#midnight analysis

[apollos-boyfriend]

haii could you give me a summary of c!purpleds characterization ???

oughhh i always struggle w questions like these because for me it has become almost second nature but. i will try my best (≧∀≦ゞ fellow cpurpled enjoyers feel free to chime in with ur own suggestions if u so wish

purpled is selfish. this feels like a pretty obvious aspect of his character but Oh the amount of people i’ve seen get it wrong. he does not feel guilt over his selfishness. he will take and take until there’s no more left to steal, and he will blame the other party for his loss. he’s a survivalist before all else, a businessman before a person, and he’s proud of it. he’s manipulative and cunning and, honestly, a total asshole most of the time. it’s part of his charm

he’s been used. a lot. being used is kind of a key aspect of his character and his behavior. i think it’s important to note though that his experiences are never portrayed in a way where he’s meant to be pitied. his story is more focused on rage, on revenge, on a burning anger that will burn everything in its path. his story is tragic, yes, but he Refuses to let it be a tragedy (he is not consciously making this choice, which i’ll go into later)

he’s VERY prideful. he’s good at a lot of things and he knows it. i think a lot of people see his character type of smug, confident asshole and jump to the conclusion that it’s a front for him to cover up his insecurities but. i cannot stress enough. he is Genuinely Just Like That. he is almost fully incapable of self-doubt. if he ever encounters a situation where he has fucked up he will instantly find a way to shift that blame to others. he’s hot shit, he knows it, and he WILL make it everyone’s problem

something i think is really important is that, when it comes to seeing others, he sees most people at a neutral. he has very few people he strongly likes or dislikes, and is more uninterested and unconcerned with most people. he looks down on them, but not in a negative way, per se. that’s just how purpled sees people. if they can’t provide him with something, they’re unimportant to him. it’s not personal, it’s just fact. quackity is the only person purpled has a true hatred towards, as well as technically tommy, but that was more as a one-sided rivalry, and much, much lesser. it’s worth noting he did NOT hate slime, seeing him as a nuisance at best. he only attacked slime because he knew it’d be the way to hurt quackity the most, he held no real animosity towards him otherwise. ponk, hannah, jack manifold, tubbo, and technically boomer are the only people i’d really classify of being people purpled enjoys being around/sees on the same level as him

i know a lot of these points are somewhat bleak and serious, but he does have a silly side!! he likes pranks and scams. his best friend is his dog, who he regularly talks to as if he was another person. he has a flair for the dramatics and likes showing off, even if doing so is risky, and even if no one but him will see it

this is less of a character analysis but he talks like if you introduced an angry victorian orphan to youtube shorts. he has a very specific cadence of more sophisticated, verbose language mixed with modern-day slang and memes. it’s. very strange. i really can’t begin to properly describe it

there is zero self-awareness in that boy. he cannot see past his anger and spite and realize possible mistakes. 95% of what i’ve mentioned here he is completely unaware of. he can’t see his flaws, he can’t realize his wants, yet he always sees himself as on the right and on top. he is playing 4D chess completely unaware that everyone else is playing checkers, and is prone to unintentionally self-sabotaging himself due to being unable to recognize his true wants. he has 0 self-awareness of any of this. the way i write purpled is to make it Blatantly Obvious to the reader that his mindset and worldview is wrong, but make him completely blind to these points. he should not know things are wrong, but the reader should be able to pick up on it

[beautifulsnake2162020]

I just finished rewatching Castlevania: Nocturne with a friend. And it's only upon rewatch that I have noticed how music is so powerful within the story. And I'm not just talking about Edouard's beautiful arias but also Annette's ancestral lullabies that she keeps close to her heart. These lullabies as sung by her mother was not only a bonding moment but an introduction to her roots and to her powers in their cultural roots. In the context of the story how a character reacts to music says a lot. Heck this is even true for the vampires who enjoy Edouard's performance or who enjoy the musicians in the Cheateau. For the latter group while we don't see everyone's reactions we know that they must have enjoyed it enough to not kill them. And we can infer later on by how the wife of the Marquis was mourning her husband when he later dies. This doesn't excuse her actions of killing innocent people but her despair was a strong contrast to the reactions of Drolta and one her head henchman. Later on we see that Edouard's singing annoys both Erzabeth Bathory and Drolta which may indicate that they have either lost their souls or if they still had them it is now too far gone for anything but a downward spiral. Olrox may have no reaction to Edouard's song but he at the very least isn't annoyed with it the way Drolta and Erzabeth are. Which makes sense since he isn't one of the blind lackeys that just bows down to any new power. Experience has taught him that the words may change but the desire to conquer is still going to be a disaster - even if this time he is a part of what would have become the ruling class of Erzabeth's new world order.

