#while I go make some hot chocolate and think of bunny rabbits and rainbows for a while

[perkynurples]

... May I ask you about the slow excruciating progression from Meng Yao to Jiggy?

also paging @holdmycaffeine and @cadencekismet, who asked me for the very same, and @acutebird-fics, who is my partner in crime deep philosophical discussions about these characters, and a great deal of this messy essay is informed by those

Tl;dr: JGY is a multifaceted character and the author struggles not to lose her mind trying to find the right words to describe that. Literally every single point of this rant is up for discussion, begging for it even, so please don’t hesitate to engage me, but, like... tomorrow, maybe. After I sleep it off.

Meta I used or referenced: THIS ONE explaining how JGS deciding to give him the name GuangYao is all kinds of wrong | THIS ONE talking about the red bindi-like Jin forehead dots, among other things | THIS ONE about his capacity for evil and his own recognition thereof

-

Alright, without any fancy preamble, here goes. Honestly, whenever I think about JGY for more than three seconds, it becomes painfully evident that there are two wolves inside me at all times - one wants to spend tens of thousands of words exploring his narrative, his choices, his abilities and his failings, his capacity for violence as well as his capacity for love...

And the other one just likes to call him a gremlin in chief in a fancy hat, and doesn’t want to go much further than that. I’m going to try and feed them both.

The thing that pisses me off about Meng Yao is just. The fact that he doesn’t stay Meng Yao, and we get to watch it happen in slow motion. You get a tiny little twink-ass kid who suddenly finds himself adopted into the Nie by the Sect Leader himself, and this is Meng Yao, the son of one of Jin Guangshan’s many mistresses, who doesn’t have a whole lot going for him aside from that, at that moment - his cultivation, weak. His opportunities, nonexistent. His dick, small. His political savvy, only just starting to show itself.

And this guy gets the chance of a lifetime presented to him on a Qinghe-silver platter. Like, we can argue about book canon and try and decide if he did anything at all to make NMJ notice him, but show canon makes it all the more hilarious (again, please refer to this gem of a post for a level of humor I’m sorely incapable of) - you’re seventeen, and the Batman of the cultivation world picks you up and elevates your status across swathes of societal norms, to a level you previously could have only dreamed of.

It’s interesting to me to try and imagine if this was the moment that Meant Something - in the grand scope of things, of course it did, because it started MY on the road to JGY, but also to Meng Yao personally, in terms of what he believed he could comfortably achieve. I do not for a second believe he started out wanting to murder people to reach his goal, or that he even had a good goal to begin with - being accepted by his father, maybe. Murdering the (at the time) greatest villain in the world, becoming a renowned spy, landing an incredibly beneficial sworn brotherhood, et cetera et cetera? I mean, the kid has wet dreams, but no way do they reach this far at this point in his life.

But so many things about him are unclear. Show canon changes his timeline, in that he met NMJ before he met Lan Xichen, and even accompanied NHS to the Cloud Recesses. Either way, his stint with the Nie is incredibly personally important to him. I firmly believe he loved and admired them, in his own way. He certainly flourished under NMJ’s tutelage and approval, but in the end, his motivations, his entire raison d’etre, clashed with NMJ’s too much. To Meng Yao, who��d gotten kicked down those infamous Koi Tower stairs for daring to ask for his father’s attention, murdering a guy for slandering him and his mother was a natural outcome of being slandered his entire life, and finally having had enough - to NMJ, it was unforgivable.

But this still isn’t where Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao, and it begs the goddamn question - how much of what JGY was perfectly willing and capable of doing to stay in power, had been present in Meng Yao that entire time? You see him make excuses that someone who isn’t NMJ, with his incredibly staunch morals and black-and-white view of the world, might have even accepted, but instinctively, you know - making excuses is just how it’s going to be with this guy.

