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ohdorothea · 1 month ago

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Which Taylor Swift Song is Queerer? Album by Album Tournament - Bonus Round

Welcome back to the Taylor Swift’s Queerest Song Album by Album tournament!!! We have reached the end of the album tournaments and four songs from each of Taylor’s albums have been voted to be The Queerest songs from each album. All of those songs will be competing in the Ultimate Bracket, alongside the top four songs from the Unreleased and Miscellaneous rounds that are ongoing. There are still eight slots left to be filled in the bracket. So welcome to…. the Bonus Round!!!

At the above link you can find a Google form in which you can cast eight votes! I have chosen from all the songs that didn’t make the final cut and picked 26 that I believe deserve a second chance. The songs you can choose from are…

1. A Place In This World

2. Better Than Revenge

3. But Daddy I Love Him

4. champagne problems

5. Change

6. Crazier

7. Cruel Summer

8. Eyes Open

9. Fortnight

10. Getaway Car

11. Glitch

12. I Wish You Would

13. Labyrinth

14. ME!

15. Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince

16. My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys

17. Paris

18. Peter

19. Snow On The Beach ft More Lana*

20. Stay Stay Stay

21. Tied Together With a Smile

22. The Man

23. The Manuscript

24. The Other Side of the Door

25. The Lucky One

26. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

I have also written a voting guide below the cut with my reasoning for including each of the songs with links to anything I think might sway your vote!

This Google form will be open until the 1st of June so you have until then to decide where to allocate those eight votes!

*original Snow On The Beach did not win a place in the final tournament

Bonus Round Voting Guide (made by ME!)

A Place In This World

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I think this song is queer because… This is the original Swiftian song about questioning your place in a heteronormative cis world.

If The Outside is about begging to be let into that world, this is the song about sensing deep down that even if you could fit into that world it’s not the place for you.

This is the song about wanting to get away from the restriction of trying to be someone else even if it means being isolated, even if it means having no one else on your side, because you know there is a place out there that is meant for you.

I think this is cemented by the A Place In This World x New Romantics mash up Taylor played on the final night of The Eras Tour

Better Than Revenge

I think this song is queer because… This song has oh so many of the classic Swiftian queer motifs!!! Triangulation of desire (shout out to Kathryn’s betty essay for teaching me the concept), referring to boyfriends as ‘toys’, revenge, spending a song that is meant to be about losing a guy talking about a girl instead, walking the line between fury and horny, the list goes on!!

Also in the outro she literally asks the woman to “show me how much better you are” and if that’s not a lesbian proposition I don’t know what is.

I also want to link to this PowerPoint that also makes a lot of great points

But Daddy I Love Him

I think this song is queer because… while there are many interpretations that fit this song to me it screams gay awakening in a small religious community and fantasising about breaking out of misogynistic homophobic culturally expected ‘self control’.

Running with her dress unbuttoned, being pregnant out of wedlock, her lover being described as ‘crazy’ by her community all point to a narrator who feels confined by the expectations put on her by her religion/religious community.

“If all you want is grey for me / Then it's just white noise / And it's just my choice” also follows in the vein of OOTW / illicit affairs / Question…?/The Prophecy lyrics comparing life without this type of love as grey/colourless and life with the love as colourful, a motif I very much consider to be queer.

I also think the tour staging of the song very much is telling a queer narrative

The song starts and the dancers are all in white coming from this grey colourless world behind them (very Wizard of Oz)

And Taylor/the narrator is in front (imo imagery matching the image of a young queer person being the first person they know to come out/realise their own queerness)

Skipping to further in the choreography, Taylor is standing in the middle of what seems like a community gathering/religious gathering and then goes to her knees, following the dancers in choreography that looks like prayer/begging/pleading

But then as the story of the song progresses she gets up (Tonight we'll stand, get off our knees anyone?)

And not only that as she rises through the air she is surrounded by flames! It gives me the image of someone who has been told being queer is a sin that will send them to hell and now she’s just embracing the flames

Shout out to this post as well as it helped form my thoughts

champagne problems

I think this song is queer because… I have since first listen felt like this song’s narrator is a queer woman. I’ve moved through different interpretations of the exact events or identifies of those involved but it has always been for me the story of a queer woman who is in a ‘perfect’ relationship to outsiders but in the moment the person proposes she realises she has made a mistake.

That she can’t spend her life being the person she needs to be to stay in this relationship, she must break this person she love’s heart to be able to find herself and live her life authentically.