And also as a Phan girl myself, I couldn't help but think that my fictional husband Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, would absolutely love this. I forgot where I read it but I remember reading how someone said in one of the novel adaptations of the story (I think it was the Kay version) wherein Christine offers to sing in exchange for something (I forgot what it was) and Erik quickly rejects that offer because music is so sacred to him that one should listen or participate in it out of true genuine love for it. And with the way music, especially through Edouard's songs is shown to be an incredible tool that it helped at least two new night creatures regain their humanity and that Edouard was still able to hold on to his that even as a night creature he could still touch the lives of others - I couldn't help but think of how Erik would highly appreciate it.

And also it's refreshing that this time a male opera singer is one of the main cast of characters since whenever an opera singer is in the cast it's usually a female (and usually a Soprano).

[esotericswiftie]

1. anti-hero, taylor swift / 2, 19. “taylor swift’s ‘sexy baby’ lyric is more than a ‘30 rock’ reference,” sophia june for nylon magazine / 3, 4, 12, 22. taylor swift ages 14-16, photographed by andrew orth / 5, 23. dominique swain age 15, photographed for lolita (1997) / 6, 17. “the fetishization of girlhood,” m.c. easton / 7. lolita (1962), dir. stanley kubrick / 8. 22 (mv), taylor swift / 9. anti-hero (mv), taylor swift / 10, 14, 18. nothing new, taylor swift ft. phoebe bridgers / 11. “2008’s country lolita: taylor swift,” gavin edwards for rolling stone / 13, 21. lolita (1997), dir. adrian lyne / 15. okcupid dating chart: age preferences by gender / 16. all too well (ten minute version), taylor swift / 20. university of pittsburgh 2021-2022 undergraduate catalog / 23. would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, taylor swift

apologies for this ridiculously long megathread, but i found a ton of these photographs of taylor from when before she was famous, around ages 14-16, and ooh boy, did they get me thinking…

sometimes i wonder if she just really lucked out with the mostly desexualized “innocent girl-next-door” persona becoming her brand throughout her early career, because it looks like things could have gone in a very different direction for her in another universe.

like you can literally see taylor being de-aged between her debut and fearless era as her public image cemented…the posing, the makeup, the hair, the clothing…it’s all very deliberate and sinister.

and now, all these years later, no one knows better than taylor herself that the most desirable thing a woman can be is not a woman, but a girl…a sexy baby, if you must.

her heart-shaped sunglasses, nothing new, the ten minute version of all too well, would’ve could’ve should’ve…she knows all about society’s sickness, its simultaneous fetishization and destruction of girlhood. she knows because she’s lived through it.

we don’t often categorize her or think of her as one, but she was a child star, and she barely escaped its curse. just barely. but unlike so many other child stars, unlike dolores haze, she survived with her voice and her pen, and she can see it all now, it was wrong.

[oswinsdolma]

