#Wine Willow

[a-beneficial-union]

Pen had a bit of a habit of worrying. It was one of the little things which Rook had never thought he would miss.

[huariqueje]

Salix Fragilis Bullata - Carin Bengts , 2020.

Finnish, b. 1946  -

Oil on canvas, 120 x 150 cm.

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Willow: *Staring at Tai* Gods ... such a well braised man ... strong and well cut ... His hands look wonderfully tough~

Willow: *Staring at The Belladonnas* And those two ... Being caught between them ... They look so warm and lively~

Willow: Who to choose, who to choose ...

Willow: ... I'm gonna get them all.

Weiss: Oh no.

Jaune: What?

Weiss: I've seen that look in my mother's eyes before. Something very embarrassing is going to happen

Jaune: *Squinting at Willow* ... Oh, Yeah, I know that look. It's about to suck to be you Weiss.

[brokentrafficknight]

Whitley ->Whitney

Winter Court

[diaryofamadsunwukongfan]

One big, happy family/s

[howlingday]

Taiyang: (Yanks out entire bottle of vodka) Well, uh... I'm not sure how this got stuck in your drain pipe, but I think I got it.

Willow: (Staring longingly)

Taiyang: (Washing hands) Well, if you need any more help, just let me know.

Willow: W-Wait! You're leaving?

Taiyang: Yeah, I gotta get back before Zwei gets tired of Qrow. I mean, unless you've got another job for me-

CRASH!

Willow: (Holding entire sink over head)

Taiyang: ...

Willow: (Drops sink) O-Oh my! How did this happen? I think the sink needs to be fixed, too!

Taiyang: R-Right away, Ma'am!

Taiyang: (Thinking) I am so terrified that this woman ripped out an entire marble sink with her bare hands!.

Taiyang: ...and yet also slightly aroused.

[notmaplemable]

Single

Taiyang: I'm a single pringle and ready to mingle.

Willow: Not for long~.

Willow: ...

Willow: Klein, what exactly is a pringle?

[mrmosseater]

sorry for taking over the tag with this yaoi it will happen again

[superiorsturgeon]

The Parent Trap pt. 2: Wine and Shine

Willow: Ah, you must be Taiyang Xiao-Long. Weiss has told me about you! I’m Willow Schnee, Weiss’ mother.

Taiyang: I see where Weiss gets her incredible good looks! Nice to meet you Mrs Schnee! *Xiao-Long sunshine smile*

Willow: 😳

Willow: *coughs* Please, call me Willow!

Willow: …and it’s actually MISS Schnee!

Taiyang: Oh, sorry Miss- I mean, Willow! *scratches the back of his head, exposing beefy arm and tattoo*

Willow: Oh my, he’s as muscular as General Ironwood!

Willow: Weiss didn’t tell me you were so…in-shape, mister Xiao-Long!

Taiyang: Hey, now, only my students call me “Mister!” It makes me feel old. Just call me Tai!

Willow: Oh, I doubt that! You look young and fit enough to be a model! Are you a huntsman?

Taiyang: 😅 *scratches the back of his head again with accidental flexing* No, no, just a teacher and single dad! The most excitement I get is when the kids visit or when the dog digs up my garden!

Willow: A SINGLE father?

Taiyang: Hey, is that a dance floor in your house? I haven’t been able to go dancing since the girls were little! Do you mind?

Willow: Oh! No, not at all!

Taiyang: Great! *takes her hand*

Willow: I-?!? *pulled onto the floor*

Taiyang: The kids say I dance like a goofy dad, but I think they just don’t recognize oldies! Let me show you!

Willow: I…all right! 😳

Ruby/Jaune/Winter/Weiss/Whitley/Klein: *all watching from various hiding places*

Whitley: I don’t think I’ve ever seen mother laugh like that.

Winter: Or dance like that!

Weiss: Ruby, how did you know this would work?

Ruby: Well, look at us! We’re a rose, a blonde, and an ice queen, all dating….

Ruby: So, since my dad is blonde, and already had a rose, I thought maybe he would like an ice queen too!

Jaune: …makes sense to me!

Weiss: That makes no sense at all!

Whitley: Hush! They’re starting a slow dance!

[willowcrowned]

did you know. that if you have problems disease. you can have alcohol? and then you will have other problems disease

[a-beneficial-union]

“Oh, that's normal.”

