Did the Bejeweled Music Video tell us the order of release for the re-records?
So, I spent and obnoxiously insane amount of time going over the Bejeweled music video because Taylor said she put a psychotic amount of easter eggs in said video. And, well, I’ve spent six years watching The Game Theorist and The Film Theorists on YouTube that I thought, “I couldn’t possibly go insane from this?” there’s a reason, I fear, that there are sixty videos by them on FNAF alone— I digress. Amidst going insane by going frame by frame in this video, I came to one theory that has stuck with me this entire endeavor: the order of the rest of Taylor’s re-recordings. Now, I know you’re probably thinking: “Anne, there’s no possible way you were able to figure this out by watching the video a few times” and to that I say “She put a psychotic amount of easter eggs so I went hunting… I lost track after the twentieth time opening the video”. I felt like keeping tally marks would just land me in a concerning place… more concerning then I where I already am. Now this isn’t the first thing I’ve ever broken apart like this, but it IS the first I’ve shared. So, without further ado— no more ramblings from a mad woman (HA see what I did there?)— my conclusion and my evidence.
Now I know quite a few people have been under the assumption that Speak Now will be Taylor’s next (myself included until I started this whole ordeal), I have reason to believe it isn’t… not yet.
You see, after the two minute cold open that, let’s be honest, was amazing, we see Taylor fixing/making a black bedazzled cloak. It’s in her lap as she sews.
Now this in it of itself doesn’t mean much right? But then she goes into the elevator and when she turns around the parallel to the …Ready For It? music video are very clear (to me at the very least)
Tell me I’m insane for seeing it!
“it’s a pose!” You say.
“That’s not true because of the EleVatOr BuTtON!” You screech.
Bear with me, my leaps go further than this.
The hand?
The hand covered in diamonds and rhinestones? Remind you of something?
Well, it sparked something in the recesses of my mind. And for a while I couldn’t quite place it, until I saw an edit on TikTok of the 1989 World Tour.
Now tell me you don’t see THAT!
If you don’t I could toss up the picture of Taylor from the Look What You Made Me Do music video and tell you it’s in reference to the bathtub full of diamonds she’s bathing in. Believe me that thought crossed my mind. However, the Out Of The Woods body suit she wore on tour just made more sense. Especially when we go back to everybody’s favorite: The elevator button!
The purple button that has made everyone else overlook the clear details in this video, never fear, I saw. I never gave up. Now this wonderful image has caused quite the tidal wave over social media. And now, I hear you again.
“Anne! It’s purple with the number three! Speak Now’s cover has Taylor in a purple dress and it always correlated with the color purple and Speak Now is her thirds album!” I hear you. Except the floor she steps gets off on isn’t exactly… Speak Now themed and neither is she. I will circle back to why the body suit being a reference to 1989 is important later. In the meantime:
This is the first image we see of the third floor. And this is how Taylor looks stepping off of said elevator.
Still looks very Reputation esc if you ask me.
This outfit makes me think about two Reputation Tour outfits. Like if these two merged together it would form the body suit above.
Now we make our way to Level 5 ( the fact that it’s blue is important. Blue is associated with 1989, and for the cherry on top 1989 is her 5th album)
Where we meet Dita von Teese looking like Taylor’s Wildest Dreams music videos character.
And Taylor is wearing the same kind of wrap that we see from the Wildest Dreams music video as well.
After the room I’m dreaming as 1989 we move onto the talent competition that (spoilers) Taylor wins. Then during the part in all of this where Prince Jack is proposing to Taylor, she looks at the camera and you’re able to get a better look at two heart shaped clips in her hair that have S and N in them respectively.
Now you might being saying: “That doesn’t mean anything, Anne!”
And you would be right. If you weren’t paying attention to the Taylor that walks out onto the balcony.
Making her debut to us in her new castle, we see Taylor wearing once again two heart shaped clips in her hair, but this time they have a T and S in them respectively.