Because Meng Yao, as well as Jin Guangyao, lies, and he is damn good at it. He is so good at it, that he lies his way to the very top of the Wen, all the way to Wen Ruohan’s side. His lying is what enables him to become Jin Guangyao. And like any good liar, he doesn’t only lie to the people around him - he also lies to himself.

And I can’t blame him, because - been there. Lying to yourself becomes absolutely necessary, when you want to keep everyone else around you believing in a mask you wear. You need to start believing it, at least a little bit, at least sometimes, for it to work.

At this point, you’re probably wondering - but Annie, what about the time he spent a year sheltering Lan Xichen? Did he lie then? Was he not just Meng Yao, a poor but cunning bookkeeper, then? I’m getting there, I swear. Slowly and in a roundabout sort of way, because honestly, I don’t know how I can start talking about the LXC of it all, without it turning into a novel.

Because whichever way you twist it, whatever canon you choose to follow, one constant remains - A-Yao’s feelings for Lan Xichen. I’m deliberately not calling him Meng Yao or Jin Guangyao, because it’s these feelings that divide the two, but also ultimately unify them, fatally so. But we’ll get there.

In one version of events, Meng Yao travels to Cloud Recesses at the behest of NMJ, and falls in love with a statue made of jade there. In another version of events, they meet during something LXC only describes as ‘the shame of a lifetime’. Both of those events lead to Meng Yao sheltering LXC, hiding him, saving his life and those precious Gusu Lan texts.

Whatever version of events you choose to see as the right one, one other truth also remains - Lan Xichen offers freely and without asking that which Meng Yao has had to struggle to attain, that which has been denied to him time and time again, based only on the circumstances of his birth: respect. Lan Xichen never looks down on him, never brings up his origins, and instead extends him respect and dignity in a way only he is capable of - no fucking wonder Meng Yao admires him. No fucking wonder, when this amazing guy, this perfect pristine handsome number one young cultivator, looks at him, smiles at him, and actually sees him, son of a whore or not.

No fucking wonder Meng Yao loves him, and Jin Guangyao continues loving him. No fucking wonder he never means to hurt him, but does so anyway.

But here’s the thing - lying to yourself to make things work only gets you so far. Do I think Meng Yao spends restless nights in cold sweat dreading who he’s becoming, thinking about all the lives he’s taken to further his goals? Absolutely not. Do I think he does good things, often even great things, because it helps him feel better about himself? Do I think he both loves Xichen and keeps him around because it’s beneficial to him, having the Lan Sect Leader in his pocket, but also personally speaking, having someone who so firmly believes in the goodness in him? You bet your overly adorned murderhat I do.

And frankly, reducing Jin Guangyao to one or the other - coldblooded murderer or a man plagued by his own insecurities, helpless and trying to be kind in a world that’s so evidently against him - is doing a character like him a huge disservice. You have to consider all sides, if you want to truly understand him. Hell, I myself am by no means claiming to truly understand him! He pisses me off daily, and I’m writing this stream-consciousness-y thing because he simply won’t shut up in my head.

This kid makes Choices, and here’s the catch - he doesn’t regret a whole lot of them. If anything, I’d like to think he regrets going along with his father’s plans for so fucking long before finally realizing that avenue won’t bring him what he seeks. Killing Jin Guangshan, by the way? Very sexy of him, that I’ll admit. Guy was a pig.

But even the obviously Good Choices he makes? Building those damn watchtowers? Letting Mo Xuanyu stay at Koi Tower? Seating Qin Su by his side at that same throne where his shitty father entertained concubine after concubine? (Frankly, please make up your own mind as to whether he was lying or telling the truth about learning about Qin Su being his sister before or after they’d consummated their marriage, I’m choosing to believe that he hadn’t known.)

How much of it really happens out of the goodness of his own heart, and how much of it happens because he wants to improve his own reputation, kintsugi away the minuscule cracks in his own image until he’s once again a perfect picture of Jin gold? Is he himself even capable of telling the difference, recognizing where his good intentions end and his desire to look out for number one begins? When you spend so much time crafting your own perfect mask, in your own head as well as others’, the lines blur real fast.