(I imagine that having a vehicle that's been converted to the Omnitrix's biotech would lead to some awkward moments.)

Behold! What was originally intended as concept art for DoubleDue (Wine Willow), who is the first Pen Ten I've yet drawn. She was one of many who were displaced from their home dimension when Eon cut the BU off from the greater multiverse. Over the course of several years, Pen has lost hope of returning home and has taken to bouncing between dimensions out of need for resources and enrichment. She avoids locations and people that are too familiar, discomforted by the nostalgia, and has submerged herself into the dimension hopping community.

Per the nature of living astray in the multiverse, she has become accustomed to people's personalities and values changing on a dime (as different versions of the same person will be drastically different). She is, thus, untrusting but opportunistic and will present as cheery and amicable. The people who do know her are aware of the superficiality she tends to present and are fully aware that the only reason they get to be close to her is out of practicality or amusement. What fewer know is that she only allows other -ens near her if she absolute, often unseen control over the situation.

From her time trying to get home, she has mapped out various backdoor portals and even managed to find ways to get to dimensions that are generally considered unreachable. Pen was involved in the early efforts to take back territories and technology which Eon had stolen (which she had hoped would get herself home).

When that failed, repeatedly, she took to the slightly less direct, less risky position of a medic. This way she could be close to the fighting, learn about progress, and stock up on resources (such as biotech and downloadable skills). During this time, she got a foothold in a multitude of others' lives and it is how she has managed to remain so connected while also not being in a network. She intentionally caught the Redwood strain of the Vulpimancer transfer factor after having decided it was her best option. This means she has electromagnetic perception, thermoperception, can manipulate magnetism close to her skin (for climbing), and can leave pheromone trails (though that wasn’t relevant to her).

Her pre-Wreckoning disposition was basically canon Ben. Immediately after displacement, she entered a state of urgency similar to Ben in Alien Force (becoming Serious and Spicy). So as to preserve her sanity, she has intentionally swung back to an approximation of her old self, albeit with a quietly predacious and territorial edge. She has stopped feeling loneliness but her lack of true connection is one of the biggest contributors to her state of mind.

Pen now works with Hunters as a part time medic. She does not own a real ID or certificate given her technical lack of citizenship. When confronted by this (such as when pulled over or otherwise confronted by police) she uses guile, pale person privilege, and liberal amounts of persuasion (magic, violence) to be left be.

She has refused to move to any of the camps where other displaced -ens live, first claiming that she didn’t want to tie herself down p when she ‘knew’ she could find a way home. Her reason has eventually become that she won’t go because she would rather live free, under the sky, rather than down in a cave.

DoubleDue is a walking trove of lost media, nicknacks, and forbidden knowledge. She can recount in detail every shortcut and hack the System still has in place, can bypass the drawbacks of backdoor portals, and can even open a few of her own (if the situation allows). She is also not particularly choosy about what she says to who, allowing unfiltered outpours of stories and unwelcome truths to anyone who prompts her. While it is perfectly normal for seasoned dimension hoppers to collect magical tools and alien technology as part of safe travel through portals, most don’t have quite such an expansive (or well researched) arsenal.

She makes her own razz (false flesh) and other biotech out of her motorhome, which is the reason she can house so many items in the first place. Her abdomen and arms are lined with the squishy, fairly unnoticeable implants of inventories.

(Note: Their full first name is “Penelope” and I am undecided on their pronouns but am leaning towards she/her. Her name is unusual because all -ens originating from the BU territories have the given names of Ben, Ren, Jen, Sphen, or Den.

[cursed-man-prayers]

Lost in Your Current Like a Priceless Wine

A queer analysis of wine mentions in Taylor Swift’s discography (folklore and evermore)

Rose’ flowing with your chosen family.

Chosen family is a very queer concept. Rose as a lighter version of red wine (literally), and also that it’s casually flowing refers to how this person (who was not “the one”) is able to freely express queerness around their chosen family, whereas Taylor is still digging up the grave another time. We’ll come back to this when I analyze Maroon (your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top rose). 

August sipped away like a bottle of wine.

God this fucking song. I saw someone say that, since the song is from August's perspective (I know Taylor said "Augustine" but i think August is a prettier name), she’s saying that she herself was sipped away like a bottle of wine, carelessly. When you get to the end of a bottle of wine, you’re drunk and surprised that the bottle is already empty. The song as a whole is about a relationship that was unexpected, wrong, desperate, secret. “Are you sure?” “I’ve never done this before.” (Never have I ever as a teenage party game paired with “seven years in heaven” on happiness.) 