Now this I the part where you say: “Enchanted instrumental! Love live instrumental! The dragons! The BuTtOn!” While others are still annoyed by the fact I haven’t explained why I said the diamond and rhinestone clad hand being a reference to the 1989 world tour bodysuit. And to the latter I say this:
Let’s take another nice long look at it.
Because it (the bodysuit) is directly telling us what will lead into speak now. Remember how I told you about the cloak being a reference to …Ready For It? Which came off of Reputation. From the cloak (Reputation) she pulls the bedazzled hand (1989) which presses level 3 (which is purple and Speak Now).
Level three is the diamond room with the Reputation tour bodysuits merged into one. From there we have the Wildest Dreams room level 5. And level 13 is Speak Now. Go back to the word I used to describe Taylor making her way out onto the balcony of her new castle. Debut.
Reputation
1989
Speak Now
Taylor Swift. Or as Swifties call it: Debut
Let me break it down once more:
If the cloaked Taylor here is representing Reputation, and from “Reputation” she pulls “1989″, and then we get 1989 pressing “Speak Now”. Leaving us with the order of Reputation, 1989, and Speak now.
Is this all a reach? Sure. But it wouldn’t be fun to theorize if it wasn’t. Truthfully, as a fandom we get as much stuff right as we do wrong. However, knowing how Taylor loves leaving the most obvious things in plain sight (just think back to the Midnights release era where we looked back and felt ridiculous for not putting pieces together).
Am I convinced with this theory? Am I happy with it? The short answer is: yes. If I didn’t like the ideas I put in this, I wouldn’t have made this long post about any of it.
Now I already hear you typing: “If the elevator numbers/color combinations don’t mean anything for the 3rd floor, why does it matter for the 5th?” Because if floor 3 really represented Speak Now it would have been speak now themed. The 5th floor is whites and blues with an aesthetic that Taylor leaned into with 1989, whereas the 3rd floor leaned into the aesthetics of Reputation rather than Speak Now.
Reputation being next would be a way of her reclaiming something she worked so hard on under the conditions she did. The vault will tell a whole other story. She reinvented herself for it. She had to come back stronger than a 90′s trend if you will.
The 1989 lawsuit over Shake It Off was dropped on December 12th. Finally, we have the ability to get all of our favorites off of it re-recorded and re-released. And getting Clean (Taylor’s Version) after Red (Taylor’s Version) and Reputation (Taylor’s Version) will be therapeutic. It will also be available to us when we get the Speak Now vault— I digress once again.
And Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) would be such a poetic way of ending the re-recordings. She could have given it to us before Fearless and Red, but she didn’t. It will be the last one she releases and I think it’s symbolic.
In conclusion, it doesn’t matter if this is right or wrong. I just thought that the references were there and I would take some time to theorize and put it out there for other Swifties to chew on. Maybe something sticks, maybe it doesn’t. Either way; if you made it this far thank you. I know this wasn’t exactly short by any means. I hope that you enjoyed the ramblings of a mad woman as she tried her best to pick the brain of the Mastermind Taylor Swift. Who know’s, maybe at the very least I’ve sparked a few ideas in your mind as to what any of these things could mean.
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(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 4)
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Tw: descriptions of body horror, Dr. Crane has PTSD and Does Not Realize, Crane has an actual panic attack and just doesn’t care, the Riddler makes one (1) sex joke about Batman
Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually
(Pt. 1 here) (Prev here) - (Pt. 5 here)
(Masterlist here)
—
Dr. Jonathan Crane is in his lab, the acrid scent of chemicals filling the air, and his hands are shaking.
Danny’s health, for the first week that he had him, had been steadily improving at an extremely quick rate. However, his healing had begun to stagnate. Danny said that it was because his body had run out of ectoplasm, and that while there was a lot of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham, he needed a stronger type in order to heal.
And so, that led Dr. Crane here.
