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oneweekoneband · 3 years

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meet me behind the mall!!!!!!!!!

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I don’t know why Taylor Swift thinks that teenagers drink wine, and I don’t know why she chose to record and release a wistful high-school-other-woman song which left me feeling naked as a frog and therefore furious. Some questions we ask only so as to be soothed by the familiar sound of our own voice, still there after all. The answers are not coming.

The Taylor Swift Teen Love Triangle Triad of “cardigan”, “august”, and “betty” is the part of folklore that makes me most bullish about where Taylor is going as an artist. A turn away from writing songs which are intentionally meant to appear confessional and toward, instead, songs which reveal the personal as refracted through fictitious circumstances and made-up characters is a better use of her big, weird brain, and allows that brain to be unleashed on a broader plain of experience. It’s incredibly embarrassing to be an adult woman with my own problems to manage and to have living in my head Taylor Swift’s demented YA fiction, but it’s an embarrassment that feels appropriate, like I could never really have escaped this fate. On “betty” she gets to play-act as a contrite teen boy who knows he’s done wrong, and while obviously the most charming thing about the song is Taylor saying “fuck” (and also her giving us a little of the ol’ razzle dazzle by way of some light twang), her experiment with imagining what it’s like to be a skateboarding kid who hates dances, trying on an imagined teen boy interiority as a costume, is effective too.

“cardigan” is more removed, less plaintive and shouty. This is a song from adult Betty’s perspective looking back on this period in her life and in her relationship with James, who the song seems to imply she is still with now. While—full offense—I believe marrying your high school girlfriend or boyfriend is a disorder which should have its own listing in the DSM, restoring order by putting the original couple back together so as to make the story one of true love triumphing over adversity, rather than a series of sketches of kids doing fuckup kid things just because it is not easy to be alive and to be alive alongside others and with gentleness, least of all when you are very new at it, is the only conclusion this saga could ever have reached with Ms. Swift at its helm, and I do appreciate the consistent, if baby-brained, internal logic. I’ve never known a teenage girl whose signature garment was a cardigan and, frankly, this Betty sounds like sort of a self-absorbed drip (I do love, love, how Taylor’s own voice comes through so clearly on the lightly threatening, smug lines, “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired / And you’d be standing in my front porch light” !!) so I’m not totally surprised she got cheated on, but that’s very uncharitable of me and probably comes from the same meaty polyp in my brain that is responsible for my still loving all the hilariously mean-spirited, woman-hating songs on Speak Now.

“august” is about the other girl. The “her” in James’ rather pathetic defense, “slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long”. “august” tells a story that brings to my mind another story. It is a story I won’t belabor because it is neither exciting nor unique. It will not illuminate an unexplored human experience, as it is, in fact, incredibly boring, regular, an incident which would be at home in any normal Tuesday, ordinary as meeting at the mall. This is a million years ago and there is a boy whose basement I go to sometimes after swim practice. We have matching team sweatpants with our names embroidered above the pocket at the right hip and I like to switch pairs. I’m you and you’re me and when we have pushed and bent the tiredness out of our muscles together, making experimental declarations in hushed voices down there while the furnace groans, well, then I’m you and me and you’re you and me and we are we are we are.

One February day at twilight I bound out of the school building with wet hair and a fleece jacket, but his car is already gone. No worries. Standing at my locker the next afternoon like in a movie he will say, easy as anything, that he has a girlfriend, a family friend, two towns over, she goes to private school. You’ve probably met her, he says. And right then I remember that I have. Last year I did her zipper in the bathroom at a dance. We were fighting but we never really broke up, he says. For months you’ve been fighting? is all I say back. Fighting since October? As if that matters. Like that’s the point. My voice is pinched and ugly and I know I’ll hear that sound forever. Well, anyway... I feel bad. He doesn’t clarify for whom he feels bad. He’s got one sneaker toe working against the other one atop the tile floor that’s the murky green of sea glass. He looks at my St Brigid’s cross necklace, at the blue Masterlock hanging open like a broken jaw, at someone in a hoodie who punches his shoulder as they walk by. Nothing personal, he says, and there is a tiny smudge of cafeteria pizza at the corner of his mouth that I hadn’t noticed until that second and a day ago would’ve reached up and wiped away with the pad of my thumb, laughing. I get it, right? Oh, sure.

