#getting rid of drafts time

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Smosh @ 20 [insp]

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Hey, have I told you lately that you're brave?

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The TTPD Deep Dive (Part ?)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE CONTEXT

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE SETUP

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE STORY

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

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

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

THE ALBUM

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

Fortnight

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

TTPD

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

Down Bad

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

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

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

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

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

So Long, London

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

But Daddy I Love Him

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

Fresh Out The Slammer

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

Florida!!!

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

Guilty As Sin

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

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me

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

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

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

Loml

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

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

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

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

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

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

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

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

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

The Alchemy

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

Clara Bow

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

The Manuscript

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

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

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

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

THE SUMMATION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[itsnotzka]

Let me offer you my version of Sebastian ;)

(Edit: With green background now! Since he's barely visible on my dark/transparent one ;) But you can still see it below!)

[runeyseason]

Welcome to Runey Season! This isn't a formal ad or anything, but this has been rotting away in our drafts since August 2023, before the group even opened, and we figured it's finally time to post it and share it with the world. Enjoy! Horse!

[javierduffy]

“uh … it’s a bit girly … no?” javier examines himself in the reflection of his knife’s blade, looking this-a way and that, the dark blue of a large silken bow now peeking sheepishly around his neck as it sits gently in his hair. next to him, kieran clams up a smidge, hands still held close to his chest nearby his completed ribbon project on javier’s head. he finds it in himself to wring his hands a time or two rather than immediately undo his work as javier seems to continue to formulate his final opinion. “you … think so? look at me?” kieran asks, politely as a mouse. javier easily complies, turns at his hips and looks behind, up at kieran where he sits on the stump above him.

kieran, as he peers over, can’t help the meadow of flush that blooms over his neck, then his ears, then his nose and his cheeks. he can tell javier is deep in thought by the look on his face, mouth twisted just a might sideways, cocking his mustache awry, and the deep wrinkle sat between his brows. the ribbon he used matches javier’s vest perfectly, and the shine of the silk warms bright in the sun, just like every piece of jewelry and metal javier has adorned himself with. with this ribbon, javier’s hair sits lower on his head, ponytail draped down his nape and more hair framing his face in his bangs. kieran resists an urge to tuck one side back behind his ear.

kieran thinks that he looks like a painting, a muse, a love letter so heartbreakingly full of adoration that the only language it could be written in is bright swipes of pigment on a canvas. as he makes eye contact with the silk squinting around the red of a necktie, he thinks that javier may be right, if ‘girly’ could sum up ’poetry written in effeminate reverence’.

kieran always did think women made better art, wrote better books- found a better way to love. softer. warmer. prettier. like javier.

the world sounds like it’s underwater.

“i think … it’s very pretty. it suits you real well.”

earnest to a fault, the look in kieran’s eye dances gingerly with javier’s internal voice. it dips and sways him, and javier, despite his instinct, finds himself charmed by its rhythm.

“-b-but! i could take it out! if you don’t-“ javier looks down at himself in his knife again, the sunlight filtered through the leaves glinting a yellow green around his dark features, and kieran hands him patience on a silver platter. a rich blue makes friends with bright green quite easy, javier thinks. this is how he must look through kieran’s mossy lens.

“pretty … yes. you know, i think you may be right. i’ll keep it. gracias.”

[biitchcakes]

FRIENDS OF THE DASH ⸺⸺ hi ! apologies for the sudden disappearance over the last month +, i wanna also update that i won't be back on the dash for at least another 3 WEEKS. that said, once i'm back, i'm planning on revamping the blog ! new pinned post, new carrd ( i'll finally update my rules lol ), new mains, updated verses, ect ! i'll finish off the starters owed from that last call, but for the sake of my own sanity, damn near EVERYTHING that's been sitting around in my drafts is going ( unless you message about wanting to keep it ! ). and double apologies to all the messages i've missed here and on discord, i'll get to them when i can. 🩷

[jacobseed]

trembling hands

pairing: simon "ghost" riley/maxine sinclair warnings: angst, mentions of parental abuse, dealing with grief words: 1.4k

another one from the drafts. this was a full length version of this short fic prompt @imogenkol sent me from a while ago... anyways wow i just had to make this sad.

