wowbright | Falling is Like This - Author's Notes & Meta

(If you're looking for the story Falling Is Like This, you can find it here.)

Acknowledgements
Again, thanks to the encouragement of

stoney321, who looked at this story early on and told me to get into Blaine's head more. And mountains of indebtedness to the amazing

verdandil for gently guiding me on the right path, laughing at the parts I thought were funny, getting choked up at the parts I thought were sad, and telling me I write sexy French. Thanks also to

mary_flanner and

nielrian who, just by doing what they do on LiveJournal, got me writing again. I love you all.

My interpretation of Blaine in this story was probably more than a little influenced by

nielrian's Personality Typing Kurt and Blaine. And Blaine's identification with Ali McGraw in Love Story was influenced by a discussion in the comments section of one of

mary_flanner's journal entries. I'm betting

rm started it, but I'm not sure.

And thank you to anyone and everyone who has ever read or commented on my work, with criticism or praise, here or in another realm. It makes me certain that words matter and gives me the courage to write.

Song Credits
Fic title is from "Falling is Like This" by Ani DiFranco; Chapter 1 title is from "Friday I'm in Love" by The Cure; Chapter 2 title is from "On Tuesday" by Men Without Hats; Chapter 3 title from "It's Already Wednesday" by Freya; Chapter 4 title from "Thursday's Child" by Eartha Kitt; Chapter 5 title from "Friday Street" by Paul Weller.

I really wanted to call this story "Man He Looked Good When I Fell Down and Fucked Up His Hair" after a line in "On the Porch in the Rain" by Ben Connelly, because he is the best songwriter ever. The song is kind of perfect, because it's about the morning after a drunken party. But the title was a little too, um, specific, so I didn't. Sorry, Ben.

Why I Could Not Refrain from Writing This Story
Ever since it first aired, BIOTA has been an obsession of mine. I loved the pacing and the humor and I hated that last scene and how neatly it tied up the Rachel-Blaine-Kurt love triangle with Blaine's pat declaration of "I'm 100% gay." It seemed so abrupt. As a queer, I find it hard to imagine that anyone would start out a week saying, "I think I might be a different sexual orientation than I thought," only to decide conclusively by the end of the week that "Oh, that was totally a false alarm."

Something major had to have happened between the Kurt-Blaine fight at the Lima Bean and the end of the episode for Blaine to come to the conclusion he did – either that, or Blaine's confusion about his sexuality was really a mask for confusion about something else.

Or maybe both.

There was also the problem of the next episode, when Kurt and Blaine were right back to being besties. Really? After a fight like that? Had their conflict been solved by Blaine deciding he's gay? Because, if it was, their friendship really didn't have a leg to stand on. The only lesson Kurt would have learned from the fight is that, hey, he really can crush Blaine into subservience with the strength of his will. And Blaine would have learned that, "As long as I tell Kurt what he wants to hear, everything will be okay."*

BIOTA and even "Sexy" (2.15) left room to hold this interpretation as gospel truth. But the way the characters and friendship developed from there, it was clear that there had been some kind of healthy resolution to that "bi-bye" argument at the Lima Bean. I wanted to know what it was.

So I wrote this to make sense of canon for myself, and to help myself stop being mad at RIB for not writing the episode the way I would have. (Just for the record, Kurt wouldn't have been such an asshole, and Blaine would have ended the episode with, "Yup. Definitely bisexual. But 100% in love with Kurt Hummel.")

Gleeky, Wonky Thoughts I Had While I Wrote This Story
This section will probably only interest those who are truly obsessed with trying to make the Glee universe into something coherent. Or for those who want to understand the inner workings of my brain. So – maybe two people, if I include myself? (If you're not me or that one other person, feel free to scroll down to "Final Thoughts.")

As someone who is, at least for now, obsessed with staying canon-compatible, there were some interesting technical challenges to writing this piece. For example, at some point last season, I came to the conclusion that Kurt must be a boarder at Dalton, because he never seemed to have any clue about anything that was going on in Finn's life. How was that possible if they were living together?

But in BIOTA, we see Kurt in Lima (which is roughly 90 miles from Westerville, the home of Dalton) on two different evenings in the middle of the week (the "middle of the week" being implied by the episode's surrounding events).

I can imagine Kurt commuting 90 miles in the morning and 90 miles in the evening to go to school/work. (I prefer to think it's usually on an intercity bus, and not in his Navigator. That's a lot of miles for a gas-guzzler – but probably still cheaper than boarding.)

What I can't imagine is Kurt making that same 180-mile round-trip to spend a couple hours making a soufflé with his dad or to clean Rachel Berry's basement. If he boards at Dalton and wants to see Burt or Rachel that badly, he'll Skype them. Besides, Kurt was at Rachel's house at 10 p.m., which means – as a boarder – he wouldn't get back to Dalton until maybe midnight. There's no way Dalton's curfew is that late.