The worst of it was not skipping pre-calc to cry in the bathroom, since, I mean, I couldn’t actually do pre-calc and would never learn how, but was inspecting my soul in the dark when I couldn’t sleep that night and finding part of me had known this all along, had chosen to pretend, wanted the wanting so badly I’d knocked from my brain the truth of how it was going to end. This would not be the last false love from which I’d find myself unceremoniously discarded, and in time I’d learn to be the liar myself, too. It’s unseemly to pathologize bad decisions, to take on poor impulse control or self-destructive patterns as an identity, but I do think that just as some people are born serial monogamists, part of a twosome forever with very little mess in-between, some of us were built from the very first cell to live like a pool ball struck and banging teeth first into the wrong mouths and hearts. I can examine my romantic history and tap my finger against the obvious errors, the times I chose what I knew would hurt me, when I ascribed hope to situations where it did not belong, when I, like the narrator of “august”, regarded someone as not mine to lose but still put myself in the position to be harmed by the losing, yet I can’t produce alternative choices that feel realistic. If you are in love and it doesn’t work out, there is mourning, there is pain, but there is all the while a record which shows something happened, it was real. “august” stands somewhat apart in the Taylor Swift catalog as a song neither about the glory of true love or the heartbreak when it’s over, but about the small, paper cut heartbreaks that are inescapable during each day of an untrue love. “It was never mine”. When it turns out you were wrong the whole time, fooling yourself, then even remembering that you’d been happy in the lie is like being trapped in a fun house, body bent and broken in the mirror, a thing not built right for this world.

“august” is about the girl who James was with over the summer, the girl he leaves to return to Betty. Taylor said it’s the first of the three that she wrote, and I fear this has warmed me to her in some new and unsettling way. I fear this means she’s matured as a person and writer, capable now of a more expansive view of situations, to be generous. It’s like how you shouldn’t feed gremlins after midnight; there is no telling what new and more dangerous creature this woman might turn into if she’s suddenly been taught empathy. When Taylor-as-James in “betty” sings, “Would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing?” in his effort to woo Betty back I hate him a little, that thoughtless child undeserving of the kind of adoration in lines like, “your back beneath the sun / wishing I could write my name on it.” I try to extend grace to this fictional boy, but I think of the “Do you remember? in “august” and I feel a little sick from being so certain that no... No, he doesn’t. Not really.

“Back when we were still changing for the better / wanting was enough / for me it was enough”. I’d like to think there is no last chance to change for the better. I’d like to think wanting is enough so long as you want the right thing. I’d like to think that God made sure Taylor Swift became a singer instead of a young adult novelist because the absolute last thing this world needed was this freak joining the circus that is YA Twitter. Most of all, I like thinking that Judy Blume knows that her beautiful, searing, devastatingly romantic and also textually gay 1998 novel Summer Sisters is the only important book that has ever been published, and, further, that the world will show me the respect of understanding and accepting that “august”, when removed from the context of the Swiftian child romance trilogy, sounds as if it were specifically written in homage. Taylor, I know I’ve accused you of at least fifty crimes this week alone, but if you want to talk about Summer Sisters, please get in touch.

#taylor swift #folklore

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snowsheba · 7 years

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prompt week 1-1

Prompt: Pharah finds out that Jesse pointed a gun at Hana. Despite Hana (and potentially others, like Tracer, Zenyatta, and Mercy) trying to stop her, she confronts Jesse about it. Amidst their "discussion," the conversation turns from Pharah and Jesse arguing the morality of interrogating a fellow teammate to a full blown discussion between whether Overwatch or Blackwatch was the better organization (since Pharah and Jesse are, in some ways, the personifications of OW and BW). After the discussion ends, Jack and Ana comment on how right or wrong Pharah and Jesse are, though they simply talk among themselves and do not offer their opinions to the rest of OW.

Submitted by NemoTheSurvivor (@nemothesurvivor) via patreon

“Jesse McCree!”

Jack abruptly stops speaking and glances over to the far side of the dining hall, and Ana follows his gaze to see her daughter stalking towards the man in question. It looks like she’s gearing up for a fight, and when Jack gives a swift glance to her, Ana merely shakes her head and puts an index to her lips. She’s known both of them long enough to trust Fareeha and Jesse to talk it out with words, not fists, and she’s even more curious to see what the discussion is about when Hana darts into the room after her, babbling something at Fareeha and grabbing onto her sleeve, her arm, futilely trying to tug her backwards.

“Ree,” Jesse says, looking entirely nonplussed. Ana watches him sit up, letting the datapad in front of him fall flat onto the table with a clatter. “Hana. What’s up?”