I think ultimately, he craves respect as much as he does pity, and those two never mesh well - the cultivation world never truly accepts him, his father certainly never truly accepts him, but Jin Guangyao is not Wei Wuxian, he can’t just look at all of these perceived injustices and slights, all of this gossip and slander, and say ‘Whatever’. No, Meng Yao takes one look at the world standing against him so very vehemently, and decides to fight it, fight tooth and nail for his place in it, until he comes out Jin Guangyao on the other side, gilded and pristine, ascending the stairs of Jinlintai to exact his revenge on anyone who dares not accept him.

The Guanyin Temple, in a way, is a perfect little vignette of his character - we observe him wildly oscillating between seeking out the aforementioned respect and pity, confessing boldly and laughing loudly one second, and pleading on his knees and clutching onto Lan Xichen’s robe the next. To him, that night, and everything leading up to it, is a series of footholds - the ground begins crumbling under his feet when he learns of the letter, and he has to act fast. 

He buys himself time, excuse after excuse, thinking on his feet, and here’s the thing - he’s not necessarily the best at that. Anymore. Up until that point, until the letter and Qin Su and WWX turning up, everything is going according to plan, and his plan at this point is, frankly, correct me if I’m wrong, sitting pretty at the top of his golden tower and making sure the truth about him never comes to light, which... Well, we all know the truth has a nasty way of coming around when it’s least convenient for you. 

And I think Jin Guangyao (not Meng Yao) is, at that point, unused to being inconvenienced. Everything he ever does, he calculates, he twists the public opinion of himself, he twists individual people’s opinions of himself, to suit him - nothing unexpected ever happens anymore, because he’s played the game long enough to foresee most things. Nie Huaisang beats him at that same game, not because he has a huge plan spanning decades of his own, but because he’s good at improvising, kicking the hornet’s nest and then knowing where to direct the fallout - but that is another essay all of its own waiting to happen.

For now, I feel like I need to wrap this up before I lose my mind. Personally (and please feel free to challenge me on this any time), I don’t feel like there’s a single defining moment, or even a handful of them, traumatic or otherwise, that irrevocably turns Meng Yao into Jin Guangyao. Sure, being kicked down the literal stairs leading to a better place for you a handful of times will have you feeling some kind of way. Sure, serving a maniacal warlord while playing an impossibly high-stakes game of spy poker will leave a mark or two. Sure, your sworn brother spitting in your face the very insults you’ve been hearing your whole life and never learned to shake off, will make one more vestige of patience inside you irrevocably crumble to smithereens. But.

Your whole life, you work very, very hard. You know to put your head down and get your hands dirty, but you also know that sometimes, the best way out of a hairy situation is turning on those puppy eyes and appearing just a smidgen weaker, a smidgen more frightened and helpless, than you actually are. And if, when you actually tell the truth and people still don’t believe you, lying becomes easier, becomes, eventually, so easy it feels as natural as breathing? Well. Might as well use that particular skillset to sneak your way through a war, am I right? Might as well use it to build yourself a nest among the very vultures who resent you, and whom you resent, and make sure that they have to respect you.

In the end, to me? Jin Guangyao is the guy who jumps from person to person, from callout to very personal callout, there in the Guanyin Temple, just to stall for time, just to regain some sort of foothold in the situation - he’s the guy who probably views losing an arm as a necessary sacrifice, shakes it off and still gets to work from there.

Meng Yao is the guy who wants to take his mother with, and who asks Lan Xichen the one question he’s dreaded knowing the answer to his entire life - not ‘will you stay and die with me?’, but the one that hides beyond that.

Is this what devotion is? Respect? Love? Is there, at this moment in time, enough of all of those things in your heart that you will, in fact, stay and die with me?

When Lan Xichen says yes, without words but still loudly enough to be understood without a doubt, Meng Yao is relieved, while Jin Guangyao is vindicated.

