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jamestaylorswift · 4 years

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My giant goes with me wherever I go: a study of the geographic metanarrative of folklore

This topic has been rattling around in my brain ever since I first heard folklore and I think it’s endlessly fascinating. Cue this lengthy but (hopefully) intriguing piece.

I’m afraid the title may not be an accurate reflection of this essay’s content, so here’s a preview of talking points: geography, existence, metanarrative, making sense of the theme of death, the “peace”/“hoax”/“the lakes” trio, history/philosophy, and exactly one paragraph of rep/Lover analysis (as a treat).

I make the standard disclaimer that analysis is by definition subjective. Additionally, many thanks and credit to anyone else who has written analysis of folklore. I am sure my opinions have been influenced by yours, even subconsciously.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome, and thank you for taking the time to read :)

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“Traveling is a fool’s paradise. We owe to our first journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me in the stern Fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

——

If Taylor Swift’s music is anything, it is highly geographic. Taylor has been a country, pop, and now alternative artist, yet a storyteller through and through—one with a special knack for developing the aesthetic of songs and even entire records through location. The people and places she writes about seem to mutually breathe life into each other.

It is plausible that Taylor, as a young storyteller, developed this talent by using places as veritable muses just like she did anything else. Furthermore, her confessional storytelling became much more geographic as she shifted to pop because of factors including (though certainly not limited to) purchasing real estate, traveling more, writing in a genre that canonically centers coastal cities, and dating individuals with their own established homes. The geographic motif in her work is so identifiable that all of the corresponding details are—for better or worse—commensurate to autobiography.

However, folklore is not autobiographical in the way that most understand her other albums to be. The relationship between people and places in folklore is likewise much less symbiotic.

The first two songs on the record illustrate this. We are at bare minimum forced to associate the characters of Betty and James with New York: the lyrics about the High Line imply a fraction of their relationship took place in this city. Even so, this does not imply Betty or James ever permanently resided in New York, or that Betty is in New York at the moment she is narrating the story of “cardigan.” Taylor places far more emphasis on James and the nostalgia of youth, with “I knew you” repeated as a hook, to develop the emotional tone of the song. Rhode Island also comes to life in “the last great american dynasty” because of Rebekah Harkness’ larger-than-life character. But Taylor, following Rebekah’s antagonism, states multiple times throughout the song that the person should be divorced from the place. folklore locations are never so revered that they gain the vibrancy of literal human life. Taylor refrains from saying a person is a place in the same way that she has said that she is New York or her lover is the West Village.

For an album undeniably with the most concrete references to location, it is highly irregular—even confusing, given that personification is such a powerful storytelling device—that Taylor does not equate location with personal ethos.

Regurgitating the truism that geography equals autobiography proves quite limiting for interpreting Taylor’s work. How, then, should geography influence our understanding of folklore?

I submit that the stories in folklore are not ‘about’ places but ‘of’ places which are not real. Taylor’s autobiographical fiction makes the settings of the songs similarly fictionalized, metaphorical, and otherwise symbolic of something much more than geography. It is this phenomenon which emotionally and philosophically distinguishes folklore from the rest of her oeuvre.

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As a consequence of Taylor’s unusual treatment of location, real places in folklore become signposts for cultural-geographic abstractions. Reality is simply a set of worldbuilding training wheels.

Prominent geographic features define places, which define settings. The world of folklore is built from what I’ve dubbed as four archetypal settings: the Coastal Town, the Suburb, the City, and the Outside World.

Each has a couple defining geographic features:

Coastal Town: water, cliffs/a lookout

Suburb: homes, town

City: public areas, social/nightlife/entertainment venues

The Outside World serves as the logical complement of the other three settings.

Understanding that real location in folklore is neither interchangeable nor synonymous with setting is crucial. Rhode Island is like the Coastal Town, but the two settings are not one and the same. The Suburb is an idyllic mid-America setting like Nashville, St. Louis, or Pennsylvania; it is all of those places and none of them at the same time. The City may be New York City, but it is certainly not New York City in the way that Taylor has ever sung about New York City before. The Outside World is just away.

Put simply, folklore is antithetical to Taylor’s previous geographic doctrine. While we are not precluded from, for instance, imagining the City as New York City, we also cannot and should not be pigeonholed into doing so.

Note:

This album purports to embody the stereotypically American folkloric tradition. “Outside” means “anywhere that isn’t America” because the imagery and associations of the first three cultural-geographic settings indeed are very distinctly American.

While Nashville and St. Louis are relatively big cities, they are still orders of magnitude smaller than New York and LA, the urban centers that Taylor normally regards as big cities. In context of this essay, the former locations are Suburban.

In this essay, the purpose of the term ‘of’ is simply to replace the more strict term ‘about.’ ‘Of’ denotes significant emotion tied to a place, usually because of significant time spent there either in the past or present (tense matters). Not all songs are ‘of’ places—it may be ambiguous where action takes place—and some songs can be ‘of’ multiple places due to location changing throughout the story. (This does not automatically mean that songs with more than one location are ‘of’ two places. A passing mention of St. Louis does not qualify “the last great american dynasty” as ‘of’ the Suburb, for example.)

Each of the four archetypal settings must instead be understood as an amalgam of the aesthetics of every real location it could be. Setting then exists in conversation with metaphor because we have a shared understanding of what constitutes a generic Suburb, City, or Coastal Town.

Finally, by transitivity, the settings’ metaphorical significance entirely hinges upon the geographic features’ metaphorical significance. This is what Taylor authors.

The next part of the essay is concerned with deciphering geography in folklore per these guiding questions: how is an archetypal feature used as a metaphor? By proxy, what does that say about the setting defined by it? What theme, if any, unites the settings?

The Coastal Town: Water and Cliffs

The Coastal Town is defined by elemental features.

The first (brief) mentions of water occur on the first two tracks:

Roarin’ twenties, tossing pennies in the pool

Leavin’ like a father, running like water

“the last great american dynasty” introduces the setting to which the pool (water) feature belongs, our Rhode Island-like Coastal Town. It also incorporates a larger water feature, the ocean, and suggests the existence of a lookout or cliffs:

Rebekah gave up on the Rhode Island set forever

Flew in all her Bitch Pack friends from the city

Filled the pool with champagne and swam with the big names

They say she was seen on occasion

Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea

“seven” and “peace” also have brief mentions of water; however, note that these songs remain situated as ‘of’ the Suburb. (More on this later.)

I hit my peak at seven

Feet in the swing over the creek

I was too scared to jump in

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

“my tears ricochet” and “mad woman” with their nautical references pertain to the water metaphor:

I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace

And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves

Now I breathe flames each time I talk

My cannons all firin’ at your yacht

“epiphany” also counts, though with the understanding of “beaches” as Guadalcanal this song is ‘of’ the Outside World:

Crawling up the beaches now

“Sir, I think he’s bleeding out”

“this is me trying” and “hoax” reiterate the cliff/lookout geography:

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout

Could’ve followed my fears all the way down

Stood on the cliffside screaming, “Give me a reason”

Finally, “the lakes” features both water and cliffs:

Take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

While I bathe in cliffside pools

With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

In folklore, water dovetails with permanent loss.

“epiphany” is the most egregious example. Crawling up the beaches of a war zone proves fatal. “the lakes” describes grieving in water, perhaps for the loss of one’s life because there exist cliffs from which to jump. “this is me trying” and “hoax” mirror that idea. On the other hand, in “peace,” death does not seem to have any connection to falling from a height.

Loss can also mean loss of sanity, such as with the eccentric character of Rebekah Harkness or Taylor as a “mad woman” firing cannons at (presumably) Scooter Braun’s yacht.

Subtler are the losses alluded to in “my tears ricochet” and “seven,” of identity or image and childhood audacity, respectively. And in the opening tracks water is at its most benign, aligned with loss of a relationship that has run its course in one’s young adulthood.

The most fascinating aspect of water in folklore is that it is an aberration from water as the symbol for life/birth/renewal, derived from maternity and the womb. folklore water taketh away, not giveth.

As of now, the greater significance of the Coastal Town—the meaning to which this contradiction alludes—remains to be seen.

The City: Nightlife, Entertainment, and Public Areas

Preeminent in Taylor’s pop work is the City; New York City, Los Angeles, and London are the locations most frequently extolled as Swiftian meccas. This archetypal setting is given a more understated role in folklore.

“cardigan,” ‘of’ the City, illustrates this setting using public environments and nightlife:

Vintage tee, brand new phone

High heels on cobblestones

But I knew you

Dancin’ in your Levi’s

Drunk under a streetlight

I knew you

Your heartbeat on the High Line

Once in twenty lifetimes

To kiss in cars and downtown bars

Was all we needed

“mirrorball” paints the clearest picture of the City’s nightlife/social venues by sheer quantity of lyrics:

I’m a mirrorball

I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight

I’ll get you out on the floor

Shimmering beautiful

You are not like the regulars

The masquerade revelers

Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten

And they called off the circus, burned the disco down

“invisible string” briefly mentions a bar:

A string that pulled me

Out of all the wrong arms, right into that dive bar

In addition, “this is me trying” implies that the speaker may currently be at a bar, making the song partially ‘of’ the City:

They told me all of my cages were mental

So I got wasted like all my potential

I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere

Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here

Pouring out my heart to a stranger

But I didn’t pour the whiskey

It goes almost without saying that the City at large is alcohol-soaked. Indeed, alcohol will help us understand this location.

Each of the aforementioned songs has a distinct narrator, like Betty in the case of “cardigan” or Taylor herself, at the very least in the case of “mirrorball” or at most all songs besides “cardigan.” And because the narrative character is so strong, I posit that the meaning of this geography is tied to what alcohol reveals about the speakers of the songs themselves.

“invisible string” and “mirrorball” are alike in the fact that the stories extend well beyond or even completely after nightlife. Meeting in a dive bar in “invisible string” is just the catalyst for a relationship that feels fated. Taylor, in her “mirrorball” musing, expresses concern about how she is perceived by someone close to her. Does existing after the fact (of public perception, at an entertainment venue) constitute an authentic existence? Alcohol, apparently a necessary part of City life, predates events which later haunt the speakers. Emotional torment is then what prompts the speakers to recount their stories.

On the other hand, alcohol directly reveals the emotional states of the speakers in “cardigan” and “this is me trying.” “cardigan” is Betty’s sepia-toned memory of her time with James, in which James’ careless, youthful spirit (“dancin’ in your Levi’s, drunk under a streetlight” and “heartbeat on the High Line”) inspires sadness and nostalgia for their ultimately temporary relationship (“once in twenty lifetimes”). “this is me trying” is tinged with the speaker’s bitterness; hopelessness and regret lead them to the bar and the destructive practice of drinking just to be numb.

These observations suggest that the City is also a site of grief or loss, though not for the same reason that the Coastal Town is. Whereas the Coastal Town is associated with a permanent ending such as death, the City reveals an ending that is more transitional and wistful, tantamount to a coming of age. There is a clear ‘before’ and ‘after’ to loss related to the City: life, though changed, goes on.

The Suburb: Homes and Towns

Noteworthy though the City and Coastal Town may be, the former in particular concerning the pop mythology of Taylor Swift, it is the Suburb which Taylor most frequently references in folklore and establishes as the geographical heart of the album.

The Suburb is defined by a home and town. A “home” encompasses entrances (front/side doors), back and front yards (gardens/lawns/trees/weeds/creeks), and interiors (rooms/halls/closets). The “town” is pretty self-explanatory, with a store, mall, movie theater, school, and yogurt shop.

Observe that the folklore Suburb is the aesthetic equivalent of the “small town” that provided the debut and Fearless albums’ milieu and inspired the country mythology of Taylor Swift. While Taylor primarily wrote about home and school on those albums (because, well, that was closer to her experience as a teenager), the “small town” and the folklore Suburb are functionally the same with regard to pace, quality, and monotonicity of life. Exhibit A: driving around and lingering on front doorsteps are the main attractions for young adults. (From my personal experience growing up in a Suburb, this is completely accurate. And yes, the only other attractions are the mall and the movie theater.)

The Suburb becomes a conduit for conflict.

Conflict that Taylor explores in this setting, including inner turmoil, dissension between characters, and friction between oneself and external (societal) expectations, naturally can be distinguished by distance [1] between the two forces in conflict. As an example, ‘person vs. self’ implies no distance between the sides because they are both oneself. ‘Person vs. society’ is conflict in which the sides are the farthest they could conceivably be from each other. Conflict with greater distance between the sides is usually harder to resolve. One must move bigger mountains, so to speak, to fix these problems.

The folklore Suburb is additionally constructed upon the notion of privacy or seclusion. We can imagine a gradient [2] of privacy illustrated by Suburban geography: the town is a less intimate setting than the outside of the home, which is less intimate than the inside of the home.

I combine these two ideas in the following claim: the Suburb relates distance between two forces in conflict inversely on the geographical privacy gradient. Put simply, the more intimate or ‘internal’ the setting, the farther the two sides in conflict are from each other.

(I offer this claim in the hopes that it will clarify the nebulous meaning of the Suburb in the next section.)

Salient references to the Suburban town can be divided into one of two categories:

Allowing oneself to hope

Allowing oneself to recall

“august” clearly belongs in the first category. Hope is central to August’s character and how she approaches her relationship with James:

Wanting was enough

For me, it was enough

To live for the hope of it all

Canceled plans just in case you’d call

And say, “Meet me behind the mall”

If we interpret the bus as a school bus then “the 1” also belongs in this first town category:

I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn’t though

I hit the ground running each night

I hit the Sunday matinee

“invisible string” indicates that the yogurt shop is equally innocent as Centennial Park. The store represents the hope of Taylor’s soul mate, parallel to her hope:

Green was the color of the grass

Where I used to read at Centennial Park

I used to think I would meet somebody there

Teal was the color of your shirt

When you were sixteen at the yogurt shop

You used to work at to make a little money

“cardigan” and “this is me trying” alternatively highlight the persistence of memory, with a relationship leaving an “indelible mark” on the narrators. These songs belong in the second category:

I knew I’d curse you for the longest time

Chasin’ shadows in the grocery line

You’re a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town

James’ recollection qualifies “betty” for the second category as well. This song shows that emotional weight falls behind the act of remembering:

Betty, I won’t make assumptions

About why you switched your homeroom, but

I think it’s ‘cause of me

Betty, one time I was riding on my skateboard

When I passed your house

It’s like I couldn’t breathe

Betty, I know where it all went wrong

Your favorite song was playing

From the far side of the gym

I was nowhere to be found

I hate the crowds, you know that

Plus, I saw you dance with him

The surprising common denominator of these two categories is that conflict is purely internal in public spaces. Regardless of whether the speakers feel positively or negatively (i.e. per category number), their feelings are entirely a product of their own decisions, such as revisiting a memory or avoiding confrontation. This gives credence to the theory that the Suburb inversely relates conflict distance with privacy.

On the other extreme, the home is a site of conflict larger than oneself, and often more conflict in general. Conflict which occurs in the most private setting, inside the house, is conflict where the two sides are most distanced from each other. Conflict near the house, though not strictly inside, is closer, interpersonal.

“my tears ricochet” is just an ‘indoors’ song. The opening line depicts a private, funeral-like atmosphere:

We gather here, we line up, weepin’ in a sunlit room

There are multiple interpretations of this song floating around. The two prevailing ones are about the death of Taylor Swift the persona and the sale of her masters. In either interpretation, society and culture are the foundation for the implied conflict. First, the caricature of Taylor Swift exists as a reflection of pop culture; second, the sale of global superstar Taylor Swift’s masters is a dispute of such magnitude that it is not simply an interpersonal squabble.

For the alternative interpretation that “my tears ricochet” is about a dissolved relationship, “and when you can’t sleep at night // you hear my stolen lullabies” implicates Taylor Swift’s public catalogue (and thus Taylor Swift the persona) as the entity haunting someone else, as opposed to Taylor Swift the former member of the relationship.

“mad woman” is just an ‘outdoors’ song because of the line about the neighbor’s lawn:

What do you sing on your drive home?

Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn?

Does she smile?

Or does she mouth, “Fuck you forever”

It’s clear Taylor has a lot of vitriol for Scooter Braun. Though it’s probably a bit of both at the end of the day, I am comfortable calling their feud more of the ‘person vs. person’ variety than the ‘person vs. society’ variety.

Consequently, the privacy gradient claim holds for both songs.

“illicit affairs” is one of two songs with a very clear ‘transformation’ of geography:

What started in beautiful rooms

Ends with meetings in parking lots

In context, this represents the devolution of the relationship. External conflict, the illegitimacy of the relationship, defined the affair when it was in “beautiful rooms.” Relocating to the parking lot (i.e. now referencing the Suburban town) coincides with discord turning inward. Any external shame or scorn for both lovers as a consequence of the affair is replaced by the end of the song with anger the lovers feel towards each other and, more importantly, themselves.

“seven” is the best example of how many types of conflict are present in and around the home:

I hit my peak at seven

Feet in the swing over the creek

I was too scared to jump in

And I’ve been meaning to tell you

I think your house is haunted

Your dad is always mad and that must be why

And I think you should come live with me

And we can be pirates

Then you won’t have to cry

Or hide in the closet

Please picture me in the weeds

Before I learned civility

I used to scream ferociously

Any time I wanted

The first few lines exemplify ‘person vs. self’ conflict, a fear of heights. The third segment introduces a ‘person vs. society’ dilemma, shrinking pains as a result of socialization into gender norms. (I am assuming that the child is a girl.) The second verse indicates strife between a child and a father. It leaves room for three interpretations:

The conflict is interpersonal, so the father’s anger is wholly or partially directed at the child because the father is an angry person

The conflict is sociological, so the father’s anger is a whole or partial consequence of the gendered roles which the father and child perform

Both

Is curious that we need not regard sadness and the closet in “seven” as mutually inclusive. The narrator says the child’s options are crying (logical) or hiding in the closet. Both the father’s temper and the closet are facts of the child’s life, either innocuous or traumatic or somewhere in between.

But we might—and perhaps should—go further and argue that conflict in “seven” is necessarily sociological, and specifically about being civilized to perform heterosexual femininity. For, taken to its logical extreme, if only gender identity and not sexual identity incites anger, then men must be socialized to become abusive to women, who must be socialized to become submissive to that abuse. Screaming “ferociously” at any time would also denote freedom to be oneself despite men, not freedom to be oneself for one’s own gratification. Yet the child surely enjoys the second freedom at the beginning of the song. While the patriarchy is indeed an oppressive societal force, the interpretation of the social conflict in “seven” as only gendered yields contradiction. This interpretation is much more tenuous than acknowledging that the closet is, in fact, The Closet.

(Mere mention of a closet, the universal symbol for hiding one’s sexuality, immediately justifies a queer interpretation of “seven” notwithstanding other sociological and/or semantic technicalities. A sizable chunk of Taylor’s extensive discography also lends itself to queer interpretation by extension of connection with this song—for instance, by a shared theme of socialization as a primary evil. To me it seems silly at best and homophobic at worst to eschew the reading of “seven” presented here.)

It is undeniable that “seven” represents many types of conflict and places them inversely on the privacy gradient. The father embodies societal conflict larger than the young child and introduces that conflict inside the house. The child faces internal conflict (i.e. a fear of heights) and no conflict at all (i.e. freedom to act fearlessly) outside.

Reconciling “august,” “exile,” and “betty” with the privacy gradient actually requires a queer interpretation of the songs. To avoid the complete logical fallacy of a circular proof, I reiterate that the privacy gradient is simply a means of illustrating how the Suburb functions as an archetypal location. Queer interpretation is a sufficient but not necessary condition for an interesting argument about Suburban spatial symbolism. Reaching a slightly weaker conclusion about the Suburb without the privacy gradient would not impact the conclusions about the other three archetypal locations. Finally, queer (sub)text is a noteworthy topic on its own.

“betty” situates the front porch as the venue where Betty must make a decision about her relationship with James:

But if I just showed up at your party

Would you have me? Would you want me?

Would you tell me to go fuck myself

Or lead me to the garden?

In the garden, would you trust me

If I told you it was just a summer thing?

Yeah, I showed up at your party

Will you have me? Will you love me?

Will you kiss me on the porch

In front of all your stupid friends?

If you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it?

Will it patch your broken wings?

Influencing Betty’s decision is her relationship with her “stupid” (read: homophobic) friends who don’t accept James (and/or the idea of James/Betty as a pair), her own internalized homophobia, and the trepidation with which she may regard James after the August escapade. The conflict at the front door is external/societal, interpersonal, and internal.

The garden differs from the front door as an area where James and Betty can privately discuss the August escapade. By moving to the garden, the supposed root of their conflict shifts from the oppressive force of homophobia to James’ behavior regarding the love triangle (“would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing?”). Much like in “illicit affairs,” motion along the privacy gradient underscores that micro-geography is inversely related to conflict distance.

Next, the implied settings of “august” are a bedroom and a private outdoor location such as a backyard:

Salt air, and the rust on your door

I never needed anything more

Whispers of "Are you sure?”

“Never have I ever before”

Your back beneath the sun

Wishin’ I could write my name on it

Will you call when you’re back at school?

I remember thinkin’ I had you

The backyard holds a mixture of ‘person vs. self’ and ‘person vs. person’ conflict. August’s doubts about James manifest as personal insecurities. However, James, by avoiding commitment, is equally responsible for planting that seed of doubt.

The song’s opening scene depicts a young adult losing their virginity. The bedroom can thus be conceptualized as a site of societal conflict because the queer love story expands this location to the geographical manifestation of escapism and denial. James runs off with August as a means to ignore externalized homophobia from a relationship with Betty, who has homophobic friends. Yet they eventually ditch August for Betty, either because of intense feelings for Betty or internalized homophobia—the relationship with August was too perfect, too easy.

“betty” and “august” are consistent with the gradient theory provided we interpret the love triangle narrative as queer. Identity engenders conflict in these songs. The characters then confront the conflict vis-à-vis location. ‘Indoors’ becomes the arena for confronting issues farther from the self, namely concerning homophobia. ‘Outdoors’ scopes cause and therefore possible resolution to individuals’ choices.

Last but not least, consider “exile,” the song with strange staging:

And it took you five whole minutes

To pack us up and leave me with it

Holdin’ all this love out here in the hall

You were my crown, now I’m in exile, seein’ you out

I think I’ve seen this film before

So I’m leaving out the side door

“I’m in exile, seein’ you out” and “I’m leaving out the side door” contradict each other. The speaker, “I,” seeing their lover out means that the speaker remains inside the house while their lover leaves. But the “I” also leaves through the side door. Does the speaker follow their lover out? If so, then whose house are they leaving? It is most likely a shared residence. They plan on coming back.

Taylor said in an interview [3] that the verses, sung by different people, represent the perspectives of the two lovers. The “me” in the first segment is the “you” in the second. So our “I” is left in the hall too. Both individuals in the relationship are implied to leave and stay at different times.

An explanation for this inconsistency lies in the distinction between doors. A front door in folklore is symbolic of trust, that which makes or breaks a relationship (see: Betty’s front door and the door in “hoax”). It also forces sociological conflict to be resolved at the interpersonal level, lest serious problems hang out in the open. Fixing the world at large is usually impossible, and so front doors only create more issues. (The mountains, as they say, are too big to move.) The main entrance is thus a site for volatility and high stakes.

“exile” suggests that a shared side door is for persistent, dull, aching pain. This door symbolizes shame which is inherent to a relationship. It forces the partners to come and go quietly, to hide the existence of their love. Inferred from a queer reading of “exile” is that it is homophobia that erases the relationship. Conflict with society as evinced in individuals is once again consistent with the staging at the home.

Note that few (though multiple) explanations could resolve the paradox between intense shame in a relationship and the setting of a permanent shared home. Racism, for example, may be a reason individuals hide the existence of a loving relationship. Nevertheless, the overall effect of Taylor’s writing is that it is believable autobiography. It is unlikely that she’s speaking about racism here, least of all because there are two other male characters in the song. So a slightly more uncouth name for “exile” would be “the last great american mutual bearding anthem.”

To summarize, the Suburb is an archetypal setting constructed upon the notion of privacy. Taylor makes the folklore Suburb the primary home (no pun intended) of conflict of all kinds. Through an intimate, inverse relationship between drama and constitutive geography, Taylor argues that unrest and incongruity are central to what the Suburb represents.

The Outside World

The final archetypal setting is the complement to the first three—a physical and symbolic alternative.

The Guadalcanal beaches in “epiphany” (which are also alluded to in “peace”) contrast the homeland in “exile” through a metaphor about war. The Lake District in England is opposite America, the setting of most of folklore. The Moon, Saturn, and India are far away from Pennsylvania, the setting of “seven.” India quantifies the lengths to which the speaker of the song would go to protect the child character, while astronomy abstracts the magnitude of the speaker’s love.

This archetypal setting is symbolic of disengagement and breaking free from limitations. Moving to India in “seven” is how the speaker and child could escape problems at the child’s home. Analogizing war with the pandemic in “epiphany” removes geographical and chronological constraints from trauma.

The Lake District is where Taylor, a poet, goes to die. The line “I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you” could also suggest that this location is where Taylor and her muse break free from being outcasts (i.e. they find belonging). Regardless, the Lake District is where she disengages from the ultimate limitation of life itself.

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How is an archetypal feature used as a metaphor? By proxy, what does that say about the setting defined by said feature?

Analysis of each archetypal feature yielded the following:

The Coastal Town is representative of permanent loss/endings

The City is representative of transitional loss/endings

The Suburb is the site of character-defining conflict

The Outside World is freedom from the constraints of the other settings

What theme unites these settings?

Though the majority of songs in folklore are anachronistic, the album has a temporal spirit. Geography seems to humanize and animate folklore: the meanings of the settings mirror the stages of life.

(The theoretical foundation for this claim is a topology of being; that the nature of being [4] is an event of place.)

The City, characterized by transition, is the coming-of-age and the Coastal Town, characterized by permanent endings, is death.

The Outside World, an alternative to life itself, is hence a rebirth. (After all, Romantic poets experienced a spiritual and occupational rebirth upon retiring to the Lakes to die. We remember them by their retreat.)

Outwardly, the Suburb is ambiguous. It could be representative of adolescence or adulthood—before or after the City. Analysis shows that this setting is nothing if not complex. Adult Taylor writes about the Suburb as someone whose opinion of this setting has unquestionably soured since adolescence. Yet she also approaches the Suburb with the singular goal of creating nuance, specifically by exposing unrest and incongruity which the setting usually obfuscates. This setting, ironically one that is (culturally) ruled by haughty adolescents, is where she explores the myriad subtleties and uncertainties coloring adulthood. The Suburb thus cannot be for adolescence because James is 17 and doesn’t know anything. Taylor intentionally situates the Suburb between the City and Coastal Town as the geographic stand-in for a complicated adulthood.

Despite genre shifts, Taylor has always excelled at establishing a clear setting for her songs. She is arguably even required to establish setting more clearly for folkloric storytelling than for her brand of confessional pop. If we can’t fully distinguish between reality and fiction, we must be able to supplement our understanding of a story with strong characterization, which is ultimately a byproduct of setting. Geography is a prima facie necessity for creating folklore.

This further suggests that the ‘life story’ told through geography is the thing closest to a metanarrative of folklore.

I use this term to refer to an album’s overarching narrative structure which Taylor creates (maybe subconsciously) in service of artistic self-expression. Interrogating ‘metanarrative’ should not be confused with the protean, impossible, and distracting task of deciphering Taylor Swift’s life. True metanarrative is always worth exploring. Also, though some conclusions about metanarrative may seem more plausible than others, at the end of the day all relevant arguments are untenable. Only Taylor knows exactly which metanarrative(s) her albums follow, if any. It is simply worth appreciating that folklore allows an interesting discussion about metanarrative in the first place; that it is both possible to find patterns sewn into the fabric of the work and to resonate with that which one believes those patterns illustrate. I digress.

folklore is highly geographic but orthogonal to all of our geographic expectations of mood or tone. Through metaphor, Taylor upends our assumptions about the archetypal settings.

The Outside World is usually a setting which represents a brief and peaceful respite for travelers. Here, it is the setting for complete and permanent disengagement. Hiding and running away was a panacea in reputation/Lover, but in folklore, finding peace in running and hiding becomes impossible.

The City is usually regarded as a modern Fountain of Youth and, in Taylor’s work, a home. However, the folklore City’s shelter is temporary and its energy brittle, like the relationship between the characters that inhabit it. The City has lost its glow.

One would expect the Coastal Town to be peaceful and serene given its small size and proximity to water. Taylor makes it the primary site of death, insanity, permanent loss. The place where one cannot go with grace is hardly peaceful.

