#director taylor hayward

[white-cat-of-doom]

Do you have a favorite piece of Cats memorabilia?

Oh Anon, what a question to ask. I briefly mentioned some of my favourite pieces last year, which is probably the best place to start. I, to no one's suprise, accumulated more great things since then that I will eventually show.

I figure I should expand on the items shown in that post as well, so see below for something I absolutely love!

This is a Japanese promotional programme for the 2019 movie, and unlike the English promotional booklet, contains all manner of information on the movie, creative team, cast, and musical. It really is a great piece.

What makes this piece so special (if it was not obvious by the front cover), is that it was signed by a large group of the named cast from the movie.

Signatures include:

Taylor Swift, who played Bombalurina

Ian McKellen, who played Gus

Judi Dench, who played Old Deuteronomy

Francesca Hayward, who played Victoria

Rebel Wilson, who played Jennyanydots

Jennifer Hudson, who played Grizabella

Idris Elba, who played Macavity

Jason Derulo, who played Rum Tum Tugger

Zizi Strallen, who played Tantomile

Meow Meow (Melissa Kate Gray), who played Griddlebone

Ray Winstone, who played Growltiger

Daniela Norman, who played Demeter

Laurie Davidson, who played Mistoffelees

James Corden, who played Bustopher Jones

Erin Underwood, who played Admetus

Robert Fairchild, who played Munkustrap

Tom Hooper, the director

And two other signatures that I cannot make completely out, but I think Bluey Robinson, who played Alonzo, and Jaih Betote, who played Coricopat

I am still looking out for more signed and promotional pieces from the 2019 movie, but in the meantime I aim to get each one of the named cast's signature in some form on a CATS piece, and this covers most of them.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 6.30

Beer Birthdays

Louis J. Hauck (1866)

Larry Berlin (1961)

Nick Funnell

Hildegard Van Ostaden (1975)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Bo Carter; blues musician (1892)

Stanley Clarke; jazz bassist (1951)

Susan Hayward; actor (1917)

Lena Horne; singer, actor (1917)

Brendan Perry; rock musician (1959)

Famous Birthdays

Florence Ballard; pop/soul singer (1943)

Robert Ballard; oceanographer (1942)

Fantasia Barrino; singer-songwriter and actress (1984)

Thomas Lovell Beddoes; English poet (1803)

Madge Bellamy; actress (1899)

Paul Berg; biologist (1926)

Harry Blackstone Jr.; magician (1934)

Brian Bloom; actor (1970)

Lizzy Caplan; actress (1982)

Murray Cook; singer, "Wiggles" (1960)

Man Mountain Dean; wrestler (1891)

Vincent D'Onofrio; actor (1959)

Georges Duhamel; French author (1884)

Nancy Dussault; actress and singer (1936)

John Gay; English writer (1685)

Alicia Fox; wrestler, model, and actress (1986)

Archibald Frazer-Nash; English car designer (1889)

David Garrison; actor (1952)

James Goldman; screenwriter and playwright (1927)

Winston Graham; English author (1908)

Rupert Graves; actor (1963)

David Alan Grier; actor (1955)

Larry Henley; singer-songwriter (1937)

Barry Hines; English author (1939)

Joseph Dalton Hooker; English botanist and explorer (1817)

Allan Houser; sculptor and painter (1914)

Mario Lanfranchi; Italian film director (1927)

Hal Lindes; American-English guitarist (1953)

Czesław Miłosz; Lithuanian writer (1911)

Kelsi Monroe; adult actress (1992)

Raymond Moody; parapsychologist (1944)

Tony Musante; actor (1936)

Clive Nolan; English musician (1961)

José Emilio Pacheco; Mexican poet (1939)

Brendan Perry; English singer-songwriter and guitarist (1959)

Michael Phelps; swimmer (1985)

Monica Potter; actor (1971)

Julianne Regan; English singer-songwriter and guitarist (1962)

Andy Scott; rock guitarist, singer (1949)

Harry Shields; jazz clarinetist (1899)

Glenn Shorrock; English-Australian singer-songwriter (1944)

Thomas Sowell; economist (1930)

Stanley Spencer; English artist (1891)

Mark Spoelstra; singer-songwriter and guitarist (1940)

Ron Swoboda; New York Mets OF (1944)

Eleanor Ross Taylor; poet (1920)

Mike Tyson; boxer (1966)

Dave Van Ronk; singer-songwriter and guitarist (1936)

Horace Vernet; French painter (1789)

Friedrich Theodor Vischer; German author, poet (1807)

Brian Vollmer; Canadian singer (1955)

Rich Vos; comedian (1957)

Heinz Warneke; German-American sculptor (1895)

Mark Waters; film director (1964)

Philip Adrian Wright; rock keyboardist (1956)

Ed Yost; hot-air balloon inventor (1919)

[thekaiqueen]

Us: I need you to stop

Hayward:

Haydick: Stop what?

Us: Living

[crazyaboutto]

Someone might have done this before, I didn’t check the tags thoroughly but whatever.

I only know Mephisto from a few places so I wasn’t very knowledgeable about him and decided to do research. I plan to do this for Agnes/Agatha Harkness and House of M. Feel free to DM me to talk about WandaVision theories.

Source: Marvel Wikia

What I’ll be talking about?

1. Who is Mephisto?

2. What are his powers?

3. What is his relationship to the characters in WandaVision in comics?

4. WandaVision Theory

The first 3 parts will be taken from Marvel Wikia and summarized.

1. Who is Mephisto?

Mephisto has many aliases such as The Devil, Satan and Lucifer. He is an extradimentional demon. He calls his realm “Hell” in order to exploit Earth human beings' belief in a single being of absolute evil. He is not the actual Satan but he allows himself to be called names that human beings give to their conceptions of devils. Mephisto is continually seeking to add more spirits of sentient beings to his realm by inducing living sentient beings to submit their wills to his. Mephisto apparently seeks primarily to enslave all human souls.

2. What are his powers?

Mephisto is an experienced and highly skilled liar and strategist. He is also a highly skilled sorcerer with near infinite knowledge of arcane and occult subjects.

His powers:

Superhuman Strength, Superhuman Speed, Superhuman Stamina, Superhuman Durability, Regenerative Healing Factor, Immortality, Penance Stare immunity, Medium Awareness, Netherworld Dimensional Power Tap.

§ Shapeshifting:Mephisto is more of a force than a physical being, one that can take any form that he wants. His "normal" appearance is that of male, red skinned humanoid with vampiric aspect and attire. However, Mephisto can appear in any form imaginable, having turning himself into animals, humans of any gender, or more commonly into other demonic forms, ranging from a stereotypical image of Satan to a giant reptilian monster.

§Mystical Deal:Through a Faustian bargain, Mephisto is able to fulfill almost any wish that someone wants in exchange for something that they have - usually their souls. Once the agreement is sealed, it is virtually impossible for the victim to escape compliance.

§ Ensnare Astral Bodies:Mephisto also possesses certain powers enabling him to capture and detain the astral bodies (sheaths of the soul) of recently deceased human beings. Mephisto does not have jurisdiction over all the souls of humanity's recently deceased. It is not yet known what the prerequisite conditions are for him to be able to manipulate a human soul, nor are the precise means by which he accomplishes the feat known. Apparently these conditions require that the human being in question willingly agree to submit to Mephisto's will. It is not known how a human being may free himself from bondage to Mephisto, nor whether Mephisto will forever retain control of the souls he has obtained. Nor is it known whether or not Mephisto "feeds" on the psychic energies of such souls as other demons do.

§Dimensional Entrapment:Apparently Mephisto can entrap a living human being within his realm through sheer physical force, even if the person did not submit his or her will to him.

§Reality Manipulation:Mephisto was able to create the realities Earth-7161 and Earth-71241 by creating a small alteration in the Earth-616 reality.