“What’s up is the fact that Hana just told me – ”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, we talked it through already, it’s – ”

“No, Hana, it’s not fine,” Fareeha says, sharp and cold, and Hana falls silent. Jack tenses at the way she seems to fold into herself, just a little, and Ana doesn’t know how the two of them came to know each other so well, but Hana looks over reflexively at him as Fareeha shouts, “You pointed a gun at your own teammate, Jesse! What the hell is wrong with you?”

This isn’t news to Ana – Jack had told her before this – so she only exchanges a glance with him as Hana cuts in again, “Would you listen to me? I am not a child! You don’t need to confront him about this, we – ”

“Nah, it’s okay, darlin’,” Jesse says, holding up a hand, and Hana gives him a peeved look. Fareeha is still glaring expectantly at him, and he says, “She tell you about the circumstances of when that happened, Ree?”

“Yes,” Hana says, exasperated, “Obviously, but – ”

“That doesn’t excuse your actions,” Fareeha hisses. “If you wanted information from your own goddamn teammate, you don’t shoot them.”

“I shot him, actually,” Hana says.

“Self-defense, and you didn’t hit him,” Fareeha says harshly, waving a hand, and then, “Explain yourself, Jesse!”

“I never actually did threaten to shoot her beyond vague implications,” Jesse says, and that’s clearly when Hana gives up, turning on her heel and stalking out of the room with a shake of her head. She spares both Jack and Ana a wave before she goes, at least, one that Jack returns with a nod and Ana with a smile, and Jesse goes on, “And anyway, it turned out fine, yeah? Hana can hold her own, I’ll tell ya that.”

“Stop evading the question!”

Jesse raises an eyebrow, tilting his head. “You didn’t ask a question.”

“Do you not understand that what you did was wrong?” Fareeha says without pause, hands fisting at her sides. “You’re just going to sweep it under the rug and say it’s fine because Hana says it’s fine?”

Jesse blinks. “Yeah?”

“In what circumstance do you think it’s actually fine, Jesse?” Fareeha snaps. “She might say so, but in what world would that be true? She trusted you and you pointed a gun at her.”

Put like that, it sounds terrible. Jesse is unfazed. “It was unloaded.”

“But how was she supposed to know that? You threatened her, and what if she hadn’t fought back? What if she’d actually told you what you wanted?” Fareeha steps into his space now but he refuses to stand, remaining seated and keeping his body language relaxed and open. Blackwatch training, Ana thinks; she’s done covert ops and stealth missions, but Jesse’s trained under the best. “You would have scared her, Jesse. You would have made her never trust Overwatch as a whole the same way again.”

A good point. Everyone who has answered the recall, and even those who are new, are aware that Hana’s strongest ties are with Jack, and where she goes, Jack follows. The same applies vice versa, even though others have slowly begun building rapport with Hana; if Jesse’s threats had actually worked, it’s doubtful she would let herself grow close to anyone except agents who were not in the previous iteration of Overwatch.

And Jack, obviously. Ana pretends she doesn’t see how tense he is, and privately she’s grateful that he and Hana found each other when they did. They’ve made each other stronger, intentionally or not.

“It was worth that risk,” Jesse says, and now he’s warming up to the argument a little. “One person’s agency versus the knowledge that the old commander was still alive? That meant better leadership, better control, better understanding of how to proceed.”

“You had no idea whether Jack would be willing to do that. – And he isn’t right now, even.” Fareeha lifts a leg to stomp it down on the bench, leaning on her knee as she pushes even further into his space. “And what if he hadn’t been Jack? You’d sacrifice Hana’s well-being for a hunch?”

“Yes,” Jesse says, and Ana knows he’s had to make tougher calls than that. “It mattered to know Morrison’s identity, because Soldier: Seventy-six was an enigma. What if he’d gone rogue? What if Morrison had been compromised? What if he worked with Talon? He put us all in danger, and yes, Ree, I would sacrifice one agent to save the rest in a heartbeat. That’s how it works.”

“That’s how it works in Blackwatch,” Fareeha snarls.

To Jesse’s credit, he doesn’t even blink, and Ana is slightly impressed despite herself. Instead he says, quietly, “That’s how reality works, Ree.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t used to be such a pessimist,” Fareeha says, and Ana thinks, he’s always been honest and cold-hearted, though, because that’s how you survive the moral quandaries Blackwatch slogged through.

“Maybe not,” Jesse says, “But that’s how wars are won.”