When Lan Xichen says yes, neither version of A-Yao needs to hear any more than that - the seventeen-year-old boy shooting a shot way above his station and loving a statue made of jade, who wants Lan Xichen to survive, and the man wearing the wrong name and the title of the first Chief Cultivator of his generation, who wants Lan Xichen to live with the weight of all his mistakes and misgivings, are both, for once, in accord. They’re both happy, and they both make that final push to save him.

In conclusion, if there even is one to this jumble of random thoughts... Jin Guangyao and Meng Yao are one and the same. Aspects of one can be found in the other, but neither feels remorse about his choices. Both of them, in turn, are capable of amazing things. Both of them are, in fact, capable of decidedly horrible things. One builds a wall around the other so thick, so impenetrable, you only catch glimpses, and only the ones he allows you to see. One learns very quickly that vulnerability is dangerous, unless employed proactively, and the other one perfects the craft.

Both of them believe they are perfectly justified in their actions. Both of them believe their own line of reasoning, their own excuses. Both of them want to be loved, for very different reasons, or for the very same ones, at the end of the day.

Both of them aspire to greatness, Meng Yao some vague idea of it instilled in him by his mother teaching him to believe his own worth, Jin Guangyao a more concrete vision of it, always one step ahead, one step higher up those gilded stairs. Both of them are willing to excuse a whole lot to reach it, too.

And when Jin Guangyao finally stands in Koi Tower, properly this time, wearing that coveted golden peony, wearing that red zhushazhi and a much nicer version of the hat his mother always told him to wear, but also wearing the wrong fucking name, one that barely gives him a spot in the family he belongs to by blood?

All he needs to do is take one look in the mirror to see Meng Yao staring back, always there with him, always ready to remind him where he came from. He’s seventeen years old, and he just buried his mother, and somewhere out there, the rest of his life awaits. His smile is all dimples, and that, too, they have in common.

Time to get to work, Meng Yao suggests, and Jin Guangyao agrees.

[rnainframe]

every! single! one!

can you tell my mood dropped hard like halfway through

angel; do you have a nickname?at the moment lars is pretty much just a nickname because my mom won’t let me get a name change

awe; how old are you?19!

baby; favorite color?red!

bloop; spirit animal?that’s not a very good term iirc but i guess wolf?

blossom; favorite book/movie/song?book: wolves of the beyond is very near and dear to memovie: the world’s end, the thing 1982, the incredibles, deadpoolsong: i have... so many

blush; what was your stuffed animal as a child?

her name is baby, she’s dressed up, and i still sleep with her to this day,

breeze; most precious childhood memory?sitting behind my dad and watching as he plays games on the psx and gamegear, i mainly remember ristar and sonic on the gamegear and silent hill on the psx

bright; mermaids or fairies?both!!!

bubbles; do you have a best friend?@aceiou @gruvu <3

buttercup; showers or baths?showers, submerging my body freaks me out

butterfly; dream destination?a road trip to visit all my frands

buttons; are you religious or spiritual?spiritual, mainly superstitious

calm; favorite scent?a kind of cologne my dad used to wear

candlelight; what did you dream about last night?my brain reminding me of my deep-seated desire to reconnect with an asshole i used to crush on despite me wanting to bury it for good

charming; have you ever been in love?yes

cozy; eye/hair color?i think the name of my hair color is light ash brown? people confuse me for ginger and blond though somehow

cuddly; what’s your favorite time period?80s/90s, also the aesthetics of the 20s~50s

cupcake; favorite flower/plant?succulents, roses, lilies

cute; what did you get on your last birthday?clothes, something useless from my sister, a panic attack

cutie pie; most precious item you own?baby, my phone, my sketchbook, a paw print from sadie the people that put her to sleep sent us

cutsie; what makes you happy?i’m too numb rn to really know

daisies; describe a moment when you felt free.i think the last time i got to go anywhere with friends and without my mom involved was last summer