§Magical Manipulation:He can control magical energy for various effects, among which are the augmentation of his own physical strength, levitation, teleportation, the projection of mystical energy as force blasts, invisibility, matter manipulation, image projection, size transformation of his body or other objects or beings, the creation of temporary inter-dimensional apertures, and so on.

3. What is his relationship to the characters in WandaVision in comics?

Tommy and Billy Maximoff: Mephisto's soul was used by Wanda to give birth to the twins.Mephisto reabsorbed them, effectively ending their existence.

Wanda Maximoff: Mephisto absorbing the twins’ souls drove Wanda mad, resulting in her altering all reality.

Agatha Harkness: Agatha claimed that Scarlet Witch's children were actually fragments of the soul of Mephisto and wiped Wanda's memory of her children rather than fight to free the two from Mephisto when he reabsorbed the twins.

4. WandaVision Theory

So far: We have 6 episodes. The storyline gives off House of M vibes. Agnes seems to be Agatha Harkness from the comics which I’ll be talking about in another post. Dottie who is the key to the town only appeared in episodes 2 & 3 of the show. Director Tyler Hayward is pushing Wanda to defend herself.

THEORY:

Everything up to Wanda’s pregnancy was pushing Wanda to think about children despite no children was seen until episode 6. The whole talent show was “for the children” despite no children being present. Dottie was in charge of the talent show for the children. When Dottie was giving a speech about the talent show, she said “The Devil is the details” and Agnes said “It’s not the only place where he is”. She again said “For the children” during that speech.

Director Hayward first appeared in episode 4 and all he did was to antagonize Wanda. He is outside and he is giving Wanda every reason to stay inside The Hex. He is also painting her as the villain, trying to make others see her as the villain as well. He knew that Wanda would have deflected the bomb he sent into The Hex and that it would just anger her, making her less cooperative. He is also psychologically pressuring Wanda. You might say “He is the regular asshole” but what if he isn’t?

As mentioned in Powers, Mephisto can shapeshift into any form imaginable. Remember that on the people and their real life ID board, we didn’t see Dottie. What if Mephisto took the shape of a former soul he collected? That soul can be old and hence that is why Dottie wouldn’t be identified. The other minor characters were identified and they were shown. If Dottie was also identified then we would have seen her on the board too. Even if she is identified, there is no guarantee that Mephisto wouldn’t take her form. Dottie was the one who organized the event “for the children”, giving subtle message to Wanda for creating her own children. She even said “The Devil is the details” which is normal to say normally but not when the fans theorized Mephisto involvement after it was announced. Agnes, who is likely to be Agatha Harkness who mentored Wanda, said “It’s not the only place where he is”. I believe she, as an ancient being, knows about Mephisto and she subconsciously warned Wanda then. After what Wanda is supposed to do is done, Dottie doesn’t become a main character. Maybe that is the real Dottie in episode 5. Mephisto is done with her after Wanda got pregnant. After that, I think he started to impersonate Director Hayward. As mentioned above, everything Hayward did made Wanda to be more unstable and to want to stay in The Hex. I think Mephisto would want that and he is a perfect strategist. Maybe he didn’t shapeshift into those people but maybe they had a deal with him and he manipulated them into doing his bidding (See:Powers). Additionally, everything that happens inside The Hex makes Wanda stay inside.

In episode 6, Pietro calls “demon spawns” to Tommy and Billy. This isn’t even subtle. I think it is either subconscious warning that Wanda told herself via Pietro. Or it could be Pietro himself since he died once and maybe has knowledge that isn’t aware. Or it can be Mephisto being a little shit. He might have gotten Pietro’s soul when he died. In Powers, it is said that the conditions for him to entrap a recently deceased soul is unknown. He might have gotten Pietro’s soul when he died and now he is using Pietro to manipulate Wanda.

As mentioned in Powers, Mephisto can manipulate magic and reality. I think that is how Westview is affected. The reality inside The Hex is ever changing.

In episode 5, Norm played the pronoun game “Stop her” instead of saying “Stop Wanda”. It wouldn’t make a difference for Vision since he already thinks “she” is “Wanda”. What if that “she” is actually “Dottie”? Norm didn’t say her name because he doesn’t know it. He only knows she is the one doing him harm. This might be the other clue is that Dottie is indeed Mephisto himself.

[hereand-whereyou-are]

Hayward got arrested !!

[dilaila95]

[guacam011y]

***SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION EPISODE 6***

So I’m still processing everything but holy shite that ep was wild...

FIRST THINGS FIRST - WANDA, VISION, BILLY AND PIETRO ALL IN COMIC ACCURATE-ISH COSTUMES AND TOMMY IN A MINI QUICKSILVER COSTUME

PIETRO CALLING BILLY AND TOMMY DEMON SPAWN - GOD DAMMIT, IT’S MEPHISTO ISN’T IT? HOUSE OF M HERE WE COME

HERB ASKING WANDA IF SHE WANTED SOMETHING CHANGED

AGNES ASKING VISION ABOUT THE AVENGERS AND STUFF AND AT FIRST SHE SEEMED GENUINELY FREAKED OUT BUT THEN STARTED LAUGHING MANIACALLY AND I STILL DON’T TRUST HER AND AGNES BEING DRESSED AS A WITCH? AGATHA HARKNESS WAS A WITCH - COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!

DARCY LOOKING OVER MONICA’S MED SCANS AND TELLING HER HOW THE HEX AFFECTS HER EACH TIME SHE GOES IN - IS SHE DEVELOPING HER POWERS?

PIETRO’S CORPSE - SCARED ME JUST AS MUCH AS VISION’S

MOVIES SHOWING IN THE THEATRE IN THE BACKGROUND - THE INCREDIBLES: A MOVIE BASED AROUND A SUPERHERO FAMILY AND THE PARENT TRAP: A MOVIE ABOUT TWINS WHO MEET AT CAMP AND TRY AND SET THEIR PARENTS UP

DON’T GO PAST ELLIS AVENUE - NOW I DON’T KNOW IF THIS IS A CONNECTION OR JUST A COINCIDENCE BUT ELLIS IS THE LAST NAME OF THE PRESIDENT DURING IRON MAN 3

TOMMY HAVING HIS SPEED POWERS AND BILLY HAVING HIS REALITY WARPING/TELEKINETIC POWERS - WELCOME SPEED AND WICCAN

A CALL BACK TO INFINITY WAR WHEN VISION EXITED THE HEX? SLIGHTLY DUSTING AND HE PROBABLY WON’T SURVIVE BEING OUTSIDE OF THE HEX - HE’LL JUST DIE AGAIN 🥲

I STILL DON’T TRUST HAYWARD - HE’S VERY SUS

DARCY BEING TAKEN INTO THE HEX WITH THE OTHER S.W.O.R.D AGENTS - HOPEFULLY WE CAN SEE THE OUTFITS THAT KAT DENNING’S WAS EXCITED ABOUT

I SWEAR THEY BETTER NOT STRAIGHTWASH BILLY AND TOMMY OR I WILL RIOT 😤

***FURTHER UPDATES***

So sit-com wise, it seems they were referencing Malcolm in the Middle as the twins broke the fourth wall and talked to the audience, like Malcolm did

However, the theme song has told the viewer to stop questioning the reality of Westview - which could be a little reference to Mystery Science Theatre 3000? - When Pietro first shows up in the title sequence, along with his name title card, the lyrics say “Though there may be no way of knowing who’s come to play” - Istg, I do not trust Pietro

Vision says to Wanda that he had to wear his Halloween costume because there were no other clothes in his closet, Wanda is trying to move the plot along and forcing Vision to play along

Evan Peters’ ‘Mom’ tattoo is shown, which is a tattoo he actually has in real life ! But could this stand for ‘Multiverse of Madness’ or some other red herring?