He had stolen the research notes from the Penguin years ago regarding his experimentation on him.
(He quite vividly remembers the sound of bone creaking and groaning as it twisted, lengthened. The squelching of shifting tendons and muscles, the strange fabric-like tightening of skin. The feeling of going from man to monster, of losing all claim to his humanity.)
Danny had called him Liminal, part ghost. He had said that he was transformed by, among other things, a kind of synthetic ectoplasm.
Danny needed ectoplasm.
Crane had the research notes. He had every ingredient necessary. And yet, attempt after attempt failed.
The chemical smell burns his nose. His hands tremble.
Dr. Crane is not afraid.
He doesn’t feel fear anymore. He’s tried to, many, many times, but nothing has worked. And yet, his hands are shaking still.
(The horrifying sensation of vertebrae pop-pop-popping along his spine, growing and lengthening. The unbearable itching beneath his skin as toxin glands begin to form. The feeling of his teeth sharpening and elongating, of his skull growing, of his vision changing and brightening. The awful stench of chemicals. The awful stench of ectoplasm.)
Jonathan takes careful note of his shaking hands, his blurring vision, his accelerated heart-rate and shallow breathing.
(Human hands. Human vision. Human heart and lungs and organs.)
He takes note of them, but he does not let that distract him from the task at hand. Danny is not a chemist, but Jonathan is.
The boy knows enough about chemistry in theory, but he won’t go anywhere near Crane’s equipment. He seems to have some sort of intense fear of laboratory settings, probably developed during his stay with the GiW, and Crane is willing to respect that, if only because he cannot afford to lose him.
As such, Crane is the only one qualified to do this. And, unfortunately, if he isn’t successful the boy may very well die.
He heats the chemicals to precisely the right temperatures, adding each one to its correct container.
Dr. Crane thinks of the Scarebeast, that creature born of cruelty and greed and a sense of superiority. That creature which he tries to ignore is a part of him, that can never be removed. A damage which cannot be undone.
He pours the contents of a small beaker into a larger flask, watching the liquids swirl together. The stench in the air is becoming closer and closer to the one burned into his memory.
Crane’s whole body is wracked with unpleasant sensations. It’s truly unfortunate, he thinks, that despite his mind’s lack of fear, his body still reacts so harshly.
Jonathan’s eyes wander, eventually settling on a purple and green card sitting innocently on the corner of the table.
Right.
Even if they wiped out the GiW tomorrow, and even if Danny could survive without ectoplasm, he would still be in danger.
Crane has to get him back to good health. It’s the only way he can be sure that the boy can defend himself properly.
The solution in the flask begins to foam, and Jonathan does not hesitate as he adds the final ingredient. He pours the mixture into a new container, capping it and placing it into a freezer set to -40 degrees.
Hopefully this time he got the timing right.
Jonathan tries to relax, the ventilation in the room slowly but surely clearing the familiar smell from the air.
He thinks of the letter.
Surely, he thinks, that man can come up with some better material for his jokes. Or, at least something new.
Same old threats, same old attempted poisoning.
Aiming his threats at Danny, though, that was new. New and utterly unacceptable.
Scarecrow did what he had to.
He doubted that his solution would last forever, of course, as with that man it never did. As such, he would prepare both himself and Danny for the inevitable moment that his choices came back to bite them.
However, for the moment, they were safe. Danny could rest and recover, and Jonathan could figure out a plan to minimize possible damages.
Jonathan is no longer shaking.
He’s exhausted. This is his fifth attempt today, and each one leaves an unfortunate strain on his mind and body.
With a sigh, he settles himself into his seat at a nearby desk, opening up his computer and logging his most recent attempt. He still has to wait for it to chill to know if it was successful, but he can always update the logs later.
Once he’s done, he stretches, joints popping loudly as he walks to the freezer.
When he sees the results of his tireless work, the ghost of a smile flits across his face.