--------------

Funerals were an occasion Maxine wasn’t accustomed to. When she was younger she might’ve been to a few, for family she didn’t know, but nothing that stood out to her of significance. At the time, it didn’t feel like much- just a child dragged to another place where she was meant to keep herself busy while the adults did what they had to. She was sure she had been to her brother's funeral, she wonders if she had been to her mother's. 

As an adult, she’s seen death in a hospital and on the battlefield, leading to services she felt uncomfortable attending - as if she doesn’t belong. As if she were at fault.

Today was something different. 

Piper had shown up to her apartment a week ago, emotionless and quiet, handing her an envelope with her name on it. Inside was a letter from their aunt, stating that their father had passed away and they would be holding a funeral back home. Making it known that they should attend the service.

While her sister said she didn’t want to attend, she did at the insistence of Maxine, who said she wanted to finally be rid of the memories and source of pain in her past. Yet, now that she was here, sitting in their old church with a flower covered casket in the center, the sun hitting it through the windows as if it was the radiance of God, she felt nothing but grief. 

Even though Angus Sinclair had hated his daughters for the single fact that they could never replace the son he had lost, she had hoped one day he may have changed his mind. Despite having feared him for her whole childhood living in his house- fearing his rage and drunken anger and senseless abuse- she had wanted a father who loved her. And she hated more than anything that she wanted that from him. She spent her whole life despising him and herself for feelings she couldn’t understand.

Now he was gone- leaving her feeling empty and alone. Until the very end, to his dying breath, he had not cared for the daughters he left behind. 

“We should’ve never come back here. Look at all these fake people- if one more relative I don’t know tells me they are sorry for my loss, I’m liable to go insane.” 

Piper doesn’t hide her disdain and reluctance to be here. She seems more bored and annoyed than remorseful. No, she seemed almost relieved. Maxine watches her carefully and wonders if she’s just bottling it all up, just as she was. She wonders if this didn’t affect her even a little bit.

“I’m happy the bastard is dead. Hope he rots in hell.”

Maxine places a gentle hand over her sisters and holds it tight. “Pip, please. Let’s just get this over with so we can go home.” 

A short sigh leaves Piper before she takes another look. “Maxi, are you alright?”

No. There was nothing about any of this that was alright. Whatever good she felt would come out of this trip was nowhere in sight and she shouldn’t have entertained the idea of showing up. She wishes her aunt hadn’t sent that letter at all. Both of them would’ve been happy going on with their lives never knowing if their father was dead or alive.

But she couldn’t cry from this overbearing emotion of despair- not here and certainly not in front of these people who never wanted them. Not in front of her older sister who had been her sole source of happiness and love- caring for and raising her when their father refused. 

“I just want to go home.” 

The rest of the day went by in a blur, most leaving Maxine alone in her seat as she stared at the casket covered in flowers for a man unworthy of their beauty. A man who did not deserve to be remembered in this way. She was surprised anyone could recognize the daughters of the deceased, but she was sure their aunt had something to do with that - neither of them had returned home in the ten years after they left. Even then, it was hard to remember people that were never around to begin with. 

After the service, they stayed the night in an inn, refusing the offer to stay at their father’s home to clean out what they wanted. They wanted nothing to remember him by. Maxine couldn’t sleep and stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought. When morning arrived, they packed up and took the long journey back to London. 

However, before she knew it, she was staring up at her apartment building. Piper was watching her carefully with eyes full of concern and she took her sister's hand in hers. “Maxi.” Piper pulls her attention back. “Do you want to come stay with me for a bit?” 

“No.” Maxine answers softly as if she doesn’t trust her own voice. “I want to be alone tonight.” She notices the worry in her gaze and she forces a smile. “I’m alright, Pip. I’m just going to sleep.”

However, inside her quiet apartment, she sits in the dark for hours, watching a light outside the window flicker. And as the rain comes, she watches as it runs down the glass in streaks. Her phone lights up every so often, dimly illuminating the space around her, but she pays it no mind as her thoughts cloud.