Pietro mentions to Wanda that if he had found ‘Shangri-La’ he wouldn’t want to leave either - Shangri-La is a real place on Earth-616 that was founded by a version of Vision

Tommy refers to Pietro’s speed as ‘kickass’ and then Wanda repeats that, saying ‘kickass’ again - Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Evan Peters (both versions of QuickSilver) were in Kick-Ass together

The ad for this episode was freaky af - the character on the beach who starved and decomposed could be a little nod to Indiana Jones, where a Nazi’s face melts in - and it could also be reference to Wanda being all alone and struggling to process her grief. The shark in the ad could also be Nightmare or Mephisto or just someone more powerful than Wanda offering her a new beginning with Vision or trapped her in some way - and is feeding off her magic? The flavour of the yoghurt is strawberry flavoured and strawberry’s are red on the outside and pink-ish on the inside - much like Wanda’s og costume and her magic being red 👀

Pietro and Wanda talk about their Sokovian accents at a point in the episode and how neither have them anymore. Wanda’s, as we know, has disappeared over the course of the MCU movies and Pietro’s just doesn’t exist - another nice little nod to Peter Maximoff from the fox X-Men films? Also, Pietro states that “I’m just trying to do my part, okay? Come to town unexpectedly, create tension with the brother-in-law, stir up trouble with the Rugrats (a 90’s cartoon 👀) and ultimately give you grief.” - in reference to the grief part, could Pietro be killed off again? Stir up trouble with the rugrats, being possible shards of the demon Mephisto’s soul, could this be Mephisto trying to influence them on a deeper level? It’s also many many common sitcom clichès

Pietro talks about how “I got shot like a chump on the street for no reason at all” - nice little nod to how Pietro was killed off unnecessarily and how we as a fandom still talk about how regular bullets shouldn’t have killed him

Herb is dressed as Frankenstein’s monster - Dr. Frankenstein created his monster and soon lost control over him, and he was created using electricity or lightning - much like Vision was created and brought to life by Thor using Mjolnïr to bring lightning down to his incubator thingy majig. Could this also be a reference to either Wanda slowly losing control over Westview or someone else controlling Wanda/controlling the citizens of Westview - we saw in episode 3 that Agnes told Herb to be quiet as it seemed he was about to spill the beans 👀

Vision goes towards Ellis avenue and is at a ‘crossroads’ of sorts - in folklore, crossroads are often used to speak to or summon the devil and are also used when an important character is making a decision that could change everything. He spots some citizens repeating certain actions and/or just standing completely still, could these be npc’s (non playable characters)? And now that the barrier of the Hex has spread, will those citizens now start to move? 👀 Also I know that all stop signs look like it, but the stop sign is also a red hexagon 🛑

Darcy scrolls through Hayward’s computer files and goes past a file called “Project C4-113” - it could reference Avengers Issue #113 in which Wanda and Vision both appear on the cover and she says she’s going to make the world pay for Vision’s death. There’s also another file called “Project M5-247” which could be a nod to Avengers Issue #247, which shows the origin of the Eternals and in the same vein, Scarlet Witch and Vision trying to help Captain Marvel. And when Darcy emails Hayward’s cataract plans, you can see the names of “James Alexander and James Gadd” - James Alexander is a visual effects producer on Wandavision and James Gadd works on post production at Marvel

Also: Agnes pulls as Mrs Hart and repeats the same phrase over and over again

After Wanda blasts Pietro, you can see on a fake grave stone the name of “Janell Sammelman”, Janell is a first assistant director on Wandavision

When Wanda moves Westview to save Vision, she turns S.W.O.R.D and it’s agents into clowns + a circus - I just love that the agents turned into clowns 😂 but there is a nice little plot line in the comics where Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Hawkeye join the circus - and this COULD be stretch, but earlier in the episode there is the number #22 which could be Avengers Issue #22, which is the Issue that they join the circus

As soon as Vision was brought back into Westview, he was healed - which means if he was to exit again, he probably wouldn’t survive 😭

The episode title is ‘All-New Halloween Spooktackular!” - which “All-New” is a designation that is often used on covers for comic books. And the first issue of the second The Vision and the Scarlet Witch series takes place on Halloween night - but the events in this comics didn’t influence this episode’s plot

Pietro points out that he has the “XY chromosome” - X for X-Men? Plus there’s the X gene 😂

He mentions “Uncle Peter to the rescue” - Peter is the name of Quicksilver from the Fox X-Men Franchise

Pietro and Tommy quote the movie Top Gun (1986) by saying “I fell the need, the need for speed”

Wanda almost seems hesitant to trust this version of Pietro (rightfully so, in my opinion) and is wary of him being around Tommy and Billy

Pietro says some very Mephisto/Nightmare-like things this episode - “Unleash hell, demon spawn!”, “The kids need a father figure”, “Damnit, if Westview isn’t charming as Hell...” - And if Pietro isn’t Mephisto/Nightmare, it HAS to be Agnes or her other half Ralph and Pietro is probably Ralph tbh...or could Pietro just be a scapegoat and Hayward is Ralph? 👀

The theatre in town, which is playing the Incredibles and The Parent Trap, is called the Coronet. There’s a classic poem called “The Coronet” written by Andrew MARVELL (Marvell, is also the true name of the first incarnation of Captain Marvel in the comics) and is about a guy who knows that the sins of mankind led to the death of Christ. He attempts to create a new crown for Christ’s head in an attempt to atone, but finds that there is sin in the crown as well, as the devil is within the crown and therefore he may achieve glory and success with his new creation 👀

Hayward’s confidential project “Cataract” included experimenting on Vision’s body, as was revealed by Darcy (my wife 💙 and Monica is also my wife 💚 and so is Wanda 💛, I just love women, you know? 😂). A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that leads to a decrease in vision - is Hayward trying to weaponise Vision? Or maybe even trying to bring Ultron back? Or do what Tony wanted to do in the first place, and make a suit of armour that’s around the world? Either way, it’s for nefarious purposes

Who is Monica’s guy? Jimmy and Monica are off to meet him - could it be Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic)? Or could it be Victor Von Doom (Dr Doom)? Could it be Hank McCoy (Beast)? Or even Adam Brashear (Blue Marvel)? Or if it is a woman, could it be the Skrull daughter of Talos that Monica befriended at the end of Captain Marvel? Could it be Abigail Brand (A major character in recent S.W.O.R.D comics and an Alpha Flight Member)? Or even Toni Ho (Iron Patriot, and could she be introduced to help lay the ground work for my other queen, Riri Williams/Iron Heart?)? Or could it even be Sue Storm (Invisible Woman)?

In the background of the episode we see a number of children and adults dressed up as many different characters, which includes: Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat, Jason Voorhees, with a sweater striped like Freddy Krueger’s and even a kid that looks dressed in an off-brand Charizard costume 😂 Pokèmon has always been popular, but saw an increase during the 90’s

Pietro and the kids are drinking “Kane Cola” which could be a reference to the 90’s drinks “Jolt Cola” or even “Surge” - it could also, with all the X-Men Easter eggs, be a reference to Garrison Kane, who was a member of Cable’s mercenary team “Six Pack” and is sometimes also known as ‘Weapon X’

The kid that Wanda mentions having a “skin thing” in the orphanage - could that be a reference to her Brotherhood of Evil Mutants co-worker Toad? Or maybe even Mystique? Maybe Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler)?

One of the houses has a sign up that says ‘Macabre Mansion’ - another possible reference to House of M?