The line that particularly leads me to this interpretation is ‘“she would have made such a lovely bridge / what a shame she’s fucked in the head” they said / but you’ll find the real thing instead’.

Within the song this is sung with defeat and devastation, even self hate. However in the performance of the song during The Eras Tour I feel she really reclaims the lyrics and makes it into something else.

Shout out to Kathryn’s We Were Happy / champagne problems essay

Change

I think this song is queer because… This song has always been a queer anthem to me!

I don’t really have a clear argument other than when I listened to this song as 13 year old baby queer it stirred something in my little queer heart and every time I’ve listened since I feel the same way. Because these things will CHANGE!!!!!!

And I do think the bridge lyrics are called back in quite a few more recent songs;

Tonight we stand, -> Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?

get off our knees -> Fifteen years, fifteen million tears / Begging 'til my knees bled

Fight for what we've worked for all these years -> 'Cause when I'd fight, you used to tell me I was brave

And the battle was long, -> I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me

it's the fight of our lives -> It's the goddamn fight of my life

But we'll stand up champions tonight -> As if you were a mythical thing / Like you were a trophy or a champion ring / And there was one prize I'd cheat to win

Crazier

I think this song is queer because… It is a classically Swiftian move to compare falling in love with the narrator losing her mind or because ‘crazy’ (The Way I Loved You, Don’t Blame Me, Wonderland, Welcome To New York, False God, I Don’t Wanna Love Forever are just a few examples).

To me Crazier is kind of the core of this motif. It tells the story of a narrator who meets someone that changes their life by leading a kind of life that the narrator never dreamed of being possible for them self.

The second verse really encapsulates this; I watched from a distance as you / Made life your own / Every sky was your own kind of blue / And I wanted to know how that would feel / And you made it so real / You showed me something that I couldn't see / You opened my eyes and you made me believe

And then the bridge, while being short and straight to the point, I think solidifies this as a song about queerness to me; Baby, you showed me what living is for / I don't wanna hide anymore

Cruel Summer

I think this song is queer because… it’s new! The shape of your body! I don’t want keep secrets just to keep you! I love you ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard? It’s NEW! THE SHAPE OF YOUR BODY!!!!!!!!

If those lyrics don’t convince you then I present to you this web weave and the idea that the song is about The Great Gatsby (we were so Gatsby for that whole year!)

And if that doesn’t convince you I present to the sophisticates amongst you, RPF;

And I snuck in through the garden gate

Every night that summer, just to seal my fate

Eyes Open

I think this song is queer because… ok so let’s say hypothetically you are a closeted queer country pop singer songwriter who is becoming very famous and scrutinised and you wanted to write a song about it.

If we take Eyes Open away from the context it was released (for The Hunger Games movies) I think this song tells the story of a narrator who is experiencing this hypothetical. I also think the song ties in a lot of themes and ideas that appear again and again in Taylor’s discography.

Everybody's waiting / Everybody's watching -> Somethin' happens when everybody finds out / See the vultures circlin', dark clouds

Even when you're sleeping / Keep your ey-eyes open ->

The tricky thing is yesterday we were just children -> Oh, darlin', don't you ever grow up / Don't you ever grow up

Playing soldiers, just pretending -> Long may you reign

Dreaming dreams with happy endings -> It could stay this simple / And no one's ever burned you / Nothing's ever left you scarred

In backyards, winning battles with our wooden swords / But now we've stepped into a cruel world -> It’s cruel summer with you

Where everybody stands and keeps score -> I didn't know you were keeping count

So here you are, two steps ahead and staying on guard -> Baby, I know places we won't be found

Every lesson forms a new scar -> We cry tears of mascara in the bathroom / Honey, life is just a classroom

They never thought you'd make it this far -> Someday I’ll be living in a big old city / and all you're ever gonna be is mean

But turn around / Oh, they've surrounded you / It's a showdown -> I was in the alley, surrounded on all sides

And nobody comes to save you now -> You could have helped if you had wanted to / But no one notices until it's too late to do anything

But you've got something they don't / Yeah, you've got something they don't -> So we've been outnumbered / Raided and now cornered / It's hard to fight when the fight ain't fair / We're getting stronger now / Find things they never found

Keep your feet ready / Heartbeat steady -> Walkin' through a crowd, the village is aglow / Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats

Keep your eyes open / Keep your aim locked -> Dear reader, when you aim at the devil / Make sure you don't miss

The night goes dark / Keep your lights open -> This love is glowing in the dark

I’d also like to shout out Kathryn’s interpretation of this song that they posted on the poll, I really love this interpretation as well!!!