Success.
Jonathan picks up the jug of ectoplasm and leaves the lab, which is in all actuality the basement of the new apartment that he moved himself and Danny into after receiving the note. The scrappy old woman who was his landlord had told him that as long as he paid her five hundred dollars up front, she would let him set up in the basement without any questions or cop calls.
And so, the most expensive apartment in the Narrows was his.
At least, he thought, the distance between the basement and the apartment was short enough that Danny didn’t have to sit in while he was doing his labwork.
Jonathan knew that he didn’t exactly have a strong grasp on the concept of ‘lab safety,’ proven by his built-up immunity to almost every toxic chemical he’d ever encountered, and he doubted that Danny should be around such an environment.
He was back to the apartment quickly, not bothering to hide the self-satisfied smile on his face. Danny is sitting in his armchair, trying to read one of his books. Danny looks up, ready to greet him, when he sees the jug in his hands and pauses.
“Is that..?”
“Synthetic ectoplasm,” Jonathan says proudly, “I found the Penguin’s research notes and decided to recreate it, since you said that you needed it to heal properly. I’m not sure if it’ll work the same as what you usually have, but I hope it’s helpful all the same.”
Danny is standing, now, and looking at Jonathan with a strange look in his eyes. He looks, Jon thinks, like he’s about to cry.
Then Danny is rushing forward and wrapping his arms around Jonathan, his scrawny form shaking.
Jonathan is, for a moment, horrified. Did he do something wrong somehow? Why is this child, who’s so afraid of touch, hugging him?
And then he hears Danny’s voice, and he knows that it was all worth it.
“Thank you,” he’s mumbling, over and over, “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.”
“Of course,” Jonathan says softly, because what else can he say?
The boy cries in his arms for a while, and Jonathan briefly wonders what his life must have been like before, if a person like him can be seen as a comforting figure.
Then, Danny pours himself a small glass of the synthetic ectoplasm, putting the rest into the small fridge which had come with the apartment, and he settles back down, sitting in the armchair once again.
Jonathan sits opposite of him, and they chat with one another as Danny drinks.
Danny talks to him about the stars and tells him about different spaceships, and Jonathan makes sure to pay attention and ask the boy questions.
He doesn’t miss the way that Danny lights up every time he asks him something about his interests. He’s so passionate, so smart, a trait that he seldom sees outside of his fellow rogues, and Jonathan wants to encourage that.
It’s…nice. Peaceful, almost.
And then the front door flies open, because Jonathan isn’t allowed to have nice things.
“Jon,” a familiar voice rings out, “what the hell?!”
Danny is frozen in place, clearly terrified.
Jonathan heaves a sigh, turning to face the nuisance who’s entered his apartment.
“Eddie,” he drawls, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Edward’s face is red with anger as he invades Jonathan’s apartment.
“Oh, I don’t know! Maybe it’s the fact that you sent a bunch of rogues a cryptic message and then dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks! I was worried, Jon!”
Jonathan hums in acknowledgement.
“I didn’t think it was that cryptic,” he says, picking up a book in order to pointedly ignore the Riddler.
“Oh, of course you didn’t, you straw-stuffed hickory dickory dickhead. I swear, you’re always—” he pauses, finally having noticed Danny sitting opposite of Jonathan, “—who is this?”
“My apprentice,” Jonathan replies, dreading the upcoming headache he was no doubt going to develop from Edward’s company, “he’s helping me hunt down the GiW. His name is Danny.”
Edward gasps dramatically.
“You—an apprentice?! And you’re letting him sit in the old man chair?! You don’t even let me sit in the old man chair,” he wails, draping himself over the headrest of the couch with a flourish, “Jonathan, I thought I knew you!”
“Edward,” Jonathan says, “get out of my apartment.”
“Oh my goodness, this is incredible. You’re becoming the bat!”
“I am not becoming the bat, Eddie, now get out.”