During a flashback, it’s shown that the twins are playing Dance Dance Revolution, which came out in 1999. Also this might be a stretch, but the boys have a dog plushie in their room the right - which is coloured red and black - could this be a reference to Dogpool? 😂

I love this show 🤣💙

[pla-teau]

WHATTHEFUCK WANDAVISION EPISODE 5

SPOILERS AHEAD, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED

GIFS AREN’T MINE

EPISODE 4 THOUGHTS

opening title | right off the bat, the paintbrush is surrounded by wanda’s powers. this adds to the assumption that wanda is the mastermind behind all that is happening with westview. could mean nothing but i just find that little detail interesting. also, in the recap, in the quick moment in episode 3, we see another variation of the scene when vision asks wanda where geraldine went. she says “she’s gone. she didn’t belong here.” i feel like in recaps to come, we’ll see slight variations of past scenes to indicate that the reality in westview is breaking or just to show the actual words exchanged during the altered scene. wanda is the one broadcasting and chooses what audiences can and cannot see so maybe this is the original cut of the scene that we nor SWORD saw in the broadcast.

agnes | first off, agnes breaks character for a second like an actress who screws up and so everyone has to do a retake. when she says to wanda that she wants her to hold the kids, wanda is even confused for a second. she looks to her like she’s the one in charge. i think she did this on purpose since vision went off script as well in not letting agnes hold the boys. even though there’s footage in the 90s episode that she’s also being controlled by wanda when vision pulls her out of the trance, i still think she’s working with the main bad guy to hurt wanda. she doesn’t seem to react when the boys age up twice in front of her, always making a witty and funny comment.

wanda’s a terrorist | the way hayward quickly labeled wanda as a terrorist makes me think that there’s ulterior motives with this dude. didn’t want to believe it but marvel has put me in a habit of assuming guys in suits have sinister agendas. while jimmy woo gives a brief rundown of wanda’s life, hayward is quick to focus on the negative aspect because she’s a criminal with the sokovia accords still in place. he seems to be the only one driving this idea forward just because he’s the acting director of SWORD. he even put a damn missile on the retro drone monica controlled to get inside the anomaly. as acting director, he would know that a missile is useless against an avenger with wanda’s powers. i believe that he knew that missile wouldn’t do anything to wanda and the sole purpose was to antagonize her to continue painting her as the sole mastermind behind westview. i think he’s just trying to shift the blame from SWORD to wanda now that she possesses the body that can be used to create more weapons etc. etc.

vision’s body | so that scene we saw in the sneak peek was indeed footage of wanda stealing vision’s body and that SWORD was in possession of it. with monica saying in the previous episode that SWORD doesn’t do creation and hayward saying they’re focusing on robotics etc., it makes SWORD also v hypocritical because the brief footage we see of him - he’s dismembered. it doesn’t take much to assume that SWORD was most likely using vision’s body towards their robotics, nanotech and AI projects.

lagos commercial | clearly this is in reference to wanda’s accidental killing of innocent lives after trying to protect steve from crossbones in civil war. the saying “for when you make a mess you didn’t mean to” at the end makes me disagree more on haydick hayward’s assumption that she’s a terrorist. i like how they used this as a paper towel commercial as after lagos, the sokovia accords were written. for me, the paper towel represents the actual accords since they’re drafted on paper, right? how do we clean up any mess in the real world? with laws and regulations being written and enforced aka a piece of paper.

norm’s moment of consciousness | norm is granted a moment of consciousness by vision and is quickly hysterical. his statements about how vision has to stop and get her out of his head has me split. on one hand, he could be talking about wanda since monica said the same thing in her recounting of the events in the anomaly. but i also think it’s agnes or someone else who’s just disguising themselves as wanda (her emotions, grief, etc) to get everyone to see wanda as the bad guy (again).

SWORD computer message | how was the westview reality able to see this message by SWORD? it didn’t have much detail and only the basic rundown of what was going on but it’s interesting to see that message be ‘intercepted’ by the hex. we didn’t see from the outside that they were trying to communicate with wanda or someone within the town. it was also weird how the whole staff read it together at once - very creepy and raises more questions than answers.

“you can fix the dead” | tommy’s comment to wanda when sparky passes away. clearly the only dead one is vision in wanda’s world even though he appears very much alive in westview. i don’t think even wanda knows the true extent of her powers if she is the main perpetrator in all of this. i’ve also seen people mention that maybe the death of sparky is meant to push wanda to unlock that power if she has the ability to bring back the dead.

wanda and vision arguing | from the get go, we’re seeing vision going off script because he’s piecing things together. he notices how agnes always comes in to save the day or with something the couple needs. i like that we’re seeing the pair fight because they haven’t been on the same page arguably since episode 3 which was the last time we saw wanda edit an episode.

“you’ve never talked to me like this before” | wanda to vision. as i’ve said before, the show is really making vision seem more of the human one of the couple even being supposedly dead. what wanda says is true, we’ve never seen vision so much as raise his voice at wanda. in the past, before westview, vision always tread lightly around wanda and thought about how to word news of something she may not react well to. he’s always been calculating and thoughtful in his approach to wanda. even when she shoved him down however deep into the ground to leave the avengers facility in civil war, vision didn’t yell at her when they fought. it’s been nothing but love that vision has communicated to wanda. now with his clear frustration of the situation and evidence, it’s understandable that he’s yelling at her. it’s human to assume and jump to the worst conclusion about someone. he’s becoming more human in being upset and frustrated with someone he cares for that looks like the bad guy and victimizer of a whole town and seemingly controlling him and making decisions for him. i really hope he doesn’t get killed off at the end because i’m truly loving vision’s growth and range throughout the series.

“i can’t remember my life before westview” | this speaks to vision’s physical state. i think he’s not fully dead but because he doesn’t have the mind stone. every iteration we’ve seen of vision in the mcu has been with the stone since 2015. he doesn’t remember his creation or his death in 2018. the last 8 years are a blank for vision and understandably so, he’s upset and frustrated at the situation and at wanda. maybe it’s because he’s in the hex and maybe once outside, he’ll remember or somehow recount what’s happened? again, i hope he doesn’t just die once he gets out of the hex.

pietro’s ‘recast’ | the most shocking part of this episode that made me choke on my water and feel 50 different emotions in a matter of seconds. anyways, i think wanda damn well knows that it isn’t the brother she lost. i think she pieces it together that he is pietro but just not her world’s pietro like she feels some sort of connection to this pietro (if that makes any sense)? love that this brings in the multiverse into the mcu. i am still was holding my breath for aaron taylor-johnson but seeing evan peters’ peter was a fun surprise. in rewatching, the episode sets this surprise cameo up with billy and tommy asking her about pietro and this reoccurring theme that ‘family is forever’. i think that either wanda doesn’t realize her powers and her life in westview is bringing in people from other universes or that whoever is behind all of this is giving wanda one more reason to stay in westview since vision is starting to go off script and can’t be controlled by wanda anymore.

long lost bro | the fact he says this makes me curious as to whether this truly is peter from the x-men universe or if whoever is orchestrating this is just using peter’s body to manipulate wanda and play along in her ‘show’. if it’s truly peter that’s been plucked from the x-men universe, maybe he’s given this knowledge or whoever is controlling him is planting that information in his brain so he can say that he’s wanda’s long lost brother which he technically is. there’s also been people pointing out that in the mirror behind wanda looks distorted when you look, you would be able to see peter and wanda’s in the reflection. it looks unreal and this could be a key to seeing the reality of what’s happening in westview, maybe hopefully this’ll be a key to opening wanda’s eyes that something clearly isn’t right.

[path-of-my-childhood]

The Importance of “Cats,” in Taylor Swift's Own Words

By: Taylor Swift for Billboard Date: November 15th 2019

When I walked into Andrew Lloyd Webber’s studio in London, I thought we were just rehearsing “Macavity,” the number I was set to perform in the movie Cats. Pretty soon he was sitting at the piano, playing a new melody I hadn’t heard before. I had a feeling it might be the rumored original song for Victoria that people had been whispering about. Up until this point, I had spent weeks on set watching the filming. I watched Francesca Hayward make Victoria the balletic kitten come alive, break her heart and then mend it again. I saw the intense choreography and live singing that this film would demand of me and the cast, and had become well versed on the heart, fun, wisdom and insanity of this special show. So when Andrew asked, from behind his piano, if I had any ideas on what Victoria might say if she had a song, I knew what he was asking. He was asking to help him write it.

