gay sw*fties watch bly manor and are all “take me to the lakes” this, “champagne problems” that… what about ivy dot mp3?? what about oh, goddamn???
thinking about dani running into the lake after viola and taylor singing “i’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones” (but also jamie following her there. jamie who is always there to meet her)
thinking about dani saying “it’s you, it’s me, it’s us” and taking viola and all her centuries of pain inside her while jamie stands horrified at the shore, and taylor singing “oh, goddamn / my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand / taking mine, but it’s been promised to another” (but also thinking about jamie holding dani afterward as she shakes and can’t stop repeating the words, knowing dani has just promised herself, her mind, her body, her soul, to the lady of the lake)
dani describing the feeling of viola inside her like a dense, overgrown jungle with a beast that’s waiting for her, dani waking up realizing that viola’s in control, and taylor singing “oh, i can’t / stop you putting roots in my dreamland” (but then thinking about jamie and dani building a flower shop and a home and a life together, a life neither of them ever dreamed they could have, about them putting down roots, about dani literally hiding a ring in the roots of a plant. about dani’s hand on jamie’s shoulder as she sleeps.)
jamie at the lake the first time watching dani the moment she invites viola in, and taylor singing “i wish to know / the fatal flaw that makes you long to be / magnificently cursed.” jamie telling the story to the children and talking about how selfless dani was, how she chose to take on this curse to save everyone else. (but also dani’s face every time jamie tells her, over and over, that she’s here to stay. the shock of it, that jamie would take this burden on as well when she doesn’t need to)
jamie staring into dani’s eyes, one blue and one now brown, knowing that viola is always there, always watching, and taylor singing “he’s in the room / your opal eyes are all i wish to see / he wants what’s only yours” (but again thinking about the beast in the jungle, about dani saying “she’s waiting, and at some point she’s gonna take me.” thinking about mixing up love and possession)
jamie reassuring dani that they have so many years left together, even as dani tells her that one day viola will inevitably take her, and taylor singing “i’d live and die for moments that we stole / on begged and borrowed time / so tell me to run / or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become.” thinking about what could have been if they had been able to change the ending, what they could have become if they had been able to learn to coexist with viola.
thinking about how hard they all fought, all three of them, just to survive, to make it through every single day of their lives together, and thinking about taylor singing “it’s a war. it’s the goddamn fight of my life and you started it”
thinking about that final image that jamie sees of dani at the bottom of the lake, sinking into a bed of plants that are almost swallowing her, and thinking about taylor singing “my house of stone, your ivy grows / and now i’m covered in you.” and then thinking about the life that jamie and dani built together. about jamie saying people aren’t worth the effort, but dani is. about moonflowers growing in vines that climb up an iron gate.
more generally, though… thinking about folklore and telling ghost stories and “passed down like folk songs / our love lasts so long,” and (for)evermore and being haunted by ghosts forever, even as the pain fades away. thinking about ghost stories and love stories and how they’re the same thing, really.