he can rest his arm on his knee. He's about halfway through a cigarette when a cop car pulls into the lot and a middle-aged man steps out.

He looks up at Steve, frowning as he calls up, "You shouldn't be there, son."

"I ain't your son," he calls back, grinning as he takes another drag and blows smoke out as the guy rests his hands on his belt. It reminds him so much of Gotham PD rookies trying to posture that Steve can't help laughing. "Is that supposed to intimidate me?"

"I'm serious, kid," the cop says, apparently ignoring Steve's question. "It's dangerous up there. If you don't come down, I'm gonna have to call the Fire Department to bring the ladder."

Steve sighs and puts his cigarette out on the roof. He gets up, stretches his arms above his head, and stands on the ledge of the roof. He grins at the cop, casually stepping into empty air and hearing the guy shout as he falls. He lands in a crouch on the awning over the door, swings to hang from it, and lands on his feet on the sidewalk.

It wasn't even much of a fall, but the cop looks like he's about to have a heart attack. Steve glances at the badge on his chest. "We done now, Officer Hopper?" he asks.

"Don't do that again," Hopper says, pointing a finger at Steve, "Or I will drag your ass to the station and call your parents."

Steve snorts, doing his best to hold his smile back. "I'll keep that in mind, sir," he says, giving a mocking two-finger salute before turning on his heels and walking down the street.

After a few blocks, he veers off into the forest, figuring he'll wander around the trees for a while before going to the Hideout to bother Bev and stare at Eddie and quietly pray someone else is gonna look for a fight.

Did he mention Hawkins is boring? Because it's fucking boring.

Steve sighs, kicking a stick as he shoves his hands into his jacket. He idly notes the forest is healthy. Sure, a few pieces of litter are strewn around, but it's not as bad as the parks in Gotham can get. Poison Ivy would find this place barely passable, which is hard to manage, and he's tempted to call her when he gets home to tell her about it.

He hums softly as he walks, enjoying the sounds of the forest until they just...stop.

The entire forest falls silent, which is weird; forests are too full of life to go silent. Even the bugs seem to have frozen in place, too scared to risk making a sound by moving. Steve stops, looking around him with a frown and trying to figure out what's caused this.

He gets the answer a second later when he hears a scream. The voice sounds young and cracks slightly, so it definitely belongs to a child. Despite himself, Steve can't help grinning as he takes off in the direction of the scream.

This is the most exciting thing to happen in the four weeks he's been stuck in Hawkins. As he runs through trees and easily jumps over bushes to take the shortest path, he makes guesses on what he'll find. Maybe Hawkins has a villain that's only now showing up. Maybe the town has a secret alligator or something that's decided to have a midday snack. Hell, maybe someone just decided to be a dick today.

He realizes every guess is wrong when he slides into a clearing to see a few kids (two boys, one girl) surrounded by some weird dog-looking...things. They have heads but no faces, crouched low to the ground and growling at the kids they've cornered. There's around ten of them, which would normally make Steve hesitate, but he's so desperate at this point for a real fight that he doesn't care.

Instead, he reaches over his shoulder, thinks about how fucking hilarious it's gonna be to jump out of nowhere with a giant mallet, and grips the handle as he swings it over his shoulder. "Hey, monster mutts!" he shouts, grinning when all the monsters and the kids finally notice him. "Let's play."

Pure, unfiltered joy rushes through him when the first monster-dog jumps at him. Steve's eyes are bright and his grin is positively feral as he swings the mallet and sends it flying into a tree. He roundhouse kicks another dog, using the momentum to bring his foot down on the head of a third before smashing its body with the mallet.

"Are you insane?!" one of the kids shouts.

"Certifiably!" he shouts back, watching as another monster-dog jumps at him. He waits for the perfect moment to back flip, bringing his feet under the dog to send it flying. He brings the mallet up as he lands, clocking another monster under the jaw. It yelps, crashing into another dog.

"Where'd this guy even come from?" the girl asks, turning to look at the boys with her.

"I don't know, but I'm happy to let him deal with the demodogs."

Oh. That's what they're called. Steve hums softly at the name, grinning as he twirls the mallet and swings with all his strength at one of the demodog. He rests the mallet on his shoulder like a baseball bat, watching the demodog arch in the air with an appreciative whistle. "Solid air," he says, nodding once before looking at the remaining demodogs.

There's only three, the others scattered in the clearing. He can't tell if they're dead or not, but he could always smash them to mush when he's done. Steve grins at the remaining dogs. "C'mon, then," he says, only to be filled with disappointment when they creep back, turn heel, and run.