The Suburb is not the romanticized-by-necessity dead end that it is in a Bildungsroman like Fearless. Rather, it is the site of great conflict as a consequence of individual identity. The American suburb is monolithic by design; Taylor points the finger of blame back at this design for erasing hurt and trauma. By writing against the gradient of privacy, she obviates all simplicity and serenity for which this location is known. Bedrooms no longer illustrate the dancing-in-pjs-before-school and floodplain-of-tears binary. Front porches become more sinister than the place to meet a future partner and rock a baby. Characters’ choices—often between two undesirable options in situations complicated by misalignment of the self and the world at large—become their biggest mistakes. It is with near masochistic fascination that Taylor dissects how the picturesque Suburban façade disguises misery.

If we have come to expect anything from Taylor, it is that she will make lustrous even the most mundane feelings and places. (And she is very good at her job.) folklore is a departure from this practice. She replaces erstwhile veneration of geography itself with nostalgia, bitterness, sadness, or disdain for any given setting. folklore is orthogonal to our primary expectation of Taylor Swift.

Yet another fascinating aspect of folklore is the air of death. It’s understandable. Taylor has ‘killed’ relationships, her own image, and surely parts of her inner self an unknowable number of times. Others have tarnished her reputation, stolen her songs, and deserted her in personal and professional life. She perishes frequently, both by her own hand and by the hands of others. The losses compound.

I’ve lost track of the number of posts I’ve seen saying that folklore is Taylor mourning friendships, love, a past self, youth…x, y, z. It has literally never been easier to project onto a Taylor Swift album, folks! At the same time, it is very difficult to to pinpoint what, exactly, Taylor is mourning. To me, listing things is a far too limited understanding of folklore. The lists simply do not do the album justice.

Death’s omnipresence has intrigued many, and I assert for good geographic reason. Reinforcing the album’s macabre undertone is nonlinear spatial symbolism: each setting bares a grief-soaked stage of a single life. From the City to the Suburb, Coastal Town, and Outside World, we perceive one’s sadness and depression, anger and helplessness, frustration and scorn, and acceptance, respectively. folklore holds a raw, primal grief at its core.

The geographic metanarrative justifies Taylor’s unabridged grieving process as that over the death of her own Romanticism. For the album’s torment is not as simple as in aging or metamorphosis of identity, not as glorified or irreverent as in a typical Swiftian murder-suicide, not as overt as in a loss with something or someone to blame. folklore is Taylor’s reckoning with what can only be described as artistic mortality.

——

To summarize up until this point: geography in folklore is not literal but metaphorical. The artistic treatment of folklore settings evinces a ‘geographic metanarrative,’ a close connection between settings and the stages of a life spent grieving. I propose that this life tracks Taylor’s relationship to her Romanticism. folklore follows the stages of Taylor’s artistic grief, so we will see that the conclusion of the album brings the death of Taylor’s Romanticism.

It is important to distinguish between the death of Romanticism in general and the death of Taylor’s Romanticism. folklore presents an argument for the latter.

A central conceit of Romanticism is its philosophy of style:

The most characteristic romantic commitment is to the idea that the character of art and beauty and of our engagement with them should shape all aspects of human life.…if the romantic ideal is to materialize, aesthetics should permeate and shape human life. [5]

Romanticism is realized through imagination:

The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind.…The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate “shaping” or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity. It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions. Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality…we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling…imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty, enabling humans to reconcile differences and opposites in the world of appearance. [6]

Imagination then engenders an artist-hero lifestyle [7]. This is similar—if not identical—to what we perceive of Taylor Swift’s life:

By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within.…The “poetic speaker” became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet.…The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.

Taylor’s Romanticism is thus her imagination deified as her artist-hero.

Moreover, the discrepancy between perceptions of grief in folklore is a consequence of the death of her Romanticism.

We (i.e. outsiders) naturally perceive the death of the Romantic as the death of Romantic aesthetics. Hence the lists upon lists of things that Taylor mourns instead of celebrates.

Taylor seems to grieve her Romantic artist-hero. Imaginative capacity predicates an artist-hero self-image, so conversely the death of the Romantic strips imagination of its power. The projected “fantasy, history, and memory” [8] of folklore indeed unnerves rather than comforts. The best example of this is from a corollary of the geographic metanarrative. Grief traces geography which traces life, and life leaks from densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas (it begins in the City and ends in the Outside World). Metaphorical setting, a product of imagination, aids the Romantic’s unbecoming. So, imagination is not a “synthesizing faculty” for reconciling difference; it is instead a faculty that divides.

Discriminating between the death of Romanticism in general and the death of Taylor’s Romanticism contextualizes folklore’s highly individualized grief. It is hard to argue that Taylor Swift will ever be unimaginative. But if we assume that she subscribes to a Romantic philosophy, then it follows that confronting the limits of the imagination is, to her, akin to a reckoning with mortality, a limit of the self.

——

folklore follows the stages of Taylor’s artistic grief. The album ends with Taylor accepting of the death of her Romanticism and being reborn into a new life. The final trio of songs, set ‘of’ the Suburb, Coastal Town, and Outside World in turn, frame the album’s solitary denouement.

In truth, “peace” is hardly grounded in Suburban geography. The nuance in it certainly makes it a thematic contemporary of other songs belonging to the Suburb, however. And consider: the events of “peace” are after the coming-of-age, the City; defining geographic features of the Coastal Town and Outside World are referenced in the future tense; an interior wall, the closest thing to Suburban home geography, is referenced in the present tense:

Our coming-of-age has come and gone

But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade ocean wave blues come

You paint dreamscapes on the wall

And you know that I’d swing with you for the fences

Sit with you in the trenches

Per tense and the geographic metanarrative, “peace” is Suburban and is the first story of this trio. “hoax” and “the lakes” trivially follow (in that order) by their own geography.

The trio is clearly a story about Taylor and her muse. Understanding perspective in these songs will help us reconcile the lovers’ story and the geographic metanarrative.

We must compare lines in “peace” and “hoax” to determine who is speaking in those songs and when. Oft-repeated imagery makes it challenging to find a distinguishing detail local only to the trio. I draw attention to the affectionate nickname “darling”:

And it’s just around the corner, darlin’

'Cause it lives in me

Darling, this was just as hard

As when they pulled me apart

These two mentions are the only such ones in folklore. Whoever sings the first verse of “peace” must sing the bridge of “hoax” too.

“hoax” adds that the chorus singer’s melancholy is because of their faithless lover:

Don't want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Augmenting Lover is an undercurrent of sadness to which Taylor alludes with the color blue. By a basic understanding of that album, Taylor sings the “hoax” chorus.

The fire and color metaphors in tandem make the “hoax” verse(s) and bridge from the perspective of the lover who is burned and dimmed by the energy of their partner, the “peace” chorus singer:

I am ash from your fire

But what you did was just as dark

But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

Finally, a motif of an unraveling aligns the “hoax” verse(s) and bridge singer:

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

My kingdom come undone

The “hoax” verse(s), chorus, and bridge are all sung by the same person.

In sum: Taylor sings the first verse of “peace” and her lover sings the chorus of “peace.” (See this post for more on “peace.”) Taylor alone sings “hoax.” “the lakes” is undoubtedly from Taylor’s perspective too.

Now let’s examine “peace” more closely:

Our coming-of-age has come and gone

Suddenly this summer, it’s clear

I never had the courage of my convictions

As long as danger is near

And it’s just around the corner, darlin’

‘Cause it lives in me

No, I could never give you peace

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

All these people think love’s for show

But I would die for you in secret

The devil’s in the details, but you got a friend in me

Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

Taylor’s lover has the temerity to die for her in secret. We can infer from the first verse that Taylor’s coming-of-age brings not the courage her lover possesses but clarity about an unsustainable habit. She realizes that she cherishes youthful fantasies of life (such as “this summer,” à la “august”) for mettle. This apparently knocks her out of her reverie.

The recognition that being an artist-hero hurts her muse frames the death of Taylor’s Romanticism. It is impossible for Taylor to both manage an unpleasant reality and construct a more peaceful one using her Romantic imagination. The rift between her true lived experience (“interior journey”) and the experience of her art (“development of the self”) is what fuels alienation from Romance. The artist is unstitched from the hero.

“hoax” continues along this line of reasoning. In this song, she admits that she has been hurt by herself:

My twisted knife

My sleepless night

My winless fight

This has frozen my ground

As well as by her lover:

My best laid plan

Your sleight of hand

My barren land

I am ash from your fire

And by others:

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

The bridge marks is the turning point where she lets go of of her youth and adulthood, both of which are tied to her Romanticism through geography:

You know I left a part of me back in New York

You knew the hero died so what’s the movie for?

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

You knew the password so I let you in the door

You knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score?

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

Of utmost importance is the very first line. The muse to whom Taylor addresses “hoax” is said to have been present at Taylor’s side through all of her struggles (“you knew”). The first line reveals that the lover did not know that Taylor left a part of herself back in New York (“you know [now]”). Taylor is only sharing her newfound realization as she stands on the precipice of the Coastal Town.

Nearly imperceptible though this syntactic difference is, it is an unmistakable reprise of the effect of the verses and chorus of “cardigan.” (Coincidentally, references to New York connect the songs.) “Knew” and “know” in both songs underscore a difference between what a character remembers (or had previously experienced) and what they understand in the current moment (or have just come to realize). Betty realizes at the very moment that she narrates “cardigan” that it was a mistake to excuse James’ behavior as total ignorance and youthful selfishness. Taylor realizes in “hoax” that she can no longer cling to youth, the romanticization of her youth, or romanticization of the romanticization of her youth. The youth in her is gone forever because she is no longer attached to the City. The adult in her has also matured for she is past the Suburb as well. The Coastal Town thus very appropriately stages the death of her Romantic.

Anyone who listens to Taylor’s music has been trained to connect geography to the vitality of Romantic artist-hero Taylor. In short, aestheticized geography renders Taylor’s Romantic autobiography. By letting go of the parts of her connected to geography, Taylor abandons the Romantic aesthetics both she and listeners associate with location. Divorcing from aesthetics also pre-empts romanticization of location in the future. The bridge of “hoax” is thus most easily summarized as the moment when any fondness for and predisposition towards Romance crumbles completely.

Lastly, we must pay special attention to micro-geography in the “hoax” chorus. We recall from “the last great american dynasty” and “this is me trying” the insanity that consumes the characters who contemplate the cliffs. The Coastal Town is not a beautiful place to die; one is graceless when moribund:

They say she was seen on occasion

Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea

I’ve been having a hard time adjusting

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout

Could’ve followed my fears all the way down

From “peace” we know that Taylor’s lover is willing to die for her, in particular if Taylor’s sadness becomes too great (i.e. if she goes to the sea).

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

All these people think love’s for show

But I would die for you in secret

The “hoax” chorus is when Taylor’s sadness balloons. Taylor the Romantic is ready to die:

Stood on the cliffside screaming, "Give me a reason"

Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in

Don't want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Remember Rebekah, pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea. Taylor is in this same position, on the cliffs, facing the water. Why is she screaming? Taylor is yelling down at her lover, who has already died (in secret, of course) and is in the water below waiting to catch her. (“I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below,” anyone?) Taylor’s singular faith is in her lover, and Taylor wants them to promise to catch her when she falls. In the end, though, the inherent danger nullifies what the lover could do to convince Taylor that the two would reunite safely below.

Taylor examines the water and realizes that her lover’s hue is combined with the blue of the sea. The sea cannot promise to catch her. Already mentally reeling, the admixture of sadnesses—in the setting which represents the culmination of life—makes Taylor recalcitrant. The Coastal Town has too much metaphorical baggage. It is not the place Taylor leaps from the cliffs. The first line of the “hoax” chorus uses “stood,” which implies that Taylor is reflecting on this dilemma after the fact.

The outro reinforces that the Coastal Town is where Taylor the Romantic comes to term with death but does not actually die:

My only one

My kingdom come undone

My broken drum

You have beaten my heart

Don’t want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Romantic imagination cannot protect Taylor from all the hurt she has suffered in reality. A calm settles over her as the chords modulate to the relative major key. She reflects on her journey: “my only one” corresponds to the first verse which introduces her solemn situation; “my kingdom come undone” ties to the self-inflicted hurt that froze her ground; “my broken drum // you have beaten my heart” supplements the second verse about suffering from her lover’s duplicity. The last lines are again her rationale for not jumping from the rocks. Finally, after the album-long grieving period, Taylor the Romantic has made peace with her inevitable death.

Romanticism is Taylor’s giant which goes with her wherever she goes. Running, hiding, traveling, and uprooting are indeed the fool’s paradise in her previous albums. Impermanence of setting—roaming the world for self-culture, amusement, intoxication of beauty, and loss of sadness [9]—engenders an impermanence of self, which fuels the instinct to cling tightly to what does remain constant. Naturally, then, Romanticism is Taylor’s only enduring companion. It becomes the lens through which she understands the world, yet the rose-colored one which by virtue inspires problems on top of problems. Forevermore does her Romantic inspire a cycle of catharsis that plays out in real life. Thy beautiful kingdom come, then tragically come undone.

Taylor chooses to go to the Lakes to escape from the constraints of this cycle:

Take me to the Lakes where all the poets went to die

I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

I’m setting off, but not without my muse

Of the death story in the “peace”/“hoax”/“the lakes” trio, it is impossible to ignore the mutualism of Taylor and her muse. Neither of them belong of this life—and ‘of’ American geography—anymore. Taylor’s last wish is to go to the Outside World and jump (“[set] off”) from the Windermere peaks with her muse, who is ever willing to both lead Taylor to the dark and follow her into it.

Taylor bids a final goodbye—appropriately, in the tongue of Romance—to the philosophy which has anchored her all this time:

I want auroras and sad prose

I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet

'Cause I haven’t moved in years

And I want you right here

Romanticism, her art and life in tandem, brought Taylor what she values: union with her muse in the privacy of nature and her imagination. The final ode holds respect.

Finally, her death. The journey of grief concludes with Taylor both accepting death and, fascinatingly, being reborn into a new life:

A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground

With no one around to tweet it

While I bathe in cliffside pools

With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

In keeping with metaphorical geography, old life dwindling in water is exactly concurrent with new life flourishing on land.

Observe that the rebirth concerns ice frozen ground, an element of “hoax,” which is set in the Coastal Town. The rebirth must happen back in America even though the death happens at the Lakes.

Despite the imagery, this is not a Romantic rebirth. Begetting a new life is the juxtaposition of two things Taylor once romanticized toward opposite extremes—a red rose for beauty and an ice frozen ground for tragedy—with her simple refusal that either be distorted as externalities of her experience.

This final stanza is wide open for interpretation with regards to the story of the two lovers. It allows a priori all permutations of Taylor and/or her muse experiencing rebirth as the red rose and/or the frozen ground:

Taylor and her lover experience a rebirth together

Taylor is the red rose and her lover is the ice frozen ground

Taylor is the ice frozen ground and her lover is the red rose

Taylor and her lover are indivisible: they are both the rose and the frozen ground

Taylor alone experiences a rebirth

Taylor is the rose

Taylor is the ice frozen ground

Taylor is the rose + ice frozen ground

The lover alone experiences a rebirth

The lover is the rose

The lover is the ice frozen ground

The lover is the rose + frozen ground

(2) and (3) make death at the end of “the lakes” purely sacrificial. This is inconsistent with the disproportionate emphasis placed on the lovers’ mutualism. I am thus inclined to dismiss (2) and (3) as consequences of combinatorics.

There are also two interpretations of the final lines of the bridge:

Taylor the Romantic is the implied ‘I’ overcome with grief; her muse is her calamitous love with whom she bathes

Taylor the Romantic possesses both calamitous love and insurmountable grief; her lover, as per usual, dies with her in secret

It is unclear which is the truth. Still, (1) is relatively straightforward: there are two entities said to bathe in the Lakes and two entities said to be involved in reincarnation.

There need not be ‘parity’ between old life and new (reincarnated) life with respect to the lovers’ relationship status. If Taylor’s muse dies, does her relationship dissolve? Or must her muse, who dies at Taylor’s side, be reborn at her side too? If Taylor declares her devotion to her lover before her death, does that ensure that they are together in perpetuity? Or is that sentiment purely a relic of her past life, in which case her love disappears anew? Perhaps the invisible string tying the lovers together bonds them in eternal life. Perhaps the string snaps. Which is the blessing and which is the curse?

Whatever you make of ‘parity’ in reincarnation, it is important to remember that Taylor insists the relationship between her and her muse is at least a spiritual or divine one—if not also a worldly one—for it exists in conjunction with her own metaphysic.

How does reincarnation betray Romanticism?

A. Taylor is the red rose and the lover is the ice frozen ground.

Taylor as the rose does not trivially align with a bygone Romanticism, for the rose epitomizes Romance. Key, therefore, is the line about tweeting. Taylor abhors the practice of cataloguing and oversharing in service of knowing something completely—effectively ‘modern’ Romanticism.

Digital overexposure is an occupational hazard [10], but Taylor refuses to let ‘modern’ Romanticism to become invasive this time around. New life shall not be defiled by social media. It shall remain pure by individual will. Though Taylor’s rebirth into a new life happens on land in America, that it does not become a hyperbole of local Twitter is the proverbial nail in the coffin of Romanticism, distortion in service of aesthetic.

Rose imagery also draws a direct parallel to “The Lucky One,” Taylor’s self-proclaimed meditation [11] on her worst fears of stardom. The “Rose Garden” in this song contextualizes the “lucky” one’s disappearance from the spotlight:

It was a few years later

I showed up here

And they still tell the legend of how you disappeared

How you took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out

They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere

Chose the Rose Garden over Madison Square

And it took some time, but I understand it now

Emphasis on individual choice in the aforementioned star’s return to normalcy bears a striking resemblance to the individualistic philosophy of “the lakes,” as exemplified by Taylor and her muse choosing to jump from the Windermere peaks and Taylor keeping her rose off social media. Mention of a “legend” that describes disappearance and simultaneous return elsewhere is another connection to the “the lakes.”

Taylor as the rose could alternatively represent a chromatic devolution of true love (“I once believed love was burnin’ red // but it’s golden”). That is, becoming a rose suggests she may have changed her mind back to believing that love is burning red. This more generally represents returning to the beginning of a journey that began in the Red era. Perhaps Taylor sees Red as the beginning of her calamitous Romanticism. She realizes by folklore the fears which she surveyed in “The Lucky One,” so choosing a new life presents an opportunity to protect post-Speak Now Taylor from self-inflicted wounds which fester and prove fatal to her Romantic. (In essence…time travel.)

Taylor’s lover, ice frozen ground, is reborn frigid not blazing, the opposite of their raging fire. Taming the lover’s wild essence renders it impossible for them to be a Romantic muse in a new life. If the two lovers do indeed share an eternal love, then death reveals a conscious choice not to glorify it.

Additionally, Taylor’s artist-hero imagination has no power in her new life. Taylor and her lover have effectively switched spots. All we previously knew of the lover’s secrets and secret death was from what Taylor wrote, so Taylor (for lack of a better phrase) concealed her lover. The lover, ice frozen ground, is now the one concealing Taylor, the rose. As a smothering but not razing force, Taylor’s lover thus is reincarnated into the role of a public protector. Reincarnation reveals that the death of Romanticism is abetted through the death of secrecy, which always allows distortion of truth.

Another possibility: the secrecy surrounding the lover is that they were the ice frozen ground. If Taylor confirms that the lover was something ‘tragic’ before, then after the death of Romanticism they counterintuitively may become beautiful. Or, the lover continues to be tragic, and paramount again is Taylor’s choice not to sensationalize her muse.

B. Taylor is the ice frozen ground and the lover is the red rose.

Many of the themes above apply to this interpretation too.

Taylor reborn as ice frozen ground does not change her essence from “hoax.” By not ‘shaking off’ a sadness with her rebirth, she subverts the usual expectation—a product of the many years devoted to fixing any and all criticism [12]—of artist-hero Taylor Swift.

The lover reborn as the red rose means their being surfaces where they once were hidden and/or that they are not the golden love they had been in reputation, Lover, and “invisible string.” New life brings the bright, burning “red” emotions. Either what was once very bad is now very good and vice versa, or these emotions are simply not very anything because Taylor doesn’t want to sensationalize them as a pastiche of Red. If Taylor’s love is eternal, then she will be more subdued when sharing it; if it is not eternal, then she will simply move on.

This interpretation implies that Taylor’s Rose Garden is eternal love without the necessity of elevating her partner to Romantic muse status. No one being around to tweet the rose bursting through the ice means that Taylor alone gets to appreciate her lover for their pure essence before modern society does—lest the lover be perceived at all.

C. Taylor and her lover are indivisible: they are both the rose and the frozen ground

Taylor’s “twisted knife”/“sleepless night”/“winless fight” froze her ground but her lover’s “sleight of hand” made the land barren, unable to sustain life. The two lovers are emotionally at odds, but Romanticism acts as the “synthesizing faculty” which unites them in their old life.

The metaphor of the rose and frozen ground does not work without each part. It is possible that the lovers remain equally united in their new life; the lovers’ spiritual connection yields unity after reincarnation. Abiogenesis is therefore the phenomenon which betrays Romanticism. The lovers exist alongside each other naturally, not because they are opposites which Romanticism has forced together.

This is probably the most lighthearted interpretation of the last stanza in “the lakes.” Extreme hardship helps the lovers grow, and they remain intertwined through eternity.

——

The geographic elegy of folklore is that for Taylor’s giant, her Romantic, something both treasured and despised right until its end. (How appropriately meta.)

This raises the question: what replaces it?

Nothing.

folklore can—and perhaps should—be understood as a Transcendental work rather than a Romantic one. From this angle, Romanticism is that which prevented Taylor from connecting with something deeper within herself, something more eternal.

“Transcendental” does not mean “transcendent” or beyond human experience altogether, but something through which experience is made possible. [13]

Transcendentalism and Romanticism were two literary and philosophical movements that occurred during roughly the same time period [14]. Romanticism dominated England, Germany, and France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries slightly before Transcendentalism swept through America in the mid-1800s.

The two movements heavily influenced [15] each other. Transcendentalists and Romantics shared an appreciation for nature, doubt of (Calvinist) religious dogma, and an ambivalence or dislike of society and its institutions as corrupting forces. We see Taylor align herself with these ideas by the end of the album. “the lakes” holds a reverence of the natural world, disregard of predestination, and contempt for Twitter.

But Transcendentalism sharply diverged from Romanticism along the axis of faith. Transcendentalism thrived as a religious movement that emphasized individualism as a means for self-growth and, in particular, achieving a personal, highly spiritualized [16] understanding of God:

For many of the transcendentalists the term “transcendentalism” represented nothing so technical as an inquiry into the presuppositions of human experience, but a new confidence in and appreciation of the mind’s powers, and a modern, non-doctrinal spirituality. The transcendentalist, Emerson states, believes in miracles, conceived as “the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power…”

Romantics, for instance, viewed nature as a source of imagination, inspiration, and enlightenment, whereas Transcendentalists saw nature as a vessel for exploring spirituality. Transcendentalists believed in an innate goodness of people for possession of a divine inner light [17]. Occupied with the perverse and disparate, Romantics believed people were capable both of great good and terrible evil.

It’s tempting to scope Taylor’s shift from Romanticism to Transcendentalism to this album alone. It’s true that folklore is filled with individualism, a hallmark of Transcendentalist philosophy. However, I argue that spirituality reveals a journey towards Transcendentalism that began well before folklore.

Consider the evolution of faith from reputation to Lover. Taylor places more emphasis on personal spirituality as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with organized religion/religious dogma. In “Don’t Blame Me,” Taylor defies religious convictions in favor of chasing the high of her forbidden love. Then her quiet and private life with her lover in “Cornelia Street” advances whatever traditional religious beliefs she possessed towards a self-defined spirituality (“sacred new beginnings that became my religion”). Individual spiritual enlightenment and religious conviction become mutually exclusive by the end of Lover, for the lovers would still worship their love even if it is a “false god.”

The final scene proves most important for establishing the album’s philosophy. In the end of “the lakes.” Taylor chooses death and is reincarnated into new life, kept pure also by individual will. (It should be noted that Transcendentalism was heavily influenced [18] by Indian religions, of which reincarnation is a central tenet.) Choosing reincarnation—to the extent that one even can—reflects a greater understanding of oneself. Choice, the ultimate power granted in the self, engenders spirituality. It is the means by which one follows a divine, guiding spark (i.e. “inner light”) in search of connection with others and the natural world. The album’s ending marries individualism with spirituality, which makes Taylor a true champion of Transcendentalism.

——

Transcendentalism is considered one of the most dominant American intellectual movements. Exploring the significance of Transcendentalist Taylor Swift is a rather unimaginative end to this essay. If we try hard enough, we will always be able to connect its philosophy to any art that exists in conversation with American culture.

Perhaps a more gripping conclusion comes from the assertion that philosophy doesn’t matter…

…at least, not in the way this essay regards philosophy as the ultimate Point.

So identifiable is the geographic motif in Taylor’s work that it is nearly impossible to ignore. This is especially true for folklore, an album that would literally not be folkloric if not for the blending of reality and fiction, real location and setting elevated as metaphor. So moving, moreover, is the grief at folklore’s core that it is natural to wonder what else it could represent. Hence, this essay’s charade of poking around both to see if they convey a deeper meaning.

A strong philosophical foundation establishes the ethos of art, that with which we resonate. However, we will never know to what philosophy Taylor subscribes. The interaction between her beliefs, creative spirit, and innate sense of self will always be a mystery. Any and all conclusions about the philosophical foundations of her art thus (1) are highly subjective and (2) reveal more about the ones making them than about Taylor herself.

Ironically, it is paramount to appreciate Taylor’s (Romantic) style above all else. The ways she uses basic building blocks of literature—theme, imagery, mood, setting, to name a few—piques curiosity. After all, without those building blocks, one would not be able to cultivate (should they so desire) an interest in the metaphorical, philosophical, or otherwise profound.

——

Disclaimer: this essay references (explicitly and implicitly, by way of citing expanded theoretical work) the ideas of Emerson and Heidegger, two preeminent thinkers whose ideas have had especially deep and lasting impacts on society. They are also two individuals noted to have had poor and even abhorrent political/personal views. I do not condone their views by referencing any ideas connected to these individuals (done mostly in service of rigor). I furthermore leave the task of generating nuance to those who dedicate their lives to critical examination of these individuals’ personal philosophies and the impact of their work on society.

#folklore analysis #gaylor swift #music analysis #my post

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always-and-forever-a-killjoy · 4 years

Text

Hello good morning and welcome to chili's- is that even the right reference? Whatever. Anyways, welcome to 'auri can't stop fucking writing about party poison and cherri cola' hours. They have such a fascinating bond ANYWAYS also welcome to a fucking trainwreck that i wrote all this morning.

Title: everybody wants to change the world

Wordcount: 2047

Summary:

Party Poison goes out, gets hurt, and chooses a different place for help than they usually would.

This has literally no plot beyond me making Poison have a bad time.

Warnings: injury, blood, death mentions.

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia @dagger-queen @no-braincells-here @piratecherricola (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

(Actual fic under the cut)

Party Poison swore under their breath as they staggered back to the Trans Am, pressing a hand to their side. They were going to fucking bleed out here, outside a Mad Gear concert in Zone 4, all because they were a fucking dumbass and got themself stabbed. Because Poison could never live quietly, they didn't know how. All they knew was picking fights with random 'joys and listening to the music that blared from the speakers, way too loud and easily drowning out their thoughts. Now that was catching up to them, they guessed, as they slid into the car and put their bloody hand on the wheel.

"Home we go, baby."

No. Not home. Kobra had said, Kobra had told them 'don't go out and get hurt again, don't go picking fights, dumbass'. And Poison had gone and done it anyways. Gone and been a fucking idiot, as Kobes would say. So no, they were not going back to the diner yet. Not bleeding this heavily, anyways. The Girl didn't deserve to see this, nor did she deserve to watch them and Kobra fight about it.

That left Poison with the question of where, exactly, they were going to go. There weren't a lot of people in the world they trusted to see them like this, injured and exhausted and close to crying because it all hurt, it always had. In fact, most of those people, four of them, lived in the old diner where they couldn't -wouldn't- go. Most of those people...but not all of them.

Poison turned the Trans Am to a different path, speeding towards a little radio shack in the middle of the desert. If nothing else, they knew Dr. D would be happy to fix them up and send them on their way again, and then they could head back to diner late at night when no one was awake and no one would need to know they had gotten stabbed like a dumbass.

Unluckily for them, it was one in the fucking morning, and Dr. D was soundly asleep when they stumbled into the station. They assumed, at least, given that he was nowhere to be seen and the radio station was quiet. Empty, in fact. Or at least the living room was. Poison stumbled towards the broadcasting room, hearing a low voice from that direction.

Cherri Cola looked up they stumbled in the door, pausing in the middle of reading off a poem. "Poison?"