So, I had to scrap the hope than Kurt and Finn's mutual ignorance of each other's lives was due to Kurt boarding at Dalton. I'm hoping it's just that Kurt frequently missed family dinners thanks to his Warbler rehearsals and long commute.

Why did I decide that Blaine lives at Dalton? Because his parents can afford it. It's implied, when he transfers to McKinley, that his parents don't live far from Lima. So hypothetically, he could go to the same commuting lengths that Kurt does for his education. But Blaine doesn't have to, so he doesn't. And saves 3 hours a day of commute time. (Yeah, I really hope Kurt takes a bus so he can do homework on it. Or maybe he carpools with other impoverished kids from Lima?)

Of course, the distance between Westerville and Lima leaves the question as to how Kurt and Blaine's standing Friday afternoon coffee date at the Lima Bean can be at 3:30 p.m. I decided (though I didn't write it in the story) that the Lima Bean may not actually be in Lima, but in a southeastern suburb; and that Dalton isn't actually in Westerville, but in an unincorporated area slightly to the west and super-close to the interstate, so that the distance between them is maybe more like 70 or 80 miles instead of 90. I also decided that Dalton lets out early on Fridays so boarders can return home for the weekend.

So Blaine has coffee with Kurt at the Lima Bean on Fridays because it's on his way home, anyway. Why does Blaine go completely out of his way to meet Kurt at the Lima Bean on Mondays? Well, we all know, even if Blaine doesn't. (Wink, wink.)

I'm not sure where Blaine's date with Rachel was, but I'm sure it wasn't as far from Westerville as the Lima Bean. In my mind, that's part of the reason why, in my story, Blaine declines Rachel's invitation to the Lima Bean after the movie – it would take him farther from campus, and it's evening already, and he has the boredom of a long drive and the reality of curfew to think about. (Another part of the reason is that the Lima Bean is his sacred Kurt-space. Blaine may not be willing to acknowledge that, but it must be true on some level.**)

The other technical challenge was figuring out on what day each Klaine scene in BIOTA occurred. After I started this story, I sat down with a notepad and watched the episode with the primary goal of figuring out just that. First I made the wild assumption that all the scenes in the episode take place in chronological order. But it turns out they aren't. In the very first scene, Figgins tells Will that it's Alcohol Awareness Week. In the next scene, we flash back to a conversation that Rachel and Puck have the week before. Then there's the weekend party at Rachel's, and then we're back to Monday, the first day of Alcohol Awareness Week.

Given that, I had to get comfortable with a little ambiguity (like Kurt in this story, I can find ambiguity extremely difficult) and just decide what worked for me and what seemed a realistic progression for the characters. I decided that, at least for me, all the Kurt-centric scenes took place in chronological order, and then I fit them where they seemed to fit best, given that the fight was probably on Monday and Blaine's declaration of "I'm 100% gay" was probably on Friday.

Finally, I decided that the events of the episode took place on February 19-25, 2011, although I won't argue with anyone who thinks they took place February 26 – March 4, 2011. For the purposes of the "Falling Is Like This" universe, though, it was definitely February 19-25. I don't remember why I settled on it, but I felt I had to settle on something, because you know what? I am batshit crazy; I wanted to make sure my description of the Westerville, Ohio, weather on Tuesday was historically accurate. So I settled on a week and then I looked up historical weather data for Westerville, Ohio, for Tuesday, February 22, 2011.

I told you I'm batshit crazy!

Then I looked up the Lima, Ohio, weather for Feb. 24, 2011, to figure out if Kurt would have needed to pull a coat on over that sweater of his before storming out of the house, or just a hat and gloves. That was harder to figure out, because it was just above freezing that day in Lima – which, toward the end of a Midwestern winter, feels positively balmy – but the windspeed was anywhere between 8 and 14 miles per hour, depending on when Kurt stormed out. Eight would be tolerable in the sweater; 14 would not. Also, there was apparently rain that day in Lima, but how much and when it fell, I did not know. So I checked another source and it turns out the rain/snow was so negligible it couldn't be measured.

But what about the windspeed? Well, I realized Kurt wouldn't know the windspeed when he stepped out; he'd be going on what it was when he was last outside, and it was moderate then.

So that's why Kurt didn't put on a coat when he left the house after the sorta fight with his dad.

Also, because he was kind of flustered and didn't give it much thought. (Certainly not as much as I did.)

I thought about having the wind blow some static in the phone during Kurt's conversation with Blaine Thursday night. There's one point where Blaine thinks he hears Kurt sigh, and I'm pretty sure Blaine's right. But maybe it's a gust of wind.

So am I batshit crazy? Yes, I am. Because I'm pretty freakin' certain no one on the Glee crew has ever checked historical weather data for Ohio, much less where Westerville is on a map. Or if they did, they didn't let it bother them.

In conclusion, do RIB need to hire me as a fact checker? Yes, RIB do.