daydream; how do you want to be remembered?like my dad, where people try to remember him fondly while ignoring the glaring bad shit about him, hhhH

daylight; favorite album of all time?smoke + mirrors from imagine dragons, in silico from pendulum, no culture from mother mother

dear; zodiac sign?sagittarius on the traditional zodiac, ophiuchus on the updated zodiac, my animal is the rabbit

delightful; concerts or museums?museums, concerts get me overloaded unless it’s a band i really like

dimples; have you ever written a letter?yeah

dobby; dream job?i don’t know anymore

doll; how do you like to dress?comfortably, ideally masculine

dovey; any paranormal/magical experiences?my dad haunts my house

dreams; do you want or have any tattoos?i wanna get either an eye coming out of my shoulder of a shamrock in memory of my dad, something simple and space (and/or wolf) related in white ink, uhhhhmaybe the pokemon league symbol somewhere

drizzle; do you believe in aliens?they’re out there

euphoric; talk about someone you love.ace is adorable!!!! i love them so much, their voice, their face, their fashion, their art, their writing!!!!!!

fairy; do you have a pet?ginger morkie named rusty, i wanna get another lab sometime

fluffy; ocean or mountain?mountain

forever; where do you feel time stop?sitting outside at night when it’s snowy, it’s so quiet and magical feeling

froglet; are you a good plant owner?unfortunately no

garden; how many languages do you know?one, trying to learn german or danish or irish

gem; who are your favorite tumblrs?aceiou, gruvu, bunjywunjy, bogleech, weirdmarioenemies, uuhhhh

giggles; what is your aesthetic of choice?either space or red+black glitch stuff

glittery; do you like anons? why/why not?when they’re nice

glow; list the top 5 things you like about yourselftoo numb for that rn

heart; silk or lace?silk feels nice to touch but i wouldn’t wear either

honey; coffee or tea? how do you take it?coffee, cappuccino mixed w/ hot chocolate and a lot of creamertea, raspberry or peach iced tea

hugsy; do you enjoy people watching or bird watching more? why?birds don’t judge you

hunnybunch; what sounds help you sleep?white noise - the sound of a fan, the sound of rain, etc

jewel; what’s your favorite kind of weather?rain, especially stormy

jiggly; what do you usually like to do on weekends?every day is a weekend. i have no life. i am rotting

joy; do you laugh loudly or giggle more?i wheeze or silently laugh. i used to have an ugly loud laugh

kinky; do you blush easily?i blush when embarrassed or crying

kisses; what romantic cliché do you wish for most?spending every moment loving on the person i’m with, every day being like the first day we met

kitty; what’s your favorite time of the day?sunset to night

ladybug; what’s your favorite artist to listen to when you’re sad?mother mother

love; what is your favorite season and why?autumn. it’s not as depressing as summer

lovey; what is your favorite flavor of macaron and ice cream?i’ve never had macarons, but i love bunny tracks and peanut butter cup and bear creek caramel and

magic; what are five flaws you have?you think i can narrow it down to just five

moonlight; do you prefer soft pastels, warm neutrals, or cool darks?warm pastels, warm neutrals, warm and cool darks

munchkin; what do you look for in your significant other?idk but i got it

paddywack; how would you describe a perfect date?wandering around mainstreet and old town st charles, eating at rt weilers, getting ice cream at riverside sweets, then having sodas from the old soda shoppe, ideally in autumn

pebbles; how do you spend free time by yourself?sleeping, wasting away on the internet, the likes

precious; what is something valuable that you learned in your life?don’t get attached, everything will go bad someday

pretty; do you like to cook or bake more?baking is easier but i feel more in control when cooking

prince; how would you describe your handwriting?horrible, illegible

princess; do you play any instruments? if not, are there any you wish you could play?i used to play the recorder, then the flutei want to learn the guitar but i’m so bad at it that when trying to tune a very expensive guitar i got as a gift when i still had passion for it i broke a string

prinky; how do you relieve stress?i don’t

pumpkin; what is your favourite kind of fruit/vegetable?strawberries, raspberries, bananas, pomegranates, pickles, broccoli, tomatoes, pumpkins

rainbow; what was the last line of the last book you read?i can’t focus on reading anymore

roses; what is the most significant event in your life so far?my dad’s death.