A knock at the door startles her from the darkness and she shifts slightly to listen, as if she possibly imagined it. As if she were a child again and she waited to hear her father’s boots thumping against the hardwood, towards her room. The knock comes again, a little louder than before and Maxine jumps to her feet, glancing at the room around her as if she were looking for something - anything - to save her. 

From the other side came a familiar voice she hadn’t heard in a while and her panic subsided. “Sinclair, open up.”

She rushes to swing the door open and immediately searches for him. “Simon? What are you doing here?” 

One look tells him everything he needs to know as he pushes his way inside. He keeps the lights off - he doesn't need them to know where she is- her breathing uneven as she holds back her sorrows gives away her position. “You weren’t answering your phone.” He speaks low and pulls off his mask. “Your sister told me everything.” 

Silence settles over them again and his hand brushing against her cheek sends a shiver down her spine. She’s worried he’s going to say he’s sorry for her loss. She’s not sorry. She shouldn’t be sorry. So why does it feel like she lost something she never had? 

“It’s okay.” He whispers, swiping away tears from her face with his thumbs.

Maxine doesn’t know when she started crying, but it’s impossible to stop now as she sobs. He was the last person she wanted to see her like this, and yet, she was thankful to him for showing up. The thought of being alone scared her and there was no guilt with him in the way she felt towards her sister. 

With trembling hands she couldn’t still, Maxine reached out for him. and with firm determination he holds them steady in his own, pulling her closer.

“Breathe, Maxi.” Ghost whispers evenly, voice unshaken. “I've got you now. Breathe.”

She does as he says and takes a slow deep breath and as she exhales her head falls against his chest. His presence is a comfort she never wanted to covet, but his warmth and care was enough for her to want him all to herself.

Although she was confused by his sudden display of compassion, Maxine felt herself sink into his arms and silently prayed to whatever God was listening to allow her to find the salvation she needed from her grief. Simon Riley was no God, but he held onto her tightly and his gentle lips against her head felt like a clear answer to her prayers. 

And as her breathing slowed and her eyes stung from the tears, she found herself asking him to stay with her and wasn’t ashamed as they moved to the couch and she laid against his chest. Fears of her past coming to her the moment she closed her eyes were laid to rest as she realized she was only thinking of the man who held her. Of his warmth and his safety and the heavy beating of her heart.

----------

taglist: @strangefable @statichvm @tommyarashikage @risingsh0t

@anoramactir @firstaidspray @carrionsflower @josephzeppeli @pitchmoss

@pavus @florbelles @thedeadthree @roberthouse69 @carlosoliveiraa

@shellibisshe @jamessunderlandgf @g0dspeeed

[taglist opt in]

[justthinkingaboutlouis]

Happy louis at the Rolling Stone UK awards 2023.

x x

[maulfucker]

Ok some thoughts about senator Maul AU because I keep thinking about it

Palpatine never finds an apprentice in this AU, so he ends up not being such a huge threat

The events of Phantom Menace only kinda happened - Naboo was attacked by the Trade Federation, but there was no Sith to pursue them and kill Qui-Gon, so things got resolved much more easily

Qui-Gon lives, so he gets to train Anakin, and Dooku doesn't get tempted by the dark side

I think Dooku still quits the Jedi Order, but this time it's because he feels like he could do more good as a politician than as a jedi. He keeps a good relationship with the Jedi Order and the Republic and doesn't become a separatist

Every time he's in Coruscant he visits Qui-Gon and Anakin (and Obi-Wan) and chats with them over a nice lunch, which is good because it gives Anakin a politician role model that isn't Palpatine, and a better perspective of his options - he can leave the Order if he finds a new purpose, it's not a betrayal or a failure

Maul was raised in Dathomir so he's not a sith murder machine, but since he's such a powerful Force-senstitive he was raised closer to his mother and the Nightsisters than to his brothers and the Nightbrothers

(Savage and Feral are alive and happy btw. They visit Maul in Coruscant sometimes. I think he might also have one or two sisters because why not)