"Pepsi! I got stabbed." Poison tried to grin at him, the smile turning into a grimace at the pain in their side.

Cherri stared at them for a few moments, then turned back to the broadcast. "Well, WKIL listeners, I'm afraid this where I leave you for tonight, given that we've got a bit of a situation going on, but I should be back for later this night- well, this morning, technically, I'd say we're coming up on one am now. Cherri Cola, signing off." He turned back to Poison with a sigh. "Where did you get stabbed?"

They tried not to be offended at his huff. "Here. Where my hand is."

Cherri stood, gesturing to them to follow him back to the living room area, where he grabbed a first aid kit. "Lay down on the sofa, that much blood means I probably need to stitch you up."

"Great."

"I'm going to peel back your shirt, okay? Only as far as I need to clean and stitch it," Cherri promised.

Poison shrugged, pulling their jacket off before they laid down. "Do what y'have to."

His hands were scarred and calloused, the skin rough, but he was gentle when he pulled the bloody fabric away and started cleaning out the wound. They gasped in pain anyways, gritting their teeth as their side sent flickers of agony running through them.

"Sorry, sorry," Cherri said quietly. "I promise only a bit more to go, I just need to stitch this."

Poison nearly screamed when he started the first stitch, letting out a strangled yelp instead. "How much longer?"

"Three more stitches, then I'm done."

They gritted their teeth again, clenching their fists by their sides as he tied off the next stitch, and the next, and the next.

"Okay, done." Cherri set the needle aside, closing the first aid kit. "You okay?"

Poison would have laughed if they weren't in so much pain. "Of course 'm not fucking okay. Why would I be fucking okay?"

They hated the pity on his face as he gently scooted them over to sit down next to them. "Silly question, I'm sorry. What's wrong?"

Poison could have been dignified, but they chose to lean against him instead as the feelings they had been bottling up came pouring out. "Everything. Everything is wrong because Kobes is always angry and Jet's always sad and Ghoul's scared and Motorbaby shouldn't have to grow up here, shouldn't have to see us fall apart. What's the point? What's the point, Cola? What are we fighting for? Is there even a future ahead of us? What's even the point of life?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"There isn't a point." Poison gaped at him. "There isn't a point to life, not unless you make one. You have to decide what you want, what's worth fighting for."

The words fell softly into the quiet of the radio station, shattered by Poison's harsh voice. "And how the fuck am I supposed t' do that?"

"It's hard to describe, but..." Cherri trailed off. "Find what means something to you. What you love. For me that's poetry, and Newsie, and D and Pone and you and your crew, and the stars. Also, Mad Gear, they're vastly superior to Benny and the Trampolines."

Poison managed a small laugh. "True that. But what is the point, to you?"

“Well, in the simplest form...the point of life is happiness.”

“I thought the point of my life was to change the world,” they muttered bitterly. Maybe it made them an asshole, maybe the other was trying to help, but it was their fucking job to change things and they were tired of it.

Cherri’s voice was heartbreakingly gentle. “It doesn’t matter how big of a difference you made to the world. All that matters is that you made a different to you.”

Poison found that their eyes were stinging, tears collecting in them. “Are you sure?” Their voice sounded small and pathetic, and they hated it.

“I’m sure. You deserve happiness, more than anything else. It should never be your job to save the world, not so young. Never.”

They tried to speak again, but all that came out was a shuddering, gasping sob. Some small part of them was embarrassed, mortified to be crying in front of Cherri Cola, of all people, but the bigger part of their mind couldn’t bring themself to care. Not when their heart ached more than the wound in their side, not when Cherri was holding his arms out silently, clearly an offer.

Maybe it made them weak, but Poison took the comfort, letting themself be encased safely in the older killjoy’s arms. “I don’t want to die, Cola.” They hated how their voice shook. “I don’t want to die.”

“I know. I know.”

“I want to save everyone, I want to make a difference.” They let out another sob. “But I don’t want to die.”

“Your life should never be the price,” Cherri murmured.

“But it is. But it is! I have to- I’m going to die ch- changing the world. I’m supposed to- to save everyone, even if I have to d-die to do it.”

Poison thought they heard his usually unshakable voice waver a little. “No, Poison, no. This never should have been your job."

"Well who- who was g- going to do it?"

They couldn't see his face, but his voice was very quiet. "It was supposed to be D and I, years and years ago. Me, and D, and Lily. It shouldn't have even been Newsie and Chimp, shouldn't have been Pony, definitely shouldn't have been you. I'm sorry, Poison."

"'s okay." They found themself curling up further, head leaning on his shoulder. "Who's Lily?"

"White Lily, leader of the first rebellion, said to be one of the first of the killjoys," Cherri murmured. "Giver of plastic flower hairclips, the only person who was allowed to call Newsie 'News', and one of my three siblings. In a way."

"Oh." Another sob made its way out of their throat, but this mysterious 'Lily' was a good distraction. "Tell me about her?"

"Well, the day I met her, she was twenty-one and she asked me 'Did this softy offer you a place to stay?'..." Cherri launched into a quiet story about two kind killjoys who offered a desperate sixteen-year-old the first real home he had ever known. His voice was low, soothing, and Poison let themself relax a little bit as they listened to the story.

"D' you have any more stories about 'your day'?"

"I think I have some poems about it, actually," Cherri replied dryly. "Stories, yes, but also poems, which are easier."

"Not easier to understand," Poison muttered, but they let him half carry them back into the broadcast room and proceeded to drape themself over his lap when he started up again.

"Hello there, my late-night crash queen friends, it's me, Cherri Cola, back again. At the request of my companion, the next few poems of the corner will be about the olden days, back before you rock and rollers were out on the road." He started on a poem which Poison thought must have been about Dr. D, plenty of metaphors about the voice of the desert. After that one and one more was finished, he switched on some music and turned back to them.

"When is your crew expecting you home?"

"Don't know. Concert was over at midnight, but they know I sometimes stay out later. For all I know, they all went to bed."

"I'm going to radio the diner, if that's okay?"

"Don't want them t' know I got hurt." Their words were mashed up more from sleepiness than blood loss by now.

"I'll say you got lost." Cherri's tone was joking, but his voice grew serious again as he went on. "Or I'll just say you're staying here tonight, you don't owe them an explanation of why. You do owe it to them to make sure they aren't worried for you, though."

"Okay." They felt rather schooled, staring down at the perpetually dirty floor of the radio station as Cherri fiddled with the radio.

Eventually, Fun Ghoul picked up, sounding sleepy. "Hello?"

"Hey, Ghoul."

"What is it, Cola? You got word of Party?"

"They decided to drop by after the concert, so we're hanging out tonight. They'll be okay, just too tired to drive the Am safely. I'll send them back tomorrow morning by the time you need the Trans Am for anything, but please tell the others not to worry."

"Gotcha. Motorbaby got sleepy, took Jet and Kobra to get her to sleep 'cause Pois is out, then they conked out. I told them to. But if they wake up, I'll tell them, and I won't worry toooo much. Tell Pois I said hi!"

Poison was incredibly thankful Ghoul had picked up instead of one of the other two, since xe wasn't the sort to ask many questions. Kobra would have been suspicious, and Jet would have been pretty decent about it but concerned. And Poison didn't need those two's concern right now.

"Right, well, sleep well, Ghoul. Pois says hi," Cherri said. That was technically a lie, since Poison hadn't said anything, but they didn't really mind. Ghoul deserved some reassurance, even if it was false.

Cherri clicked the radio off. "Right, my stabbed friend. I've got some more broadcasting to do, but you're welcome to stay."

"You're an insufferable bastard," Poison yawned.

"Yes, I am. Sleep well, Sleepy Poison."

Poison had absolutely not intended in any way, shape, or form to fall asleep on Cherri's lap, but they found themself yawning again as he started on another poem. And before they or he had a chance to say goodnight, they were out like a light.

#cherri cola #party poison #auri writes

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pllandcompany · 4 years

Text

I Choose You

Summary: Hospital AU! A look into how Roman and Logan’s relationship developed.

Pairings: Pre-romantic into Romantic Logince, background QPP Moxiety

Warnings: discussion of medical procedures, blood mention, violence/shooting mention, mention of drug use/addiction, anxiety, crying, a (and one almost) kiss

Tagged: @shxtxpp @apologieslogan @crofters-jam @asylia5911 @ab-artist @band-be-boss-blog @unbefuckinglieveable@flyingfreeyt @thecatchat @thefallendog @backatthebein @insufferablegayastronaut

Notes: Guess who’s back at it again after months of writer’s block?? I’ve wanted to write this story for a while. It does reference a few other fics I’ve written in this AU so here, here, and here are the links for those stories if you want more context as the events of this story are not in order of how they happened based on the established timeline. Also, heads up that I’ve only linked the first part of Out Loud (last link) and Don’t You Remember (second link) but If you want full details (or if you just love my writing so much, insert eye roll here), go to my masterlist and read all of the parts. Still, it should be fairly clear even without reading the previous stories. Okay! Enough talking! Enjoy!

Why wasn’t he awake?

That deadly, nerve-wracking, gut-twisting question had been bouncing around Dr. Roman Courtland’s mind for five days now. The deadline of the withdrawal of care date loomed over his head like a terrorizing and expansive storm ready to break open at any moment. Fourteen days was just simply not enough time. Did the man have no hope?

Note to self: Remind Logan to change that stupidly short time period when he wakes up.

In all actuality, Logan being in a coma was not the expected outcome. It was a nearly perfect surgery. The bleeding was minimal and deftly controlled by his swift hand when it occurred. There was no sign of post-operative stroke or brain death. He should be awake. Yet there Logan lay as still and pale as driven snow, the steady beep of the machines being the only sign of life in the room. It shouldn’t be the case, but it was and Roman was damned determined to find out why. This wasn’t just any patient. No, this was a colleague and a gifted one at that; Logan was quite possibly the most brilliant cardio-thoracic surgeons this hospital had ever seen. Not only was this a professional point of pride, Logan was also the man who saved his brother’s life while simultaneously putting up with his relentless torment the entire time Remy was hospitalized. Roman knew he had been unfair to the surgeon, cruel even and he has certainly spent an exorbitant amount of energy trying to make up for that fact since, including personally taking on his case when Logan turned up with a brain tumor. Shortly before his diagnosis, the two finally found themselves on better terms and Roman was…looking forward to getting to know the doctor more, figure out what truly makes him tick. Now he was potentially the surgeon responsible for destroying that precious of a mind, for squandering the opportunity to…learn more about Logan? Roman refused to accept that reality. Logan Taylor was going to wake up if he had any say in it. He had to; Roman wasn’t ready to lose him-

“Roman? What are you still doing here?”

Patton. Damn it. “Looking over Logan’s post-op scans.” Roman felt the deep sigh more than he heard it.

“For the hundredth time, I bet. Roman, take a break, please. You have to step away at least for a moment. Have you even eaten anything?”

“Have I figured this out yet? Then the answer is no and I’m not leaving until that changes.” A small pang of guilt tightened Roman’s chest briefly. Yelling at Patton was like kicking a puppy, a completely undeserved action. As usual, Patton didn’t even seem fazed which only served to make the neurosurgeon feel worse. Instead, he simply sat across from the distraught doctor, empathy shining in his eyes.

“Roman, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“Then what the hell else am I supposed to do?!” Roman flailed his arms in sheer frustration, the force of action flinging the scans everywhere. He roughly ran a shaky hand through his hair and breathed deeply, trying to control himself while Patton quietly picked up the discarded films.

“I wish I could tell you what to do, Roman. I don’t know how to fix Logan. But I do know you’re not going to find the answer like this. Please take a break. Get some sleep. Come at this again in the morning.”

Roman buried his head into his hands. “What if something happens when I walk away? What if he gets worse and I’m not here to stop it? What if I can’t figure this out and I…and we lose him?” Patton gently took Roman’s hands out of his hair and smoothed the wavy locks down, a solemn yet knowing smile playing on his lips.

“I know you’re scared. I am too. But we don’t get to know what’s going to happen sometimes. All we can do is our best. Which you can’t do if you’re exhausted. So, come with me. We’re going to have dinner and then you’re going to an on-call room to lie down. You don’t have to sleep. You can ramble all the medicine at me that you want, every detail. Maybe then we can come up with something together. How does that sound?” Roman nodded silently, allowing Patton to lead him out of his office.

An hour and a sandwich later, Roman was out like a light and Patton was quietly sneaking out of the on-call room.

Mission successful.

****

“Good morning, nerd!”

God, Roman was insufferable. Logan let out a soul-exiting sigh. “Dr. Courtland, must you insist on calling me that?”

“Oh, don’t get your briefs in a twist, Dr. Taylor; you know I tease only out of love.” Logan hoped the tenseness in his shoulders wasn’t noticeable.

There he was using that word around him again.

“You cannot possibly love me. We’ve only known each other a few months. Besides, I seem to recall you having a certain disdain for me when I first arrived here. It would be impossible for that to have resolved itself in totality so soon.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Roman stop and turn back to him. Suddenly, Logan was grateful they were the only two in the lounge.

“Logan…you still think so ill of me?” The cardiologist barely held back the gasp that bubbled in his throat at the hurt look on the neurosurgeon’s face.

“No…not of you?”

“Then of yourself?” Roman sat next to Logan, setting his thigh ablaze when they brushed against each other. Logan hesitated for a moment as his mind struggled to find the best way to answer.

“That’s not it either. I simply meant that we are very different people with not much in common. I’m not certain as to how we will coalesce outside of being coworkers.” If we will.

“Well, that isn’t always a negative thing. I like that we’re different. Means there’s much we can learn from each other.”

“Of course. Our specialties differ greatly; there’s bound to be new information learned between us.” Roman chuckled warmly.

“While I find your habit of taking things literally quite refreshing, in this case it led you astray. You’re so much more than the job, Lo. You are strong and wise, brilliant and beautifully complicated in ways I’d like to know more about. If you’d let me that is.” The neurosurgeon’s face held so much hope, it metaphorically made Logan’s heart just…stop. How ironic that he, the cardio-thoracic surgeon would be the one to need pulmonary resuscitation from just one look from the towheaded neurosurgeon. It just wasn’t reasonable how one person could be so disarming, so confounding, so attractive…

Logan had to get out of there.

“Ah! Yes, well, then I concede to your point, Dr. Courtland. Fare-farewell.” The older doctor jumped up like a jack in the box and practically sprinted out of the room, the edge of his white coat narrowly missing Roman’s face.

It didn’t bother him too much once he realized that Logan hadn’t said no.

****

“Okay, Logan. Let’s try this again. Pick up the pencil and write your name.” Logan stared at the yellow No. 2 as if it would jump up and slap him at any moment. “Can we go back to the ball?”

Roman almost chuckled. “You’ve already done that portion. Your grip strength is greatly improved. Now we need to build your prehensile strength back. Go ahead, pick up the pencil. Just try.”

After a few tense moments, Logan finally held the writing instrument. His heart pounded with anticipation as he gingerly placed the tip to the paper in front of him. He pressed down ever so slightly and began to write his name.

He didn’t make it through the ‘g’ before the force of his tremor snapped the graphite.

In a fit of pure rage, Logan swiftly grabbed the pencil in his left hand and threw it across the room. It sailed past Roman’s ear so close he felt the wind move his hair. Before he could react, Logan was standing and tossing his chair across the room. A loud clattering sound stunned Roman into stock still reticence, not daring to test the cardiologist in this state.

“Damn it! Damn it all to hell!”

“Logan, just try to stay calm- “

“No, you said this would work! Yet it’s been a month and I still can’t use my hand! An entire month and I still can’t operate because you make promises you can’t keep!” Silence. “I’m sorry. That was…an unbecoming display.” He moved to restore the room to its original order but Roman intercepted him. He placed two warm hands on Logan’s shoulders, drawing a gasp from the sudden contact.

“You don’t have to apologize, Logan. I understand. I’m surprised you’ve held it together this long.”

Logan refused to make eye contact with Roman. “I still should not have behaved in that manner. Especially after everything you’ve done for me, I shouldn’t be lashing out at you, I am alive because of you, I should just be grateful for that- “

“Dr. Taylor, will you please look at me?” When Logan didn’t move, Roman took his hand under the surgeon’s chin and gently lifted his head. His heart nearly broke at the shattered look on Logan’s face. “See? I’m not mad. What you’re feeling is normal because what you’re going through is hard. It’s okay to get frustrated.” Roman pushed back a lock of the cardiologist’s dark hair and Logan’s eyes closed, leaning into the touch. His head dropped alarmingly close to Roman’s forehead and the neurosurgeon shifted to hold his face with both hands. Logan’s lips parted and his gaze suddenly changed to something…insistent, almost desperate. The question he was asking was obvious and oh, how Roman wanted to acquiesce. Maybe he could, maybe it would be okay…no, it wouldn’t be right; Logan was his very vulnerable patient right now and his coworker. Complicated wouldn’t even begin to describe the nature of their involvement. Roman took a step back and cleared his throat, turning to grab the chair and returned it to the table.

“Look, your hand works. You just have to remind your brilliant brain that it does. And it takes time to build new neural pathways so…try again. Write your name, as much as you can.” Logan swallowed tensely, seating himself once again in the chair. He closed his eyes in a silent prayer, willing the pressure in his chest to release. He looked when he felt velvet skin against the back of his hand: Roman was holding it. Smiling gently at the supportive touch, he picked up the second pencil Roman had conjured from his white coat.

This time, he made it through the ‘g.’

****

“Tell me a secret.”

“…what?”

“We’re getting to know each other. Setting aside our differences, becoming…friends. Friends tell each other things so…tell me a secret.”

“We are sitting on a bench on our lunch break in the middle of our workday. What about this setting makes you suddenly want to have an intimate conversation?”

“Deflecting…”

“Oh, for heavens’ sake, fine!”

“…Paging Dr. Taylor? Are you actually going to say something?”

“I…I want children. Or at least a child. I want to be a father.”

“Well, that’s a mighty forward proposition.”

“Dr. Courtland…”

“Oh, hush now, you know I’m kidding! But why is that such a secret?”

“Because no one expects it of me. People see me as cold and emotionless; no one would think me fit to be a father, much less have a desire to raise children. I’m not like Patton; I don’t seem like ‘the type,’ if you will.”

“I don’t agree with that at all. I think you’d make an excellent father. You’re very practical and you’re extremely dedicated to your patients. There’s no way that wouldn’t translate over into being a parent.”

“Oh…well, uh, thank you. I, uh, believe it is your turn.”

“…I have a twin.”

“In addition to your four other brothers?”

“No, he’s one of the five of us. His name is…was Remus.”

“Was?”

“Truth be told, I don’t know if I should be saying is or was about him. I don’t even know if he’s alive or not.”

“Roman…”

“He was a surgeon in the military. Reconstructive surgery was technically his specialty but over there he functioned mostly as a trauma surgeon. He loved it; he was never phased by gruesome injuries or the horrors of combat. He just did his job saving as many lives as he could so they could go on to keep ours back home safe. One day, their compound was raided and…he was never heard from again. A lot of soldiers died that day but…they never found his body.”

“Oh, Roman…you have my deepest condolences. The amount of grief you’ve had to endure…it’s quite unfair.”

“Don’t worry, Specs. I’m all right. I know it may sound…completely ridiculous but he could still be alive. It’s one of the few things I still hope for…that one day I’ll see my brother again.”

“I understand even more why you’re so protective of the brothers you have here now.”

“Congratulations, Doctor. You just figured out why we tell each other secrets.”

****

The first thing Roman felt when he woke up was pain. Pain in his chest, pain in his throat, God, it felt like he was choking on something-

“Roman? Roman, calm down, don’t fight the intubation, okay? We’ll get it out, just hold on.” That sounded like Virgil, why was Virgil taking him off a vent?

Oh. Right. He got shot.

He got shot and almost died.

He got shot and needed surgery. He had just had surgery to take a bullet out of his chest. Chest…cardiovascular…where was Logan?

Roman knew he wouldn’t be able to get much out at first, but he had to try. He took a breath that rattled in his throat and attempted to speak. “Lo…Lo-”

“Shh, shh, don’t try to talk, Ro. I know who you want; I’ll go get him.” Virgil turned to leave, not even making it one step before he was stopped short by a vice-like grip on his wrist. He turned back to see Roman staring at him with wide eyes, almost pleading with him to understand. Virgil nodded; the message clearly received.

“I know you’re grateful. I’m not hurt. I’m just…really glad to see you make it, man.” Virgil left before anyone could acknowledge the tears threatening to stain his face and Roman found that being alone was scarier than it should be. After all, he had no idea where the shooter was; Logan could have hidden him away to fix him, he could still be here somewhere, lurking, waiting to take another shot that would surely end his life this time-

“Roman? Calm down, your heart rate is way too high. Just breathe, you’re safe.” The neurosurgeon’s eyes met with two dark pools of worry and he locked onto them, Logan urging him to match his breathing. “That’s right; breathe with me. You’re safe. We’re safe right now.” Once Roman’s chest evened out, Logan reached over and grabbed a paper cup full of lukewarm water and handed it to the eager patient.

“Don’t drink too fast, Roman. Slow sips. There you go.” A moment of silence passed. “I’m sorry it’s not cold, I couldn’t seem to locate any ice.”

“The…the shooter-”

“Dead.” Logan’s tone was abrupt and cold. “The shooter is dead; you don’t have to worry about him any longer.”

Roman nodded slowly to not aggravate his already sore body any further. “You saved me.”

Logan nodded absently, staring a hole into the linoleum floor. “I know.”

“Then you know…you know I cannot thank you enough- “

“How dare you?” Logan whispered softly.

“Wh- what?”

“How dare you! How dare you just…waltz into my life and torture me and make me hate you then apologize and befriend me and make me respect you?”

Roman’s eyes widened in shock. “I-I’m sorry- “

“No! No, you do not get to apologize because…because you don’t even leave it there; I can’t just respect you, you then start to make me like you and want you around and want to be near you and then, oh God, you even go as far as to make me fall for you! And just when I figure that out, just when I’m finally able to admit the depth of my feelings for you to myself, just when I finally muster up the courage to even consider telling you about how I…feel, then you decide to go and almost die on me?! And on top of it, you make me be the one to have to save you! How DARE YOU?!”

The entire room stuttered to a halt, save for Logan’s ragged breathing. He was outright crying at this point and quite honestly, Roman wasn’t far behind him. “Logan…I’m so sorry- “

“Shut up! Just shut up! Please just…just tell me you want me too. Tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me that I don’t ever have to live without you because today I learned that losing you feels far too similarly to dying myself so if that is not the case…tell me now so I can figure out how to survive.” A long, tense, quiet moment passed before either of them spoke again.

“Logan,” Roman coughed abruptly, wincing as the motion sent shockwaves of pain through his ribs. He cleared his abused throat and tried again. “Logan, look at me.” The dark-haired surgeon looked up into the soulful eyes of the injured man laying in the hospital bed below him.

“Roman, please,” he pleaded, his voice impossibly soft.

“You can survive without me…but I promise you, as long as I am alive, you will not ever have to.” Logan’s head shot up and before he could control himself, he launched into the bed with Roman, just barely remembering to avoid his ribs and all the wires attached to him. He mumbled a hushed prayer of thank you, thank you, thank you as he curled himself into the space between Roman’s body and the railing of the bed. Roman took a moment to settle before he rested his head against the taller man’s shoulder, exhaustion beginning to blur out the edges of his vision. Logan kissed the crown of his head and wrapped his arms around his newfound love in the gentlest protective hold he could muster, allowing the neurosurgeon to succumb to sleep.

“Rest, Roman. I have you. You are safe. You’re safe with me.”

****

Dr. Picani was a typically patient man but this? This argument he was deeply tired of.

“What I fail to understand is how I continually prove myself to be trustworthy over and over again and you continually shut me out!”

“It is not about you, Roman.”

“Then what is it about? Why wouldn’t you tell me about something like this?”

“I’m telling you now!”

“Yeah, two weeks after the fact and I technically had to hear about it from Virgil!”

“Have you considered that. just maybe, I felt some shame? I had achieved six months of solid sobriety and I nearly threw all of that away in mere minutes!”

“You were obviously triggered by something.”

“I was weak! I failed to keep myself together yet again! And if it weren’t for Virgil dragging me to a meeting and convincing me to tell you, I’d probably still be failing.” Struggling doesn’t make you weak, Logan. The therapist scribbled the thought in his notebook, making a reminder to bring that point up later. He was about to interject when he realized that for the first time in a few minutes, there was silence. Dr. Picani’s head snapped up at the sudden quiet to see Roman’s eyes rapidly filling with tears. Well, this is unexpected.

“Roman? What’s wrong? Say what you’re thinking.”

“I…am I the trigger? Have I pushed you too far?” Good job, Roman, the therapist praised silently, way to take ownership!

Logan’s stomach churned guiltily at the tentative question. “No. You have gotten so much better about that. You did nothing wrong, you are perfect, it’s me, I am…broken.” Logan cursed himself internally for how his voice cracked at the end of his sentence, but he had to keep going. “I want to be good enough for you, but I constantly fail you and I don’t want you to see it. But I fear that one day you will and the fact that I love you won’t be enough to make you stay.” And good job being honest about your fears, Logan. These two have come so far.

While Roman knew just how necessary it was for Logan to admit how he felt, God, how it broke Roman’s heart. He reached out slowly and touched Logan’s hand, chest tightening even more when he felt the muscles jump under his palm. He breathed a sigh of relief when the brunette managed to make eye contact with him, the shared gaze giving him the courage to continue.

“Logan, you’re forgetting one very important thing. I love you too. I don’t want you to be perfect. I want you to be you. Yes, you are strong and brilliant, and I love when you are confident and at your best. But I don’t just love you then. I also love you when you’re hurt, when you’re scared, when you’re less than perfect. Lord knows that I am all those things and you don’t shy away from any of that with me. We’re all a little bit broken but we need each other to keep ourselves together. So, yes, I want you to be strong and healthy but if you can’t be? If it gets hard for you to be that? I still want you.”

“All of me?” Logan whispered.

“The whole damn thing.” Roman paused suddenly, a moment of deliberation passing through his eyes. Logan watched as he seemed to come to some sort of internal decision. He felt the grip on his hand tighten into a gentle squeeze…and then gasped as he watched Roman slide off the couch they shared and drop to one knee.

“Oh my God,” Logan choked out. A loud clatter sounded in front of them as Emile dropped his notebook, both hands flying up to either side of his face,

“Oh my God!” Roman chuckled damply at the poorly contained squeal.

“Save it for the end, Picani.” He pulled out a small black box from his pocket, relishing in the way Logan’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. “I’ve been carrying around this thing for weeks wondering when the right time to ask you was, but truth be told, I could have done it anytime. I didn’t have to wait for some perfect moment because every moment is perfect with you. An appropriate time period in our relationship didn’t need to pass because every minute that goes by is another minute that I am undoubtedly grateful to have spent with you. I didn’t need a counselor to tell me if I’m making the right decision. I just need to look at you and see that all my futures, all my forevers and tomorrows live in your eyes. You are the answer to every question I’ve ever had, even the ones I didn’t know I was asking. So today, I am not proposing marriage. I am affirming my sure commitment to you for the rest of my life. The ring is yours today, tomorrow, and for years to come. There’s no time limit, no expiration date. All you have to do is take it when you’re ready.”

Logan sat in stunned silence as his mind turned over every word of Roman’s confession. Slowly taking the sapphire studded ring from the now open box, he turned it over in his fingers and watched as the light danced with the gems, searching the depths of his heart for any hesitation. He handed the ring back to Roman and slowly turned his hand over, palm facing down.

“Put it on me. I’m ready.”

The squeal that Dr. Picani let out threatened to break glass.

****

“Patton, I must insist that you let go of me before you completely cut off my oxygen supply!"

Patton somehow managed to squeeze Logan even tighter for the briefest of seconds before releasing him.

“Sorry, Doc, I’m just so darned excited for you both! Virgil, isn’t it just amazing? They’re getting married!” Virgil chuckled at the giddy look on Patton’s face.

“I swear, you are a living heart eyes emoji. And yeah, it’s pretty damn cool considering you guys hated each other when you met.”

“My God, you would bring that up,” Roman rolled his eyes as Logan and Patton collectively groaned. Patton delivered a playful smack to Virgil’s arm.

“Virgil! Leave them alone, they’re in love now.” Virgil raised an eyebrow down at his partner’s glossy eyes, almost feverish with excitement and something close to…envy? He elected not to comment as turned to embrace the newly engaged pair one more time.

“Whatever, I know the truth. But seriously, congratulations. I’m sorry I’ve gotta run, I’m assisting on a general surgery case and I’ve gotta change out of chief attire. I’ll see you both later this week, celebratory sushi? Friday night?”

“You bet, Tickle-Me-Emo!” Virgil glared at the nickname as he disappeared into the bathroom of the attendings’ lounge. Patton went in for the hundredth hug and jumped as his pager suddenly went off.