Character Meta
I'm going to try to not write too much character meta here. (I wasn't able to refrain from vomiting some character meta in the comments sections that follow each chapter. So you're free to browse through that if you want more.) I'm not opposed to talking about character meta if you have specific questions, but I'm also like, "That fic was 18,000 words of character meta, have mercy on your readers. They could not possibly want to hear any more."

Actually, I'd love to hear your character meta if you're willing to share.

The one thing I do want to say here is that, in Chapter 4, I am aware that some of what Kurt hears Burt say during their post-soufflé snafu doesn't quite match what Burt actually says in the episode. That's intentional.

Have you ever had this kind of argument with someone you love?:

A: "Please lock the door when you're done."
B: "Why do you think I would leave the door open?"
A: "I didn't say that."
B: "You don't think I know how do anything right, do you?"
A: "Now where did you get that idea?"
B: "Because you just said I'm too stupid to know when to lock the door."
A: "I never said you were stupid."
B: "Yes you did. You just did."

Yeah, well, it's kind of like that. Kurt gets panicky. Burt probably does, too.

Oh, and I Suppose I Should Say Something About My OC, and That's Going to Involve Blaine Meta
A lot of fic writers take Blaine's talkiness as a sign that he's super thinky, and some of these stories are among my faves.

But my Blaine is not super-thinky. He's not stupid – he's quite brilliant, actually – and he does think. But he's not like Kurt, who can spend endless hours gazing at his own navel and, in doing so, discover the meaning of life.

Blaine finds it much easier to figure things out when he's talking to someone else. He thrives on the energy of conversation, of bouncing ideas off of each other and discovering things together.

Which leads to a huge problem for this story. How was Blaine's character supposed to progress emotionally after the fight with Kurt if he couldn't talk to Kurt?

I could have had him talk to canon character. Thad seems nice, and Trent maybe has a little crush on Blaine and would listen to him talk about anything, no matter how heartbreaking. And fanon says that Nick and Jeff are dating – maybe one of them's bi? Now that would be convenient.

I wondered if maybe Blaine had a bi female friend from his old high school who he could call up – but, seriously, that would be a little too fucking convenient. Plus, if they weren't besties, wouldn't Blaine feel a little guilty calling her up because "hey, you're bi, you can explain this to me?" Um, tokenism. And if they were besties, well, again – isn't that a little too fucking convenient?

What about Blaine's mom? Well, my headcanon has an awesome Blaine's mom. She's a little different from

mary_flanner's Mrs. Blaine's Mom, but my headcanon still has this conversation happening between Blaine and his mom on Sunday afternoon. And after that, well, Blaine's pretty sure she doesn't want to hear a damn thing about Rachel, and that every time Kurt's name comes up, she's going to be all, "What the fuck, why aren't you two dating yet?" So, yeah, he can't talk to her about it.

While I was thinking on these things, Justin just kind of happened. If Blaine lives in a dorm, he has to have a roommate. If he has a roommate, he can't sit in his room pouting all the time without someone noticing. His roommate noticed. They started talking. Shit happened. The rest is history.

Cherry Chapstick
Yeah, Rachel wasn't wearing cherry Chapstick. You and I and Kurt all know that. Whatever she had on her lips, she got out of a lip gloss pot, and Chapstick doesn't make those. But I'm convinced the stuff she put on is fruit-flavored, because she likes wine coolers – so of course she'd like fruit-flavored lip balm.

Blaine didn't see her put the lip balm on, so he doesn't know it's not Chapstick. He just knows it tastes fruity, and being the Katy Perry fan he is (and since he was thinking of the song "I Kissed a Girl" in reference to Rachel earlier in the week), the first thing his mind jumps to is cherry Chapstick.

Plus, after all his drama this week, he needs something to laugh at. So I gave it to him.

Final Thoughts
I view the story as canon compatible. You may question my judgment on that, given Blaine's rudeness in "Sexy" and his seemingly sudden conversion to Kurt-love in "Original Songs." Well, I've got all kinds of headcanon that explains why what happens in those episodes is compatible with what happens in this story. I have notes and, barring brain damage or death, they will be fic one day.

If you like this story or hate it, wish it went more into some things and less into others, feel like it's missing a scene or that it should have gone in a different direction, you are welcome to make it your playground. This is an open source universe. I would, of course, appreciate knowing about anything you create so I can read it, adore it, and then pimp it far and wide.

Thanks for taking this journey with me!

*And, yeah, there continue to be elements of this dynamic in their relationship, but they are nowhere near as strong and unhealthy as they would be if Blaine"s "I'm gay" declaration was the only thing that had glued their friendship back together.
**And don't distract me by bringing up why he agreed to meet Sebastian at the Lima Bean in 3.05. The first moment of the scene, I was horrified, "Oh my god, that's like cheating on your spouse in your marital bed!" But as soon as I got that out of my system, I realized that it was the best possible place for Blaine to meet with Sebastian, because he knew that Kurt would show up to protect him from Sebastian, in the unfortunately likely possibility that Blaine couldn't do that for himself.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: still the kitchen