smile; what is one thing that has greatly affected you?my dad’s death.

shine; art or music?i’m not good enough at art to deserve picking it, and i’m an audiophile (not! a! fetish!), so

shimmer; do animals tend to like you?i get too rough without realizing it. rusty probably doesn’t like me. he just licks me and sleeps by me whenever he doesn’t have my mom to love on.

smitten; do you collect anything?bottle caps, can tabs, pokemon merch, empty pill bottles

smoochies; how many pillows do you sleep with?four at the head of my bed (two go unused), one plain blue body pillow to hold, like five other pillows to add pressure to my legs

snuggle; what is your favourite candy?peppermint kisses

snuggly; do you have a camera? if so, what kind?phone

sparkle; do you wear jewelry?i used to wear necklaces all the time. they all break because of how i stim with them. my mom doesn’t trust anything around my neck anymore

spooky; sunrise or sunset?sunset

sprinkles; do you like to listen to music with headphones or no headphones?headphones

starlight; what was your favourite show as a child?crashbox, digimon, power rangers, pokemon, total drama

soft; describe your favourite spot in your house.my room. 

soothe; digital or vinyl?digital

squeezed; who do you miss right now?read over some of the questions and ask me again

sugary; what traits do you value most in friends?can i trust you

sunshine; do you prefer for things to be practical or aesthetically pleasing?both

sweet; do you find it easy to open up?too easy

sweetie; do you like kids? if so, do you ever want to have any?they are sensory nightmares

thimble; is there somebody you look up to? who are they?edd gould is dead

toot; what is something you find unique about yourself?my ability to get completely numb over the dumbest bullshit

tootsie; what kind of friend are you?a bad one

treasure; what was something that made you smile today?nothing so far

velvet; are you an early bird or a night owl?night owl

whiffle; if you could have a magical power, what would it be?shapeshifting or invisibility or mind reading

whimsical; do you prefer doing stuff at home or going out?ideally i wanna go out but only if i trust whoever i’m with to understand that i burn out fast anymore

whiskers; do you usually wear makeup?no

wiggly; are you a messy or tidy person?i obsessively organize things but am very messy

wispy; do you like the place where you grew up? do you think you will live there when you get older?i have no choice, i legally own the house i’m in now. i can’t go anywhere without dragging my mom along. i’m trapped

wobbly; have you ever wished upon a star?i wish to have good birthdays. they never come true

[theburnishedopal]

Metamorphosis, a police escort and the Midnight Fremont Summer Solstice Parade

I kneel down on the deck of the float, sun cloaking my shoulders in warmth. I am absorbed in the action of stitching blue thread through pale blue netting. The stitches are rough but regular. Slowly I make my way across the chassis floor, following the rough line Dave has cut in the shape of butterfly wings, occasionally making mistakes, breaking and tying off the thread, then rethreading and starting anew along the same line.

I am helping to make wings for ‘Metamorphosis’, a butterfly-inspired float. The float will house Dave and Jon’s long-running band, The Shamaniacs, while they play peculiar reggae-rap-psychedelic-rocknroll for two hours as they are pushed through Fremont with thousands of people lining the streets, under the Solstice sun. The float is human-powered, although a generator will project the band’s sound.

The float is pale green and flat, with a pull bar at the front and a push bar at the back that are wrapped in foam and duct tape for comfort. Dave and Jon will be relying on friends and family to push them along the length of the parade. A clear plastic U-shaped gazebo stretches over the float, and handmade paper flowers dangle and decorate all the support beams. I ziptie plastic cutout butterflies onto the front post. One of them is a Camberwell Beauty. It has a smear of free chocolate across the center – I think it’s been in the hands of Jon’s seven-year-old daughter.