Fortnight

I think this song is queer because… I actually think there are two different queer interpretations of this song that I really enjoy.

The first is in quite a few classic Swiftian way - she talks about a husband but uses you to address her lover, the narrator is clearly miserable within her life of heterosexual expectations and she says loving this person has ‘ruined her life’. Falling in love with a woman would certainly ruin the life of someone stuck in a heterosexual marriage.

I also think the way she uses touch as a metaphor is connected to lots of other queer songs in her discography - I was gonna type this all up but I actually made two web weaves about it already so I’ll link the first here and second one here.

But the second reading of this song that is also explicitly queer is the doppelgänger reading. Other people have written about this better than I can but I do have a little collage I made;

Like!!!!!!!!! The gender of it all!!!! Like I lost my twin!!!!!!!

Getaway Car

I think this song is queer because… in my head Getaway Car and Cruel Summer tell the same story in two parts and both parts are queer as hell.

In my interpretation Getaway Car is a song about a narrator who leaves a relationship with a man to be with a woman but then back tracks on coming out so she also abandons the woman. Cruel Summer is Getaway Car from the other woman’s perspective.

I came to this interpretation after realising that the end of Getaway Car and the beginning of Cruel Summer sound so similar (if you watch this video from 3:45mins until Cruel Summer starts hopefully you will see what I mean!)

youtube

So once I heard the similarities I started seeing the similarities in the stories as well. Both stories start with intense heat (I struck a match and blew your mind -> Fever dream high in the quiet of the night).

Both stories take place almost entirely within cars. Both narrators describe a relationship that is unlikely to work (Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes / What doesn't kill me makes me want you more -> I knew it from the first Old Fashioned, we were cursed / We never had a shotgun shot in the dark)

But there are also differences within the perspectives. Getaway Car’s narrator is already driving away, while Cruel Summer’s narrator is stuck in the moment she said ‘I love you’, still seeing the relationship through rose coloured glasses. Getaway Car’s narrator is not ready to step out of the closest and commit to this relationship but Cruel Summer’s narrator doesn’t want to keep secrets but wants to keep this woman she loves!

This turned out way longer than anticipated so I will stop there but I’d also like to offer up the video played before Getaway Car at the reputation tour;

youtube

Glitch

I think this song is queer because… I think there’s been a WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE JUST FRIENDS!!! Now regardless of what this song is about in this Canon Swiftian universe I have always heard this song as a song about your first queer relationship.

And I think it ties in so many themes from other songs in Taylor’s work; friends to lovers, not wanting to apologise for her love, that perhaps this love she wants is not real, comparing love to substances, her love not standing a chance, DANCING!!!! It really has it all.

I Wish You Would

I think this song is queer because… ‘We're a crooked love / In a straight line down / Makes you wanna run and hide / Then it makes you turn right back around’ are to me some of the most explicitly queer lyrics in her entire discography!

The song is also built around a sample from a song called ‘She Drives Me Crazy’. This links with the motif I have already talked about where Taylor describes love as if she’s losing her mind. Dolly Parton also covered the song, and while it’s not explicitly a queer cover (she changes the she to you, although isn’t that such a Taylor move) I wanted to mention it because the cover goes SO. FUCKING. HARD. Highly recommend.

Labyrinth

I think this song is queer because… it just feels queer to me ok!!!!!!!!! I’m not usually one for advocating for queerness based on vibes but for me if I am going to use this argument for ONE song it’s this one. The production, the way she’s singing, lyrics they all just FEEL queer to me! I said what I said.

ME!

I think this song is queer because…

Spelling is fun! That is all 🌈🦄🏳️‍🌈💗

Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince

I think this song is queer because… I mean first things first this Halsey tweet lives in my head rent free:

But honestly I hadn’t thought about it much until I read Kathryn’s post about the song being a set up to Lavender Haze. I love this interpretation so much and totally see the vision!

My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys

I think this song is queer because… it’s intersection of gender + objectification + doppelgängerism for me!!

Ok so the song is tied to the idea that the narrator’s lover saw her as a toy.