That moment, and the ones following it, are moments I won’t ever forget: All of a sudden feeling this immediate intuition about what this character would say, feverishly writing lyrics, my brain churning them out quicker than my pen could keep up with. Singing the song live for the first time with Andrew playing piano in a rehearsal room, hands shaking, for Francesca and director Tom Hooper. The looks on their faces told me it was the right song for this character at that exact point in her story. Watching as it was turned into sheet music and being given a matching “Cats Music Department” hoodie by my fellow collaborators working behind the scenes on the music. Sitting in a director’s chair watching Frankie sing it live for the film, knowing that she had learned to sing specifically for this song. Watching Tom well up almost every time he hears the bridge.

The song “Memory” is about missing your glory days, wishing you could go back in time and relive those magical times from your past. “Beautiful Ghosts” is sung from a young voice who is wondering if she will ever have glory days. Longing for the sense of belonging she sees everyone else finding. Reaching for it, desperately afraid of never having beautiful ghosts of days gone by to cling to in her older years. No matter what happens, I can safely say the memories from my experience working on Cats will be ones I carry with me. Beautiful ghosts, if you will.

[industryhearts]

Bringing this back just because. Ha.It's a little bit fruity. Tay does love the ballerinas.

"I think probably one of the most surreal days of my life so far," Hayward shared, "was when Taylor asked to meet me and she had written the lyrics for Andrew's music, and she called me into a room and she basically gave me a private concert of the song for the first time, just me, her and pianist and the director, Tom Hooper."

"She sang me the whole song, just to me, in a room," she added.

As for how the moment made her, a freshman to the acting/music world, feel, Hayward admitted, "It was really just surreal. And at the end of it, she said—very, very sweetly, she said to me—'Is that okay?' Like, she'd written it for me. 'Is that all right for you?' And I was like, 'Yeah, that's okay.'"

Seems like an extremely gay moment for her—thar she thoroughly enjoyed. It had to be right. Cause we know who she was channeling that song for. Also, the way it was recreated for the Lover performance at the AMAs just like that.

😂

.

[marvelvsmarvel]

WandaVision Still Buffering

Besides simply wondering what comes next there are a number of details that were left open ended on WV that could either turn out to be something significant later on or just another incident like Okoye in Endgame NOT referencing Namor by discussing earthquakes occurring underwater.... just a random statement..... suuuuuure.

Monica’s Aerospace Engineer: This one stirred up many people hoping it was the first reveal of the Fantastic Four in the MCU. Others thought it could have been Blue Marvel Adam Brasheer. Instead it’s left as just an unknown as Major Goodner seemed to just deliver the rover and wasn’t identified as said aerospace engineer.

Jimmy Woo’s Missing Person’s Case: This is a weird one because although it doesn’t necessarily hint at anything it seemed that all of Westview’s residents were from Westview which doesn’t explain why Jimmy would have tracked a missing person’s case there. But now that I think of it it could have been Agatha (all along). But furthermore there was still the interaction with local police that claimed they were from Eastview? Jimmy then indicated that it wasn’t a missing persons case but a missing town. As the policemen were outside of the Hex there’s no reason for them to lie or be under Wanda’s control to lie. So what gives?

Monica’s Clothes and the Drone: Wanda’s powers of rewriting reality included changing Monica’s bulletproof vest into a 70’s ensemble. But that outfit maintained even outside of the Hex and the power within the Drone as well. So why couldn’t either Vision and the twins exist outside the Hex as well?

Hayward’s Motive: Hayward overall didn’t make any sense as a character. Director of SWORD which doesn’t make him a hero but he seemingly knew Monica at least enough for her to make a joke about him looking old as hell and yet he was willing to shoot her (and children) without a second thought. He lied about Wanda stealing Vision’s body and randomly accused her of being able to bring the dead back to life. He tries to killed Wanda multiple times and justified it was people will just think she was crazy and he’s a hero with a personal murderbot. He wanted a Vision he could control but they obviously weren’t controlling it X-Men Origins Wolverine Deadpool style as it stopped its mission pretty easily after a pretty lengthy conversation with Vision. Hayward was just a pretty crappy character and honestly crappily written.

Quicksilver: This one is probably the easiest to explain with a catchy top charting villain theme song but it didn’t really make sense. Agnes controlled Ralph Bohner with a magic necklace not simply a mind control spell. So did said necklace also give him the super speed? Again it’s as simple as Agatha gave him that ability but then really the writers thought mind control and super speed are doable but to use transfiguration to have her “brother” actually look like her brother Aaron Taylor Johnson was not gonna he believable. I get it’s a fan service for mutant hype but could you imagine if it was ATJ instead??? THAT would’ve been maddening because Wanda would have cracked there and then.

Beekeeper SWORD Agent: Lastly and perhaps the most subtle is what the heck happened or what did Wanda do to the agent that infiltrated the Hex through the sewers? The simple answer is that when she rewound the scene and changed its outcome he reversed back out of the Hex but the people outside surely would’ve had something to say about a man crawling out of a sewer in reverse. A more complex answer is that Wanda deep into the reality at that point did something her innermost consciousness would not hesitate to do for Vision and that is to kill for him. What if somewhat instant and reactionary as in when Pietro died she saw the agent and just disintegrated him. This would explain Hayward wanting to up the ante to kill Wanda and at the same time this time of murder might actual linger with Wanda that when Monica told her not to be the villain the guilt moved her to state maybe she already is.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 6.30

Beer Birthdays

Louis J. Hauck (1866)

Larry Berlin (1961)

Nick Funnell

Hildegard Van Ostaden (1975)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Bo Carter; blues musician (1892)

Stanley Clarke; jazz bassist (1951)

Susan Hayward; actor (1917)

Lena Horne; singer, actor (1917)

Brendan Perry; rock musician (1959)

Famous Birthdays

Florence Ballard; pop/soul singer (1943)

Robert Ballard; oceanographer (1942)

Fantasia Barrino; singer-songwriter and actress (1984)

Thomas Lovell Beddoes; English poet (1803)

Madge Bellamy; actress (1899)

Paul Berg; biologist (1926)

Harry Blackstone Jr.; magician (1934)

Brian Bloom; actor (1970)

Lizzy Caplan; actress (1982)

Murray Cook; singer, "Wiggles" (1960)

Man Mountain Dean; wrestler (1891)

Vincent D'Onofrio; actor (1959)

Georges Duhamel; French author (1884)

Nancy Dussault; actress and singer (1936)

John Gay; English writer (1685)

Alicia Fox; wrestler, model, and actress (1986)

Archibald Frazer-Nash; English car designer (1889)

David Garrison; actor (1952)

James Goldman; screenwriter and playwright (1927)

Winston Graham; English author (1908)

Rupert Graves; actor (1963)

David Alan Grier; actor (1955)

Larry Henley; singer-songwriter (1937)

Barry Hines; English author (1939)

Joseph Dalton Hooker; English botanist and explorer (1817)

Allan Houser; sculptor and painter (1914)

Mario Lanfranchi; Italian film director (1927)

Hal Lindes; American-English guitarist (1953)

Czesław Miłosz; Lithuanian writer (1911)

Kelsi Monroe; adult actress (1992)

Raymond Moody; parapsychologist (1944)

Tony Musante; actor (1936)

Clive Nolan; English musician (1961)

José Emilio Pacheco; Mexican poet (1939)

Brendan Perry; English singer-songwriter and guitarist (1959)

Michael Phelps; swimmer (1985)

Monica Potter; actor (1971)

Julianne Regan; English singer-songwriter and guitarist (1962)

Andy Scott; rock guitarist, singer (1949)

Harry Shields; jazz clarinetist (1899)

Glenn Shorrock; English-Australian singer-songwriter (1944)

Thomas Sowell; economist (1930)

Stanley Spencer; English artist (1891)

Mark Spoelstra; singer-songwriter and guitarist (1940)

Ron Swoboda; New York Mets OF (1944)

Eleanor Ross Taylor; poet (1920)

Mike Tyson; boxer (1966)

Dave Van Ronk; singer-songwriter and guitarist (1936)

Horace Vernet; French painter (1789)