We work through the evening, surrounded by bustle and creativity. Up the street, a gigantic Sasquatch is taking shape. His hand now waves slowly, just like a dull giant, but his flesh and eyes glow with colour and thought. Next to us people paint bright yellow and glitter on wood. People stick faces of police brutality victims onto a float which resembles a four-poster bed opposite us. Some kids practice their stilt walking. Outside the Powerhouse, the Art Studio which is vomiting all this creativity out into the street, guys with waxed mustaches and quizzical green eyes use power tools to build the centerpiece float. Designed by Pacific Northwest artist Carl Smool, it will have four giant gargoyle heads atop fabric skyscrapers – the ‘Corporate Gargoyles’. Yesterday evening, I spent hours stipple painting one of the heads to resemble stone. Carl creates papiér mâché pieces of art for activism. Somehow he is overseeing everything.

Jon’s daughter, Samantha, was the inspiration for Metamorphosis, as she flitted about the solstice last year in butterfly wings. She runs around in a black leotard, occasionally coming back to check on progress.

I am privileged to work on the float and get to know Dave and Jon a little. Jon plays me the Shamaniacs’ music. It is unashamedly exuberant and upbeat and I say so; Jon looks at me knowingly and nods. “I am joyful, I’m very joyful,” he says. He is. He talks constantly about life in Seattle, where he has ended up, things he considers achievements, ideas, channeling spirit energy. “I opened the first vegan restaurant – truly vegan restaurant –in Seattle. We didn’t even serve coffee ‘cause we thought it was bad for you.” I find comfort in his take on things. He is wildly positive with childish enthusiasm, but just a shade of self-reflection adds an edge. A girl needs an edge to know where to look. It’s like a horizon.

Dave is wild-haired and thoughtful. He has a quieter, focused energy. He talks of science and ideas too. “I think the next scientific revolution is that we are going to find we are all interconnected”. Wow. A girl likes a conversation to get her teeth into.

Dave and Jon’s old, old friendship is touching. Dave needs a box to sit on during the parade – his detached cruciate ligament won’t let him stand on shaky or wobbly things, like a solstice parade float! He looks around for Jon, and calls to him to make him a wooden box. Jon goes down to the Powerhouse, finds the right tools and pieces of wood, brings them back and makes him a wooden box. Is there any purer expression of friendship than making a friend a box to sit on?

The night gets darker and the wings are complete. We mount them onto the rods and hoist them. Other band members arrive, smoke, eat pizza, tell stories of busking. The floats surrounding us take shape – a rotating silver cone covered in inflatable sharks; a red robot with cake costumes; Sasquatch has hair. The preparation and frantic clean-up is so good natured. Jon and I agree that the community art process is the same fix, somehow, as spending time out in the hills or forests. Soul-making.

We gather outside the Powerhouse and the heads of the Fremont Arts Council explain to us with megaphones and cheering what happens now. It is Friday night, the night before the big Solstice Parade day. The floats are to be moved to the parade head location on Leary Way, in what is known as the Midnight Parade. This involves all the floats being drawn down through Fremont in the middle of the night with a police escort. There is palpable excitement. I hadn’t planned on being there so late, but I agree to stick around and help push Metamorphosis down through to the parade head.

Cops on motorbikes have arrived. Night has fallen and the flashing blue and red lights gleam off their white helmets and off the glittering floats.

As it turns out, to my joy and fortune, the Shamaniacs’ float is last in the main parade tomorrow, which means it is first out on the midnight parade. The safety vests check the Avenue up and down. The cops line up either side, Danny DeVitos in shades and uniforms straddling their bikes. Two organizers pull out a giant boombox on wheels, begin playing Motown, and we wheel out Metamorphosis onto the road. We go slowly down the hill, and each float comes out one by one behind us, with whoops and cheers. I look back when we are stopped at the traffic lights to see this ghostly parade of peculiarities which cannot really be made out in the night light. There are enough hands pulling/pushing Metamorphosis that Joe, a busker and band member, and I, sit on the front of the float, at the head of the parade, laugh and dangle our legs off the side, as we make our way through the late night neighbourhood streets. I couldn’t have stopped grinning if I’d wanted to.