The metaphor of people as toys is not a new idea in the Swiftian universe. However previously she has used it to describe her muses. As far as I know it was introduced as a metaphor in Better Than Revenge (Soon, she's gonna find stealing other people's toys / On the playground won't make you many friends)

She then used it again in Don’t Blame Me (I've been breakin' hearts a long time, and / Toyin' with them older guys /Just playthings for me to use) then again in Cruel Summer (Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price / You know that I bought it) then again in Hits Different (I used to switch out these Kens, I'd just ghost).

And now, the role is flipped. She is the toy, was the plaything, she was ghosted. But she isn’t just a doll, she’s an army doll. In traditional gender roles it’s boys who play with the type of doll she is. She is also a doll built for war, battle, instead of romance.

She is queen only of temporary unstable castles that are washed away by the see, once more invisible. Her lover puts her back on the shelf because the heat of her touch, the intensity of this relationship, is too much for her lover to bare. But even with all that she’d play again! She’d be willing to pretend again because she ‘felt more when we played pretend / Than with all the Kens’.

However you cut it all this reads as super queer to me. I’d also like to shout out Charlotte’s web weave that I really love.

Paris

I think this song is queer because… it’s the parallels with Down Bad for me!

I wanna brainwash you / Into loving me forever -> Just to do experiments on / Tell me I was the chosen one

I wanna transport you / To somewhere the culture's clever -> I'll build you a fort on some planet / Where they can all understand it

Confess my truth / In swooping, sloping, cursive letters -> They'll say I'm nuts if I talk about the existence of you

Let the only flashing lights be the tower at midnight / In my mind -> Did you really beam me up? / In a cloud of sparkling dust

We drew a map on your bedroom ceiling -> Show me that this world is bigger than us

No, I didn't see the news -> What if I can't have us / I might just not get up / I might stay down bad

Peter

I think this song is queer because… ‘Forgive me, Peter, my lost fearless leader / In closets like cedar, preserved from when we were just kids / Is it something I did?’ For my money those are the loudest queerest saddest most tragic beautiful lyrics in Taylor’s ENTIRE discography!!!

But then it’s ALSO in the same song as ‘As the men masqueraded, I hoped you'd return’ and ‘I've heard great things, Peter, but life was always easier on you / Than it was on me / And sometimes it gets me, when crossing your jet stream / We both did the best we could do underneath the same moon / In different galaxies’ AND ‘You said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me’ like!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve also made many many web weaves about this song that I think make my position pretty clear.

I also want to shout out this web weave that I love and Charlotte’s post that I also love

Snow On The Beach ft More Lana

I think this song is queer because… it’s quite literally a in canon love duet between two women that features references to the You Are In Love, Down Bad, and Janet Jackson, a prominent queer ally and gay icon. The lyrics revolves around the the narrator’s disbelief that this love is a ‘real thing’ and sounds like falling in love while in danger but also like being so in love you don’t care what comes next.

Truly so surprised it didn’t make it further in the Midnights tournament! To me it feels like one of the most obviously queer songs in her whole discography but I do think it was at a disadvantaged because most people know the original album version better and that is much much less queer to me.

It really does show to me how much different production can make to how a song is perceived! And it is interesting that this is the version hidden away one of the many re-releases.

Stay Stay Stay

I think this song is queer because… it’s about compulsive heterosexuality!

Taylor has talked about writing this as a daydream about a future relationship that is better than her past loves. The secret message for the song is ‘Daydreaming about real love’.

But the relationship the song describes sounds like a nightmare (dressed as a daydream?).

‘I'm pretty sure we almost broke up last night / I threw my phone across the room at you’ ‘You think that it's funny when I'm mad, mad, mad’ ‘I love you, because you have given me no choice but to / Stay, stay, stay’

Behind the cutesy country pop of this song is a controlling violent volatile relationship! So her choice to present the song as a daydream about her future is so fascinating to me. Regardless of her own interpretation of the song to me this is a song about having a nightmare about what staying within the confines of compulsive heterosexuality will bring.

Tied Together With A Smile

I think this song is queer because…

So I’ve already written here about my theory about gold representing self acceptance of queerness, which I’m linking to because my interpretation of TTWS is linked to it.

I didn’t include TTWS in that post because I was focusing on Taylor’s more recent discography but I do think that it fits into the overarching metaphor.