“Uh oh, gotta run, looks like a crash C-section. Congrats to you both again! Bye!” he shouted boisterously as he ran down the hallway.

“I’m afraid I must depart as well, my love. It does not inspire respect in my residents if I’m late for rounds.” Roman beamed at the cardiac surgeon, seemingly unaware of anything he just said. “What?” Logan asked hotly.

“You called me your love. You claimed me.” Embarrassment curled up Logan’s neck as he shook his head fondly and leaned in to kiss his now fiancée.

“You are so endearingly sentimental. I will see you at home, my love.” He smirked as he walked out of the door at the way Roman’s knees seemed to buckle just the smallest amount. The neurosurgeon stood in the middle of the room chuckling to himself when he heard a low, smooth voice speak up behind him.

“You’re engaged?” Roman turned around, his face falling in sympathy at the person behind him.

“Oh, Declan…yes. Yes, I am.” The fellow surgeon turned his face to the side to hide his tears, displaying the long scar that ran down the left side of his face. Without warning, he was suddenly being embraced by Roman who seemed to be unable to stop his own tears as they soaked the corner of his scrubs.

“You know, if Remus were here and we weren’t already married by now, we could have planned a double wedding,” Declan murmured.

“He would have loved that. He loved you so much.” Declan pulled away, his glance suddenly dropping to the floor.

“I wish I could tell you what happened to him.” Roman placed a hand on the orthopedic surgeon’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. I know you weren’t there. You couldn’t have done anything to change it.” Declan smiled weakly, nodding a silent goodbye before leaving the room. He paused at the doorway facing the empty hallway.

“Congratulations. Really, you deserve to be happy.” Roman let out a small sob as Declan left, swiftly brushing the tears away before heading to his own rounds.

Neither of them remembered that Virgil was in the bathroom, listening to their entire conversation…and absolutely seething with fury.

#sanders sides #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #sanders sides au #tw:/anxiety #tw:/violence #logince #romantic logince #moxiety #queerplatonic moxiety #deceit sanders #sanders sides surgeon au #my writing #pllandco

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cetaceans-pls · 4 years

Text

What Comes After

DGM post-canon LaviYuu, for @this-is-i-am-zan bc she left a nice comment when I was having a crap week. Thank you Zan!

The End of the World has come and gone, the Noah destroyed along with two-thirds of the human population. Innocence have crumbled into dust, which is deeply unpleasant for the Parasitic types, but things have sucked for the Parasitic types for years, so at least they're well-adjusted.

The same cannot be said for Lavi the now part-time Bookman, because there's not a heck of a lot to record when most of the world's gone, and Kanda 'I can die when I'm dead' Yuu, who is not handling a fully-mortal body very well.

This is their story.

The final battle had been a hell of a showdown, probably. Lavi wouldn't know; the Bookman had decided that they needed to cover as much ground as possible, so while he kept an eye on Allen and Lenalee trying to all-out murder the Earl in Britannia somewhere, Lavi had been somewhere in North Africa trying to stop Tyki Mikk from coming in as reinforcement with a literal horde of Akuma. It's a lot of sand in a lot of places, and it's a lot of trying to stop being bit because collectively Tyki and the gang had decided that Lavi had been so annoying he deserved to die by the Akuma virus, even if a couple of Level 4s could have blasted him to Macedonia without much effort.

That's the good (?) and reliable thing about the Noahs, that whole-hearted determination to be as deeply unpleasant as they can be. Lavi hadn't slept for 3 days by that point, in constant flux as he tried to avoid dying while being aggressive enough that Tyki couldn't in good faith just leave him. His record for sleeplessness is 9 days, at which point his organs would start shutting down at a hell of a rapid rate, and Lavi had been ready to go the whole hog.

Luckily for him, 3 days was about all Allen and Lenalee needed to..... address the Earl, somehow, because at around noontime one day in February, while Mikk was floating around on a Level 5 (god) to enjoy the sea view, there had been an awful pulse of some terrible power, like being hit in the head by an invisible, immaterial hammer, and Lavi had fallen to his knees to throw up.

The Akuma had fallen to the ground and turned to dust, and Mikk had fallen to the ground and gotten up fully human.

(It's not difficult for Lavi to permanently deal with another human being, even if his Innocence had shattered in his hands and he's covered in sick and blood. It's a good thing that the Bookman code doesn't teach much about compassion for your fellow man, better still that Lavi is, by this point, extremely used to death on his hands.)

The Battle to end all battles came and went in an alarmingly short amount of time, and in those few days most of the world was wiped out; there were only so many active Exorcists, and there were so, so many Akuma.

Lavi had passed out as soon as he had staggered far enough from the devastation that he stopped smelling the dust and death of it all, and he had remained passed out for what felt like weeks. When he finally woke up in this arid wasteland stinking of destruction and despair, feeling a little out of his head, Lavi had decided to just.... settle down here, and fish for food and dig a well for irrigation and he'll rebuild humanity all by himself right where he is, yes. Sanity eventually returned with the advent of the wet season a few weeks later, rain leaden and heavy with Akuma remains, acidic on the skin.

Heralding the arrival of the stormclouds had been Yuu, resplendent somehow on a shaggy Bactrian camel, more resplendent still when he had slapped Lavi awake and bundled him up and away, on a long, slow trek to England.

(Later, Lavi discovers that several kingdoms in Asia are fighting over the right to rename themselves Kanda, after the man single-handedly protected the largest swathe of human civilization from a literal plague of Akuma. He also finds out that when Mugen had dissolved back to blood in his hands, Yuu had nearly died from bleeding out because he thought with enough blood he could make another sword. Both things are so exclusively, exhaustingly Yuu it had made his head spin.)

There is no Black Order, because there aren't any Exorcists, because there isn't any Innocence. The Ark is down and out, so there's no quick travel, and there are not a lot of people of any sort left, so they couldn't just get on a rickety plane or questionable ship heading up-and-to-the-left. It's just them and this singular camel who seems extremely fine traveling from the blazing heat of Northern Africa into a Europe still struggling to come out of winter. The camel walks, and Lavi tries to understand both their circuitous, meandering route, and how Yuu had appeared unto him like a dream of rescue. Yuu is taciturn at the best of times and downright churlish for the rest of it, but two men and a camel do not good speed make, and over the months of travel, he pries little bits of truth out.

Yuu was at the Asia branch, and took it into his head to protect as much of Asia as he could. He was as successful as he was because he had taken to it like a suicide mission, and hadn't been planning to keep his regeneration abilities for an 'after' that might not come.

The tattoo on his chest is a complete circle, and the halo around the Om stretches across most of his chest; Lavi gets to see it when they're crawling up the Balkans and he had ground Yuu down enough to give him a show. It's.... a sight. "This mean you're just as prone t'breakin' down as the rest of us now, Yuu?"

The pebbles crunch softly under Takla's padded feet; it's frigid here by the waterside, but Yuu navigates more by mood than geography, and shows a dramatic preference for traveling close to rivers and oceans. It probably means something, but Lavi broke both ankles during the last battle and neither of them are healing quite right, so he's grown to give less of a damn about metaphors in his miserable older age.

It's fine.

"Probably," Yuu had answered. "Idiot," he had tacked on, because just because he was going soft, didn't mean he had to admit to going soft.

(Being close to the water did have the advantage of a healthy supply of food and drink, though it came with the disadvantage of Yuu refusing to accept his bodily limitations and going for a swim in the death of winter like he's waiting for the water to take over his lungs and drag him down.)

(Lavi's ankles aren't the only things that Are Not Okay.)

It's Spring in maximum swing, pollen heavy in the air and birds and insects delighting in the absence of Man, when they reach Bucharest. There are very few people about, because there are very few people at all, but everyone seems to have been struck with a bout of nihilism today; rebuilding works are set aside for this one warm, sunny day, and they spot at least 3 children splashing in a river while adults lay on whatever grass they can find, face upturned to the sun.

Takla garners a lot of attention, because she is a massive camel with two strange-looking men on her back, but Yuu rides imperviously one, a professional jockey stopping his camel from stampeding over thin crowds. Lavi has an idea of why they're in Romania, and has less of one on how in a post-apocalyptic world Yuu somehow ran into the perfect all-terrain vehicle (who loves him).

Black leather and beaten-up faces are enough to have the locals to ping them as Exorcists, which bodes well for Crowley being here, or having been here, and leaving a good taste in people's mouths. The proprietor of one of the only restaurants running in the entire city harkens them over, and they have beef tripe while Takla carouses with the youths in the park, cheered on as she placidly munches on shrubs and bushes.

It's nice to taste iron in his mouth after all that fish, Lavi thinks, and it's somehow also nice to see that people survived, and continue.... surviving. The restaurant doesn't charge money for its wares, because what's the point of money in the collapse of civilization, and instead an elderly lady gets a meal of meatloaf when she drops by with one (1) loaf of bread she made using ground-up seeds of varying origins. Lavi insists on paying for their meal, and worn down by a steady one-eyed stare, the restaurant man agrees to the price of one silver button from Lavi's uniform.

In turn, they are loaded up with cured meats and bricks of polenta, and a vague direction to head towards the last known location of Crowley, the protector of the entirety of Eastern Europe. Lavi asks if Yuu's pick-up service had extended to different regions before he'd come upon Lavi; did he swim across oceans to hunt down General Tiedoll in New Zealand, somewhere? Did he try to meet up with Marie in India? Any word from anybody else in Asia or Africa?

They are few and they are spread so thin, and Takla is just the one camel that Yuu tamed while crossing the desert in a bloody haze. Yuu admits to meeting General Klaud somewhere between where Yuu had murdered Sheril and where he'd found Lavi, and with the loss of her Innocence, Klaud had seemed coldly sane up until the point she began talking to her companion (a non-Innocence goat).

Tiedoll is probably alive but he is out of reach; Marie's fight had moved from the Indian subcontinent to somewhere in the Andaman sea. Yuu had seen the remains of the twins but not of his brother, so hope.... remains. Anyone in the Americas is beyond his purview, and Miranda was at the site of the final battle because there's no pinch hitter more reliable than one that could turn time back pre-pinch.

Yuu tells Lavi, in fits and bursts, of what he'd seen as he'd travelled 'round and 'round while Lavi had tried to set up his own homestead and farm somewhere in Maghreb. It's an odd reversal of fates, Lavi stagnant while Yuu gathered as much as he could with his two bare hands.

He'd gathered Lavi up, and now he's trying to find Crowley. It's bizarre to imagine that Yuu's the one picking up the pieces, that he's the one of all of them with the strength but also the will to collect them one by one.

(It's dumb to think that Yuu lets things go easily, when the whole thing with Alma is taken into consideration, but Bookman training did not completely preserve one from complete idiocy sometimes, so.

Oh, god, he wonders how his crops are doing in Algeria.)

They come upon a crumbling castle pockmarked with gouges from Akuma bombs. Takla draws to a halt at the entrance, and Yuu dismounts and swiftly, scarily scales up the walls until he can gain entry through a blown-up wall on the third floor.

Lavi was not invited on this adventure, so he pokes around the front, looking for clues. By the time Yuu's prowled through enough of the castle to tell that nobody is living here, Lavi is back on Takla with an envelope he'd found nailed into the arm of a stone cherub with a missing head, tucked under some bushes.

It's a grim messenger for someone so fundamentally wholesome as Crowley, but then again it's plenty sweet of him to have left a message via a messenger of love, and maybe the head had been on when they'd started.

It's a short note, written neatly on heavy paper.

Headed to England; A. should be in Liverpool.

Looking forward to meeting you soon.

Best regards,

A. Crowley

He had even oh-so-politely dated the letter, and they just need to play catch up.

(Crowley's alive!)

They're somewhere in France, and it's warm warm now. In a meadow somewhere to the south, Yuu contemplates one of his many swords as he looks at Takla and her heavy coat. She's in moult, it's clear, but it's gotten hotter faster than they had anticipated, and Yuu doesn't have a brush to comb her down with.

He could give her a trim. He's the reason Lavi and he are still neat and clean-shaven, and how different is a human haircut to a camel's?

Lavi, meanwhile, is foraging for food, hoping for some rabbit but happy to make do with whatever he can rummage. They are so close to where they want to be, and there hasn't been a secret resurgence in monsters, and the biggest problem they've had to deal with has been marauding gangs of bandits and looters. It had been such a pleasant experience, the first time they were held at gunpoint by six men with handkerchiefs covering their faces. What an honour and a privilege to face a fight where death is actually less likely than survival!

They might not have their weapons, but years and years as active Exorcists means that they functionally are weapons themselves. The only thing either of them had been worried about was Takla, who got skittish when surrounded by people she didn’t know, but the gang leader with the communal gun had stepped just a hair to close to Yuu, and that was all it took.

Yuu had disarmed and knocked three men unconscious before the gun hit the ground, and Lavi blew through the remaining men in just slightly more time. The biggest hassle with looters is how they tend to startle Takla into running, which means Lavi and Yuu then have to run after her after the threats have been dispatched.

The main positive is that they are never short of food and drink thieved from thieves, and the world's made a little safer a bit at a time as they use their judgment to dole out some form of justice.

(It extremely does not pay to be trigger-happy or fond of violence in front of them, and word spreads about the dangers of accosting two men and their lumpy not-horse as they journey to the west.)

Lavi spots a pheasant and downs it with a home-made bow and arrow, which means a good meal will be had all around, and comes back to camp to find Takla neatly trimmed.

Yuu is laid out by her side, scowling at the sky.

The scowling's pretty common, but the inactivity is not. Putting his prize away, Lavi leans over to block the sun, and looks down into the face of a usually indomitable man. "Everythin' all right, Yuu-chan?"

Yuu just blinks at him angrily, before sitting up. "There's a rabbit burrow next to the rocks," he growls out.

O.....kay. "D'you want me to catch some rabbits?"

Despite all the violence that comes part and parcel with being reborn to fight things that killed you before, Lavi's discovered that Yuu is strangely, sweetly averse to taking lives, and is happier with a vegetarian diet with just the slightest hint of fish at the side. He doesn't turn down food, because he isn't an idiot, but Lavi's happy to take over butchery from the man with half a dozen swords.

If it were possible, Yuu's sour look turns even sourer. "I didn't see it," he's snarling now, like that's all that needs to be said.

Oh, dear, Lavi's supposed to be good at observation. Yuu has one of his boots off, trouser leg tugged up to almost his knee, and where Lavi’s first thought had been Yuu was just enjoying some sun, the swollen ankle and the hideous blue-black bruising coming in paint a markedly different picture.

It looks like a terrible sprain, Lavi thinks to himself as he searches around him for some sturdy branches. The tattered remains of his scarf will make for decent bandages, and they need to immobilise the joint. "Gotcha, lover. You feelin' all right?"

All he gets is stony silence, and Lavi just laughs it off as he carries out triage. It doesn't seem broken, though the pain can't be pleasant. Lavi grabs his pack of assorted acquired bits and bobs and props Yuu's foot atop it for some elevation, and feels a little manically amused that now they've only got 1 good ankle between them, gosh.

Yuu doesn't get chattier after his foot's been attended to, so Lavi busies himself cleaning the pheasant and setting up a fire. Riding Takla is a pretty comfortable feat, but they should probably still take a couple of days to let Yuu rest before they get moving again. So close to where they want to be, a couple of days won't make much of a difference.

It's long after dinner, long after the sun's set and they're trying to sleep in prickly grass and the glow of embers, that Yuu finally speaks again. "How long.... How long does it take people to heal from this shit?"

And it comes with a bang!, the realisation that in the entire time he's been alive, this is quite possibly the longest that Yuu's ever had a minor injury for.

A minute for a busted ankle to fully recover in return for 3 months off the end of your life doesn't seem like the worst deal, now that Lavi thinks about it, but that's not an option anymore.

They really are only men now, which Lavi finds hysterical.

"Depends, Yuu," he says into the night sky. "Could be days, could be never. Welcome, yeah, to the human condition."

Yuu's groan of abject disgust is quickly drowned out by Takla's worried honking, and Lavi lies there and laughs with a belly full of bird.

By the time they cross the wasteland of what used to be the industrial centre of Northwestern England, Takla's heavier coat is starting to grow in again. She's plusher and rougher to the touch, and Lavi doesn't think he'll ever love anything as much as he loves her hypnotic stride carrying them on and on and on. England's decimated, having been the epicentre of the fight, and the pads of her feet leave an indent in the ash like it's a beach of the finest black sand. Her charms and months and months on her back have given Lavi a strange, new perspective on Yuu and life, in a way that a fight to the death and a functional apocalypse had failed to bring to bear.

In the hazy distance, probably still a day's long trot away, is a tall structure that looks like black glass, like the ground had been struck by lightning and rose up petrified. They can't be sure that they'll find anyone there, but before they'd left to defend their assigned regions Lenalee had made them promise to try and meet up where the Earl was defeated. Without golems and without radios, a tall tower of burnt glass seems like the most obvious place to make a meeting place.

Lavi wonders where they'll go from here. He's kept tally of the number of people they've run into, counting out proportions in his head to estimate what the living population is, and if there are enough people to make some more, and the answer does feel like there just won't be enough people to warrant the continued employment of a junior Bookman. And what about Yuu? New to long-term physical suffering, incapable of meeting a sword that'll last longer than a week in his hands. Not a people person, not trained in anything but killing but curiously far too reticent to go into trade at an abattoir. Will he help rebuild this turned-over world?

Would he want to?

Takla continues plodding on, taking them closer and closer to What Happens Next.

It doesn't feel as appealing as it had in the months leading up to it. He wants to meet up with everyone, of course. Hell, Lavi suspects he might even have tears to shed once they hear their losses (because there must be, there will be, heavy losses), but after? Does he want to settle back into a new organisation that decides what gets his time and what doesn't? Does he want to put the most dishonest mask of all and try and pretend that he is in any way invested in humanity's continued survival?

Trying to imagine what his ideal would be in this new world, all Lavi can think of are meadows with burrows lying in wait, and restaurants that take in acorn-bread and convert them into sausages through communal alchemy. He thinks of Yuu, and Takla, and the way high ground drops off into the sea in the lands of blood and honey.

It's a radical departure from his original intentions, but maybe his 50th persona is all that he is, and all that he is is a man apathetic to the charms of everything except for an idiot currently struggling with the concept of non-instantaneous healing and the first Bactrian camel he's ever had the pleasure of meeting.

The structure gleams in the hazy setting sun, and Lavi reaches over a hump to tap Yuu very politely on the side (avoiding the shoulder Yuu dislocated when he tried to carry Takla over a steep creek, because he's an idiot currently struggling with the concept of non-instantaneous healing) to voice his concerns.

"Hey, Yuu, d'you wanna rejoin the Black Order? If Allen 'nd them start somethin', will you throw your lot in with them?"

It turns out that this topic's important enough to garner Yuu's attention, because he actually turns to look at Lavi and measure whatever he sees. It's a long moment of blatant staring, before he rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue. "Of course not. I was made to fight, and I fucking fought. Now I'm going to go in there and see who made it and who didn't, and then I'm going to go."

The world really lucked out that in spite of all that the Order had done to Yuu, his greatest act of rebellion is to stave off the complete destruction of mankind, crawl across the world trying to pick up stray Exorcists, check in on comrades and family, and then leave. Lavi really lucked out to have been the stray that did get picked up by this marvelous man and his marvelous camel.

All things considered, there's really just the one way forward, so long as he gets the okay. It takes a bit of finagling, and Takla makes an irritated sound as Lavi maneuvers over one of her humps to rest his chin on Yuu's good shoulder, certain by this point in their relationship that this is something he's allowed, and oh, isn't that amazing. "Yuu, d'you think you'd mind if I tagged along with you? After I check that the old man's all right, I honest t'god can't think of anything I want t'do more than keepin' on moving on th'back of a camel with th'world's most amazing man."

Yuu doesn't answer him, and it's not a 'no', which is already a bit of win. Lavi digs his pointy chin in deeper into meat and muscle, and sighs. "You picked me up once already, darlin', and whisked me the hell away. Why not a repeat performance, hey?"

Lavi wonders what Yuu thinks of when he thinks of an ideal new world. Surely Takla is there, and probably a revival of soba-makers. A green and quiet place close the sea, hard to get to but within reach of Tiedoll and his brood. Medical services nearby, maybe, to prepare for the first glorious stubbing of the toe.

Lavi wonders if he figures in it at all, wonders what he can do to worm his way in.

(Turns out, he's done enough.)

Yuu turns to face Lavi so quickly Lavi gets whipped by his hair, which was likely entirely intentional. This close up, the blue of Yuu's eyes is startling, and for a moment Lavi forgets that they're not Exorcists with weapons from god anymore, because he can almost hear the snap-crackle of barely-leashed electricity.

(A bad sprain might take actual time to heal now, but Lavi is such a fool to think that that renders Yuu anything approximating normal, god.)

"If I had to choose a life to save, it's always going to be Takla over you," Yuu says with utmost seriousness.

He might as well have kissed Lavi full on the lips, if he was going to be so forthright!

Lavi pulls himself back just with enough time to avoid bursting into delighted laughter in Yuu's ears. "Of course, Yuu-chan, I wouldn't expect anything less from you!"

It seems that the Universe is feeling generous, because Yuu carries on as though Lavi isn't having a bit of a break in the head from pleasant surprise. "I want to go find Marie, and take Takla on a beach holiday. As long as you're not dead weight, you can come."

You can come! A direct actual invitation! From Kanda Yuu, the man with 7 kingdoms to his name!

Lavi settles back in his seat, and tries really hard to avoid crowing with delight. "Darlin', would it be bad t'say that I'm probably gonna try harder t'stay in your good graces than I did fightin' the forces of evil for the sake of mankind?"

"No," Yuu says with utmost confidence. "I'm a hell of a lot better than mankind, after all."

And that, after months and months riding across a billion types of wasteland, is the first time Lavi actually falls of Takla, laughing so hard that he chokes on a mouthful of ash from the destruction of millions.

(Things are looking up).

A/N: God help me I love 1. camels 2. travel fics 3. aged-up AUs

Camels can carry up to 270 kilos, move as fast as horses, and can survive a temperature range of -29 C to 49 C, so everything allegedly checks out. Takla is named after the Taklamakan desert where Yuu found her, and I love her. It’s been so long since I wrote anything even vaguely canonical it’s wild oAo

Hope y’all enjoyed it!

Masterlist + Commission Info

#dgm #dgm hallow #laviyuu #lavi #kanda yuu #dgm fanfic #fanfic #this was 100% inspired by recent events #that had me staring at the inherent fragility of being human #and how tf that would feel #for some dumbass that's been invincible for most of his life #i like the thought of #yuu being used to intense pain #but also a short-terminess of suffering #that's on par w the short-terminess of #his existence #damn b #whale writing

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neuxue · 5 years

Text

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 47

The Rand al’Thor deescalation strategy: contemplate genocide, attempt patricide, then run away.

Chapter 47: The One He Lost

The left, wasn’t it?

Sorry, one day I’ll stop with those…

Rand’s feeling a bit off after almost annihilating several armies and a city. Can’t imagine why…

No, it was something else that had unsettled him, something he couldn’t quite define.

How close you came to mass murder and also possibly the unravelling of existence itself? No?

Stop distracting me with the geology of the Stone of Tear. I’m trying to pay attention to the pain, here, and instead you throw literal rocks at me? Rude.

Oh, I see: the rocks are symbolism.

He had the form of a human. Indeed, he had the mannerisms and history of one.

We’re just not wasting any time here, are we? That’s…quite a thought. It’s one thing when I’m the one thinking it, but it’s another thing entirely when Rand himself is.

But he was a thing that no human—not even he himself—could understand. A figure of legend, a creation of the One Power, as unnatural as a ter’angreal or a fragment of cuendillar.

Not even he himself. Oh, Rand. He’s just so lost, but lost isn’t something he’s afforded the option to be, so he has to push even that aside somehow and keep going.

But also. On the one hand (ha), we have the concept of the Dragon is one with the land, and the land is one with the Dragon. The Dragon as a part of—an embodiment of, even—the world, and the land, and inextricably linked with it and with history and with the balance of Light and Shadow and existence itself. Something utterly natural, something so bound up in nature and the natural as to be one with it. And so Rand’s thoughts here, that he is a ‘creation’, that he is ‘unnatural’ become dissonant against that note we’ve hit again and again throughout the series. And it shows, then, how far he has strayed from that role, even while staying on his path, that he sees himself as, in effect, the opposite of what he truly is.

He has detached himself from humanity and from the world and from himself, in order to become what he thinks he must be—but the irony is that in doing so he is distancing himself ever further from that very thing.

(Did that make sense to anyone but me? Also wow Lia how many commas does a sentence need? Answer: AT LEAST FIVE MORE).

Never mind his heart of a man long dead, his shoulders created to bear the weight of prophecy, his soul crushed by the needs, wants, and hopes of a million people.

I’m not even ONE PAGE into this chapter and already it is coming for me with knives. Never mind his heart of a man long dead just…what am I supposed to do with that? The layered meaning there—the metaphorical killing of his compassion and acceptance of his death atop the more literal invocation of Lews Therin.

And the next part reminds me rather strongly of one of my favourite lines of poetry: which brings us back to the hero’s sholders, and the gentleness that comes not from the absence of violence but despite the abundance of it (Richard Siken, Snow and Dirty Rain). So that’s…fine.

Oh, Rand.

Because to him it is nothing but a weight, a pressure, a suffocating inevitability that is beyond endurance. That is all that is left to him, all he sees ahead, and no space for choice or life or self.

Two hands. One to destroy, the other to save. Which had he lost?

Oh.

I made the joke but I didn’t expect him to do…that. Wow. Okay. Ouch.

Salvation and destruction, one hand shelters, one hand slays, and he stands between, on the balance, but the balance itself is lost and he is falling and he doesn’t even know where and I know this is probably due in part to Sanderson’s tendency to have his characters philosophise and self-examine on-page but finally Rand himself is thinking all the things I’ve thought about him and it hurts in all the best ways.

He had accepted what he needed to be. Why was he so bothered by it, then?

This is more of a crack in his armour than we’ve seen in a while. Maybe it’s because he’s alone, with no immediate task or goal; when he has something to do, he can focus on it and be utterly cold and ruthless and directed, but when he has a moment to pause, all those things he’s suppressing start creeping up on him again.

I’ll spare you five minutes of pacing, Rand: it’s because you haven’t accepted it. You’ve tried to resign yourself to it, and that’s…not at all the same thing, for all that it seems to be. You’ve resigned yourself to what you’ve convinced yourself you need to be, rather than accepting and choosing what to be.

A voice deep down—one not in his head, but in his heart—had begun to disagree with what he did. It was not loud or violent like Lews Therin’s; it just whispered, like a forgotten itch. Something is wrong. Something is wrong…

This strikes the precise, perfect balance between eerie and just straight-up heartbreaking. He has detached himself so far, and pushed away so much of himself, that all that is left of him, of the shepherd Rand al’Thor, is watching at a distance, quiet and yet still determined, wounded and bleeding and yet somehow still hoping, whispering that this is wrong and yet unable to break through those walls.

He is still at war with himself, only now he’s losing. And looking at it from that angle, this whole series is a fascinating…duel, of sorts, with the balance shifting slowly, almost imperceptibly, from Rand as he was to Rand as he has become. From optimism to despair, from choice to resignation, from determination and will to live to fatigue and a wish to die. A shift in which is the winning side, in this war of one man against himself. And it happens so gradually that it’s hard to put a finger on where it shifts—obviously there are several major points where it becomes clear, but this has been in progress from the very beginning.

Put the nuke down, Rand. You’ve destroyed the Stone enough already. Also you’re still inside it.

He’s decided that it’s seeing Hurin that’s thrown him off, not almost repeating Natrin’s Barrow except against allies and friends. I guess…that’s…progress?

Hurin was a relic from an earlier life. Days when Mat had still mocked Rand’s coats, days when Rand had hoped that he’d marry Egwene and somehow return to the Two Rivers.

Days when he truly was a shepherd named Rand al’Thor.

It’s as though he has sacrificed his recent past for his more distant one. The more of Lews Therin he remembers (or remembered; it’s fairly complete now it seems), the further away that shepherd seems, the longer ago those recent memories feel, the more distant they are from who he is now.

It’s as though in his fear of becoming Lews Therin Telamon and facing that fate, he has sacrificed the very things that would allow him to avoid it. And now, even, the desire to do so.

He’d have wondered if anything could grow more complicated than thinking his friends hated him.

Now it hardly matters, because no one can hate him more than he hates himself.

The colours shifted in his vision. Perrin walking through a dark camp, that stone sword looming in the air above him.

The way this is phrased makes it feel very Sword of Damocles, which maybe is not deliberate as that would apply far more to Rand, if anyone, than to Perrin, I would think. Though I guess you could spin it to fit Perrin as well. Anyway, deliberate allusion or not, it’s a great image.

