#ibytam

"Mr. Superior Thinkin, Do you have all the space that you need???"

I AM DONE!!! I actually finished a fic for once and it only took me a week? I'm so talented and beautiful and my crops are watered and-- (But seriously, I'm impressed with myself bc my mini, not very serious new years resolution was to finish One Fic. And I did that already. lmao.)

For so many reasons? Where do I even start? 😂

Because she looks incredible in it for starters even though we know there were ~things~ happening and it looks so lush. The wedding gown? The red gown? The cute little porter’s (?) uniform? Give me more!

When you think about it, the concept is kind of unhinged: woman haunts her ex to the point where he can’t get her out of his head at his wedding to another woman, only to ghost *him* when he finally gives in to the fantasy! That is a loaded metaphor right there.

Then you have the real-life lore that was already kind of eye-opening when Red TV came out, but is even more so now that we have The Manuscript — it’s a song written about her first serious love who did indeed play with her dreams of commitment (e.g. marriage/family) only to keep disappointing her and leave her feeling empty. Her getting the last laugh by ghosting HIM when he finally realizes what he’s lost is queen shit.

Then there’s an added layer to what we can surmise was happening in real life at the time, and while we obviously don’t know the whole story or can even assume what was going on in her head… Given that she wrote a storyboard where she spends much of the video in a wedding dress playing out a fantasy wedding (not necessarily her fantasy wedding, mind you) when a few months later she’d write “I wouldn’t marry me either, a pathological people pleaser who only wanted you to see her” — well, I’m not saying they’re related, but it’s an awfully pointed coincidence.

(Then there’s the behind the scenes video of her and Aaron playing Champagne Problems together in her house while being fitted for the wedding gown (?) … Whoo boy again not necessarily related but an awfully odd coincidence in hindsight.)

And then visually there’s some of my favourite direction, with all the contrast between the white of the wedding and the red of her alter ego coming in to ruin the grand affair. The way her wedding-guest persona at the kids’ table (!!!!) is too loud and vulgar for the “grown ups” around her, but she’s the only one clocking everyone’s asses.

(Like… Between ATW10MV with “you said if we’d been closer in age then maybe it would have been fine” and “he said that since she was so wise beyond her years everything had been above board” and the ATW short film scene where she feels impossibly young around her boyfriend’s friends implying that her youth was weaponized both to seduce her and then to leave her… Her being seated at the kids’ table as her court jester persona is both hilarious but also a deeper commentary on how she was dismissed within the relationship.)