He still doesn't like Jedi but it's like. He doesn't want to kill them, he just thinks they're way too limiting and self-righteous. Like how Obi-Wan doesn't like politicians

He rarely makes speeches on the senate, so hearing him speak is a rare treat

Picture holonet social media hornyposting under every clip of him speaking because he has a very sexy voice

His outfits are also pretty daring (read: sexy) compared to most (male) senators. The entire Dathomir delegation dresses pretty similarly, but he gets the most attention

Maul vs Padmé who wore it better type posts

He and Padmé have this weird kinda-rivalry because they're very opposite in a lot of ways, but they still vote on the same side in a lot of topics since they both have a very "I am doing this for my people" mentality

He also absolutely hates Palpatine because he gets extremely rotten vibes from him (he's more attuned to the dark side than the Jedi so he probably Feels Palpatine's dark side vibes better than the Jedi. He Feels Palpatine is Bad)

When/if the Jedi Order ever finds out Palpatine is a sith he will be very unsurprised

Ventress is a representative and Maul's "apprentice", learning the Senate life from him

I'm making her younger than her "canon" age here (by about 10ish years) because it makes more sense to me and because giving Maul a government-assigned baby sister is funny

From what we see in the movies each world seems to only have one senator but I want the Dathomir delegation to have at least two because I think it's more fitting (and realistic, every world needs more than one senator what the fuck)

I think it would be funny if Maul swears he's gonna quit soon and Ventress will take his place in the senate but then the other senator retires first and makes Ventress her successor so Maul has to stay a senator for longer. He just wants to get out of this fucking planet

On the Jedi side of this AU I think Anakin grows into a much more disciplined jedi because Qui-Gon the rules bender would definitely stay in contact with Shmi so Anakin's anxieties regarding his mom will be more controlled, and they would be contacted immediately when she gets kidnapped by the tuskens so they save her faster and she doesn't die and neither do the tuskens and everything is fine

Plus Anakin gets to know his new family better and have a brother and add a new dad to his collection <3

Maybe Obi-Wan gets Ahsoka as a padawan this time, so she can have a master who actually wants to teach, and also be kinda-siblings with Anakin and cause chaos with him while Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan aren't looking

The Separatists never really take off, so the clone wars never happen, but I think the attacks on senators that were happening at the start of AotC still happen because I think it's fun to have drama and have Jedi escorts assigned to senators (read: good excuse to set up an obimaul and allow the anidala plot to happen)

I want Maul to be miserable wet cats with Obi-Wan on Kamino so I am allowing the clones to exist. Purely for comedic plot opportunity. And because I love clones so I want them to exist

But I think this time they only made a single batch of like 10-100 clones and were waiting for the Jedi to get back to them with approval to make more

Maul sees this and goes "Absolutely the fuck NOT" so no more clones are made after those. Sad!

With Maul there to help the Jango fight is much more successful (and 50% less humiliating on Obi-Wan's side) so they capture him and no one has to die

Sidious had to hire Jango this time since I am not letting him have an apprentice, so Jango is like "I was hired by some old weirdo in a cloak who called himself Darth Sidious who sounded and looked a lot like the chancellor from Naboo" and Maul feels so fucking vindicated that YES the bad vibes he gets from Palpatine were correct can we PLEASE kill him now

Jango gets arrested and maybe he makes a deal to work under the Jedi instead of staying in jail so he can take care of Boba instead of leaving him to his own luck

Boba being raised with Jedi younglings while Jango is busy offworld....

The clones also become part of the Jedi Order so they can help Jedi with peacekeeping and defense and stuff

Palpatine gets found out and arrested and/or killed by the Jedi and everyone else gets to live happily ever after. Eventually.

... this is. Way longer than planned. I'm having fun

[sarastellasari]

Nash Hawthorne moodboard!