“We are not at war, Jesse,” Fareeha says; “We are a team, and if we are not a cohesive unit, then we might as well sign our death warrants right here and now, and you would have destroyed that in one fell swoop.”

“With the alternative being never knowing that Jack’s intentions were,” Jesse replies, and he’s kept his voice level and smooth this entire time, no heat whatsoever. “I evaluated the risks, Fareeha. I did what I had to.”

“You didn’t have to do anything,” Fareeha snaps. “You didn’t have to point a gun at a girl who’s spent three years fighting an impossible threat – you, a friend, someone she trusted, didn’t have to threaten harm or worse just to get at what you wanted to know.” A few years ago and Ana knows Fareeha would be punching him; now she only seethes, but it has the same effect, because Jesse is finally starting to look a bit defensive. “You wanted justice? You’re lucky you didn’t send Hana running.”

“Like she’d ever leave Jack’s side,” Jesse scoffs, and he’s evading.

“And Jack would leave with her,” Fareeha spits. “If she truly felt threatened here, there is no doubt, and then we would be down two of our agents and everyone would look at you and not see the amiable cowboy but a killer. Is that what you want?”

“With all due respect,” Jesse says, flat, “They wouldn’t be wrong.”

“Don’t make this about you and your goddamn issues,” Fareeha snarls. “Did you even apologize? Do you even realize how illegal that was? Have you and Hana actually talked about it?”

“Yes, yes, no,” Jesse says dutifully, and now it’s clear he’s just looking to end this discussion as soon as possible. Ana’s not even sure if the pair of them are aware of Jack and herself sitting across the room, silent and stately observers.

“Did you do this all the time in Blackwatch?” Fareeha demands, and when one of her hands reaches out, maybe to grab his serape or something, he bats her away with a well-timed bend of his elbow. “This is how you got information you thought you absolutely needed? Lined up a shot to shoot your friends in the head?”

“Don’t go lecturin’ me about Blackwatch, Ree,” Jesse says, and now he’s gone quiet again. Poking at a soft spot; Ana grimaces when she and Jack exchange yet another glance, and he goes on, “We did what we had to, and sure, I’ll admit there were better ways and I should’ve done what happened with Hana differently, but what’s done is done. Don’t bring up what’s gone.”

“What about Overwatch, huh?” Fareeha says. “Did you not even think of consulting anyone from Overwatch first? Couldn’t have talked to Angela first, or any of the others on the team – ”

“Who do you think got the intel Overwatch used, Fareeha?” Jesse says, and when he sits up tall, Fareeha is not cowed, instead baring her teeth. Their faces are mere inches apart. “If they couldn’t get what they needed, they sent us in, and we did what we fuckin’ had to – ”

“You’re avoiding the entire point, you absolute shithead – ”

“Ask Overwatch? Sure, and do what? Take forever, that’s what, and that’s time wasted, and I’m used to operatin’ alone, and I needed to do it fast because Soldier: Seventy-six might start doin’ shit before we were ready and yes, I was wrong, Fareeha, but – ”

“We don’t have Blackwatch anymore for a goddamn reason!” Fareeha shouts, and now they’re both standing, Fareeha ready to throw a punch, Jesse ready to duck and run, mirroring snarls on their faces, “You’re just so used to ‘operating’ the way you’re used to that you couldn’t accept change and actually ask for help from someone who would have a better way of – ”

“Is that what this is about?” Jesse growled. “This some greater moral discussion about Blackwatch and Overwatch? Because I can tell you now, that ain’t somethin’ you’ll get to talk about so easily – ”

“I’m not here to argue which one is better, are you even listening to what I’m saying – ”

“Because the whole ‘holier-than-thou’ shtick gets old real fuckin’ quick, and I’m not here to rehash what – ”

“I don’t give a shit about any of that right now, the entire point of this discussion is the fact that – ”

“Just drop it, Ree, this ain’t somethin’ that’ll end well for – ”

“This is about you holding a gun in Hana’s face and threatening to kill her if she didn’t talk!” Fareeha screams.

Jesse is silent. Fareeha is breathing hard, expression twisted into one of fury, and Ana holds carefully still, as does Jack, as the two stare daggers at each other, one braced for a fight, another braced for a flight.

“I didn’t actually point it at her face,” Jesse says at last. Quiet. Relenting. “Or her at all.”

“Don’t,” Fareeha says, holding up an open palm. “Don’t, Jesse. We all know you could shoot everyone in this room in the time it takes you to blink.”