Mat is in Caemlyn, so it would seem we’ve moved ahead of several characters’ timelines at this point. I always find that to be weird, when used to foreshadow something that is in this timeline’s present but another character’s future, but okay, sure.

Do we run from the past, then? Lews Therin asked softly. Yes. That is well. Better to run than to face it.

It’s so bitterly ironic that we’re hearing this in Lews Therin’s voice, because that is precisely the past Rand has been running from this entire time. And that is what has brought him to this point, where he is closer than ever to repeating it.

It’s beautiful in how cruelly perfect it is.

Rand’s time with Hurin had ended at Falme. Those days were indistinct in his mind. The changes that had come upon him then—realising that he had to kill, that he could never return to the life he had loved—were things he could not dwell on. He’d headed out toward Tear, almost delirious, separated from his friends, seeing Ishamael in his dreams.

That last one was happening again.

They’re all happening again. That entire list, in variation: a visit to Falme, with his state of mind in turmoil, a change upon him as he pushes away all feeling and seeks to become the void. Realising that he can and must kill women, that he must cross that line and leave behind who he was. Believing that he can never return to life at all, and that he must die. Refusing to dwell on it, and pushing all feeling away instead. Coming to Tear, where he stands now, almost delirious and chasing his own thoughts, separated from his friends, seeing Moridin in his dreams.

He strode down the hallway and into a massive chamber with rows of pillars, stout and broad, wider than a man could wrap his arms around.

I hope he knows this from trying, mostly because I need that mental image of Rand al’Thor the Dragon Reborn trying on a whim to hug a pillar and failing. (If any artists out there are looking for inspiration for something random to draw: this).

Rand’s thinking about Callandor now and I’m with him on that; I can’t bring myself to believe we’re done with that sword-that-is-not-a-sword. There’s something more there, something I haven’t worked out yet but probably should have. It seems likely to play a role in the end, as it did in the beginning, but beyond the fact that it requires a circle in order to be wielded safely—which means it requires cooperation and balance—I don’t know what that might be.

Taking the Sword That Cannot Be Touched was one of the first major prophecies that he had fulfilled. But was his taking of Callandor a meaningless sign, or was it a step? Everyone knew the prophecy, but few asked the question that should have been inevitable. Why? Why did Rand have to take up the sword? Was it to be used in the Last Battle?

I’d put money on it.

But this is precisely what I wonder, and have wondered. What is it about Callandor? Because Rand’s right: the Prophecy feels rather arbitrary if it’s just a ‘pull this sword out of the stone and then move on to the next thing’. Sure, Prophecy is Prophecy and can do whatever the fuck it wants, I suppose, but that would be so unsatisfying. And so Callandor is in somewhat the same category as, say, Mat’s ashandarei: things that have shown up to fill one purpose but definitely feel like they have more of a role to play. They’re loose ends at the moment, and not the sort that seem set up to remain so.

Is it just that Callandor requires men and women working together—that which was absent the last time an attempt was made on the Dark One’s prison? Or is there something else?

Why did the prophecies not speak of the Choedan Kal?

Another good question, and I lean towards it being because the Choedan Kal, like nuclear weapons, feel like they’re in that other category of Things That Never Should Have Been Made. If anything in this chapter is unnatural, that’s it.

Yet he used the Choedan Kal to perform arguably his greatest work thus far. So maybe I’m wrong.

The access key gave Rand power well beyond what Callandor could provide, and that power came with no strings.

And maybe that’s the problem. It’s too much power for any one person to wield. He cleansed the taint with Nynaeve, by using the male and female Choedan Kal together. Now, not even that is an option. And so, in contrast to Callandor, the sa’angreal that requires cooperation and balance, the Choedan Kal is unbalanced, unfettered power. It’s very like to what Rand is himself at this point, and what his mindset is. And it’s terrifying.

It’s the illusion of utter freedom, of ‘no strings’, against the reality of it. Rand sees all constraints now as being a kind of box, but in reality this illusory freedom he has found by freeing himself from all emotion or remnant of humanity is not true freedom at all, because he has also removed any sense of his own agency. He is acting out of necessity, not choice. And by putting himself into a state of mind where he can permit himself to do anything, he effectively…limits himself to atrocity. He has removed the choice of mercy, of restraint, of another way, and chained himself to the most direct route, even if it leads to catastrophe.

The prophecies were—in a way—the grandest and most stifling box of them all. He was trapped inside of them. Eventually, they would suffocate him.

So we come once again to this issue of perception. Who can possibly blame him for feeling that way? And yet, especially with how he and Egwene are juxtaposed, it feels more and more like the issue is in that very perception, in the view of himself as having no choice and no agency, of being trapped by prophecy rather than choosing it. He almost realised that, back in…oh…TFoH or so. But then things got worse.

And Moiraine, she who balanced that strange mix of surrendering to and yet choosing fate, of claiming agency even when she believed everything was as the Wheel wove, vanished. I don’t think those two things are unrelated. Rand lost that perspective when he lost Moiraine and, shortly after, Egwene. And so he and Eegwene have almost ended up on opposite sides of the prophecy/agency/acceptance/resignation coin, where Moiraine managed to combine both.

They called my plan brash, but these weapons they created, they were too dangerous. Too frightening. No man should hold such Power…

I absolutely one hundred percent agree with you there, Lews Therin. (Do I still want to see a character holding such power? Hell yes).

He worked so hard to keep from being tied with strings, but at the end of the day, the prophecies would see that he did what he was supposed to.

This. This right here. He cedes to prophecy the necessities, while Egwene went through the rituals by choice, accepting the trappings of fate and tradition in order to claim it as her own. He sees the crowns and coats and titles as little more than decoration that make it easier for people to accept him. Egwene sees the stole and staff in a similar light, but she does not dismiss them as useless ornamentation, or a masking of the truth. She doesn’t see it as a way to make the unnatural seem human, but rather as a part of the role she has claimed. A symbol, yes. Unnecessary to the execution of her duty, yes. But not a disguise, nor a softening of edges and oddities. And so she chooses to claim that for herself, to wear those symbols so that she can even better fulfill the role they represent, while Rand no longer really…cares.

Because this is not his choice. He’s still trying to avoid those strings, rather than claiming them as his own. He’s letting himself be dragged by prophecy, rather than acknowledging it and taking those steps when needed but in service of his own choice to see this through.

It’s a subtle difference, but it’s all the difference in the world, and I’m still not over how well it’s played.

Is Cadsuane really your biggest problem right now, Rand?

The Last Battle loomed, and he spent what little time he had riding to meetings with people who insulted him.

Again, I can’t help but compare this to Egwene, who also is facing the imminent fact of the Last Battle and yet still makes time for the ceremony of being raised (again) to the Amyrlin Seat, and recognises its importance and the importance of both berating and pardoning the Tower Aes Sedai and rebels alike, setting in place those formalities so that healing can begin, and dealing with people who have insulted and beaten her. She doesn’t see those things as a waste of time, because they’re essential. It’s not just about this one end goal, but about the steps along the way, because without those the end becomes meaningless.

(In real life I probably tend more towards Rand’s view of this sort of thing, but this is Epic Fantasy and there is a Point being made here and patience, as we are frequently reminded, is often a worthwhile virtue).

Something about this particular hallway seemed familiar.

Probably from the battle in the Stone, but I can’t help but think of the Prologue. A hallway of twisted stone and despair…

Was there, perhaps, a way to stop the Seanchan for good? He looked down at the access key.

Um.

(This is the thing with great, unfettered power: once you use it once, what’s to stop you using it as the solution to every problem? Why even bother with diplomacy, or lesser military solutions, when you can escalate straight to the most effective one? When there is nothing left to hold you back, why waste time? When you don’t care anymore about your own life and existence, or even of what may become of the world once this is over, why not use your nuclear arsenal to end every war? Why even bother fighting the wars in the first place?)

That [battle against the Seanchan] had been his first major failure as a commander.

Except you’ve learned the wrong lesson from it, Rand. The failure wasn’t in not annihilating the Seanchan. It was in not knowing when to stop. It was in not pulling back once you had succeeded in your original goal. It was in continuing even when saidin was strange and you were tired and angry and holding too much power, and killing your own people as a result, turning a victory into an ugly stalemate that felt like defeat.

Burning Graendal and Natrin’s Barrow away had required only a fraction of what Rand could summon.

If he turned that against the Seanchan, then he could go to the last battle with confidence

Yes, because what your conscience—not to mention your status as hero—really needs right now is genocide.

It would not take long.

That’s…chilling.

And it’s Lews Therin’s voice that is the voice of reason now, calling him back from that to the memory of trying to bring a dead child back to life in this corridor. A smaller failure. A failure to bring life, rather than to bring death. Painful and disturbing but with the intent to do something good. To save, or create, rather than destroy (when all this thoughts at the moment run in the opposite direction). The one he lost.

Moiraine had stopped him. Bringing life to the dead was beyond him, she’d said.

How I wish she was still here, Rand thought. He had often been frustrated with her, but she—more than anyone else—had seemed to grasp just what it was he was expected to do. She’d made him more willing to do it, even when he’d been angry with her.

YES. She understood what his fate meant, understood what it meant that he belongs to the Pattern now, and to history. And she was never quite sympathetic about it, but in a way her almost ruthless acceptance was what he needed. She recognised what he was and what it truly meant, yet she also understood the importance of surrendering to that fate in order to control it. She walked that strange balance more perfectly than most, and so served as something of a guide to Rand. To be more than a pawn in the hands of prophecy, but not to rebel against it. To accept, and suppress useless wishing, but not to lose all sense of agency. To be ruthless without losing compassion.

I also love that it’s only now that he understands her, now that she is—to his knowledge—dead. She was the one no one understood, when she was around. They hated or feared or distrusted her at the best of times…and now Rand himself is in that role, hated and feared and misunderstood, and from there he is able to see and understand and appreciate all that she was, and all she did. And to appreciate that she understood him.

But she’s not there now, and he is alone.

And apparently wants to go fight—or rather, annihilate—the Seanchan right now, because…no time like the present? I guess? Again, when there are no limits, the question becomes a simple why not?

“The darkness won’t matter; I shall create light enough.”

Um.

Yeah that’s uh…terrifying. No symbolism to see there, none at all... The Shadow doesn’t matter if he can just throw power into a harsh and burning Light. Except that’s far from balance, and it’s entirely wrong.

An unfamiliar figure stood with his back to Rand, looking out the open balcony doors.

Moridin?

OH.

NO. NO THAT’S NOT MORIDIN.

It was Tam. His father.

IT’S TAM.

HOLY.

SHIT.

IT’S TAM.

TAM IS IN HIS ROOM.

TAM AL’THOR.

IS HERE.

For the first time in TWELVE BOOKS. I have WAITED for this moment for YEARS and now it’s come at the worst possible time except that also means it’s the best possible time because this is going to hurt and I am here for it.

If anyone could crack that armour of ice and cuendillar Rand has tried to surround himself with…

Seeing Hurin unsettled him because it was an abrupt confrontation with a past that has come to seem like another lifetime. But that was Hurin, someone he liked and befriended and travelled with for a time. This is Tam, and so it’s the same thing but more, by orders of magnitude. It’s his past catching up to him and staring him in the face and daring him to try to turn away, holding that harsh icy emotionlessness of his against the living memory of someone who loves him him like a hand held to a flame.

But comfort clashed with who Rand had become. His worlds met—the person he had been, the person he had become—like a jet of water on a white-hot stone. One shattering, the other turning to steam.

That’s exactly it; that’s so exactly it that it’s eerily close to my own thoughts.

But this is what Rand needs right now, this shocking confrontation against which his past and present cannot both stand. It may not be enough to truly bring him back, but it might just crack those barriers enough to buy him a moment to confront himself, to force him to face the world and what he has become with his skin and soul and self bared, unshielded by that ice. It will hurt; it’s why he has pushed all these things aside and turned away from his past and his friends and family and feelings of any kind, but it is, I think, an necessary pain. He needs to feel again, and perhaps this will be enough to force him to, if only for those few moments where his selves are in conflict and his shields thus stressed between them until he is exposed.

Everything just feels better with Tam here. He is, as Rand himself has thought of him, an anchor, a touchstone, a solid connection to simple reality. And that’s something Rand has…struggled with, lately.

Which actually you can extend to an interesting line of symbolism and connection (bear with me here; this might get weird): he feels unnatural, detached, and thus continues to detach himself from the world, and has he does so he comes closer and closer to destroying it (through the True Power, or through balefire, or through simply throwing himself into the Last Battle uncaring of the meaning or form of his victory). The Dragon is one with the Land, and so as the Dragon becomes less and less anchored to reality, and less caring about what becomes of it, the more reality itself teeters on the brink of existence or annihilation.

The bubbles of evil may well be the Dark One’s influence and essence, but I think Rand has something to do with this as well—the more detached he becomes, the less he cares about the very world he is fighting to save, the more easily it frays at the edges. The Dragon is one with the Land and so as the Dragon becomes less real, less alive, the land—the Pattern, the world—loses that solidity and reality and substance as well.

As the Aiel might say, it’s as if the very world is his dream, and as he removes himself from it the dream warps and begins to fade…

But Tam is here and he is solid and real and steadfast and so we can draw back from that particular spiral into the void. For now.

Tam stood, hesitant, in the balcony doorway, lit by two flickering lamps on stands in the room. Rand understood Tam’s hesitation. They were not blood father and son.

Somehow I really don’t think that’s why Tam is hesitant. But of course Rand seizes on the reason that has nothing to do with simple emotional reaction to seeing the son you raised and loved and still love in pain and hardened by fate and lost and deadly and broken. Nothing to do with being a parent unable or unsure of how to protect your child who now belongs to the Pattern and to history and not to you, never really to you.

“Rand.” Tam’s voice was awkward.

“Please,” Rand said through his shock. “Please sit.”

They love each other and yet here they stand, uncertain and conversing like strangers and it hurts and I don’t even like hugs but all I want for both of them right now is for Tam to give Rand a hug and lie to him that it will all be okay. Just for a moment.

Light, Rand thought, feeling a sudden urge to enfold Tam in a hug.

The fact that Rand is once again echoing my own thoughts on this point makes it hurt even more. Give him that hug, Rand. It’s not weakness to need that reassurance and stability and reminder that you are human and people care about you. It’s not weakness to reach out. But he is the Dragon Reborn and he cannot acknowledge his own humanity, much less a need for a hug from a parent.

Familiarity and memories flooded back into his mind.

I’m also not much of one for nostalgia, but again, this is what Rand so desperately needs right now. He has been so long inundated by Lews Therin’s memories (sorrows and his own suicide) and has so long pushed away his own that he needs this simple reminder of who he is.

“How…” Rand said. “Tam, how did you get here? How did you find me?”

Ah, such a beautifully loaded question. How did you find me, he asks, like a child lost and afraid in the dark, to whom a mother or a father has reached out a hand and said ‘here, I’m here, let’s go home’.

How did you find me, he asks, like someone who has grown so far from himself that he wonders how his own father could find who he once was in who he is now.

Because Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, is not hard to find. He sends ripples through the world wherever he is, and no longer tries to disguise his movements. All Tam would have to do is ask. But that’s…not the question here, really.

How did you find me, he asks, leaving unspoken the question that small voice left in him might add: when I cannot even find myself.

I’m fine.

Rand can’t even believe this is happening because he has so strongly denied any thought of home or comfort and this whole scene is already exactly what I wanted. Beautiful soft pain.

So many people had changed around Rand—Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve—it was a wonder to meet someone from his old life who was the same.

There’s a small irony here in that Tam’s full name is Tamlin (thanks to whoever it was who told me this; it’s still one of my favourite naming things in this series because ARE YOU SERIOUS), and yet he is the one person who doesn’t change. I hope this is deliberate because it’s exellent.

But this is why Tam might just be able to reach Rand, and sort of…jolt him just enough to crack that armour for a few valuable seconds: because he is one person unchanged from Rand’s past. Not just someone Rand loves, but someone who has not changed, and who by his presence alone almost forces Rand back into who he was. It’s as if Tam is an anchor to a reality that has all but dissolved, but now Rand is being tugged back into that reality.

Which brings us back to the Tam Lin story, in a rather wonderfully inverted way.

It’s also a great example of how you can make genuinely effective use of a static character.

Tam, the man who had taught Rand to seek the void.

Oh, that hurts.

Wait, Tam knows who Morgase is? That really happened offscreen? And now Rand is learning that Morgase is alive, and it’s certainly not as huge a shift as learning Moiraine is alive would be, but still, that must be a shock.

“No. Wait. I can get a report from Perrin when I wish it. I will not have our time together spent with you acting the messenger.”

It’s sweet, and it’s almost touching genuine emotion, but instead it goes through this filter of formality, because still Rand cannot allow himself to feel.

With the reference to Tam teaching him the void, I’m also reminded here of Rand running out of the palace in Caemlyn toward Mat and Aviendha, who he had thought dead, tears running down his face and choosing to let the void go because ‘he wanted to feel this’. Now, that is no longer an option.

“Ah, son,” [Tam] said, shaking his head, broad hardworking hands clasped before him, “they’ve really done it. They’ve gone and made a king out of you.”

It’s said with a slight smile, and seems to be said fondly, but there is such an aching feeling of sadness and loss here, and in this entire scene. It’s lovely and it hurts and I want all of it.

“What happened to the gangly boy, so wide-eyed at Bel Tine? Where’s the uncertain lad I raised all those years?”

“He’s dead,” Rand said immediately.

Tam nodded slowly. “I can see that.”

Oh.

I don’t know which part of this hurts more: the immediacy of Rand’s answer, or the way Tam just…tries so hard to take it in stride, and nods and accepts it as true because he can’t deny it. And how, even then, he doesn’t protest or let it visibly rattle him; he tries to show that acceptance, tries to be almost gentle with it, to agree with Rand and not fight him even on this.

There is so much pain here.

Well, at least now the genealogy is out in the open. Clears the air a bit, I suppose.

“Yes,” Tam said. “I can see how. I…” He gripped his hands together tightly. “I never meant to lie to you, son. Or, well, I guess I shouldn’t call you that, should I?”

You can call me son, Rand thought. You are my father. No matter what some may say. But he couldn’t force the words out.

The Dragon Reborn couldn’t have a father.

HELP ME.

THIS HURTS.

I love the way this scene is written, with the unspoken almost louder and more apparent than the actual dialogue on the page. As if the words that are spoken are just a framework, around which everything else hangs, and you get this exquisite feeling of tension and pain and of both of them desperately reaching for each other but not able to speak the words aloud or make the motions. The blocking and the dialogue feel stilted, and instead you fill in the spaces with the absences and the silences and the thoughts. The motions that are considered but never actually executed, the words that go unsaid, the pauses that speak volumes, the warmth and pain and love that cannot be expressed.

It’s a scene told in absences, where what is not there is more important and more apparent than what is.

And just. The tension here in Tam’s body language, as he keeps his words gentle and mild but also deliberately distant. The way he grips his hands together as if to physically stop himself from reaching out to his son. The way he does not challenge Rand, does not push him, and accepts the silences and absences and formality he receives, because it is all he can offer.

And Rand. Who cannot get those words out past the walls of ice he has encased himself in, who cannot let himself feel, who longs to reach out to his father and yet holds himself back because he can’t let himself be human.

They’re in pain and I’m in pain and we’re all in pain and EVERYTHING IS FINE.

The Dragon Reborn had to be a figure of myth, a creature nearly as large as the Pattern itself.

HE’S THINKING THE EXACT WORDS OF MY OWN THOUGHTS AND I’M NOT OKAY.

What would it do if it were known that he kept his father nearby? If it were known that the Dragon Reborn relied upon the strength of a shepherd.

The quiet voice in his heart was screaming.

*falls to the floor clutching this book and wailing*

THIS IS TOO MUCH.

HELP.

If it were know that the Dragon Reborn relied upon the strength of a shepherd that is beautiful and heartbreaking and all the more so because it is exactly what he must do but he has gone too far and sees that as a weakness, sees his own former self as a weakness. He, who once took a moment, bleeding and afraid, to just…sit, and remember a shepherd named Rand al’Thor. That is his strength, but he has pushed it away and now cannot let himself reach out to his father or his own memory or anything that feels like love, because it’s dangerous to be vulnerable and dangerous to hope and dangerous to let himself need.

That’s just such a gorgeous line and it’s already haunting me.

And then the quite voice in his heart was screaming, to underline this sense not just of wrongness but of pain, of the way he is tearing himself apart…but on the surface there still is nothing but formality and the image of a king.

This is. It’s just. It’s so good.

It’s so good and it hurts and he’s screaming but can’t let himself listen and he’s at war with himself and Tam is having to sit there and watch and I am sure Tam sees this, sees at least some of what is happening but can’t let himself say anything, can’t reach out because this isn’t something he can fix except by being there for when it all falls apart and letting Rand know that he is loved, in whatever way Rand will accept.

“You did well, Tam,” Rand found himself saying.

HOW DARE YOU.

Rand picked up the access key—it too brought him comfort—then stood. Tam hastily joined him, acting more and more like just another retainer or servant.

“You have done a great service, Tam al’Thor” […]

“I appreciate that, my Lord,” Tam said.

It (like every single word of this entire scene) hurts, but it’s also, I think, deliberate on Tam’s part. Because it’s the only way he can interact with Rand. Rand sees it as acting like ‘just another servant’ but in the position he now holds he doesn’t really…permit anything else. Maybe, occasionally, from Nynaeve or Min. But even then just barely.

And I think Tam sees that. Tam is a parent. He sees that Rand is hurting but he also sees that Rand isn’t going to ask for help or comfort, and probably won’t accept it if Tam offers. And so instead he lets Rand set the frame of the entire interaction, and takes Rand’s lead, and works within that, and doesn’t ever push. The important thing is that he doesn’t turn away.

“I’m afraid I lost your sword,” Rand found himself saying. It felt foolish.

And so Rand finds himself opening up, if only a little. Tam is important through his presence alone, and I think he knows that. He really is just trying to be there for Rand. Trying to offer his support and his love however he can. And Rand does respond to that, even if it’s only apparent in contrast to how he has been lately. It’s a small change, but it’s a start.

Also you might tell Tam that you lost his sword in Ishamael; that would provide some helpful context, but okay. Sure. Fine.

Even that, Tam accepts. And answers Rand’s questions about the sword’s origins. He’s still letting Rand take the lead and guide the conversation, rather than trying to push Rand too quickly to topics that might cause him to retreat behind his walls and shut down completely.

And so eventually we get to something almost like Rand opening up.

“My life isn’t my own. I’m a puppet for the Pattern and the prophecies, made to dance for the world before having my strings cut.”

Tam frowned. “That’s not true, son. Er, my Lord.”

Now he pushes back a little, because Rand has come very very close—probably as close as he can allow himself—to asking for help here. To telling his father he’s hurting.

And oh, it hurts.

“And you can’t run?” Tam asked.

“I don’t think the Pattern would let me,” Rand said. “What I do is too important. It would just force me back in line. It has done so a dozen times already.”

“And would you really want to run?” Tam asked.

Rand didn’t reply.

YES.

THIS IS PERFECT.

It’s been one of the central problems for Rand for so long—that he cannot see any space for agency, any choice or any reason to make one. That all he has is despair and desperation and the eventual promise of death. That he feels trapped in this box and cannot see a way to free himself of it.

But Tam asks the perfect question. It’s the framing of it. The issue of perception. The question of, in essence, what are you fighting for?

“Does it matter if you can run, when you know that you’re not going to?”

“I’m going to die at the end of this,” Rand said. “And I have no choice.”

And that’s no small thing to have to deal with. It’s hard to truly fault Rand for the mindset he’s ended up in, because how could he not? He’s barely older than twenty and doesn’t expect to see another year, he’s tired and he’s wounded in every sense of the word, he’s been violated body and mind and made a captive again and again, he can barely trust his own mind and he doesn’t know a moment’s peace, and the entire world looks to him in hatred and fear and desperate need, and he cannot see a way out. Of course he struggles to see any kind of choice, much less let himself believe he chooses this.

Because in a way, choosing it feels like it would make it even worse. How could he choose to go through all of that? And so relinquishing agency is itself almost a form of relief—consigning all that pain to inevitability and letting himself focus only on its end.

“I won’t have talk like that,” Tam said. “Even if you’re the Dragon Reborn, I won’t listen to it. You always have a choice. Maybe you can’t pick where you are forced to go, but you still have a choice.”

“But how?”

Tam laid a hand on Rand’s shoulder. “The choice isn’t always about what you do, son, but why you do it.”

THIS IS EVERYTHING. THIS IS IT. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR BOOKS FOR SOMEONE TO SAY THIS TO RAND AND FOR RAND TO BELIEVE IT.

THANK YOU TAM AL’THOR.

THIS IS…

This is just. It’s everything. What are you fighting for.

It’s the hardest part of the role he must play: to actively choose it, to embrace it and all the pain it brings…but it’s also the only thing that might make that pain bearable. Because if he chooses it, he has a reason for it. If he chooses it, then he is fighting for something. If he chooses it, he can look to why, and look to the balance, and all that he is saving even as he destroys himself.

It’s the importance of caring, which is something Rand has not lost sight of so much as relinquished entirely. Because to him, it doesn’t matter if he cares or not; what is foretold must happen. But that’s not how it work, and it’s what makes him so frightening right now, and what makes the prospect of his victory ‘as dark as his defeat’. He, the Champion of the Light and the world’s best hope of salvation, has lost sight of the world he’s saving, and why he should save it at all. He’s fighting for victory alone, rather than for life and light and a future and the chance to make something more.

“I don’t know if it’s true that you’ll need to die for this all to play out. But we both know you aren’t going to run from it. Changed though you are, I can see that some things are the same. So I won’t stand any whining on the subject.”

O course it’s Tam who finally says it to Rand and pushes Rand to confront that truth. Tam, Rand’s father, the one person who he might listen to. The one who can talk to him and care about him rather than about the Dragon Reborn and the role he must play, or even about the world and its salvation. There’s no ulterior motive, even if it seems almost certain that bringing Tam here was Cadsuane’s plan. She may be thinking about the salvation of the world—a worthy cause, it must be said—but Tam is talking to Rand here, for no other reason than that he loves him.

“Rand, I think you can survive this.”

I CAN’T HANDLE MUCH MORE OF THIS. IT HURTS A LOT AND I LOVE IT AND IT’S TOO MUCH.

It’s such a simple statement but it’s a comfort and a belief that so few people have offered to Rand lately. Because most of them see him as the Dragon Reborn, and need him to save the world, and there are so, so few who can see past that to the boy who is hurt and afraid and facing his own death and doesn’t know what else to do.

But then there’s Tam, who just…talks to Rand as his son, because that’s who he is. Talks to him like a person, like the boy he was, and chides him for ‘whining’ and then offers him hope and does so with an open hand and a father’s love and nothing else.

“I can’t imagine that the Pattern won’t give you some peace, considering the service you’re doing for us all.”

Tam knows the prophecies and knows the role Rand has to play, but again he doesn’t look at Rand and see the figure out of legend who will save them all because that is his duty and his fate; there are so many who see that and do not see the person, and so would never think of a debt owed or of what Rand is sacrificing. But Tam sees that, because this is his son and he wants him to have that peace, and it’s so important for Rand to have someone see that and acknowledge it without being asked. Someone who can see what this is costing him, and can wish for something for him in return, rather than offering him pity or apathy or yet more demands.

“You may not be able to choose the duties you’re given. But you can choose why you fulfil them. Why do you go to battle, Rand?”

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS CONVERSATION AND IT HAS NOT DISAPPOINTED ME.

These are the true questions, the points around which the future of the world turns. What are you fighting for.

And how perfect it is that it’s his father asking him.

It’s two things I’ve been waiting for—a reunion between Tam and Rand, and someone to push Rand to that question—combined into one and it’s so, so excellent and I’M COMPLETELY FINE.

This book is hurting me.

“Because I must.”

“That’s not good enough.”

This is the other reason it works so well to have Tam be the one to push him on this: because Tam can. He didn’t push Rand before, because he was letting Rand set the parameters of their conversation, and because he didn’t want to steer the conversation too quickly to something that might make Rand close up completely, but he knows where he can push, and he does so here, and it works because he’s Rand’s father. Parents can, often, do that where almost no one else can. Rand may have become all but unrecognisable as the boy he was when Tam last saw him, but some part of that person is still there, and some part of that relationship is still there, and Tam can still make him feel like a child being scolded. And for all that he is a king and a legend, that’s…kind of what Rand needs. Not to be scolded, per se, but to just be…faced with this almost simple reality, wherein he is just Rand al’Thor, and Tam is just his father, and none of the rest matters.

“To the crows with that woman! I wish she’d come to me sooner.”

Uh oh.