People spill out of bars and cheer as we go by. The cops’ lights continue to flash. The organizers with the boombox at the head announce the parade will be taking place tomorrow. Joe pulls out a selection of small percussion instruments from his backpack and presses some into my hands. We make rhythmic noise in time with Stevie Wonder blasting out into the street and laugh at Jon’s mad dynamism. He and his wife Betsy are pulling the float and Jon is stamping, leaping, getting off on the energy. The whole experience is surreal. We pass by my office building, which has a large Saturn planet atop the roof. Tonight, the Saturn is lit up. We see the clear yellow sliver of moon straight ahead in the west.

We reach the parking lot that is the head of the parade and pull Metamorphosis in to her overnight resting place. The other floats follow suit and people toast with plastic cups. We gather and breathe. I try and express my gratitude for sharing the experience. Betsy nods knowingly too. I feel like I have found some of Fremont’s blood.

*******

The next day, I gather my housemates and friends, we dress in green, and make our way out into this sunny day to Fremont. The streets are now full of daygoers, children, street stalls, dogs, tents and free sunglasses. We stop at the Brouwer’s Café for pre-parade Dutch courage. Then I feel like we should head back up to the parade head, to join our parade crew.

I was asked if I’d like to be in the parade when up at the Powerhouse working on the floats, and thought, why not. I have roped my friends in to being green ‘money bunnies’. This is the crew that surrounds the Green Hat float. A giant green top hat turned upside down. The money bunnies wear green bunny ears, a white rabbit comes out of the hat, and we poke sparkling green hats on sticks into the crowd for donations to Fremont Arts Council. We have the boombox to explain to the crowd how the parade happens every year and ask for donations, and we also have our own ragtag marching band. A little apprehensive about getting my friends to fundraise – no-one likes asking strangers for money – they are wonderful, game, and it soon becomes apparent that it’s pretty fun. People are very generous. It’s fun to interact with the crowd. They clearly love the parade. Women put five dollar bills in my hat and blow kisses.

Lily dances and shimmies her way through the whole thing. Somehow Kristin hops up onto the boombox and dances as it is maneuvered down the open streets. I have no goddam idea how that happened because that thing was almost impossible to push in a straight line, so who knows how she managed to stand and dance on top of it in actual motion.

It is blazing hot and we are soon thirsty, but this energy keeps us going. For sure I have felt Solstice fever the whole weekend. I couldn’t concentrate on a thing on Friday. The fever gets channeled through a creative act, like stipple painting a gargoyle head or stitching a giant butterfly wing. This is the culmination, the celebration.

Around us are naked cyclists body-painted rainbow colours, samba dancers, marching bands, overtly sexual hoopists, musicians and photographers. It’s a colourful riot.

We finally get to Gasworks Park, the parade finale, and shore up the green hat, now full of dollar bills. We get free beer tickets and t-shirts. We go claim our beers and sit in the beer garden. Everyone is talking to everyone. Half the people outside the beer garden are half naked. I proudly show the housemates the Toilets sign I painted. We watch someone climb bare-handed up a pole on the gasworks tanks and then proceed to do parkour to the top of one of the giant silo ladders.

“I love that we can see a family and a baby in a stroller,” says Suz, “and then right behind them is a woman with painted gold tits.” What’s weird is how normal it is. Some dude is wearing nothing but sheep bones. Vertebrae down his front, and a ram’s skull slung around his waist cradling his penis.

The sun fades from its sixteen hours on Seattle. The Solstice fever abates. Now we are into the lengthening and the ripening, with a harvest on the horizon.