"Damn, that's no fun," Steve says, sighing as he rests the mallet on the ground and leans on the handle. He looks at the kids. "You guys okay?"

The girl has orange hair pulled back into a messy braid. She's staring at him like he's got two heads but is kind of impressed by it. One of the boys has curly hair being smothered by his hat, and the other is wearing a basketball jersey. They're also staring at Steve like he's crazy. "Dude," the curly-haired one says, "that was awesome!"

"Where'd you get that mallet from?" the girl asks.

"Jester Logic," Steve explains, shrugging as he picks the mallet up and walks over. "Wanna hold it?"

When the girl lights up, he passes the mallet to her, snorting when she immediately staggers under its weight. "How do you hold this so easily?"

"Jester Logic. Again. It's funnier when other people find it heavy."

"That makes no sense," basketball jersey says.

"Who are you?" curly hair asks.

"Steve. Moved here recently. What about y'all?"

"Dustin," curly hair says.

"Lucas," basketball jersey says.

"Max," the girl says, her voice strained until Steve takes the mallet back, twirling it like it weighs nothing.

"Great. Nice to meet y'all. Now, what the fuck were those?"

"How much time you got?" Dustin asks.

Steve grins, thinking he's finally found something that can keep him entertained when he's not hanging around Eddie. "Plenty."

---------

Tag list (let me know if you'd like to be added!)

@nectandra, @y4r3luv, @just-a-tiny-void,

#steddie #steddie fic #harlequin prince #steve deserves good parents actually #steve harrington #harley quinn #bruce wayne #jim hopper #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #dc comics crossover #wayne family adventures crossover #i kinda let the muse take over with this one actually #unhinged steve harrington #as he deserves #poison ivy #robins

278 notes · View notes

wavesoutbeingtossed · 4 months ago

Note

See I always got the impression she stayed with Calcium for too long for the wrong reasons. I was too young to know what was going on at the time but from strictly lyrics and a few things the fandom has brought back up, I've just alays jotted that relationship down to Taylor satisfying the crowd in the same way she did with her music. They wanted a sonically cohesive album, she fave it. They said she's never kept a good guy in a long relationship, so she stuck out longer than she wanted to until finally she couldn't and didn't want to hold those comments against herself anymore. Just falling for her people pleasing tendencies. I don't quite get what tension you were referring to (I'm probably the one in the wrong since again, I wasn't familiar with anything outside her music at the time) but what lines stuck out to you to describe that relationship the way you did in that getaway car post?

Anon, I know you’re here in good faith, but I want to be thoughtful with my language and very gently want to push back on the idea that she did anything, including dating a person, just to “satisfy the crowds.” I know you didn’t have any ill intent. But to me that’s another way of unintentionally framing Taylor as a character or an avatar when she is someone with a very human life she’s led with her own choices.

It’s the same with the music. Yes, she wanted to make albums people would like and buy. But to reduce her art to that is also doing her a disservice— by all accounts, she WANTED to branch out to pop. She wanted to explore new sounds. I’m not denying there was some external validation she was seeking, but that doesn’t mean she was living her life just to satisfy others.

Again, we’re not privy to all of Taylor’s inner life, including why she chose her partners or stayed with them, unless she’s shared that. She hasn’t nearly as much about this situation as others, so we’re just picking up context clues. But I just don’t subscribe to the thought that she picked a boyfriend just to beat the headlines, because again, she is a human with feelings, including for other people, and real life is full of complicated feelings. I think it’s just as likely that she chose a partner because he paid attention to her and loudly pursued her after years of being toyed with by other men, and he was charismatic and effusive on the surface and that was a welcome change in her life at the time. That’s from the little we could see and know in public and inferring from the Red/1989 pipeline.

As for why she stayed with him so long— sure, I think it’s likely there was some fear there about “never beating the allegations.” But again, I just am not comfortable with saying it’s to please others, or solely that, the same way I wouldn’t be comfortable saying that about anyone I knew in real life. Because again, people are full of nuance. I would guess it might have also been about proving to *herself* that she could stick it out, after years of situationships and emotional rollercoasters where she may have felt like she had no control over at times. And the control piece is one that is really important for a lot of things that were going on in her life.

It’s also important to take it within the context that has been filled out in the years following Rep's release thanks to the re-recordings and newer albums. She'd had a years-long on-and-off thing with Jake which was full of a lot of emotionally upending experiences and sunk her into a low period, she followed that with another long on-and-off situationship with Harry where neither of them could ever really say what they wanted so they just kept dancing around each other, along with other people filling up her dance card in her orbit.