I think Tam’s messed up there. I…don’t think bringing up Cadsaune is going to…help, here.

And Rand picks up on it immediately and oh no this could undo everything, and he was so close; Tam was getting through to him and he had brought it to that absolutely essential question and now with one word it could all unravel…

“I’d stayed away, previously, because I thought the last thing you needed was your father stomping across your field!”

Oh, Tam. The magnitude of sacrifice implied there is huge, but he doesn’t even talk about it, or let it show. How he must have wanted to go to Rand, to see him, to do everything he could to help and protect him. How it must have hurt to hold himself back, because he thought it would be better for Rand that way. To protect and help him by staying away.

Tam continued, but Rand had stopped listening.

NO. YOU WERE SO CLOSE.

Cadsuane. Tam had come because of Cadsaune.

No, Rand. He came because of you, for you. Listen to him. Cadsuane was just the impetus; he wanted to come to you before but couldn’t, but he’s not here to manipulate you. He’s here to help you. He’s here because he loves you.

But it’s too late. He was so close. Just one small mistake…

His emotions seeing Tam were so strong that they had worn away the ice. Too much affection was like too much hatred. Either one made him feel, which was something he could not risk.

But he had. And suddenly, feeling nearly overcame him.

He had started to let himself feel; Tam could chip away at that ice and that is what Rand has so desperately needed, but this is what Tam was so carefully avoiding in the early part of the conversation: pushing Rand too far or saying the wrong thing and causing him to withdraw again behind those walls. And now he’s done exactly that, and the chance of reaching him, the chance of buying a few seconds for something to get through to Rand across those walls, is gone.

Tam’s trying to walk it back but it’s too late now. The moment’s lost and how much else is lost along with it?

It was, possibly, one of the best ideas Cadsuane has had. It came so close to working, and beyond the pragmatic…Rand needed to see Tam. He needed that conversation, that reassurance and the simple and unconditional love and support Tam offers. But the very fact that it was Cadsuane’s idea ruins it, because of everything that has come before. It’s yet another cruel irony.

“She manipulates me!” Rand said softly, meeting Tam’s eyes. “And she manipulates you. Everyone ties their strings to me!”

The rage boiled inside. He tried to shove it back, but it was so difficult. Where was the ice, the quiet? Desperately, Rand sought the void. He tried pouring all of his emotions into the flame of a candle, as Tam had taught him so long ago.

Difficult, because he has been brought closer to actually feeling something than he has been in a long time. Because his father is here, and they’ve just been talking about things that matter, and he’s been almost confronting himself and his very mindset, and it’s so, so hard now to shove all of that back down. Into the box he’s made for it all.

This is the moment. This is the chance, if it is not already lost—the point where that armour is cracked, and where he does just barely begin to feel.

It’s a necessary loss of control, in a way. So long he has fought himself, and put up barriers in his own mind, and denied aspects of who he is and who he was, and pushed those and others away, and closed himself off more and more, and convinced himself nothing matters anymore and he has no choice and he is damned and all that remains is for him to win and then die. So long he has just barely managed to hold all of those walls, and the only way I can see—the only way I’ve been able to see—for that to come to any kind of resolution is through a kind of collapse. Some kind of internal catastrophe that forces him to face who and what he is, and was, and remembers, and must be, rather than holding it all at a distance.

And this feels like that point of catastrophe, where he can no longer exert that desperate control he’s kept a fingernail grip on for so long, where the pressure finally cracks his shields.

I’ve wondered for a long time what could possibly bring him to this point, if none of those around him could succeed, if almost killing Min and then touching the True Power could only drive him deeper into that icy void, if burning a city out of existence couldn’t shake him. But this—being confronted with his father and these questions he has held at bay and his own self, and then having that overlaid by the rage of thinking it’s a trick…it might be enough to push him to that breaking point of sorts.

The question, then, is whether it will be enough. He’s balanced on the edge now, trying to push everything back in this desperate fight against himself as it all threatens to crash in on him…so it’s a question of which way he falls. Towards his walls and the cold frightening clarify of order and apathy, or towards the chaos of emotion and memory and pain that may well be his best chance.

Saidin was waiting there. Without thought, Rand seized it, and in doing so was overwhelmed with those emotions he thought he’d abandoned. The void shattered, but somehow saidin remained, struggling against him. He screamed as the nausea hit him, and he threw his anger against it in defiance.

Oh.

Chaos it is, then.

And I still think this is what has to happen—it feels almost like the mirror of that moment in The Last That Could Be Done, shattering the ice that moment built. But still it’s frightening and violent and uncontrolled and.

“Rand,” Tam said, frowning.

Trying to hold on to Rand as Rand changes before his eyes. The inverted echoes of the Tam Lin story are astonishingly perfect here.

“BE SILENT!” Rand bellowed, throwing Tam to the floor with a flow of Air.

No.

No no no.

He needed something to bring him to this moment; he needs those walls to shatter and that shattering was always going to be violent but.

If the cost is Tam…

No Rand no not the access key no no no

He had lost control. But he didn’t care. They wanted him to feel. He would feel, then! They wanted him to laugh? He would laugh as they burned.

Oh, Rand.

Oh, Lews Therin.

Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? This is where Rand seals his own doom, seals himself to Lews Therin’s fate. Looking at his family, someone who loves him, and feeling nothing but uncontrollable rage, and losing control, and reaching that point of madness where he could laugh as they burned.

When he nearly strangled Min, it felt like a clear parallel to Lews Therin killing Ilyena, and Rand felt it as well…but that was not his own doing. That was Semirhage torturing him with his worst memory.

This, though…

This is Rand. It is Rand out of control and consumed by something that could well be called madness, as everything he has held at bay crashes in on him and he reaches for power and all he can think of is the distrust that has eaten away at everything else…but still, it is just Rand. Not controlled by anyone else, not leashed or collared or caged.

Screaming at them all, he wove threads of Air and Fire. Lews Therin howled in his head, saidin tried to destroy both of them, and the quiet voice inside Rand’s heart vanished.

Oh.

That last bit. That’s almost as devastating and horrifying as ‘death and betrayal. It is HIM.’

That moment where the last part of him that is just Rand is silenced. Where all that is left is the rage and the power and the chaos, saidin and Lews Therin’s memory, brought into this present moment as Rand’s own reality. And so history stands poised to repeat itself; Rand’s worst fears and the reason he built those walls in the first place about to be realised.

Because if he kills Tam, that will be his Ilyena.

A prick of light grew in front of Rand, sprouting from the centre of the access key. The weaves for balefire spun before him, and the access key grew brighter as he drew in more power.

No.

This is it this is the moment. It all comes down to this: does he repeat Lews Therin’s past or does he choose something different, choose his own path, make a different choice this time and thus a different future. Does he condemn himself to Lews Therin’s fate or does he take this life as another chance. What are you fighting for, Rand? Why?

Also.

In the story of Tam Lin, he is changed into shape after shape and Janet must hold on to him throughout it in order to save him, and the last form he takes in most versions of the story is a burning coal.

By that light, Rand saw his father’s face, looking up at him.

Terrified.

What am I doing?

Here, Tam, Tamlin, is trying to hold on to Rand as Rand changes into a king, into the Dragon Reborn, into a figure of legend and prophecy. He tries to hold on to his son and does not let go—doesn’t turn away—even as Rand begins to weave balefire and glows with it.

And that is what may save both of them. That is what may call Rand back to himself—let him return to his true shape.

Even if it’s not intentional (but I do wonder if it is), this might be one of my favourite inverted references in the series thus far. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and perfect.

He was brought to that state of cold apathy by Semirhage causing him to nearly kill Min, and to reach for the True Power. And now, as he himself almost weaves balefire again, this time to kill his own father, he finally stops to question.

It’s finally too far.

I wondered what might be.

This is absolutely stunning.

This is just. What a scene.

What a way to bring him to that breaking point.

Because what else could have? What could have forced him to this? When nothing can hold him back, when Nynaeve could not and Min could not and he saw no reason to...

But Tam looking at him in terror, and the echo of Lews Therin in his mind as he almost repeats history and realises his own greatest fear…

Rand began to shake, the balefire unravelling before he had time to loose it. He stumbled backward in horror.

Finally, finally, there is a line he truly cannot cross. Something he truly cannot do, something so horrifying to him that it reaches him through that swirling chaos and the remnants of the armour he has built around himself.

Tamlin al’Thor holds him through all the forms he takes and faces down the fire and it gives Rand that shaking, shattering moment that may let him come back to himself.

What am I DOING? Rand thought again.

No more than I’ve done before, Lews Therin whispered.

OH.

WOW.

THAT’S.

THAT’S A LINE.

That might be exactly as devastating as Lews Therin’s words when Rand reached for the True Power.

And it’s such a beautiful parallel to that scene. The beginning of the true lowest point of his arc, the last that could be done, and now…not quite the beginning of a rise, but perhaps an end to that place he was in. The last that could be done in a very different sense—the last thing that might bring him back. A last chance.

It’s a moment of crisis, a moment where everything comes crashing down and no more than I’ve done before. He has stood here before, about to do the unforgivable. In The Last That Could Be Done, he crossed what he thought was the last line.

Now, having travelled through that space beyond all restraint, he comes at last to a line he didn’t know existed, a point that would condemn him to that past fate, a thing he almost does and yet, in the end, cannot let himself do.

No more than I’ve done before.

A line he crossed once already…but the difference here is the choice. This time, he can choose not to. And so this is the turning point: accept Lews Therin’s fate or choose a different path.

Tam continued to stare at him, face shadowed by the night.

That one line is so heartbreaking. Tam refusing to look away. Face in shadow, even as Rand burns with light. But still not abandoning him, not turning aside. Still holding on.

Oh, Light, Rand thought with terror, shock and rage. I am doing it again. I am a monster.

Still holding tenuously to saidin, Rand wove a gateway to Ebou Dar, then ducked through, fleeing from the horror in Tam’s eyes.

I just let go of a breath I didn’t even realise I was holding for that entire final page.

This chapter is. Um.

Wow.

Let me just…sit here for a minute.

This is an absolute perfect bookend to Chapter 22. It’s not the same scene, and yet it hits so many of the same beats, but from…the other side, in a way. That was Rand’s fall, and this, even as it feels like an absolute low point, almost is the beginning of a rise. It’s Rand turning away from that line, holding himself back rather than stepping across and accepting unfettered, cold, terrifying power. It’s Rand being called back to himself after he came so close to losing himself for good.

Last time, he was forced to almost kill Min, right after he had accepted at her urging that maybe he had become too hard, too untrusting. Now, he comes to almost a similar point in conversation with Tam, but from the opposite direction.

And then that moment of crisis—the first which drives him across one line in fear of repeating Lews Therin’s past…and then this, which drives him away from a true final line out of the same fear.

No more than I’ve done before.

But here, in this lifetime, he can choose not to do it again.

That’s the realisation. That’s what he has needed to understand for so long, because for so long he has been caged by that fear even as he thought he had found freedom. He can choose.

Ebou Dar, though? I almost, for a moment, thought it might be Dragonmount. Because this is where he comes full circle, in a way. Where he faces that last choice: to repeat his greatest atrocity and succumb to his greatest fear, or to do something differently this time. He is brought to the point that ended his last life, and instead turns away and refuses to repeat that mistake. And so it is coming full circle, in truly facing Lews Therin’s fate, and yet it’s a divergence. Just as in making that choice last time, Lews Therin then killed himself and in doing so made Dragonmount, where in this lifetime Rand was born. Life and death; one choice and another. And the prophecy says he must stand on his grave and weep—I wondered, when Tuon thought that, what could possibly bring him to that point. But it seems like that, too, would have to be a point of coming full circle and facing his past—as he has, really, just done here.

But perhaps that is still to come. Or perhaps there’s yet another Moment to come first.

Either way, what a chapter.

Anyway, like after The Last That Could Be Done, I think I need to go stare at a wall for a while and just…process…this chapter.

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#I kept thinking 'surely /that/ was the most painful part of this chapter'#I kept being wrong #Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #The Gathering Storm

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clairen45 · 6 years

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Crait and Symbolism: blood, wounds, salt, foxes, the mother and the nest.

The imagery at the end of TLJ is obviously a study in scarlet and white, something so iconic that they even used it for all the official posters for the movie.

Besides the striking visual quality of the color pattern, it does not take much imagination to figure out that these red streaks on a pristine white surface come to represent a bleeding of sorts. I read some critiques that were pointing out that this was visually representing the bleeding of the Rebellion, on the verge of utter extinction, and sending its last fighters and pilots to martyrdom. There is nothing wrong with this reading, it is after all the most obvious. The last rebels standing are indeed laying out their lives for the cause, ready to sacrifice themselves.

But when it comes to blood, you are always dealing with ambivalent meanings, for blood means pain and death but it also means birth, life, and creation. So this bleeding of the Resistance is also truly, as Luke blatantly expresses, the rebirth of the Resistance. Besides the obvious “Luke said it” (the Rebellion is reborn today), two elements emphasize rebirth: the womb imagery that is prominent in the scene AND the vulptex. It is hard to miss the womb imagery: the entrance of the cave, the necessity to go through the inside of the cave before finally emerging into the light, but it is important to note that the ones who show the way out to the handful of rebels are the foxes.

As symbols, foxes usually stand in everyone’s mind for cleverness, but it is not their only function. They are considered as messengers, and more specifically they are psychopomp figures, which means that they are supposed to lead the souls of the dead through their journey to an afterlife or another life. And in TLJ, they conveniently do just that. By following the foxes, the bleeding and desperate Rebellion finds the way out of what was supposed to be their grave onto another life, so literally the tomb becomes a womb: they are reborn. These little foxes are not just there to look pretty (which they do, they are exquisite), they are there to highlight the concept of rebirth. And it doesn’t harm to know that foxes usually embody good parenting. So before anyone starts arguing that I am reading too much into that let’s pause and wonder why they had to be foxes then. Of the million other possibilities they had they went with this particular symbol, coincidence? I think not.

Of course Rey is there at the end of the tunnel, and she actively plays a part in this rebirth by letting the rebels out. She is the midwife and she is the mother, her warm, soft, welcoming face being what the rebels first see coming out.When Finn rushes to her to hug her, he is not just a friend rushing to the friend he has not seen in a while, he is also the child rushing to his mother’s embrace and comfort.

And what does she do next? She packs everyone in the MF, a place that Han Solo called a “home” in TFA, and has visually become a home and nest to the porgs, proving again that there is sometimes more to these little weird creatures that people the screen. Rey, “the girl” from TFA, longing for a family of her own, is playing mum. And it is fitting that it happens right after Leia, the symbolic queen mother of the ST, is seen stepping aside at the end of the movie. She has given up on being a mother when she tells Luke that her son is lost forever, and she is symbolically giving up on her role as leader/mum of the Rebellion by asking the Rebels to stop looking at her for guidance and to follow Poe.

Rey as the new figurative mother is actually carefully crafted throughout the whole movie. TLJ is heavily packed with yonic symbols and symbols of female sexuality which makes Rey’s time on the island an initiation of womanhood and her function as a mother, from letting herself fall into dangerously attractive slippery caves to the very awkward milking scene.

Rey confronts elements of womanhood and female sexuality that she finds repulsive or scary, before embracing it in the end in her new function of symbolic mum. So it is not incidental that this initiation is constantly bringing her forth in contact with Kylo/Ben. Just like she is first scared and grossed out by elements of womanhood, she is first repulsed by him, trying to kill him, verbally insulting him. But she is eventually accepting him, and learning more about him, and obviously accepting her attraction to him, just as she is accepting her inner self and womanhood.

At the end of TLJ, she may be embracing her new role as symbolic mum for the Rebellion, but the last moments show you something is amiss. She seems sad and curiously lonely for someone who has successfully brought all of her fledglings back into the safety of the nest. And what do we get to see? A look she has on Finn being sweet and tender with Rose, and another look on what she preciously cradles between her hands and on her lap: her lightsaber, and not just her lightsaber, but Kylo’s legacy lightsaber, the one from his family, that broke when they were unable to stay together.

So something is missing in her life. She is playing mum to the Resistance but the longing has not been filled. There is between her hands the ghost of what she really wanted. She left one of the fledgling behind, the one that would have allowed her not just to play mum but becoming a mum.

So back to Kylo and the visuals of red and white. It is easy to also read the surface of Crait as a metaphor for his soul. Red is HIS color after all, the color of his saber, the color fitting his bouts of wrath, his moments of violence.

This is a planet with its salty crust, that seems barren, exposed, laid bare, with speeders scarring the surface like so many wounds, just like his face and body have been covered with scars and gashes. If you think about it, it actually echoes the ending of TFA: Kylo’s blood on the snow, the glow of his lightsaber in the snowstorm, the blaring light of the explosion as contrasting with the snowy forest. The imagery was just more subtle and subdued but it was present. One of the girls from Star Wars Connections also highlighted the parallel between the planet and Kylo himself, the sun and the son fused in the same imagery, Snoke exploiting both the power of the sun (Starkiller base) and the son (Kylo Ren) as massive weapons of destruction. The planet’s explosion at the end of TFA echoes Kylo’s meltdown in a way, his splitting “to the bone”. So at the end of TLJ, we have yet another planet that can stand for Kylo himself: the litteral bleeding at the end of TFA has become a symbolic bleeding of massive proportion at the end of TLJ, because he has probably been cut deeper than he was at the end of TFA. This is not a flesh wound, this is his very core. And if you look at Rey flying her way through the tunnels deep inside the cave of Crait to finally emerge in an explosion at the surface of the planet, this is pretty much her working her ways through the arteries of Kylo’s heart and making him bleed when she ran away from him. She has pierced through his heart.

This planet which is visually just a massive open wound is covered with salt, so it emphasizes that the wound is probably hurting like hell. To add to Kylo’s injury, he has to confront his uncle, which is literally rubbing more salt into the wound. @sw-daydreamer did a very nice post on this confrontation and the idea of pain and salt. The moment when Kylo first steps in in front of Luke you can see how raw his pain is, not just through his sarcasms and body language or facial expressions, but visually on the ground with a giant wound on the ground. It looks as if they are standing in a pool of blood. It represents both the state of their strained relations (bad blood between them) and the state of Kylo’s emotions (he’s a mess!). Luke’s function here is not just to figuratively rub his wound with salt but on the contrary to help with the healing process. Salt is supposed to have purifying powers, it is also used to exorcise evil. And if you look carefully later at their confrontation, the massive wound on the ground has disappeared, covered with salt again.

It does not mean this has worked for now, but I think this is a good sign that the healing process has started, that the confrontation may help Kylo eventually.

Can he be reborn then? It is not just the Rebellion being reborn. Luke’s death is a rebirth in itself. When Rey says that he cut himself from the Force before, and she can’t see him, it means that in a way, he was pretty much dead before, the ghost of himself. But when he dies, he not only revives his legend but he also becomes one with the Force. He may be dead in real life but he is reborn again, as it is attested by the last image of him through a yonic opening.

Kylo’s move at the end is to go to the cave, which was the place where his mother was, so in a way he goes back to mother, except that he is not looking for his mother, it is Rey he finds there, through their Force bond. So Rey as healer and symbolic mother and provider for the reborn Rebellion is also what he needs for his own rebirth. Except that this is a tale about becoming an adult and a man (remember he was called “a child in a mask” at the very beginning). So it means not looking for a mother but a mother for his children (again, remember the speech on the seed of the Jedi, gee, Snoke was the best, see how much info he packed in that scene!).

Salt is also interesting that way, because it is often associated with sexuality. Aphrodite, goddess of love, was born out of salty foam. And since Plutarch and Aristotles, salt has always been believed to have something to do with sexual maturity, desire, copulation, and also gestation, something that is backed up by some scientific studies. So, heavy with the sexual imagery, the romantic imagery of the heart being pierced, and the need to look for some replacement for the mother, everything points again to Kylo finding a possible rebirth through his relationship with Rey. In a reverse Anidala touch, the visual of Kylo entering the cave followed by the storm troopers is reminiscent of Anakin entering the Jedi temple in ROTS in his first steps as Lord Vader.

What grandpa does there is emptying the nest, by killing the young Padawans. Kylo, in TLJ, finds an already empty nest, because the mother has already rescued the “children”, something Padme was unable to do. Instead of storming the nest, Kylo shows through his whole attitude his deep longing to be with Rey and become part of the nest. The contrast with their faces after the deed speaks volumes. Not even after killing his own father did Kylo ever get the evil eyes (true he is not a Sith, but still...).

I think this is again a very nice touch in the way the saga unfolds, and possibly precious clues about what might come next in episode ix.

To conclude, and with special thanks to @xxmasterandmargaritaxx who quoted this excerpt from Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson to me (so grateful!)

Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to fruit heavily with bright globes of water–-peaches and grapes are little more than that, and where the world was salt there would be greater need of slaking. For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing–-the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, the very craving gives it back to us again

#reylo #reylo evidence #reylo fandom #kylo x rey #rey #kylo ren #star wars ep 8 #star wars meta #reylo meta #tlj #tlj meta

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commanderquill · 6 years

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Anything Can Be -- Part Three

<< PART TWO

<< PART ONE

Summary: Barry doesn’t know much beyond the space station he calls home. After all, he doesn’t have to travel worlds to help innocent people as a Chief Inspector. But he’s put to the test when a Green Lantern, the stuff of myths and legends, shows up one night insisting he didn’t kill the woman bleeding out beside him. And as if that wasn’t hard enough, they have only a few weeks to solve the case – before the Guardians of the Universe come take Hal Jordan away.

Hal Jordan hates cages.

Metaphorically and literally. In the case of Central Space Station’s holding cells, it’s literal. A jail must not have been anywhere in the original structure plans because instead of an actual cell, he’s been locked up in a cage that’s in a room with multiple other empty cages. Hal is absolutely certain there’s a grid-like pattern carved permanently into his ass.

It’s cubed like the fences around the perimeter of Ferris Air, but it doesn’t give even a little when he presses his palms against it. He feels like a dog. The cage is just a few inches taller than the top of his head -- if he jumped high enough, he’d give himself a minor concussion. But it’s not even as wide as the length of his body, and he has to sleep diagonally across it just so he isn’t forced to curl his knees up.

He’s having a hard time reminding himself that he’s not in a sex trafficking ring.

Probably.

No one’s bothered taking the yellow hand sheaths off yet. They’re probably hesitant -- he still has his ring on underneath, and all he needs is a moment free to be out of here. He wants to say that he wouldn’t just bust out of jail given the chance, but even he’s not too sure about that, so he can’t even begin to make an argument to convince them of it. Still, it’s inconvenient at best and disabling at worst. He’s almost lucky there isn’t anything to do in a cage with nothing but a small mattress and a bucket, because even if he had a laptop right in front of him it’s not like he’d be able to properly use it. He’s had an itch on his thigh for an hour.

It’s a little unnerving to him that these people know about a Green Lantern’s one weakness at all, but he figures it’s probably necessary for other ‘good guys’ around the universe to know after...

Doesn’t mean he has to like it.

And yet, even pondering questions like that aren’t enough to keep his mind off of what he saw. Suffering from absolute boredom like this, with nothing but his own thoughts for company, forces Hal to keep revisiting the image of Sister Sercy’s body lying prone across the metal floor of her dorm wing. The way her white robes looked, steeped in blood. The way--

It isn’t the first time he’s seen this sight.

Far from it. In fact, he can go as far as to say that he’s used to the image. But he’ll never be fully detached from the emotions it evokes -- all he can ever do is distract himself with bigger and more pressing things. Otherwise, all the sights and smells threaten to overwhelm him.

He didn’t know her very well. When he thinks about her, nothing really comes to mind except the battles they fought together, shoulder to shoulder, back to back. Dependable, but not familiar.

Her death impacts him the same way as any stranger’s death does. A vise gripping around his lungs, a fist permanently semi-closed. But he can still breathe. He can still think.

That doesn’t mean the horror ever truly goes away. All it means is that he can function enough to find the real predator, to bring justice to each person so terribly wronged by life as much as he can.

He doesn’t always succeed. These days, it feels like he rarely does. He--

The door opens.

Hal fights the urge to spring to his feet in relief. He’s slipped down this train of thought too many times already, he doesn’t need to do it again. He quickly rearranges himself so he looks as relaxed as possible, laying on his side with his cheek propped in one hand by the time the door makes it all the way open.

“Thank you,” is the tail end of Barry Allen’s response to someone unseen as he walks into the room. He raises his eyebrows at Hal. “Enjoying your luxurious stay?” he asks.

“Honestly. You should’ve seen the state of the motels on War World. Compared to that, I call this five-star service.”

Barry doesn’t take the bait. Hal swings his legs off the mattress and sits, dangling his arms over his knees. Time to get down to business then. “What’s the news, chief?”

“I’m not the chief,” Barry immediately responds as he comes to a stop beside the cage.

Hal would never say that Barry doesn’t take his job seriously, he maybe takes it the most seriously out of everyone Hal has seen so far in this god forsaken place, but Barry might be the only one truly on his side. It makes him trust him, even if he probably shouldn’t.

Of course, Hal’s entire impression of the man could just be his charm turned up to max, but he somehow doubts that anyone would crank up faux charm to impress a supposed criminal. If banter and altruistic declarations are how Barry Allen treats a potential murderer, he can’t be that bad of a person.

Most likely.

Likely.

Hopefully?

It really depends on whether Barry thinks he’s actually a murderer, come to think of it.

Also, it’s probably in the job description. Get friendly with the prisoner, butter them up, the works. He vaguely remembers a kid in college ranting to him about how no matter what, the police are never your friend.

Hal wishes he’d listened to that. It sounds like solid advice.

“I came to tell you that I pulled some strings,” Barry says. He gestures to the room. “This place can’t be comfortable. The real chief agreed to see you for the possibility of bail.” There’s a chair propped against the opposing wall. Barry grabs it, drags it over beside the cage, and sits down.

Hal stares, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come. “Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“The hell you do that for?” Then, before Barry can answer: “Nevermind. Don’t answer that. I’ve been trying this all ‘be grateful’ thing out lately and I really just want to get out of here. Now please, please tell me you have a key. I feel like I’m losing my mind.” He gets to his feet and braces his covered hands against the cage. He only realizes after he makes the motion just how desperate he looks, but there’s no taking it back now. He kind of is actually really very desperate. But only a little.

He’s trying not to be incredibly suspicious of Barry’s good intentions. The suspicion is definitely warranted, but it’s not exactly helpful.

Barry doesn’t look at him with the warmest or friendliest of expressions. There’s a very healthy note of caution and apprehension at Hal’s eagerness, but he seems to take it in stride. “I don’t. One of the guards will take you to the courtroom in two hours. You’ll have to answer a few questions, but if all goes well, you should be free to help clear your name soon.”

Hal slumps back onto the bed. Just a few more hours. He can do this. He’s gone through much worse. He takes a deep breath. “Great. Cool.” A pause. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“This is probably a good a time as any to ask,” he begins, looking up at Barry before he has the chance to leave. “But do you actually believe me?”

A contemplating expression graces Barry’s face. “I’d rather not tell you that.”

Fair. Not confidence inspiring, but fair.

“See, look, I get that. I really do. But the reason I’m asking is because I’ve gotten into some super weird situations, and I’ve discovered that there are a lot more places out there who would sooner hire a killer than condemn them, and I’d just like to be sure you’re not taking me out on bail to ask me to kill your boss or kill me yourself or something like that.”

Barry’s lips twitch again. He’s fighting backa smile, which Hal thinks is an achievement. But just as soon as the expression appears, it’s gone. “Are you saying you get arrested often?”

“I’d rather not tell you that,” Hal says, mocking Barry’s earlier words.

“And what would you say you get arrested for most often?”

“Never said I get arrested. Just said I’ve been to some mean places.”

“Dodging the question looks worse for you than answering,” Barry points out.

“Trespassing,” Hal eventually replies. No need to push his luck. “And just being an overall pain in the ass. My boss’ words, not mine.”

“Not quite the murderous type, then.”

Hal moves backwards so he can sit on the lumpy mattress, relief blooming in his chest like a breath of fresh air after being submerged. “So you believe me?” He can’t keep the smile off his face. Does he actually have someone on his side?

Barry side eyes him. “You’re smiling too much for someone who’s suspected of murder.”

A deflection. He’s totally on his side.

Probably. Maybe.

Hopefully. He’ll stick with that one. Hope is the companion to willpower -- he can work with hope.

“It’s a defense mechanism,” Hal replies immediately. Normally he wouldn’t admit that, but he can’t afford to scare his only possible ally off. “Also, I totally have a reason to smile right now.”

He’s found that he always seems to function better under pressure. This day will pass, and so will the high stress situation he’s found himself in, and when it’s all said and done he’ll end up in a room alone in the middle of the night like he always does feeling like his heart is trying to jump out of his chest, like his lungs are filling with water, and like the vast universe is pressing down on him from all sides.