‘Hold on, baby, you're losing it / The water's high, you're jumping into it / And letting go, and no one knows / That you cry, but you don't tell anyone / That you might not be the golden one / And you're tied together with a smile / But you're coming undone’

So to me this is describing a narrator who thinks being ‘golden’ means being heterosexual. That the only way she can accept herself/that she will be accepted is by being straight. And she’s so terrified that she’s not straight, that she isn’t the golden one, that she cannot fulfil the expectations being placed on her. She is barely holding it all together with a smile.

This link was my reason for choosing this song for the bonus round, however when I revisited the lyrics for this write up there were some other lyrics that really stood out to me.

‘I guess it's true that love was all you wanted / 'Cause you're givin' it away like it's extra change / Hoping it will end up in his pocket / But he leaves you out like a penny in the rain / Oh, 'cause it's not his price to pay’

To me ‘cause it’s not his price to pay’ is signifying that the narrator cannot be loved romantically by this boy because she is not a straight woman.

The Man

I think this song is queer because… it’s actually so queer / so gender that there have been multiple web weaves made about it including one by me and by Kathryn!!!

And I mean we obviously have to talk about the music video in which Taylor creates a literal drag performance of The Man.

Which she then recreates with her dancers in The Eras performance.

And also the lyrics literally say if she was a man Taylor could brag about all the ‘bitches and models’ she’s fucked like!!!!!!!!! CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME OVER WHATEVER THE QUEER FUCK IS GOING ON THIS SONG??

The Manuscript

I think this song is queer because… of three sets of tags left on the poll that The Manuscript lost that immediately won the song a place in this Bonus Round.

The Other Side of the Door

I think this song is queer because… the door is the closet door!

The door as an object is a motif that shows up again and again in Taylor’s work. It’s a way she is locked out, trapped in, separated from her lover. And if we are reading that motif through a queer lens I would argue almost every door motif in Taylor’s discography is alluding to the closet, and it all starts in my mind with this song!

‘Wait there in the pouring rain, come back for more / And don't you leave 'cause I know / All I need is on the other side of the door’

Her lover is out in the open, in the pouring rain, waiting for her to come out. And she knows they are there, and she wants them to wait! But she’s not ready to open the door.

This idea was also fuelled by the door imagery in Taylor’s later work including the I Know Places 1989 tour performance.

Like look at it!!! It’s such strong visual storytelling. And while I was finding these images another image caught my eye:

This is the imagery from the Fearless platinum edition!!!! It ties back to all the other songs about doors! It’s the original door!!!!!!!!

The Lucky One

I think this song is queer because… well I’ve always loved the interpretation of the line ‘your lover in the foyer doesn’t even know you’ as a reference to bearding which is why I initially included this song in the Bonus Round HOWEVER when I had a look at the lyrics a new queer interpretation jumped out at me that I really really love. Imagine the song as a narrative about a trans singer!

‘New to town with a made-up name / In the angel's city, chasing fortune and fame / And the camera flashes make it look like a dream / You had it figured out since you were in school / Everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool / So overnight, you look like a '60s queen’

Does anyone else see my vision??? Regardless I think there is something queer about the reinvention and the relationship between the narrator and the muse.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

I think this song is queer because… for lots of reasons (Betty connections / doppelgängerism / genderism) but the reason that has stuck in my head since a little while after TTPD came out was sent on anon to someone I follow and I DIDN’T SAVE IT so I’m gonna do my best to pass on that anon’s queer wisdom.

The anon basically connected The Smallest Man’s Eraser tour costume

With the costumes in the ME! music video

With the lyrics ‘And I don't even want you back, I just want to know / If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal’. And ever since I read that anon message my little rpf brain has been whizzing and buzzing thinking about it.

And that’s the end of maybe the longest post I’ve ever written!

If you read to this point I love you and here is a gold star ⭐️

#tsqst

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linatheweirdooo · 1 month ago

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NUZILESS SHIP BATTLE DAY 12

SIDE A ROUND 3 BRACKET 1

Todays poll is JESSA (J x Tessa) VS ENVUZI (N x V x Uzi)

Side B round 2 bracket 2 results:

Thadzi - 104 votes (67 on tumblr, 37 on twitter)

Dollzi - 145 votes (82 on tumblr, 63 on twitter)

Not sure what to say here tbh I saw this coming

This battle is happening on both TWITTER and TUMBLR (I'm @LinaTheWeirdooo on both), so go vote your favourite ships in both polls, because votes will be counted and added across both platforms!!!!