Friedrich Theodor Vischer; German author, poet (1807)

Brian Vollmer; Canadian singer (1955)

Rich Vos; comedian (1957)

Heinz Warneke; German-American sculptor (1895)

Mark Waters; film director (1964)

Philip Adrian Wright; rock keyboardist (1956)

Ed Yost; hot-air balloon inventor (1919)

[paths-of-my-childhood-candid]

OH, TAYLOR! Taylor Swift On Side-Stepping Into Acting, Owning What You Make & Loving The “Weirdness” Of Cats

On a grey London afternoon in late September, Taylor Swift slips quietly through the doors of a north London recording studio. It is an auspicious moment: the queen of confessional pop has come to meet Andrew Lloyd Webber, the king of musical theatre. Together, Swift, who turns 30 this month, and Lloyd Webber, 71, have written “Beautiful Ghosts”, a new song for the soon-to-be-released film adaptation of Cats – Webber’s 1981 extravaganza, which ran in the West End and on Broadway for a combined total of almost 40 years. In it, Swift plays Bombalurina, and like her co-stars – Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Francesca Hayward, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, Rebel Wilson – appears in full, furry CGI glory. Track finished, these two titans of the music industry sit down to talk… 

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Well, the first thing we have to clear up is that we both love cats. Taylor Swift: [Laughs] We do! One of the first things you said to me when we met was that you’re president of the Turkish Van Cat Club.  ALW: Professionally, there is nowhere I can go to top this, as you can completely understand. TS: I have three cats. How many do you have now?  ALW: I have three, too – they are all Turkish Vans. And you’ve got a Scottish Fold I believe. TS: I have two Scottish Folds, we think the third is a Ragdoll mix. ALW: You’re probably never going to talk to me again, but you know I’ve got a puppy? He’s called Mojito.  TS: I heard about this! How does he get along in the hierarchy?  ALW: Well, he believes he’s a little bear actually. He’s a Havanese dog, which I got because Glenn Close has one. TS: I’ve met that dog, he’s really good. ALW: You come from Pennsylvania. TS: I do. People seem to think I was raised in the south, but I’m from the north – grew up on a Christmas tree farm, then moved to Nashville when I was 14. ALW: And you wanted to move to Nashville for the songwriting or the singing? Or both? TS: Both – I was just obsessed with Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Dixie Chicks, and the thing they had in common was that they had gotten discovered in Nashville. So I had it in my head that this is a magical place where discoveries are made and people are able to do music as a living. ALW: Was it the storytelling side of country songs that you liked? Absolutely. It reminded me of the ’90s, when you had these amazing female singer-songwriters like Alanis Morissette and Sarah McLachlan; incredible female writers like Melissa Etheridge, Shawn Colvin; and these types of Lilith Fair women. Then you started to hit the 2000s and the only place I could find real confessional storytelling was country music. ALW: Did you know anybody when you got to Nashville? TS: No, we didn’t really. I’d been going there on vacation with my family, and my mom, my little brother and I would stay in a hotel and try to meet people. Eventually, after several trips, I got a development deal – it’s a non-committal record deal, like, “We’ll watch you develop for a year and then we’ll decide if we sign you.” That was grounds enough to move the family. ALW: Presumably you were in school in Nashville as well? TS: Yes, I was going to high school during the day and doing my songwriting sessions at night. It was a double life. I’d be writing notes in class, and my teachers never knew if they were notes for my class or if I’d gotten an idea for a song. ALW: How many songs would you write in a day? TS: Usually, never more than one. I had these sessions every day, and if I didn’t come in with a good idea, I’d get stared at. You’re not inspired every day, as you know, but you have to show up and treat it like a job. That’s where I learned the craft of songwriting. ALW: I’ve never worked like that, because I’m so story driven. What interests me, though, is how Nashville works. How did you get your foot on the performing ladder? TS: It was really writing first. At the same time, I was singing the national anthem every time I could – at festivals and fairs and bars, anywhere I could get up on stage. I was trying to hone both sides of what I was doing, but I’m very well aware that I would not have a career if I hadn’t been a writer. I wouldn’t have just been a singer, it wouldn’t have worked. ALW: I guess that, today, very few people have a major career unless they write. TS: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s really important – also from the side of ownership over what you do and make. Even if you aren’t a natural writer, you should try to involve yourself in the messages you’re sending. ALW: How does a young country artist get their first break? TS: I worked as hard as I could, reached out to as many people as I could to make sure I got meetings with publishing companies and labels. They didn’t come about very easily, but once I got in the room I’d just get out my guitar and play for them. ALW: Do you have to sing in a certain club to get to the next stage? TS: Everyone does it a different way, but the Bluebird Cafe is a place where everyone was discovered – from Garth Brooks to Faith Hill to, arguably, me. I remember being at your house after we’d written a song, and you telling me you’d bought it when you were 24 or something, that’s when I realised just how young you were when you had a vision to be doing this at such a high level. ALW: I was writing for the theatre when I was eight-years-old. I had a little toy theatre and did dreadful musicals on terrible subjects. Then, when I was about 13, I met a boy who wanted to write lyrics, and we did a couple of musicals at school. TS: So from the beginning you would pair up with a lyricist? ALW: One of the things I worked out very early was Lloyd Webber and lyrics are not a good idea. TS: Wow. It is a good alliteration, though. ALW: You were 19, weren’t you, when you had your first big hit? TS: I was about 18 when “Love Story”, a song I’d written alone, was a worldwide hit. I was lucky enough to work my way up in country music, for new artists nowadays, it feels like the trajectory of their career is like being shot out of a canon into a stratosphere they could in no way be prepared for. I got to sort of acclimate to every step of the path I was on, and by the time I had a massive hit I’d been working since I was 14. Moving from country music to pop was a crazy adjustment for me. ALW: And now we’ve written “Beautiful Ghosts” together for Cats. TS: I remember the moment. I went over to your apartment to rehearse “Macavity” and you sat down at the piano and started to play this haunting, beautiful melody, and I think I just started singing to it right away. ALW: You wrote the lyrics more or less then and there – it was fantastic. TS: It’s a different perspective on the song “Memory”, too, and the character of Grizabella [played by Jennifer Hudson], who used to have majestic, glamorous times and doesn’t anymore. On the other side of it, you have this little white cat [Victoria, played by Francesca Hayward] who’s been abandoned – she’s afraid she’ll never have a chance to have beautiful memories. So that’s where she’s singing “Beautiful Ghosts” from, to counter Grizabella’s idea of tragedy. ALW: I’d like to come back to something I thought when I heard your album, Lover – which is really absolutely brilliant. Am I right in thinking you approached its recording just as though you were giving live performances? TS: I did. I was really singing a lot at that point – I’d just come from a stadium tour, and then did Cats, which was all based on live performances – so a lot of that album is nearly whole takes. When you perform live, you’re narrating and you’re getting into the story and you’re making faces that are ugly and you’re putting a different meaning on a song every time you perform it. ALW: That’s the point isn’t it. TS: Yeah. ALW: Does that ever make you feel you want to be an actress? TS: I have no idea. When I was younger, I used to get questions like, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” I’d try to answer. As I get older, I’m learning that wisdom is learning how dumb you are compared to how much you are going to know. I really had an amazing time with Cats. I think I loved the weirdness of it. I loved how I felt I’d never get another opportunity to be like this in my life. ALW: It’s weird, what I’ve seen of the movie. TS: It’s decidedly weird [they laugh]. ALW: I think Tom [Hooper, the film’s director] has really tried to make something original. And I agree, I think as you get older you do become less sure of yourself and start to question what you can do. Would you consider doing a musical? TS: A musical? Absolutely, absolutely. ALW: Or writing your own? TS: That is way up there on my list of dreams. ALW: You should. TS: Was it really wonderful for you when you got the news that Judi Dench had accepted the role of Old Deuteronomy? ALW: Judi was in the original version in 1981 but she snapped her Achilles tendon and had to withdraw. Then I had this idea, which I ran past Tom, that we could make Old Deuteronomy a woman. Seeing her perform this time was quite an emotional thing for me, because it was a very, very sad day when she had to leave the original show. TS: She’s lovely. I remember being on set, and there is one scene that Idris [Elba, who plays Macavity] and I do with Judi, and someone walked up to me with this kind of gummy candy and I was like, “Oh, I’ve never had this before, this must be British candy, this is amazing.” I was raving about this candy so much, and Judi must have overheard me, because the next day I got to my dressing room and there was a signed photo from Judi and, like, six bags of it [they laugh]. Andrew, we both started young. What do we have in common from our experiences? What do you think was hard about it? And what was great? ALW: I suppose what was hard for me was that I was a fish out of the mainstream water. In the 1960s, to love musicals was as uncool as you could possibly be, and kids in my class at school would laugh at me. TS: I was the same. I loved country music and, where I was in school, the kids were just completely perplexed by that. It’s gotten more mainstream, but when I was a 13-year-old in Pennsylvania, I got similar reactions. Do you feel like you’re glad you were really young when you started? ALW: Yeah, are you? TS: I’m really glad, even though there are challenges to it – like you’re not allowed to make the same mistakes as everyone else because your mistakes are a commodity. ALW: And your mistakes are made in public. But we share something in common, in which we are extremely lucky. We both knew at an early age what we wanted to do, and most people in life don’t have a clue. TS: That’s very true. I think, also, a lot of the time when people see a career that they want it can be results-based. Rather than wanting to write musicals, they want to be a person who has written musicals. But when I see you work, I see you consistently creating and being curious about the next idea. You relish in the process even more than the rewards, which is the advice I would give anyone who wanted to do anything remotely close to this job. It cannot be about the results. ALW: It’s the process isn’t it? TS: It has to be. It’s supposed to be fun!