He sighs. Slowly the tension dissipates, a stream of water slowly flowing down a hill, and he says, “Yeah. I know.”

“You need to make it up to her.”

“And you and I need to talk about Blackwatch,” Jesse says. “You’re old enough by now, anyway.”

“I’ve been old enough for years, asshole,” Fareeha bites back, anger still humming underneath her words. “You’ve just been cagey and avoided me.”

“And you’ve been busy with work, and I’ve been on the run,” Jesse points out, and he narrows his eyes are her. “Stop it, Ree. Let’s just – not do this right now, okay? Take a break, reconvene later to talk and not scream.”

“Only if you apologize to Hana,” Fareeha says. “Properly. Then I’ll get off your back, and then we can argue morals, and then whatever happens, happens. Good enough for you?”

“Ain’t got much of a choice, considerin’,” Jesse says, and there’s a bit of a staring contest until they reach out and shake hands and Ana would laugh if they weren’t grown-ass adults fully capable of hurting each other.

“You’re the absolute worst brother a girl could ask for,” Fareeha grumbles.

“Could’ve told you that myself,” Jesse quips, and there’s no laughter – not yet, the words still fresh and cutting – but she follows him when he goes to the kitchen to put away his dishes, and then out of the dining hall to find Hana, presumably. Neither of them spare Ana or Jack a glance, which doesn’t surprise her. Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve argued in public, though it had been one of the more explosive ones.

“Been a while since I’ve seen Fareeha that worked up,” Jack says after a minute passes in silence.

“Been a while since Jesse’s gotten that defensive,” Ana echoes, and Jack hums in agreement. “Interesting points, though. It isn’t easy to shake off years of training.”

“And Gabe was a very good teacher,” Jack agrees, and they mull on that for a while. It’s true, to say the least; there was a reason he’d been an excellent commander of the strike team that helped end the Omnic crisis, and later the commander of Blackwatch, and that was because of his tactical skill and understanding that there is always a price to be paid. “Guess Fareeha never really had to come to terms with the dichotomy between the two, though.”

“She is military,” Ana says, only to concede, “But Overwatch was another beast entirely.”

“Overwatch couldn’t function without Blackwatch,” Jack says, “But the opposite isn’t true. And not a lot of people recognize that.”

“You didn’t, not for a while,” Ana points out, a hint of a smile on her face.

“But both you and Gabe were pretty damn quick to remind me,” he counters, and they both laugh a little at that, though Jack sobers quickly. “Still, fair points. Blackwatch was blamed for a lot of things, and rightfully so, you know?”

“True,” Ana says. “Gabriel took the fall for all of us.” She frowns at that, suddenly struck with a thought. “You don’t think...”

“What?” Jack says.

“Gabriel took the fall for all of us,” Ana repeats slowly, and then, “You, McCree, Genji, everyone in Blackwatch and most of the people in Overwatch.” She shakes her head. “Perhaps I’m thinking too much into this, but I wonder. It was obvious Overwatch was going to fall near the end, no?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, and then, drawing the same connection as she had, “You don’t think Gabriel really did have something to do with it?”

“Not in the way the public thinks,” Ana says; “What if he’d done it on purpose? Keep everyone’s names clean but his? Ensure you survived, and wipe the slate completely clean?”

Jack purses his lips. “I wouldn’t put it past him to martyr himself like that. And he always did like philosophy. Poems.”

“We’ll never really know unless he tells us,” Ana says with a sigh. “And that’s not likely to happen.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Jack says quietly, and finally takes a sip from his forgotten cup of coffee. Ana’s tea has long since grown cold, and she leaves it untouched for now.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Jack,” Ana says. He grunts in assent, returning to the datapad on the table, and Ana closes her eyes and shakes her head. It doesn’t really matter now – what’s done is done. There’s a vague sense of curiosity, though, and eventually she asks, “Do you think Jesse was right?”

“About what?” Jack says, flicking idly at the datapad.

“About Blackwatch. About Overwatch. How the methods used were necessary.”

Jack is silent for a few moments. “Maybe,” he says at last. “Gabe always thought so.”

“And you trusted him.” Jack nods, and Ana can accept that. “As did I. I suppose we’ll never know.”

“Philosophy is not my strong suit,” Jack agrees, and she has to laugh at that as she stands up to get herself a fresh cup of warm tea.

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#prompt week 1 #nemothesurvivor #overwatch #fic #thank you!!! <3

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