August is a retrospective. It’s nostalgic in lyrics and production. “Wanting was enough, for me it was enough” harkens back to False God and the desperation to stay for the sake of wanting each other. August remembers; she wonders if her former lover does to “do you remember when I pulled up and said get in the car…” The repetition of the outro reminds me of All Too Well 10 Minute Version. It was rare, I was there, I remember it all. Wind in my hair, you were there, you remember it. Wine is so fleeting but it leaves a permanent stain, as we first saw in Clean. 

“Meet me behind the mall” implies a youthful secrecy. August as a part of the cardigan/betty lore solidifies it as a song themed around adolescence. I want to write more on this later, but I believe the queer concept of “second adolescence” plays heavily into folklore, whereas evermore is the end of that adolescence.

Lost in your current like a priceless wine.

I think I’ll do a full queer analysis of willow someday, because the lyrics are actually devastating. The set-up for the song is that this person came into the narrator’s life unexpectedly and derailed her plans dramatically. We have secrecy (“wait for the signal and I’ll meet you after dark”),  the lover feeling exceptional from others (“as if you were a mythical thing”), and desperation for the lover to stay as they’re leaving  (“Wherever you stray, I”ll follow; I’m begging for you to take my hand”).

Here in the first verse, Taylor says she’s “lost in your current.” She didn’t mean to fall, but it’s “like a priceless wine,” the most meaningful love she’s had. The most meaningful, but once the bottle is open, that wine gets sipped away. It’s the best thing that’s ever been hers, and it’s almost gone. The rest of the album is about loss and endings.

And drink my husband’s wine.

Ivy is almost universally believed to be sapphic (though non-gaylors will call it fictional). It’s very Emily Dickinson (I watched all of Dickinson on Apple TV+ to get to the moment this song plays). Ivy is about an extremely risky affair, one that will inevitably end in fire and destruction, but one that is beautiful. There are so many queer themes included in the lyrics. What is more “magnificently cursed” than being queer and forced to hide it?

In ivy, to “drink my husband’s wine” means drinking it both secretly and in a way that takes from said husband. This wine is supposed to be the husband’s, but now it represents what the illicit lover can’t have. (i’ll mention here that I also think wine could also be a metaphor for pussy. tried to find a more delicate way to say it but u get it.) If wine represents sexuality, the context of it being her “husband’s wine” implies that, while they may continue to be together in secret, there will always be the shadow of this man looming over them. They’ll never truly belong to each other as long as the narrator is forced to stay in a heteronormative relationship.

Summary: here, wine is used in the context of loss. The end of the bottle is the end of the relationship. What was once full and beautiful and light has become sour and empty.

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Tai: I'm an Expert at Identifying Birds!

Willow: Really? what are those two over there?

Tai: ... Raven! Qrow! Stop Spying on me on my date!

Qrow: *Bolts*

Raven: CAW!

Tai: YOU LEFT!

Raven: *Transforms* I CAME BACK!

Willow: I wouldn't mind if she joined us.

Tai: J'Accuse?

Raven: ... I'm Sorry, what?

Willow: Well, I am on the market, and if Tai is willing to give you another chance, well ...

Willow: *Lifts Raven's chin* I think you're a rather Pretty bird~

Raven: ... *Blushes, Hyperventilates*

[brokentrafficknight]

Jaune x Kali X Willow?

[ssspringroll]

oh maybe windenburg will have some wine making places. its kind of frenchy. i guess.

[howlingday]

Willow: Wh-Where's Taiyang? We- We were supposed to get married! This was supposed to be my happily ever after, but it's become a tragedy! (Sobbing) WHY?!

Weiss: (Holding Willow) It'll be okay, mother.

Jaune: (Talking to a woman) Yeah, I think an autumn wedding would be lovely-

Weiss: JAUNE! DO SOMETHING!

Jaune: (Nods, Walks up to the stage)

Jaune: (Takes handkerchief, Pokes into hand)

Jaune: (Blows into fist, Opens empty palm)

Crowd: (Annoyed murmur)

Jaune: (Holds other fist, Opens to dove)

Crowd: (Impressed, Clapping)

Jaune: Thank you, thank you! (Thinking) Keep smiling, Jaune! Don't let them know that's all you got!.