MEET & GREET: Introducing the faces behind this month’s issue

When it came to interviewing Taylor Swift about her musical-movie debut in Cats, there was only one man for the job: Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer of the original West End and Broadway mega hit. The two colossi of songwriting had plenty to discuss at a recording studio in north London – art, ambition and authenticity, plus what we can expect from the soon-to-be-released film.

Vogue: What was it like to work with Taylor? Andrew Lloyd Webber: She’s supremely professional and very charming with it. In my view, she could go far. Vogue: What was your first impression of her? ALW: She’s a lot taller than me, and a lot more attractive. Vogue: What’s your favourite Swift hit? ALW: “Blank Space” from the album 1989. It’s a great pop song with great lyrics.

[peachyparkerr]

hello all this post will include my theories for what’s to come in WandaVision/ the next Marvel phase and will include spoilers so read at your own risk!

WandaVision spoilers below!!!

•••

OK SO first of all, I just assumed that Wanda was a bit self aware but didn’t have full control because of Geraldine entering her Westview Reality. I also assumed that it was just inside her mind.

BUT WANDA STEALING VISION’S CORPSE I WAS NOT EXPECTING.

anyways my theory:

So I definitely think that Wanda’s twins have parts of herself and/or Mephisto’s soul in them and that’s how they can manipulate their growth. I also think that Agnes has always been self aware and just inserted herself into Wanda’s life to appear as someone she can trust but will later turn on her.

I think Vision will find a way to regain information of what happened to him because he’s already realizing that Wanda is controlling him and everyone around him.

I am honestly still processing how Wanda came through the barrier in her usual outfit outside of her sitcoms and confronted the S.W.O.R.D agents but I also can’t shake the feeling that Hayward (director of S.W.O.R.D) is going to be a bad guy.

Evan Peters as Pietro is so cool! It definitely sets up the multiverse and bringing in the X-MEN. BUT WHERE IS AARON TAYLOR JOHSNON CAN HE PLEASE MAKE AN APPEARANCE I AM BEGGING!

My hope is that when the multiverse is more open and people figure out that the new Pietro is actually Peter Maximoff we will see Aaron Taylor Johnson as Pietro again. If Wanda can resurrect Vision I do think there will be a way to bring back Aaron’s version of Quicksilver. Maybe not in the show but hopefully in the movie.

[blackeasteagle]

Okk, my Wandavision thoughts... I think Wanda is being controlled.

I guess that in her grief, she stole Vision's body, maybe the people at sword were dissecrating and studying him, maybe trying to turn him into a weapon (director Hayward sure as hell have something to do with, or it was done by his orders, and Wanda blew it up for him... and he certainly is far too interested in getting Wanda vilified.. maybe that's why??)

So Wanda get the body. She found out somehow what they were doing to Vision. Who passed on this information? Maybe someone who knew she was fragile and wanted to take advantage of her vulnerability? I'm thinking Agnes, but it could also be Hayward or..... Mephisto?? Okay, this one is kinda of a stretch, but not really. Wanna know what is a stretch? What if Hayward IS Mephisto (or a MCU version of him)???

Anyway, Wanda has the body and she goes to Westview. Why Westview? Did she chose it? Was it a random choice?

Now, about Vision, I think we have some possibilities:

1. Wanda did bring Vision back to life. It's a weak theory, because of what we saw on episode 4. But it is not completely off. Wanda's power is based on the mind stone, and Vision had the mind stone. Maybe she could have recreated it somehow? I don't know... As I said, it's a weak theory.

2. Wanda is using Vision's body as a puppet. She is the one controling him. She is the one breathing life into him (literally)(sorry. English is not my first language). But because her powers come from the mind stone, this "breathing life into him" got quite literal and it's bringing Vision's conscience back (and that's the awakening in ep 5 and how he is aware that he doesn't remember his life before Westview).

Before we move on... Another thing... From what we see in episode 5, Vision's body is in pieces. Did Wanda pieced him back together? Not to doubt her powers and abilities, but did she? More importantly at this point... Did she do it consciously? Knowingly? Or was someone controlling her? Or did someone else pieced him back together? To what end would someone do it?

3. Someone (cofMephistocof) brought Vision back and is using him to control Wanda. This someone got Wanda to get Vision's body from that lab, somehow they (or only Wanda, or only this someone, or multiple people) put Vision back up and kind of, perhaps, totally, brought him back to life. And gave him to Wanda so she could live her Sitcom AU fanfic life (and seriously, who wouldn't?) And this whoever maybe is using Vision to control Wanda, as seem in episode 4, when Wanda, after yeeting Monica out of Westview, turns to find Vision's head destroyed, a corpse. To keep Wanda in check. Of course, this could be Wanda's power oscillating.

But I am leaning towards this last possibility. At least where it says that there's someone controlling Wanda. She says she is control, but she clearly isn't. If she was, she could had hold Vision's appearance in the end of ep 4.If she was, Sparky wouldn't have died.

And, more importantly, I believe homegirl when she said, at the end of ep 5, that the doorbell wasn't her.

Things are getting out of hand. Wanda is getting desperate and afraid. Vision is gaining too much conscience, getting too inquisitive. Sword is knocking at the door.

How do you strengthen the link between the powerful witch and that false reality? You give her what she wants and what she can't have outside of that pocket reality. You give her her beloved brother back. Congratulations, you just gave her another reason to stay in Westview doing what she is doing.

Pietro's "recast" and him not being played by Aaron Taylor Johnson (besides being a nod to us, viewers; budget and schedule issues) maybe have some in universe reasons:

A. Pietro's body is buried too far away.

B. Pietro's body is in a very advanced state of decomposition. And whoever/Wanda brought Vision back to life, couldn't do it in someone who's been long dead

[omgthatdress]

How to make Cats a good movie.

I watched Cats, and once I got over the initial horror, I was actually pretty entertained and found myself enjoying the shit out of it. Like god bless it, for as nightmare-inducing as much as it was, Tom Hooper was clearly *committed* to his vision and you gotta give him credit for that. The scenery was actually really beautiful and the cinematography was frequently breathtaking. Like it really did have a lot of elements that really worked for it. But for every bit of genius, there was something terrible that the movie just couldn’t overcome. So let’s dive in.