More info on side A round 1 bracket 1

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howtofightwrite · 1 year ago

Note

I'm writing a scene where character A gets ambushed by an assassin. A gets injured and starts bleeding out. B swoops in to save them in the nick of time, but A starts fading in and out of consciousness. B transports A using a horse-drawn carriage (setting is 1890's London, so no cars) to a safe place for medical attention. Would the carriage be safe enough for transportation or make things worse? Also, any ideas where the wound could plausibly be located on A? (Stab/cut, no guns.)

Okay, so this is a good news/bad news situation.

The good news is that blood loss is really easy to understand. If someone pokes a hole in you, and you start leaking, you'll generally keep leaking at a pretty consistent rate until you manage to stop the leak, or until you start getting additional holes poked in you.

Now, joking aside, moving around, and staying active can accelerate bleed out. Especially if you're engaging in activity that keeps your heart rate up. For example: Running, or fighting. But, normally, you're going to keep losing blood at a fairly consistent rate. (Now, it's worth noting, as you lose blood, your body will actually increase your heart rate to keep oxygen going to your brain. This means that the rate of loss isn't completely consistent. You'll also start hyperventilating.)

The fun part about blood loss is it can actually turn into a math problem. If you know the volume lost per interval, you can calculate roughly how long it will take to die. Just take 2,000, then divide that by the blood lost in milliliters per interval (so, for example, minutes), and then you will know how many minutes your character has before they bleed to death. (Technically you can go over that two liters lost a little bit. (In sloppy napkin math, this means that you'll slightly overestimate how long the character will last.)

Here's the problem.

Hypovolemic shock has four recognized stages. These stages are bracketed by how much blood you've lost. Stage one is up to 15%, Stage two is 15-30%, Stage 3 is 30-40%, and Stage 4 is 40% or more. You might know that the human body has roughly five liters of blood in it, and if you were paying attention you'll notice that two liters is 40% of five liters.

As a quick aside, Stage 1's only symptom is that you'll be a little paler than usual. Otherwise you're basically fine (even if you don't feel particularly great.) To put this in context, you can (almost) lose a liquor bottle's worth of blood without serious side effects.

Once you hit stage 2 and 3, you'll see some mental issues. Anxiety and restlessness at Stage 2, confusion and impaired reasoning at stage 3.

Loss of consciousness (and comas) are symptoms of stage 4 blood loss.

This is the bad news. If you are losing consciousness from loss of blood, you have already lost so much blood that your body (and possibly your brain) are already dying. Humans can lose a frightening amount of blood before it incapacitates them. And, that fun little math problem earlier, the time to death that you're calculating, is also the time to loss of consciousness, because there's a tiny margin between, you bled to the point that you're drifting in and out of consciousness, and, you have bled to death.

There's still some hope here, but it's not great. First aid for hypovolemic shock is to stop the bleeding. It kinda makes sense, because if you don't, they'll bleed to death and after that, it won't really matter. That means, if you're swooping in to the rescue, the first thing you need to do is stop the bleeding, as best you can. When you're already looking at someone in stage 3 or 4, you're not going to stop it in the field, and the best you can do is buy time. But that is a critical step.

This leads to a really important question. How long did it take your character to lose two liters of blood?

Because, if they lost that much blood duringthe fight (which is, actually possible with some arterial hits), there is no medical science that would keep them alive long enough to get them to a surgeon. Not in 1890, and even in 2024 it'd be touch and go with modern emergency trauma packs.

This is a mortal wound.

Now, if you slow it down, and they're bleeding out over the course of the ride, that's entirely feasible. You'll probably want to read up on the exact stages of hypovolemic shock, keep in mind that the stages do transition from one into the next. And, keep in mind that, “slipping in and out of consciousness,” is basically the end. At that point they're about to die. Immediate surgical attention could still save their life, but they need a hospital. This is beyond the scope of what a back alley clinic could reasonably deal with.

I know I didn't address it earlier, but, “where,” could be pretty much wherever. So long as it didn't sever an artery, because at that point they would be dead. Arterial nicks could result in serious bleeding over time. Really, any serious, persistent blood loss that refuses to clot could create a situation like this. Deep tissue penetration, particularly when it damages internal organs, can be pretty nasty, and surprisingly hard to stop a bleed. If someone is hemorrhaging internally, that's going to require surgical attention to keep them alive, and any effort to stop the bleed will really be wasted effort (because they'll continue bleeding into the chest cavity), though, unless your characters have a pretty solid grasp of anatomy, they're unlikely to know that.