But not yet.

He has a few more hours, at least. Depending on how quickly he’s let out of this cage. He can’t let himself fall apart when his surroundings are bright enough to see his hands. That’s no time to let his thoughts strangle themselves. If he can see himself while pieces of him shatter, he’ll never be able to forget how often it happens.

“Well, I like to think I’m not prone to helping people get bail unless I’m reasonably sure they deserve it,” the other man replies, leaning forward in his seat. “I know this justice system inside and out, which means I know that this system is more likely to convict someone for the sake of closing a case than guilt. You’re the only suspect. I can build the the strongest case to convince the chief, but it doesn’t matter unless the evidence can point to a specific different someone. I’ve been trying this long to make sure innocent people don’t fall victim to the system, I’m not going to stop now. If there’s any chance you’re innocent, then you need to work with me to find another suspect to bring this as close to a fair trial as possible.”

Hal isn’t surprised. “A lot of places are like that, you know. Don’t think this is my first rodeo.”

“It isn’t right,” Barry says firmly.

“Most normal things aren’t. What can you do?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but the look on his face makes it so Hal doesn’t doubt that the man thinks about it constantly.

“The question you should be asking is: Where am I going to start?”

His first impression was right. Altruistic.

Very few of those in the universe these days, especially with one of the few Blue Lanterns dead. Even the Green Lanterns can’t seem to keep up with that trait…

Hal shakes the thought from his head before it can continue down that yellow-paved road.

“So. How does court go in this place?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you said yesterday that I don’t have the right to an attorney, so I bet things are a lot different than what I’m used to.”

Barry frowns. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything to compare it to,” he admits. “But for the actual court scene, you’ll be standing in the center of the room. There will be the witnesses, the head CSI for the case, occasionally the head of their department which will be me, and any other significant individuals that might be involved. There could be a few experts on certain topics, for example. Or for personality profiling, if you know of anyone who’ll speak on your behalf. In any case, the head of the department will present the case, the CSI will present details of evidence, everyone else presents their side of the story, and the chief asks some questions. Then everyone but the guards and the defendant leave, and the chief gives the verdict and sentence.”

Hal stares, waiting for more. It doesn’t come. “That’s it?”

“Yes? What else were you expecting?”

“What about the jury? What about my defense? Defense attorney, prosecutor? Why is the chief also the judge? Who’s supposed to argue my case?”

“You. And the evidence speaks for itself. There’s no… arguing. How do you argue facts? Why shouldn’t the chief act as judge?”

“Oh god,” Hal says, despair leaking into his voice. “I’m so screwed.”

He puts his head in his hands, and he can almost feel the confusion emanating from Barry at this distance. He tries to compose himself somewhat, so he can look up and ask some more questions. He needs to keep his head in the game; he can't afford to let go while he still doesn't know his situation down to every detail. It takes a while longer than he wished it did.

A trial without a jury. It sounds like every dystopia he never bothered to read back in high school English class. Some unbidden memory from some graduation required Political Science class tries to tell him that a judiciary not separated from the executive powers is the trademark for a corrupt government.

He's never getting out of here.

"Why are you here?" Hal finally asks.

Barry appraises him for a moment. "I'm interested in your case," he says. "Also, information like this is always best delivered in person. It's faster and things don't get muddled in the process."

"Don't you have better things to do than worry about me?" This is despite the fact that Hal is extremely glad Barry has an interest in his case. There's no way he'd be getting out of here otherwise. Probably.

Although, he's done impossible things before.

It's actually becoming somewhat of a routine at this point.

“You’re my priority.”

"In other words, you have nothing better to do than worry about me. Great, someone needs to," Hal says. "My mom gave up years ago."

Their conversation stops abruptly, and Hal is convinced that’s it. They hang suspended in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Then Barry asks, “Where are you from?”

“Coast City.”

When there’s no reaction on Barry’s face, he clarifies: “California.” There’s still no reaction. “Uh, Earth.”

There. Surprise washes over his face and stays there. “Earth? That’s a long ways away. I didn’t think many people still lived there.”

“Yeah, not everyone likes space. Which is a damn shame, if you ask me.”

“Are legal proceedings very different there?”

“Super,” says Hal. He frowns. “You have no idea how corrupt this system is, do you?”

Barry raises his eyebrows, incredulous. “You’ve been here for one day. I’d say you’re both biased and uninformed on that subject.”

“I think I’d have a heart attack if I saw more. Sure, you know that just because I’m not the only suspect doesn’t mean I’m guilty. But first of all, according to what you said earlier, one single person still decides another person’s fate, and they have absolutely no opportunity to fight for their case unless they’re incredibly educated. Second of all, who’s to say the Chief of Police is always impartial anyway? They have absolute power, and that never remains neutral. And third of all”--here, Hal pauses to gesticulate angrily around him--”your jail cells are fucking cages! Even you have to admit that’s wrong, on so many levels.”

Barry’s lips thin. He looks unhappy, and Hal can’t decide if it’s because of what he said or how he said it.

“Have you really never been to Earth?” Hal asks, because he can’t even fathom that. He spends all his time in space, and yet he always tries to fit in some time for home, even if it’s just a flyby. He’s traversed the universe, and yet there’s nothing quite like the way the Pacific Ocean sparkles under California’s noonday sun.

“No.” Hal wants to ask more, ask where he grew up if not where all humans belong, but then Barry’s lips quirk. “I suppose trying to get a personality witness is a bit of a long shot, then.”

Somehow, this came full circle back to the case. He squints. Never trust a cop. Has Barry been searching him for information this entire time? It’s hard to tell.

He opens his mouth to give some anecdote about not having any friends left planetside, but stops short. Maybe this is what was meant by trusting cops. His guard is already down. A detail like his inability to maintain stable relationships isn’t information remotely necessary for a Chief Inspector to know, and could only hurt his image. So he keeps his lips sealed and just nods, letting the awkward silence descend over him.

Barry turns on the tablet he’s had in his hands the whole time, and it makes Hal slightly nervous since he doesn’t know what he’s writing on it. It soon becomes apparent that he’s messaging someone, and after a few minutes go by with no conversation, he settles back for the long wait.

Hopefully that hearing comes soon.

#halbarry #preslash #space au #sci fi #hal jordan #barry allen #green lantern #fanfic #writing #comicroute #murder mystery #space fic #part three

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katherine-rambles · 6 years

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Since some of my friends are fiiiinaallly watching RGU, spoilers under the cut re: the last few episodes and Anthy. If you’re on mobile, just, uh, scroll really fast I guess? I don’t know why cuts don’t work on mobile...

Is..... is Ohtori.... Anthy’s grave...?

The kofun burial mound, the coffin, Akio’s determination to try again and again... The swords........

Did Dios ‘sacrifice’ himself in order to keep Anthy ‘alive’...?

Okay okay okay. So two paths to go down here: a metaphoric death (1) and a literal death (2).

1 - metaphoric death

Looking around at the internet, I’d say other folks have this side covered pretty well; I wanna get to the other one because I have Ideas about that

2 - literal death

In this scenario, we’ve got the archetypes as having some sort of... power over the metanarrative, right? But not complete power, because their power is the belief of those who buy into the narrative. Anthy takes the brunt of the anger for allowing the Prince to escape his obligations to ‘the people’, because those obligations were going to kill him. That anger turns into Anthy being literally, actually run through with lots of implements that kill her.

But the Prince, newly liberated from his obligations, has a lot of power that he’s now not really using. He can’t save Anthy-- he was too late for that. But he can preserve Anthy. Keep her alive. Turn what would normally be a painful but brief moment into... an eternity. Dios’s powers to change the world are used to stop the world from continuing to happen. To halt time and physics themselves. To stop Anthy from bleeding out. She’s not doing great, but at least she’s not dead. That counts for something, right? Here is where I think Dios turns into Akio; change becoming stagnation.

Well, they both realize this is a terrible situation. Akio can’t leave Anthy, because then she’ll die. And visa versa. Without the Witch to blame for the Prince’s absence, Akio has no protections from the obligations that gave him the power to change the world in the first place. And without the Prince as a protagonist, the Witch isn’t a credible threat, she loses the Prince’s heartsword: then she loses the power, since it all runs on belief. They’re trapped. Even if Akio lets Anthy die, then he’ll probably die later, trying to fulfill the obligations put upon the Prince. Because a Prince that got lost is still A Prince. It isn’t whether or not Akio wants to be a prince; it’s about what people will demand of him no matter how he chooses to act. If people know that the Prince is free, they expect the Prince to serve them.

(There’s also a bunch of corollaries here: why Ohtori seems so removed from seasons and time in general can be explained if it’s all tied to Anthy’s literal moment of death. Ohtori academy is both the future where Anthy didn’t die [the academy] and the future where she did [the kofūn]-- and as a princess, she’s entitled to some sweet burial digs, I guess. This also goes some way to explaining the campus’s labyrinthine nature; it’s a superposition of states that are probably always in flux.)

So... they know heartswords are key to this mess. It’s the heartswords that impale Anthy-- perhaps not in the most literal sense, but in the sense that the weapons, insults, & degradations were intentionally meant to cause her harm. Anthy originally hid Dios’s heartsword/obligations/powers within herself; this is the Witch “trapping” the Prince.

They’re looking for power to free themselves. To do so, they must open the Rose Gate-- the key to this situation is nabbing Anthy from the coffin (the potential future that awaits if time is allowed to continue properly) before the heart/hate-swords can fully kill Anthy. The final Duel, then, is a physical portal to a moment stuck in time: the moment of Anthy’s dying. Anthy can’t do it; she’s being stabbed to death. Akio can try, but his power is trapped with Anthy; so he needs someone else’s power.

And thus the duels. Take a promising bunch, mold their lives to maximize their motivation, pit them against each other: whoever comes out on top must be the strongest. Take that sword, attempt to break Anthy free. Repeat ad nauseum until something works.

Where Utena comes in, what she shakes up, is her willingness to free Anthy no matter the personal cost to herself. Anthy has just LITERALLY backstabbed Utena. In Anthy’s mind, there’s no possible reason that Utena could want to continue, now that Utena’s seen the ‘true’ Anthy. Up until this point, the only person who has seen and accepted that side of her has been Akio.

So now we have two people who have seen just about everything Anthy thinks is true of herself. Akio has used that emotional leverage as free reign to be Awful. Anthy, I’m sure, struggles with her pain as much as she struggles with the belief she deserves it, which Akio is able to leverage into his comfy life. He, is actually just kinda fine going with the status quo: he’s not the one dying for eternity. And hey, this gig’s not half bad. Utena wants to be his princess? Sweet. No skin off his back. He’ll tire of Utena just like he tired of Kanae, I’m sure, and then Utena would just be another pawn in the next round of duelists. As long as the swords don’t work to open the Rose Gate, Akio can honestly say that he’s trying, while still actually never succeeding. Maybe he is actually trying, or maybe the duels are no longer anything but an amusement to pass the time. It doesn’t really matter: it’s gone on for so long that they’re all talking about Eternity, something Eternal, how to achieve Eternal Things. (And implied, for Anthy, is eternal pain/death.)

Utena is a pretty powerful gal, but it isn’t her power that changes things. (Her heartsword does break, after all.) No: it’s her belief in Anthy; her deep-seated conviction that Anthy shouldn’t be in so much pain. Utena is willing to sacrifice herself if it would help out her friend. She doesn’t care that she's been hurt, she doesn’t care that she may die, she doesn’t care that Anthy wants her to go back to safety. She believes Anthy is worth saving.

And it’s that, I think, that finally motivates Anthy into breaking the cycle. Dios cared about Anthy, sure; but he didn’t do anything when she put herself in the line of fire. He didn’t jump to save her as he did to save the princesses-- because to a prince, a potential marriage match is more important than a sister. Not necessarily (originally) a personal fault; it’s part of the Narrative-- his power derives from that idealized vision of a prince saving princesses. He never later decided to try diverting the hateswords by fessing up to the fact that he’d been living the high life by faking his princely death.

Anthy breaks the cycle by walking away. Instead of protecting Akio, as she’s been doing all this time, she gives him back what she took in trying to save him. Well-- insofar as she ever actually took anything. Instead of standing in front of the barn, she walks away, to let Akio deal with his own problems.

Utena convinced Anthy that Anthy herself is worth saving, too. That Dios’s self-inflicted damage was the same as Anthy’s curse: doing for others what they can (or should) figure out for themselves. I mean-- if those people could kill a Witch, why couldn’t they protect their own princesses? For that matter, why are the princesses so incapable of protecting themselves? That seems like something royalty should generally learn how to do.

Now, in this setup, that leaves the last moments of the final duel a little in the lurch. If Anthy stops the cycle by getting out of the way, and Utena inspires her to do so by getting in the way... then what? Well, I think that means that there’s no target for the heartswords. I mean, yes, Utena puts herself in the line of fire; but that line of fire exists because of Anthy’s original decision to ‘save’ Dios. When Anthy decides to stop doing that, there becomes no swords that were ever aimed at her. The universe settles into a shape that allows for the past, but it’s now the present in which Anthy is alive, Ohtori never was a kofūn and is only a normal academy, and Utena's stay at Ohtori becomes fuzzy to everyone involved because it’s the crux of a space-time paradox. But importantly, in this reading, it means Utena didn’t have to save Anthy in the ‘resettled’ past. So the universe makes sense of this, essentially, by diffusing Utena’s impact, and Utena is off doing what Utena would’ve been doing had she not been in the duels.

(A generous continuation from there would have Utena already having made friends with Anthy; and at least the official epilogue art, there’s some indication that that may have been the case. An angsty epilogue would have Utena never know nor recall Anthy’s lived past. A cruel epilogue would be something akin to Donna’s departure from Doctor Who, wherein Utena’s recovered memories destabilizes the universe and would lead to her death. I think, in this reading, it’s unreasonable to assume Anthy couldn’t track Utena down fairly easily, though.)

Anyway, now I want to write a lot of fic that I know I have no patience to write. C’est la vie.

#revolutionary girl utena #rgu #anthy himemiya #akio ohtori #anthy #media #text #present #curiosity #happy

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myanalyticalcrutch-blog · 6 years

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Pagan Poetry

Written for FS 464: Film as a Visual Poem, on September 18, 2017

Bjork is, like many poetic artists, misunderstood by a lot of people. However, there is a reason she has won awards and gotten media attention, other than her swan dress. She pours herself out into every song, and whether you understand what she is saying or not, you can feel the raw emotion behind it. Both the song and video for Pagan Poetry explore the dialog between love, pain, and lust. Bjork is telling us about her love for someone and the pleasure he gives her along with the pain attached to him. This pain is both wanted and unwanted, almost necessary for the relationship. The abstract images slowly become more clear, revealing different parts of Bjork herself. She is showing herself and becoming more comfortable, realizing what she wants before our eyes, being reborn in a sense. Love is considered sacred in most cultures. It is supposed to be the closest thing to a magical experience that you can have. The worst people can change for love, the true happiness makes them want to be better or opens their eyes to a new point of view. Love can also blind you from the bad things about your partner or the world itself. The shelter of love can both be constructive and destructive.

We witness the piercing of her nipples on screen. Body mutilation is shown as a way of expression and self-love as it is for many people. Many cultures even use it as a sign of honor or bravery. Whereas in many western cultures, tattoos, piercings, and scarification are seen as the sign of someone who hates themselves and others. It is seen as unprofessional and unfriendly, though it is slowly becoming more accepted. But it is also to resemble to piercing pain that love can be related to. The draping of pearls and lacing of the piercings on her back match the weaving of the messages and emotions of love and agony throughout the song. Her vocals are precise but have an animalistic quality, adding to the true emotion of the piece. The love and pain for her is instinctual human nature, but it has such a taboo around it, she must question if it is what is best for her. When her face is fully shown, she is smiling while singing, as though she is in ecstasy. However, as the song goes into a chant of “I love him” she stops singing on screen and seems to be in distress. This chant gives the song and video a sense of ritual, love and pain dialog ritually. One must always sacrifice something for love.

Many marriages end in divorce. I have always wanted to believe that love existed in the beginning or at least somewhere down the line. People are breaking the taboo that you must love one person forever. Love cannot exist without pain. She is wearing a dress by Alexander McQueen, a famous fashion designer, another artist. The dress exposes most of her torso with a mermaid bottom creating an incomplete wedding dress aesthetic. There are pearls, often seen as a feminine accessory, draped from her neck and shoulders. She is breaking taboos and bringing up stereotypes addressed to being a proper woman while she herself is embracing pain with love. She is opening exposing herself and the love and pain coupled with ecstasy and lust. The lyrics also suggest that perhaps there was an openness to the relationship at some point, or perhaps in her last relationship. This brings up the possibility that it started as something solely sexual and for her it developed into other feelings. It is often said that one of the most painful things in life is losing a lover or partner. She yells and shouts with a smile on her face that he makes her want to hurt herself. Shortly after we see an image of corset piercings on her back and blood around the holes. The weaving of these emotions is making her bleed and yet she will not let go of them because they also provide her with a sense of liberation from the bonds of social norms in relationships and as a woman.

People are highly affected by the emotions tied to poetry and music. Our lives are surrounded constantly by music and its effects. Some people argue that particular music can affect us negatively, while others claim that all music has a sense of liberation for individuals. According to legends, Orpheus was the first poet. He is usually depicted holding a musical instrument known as a lyre. In many images, the lyre is being held to his chest and close to his heart. It captures the soul of the poet, his love, his emotions, and all that he is. Music and poetry are to this day seen as way to ultimately expose yourself emotionally and express everything that you are and hope to be. Two important words that have risen from the lyre are lyrics and lyrical. These words are used to describe art from all genres, including music, painting, poetry, and film. All essential to an artist’s everyday life. Lyrics are words, often associated with poetry that are connected to a melody and are meant to be sung, not just spoken, however, there is a thin line that is often crossed between speaking and singing. Poetry itself is very musical. It is aware of rhythm, tones, and patterns. Chants and repetition can be seen in both music as well as poetry. The chorus of many modern songs is extremely repetitive and can evoke the feeling of a chant, especially when we look at genres like rap and hip hop. Rap is a genre that frequently crosses the line between singing and rapping and focuses highly on rhythm and rhyme just as poetry does, whereas other genres may focus more on the melody and the music.

As stated before, there is a thin line between music and poetry and they are often weaved together. They both deliver and story in a very strong, emotional, and intimate way. The artist is aware of all of the elements that go into his piece and strives to capture the essence of being human. This also applies to film, a visual poem. However, it is not a visual poem the same way that a painting is, it has literal movement and stillness contrasting each other. Film is a massive mixing pot of many different art forms. Greek tradition calls the poet and lyrical being, lyricism being strongly attached to passion. Plato had said that poets are enthusiasts. They are expressive, passionate and energized by that passion. To Plato, enthusiasm is a trance. Poets become enraptured by their subjects, they dig deeper and deeper into something and they cannot be pulled out of their art and passions. In The Republic, he says that poets should not be included in the city. They are radicals or have a tendency to embrace radical behavior and thoughts, and this is a danger to society. Poets abandon logic and twist language, they play with concepts like young children poking at dead animal carcasses. They explore depths of opinions and subjects that are taboo and to most people should not be thought about. Tarkovski’s poets illustrate two sides of this. His mad poet is loud and filled with rage. He is disruptive and subjects everyone in his presence to his truth, he scars them with the images of his death and the sounds of his final cried. The wise poet, however, uses silence to contemplate his message. It slowly sinks deep and has a chilling tone about it. He is caught in a silent trance while performing his final ritual.

In a sense, poets create their own language. Shakespeare is one example of a poet literally creating language. He betrayed the known laws of language and created terms and phrases that are still common in language long after his death. His impact on society and art is immeasurable. His plays have been rewritten and stories retold over and over. His plays often put people in the shoes of the poet, entrancing them and inviting them to think about the taboo and unusual. Topics of spirituality and sexuality are often covered in Shakespearean plays and poetry. Lyricism and poetry can represent the elevation of the voice and the gaze from the creation of language. As long as that language is lived through momentum and constantly fed with the energy of the poet and the audience.

Poetry embraces the duality of chaos and order. Many poems have a strict formatting while also exploring the chaos of humankind within its text. Poets whether through literature or image are obsessed with paradoxes and irony. There is a constant idea of the overlap between two things usually seen as opposites. Black and white are colors used frequently as a metaphor even when the concepts presented in the piece explore the many different shades of grey. Modern art often depicts Orpheus as a meaningful hero. He is seen as a representation of the human experience and what it means to be an individual. He is to thank for the many different forms of art and poetry that our lives come into contact with. We have access to so many different ways of expressing ourselves and sending a message to other people. We can connect and embrace other people and individual personalities through poetry while exploring areas of our subconscious we are not always familiar with. Raoul Dufy shows Orpheus surrounded by the sea and nature. In the image, there is a balance between the sky and the ocean. The presence of nature is a representation of how natural poetry is and poet’s deep connection with nature and life. Orpheus is at the center of the world and able to communicate across many platforms and elements. He can dialog with life and the spirit of nature. This lines up with the legend that his power of words and lyricism, he was able to communicate with the entire world, from the biggest creatures, to the smallest, down to small specks of life hardly seen or noticed by humankind. It is said that he could even make stones cry. This legend applies the idea of super natural power to poets.

As creators, artists across all genres adapt a special style so they can be seen as an individual and separate themselves from the works of other famous creators. They often have another artist that helped them discover their art, style, and passion. Visual poets are true visionaries, their gaze being projected with and onto others and sending out sparks of inspiration to other aspiring artists that wish to show the world their point of view. Orpheus’ vision and gaze was so powerful, that he could be seen as an extremely unsettling force. He could dialog with the Gods. I can understand why Plato would want to kick out poets if they could speak to the Gods. Poetry and visual poems explore spirituality and occasionally the spirit world itself. It is often referenced or its image depicted within poetry or films. Poets have a particular charm to them, making them dangerous because this charm gives them the power to speak with many different forms of life and even gives them a sort of power over others. Other people can be put into a trance with the chant of a poet. They can become mesmerized and led away from the dangerous safety of societal norms.

Art is a journey. Film, music, and poetry all take us on an adventure when they attempt to capture the Orphic voice. Their rhythm and voice often embracing a sense of ritual. Similar to how many parts of Bjork’s video do. The act of piercing is a ritual of adulthood and life events in many cultures. Even within modern western culture there is an accepted way to perform the act of piercing one’s body. In Pagan Poetry, she undergoes a journey of self-discovery through love and pain, just as is the poets goal to go on an extreme journey. However, extreme can mean even the smallest things. Because poets look at the world through the grey and in between areas, they do not always see the black and white as the most extreme. So many people accept that life if black and white that it is more extreme to walk somewhere in the middle. Though poets and filmmakers often explore the unknown and unreal, they also have to acknowledge reality. You cannot explore the unknown without first knowing what is known and accepted amongst the masses. Music videos bring poetry, music, and filmmaking together as a holy and transgressive experience. Artists like Bjork explore parts of reality and the subconscious seen as taboo through these art forms. She, as well as the filmmaker, want the viewer to also explore everything from the visuals, to the music, to the lyricism and words. Pagan Poetry explores the Orphic voice with its playful journey through sexuality, risk, love, and pain as one.

#film #film student #music video #pagan poetry #bjork #student #student paper #student writing #writing #paper #analysis #art

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butterflynotes-a · 6 years

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For you, I would write.

A writing request for someone. Saeran is such an idiot in this- Also, Saeran is a poet. Literally. The plot does not belong to me.

Fandom: Mystic Messenger Relationships: Saeran Choi x Yoosung Kim Characters: Saeran Choi, Saeyoung Choi, Yoosung Kim, Rika (Mentioned), V | Jihyun Kim (Mentioned) Originally Posted: October 7th 2017

TW: Implied/Mentioned Character Death, Implied/Mentioned Kidnapping, Mention of Blood (Poetry Metaphor)

”-so go.”

Saeran had never expected to hear those words come from the blond, never thought he’d see such a sad smile in this final goodbye. His heart ached, though he should have known this would happen. Yoosung… Yoosung didn’t want him, the redhead was so sure of that. It was obvious, wasn’t it? The distance between them as Saeran had finished the school year, the way Yoosung’s smile was never as bright as before. Those words, the ones coming from the blond, only confirmed his suspicion.

Yoosung Kim didn’t love him anymore.

Saeran had faked a polite smile and nodded, the gesture accompanied by a soft-spoken “alright” before he’d left, not letting the tears fall from his golden orbs until he was sure Yoosung was no where near him, until he was sobbing as he headed home. When he arrived home, his brother embraced him with open arms and words of comfort. Despite the way he shook, the choked out words and strangled cries leaving him, Saeyoung did not let go - and Saeran had never appreciated his brother more than he did now. For his twin did not question what was wrong, only helped him through the aftermath of the events that would never stop hurting.

He missed Yoosung already.

Goodbye, my dear. You were the star I needed most - but the only one I could never have.

Dear Saeran, How are you? I miss you…. You don’t talk to me anymore, not since I last saw you.. You left, no words, no notes… Why was that? Do you miss me..? I think of you so often, I… I’m so sorry! What did I do to make you hate me? How.. How can I fix this, Saeran? Please, tell me! I’d do anything for you, just… Come back to me! Please! Love from, Yoosung Kim.

The page is covered in tears and he cannot send this, he knows it. It’s too raw, too emotional and Saeran wouldn’t ever come back if he was.. Like this. He cries for a while longer, though there is no comfort for the young adult. It has been a year since Saeran left, yet he cannot seem to think of anything but his lost love, the one who made him feel happy above all else. He had told the other to go, told him to pursue his dreams, but he hadn’t thought that would mean Saeran would leave completely. He didn’t realise the one he had loved more than anything would withdraw from contact with everyone but Saeyoung, who refused to tell Yoosung a single thing about Saeran’s whereabouts or how he was.

Yoosung wonders just when it was that he began pushing Saeran away to the point he broke the other’s heart so badly.

I’m sorry for the times I loved you too much - and I’m sorry for the times I loved you too little.

Purple Like a violet Feigned love that is said to be true A simple lie you told me How could I ever trust you?

Yellow Like the sun in the sky Your hair the same colour Soft to the touch Yet, you were not soft For one who broke a heart could never be

Blue Like a forget-me-not Memorable, haunting my every thought I cannot forget each memory I cannot stop thinking of you

Red My blood as I bleed on the page As each word written in ink comes from my heart During this lonely time When we are apart

- Every Colour We Are, Saeran Choi

Saeran did not smile as he was congratulated on top marks for the poetry assignment. Of course, he knew why he got such good marks - it was simple, really. The emotion within the piece, so beautiful yet so tragic. Each word was refined in choice, yet it seemed so casual, as if little thought was put into it. The structure was his own, free form, for it was not conventional. The lack of rhymes showing the true emotions of despair and anguish of the writer, of himself, for one could not write something with perfect form while drowning in emotions, unable to see the surface.

A laugh is forced as his head is patted by one of the other students and the other gushes about how wonderful his poetry was. He smiled politely at Myeong-Eun, not denying her words despite their falseness. She asks him if she wants to grab some coffee before their next class, and his heart clenches. He declines, stating he isn’t well, and heads back to his dorm. This occurrence is common and no one questions it - he’s always sick, whether mentally or physically.

I love you, I need you. I wish I could be with you, but I could never bother you with my presence, for I know it is not wanted within your life - you deserve better than me, you deserve so much better… I cannot love you how you wish - for I cannot leave you behind, no matter how hard I try.

And you did want me to forget, after all, I’m sure.

Dear Saeran, Where are you now? How are you? Thoughts of you plague my mind each day and night. Saeyoung still says nothing about you to me, it worries me - what did I do? How did I mess up? Will you ever come back? Or.. Are you dead? Is that why he refuses to tell me about you? I miss you. Return to me. Please. Love, Yoosung

A year and a half. He is weak. Soon enough, Yoosung knows he will finish school - yet, his future is undecided. He has no guidance, no passion that could lead him through this empty life. Saeran is gone, Rika is dead. Saeyoung is nowhere to be seen and Jihyun - V - had not spoken to him since Yoosung had yelled at him the night his cousin-in-law had come to him, telling him Rika had committed suicide. Yoosung couldn’t believe that reality. As far as he knew, Rika was perfect, nothing plagued her - he knew of no motive for her to commit suicide.

V’s eyes had been puffy and swollen when he had visited that night.

Yoosung hadn’t cared.

Will you return if I call for you? If I walk, will I find you? Will you hear me shout for you as I search? … Or did you never love me at all?

