jupiter 🖤

“Love hang herself

With the bedsheets in her cell

Threw myself on fires for you

Ten good reasons to stay alive

Ten good reasons that I can’t find”

Both Louis and Legs doom themselves, to some extent, in their own deaths. Louis stays in a town as discontent and suspicion grows. He LITERALLY threw himself on fire for Owen. But in the end, his love for Owen wasn’t enough to break his own morals to fight back. Legs, on the other hand, quite literally killed himself with a third party. The third line instead refers for the humans in town, who he died for.

“Oh, give me a reason to be beautiful

So sick in his body so sick in his soul

Oh, give me one reason to be beautiful

Oh and everything I am”

The first line of the chorus is about Louis. The sick and lowly lumberjack finds somebody, somebody, and it’s beautiful and a reason to move forward. The second is about his vampirism, and his personhood. He’s ill as a human, and then he’s turned and (especially in his case) has to deal with this curse. But more than that, his grief makes him a twisted person. He’s cruel and mean and sick in the soul. The third line is that continued search for Louis, post massacre, where he can truly find no reason to move on. In his horrible, beautiful suffering.

“Love hates you

I lived my life in ruins for you

And for all your secrets kept

I squashed the blossom and the blossoms dead”

After his crash out, Owen vows to become Louis’ teeth and claws. Even though he knew that Louis was nonviolent, he still carries out violence in his name. In Legundo’s case, it describes the episode 6 divorce. Owen continuously makes decisions that harm the humans, despite caring about at least one of them. But Legs, who was supposed to be trusted about Louis, squished their blossoming relationship by utilizing his name. So the attachments gone, and Owen makes sure it’s dead.

“Miles and miles of perfect skin

I swear, I said, I fit right in

I fit right in your perfect skin

I cannot breathe”

Owen fails to become the person he dreamed about being with Louis after his death, and Louis’ legacy suffocates him. These lyrics also work for The Constant Bloodletting Struggle (TM) of trying to get the other to flip sides. You could fit in, you could be perfect. And your path is your undoing.

“Oh and everything I am will be bought and sold

Oh and everything I am will turn hard and cold.”

The first line is about the promise for a better life. Both Louis and Legs promise Owen the idea of happiness, through either vampirism or trying to be a better person. And that idea is planted in Owen’s head, it’s believed. But Louis dies, and so does that happy life. And Legs breaks his trust, so why bother with redemption?

“And they say in the end

You’ll get bitter just like them

And they steal your heart away

When the fire goes out you better learn to fake

It’s better to rise the fade away”

OKOK STAY WITH ME this verse is about how Owen’s behavior evolved and grows cruel to be no better than the townsfolk that killed Louis. They hurt him and he sours, he grows violent. And then he proceeds to lie to himself about this fact until he dies. Also works beautifully with bloodletting. Legs gets turned and gets so close to becoming the man he once was, but chooses to give up instead. Lose the leg, yadayadayada.

“Hey, you were right

Named a star for your eyes

Did you freeze did you weep

Turn to gold baby, sleep

Hey, honey mine

I was there all the time”

With all the ways Owen puts Louis/Legs on a pedestal, he never really tried to follow their preachings (albeit, Louis never spoke once, but we can assume he valued kindness, open mindedness, and nonviolence). So when they see each other in the afterlife, heaven or hell, he freezes, cries maybe. But Louis never left. Legs didn’t give up on him until the bitter end.

“And I weep at your feet

And it rains and rains”

Apologizing to Louis does nothing. He’s dragged to hell anyways. (Same w Legs. He can apologies all he wants in hell, but it won’t bring Louis back :) )

I think this song is very Owen, Louis and Legundo at the same time.

We start the song with these lyrics: "Love hangs herself/ With the bedsheets in her cell/ Threw myself on fires for you/10 good reasons to stay alive/10 good reasons that I can't find"

I feel like these specific lyrics read as either the massacre of Oakhurst by the hands of Owen "Love hangs herself with the bedsheets in her cell" is Louis letting the town kill him and not fighting to be alive. "Threw myself on fires for you" feels like Owen trying to save Louis. He would burn himself alive, destroy everything around him, and throw himself into the flames if it meant protecting the one person he loved. "10 good reasons to stay alive / 10 good reasons that I can't find" feels like those reasons were always Louis. They were Owen's reason to keep going, his reason to exist, his reason to believe there was still something good left in the world. But once Louis was gone, those reasons disappeared with him.