First of all, you kind of have to understand Cats: the musical. It’s an adaptation of poems that T.S. Elliott of nihilistic lost generation fame wrote for his godchildren about cats. And the poetry is charming af and totally captures the nature of cats and why they’re so lovable. In the in the 1970s, Andrew Lloyd Webber did a shit ton of cocaine and decided to make a musical out of these poems. As a result, Cats has no plot. It’s a bunch of cats singing their songs about who they are and doing a lot of dancing. The thinnest of narrative devices is created with the “jellicle” ball and the deciding of which cat gets to ascend to heaven or some shit. So yeah. Cats is actually pretty controversial among theater nerds, it’s very much a you either love it or hate it thing. Is it stupid? Yes.  Is it going to make everyone happy? No. Does it lend itself well to film adaptation? fuck no. I get the feeling that Tom Hooper was really going for deep, meaningful poetic cinema here and trying to make another Les Mis (which was way overly long and ultimately sank under its own sheer weight as a movie and probably is better viewed as a play). I’m operating under the assumption that Hooper was going for ground-breaking cinema that would have made millions and swept up during awards season and cemented him as a legendary director and gone down in movie history, because every little detail of Cats is clearly meant for maximum impact. You kind of need to drop all expectations going into Cats, so once you’re there, you can have fun with it. So how do you make it a good film?

1. The HORRIBLE hyper-realistic cgi human-cat hybrids. YES, it’s a technical marvel, and the CGI artists who made it all deserve a ton of credit for the work they did. And I understand why the actors were kept in their human shapes: live dance is a huge part of what makes Cats work. One of the smart decisions made was hiring theater veterans for the filler roles in the cat chorus, so when you have the choreographed numbers, it’s really spectacular. It’s just the end result was way too uncanny valley and bizarre for any of the film’s good parts to ever rise above it. I think a minimalist approach would have actually worked best. Cat ears and simple costumes with clean lines that show off the dancer’s bodies. Go for the suggestion of cats, and kind of let the viewer’s imagination take over, and showcase the cat’s personality. A huge part of what I enjoyed was hearing the poetry and imagining these cats and how they all relate to cats I’ve known. The dance and the music helped heighten this experience, but hybrids kept reminding me of the joke: what do you get when you cross a human and a cat? An immediate cessation of funding and a stern rebuke from the ethics committee.

2. The schlocky, honestly amateurish attempts at slapstick humor. I’m gonna come out and say it and say that Hooper is pretty deeply entrenched in *dRaMa* and has no sense of how comedy works. There was a lot of added in comedic bits from Rebel Wilson and James Corden, and it was honestly terrible. I mean really, a crotch hit? That kind of lowbrow comedy is so crude and base that it’s actually really hard to pull it off well. Slapstick comedy actually lends itself to the whimsical tone, and slapstick done well can be utterly sublime, but Cats seemed satisfied that fat people falling over is the height of comedy and should be left at that. And a second note on the comedy? Weirdly fat-shame-y. A saw a post about how odd it is to see James Corden, who has been very frank about how he’s struggled with dieting and come to accept that his body is fat and can’t be made not fat, playing this role where fat is added to his body, his CGI vest strains at the buttons, and he’s literally stuffing his face with garbage. The theme of fat people as lazy, stupid, and slovenly carried over from Rebel Wilson’s role, in which she also plays a fat lazy cat who is leaned on heavily for comic relief. I know the role is about a fat cat, and gently laughing at a fat lazy cat who loves to eat is fine, but, speaking as a fat person myself, this felt like a gleeful exploitation of a nasty and cruel stereotype. James Corden and Rebel Wilson are both extraordinarily funny people who happen to be fat, and their comedic gifts were tremendously mis-used here, reducing them to simply two fat bodies to be laughed at.

3. Jennifer Hudson. She’s a talented actress who can sing and emote like a motherfucker. And emote she did. She was clearly GOING for that second Oscar. I really don’t want to call her performance bad. The same level of emotion, tears running and snot flowing, in another movie, would have been devastating (Hello, Viola Davis in Fences). But this isn’t Fences, it’s fucking Cats. You need a level of character depth and development that Cats doesn’t afford to make those tears hit. All the crying and misery was an odd maudlin and over-dramatic break in the fun and whimsy. With a subtler performance and a hint of self-awareness, it could have actually brought in an emotional anchor for this light-as-air film, but Cats doesn’t make any attempt at nuance, and as a result the scenes just hit you out of nowhere like a load of bricks. 

4. Francesca Hayward. Okay, before we go anywhere, I want to say that this girl is not un-talented. She’s the principal ballerina of the Royal Ballet, and has a very long list of ballets that she’s lead in. So it makes sense that she’d be hired for a role that’s primarily ballet. This girl is a really really great DANCER. But Cats was clearly trying to make an A-list actress out of her. They tried to make her into Florence Pugh, who has been acting for a while and is blowing up right now because she’s very talented. Like everything about Francesca’s role in the film said “This is a star-making role.” A new song was written just for her to sing as an addendum to Cats’s show-stopping signature song. But the song was just okay, it didn’t carry nearly the emotional weight or all-around beauty of “Memories,” and all in all felt wedged-in and totally unnecessary and really just felt like a grab at that “best original song” Oscar. Francesca’s voice is high, thin, and child-like. It’s not unpleasant, but next to the richness and depth of Jennifer Hudson’s voice, it crumbles, and it’s not the sort of voice that I want to seek out to listen to over and over again. As for her overall performance, she largely keeps the same look of wide-eyed wonder throughout her numerous close-ups, so much so that I found myself thinking of the the MST3K “dull surprise” sketch. But I don’t know if that’s really entirely her fault. There was an attempted romantic storyline with the magic cat, but again, because of the nature of Cats and its lack of real character development or depth, the chemistry fell flat. There really isn’t much of a chance to show off a lot of dramatic range, so to keep going back to her character, it kept reinforcing the one-notedness of her performance. Really, I just kept wanting to see Francesca dance. Ironically, I think they really blew an opportunity trying to make an A-list actress out of her. All she really need to make people want to see more of her is one spectacular dance number, but for some reason, she never really gets that show-stopping moment. 

5. Dignity? I guess this goes back to the whole CGI cat thing, but there were a lot of moments when I felt this tremendous wave of second-hand embarrassment hit me on behalf of the talented actors in this film. Watching Gandalf lap up milk from a saucer was a wholly uncomfortable experience, like come on, grant the great Ian McKellan some fucking DIGNITY here. Which goes back to whatI said earlier that a suggestion and interpretation of cats would have worked better than all-out just being a cat. Or it could again just be how much Cats just fails its attempts at comedy. But then again there was no fucking reason at all for Idris Elba to be that fucking NAKED. I guess they were trying to make him sexy? But his sexy smolder and just being Idris Elba wasn’t enough they had to make sure that we all saw his chiseled pecs and thick thighs. And then at the end when he’s dangling off of the rope of a hot air balloon and what’s supposed to be a funny scene, I think, I kept thinking “I’m so sorry this is happening to you, Idris.” 

There’s a bunch of other small, nit-picky things that I could go into. Those cockroaches would have worked so much better if they weren’t humans with an extra set of arms. Watching them get eaten was some horror movie shit. Taylor Swift’s Macavity song would have worked a lot better if the cat chorus full of cats we’ve gotten to know had sung it, but instead Taylor Swift is brought in as a new cat we don’t know whose only purpose is to sing the Macavity song? but of course a big oscar-bait movie needs to have that pop star that draws in the people who wouldn’t otherwise see it and making her a part of the cat chorus would have had her performing throughout the whole movie and she would have floundered the way pop stars tend to do when performing musical theater around a bunch of musical theater actors. So I guess I get why she was thrown in.

So.... yeah? Is there anyone else who found themselves enjoying it in spite of everything? I’m glad I have dogs and didn’t have to watch this mess with actual cats around me.