the bbc merlin writers actually went so hard when they decided "actually no, magic isn't some grotesque perversion of the natural order, it is nature itself" because like. it would have been so easy to write merlin's internal conflict as one between the inherent evil of magic and the good of humanity, to put arthur in the right for his persecution and to turn merlin into some kind of doomed hero within himself, but no. because in the end, magic had very little to do with anything, it was just something that was there. morgana didn't turn evil because she was magic, she did because she was scared and angry and manipulated. merlin doesn't wait for arthur because of the promise of a golden age, at least not really; he does it because he loves arthur and wants him back. in the disiir episode, if it had only ever been about restoring magic to camelot, merlin should have sacrificed arthur in a heartbeat for the promise of magic's legalisation. hell, even mordred didn't kill arthur because of his views on magic, he did so because arthur took away the person he loved. like yeah it's a fantasy show and magic is a massive part of that world, but in the end it was a story about people, and all the hopes and dreams within it are deeply and tragically human, and that's what makes it a good story, what keeps us going apeshit over it even ten years after it ended. in a way, there are two shows in the same way there are two merlins: one about magic, "emrys" and the other about friendship, and like merlin, the audience has to choose which one we should care about most. and every time, we make the same choice as he did: we, however foolishly, choose humanity. we sob at the tragic trajectory and scream as we see destiny gathering traction, but isn't that the point of tragedy?? if we followed logic over emotion, tragedy would never take place, but equally, if we followed logic over emotion, the idea of tragedy itself would become lost to obselescebce. the whole point of the show is to tell us that "no, we can't define things as one or the other, because anything with meaning exists as something more complex, because to give something meaning is to perceive it with a human gaze". magic may be a force of nature, but good and evil are ideas perpetuated by our innate, incurable humanity, and it is here we have a choice. we can't choose our destinies but we can choose from which direction to embrace it, and that's a surprisingly radical, beautiful thing.

[timeskip]

Gon and Killua's relationship is so. Here is Killua's first friend and he is light itself and Killua hates himself in comparison to him. Here is Gon's first friend his age and being with him reminds Gon that the journey should be fun and they should be kids. Gon doesn't know that Killua hates himself in comparison, he just sees Killua as a friend who gets flustered and shuts down at compliments--but he doesn't know why, he doesn't REALLY understand the lack of love Killua has had his whole life.

When it comes to how Gon sees Killua, it's easy to forget how much Gon doesn't know... He knew Illumi, he knew "I want to be friends with Gon" and he knew Illumi's reaction to that ("you are incapable of friendship") but he doesn't linger on it. There's an anger and protectiveness that lights Gon up from within even that first time he saves Killua, a part of this radiance that Killua clings to and also believes he's not allowed to have near him. This love, this familiarity, Illumi's promise of betrayal that Killua and Gon are both aware of but which Gon has stopped seeing as important, it's something that Gon has accepted. He doesn't think about it, because why should he? Killua is with GON now, they're friends now, they don't have to think about the fact that Killua used to be told he was incapable of that.

(And to a degree, this is part of Gon's emotional repression technique to dealing with problems he can't immediately rush down and Fix, and he won't think about that until it snowballs into something unignorable.)

And Gon loves Killua and feels safe with him, and he protected Killua from his family. That's not to say he isn't aware that the Zoldycks are still dangerous, or even that Killua doesn't still have effects of them raising him, but Killua never shows that to Gon. He never talks about Illumi's voice in his head or the idea of betraying his friends. He hides his habit of running. And, when Gon sees it in action, when Killua knocks him out and runs and Kite dies, Gon accepts it because Killua's agency is important to him, because Gon expects (perhaps unfairly, but he's also. 12. He's allowed to be a little dumb) for Killua to protect Gon, because if there's anyone who can stop Gon it's Killua. He lends Killua his back--he trusts Killua to watch for danger and things Gon can't do. He trusts Killua even to knock him out and run. He won't blame Killua for being (in Killua's own eyes, and the eyes of the adults) a coward.

This is the acceptance that makes Gon bright to Killua, but it's also something so profound about Gon trusting someone this much, not immediately rushing ahead and wanting to do his own thing and being stubborn about it to the point of anger at Killua. It's easy to forget how much Gon trusts Killua, even when he pushes him away and hurts him during the confrontation with Pitou. Even then, Gon stopped for him! Even though it hurts, even when he's spiraling, even though he was leaking aura, he stopped.

Because Killua is still Gon's friend. Even though (from Gon's POV) Killua has no idea the emotional weight of this--even though fighting Pitou was Gon's responsibility, not Killua's--Gon still listened. And then he makes sure that he's going to head forward alone, because in that moment he can't stand how calm Killua is being. How Killua could give forgiveness for what Pitou is doing to Komugi, because--like with Illumi--an injustice has been committed and something must be done. Can't Killua see that?