The next set of lyrics are:

"Oh, give me a reason to be beautiful/So sick in his body so sick in his soul/Oh, give me one reason to be beautiful/Oh, and everything I am"

I feel like this continues with Owen. It's almost like he is begging some cruel god he doesn't believe in to give him a reason to be beautiful, a reason to believe he can be more than what he has become.

He is sick in his own body and sick in his soul. He is searching for one reason, just one, to feel normal again. To feel like he is still capable of being loved, of being something other than a monster.

"Love hates you/I live my life in ruins for you/ And for all your secrets kept/I squashed the blossom and the blossom's dead"

"Love hates you" feels like what Owen believes about love itself. He finally found love, something he had never truly had before, only for it to be violently ripped away from him.

He is living his life in ruins for Louis. He became the teeth and claws that Louis never asked him to be, but Owen did it because he loved him. He destroyed himself and everything around him because protecting Louis became the only thing he knew how to do.

"For all your secrets kept / I squashed the blossom and the blossom's dead" could represent Owen keeping the secrets between him and Louis, especially Louis being a vampire, by destroying the very thing that could expose them: Oakhurst itself. The "blossom" could represent the town, something that was once alive and growing, but was crushed under the weight of their secrets.

I also really love how you used "I squashed the blossom and the blossom's dead" for Legundo as well. It fits him in a different way: Legundo is the one who squashes the blossoming feelings between himself and Owen by using Louis's name and everything that comes with it.

At the same time, I think Owen himself had been trying to squash those feelings from the beginning. He couldn't allow himself to love Legundo because, in his mind, he could only ever love Louis. Even the possibility of something new had to be destroyed because he was still holding onto what he had lost.

I really love the next set of lyrics and their parallels:

"Oh, and everything I am/Miles and miles of perfect skin/I swear I do, I fit right in/My love burns through everything"

With this, it feels like Owen is trying to live the life Louis wanted for him.

Louis wanted Owen to be normal. To be loved. To experience life instead of just surviving it. He wanted to teach Owen how to exist beyond violence and fear.

So Owen promises him that he will fit in. That he will become what Louis always wanted him to be.

However...

"I cannot breathe/Miles and miles of perfect sin/I swear, I said, I fit right in/I fit right in your perfect skin/I cannot breathe"

Owen cannot breathe.

The idea of existing without Louis is suffocating. He can try to become what Louis wanted, but he knows he can never truly fit in with humans, not after what they did to him, not after what they did to Louis.

But these lyrics can also apply to Legundo.

Legundo will fit in, but not as the soldier who killed thousands of innocents. He wants to be seen as the doctor who saved hundreds of lives. He wants to believe he can become someone better.

But the weight of those deaths follows him everywhere. He feels like anyone who looks at him can see the blood on his hands, not the blood from healing people, but the blood from the lives he took.

And these lyrics can even apply to Louis.

Louis wanted to be good. He wanted to be normal. He wanted to escape that cult-like life and build something with someone he loved.

He wanted a life where he could finally belong.

But he never did. He couldn't fit in, and eventually, they found out.

"Hey, baby, take it all the way down/Hey, baby, taste me anyway/Oh, you were born/So pretty oh, summer babe/We'll never know/And fading like a rose/Give me a reason to be beautiful"

For me, this part feels like Louis and Owen's relationship distilled into a few lines. It feels like Louis saying, "Baby, taste me anyway. Love me anyway. Take all of me, even the parts that are broken and ugly." There’s something so intimate about it, the idea of loving someone completely, even when they’re afraid they aren’t worth loving.

The lyrics "you were born, so pretty... we'll never know / and fading like a rose" especially make me think of Louis turning Owen into a vampire, but never getting the chance to see who Owen would become afterward. Louis gave him this second life, but he died before he could see what that life would look like, before he could see the person Owen would grow into.