So when a firmly established man, who was successful and famous in his own right, who she was attracted to and enjoyed spending time with, expressed interest in her and not only that, expressed interest in a relationship with her, when she'd literally spent her adult life up to then in these merry-go-round situations? That might have felt really, really comforting for a time, especially considering everything else that was going on in her life. And might also help flesh out why she felt she should stay, even when other alarm bells were going off. (That's a whole other discussion.) This however is just my speculation.

As for the clues in the music that things were Not Good-- well, you kind of have to use your noggin for that.

"He poisoned the well, I was lying to myself" / "He poisoned the well, every man for himself" points to a person who brought toxicity into the home. Poisoning the well generally and broadly means painting someone in a negative and false light to discredit them before others have a chance to judge on their own. Within the context of the song, IMO it paints a picture of someone who is controlling and manipulative at the very least. So in the first instance, she's lying to herself about how bad things are, and in the second, she realizes she's got to save herself because she's no exception.

(Not to point to real life events because I've said before not everything in her music refers to an event we see... But we do know, for instance, that he publicly denied she wrote "This Is What You Came For" and tried to discredit her until she revealed she was behind the pseudonym. I don't think that's what the song is referring to, to be clear, but it's just a real-life example of the type of behaviour that might inform that kind of lyric. He tried to deny her own success and knock her down a peg when that success overshadowed his and he was vengeful about her leaving him.)

"It was the great escape, the prison break / The light of freedom on my face / But you weren't thinking and I was just drinking / While he was running after us, I was screaming, "Go, go, go!"" is another indication of a very fraught relationship. The fact that she felt like she had to not only break free from this person, but speed off before they could catch her is very telling. It's different from the way she writes about running/escaping on TTPD, for instance-- where again it's about freedom, but she's in control and it's more like, I'm sick of this/I feel like I'm dying. In the fantasy situation here, it implies he's chasing after her, but not to win her back but to punish her, like a guard would chasing after a detainee. She's desperate to leave, and not just in the "I'm going to do what I want" type of way, but with the implication that she needs to flee as fast as she can before he catches her (and harms her, or worse yet, drags her back to her cell.) In other words, she was worried about how he would retaliate if she didn't leave right that second. There's an urgency implied with "GO GO GO!"

(Because if you think of prison break or heist movies, usually the escapee who gets caught ends up getting shot and killed. Bonnie and Clyde are a good example of this.)

Plus, the "I was just drinking" line is telling-- it implies she was drowning her misery in alcohol, which again is a theme we see later on in TTPD too and indicative of someone who is unwell and going unnoticed.

The tl;dr of Getaway Car is that she felt that if she didn't escape right that second, she was going to die. That's not necessarily literal to her real life, let me reiterate, but emotionally speaks to a very tense and dark situation she felt was harmful.

ivy imo furthers this same tension. With the caveat that we can't ~know~ he was the inspiration for the husband in the song, there are parallels to that same fear and unease in the love triangle.

"I just sit here and wait, grieving for the living," while not directly about the male character in the song, implies a woman who's stuck at home and despondent. There are other lyrics (like "He's in the room") implying that she feels like she's being watched, monitored, judged. (Which, to be fair, is in a song where the narrator is very much considering running off with another man, so I suppose suspicion isn't out of hte question.)

"He's gonna burn this house to the ground" is another lyric that is very evocative, but is also laced with the threat of violence. It's the implication that if he finds out that she's considering fleeing, he's going to destroy her and everything along with it-- which is also the undercurrent of her frantic escape in Getaway Car.

"So tell me to run, or dare to sit and watch what we'll become / And drink my husband's wine" again maybe doesn't sound directly threatening, but speaks to the narrator's utter despondency. It's, if I don't get out of here, I'm going to self-destruct. She's going to lose herself in the wine -- and it's her husband's, because she's been drinking everything he's been selling her, both metaphorically and in actuality. She's taken in his words and his threats and also his alcohol, careening into the abyss around him.

High Infidelity is the real damning song, and nearly the entire thing is infused with fear. "Lock broken, slur spoken / Wound open, game token / I didn't know you were keeping count" right off the bat paints an image of a dire situation, implying a fight that ends in threat. The "lock broken" line is interesting because I used to take it as metaphorical, e.g. the slur spoken is the thing that opened the damn (broke the lock) and hurt her deeply, but then I saw some people interpret the "ended with the slam of the door" line in The Bolter as the slam of a door in a home (as opposed to the slam of the car door which is what I took it as) and I think that paints an even more vivid-- and scary-- image. So, you have a broken door, yelling obscenities (and I think it's interesting that so many of us immediately thought "whore"/"slut" when High Infidelity first came out, because that's nearly always the way a man will try to denigrate a woman, and then The Bolter came out and confirmed it) and suddenly she feels ripped open inside realizing she's just a trophy to him (game token) rather than a partner. It's devastating, and we're only three lines into the song.