[hipsternumbertwo]

My favorite kind of Reading Reddit Stories introduction (Part 5)

[berrymoos]

okay so the sickfic in my drafts gets labelled with potentially mature content but the dead dove fic i posted back in feb has ... nothing ?? tumblr can you put ur glasses back on & stop being dense

[reluctant-mandalore]

Hey you know what would be funny? If like in season 4 Din wakes up the one morning and the darksaber is just there for no reason at his bedside table.

[crossbackpoke-check]

Looks like that video is about a month & a half after The Trade and trevors broken ankle 😣

re: this video… anon 😭 i had suspicions but it is so much worse to have them confirmed that really was like. trevor’s first Public Appearance without jamie AND post-broken ankle which is traumatic in and of itself no wonder every beat reporter was like ‘oh yeah trevor’s just devastated’

wouldn’t you be miserable too if your best friend just got traded and your body betrayed you and what if it was maybe all your fault!!!

[squirmydonnie]

From late February 2024

Is very random and unorganized. But I added bullet points

TW: Suicide, SH, in specific section, Unreality,

• Traumatized

• I think I have OCD. Somewhat confident. Think its really possible. It has to be. Please. What else.

• I think of myself. Sometimes as a beluga whale. This isn't meant to be something rude to myself. But more like a reminder. Inside joke. I took a picture of myself in 8th grade. Saved it on my school computer. And it always reminded me of a beluga whale. Something about my head shape there. Kinda funny.

• I often want to post and repost food. But I'm scared it will bother somebody. I'm scared most things I do will bother somebody. And because of that I hold back a lot of things. I simply don't know how to be myself. I'm still trying to get at who that is. If a am myself I believe no one will like me.,zz a whoever that is.

• I have no aversion to nudity. I will get used to the nakedness. Theres no need to hide. But don't expect me to have no reaction forever. That's impossible. I don't want to hurt anybody. Please don't hurt me. (about 2 things)

(I do not remember what this means. Neither of the two parts. This only confuses me. A lot.)

TW: suicide, SH

• I'd known Dra since elementary school. Not too well. But we'd hang out every once in a while. I knew them well enough to write their name down in drawings. Though in 1st grade I did write now every student in my class on 2 sheets of paper, sticking them together to make some kind of a banner.

I like people.

In 6th grade we would go into the gym before classes started.

I would sit with Dra most times. If I didn't I was with ForgottenSpirit or NBB.

When it was just me and Dra she'd show me her ipad and phone. I didn't have a phone yet.

I had known Ni as well. In Elementary school.

Dra and Ni had each others numbers. They both would cut themselves.

One day Dra showed me her cuts. I was concerned. I wanted to help. This part feels a little fuzzy. As I don't remember much of it. They showed me their Gacha character again. So surely this was jarring for me.

She told me not to tell anyone. But I worried about them everyday.

I worried everyday that they could die. That something bad could happen. I was scared.

6th grade was terrible for me. Even just not including this.

I feel like a terrible person

I found myself in hard struggle. I couldn't keep up.

So tired.

I wanted to be able to do more.

I tried to cut myself in front of the sink when washing the dishes.

It didn't work. In a way I felt relieved. Had been thinking of Dra and Ni. I had been thinking of ForgottenSpirit and NBB. I was so afraid and sacred.

I realized I couldn't take it anymore that day and told my mom. Not how I was feeling. But about Dra. How she wanted to kill herself and that she had been cutting herself as well.

I had a huge fear that the police would come. I was very scared.

She asked me if I was feeling the same as Dra. I said I was.

Strangely after that. My mom hasn't ever asked me again. She must believe that I'm able to come to her. I don't believe I'm able to come to anybody. And that im far to scared to.

• I often figure out what my needs and want are, based of of what Cookie 12's needs and wants are. By having the thought, Cookie 12 wants to see butterflies in a forest emerge during their release season. I now know that's inadvertently what I want. I don't have the heart to give myself what I want/need or even think of it as a possibility.

But when it's under the guise of what Cookie 12 wants, I am then able to receive it as just. Under the pretense that Cookie 12 is not real or effect the real world. (which in the past only meant to me that Cookie 12 could only effect me and not others). Everyone would be fine.

For once what I want and need can't hurt other people. This is not real.