The real issue here, from a practical application, is just the, “swooping in at the last minute.” If you're really coming in at the last minute, you've got a minute to make peace with their death, and move on. If you get there sooner, you have more of a scene. You have more options to spool out the drama, and subvert expectations.

Consider, alternately: Your character comes in to disrupt the assassin, and the pair make their escape. While escaping, the character who's been injured discovers they're bleeding. Leading their rescuer to realize that the situation is much worse than they initially thought, and having to change route to a hospital, while the injured character starts to become less coherent.

In this alternative, you can carefully track how quickly the character is bleeding out, so that they're getting into the hospital right around the time it's starting to become touch and go. With a real possibility that they'll die, either before or during surgery. (Also, with added stress that now your character needs to keep them safe in a public space, while that assassin is still on the loose, and they can't move the injured character to someplace more secure.)

So, you've got options, and now you've got a math problem you can play with to figure out how quickly your characters will expire after you poke new holes in them.

-Starke

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#writing advice #writing reference #writing tips #how to fight write #starke answers #starke is not a real doctor

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ga-lily-o · 18 days ago

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They Don’t Kiss (but They Really Should)

Eve Wilkins x reader

⚹ Reader is written in a soft/feminine light, but is not necessarily gendered ⚹

Tags/warnings: Friends to ??? Idk! // Mildly suggestive language // one (1) whole swear word // lots of tension // lots of physical proximity // Reader character doesn’t do makeup often // wlw coded but could also be nblw

Summary: You and Eve are friends, first and foremost. However, Eve also wants you more than she has the guts to say. Not that you know… or maybe you do, because none of this is casual.

(Author’s note at the bottom)

“My makeup?”

Eve watches you nod, enthusiastic and excited, and she can’t help the fondness twitching her lips into a smile the way you regard her like she was a snapshot of the stars taken by the Hubble telescope. Still, she’s skeptical, enough that it shows. Her brow raised as she regards you in the mirror of her vanity where you’re standing behind her.

“You want to do my makeup?” Eve parrots, emphasizing the first lilt of the question.

“Yes,” is your enthusiastic reply, brushes in hand as you wave it in the mirror, and she can’t help the way it makes her smile widen.

“I don’t even remember the last time I saw you do your own makeup,” she scoffs, but it’s a heatless remark as she spins in her chair to face you, and has to grapple with the immediate cuteness aggression coiling like a viper in her gut. She wants to grab at your wide-eyed face and kiss you silly, just to see that enthusiasm melt, but she has restraint. “Why mine?”

“Because I want to touch your face.” You don’t flinch admitting it, but Eve almost does. She wants to tell you that you could’ve just kissed her instead. Wants to tell you she’d rather your lips on hers than to anguish over the daydream of it while your hands roamed her face. But you’re friends, and you’re… probably just joking, even if she wishes you weren’t.

So when she opens her mouth, it’s not to ask you to kiss her. “Weirdo.”

But still, “Fine.”

———

The brush is just a tad shaky when you ghost it over the apple of her cheeks, patting it like you’re layering gold leaf onto some fancy $80 dessert. You’re all but straddling her lap, knees bracketing either side of her thighs like you’re about to give her a lapdance and she’s genuinely going insane. Her throat feels dry at the way one of your hands is cupping her jaw as you apply a light foundation with the other, and she can feel your breath kissing her skin.

She’d asked you earlier, hesitating, heart beating wildly, if you needed to be so close by, but you merely responded by looking at her through half lidded eyes and asking so sincerely if she wanted you to move away. Of course she just told you that that wasn’t what she was saying at all, and neither of you prodded or elaborated.

“You’re gonna poke my eye out like that,” she mumbles, meaning to hiss but the wanting’s screwing up her throat.

You don’t acknowledge her beyond a grin, thumb brushing just once across her cheekbone, and it’s enough to shut her up quick. Then when you press your teeth lightly into your bottom lip? She wants to pass out. You look so focused, on her, and she has to settle her breath while her nails dig into the vanity desk behind you, her arms either side of your waist.

The brush sweeps back and forth, a light layer of foundation where sleepless nights have stained her under-eyes like a muddy eyeshadow, your thumb smoothing out what the brush can’t. It should be noted, Eve thinks, that the face you make when you pull back to assess the evenness of the application is unfairly gorgeous. When your lips part to speak, she doesn’t know if she wants to launch forward to kiss you or just let you speak to hear your voice.