Then following that up with "Rain soaking, blind hoping / You said I was freeloading / I didn't know you were keeping count" continues that thread, pointing and to me is a parallel to "He poisoned the well, I was lying to myself." He accuses her of damnable offenses in an effort to keep her down (which sounds like it could even be gaslighting), and her "blind hoping" is the lying to herself that things are fine, that they'll get better, but then the reality hits that he's keeping score; it sounds like a classic manipulative tactic, e.g. "you owe me"/"I do everything and you do nothing"/enter attempt at power imbalance here. That's not love, that's transaction.

"Put on your headphones and burn my city / Your picket fence is sharp as knives, I was dancing around it" to me is very reminiscent of ivy and "he's gonna burn this house to the ground," e.g. he is going to set out to destroy her if she leaves. "Your picket fence is sharp as knives" means the home life he's selling to her is actually her prison, or the thing that will harm her. It's prickly, it's sharp, it means that this "white picket fence" life that is the marker of adult success is the very thing that she feels will destroy her, because he's so malicious.

"Storm coming, good husband / Bad omen / Dragged my feet right down the aisle / At the house lonely, good money / I'd pay if you'd just know me / Seemed like the right thing at the time" is so, so sad, and again follows her gut instinct telling her things are Bad. She can see that there is darkness ahead by staying in the relationship. The relationship is rapidly heading one way (down the aisle) but she knows that very thing will harm her. She has a vision that she's going to be left alone and lonely in this hypothetical marriage, even though imo she's implying that at the time she thought maybe this was the best she could hope for/deserve (seemed like the right thing at the time). Again, she's navigating what she feels she should want-- a long term relationship that leads to marriage and partnership-- with this growing feeling in her pit that he's going to hurt her if she stays.

"You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love / The slowest way is never loving them enough," is so sad, and like a lot of the other parts of the song, shows how hopelessly lonely she was in this relationship, and again, the premonition she was having about what would happen to her had she stayed. It's a partner who does not care about the person in their home and does not care to show them any consideration or affection, let alone whatever else is happening.

And the way she ends the song repeating "Oh, you were keeping count" again is just like: this image of someone who is predatory and looking to entrap someone emotionally. It's very, very scary in its utter insidiousness.

And lastly we have The Bolter, which again, ~might not be about him or anyone~, but the chorus IMO is referring to all these scenarios. "Started with a kiss, "Oh, we must stop meeting like this" / But it always ends up with a Town Car speeding out the drive one evening / Ended with the slam of a door, then he'll call her a whore / Wish he wouldn't be sore / But as she was leaving it felt like breathing" It's the initial flirtation and honeymoon period (kiss/meeting like this) but the speeding car out the driveway is the end of it-- fleeing the scene (like the Getaway Car, like running off in ivy, like the emotional escape in High Infidelity). Here we have the slur spoken from HI (called her a whore) and perhaps even the lock broken (slam of a door). "Wish he wouldn't be sore" is like a cutesy way of "wish he wouldn't be so mad," but it's also sad because it implies that he's always like this and it's dismissed as just one of his personality traits. And like with all the other songs, her escape is literally life-saving to her, in so many ways.

And while, "He was a cad, wanted her bad, just like any good trophy hunter / And she likes the way it tastes, taming a bear, making him care / Watching him jump then pulling him under," could be about anyone, again I think it applies here too. Because she is the game token in HI, the trophy he wanted to put on the shelf and pull down whenever he wanted. The taming the bear thing is funny at first glance because it's part of the "I can fix him" complex we see over and over again, and she loves the thrill of the chase, only her she feels endangered when the bear turns on her and shows his teeth. Hence the escape in escaping.

Anyway this was waaaaaaaaaaay too long. But I just hope that fleshes out a little more about what you were wondering about. One of the fascinating things about Taylor's discography is not only how much the stories end up calling back to each other as time marches on, but that she uses so many narrative devices to tell them. Whether it's the fantasy of Getaway Car or ivy, or the diary-entry-like High Infidelity, or The Bolter's amalgam allegory of so many situations, it's so interesting to pick up on the common threads that weave together another story.

#writing letters addressed to the fire #me thinking too hard about taylor lyrics #getaway car #ivy #high infidelity #the bolter #reputation #evermore my beloved #midnights #the tortured poets department #cause i know that it's delicate #long post #pouring out my heart to a stranger but i didn't pour the whiskey #anonymous #muses acquired like bruises

21 notes · View notes