Edward has a shit-eating grin on his face as he waltzes over to Danny. Danny, who seemed terrified when he first appeared, is now looking at him with obvious amusement written all over his face.
“I mean, look at him! The hair, the eyes, the scrappy build. If you put him in one of those traffic light vigilante costumes, he could easily pass as a Robin!”
“I’m not doing this with you today, Eddie.”
“Riddle me this, Jon: I am a treasure hidden inside of a chest. You can break me, or steal me, or give me a rest. I can flutter, or pound, or attack, or drop, but if you don’t have me, you’re certainly fucked. What am I?”
Jonathan pauses for a moment before he groans, dropping his head into his hands.
“Eddie.”
Danny sits still, a confused look on his face as he repeats the riddle silently. Then, his face lights up in delight.
“A heart!”
“Jon, I like this one,” Edward says with a smile, ruffling Danny’s hair, “you are correct! A heart, something that I wasn’t aware that our dear Jonathan had!”
“Eddie, stop.”
“No, no,” Edward says, “I was worried about you, you deserve this. I mean, you even missed girls night! You never miss girls night!”
“Girls night?” Danny asks, absolutely delighted.
“Oh, of course,” Edward says, sprawling over on the couch, dangerously close to just laying in Jonathan’s lap, “we have it once a week. I’m invited because of Selina and Jon’s invited because Harley likes him.”
“And what does girls night entail, exactly?”
“Eddie,” Jonathan groans, “please.”
“Well,” Edward hums, “we usually paint our nails, or watch a movie, or gossip about the other rogues, and occasionally, we tell each other about any ‘encounters’ we have with Batman,” he says, raising his eyebrows up and down.
Danny’s jaw drops.
“Edward, shut up,” Jonathan says, an irritated tone in his voice that wasn’t there before.
“No way,” Danny says, “I thought that Batman, like, hated you guys or something. You mean he actually..?”
“Oh, the Bat is much like a bottle of liquor or a cheap cigarette, in that he was made to be passed around.”
Danny chokes on air.
“Edward Nygma,” Jonathan hisses, getting out of his seat and looming over the man, “get the hell out.”
Edward pales.
“Leaving, leaving!” Edward says, dashing away from Jonathan. He pauses, turning to flash Danny a quick smile.
“Remember Danny, I’m your favorite uncle! Not any of the other rogues, me!”
With that, he leaves, the room falling completely silent.
And, as per usual, that silence does not last.
“You full-named him?” Danny asks gleefully, “and it worked?”
Jonathan just sighs, sitting down on the couch and rubbing at his temples.
“Please, don’t take anything Eddie says seriously. He’s a moron.”
“Dr. Crane, please let me come to girls night with you,” Danny pleads, his eyes sparkling, “I promise I won’t embarrass you.”
Jonathan groans.
“Of course you won’t, Eddie will do it for you.”
“Come on, please?”
“I think we’re a bit busy with the GiW at the moment,” Jonathan snaps. He pauses as he notices the crestfallen expression on Danny’s face.
This boy is going to be the death of him.
“Perhaps, though, when all that is taken care of…”
Danny cheers, grinning wildly, and Jonathan is not at all relieved to see him happy again. Certainly not.
The rest of the day is relatively normal.
Danny works on trying to get information from the GiW database while Crane refines his his fear toxin, both preparing for a raid on the GiW base they located in Gotham.
It was only a temporary base, nothing of note, but there was a chance of discovering more bases through it, and that wasn’t something either of them were willing to give up.
Still, something like this would take time. Rushing would only lead to failure.
…
Late in the night, long after Danny is fast asleep in his room, Jonathan pauses.
The GiW are not the only threat out there. They aren’t the only threat to him or to Danny. Perhaps it could be helpful to reach out to someone with greater resources than himself.
He sends a quick message to Red Hood.
Hopefully, he thinks, everything will go smoothly.
—
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