“Does it feel cakey?” You ask, completely unassuming as one of your hands comes back to settle on her face.

“It feels fine,” she huffs, hoping to whatever’s listening in out there that you can’t feel the way her heartbeat’s running just from the proximity. You nod, pulling back to switch your brushes, or products— she really can’t tell at this point what you’re doing anymore. All she knows is that she wants it to be your lips on hers.

You tell her anyways with a grin, half turned to the mirror still where you’re meeting her eyes in the glass, “I wanna try a trick I learned online on you, is that ok? Just gonna—“

You gesture with your pinky, following along the curve of her under eye, and she feels exposed the way you grin at her in the glass when you realise she’s barely looking where you’re pointing in the first place.

“I’m gonna try a smokey eyeshadow trick,” you tell her, facing her fully, and her throat feels dry.

She licks her lips, catching the way your eyes dip down to follow the gesture, and her voice is quiet when she speaks, “Just don’t make me look ugly.”

Eve would bottle up that smile you give her after, just to replay it back when things get tough. “Couldn’t, even if I tried, Eve.”

And then you’re easing back into it, gently asking her to cooperate— “Close your eyes, here, yes! Thank you,”— or cooing at her when you pull back, and it’s overwhelmingly good the way you feel so close to her.

She barely notices it when her hands find themselves catching at your waist, fingers splaying along the small of your back like she’s anchoring you both, and Eve feels something boil in her blood the way you stop still to look at her. Not with disgust, or discomfort, like she might have feared, but with a stutter to your expression that makes her heart skip; your lips ever so slightly parted in surprise.

“So you don’t fall off,” is her quiet explanation, green eyes peering into yours like it explains the way her breath feels heavy in the space between you two. The barely there, almost extinct, space between you two.

“Right,” you start, like you’re unconvinced the way you purse your lips, “Thank you.”

And you shift on her lap, impossibly closer, and she feels like she’s going to die the way her hands start shaking.

———

There’s been many things that have tried to kill Atom Eve during her time as a hero— or even just as Eve, the civilian, with a troublesome life and a rocky relationship with her parents. But you? In her lap, hands on her face, thumb tracing over her fucking lip like you’re memorising the texture of it with the pad of your finger? This might do her in.

Never mind the way you’re looking at her, eyes half lidded and laser focused on her lips as you apply a lip-stain with your own hands, just because you keep insisting that’s the best way to do it. You want to kill her, she’s sure. You want her dead with want— or maybe, something hopeful and dreadfully vulnerable pipes up in her heart, you want her like she wants you.

Not that she wants to entertain that; to risk having you at all for the chance to have you as she wants you. But god, if you’d let her she’d—

“All done!” you chirp, bringing her out of her reverie as you pull away with that brilliant grin, pride and sincere adoration shining from you like a lamplight to her face; her cheeks warm.

It takes you turning to the mirror for her to remember beyond you and admire your work, first catching that heart-fluttering emotion on your lips like how a petal curls on the flower, before she catches her own reflection.

She sees herself, barely tampered with save for the smokiness wrapping gently around her eyes, highlighting the green of them to make them strike like cut emeralds; a patch of living forest saved in the aftermath of a forest fire, framed by her red hair. And god, when you turn back to her to tuck a loose strand of it behind her ear, eyes crinkled in just a way, she wants to kiss you breathless. Hands gripping softly tighter along your waist and back, curling into the fabric of your top.

“So?” You pry, not seeming to mind at all the way she’s curling around you like a vine.

Eve wets her lips, swallowing thickly. Refusing to break eye contact. “Not bad.”

A/N: I felt like loving women, I was bored, I just had lunch, and I dm’d @sobbingscripter for an idea 😛 She proceeded to say something about doing Eve’s makeup and my brain exploded.

I wrote this first on my notes app (I always start on the notes app) and moved it to docs to edit for grammar and flow, and had it beta read at some point, but I’m ngl I feel like I blacked out writing this. The yearning came over me so hard, I genuinely just couldn’t stop until it was done. Like I was actually shaking by the end while writing this HELLO . 😭

Also: sorry if she’s ooc 😞 I do not have a full grasp of her character yet but trust and believe I will!

#eve wilkins x reader #eve wilkins x you #for the animated borders check this tag:#credits #lee’s writing #gn reader #fem reader #atom eve x reader #atom eve x you

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