I fall at the touch of your hands Bound by the emotions inside me I wonder Is to be victim to your love my destiny? Your words twist mine Our fingers entwined “Go” You say, smiling I leave and you grow cold Your anger as solid as a stone You hate me You loathe me I wonder if it’s true Is there anything that up I didn’t screw? I am nothing but your love slave A person you force to love you Someone who can no longer be saved

- Love Slave, Saeran Choi

She comes to me one day Her words weaved in such a beautiful way “I can save you” “I can help you” Saviour, Saviour, I address her so “Write for me” She says And I do that as if it is all I know Saviour, Saviour, here you go As if you care as much as you show Lies come from you Every word to manipulate me To.. Destroy me I followed with faith I gave those I loved space Saviour, Saviour You tell me these lies Yet, I could not blame you if I tried You speak of mint eyes Of magenta and paradise Of safety and love Of the population, we’d be above Saviour, Saviour I trust you so You destroy me in intimate ways With dragged down knives Looking into broken eyes Amber, flashing like the warnings of your lies You say no one loves me That no one cares And the worst thing is… I believed every word, every swear

- Saviour, Saeran Choi

That poem… Beautiful, that’s what people had said. “How do you write with such emotion?” They ask him, in swarms. He offers fake smiles, forces a cheerful laugh and answers with “I don’t know, I just do.” No one suspects the horrors he has lived through - no one suspects his childhood, nor that it was about the woman who had kidnapped him. Saeran had gone missing for 3 months after the end of his first year, found a few weeks before the beginning of his second year.

He did not speak of the occurrences that had happened at Rika’s organisation, not of it’s purpose nor the horrors he had seen in his time there - he had been found with drugs in his system, but his mind unbroken for the most part. They’d flushed out the drugs and therapy had been helping him to deal with the trauma, at the least - even if he couldn’t bring himself to speak of it, to think of it-

Mr. Saeran Choi, It is my pleasure to inform you that your essay - titled “The reasons love cannot be easy” - has been awarded a prize. We would like to ask you to come to our event in Seoul and read out a poem related to the topic. Having seen many of your works, we would like to sponsor you as an author as soon as you graduate from university. Please think about our offer, Mr. Choi. We look forward to your response. Yours sincerely, Miss. Mi Jin Park.

This letter is confidential material of 김영사 (Gimm-Young Publishers Inc.) and should not be shown to anyone but the recipient. If you are not the recipient, please send the letter back using the return address. Thank you.

His essay had been awarded something…?

Saeran wouldn’t ever have guessed. This offer…. It was too good to pass up, he knew it. However, the thought of going back to Seoul… Could he really do that? Yoosung lived in Seoul still, Saeran knew that. It wasn’t exactly as if he could avoid the blond forever - no matter how much he wished he could, because it still hurt. His heart was still broken, still aching because Yoosung had wanted him to leave - Yoosung hadn’t loved him enough to ask him to stay, and Saeran couldn’t seem to forget such things

I love you… I love you, I miss you…

He has made up his mind. He would go to this event - go to Seoul - as the offer… He wanted to be an author. He wanted his books, his stories, his poems, to be published, to be seen as something wonderful in the eyes of the world. He wanted to be known, as someone other than the broken boy who couldn’t see the world with a smile and had the bleakest eyes - for his golden orbs hadn’t ever been vibrant.

Not like Saeyoung’s.

Brother.. Are you gone? Where are you, brother? Why have you left me all alone? Flowers lay by your body Untouched, untainted You lay there with eyes blank Where is the life they used to hold..? Goodbye, my brother, I wish you well I can only hope you’ll go to Heaven rather than Hell I should’ve saved you I should have been there For knowing I couldn’t keep you here… My soul edges into despair I love you, my brother I truly do.. And I know you love me Even when you, I cannot see And the engraving on the stone How truthful it is “Here lies Saeyoung Choi “A brother who will always be missed”

- The Love of a Brother, Saeran Choi

Hurt Broken You see it through my eyes Lonely Aching Yet you never really tried Hurt me Broke me Left me all alone My heart aching To return to my home I love you I miss you But do you really care? Every second away from you Has become a true nightmare

Death Destruction Pain Grief It came to me the second you caused me to leave Those I love have left me Those closest, I have lost So please, won’t you tell me… Why, by you, our love was tossed?

- Missing You, Saeran Choi

“Mr Choi!” Saeran glanced at the person who was shouting for him, sighing softly. It must’ve been time for him to go on stage. A curt nod came from the red head as he stepped onto the stage, looking at the crowd as he held his notebook in hand, open to a page filled with curly writing in disorganised lines - yet they made sense so perfectly to him. Among the crowd, he spotted someone, those purple eyes, piercing his soul as they looked at him.

Yoosung was there. Shit.

He thought nothing more, allowing his lips to upturn into a fake, charming grin before he began to read. Yes, he could do this - he wouldn’t let the presence of Yoosung deter him, no matter what!

“Love is simply a lonely thing Where our emotions are lost within Our eyes search for half a soul For the person whose arms we could call home Love is broken Every gift, every word, a simple token Of faked emotions and faked embrace Before all feelings disappear without trace Love is painful Love is abandonment Love is feeling like you’re nothing Love is feeling like you’ll drown Love is… Pleasant Love is having someone by your side To hold you, to kiss you, to hold your hand Love makes you feel like everything Love makes our world go around. If loving you is my last mistake I’ll do it with my head held high For everything I’ve said and done If it’s for you… It’s all worthwhile.”

It is later on, when he is mingling in the crowds, that Yoosung Kim finds Saeran Choi. Saeran’s hand is taken in a gentle grip, and those eyes look so calm that he could cry - how was Yoosung so calm? Had the younger never loved him..? Had he been right-? Yoosung, seeming to notice such emotions, leaned closer - and Saeran’s breathing hitched. He is shaking slightly, but the younger makes no move to leave him be.

”I never wanted you to leave, Saeran. I just wanted you to be happy.”

Lips are suddenly on his, and Saeran kisses back. His movements are feverish, as if his life depends on it - and he falls for Yoosung Kim all over again. The kiss is too short, Yoosung pulls away far too quickly. However, Saeran cannot help the stupid grin that spreads across his face and the joyful laughter spilling from his lips.

“I love you, Saeran.”

”Saranghae, Yoosung.”

#writing;ℓσνє мє ℓιкє α ℓєттєя fℓσαтιиg ιи тнє ωιи∂#old works;ѕєαѕσиѕ ¢нαиgє вυт ρєσρℓє ∂σи'т #Mystic Messenger #Saeran Choi #Yoosung Kim #Saeran x Yoosung

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notesomi-blog · 7 years

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‘mother!’: The Most Ambitious Movie of the Year

mother! | 2017 | Director: Darren Aronofsky | Country: US

Warning: Full Spoiler Review

I’ve been eagerly anticipating this latest Darren Aronofsky’s movie called “mother!” ever since I saw its first poster. It shows Jennifer Lawrence’s character in a white dress holding her bleeding heart (literally). I was transfixed by its aura of beauty meets horror. This poster alone can be interpreted in some ways. Then months later, the official trailer finally arrived. I watched it with sheer delight because the tone of this movie―from the confused female character to some of the surreal imagery―reminded me a bit of “Black Swan”, Aronofsky’s much lauded psychological horror movie. I also got some “Rosemary’s Baby” vibe from it. So I was excited to find out that some of the promo posters look like some homage to “Black Swan” and “Rosemary’s Baby”. By then, I thought I had figured out what this movie is about. Man, how wrong I was.

The story of “mother!” revolves around a couple who lives in a secluded house. The husband, who’s much older than his wife, is a poet facing writer’s block and in need of greater inspiration. His house was destroyed by fire and he had lost almost everything until he met his wife. His wife was the one who helped restoring his house from scratch. “We spend all our time here... I want to make it paradise,” she said. Their seemingly serene life was disturbed when an old man suddenly came to their house one night. This stranger’s arrival was only the beginning of stranger things to come.

From its promo materials, I was pretty sure that the story of “mother!” would be revolved around some cult or satanic theme, hence the “Rosemary’s Baby” vibe I felt. As I said before, I was wrong. I still can feel the similar atmosphere though, mainly through the perspective of the paranoid main female character. But this movie as a whole is more than just a paranoia-filled offering. The whole concept is so ambitious that I needed some time to wrap my head around it after the movie ended.

First, let’s talk about the title. It uses exclamation point after the word “mother” and I feel some aggressiveness from it. There are, indeed, a lot of aggressive acts against the mother character throughout the movie. Who does mother refer to anyway? Yes, mother is the main character played by Jennifer Lawrence. Now, the mother in this movie isn’t supposed to be seen from the maternal context, because this character is actually the personification of... mother earth? At least that was what I can assume after finished watching this goddamn movie. My expectation was destroyed. This is not a psychological horror a la “Black Swan” or paranoia-filled horror a la “Rosemary’s Baby” as the promo materials suggest. Those promo materials were deceptions, guys. But hell, I was sure glad that this movie turned out to be something entirely different.

There were some moments throughout the movie where I uttered to myself, “Is this thing actually about the...? Hmmm... never mind... let’s keep watching.” And the other time, I was like, “Holy fucking shit, what is this?” My mind was going places and I felt like I need to replay some of the scenes immediately. By the end of this movie, I was thinking that maybe it is about the birth and death of planet earth, going in circle. I also have suspicion about the role of some of the characters and realized that they don’t have an actual name. So I started to pay attention to the credit title. Then realization dawned on me and I thought to myself, “Is this true? It’s actually about the Bible? OH MY GOD yes I think it is.” In the credit title, the character of Javier Bardem is written as Him, with capital H, whereas the other characters are written all in lowercase. My suspicion is true. He is the personification of God. That’s why the title, “mother!”, is also written all in lowercase. Goddammit! Then my mind replayed some of the scenes and started to connect the dots. So Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer’s characters are Adam and Eve, and their two sons are Abel and Cain? Are the frog and the spray of blood some cues for the ten plagues? Okay, I won’t go far from this scenario because I think that’s not my place and I just don’t have the knowledge for it. I don’t know if Aronofsky has actually crammed all of his interpretation of the Bible into a two-hour giant metaphor... I mean, movie. If that is the case, it means that he has made a movie adaptation of the Bible. That is one big ambition, sir.

Despite that metaphor thing, Aronofsky also infuses some criticisms into “mother!”. One of them is about the violent human behaviour towards environment, or should we call it mother earth? As I mentioned before, Jennifer Lawrence’s character can be interpreted as the personification of mother earth and there are various aggressive acts against her by almost all of the characters throughout the movie. Those acts were some of the reasons why this movie was quite uncomfortable to sit through.

For me, the casting of Jennifer Lawrence is spot on. I felt that her physical appearance here is accentuated, from the choice of her outfits to the way the camera frames her figure. Before calling it objectifying, note that it’s in line with the concept of the character. Mother earth is supposed to appear attractive, almost bare so everyone can see her whole beauty. I think Lawrence fully embodied this character. Most of the time, the camera frames her face in close-up, so we can see her facial expression clearly. She appears innocent at first and becomes more bewildered when random people start to flood into her house. Her face says it all. I’ve been a fan of her since I saw she her breakthrough role in “Winter’s Bone” and I think mother is her bravest role yet.

Another criticism that is infused by Aronofsky into this movie is about an artist’s obsession and relationship with his art. He also depicts how fame and idolatry can be destructive. All of them are presented in such extremity, particularly during the last half of the movie. It becomes more and more fucked-up towards the end.

All that aside, there is one particular plot point that struck me the most: the intrusion of personal space. I can relate so much to the mother character when she feels disturbed by the arrival of strangers into her house. As an introvert, I highly value my personal space and I can be extremely uncomfortable when some people invade it without invitation. I feel you, mother earth. I guess “Intruders!” could be a more appropriate title for this movie, no?

In the end, I think I understand the polarizing nature of “mother!”. This movie surely has potential to offend some people. For the other people, may they be amazed by its big ambition and bold narrative. I, myself, fall into the latter spectrum. I believe that this movie will spark some conversations and it deserves to be talked about for years to come.

Let’s give props to Darren Aronofsky and all the team involved who have pushed the boundaries and presented one of the most ambitious movies of the year. They prove that Hollywood’s major studio still has some guts to bring interesting “left field” concept to life. Cinema has limitless possibilities and a lot of potential to be explored after all.

#review #moviereview #ulasanfilm #mothermovie #jenniferlawrence #darrenaronofsky #javierbardem

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coldtomyflash · 7 years

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You remember how mick says he and len don't have heart to hearts? Well do you think they did when they younger and as they got older it changed? Under what circumstances do you think they would have a heart to heart?

So I know this isn’t what you’re aiming for…. but this is where I had to take it. #sorrynotsorry

His lip is bleeding. No, his nose is bleeding. It sure hurts bad enough. But he tongues his lip and it stings.

They’re both bleeding.

But he’s alive. So he’s laughing and relieved and wiping the blood on his sleeve and listening to the deeper, richer laugh of the guy next to him.

“They comin’?”

Lenny peers around the corner and sees everything in order, the other inmates in juvie, their varying ages and sizes belying their status in the hierarchy. No sign of the guys who jumped him.

“Not from there.”

The guy beside him sighs, finally, and relaxes deeper against the wall their backs are pressed to. Lenny tilts his own head back. He can’t believe he cheated death. His hands are shaking and he tries to stop them. They ran all the way down here through a few winding halls and they’re probably going to catch trouble for it later but this guy knew the way and now they seem to be in the clear and it’s–

It’s worth laughing about, okay? What else is he gonna do?

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Lenny.”

“Mick.”

He grins and extends his hand. The guys looks at his face and laughs. “You look like shit.”

“Yeah, well.” He smiles and it’s a little crooked because his lip is starting to swell, he’s pretty sure. His nose hasn’t fully stopped bleeding, he doesn’t think, and wipes it away again. He should probably go to a nurse to set it. He wonders if Mick will come with him. On that note,

“So uh,” he starts in, “thanks for saving me out there.”

“You owe me.”

“Sure,” he bobs his head in a nod. “But really, thank you. You didn’t have to do that and – “

“Hey whoa what is this? A heart to heart?” The guy is laughing but there’s a warning in there somewhere. Lenny figures he’s probably sixteen and he seems easygoing enough but when he gets tense there’s something more menacing about him.

Lenny backtracks. “Have to have a heart to have a heart to heart.”

It takes a second, but Mick breaks out into a grin. He grabs Lenny with a headlock and gives him a noogie with a laugh. “You’re not so bad. C’mon kid, before anyone comes looking.”

[ … ]

It takes approximately three weeks for them to fall into a different sort of routine. Mick noticed fast that Lenny was sneaky and mean and he thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, how quick Lenny’s fingers were when he was lifting something, never caught.

“Been doing it since my dad got out,” Lenny explained. “He showed me the ropes.”

“Your old man?”

“Yeah.” Lenny felt a little sour about his dad still. He was the reason Lenny was in here. But not really. Lenny should’ve run faster. Should’ve been smarter. The plan was sloppy and he should’ve said something about the timing. He didn’t want to because Lewis was drunk and drunk meant volatile but… whatever. It didn’t matter now.

He frowned at his lunch tray and dropped the extra pudding cup on Mick’s instead. “Have it.”

“Think you could get me a lighter?”

Lenny eyed him. He’d heard rumors about what happened to get Mick in this place. “You sure that’s wise?”

His eyes went hard and he moved to stand and Lenny felt a rush of instinctual fear – his own ally in this place, burning bridges in a literal sense might be better than burning this one in a metaphorical one.

“I just mean–” he starts in fast, and Mick stops so he takes a second to lick his lips and come up with something to say, “I just mean, Mick, that that kinda contraband is gonna run us up bad if someone catches you with it.”

Mick looks suspicious still but he sits back down and Lenny relaxes a bit.

“Thought you were about to try a heart to heart with me.”

“We don’t have hearts, remember?”

Mick grins finally, the throwback to their first meeting setting him at ease. “You let me worry about the contraband. Just get me a lighter, yeah?”

[ … ]

Mick shouldn’t be here. Not that he had much else in the way of places to go, just got out of his second stint – first one as an adult, in medium security – but Lenny’s frowning and tense when he opens the front door and sees him on the porch.

He looks like hell – jumped for sure, bruising and swelling starting to form. Lenny swears and lets him in because what the hell else can he do? He gets him some frozen peas from the fridge and they’re on the side of Mick’s face a moment later and he’s letting out a sigh and stretching out his legs at the kitchen table.

So of course that’s when Lisa and her mom come in the door.

It’s world war three after that. Lisa’s mom is pissed, Lenny won’t leave Mick behind, and Lewis comes home from the bar two hours later and Lenny catches all sorts of hell for pissing off his new wife. The shouting match is epic half because Lenny never fights back. He can’t let Mick see him like that though – that weak. It would never fly.

It’s not really about Mick anyway though.

Lenny’s seventeen and the house has been reaching a boiling point for a while. It was about time it spilled over.

Lewis tells him to get out and he does. Grabs his bag, and his cash, his friend, and they’re gone.

He’s got enough for a little while, enough for a motel for the night tonight though and that’s all that matters. They’ll find a place in the morning. Mick’s already talking about knowing a guy who might have a place for them at the end of the month, just gotta make a few calls.

Lenny’s mood is foul, he’s got his own shiner and no frozen peas for it, those definitely didn’t make the cut of ‘essentials’ on the way out the door.

Mick tentatively sits next to him and Lenny’s not sure if he’s ever done anything ‘tentative’ since they met.

“Y’know, Snart, what you did back there –”

“Save it.”

“I’m just - ”

“I don’t need a heart to heart, Mick.” He couldn’t handle one right now, he really couldn’t. He’d fall apart.

Mick laughs a little, just a low chuckle. His voice is deeper than when they met. It’s age, but also all the smoking, Lenny’s pretty sure.

“No worries. We don’t have hearts, right?”

Lenny’s chest relaxes again. He remembers juvie. How did the world feel so much simpler when he was locked up at fourteen? “Right.”

“Sleep, or booze?”

Lenny considers, tilting his head. Their bruises are ugly but sleep ain’t coming any time soon. “Booze.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

He knows Mick’s just trying to cheer him up still, but somehow, he likes the sound of that.

[ … ]

He didn’t think he’d ever point a gun at Mick Rory, but here he is. Twenty-four, scared shitless but he’s angry and he hasn’t seen Mick in two years so what the hell is the man doing sitting pretty with the Darbynians?

He’s on the wrong side and Lenny can’t fix that, not here and now when he’s sweating down his back and promising himself that he’ll never ever take a job as security for one of the Families again.

Not if it means killing three men and cocking his gun one more time to stop short when he meets the eyes of the person standing in front of it.

Mick’s bigger. He’s been working out. Leather jacket and gloves and Len’s pretty sure he killed one of Len’s crew with just his hands.

It’s just the two of them left after that small carnage. Small favors.

“Well well, Mick,” he says, a lot more confident than he feels and isn’t that nice?

Mick’s eyes look dangerous. “Outta my way, Snart.”

“Can’t do that.”

“I gotta job to do.”

“And this is how you accomplish it? Getting yourself killed breaking in the backdoor of one of Don Santini’s storage facilities?”

“I’ll go through you if I have to.”

“I’m the one with the gun.”

“You’re still a punk kid, Snart. You won’t use it.”

He tightens his grip on it, finger moving from the side to the trigger. “Try me.” Mick shifts his stance and Len realizes he’s going to try him and that’s all sorts of a disaster because Len isn’t bluffing.

It doesn’t matter because a second later the door is opening and Len’s backup has arrived. He almost wishes they hadn’t.

“Who’s this?” Nicky asks, Santini’s nephew. He’s an idiot but his gun and all his security’s guns are drawn and Len thinks fast and lowers his.

“Our messenger.”

“Our what?”

“Leave one alive to deliver the message. Isn’t that how it goes, Nicky?” he asks, droll, like leaving Mick alive wasn’t an accident caused by the seizing of his heart.

“What message?”

He really doesn’t catch on quick, does it? But Mick does, because he’s looking at Len with outright suspicion but Len can see he gets it and he won’t fuck this up.

“That Mr. Santini sends his regards.” Len pops the ammunition out of his gun and drops the bullet out of the chamber. He presses it to Mick’s palm, who’s nostrils flare.

Behind him, Nicky laughs like the threat on Mr. Darbynian’s life is a good idea for a joke or a message. It’s not. Len’s gonna have to get the hell out of dodge if this goes sour. Or else make sure Nicky takes full credit for the idea and kill his entourage at some point so no one contradicts it with the real story. That might work.

Mick looks at him, looks a the others, and steps back, palm closed. “I’ll give him the message.”

Nicky’s boys think it’s a riot. They’re clapping Len on the back. Len wishes he could enjoy having not-died and not having killed Mick but he’s sure it was a bad idea.

At least, he’s sure until five hours later when a form stumbles in the window of his shitty second-storey apartment with a bitten off curse and a knocked over lamp.

Len’s out of bed in a second, gun up, but he sees it’s Mick when the light flicks on and that’s… something. He lowers the gun but doesn’t turn the safety on. Mick’s squinting against the sudden light and from his disordered look…

“Are you drunk?” Len asks. It’s as good of opening as any.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Snart?”

“You’re in my apartment, jackass.” How Mick found out where he lived is beyond him. It might be time to move.

“You’re gonna start a gang war.”

Oh. That. “So sue me.” He drops his gun on the counter as Mick stumbles further into the bachelor style space and finally rights himself once he detangles from the lamp cord.

Len manages not to smile at the sight. He almost would but the situation’s a little too tense.

“It was a damn soft move.”

Len glares at Mick’s accusation, crossing his arms. “Didn’t you just accuse me of starting a war? Don’t see how that’s soft.”

“Gonna get yourself killed.”

“Now who’s being soft?”

“Fuck you.”

Len snorts. But he’s relieved, or warmed, or… something. Mick’s still Mick. They’re still… something. Maybe not friends anymore. But their history didn’t disappear.

“You broke into my apartment to tell me not to save your life if it comes up again?”

Mick holds his stomach, “gonna – “

Len points at the bathroom. Mick really was drunk. Peachy.

He gets him some water and a bucket and directs him to the couch. It’s been a rollercoaster of a fucking night and sleep is the only real remedy for crazy that he knows.

Mick grabs him by the arm when he moves to retreat, glassy eyed but intense as ever. “Don’t get yourself killed, Snart. You’re too good for it.”

It’s raw and honest and not like he’s proud but like he’s desperate.

Len swallows, feeling suddenly opened out and exposed. Mick was always good at making him lose his footing.

“Right back at you, buddy.”

Mick laughs. “I’m just the muscle.”

“You’re better than that.”

“Oh yeah?” It’s like a challenge but Len swats it aside with a simple,

“Yeah. You’re my partner, asshole.”

Mick’s eyebrows draw together for a second and then he lays back down onto the couch. “Jesus this got sappy.”

Len could smack him upside the head for that. Instead he steps back and glares down at his… partner. “At least it’s not a heart to heart.”

Mick laughs. “Yeah. Those ain’t for guys like us.”

“Heartless,” he agrees with a smirk.

“Yeah.” Mick sounds sleepy, finally, eyes drifting closed. Len’s already sure he’s going to snore. He sighs and flicks off the light.

[ … ]

“I need a crew for a job.”

“Well hello to you too, Mick.”

Mick gives him a short look. “I got a job. I need a crew.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“And?”

“And I got out of the Heights three days ago.” He’s thirty-three and has vowed to never, ever, get sent back in there. It was for a robbery he was caught in the act of. With the aggravated assault charge on top of it, he’d had to hire a damn good lawyer to sweet talk the DA down and get him a half-decent plea. Thank god for good behavior and early parole.

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that maybe I don’t want to do another job right now, Mick.”

Mick stops and looks at him. He’s older now, they both are. Len hasn’t seen him in years, doing time at different times, not until yesterday when he walked into the bar. They’ve changed. They’re harder. Len sure as hell is, and he was hard to start.

He wonders if this time when Mick pulls his gun, that’ll really be the end of it. But Mick doesn’t pull his gun, at least not yet.

“It’s a good one,” Mick says instead. “Bank job.”

“Bank jobs are high risk – high security, high contingency expectations, dye in the cash.”

“I got a line on some money in transport.”

That – that could change things. But–

“I’m not interested.”

“You saying you’re out?”

Ah, now the guns’ll come out. He’s really glad he had the steak last night, but a little sad he didn’t splurge for the nicer cut.

“I’m saying,” he responds when Mick hasn’t pulled his gun yet, “it’s too soon. The heat’s on me right now. Parole.”

“The heat’s always on.”

“Not like this.”

“I’ve got seven warrants out for me right now, Snart. What’ve you got? A whole lotta clean ticket outta town?”

“Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you’re out?”

“No.”

“Then what’s going on, Snart?”

“Thought you didn’t like heart to hearts, Mick.”

It cuts through the tension.

“Gotta have a heart for that to work, buddy.” Mick gives him a half-grin. It’s dangerous, it always is now, has been for a decade. But it’s Mick, and he’s not about to kill Len, so he’ll take it.

“So drop it.”

“Tell me what you’re doing if you’re not doing this job.”

He should’ve known he couldn’t bluff off with Mick. “I’m still in the game. But I’m changing this. I have to up my game.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I never plan to go back,” he snarls, and even Mick looks surprised at his sudden ire. And then something slides into place on his face.

“Lewis?”

Len glares at his workbench. Mick stays quiet. The bastard can be more patient than Len when he needs to be, not that anyone gives him credit for it. Eventually, he sighs.

“Aggravated assault. Assault with a deadly weapon. Attempted robbery. He got locked up eight months ago.”

So much for no heart to hearts,but Mick just whistles. Len purses his lips, more calm.

“I’m not going back in there.”

“You won’t have to, buddy.”

“No. I won’t. Not if we start doing things my way.”

“Your way?”

He nods, and thinks about the job he really wants to do. It’s gonna take months to plan, he knows. But he did just admit how patient Mick could be. Time to test that.

“You familiar with the Central City diamond exchange?”

[ … ]

He’s forty-two and fucking tired.

Mick’s locked in the brig and everything is so fucked up in this brave new world of metahumans and time travel and so much shit that Len can hardly believe it’s his life anymore.

The one thing that was supposed to stay solid was him and Mick. He fucked that up ten ways to Sunday though and he knows it. So does Mick.

“What’d’you want?” Mick growls as soon as he sees Len. Len can’t really blame him. He schools his own nerves. This won’t be pretty.

“People seem to think we should have a heart to heart.”

“We don’t have hearts. Where does that leave us?”

It’s automatic, but there’s no warmth in it. Mick remembers, but he doesn’t care. That might make this easier, really. Len pushes on. “I’ve got a dozen reasons for killing you.You’ve got a dozen and one for killing me, so.”

“All the talk in the world is not gonna change a thing.”

“Exactly, here’s my proposal. I open this cell, we let our fists do the talking.”

It wouldn’t be the first time, but this is different and they both know it.

“When I kill you?”

He doesn’t hesitate, ready with that answer. “You take the jump ship, make your escape, live out the rest of your life anywhere you like.”

“Hmm.” Mick looks to be considering it. “And if you kill me, well, it’s better than being locked up in this place like some kind of circus freak.”

It’s a courtesy and they both know it. Len’s never been able to beat Mick in a fair fight.

“I take that as a yes?”

“Sound the bell.”

They’ve never been good at talking. They never did figure it out, how to have a real heart to heart. They weren’t built for it.

So it’s strange to try and figure it out now, when Len’s taken the beating of his life, ready to die on the cold and unforgiving metal of the Waverider’s floor under Mick’s ever-steady (but not now, they’re shaking now) hands.

“It’s what you wanted…”

He could cry but he can’t remember how, most of the time. He was ready to die. To do anything to make things right again. He’s been ready for Mick to kill him for a decade, for longer maybe. Always thought it might come down to it, one day, the margin razor thin.

But Mick doesn’t know what he wants and Len can’t fix that. He knows. He wants his partner back. He’d turn back time if he could. The irony doesn’t escape him.

[ … ]

Their destinies aren’t their own, their lives haven’t been their own, and Mick’s knocking out Raymond Palmer, of all people, to take his place at the Occulus.

Because that’s the kind of man Mick is, has always been, underneath it all. Not a puppet, not a bruiser, not an arsonist. The kind of guy to help a scared kid at juvie not get shanked just because he happened to walk by at the right time. The kind of guy to take a hit for someone else and not think twice, just because.

Len doesn’t have the time, and if he did he still wouldn’t have the words. Still hasn’t learned that skill, though here at the end, part of him wishes he had figured it out. It won’t matter soon.

He says goodbye to his old friend and proves, here at the end, that at least he deserved some of it, what Mick gave him. At least he could earn it here.

He was always sneaky and mean, but he always had a heart.

#dccoldwave #my writing #redhead vs. writing #legends of tomorrow #long post #long post for ts #sorry if you're on mobile #and ahahahahahaha *sob crying*#oops it's angsty #prompts #accidental writing reply #i have other asks i should be answering but noooo #i had to spent 90 minutes writing angsty coldwave shit ffs #my brain is dumb #Anonymous #replies #tumblr drabbles

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