This is the thing; Gon has given his acceptance of Killua in full. He has given no such thing to Pitou. I don't think this is that weird, Gon is still forming his morals and to him Killua is! his friend!!! He loves Killua!!! He wants him by his side, an unspoken wish for him to come with him in the palace invasion!!! But there's always been a way out for Killua, the knowledge that Gon met Kite first, that Kite gave him his dream and this isn't Killua's fight. But Gon fails to see that where he put Kite on a pedestal that's only driving Gon deeper down, Killua has put Gon on a similar pedestal. They're hurting each other and Gon never meant for Killua to get in this deep; he must know that Killua is here for him and not Kite, but there's no way he knows just how much Killua sees in him. He just doesn't know, doesn't realize, doesn't think about how important he is to Killua. In some small way, Gon sees this friendship onesided, just like Killua does.

[daisyswift3]

I Think There's Been a Glitch

GUYS I just realized sth crazy while watching this tiktok….I think the reason Taylor has red hair in so many mvs is bc it’s a play on the term RED HERRING. Red HAIR(RING). TTPD itself was a red herring and ends w the manuscript which is basically just the all too well short film (from RED TV) which she has red hair in. The glitches. Error 321. Bad BLOOD mv where she has red hair. THE RED BLOOD MOON. CHAOS 🫚 ANON = GINGER = RED HEAD = GLITCH. Glitching back to the 1989 era??…..

IT'S A CLOCK, IT CAN HELP YOU TELL TIME. She literally told us her entire plan all the way back in 2022. If the midnights vinyls make a clock that counts down to midnight then we’ve officially reached the “blood moon glitch” stage. I'm assuming 1, 2, 3 error/TPD (if you reverse the website glitch) was the moonstone vinyl so now we're at 4, 5, 6 the blood moon vinyl. The Jan 4 🫚 message tells us that we should be counting from 1-10 and not backward. And this means the final act ends in October AKA Halloween AKA pumpkin anon. "Frivolous, tenfold, 3 desires And until the clock strikes midnight Light the ground with fires." Seeing how each vinyl is a quarter of the clock and TTPD (the glitch/red blood moon/red herring) was released in April, I think it's safe to assume each quarter represents 1/4 of a year or 3 months. Which means 2025 or New Year's Day would be Midnight. So perhaps a kaylor reunion in Oct and an official coming out around Dec-Jan. This aligns w another interesting anon message we received abt New Year's Day being when an atomic bomb would go off (volcano anon?). "The real drama, the heartbreaking beauty of it all, unfolds not in a grand finale, but in the quiet unraveling. The magician's greatest illusion is the one you choose not to see." Shits abt to get crazy

[locked-tomb-shenanigans]

Does anyone else think about how the nicknames Pyrrha gave Nona and the way she acted around her in general probably had something to do with the fact that there was a good chance Nona was Gideon, at least at first?

Pyrrha ended up loving Nona as her child regardless of who she ended up being, of course.

But the books aren’t exactly shy about the fact that Pyrrha wanted Gideon (which is a concept that in itself would probably make Gideon explode if she let herself realize it). I think the first thing we ever hear her ask Wake, way back in Harrow, is why she brought the baby when she came to the Ninth.

Pyrrha thought Gideon was dead for eighteen years, and she was still thinking about her. She was still grieving her.

The last coherent soul she’d met inhabiting Harrow’s body was Gideon. What does it matter if she’s technically John’s kid? She’s still Pyrrha’s. And Pyrrha came out of that situation okay, but Gideon didn’t.

But the body is okay. And the body might have amnesia, and the girl in it might not know what she’s doing, but someone is alive in there, and there’s a good chance that it’s still the baby she grieved for eighteen years.

And so Pyrrha cooks her breakfast. She braids her hair. She goes to work for her. She kisses her forehead when they say goodbye. She shoots marbles off the roof just because the girl asks her to.

She gets to do all these things that she thought she never would, because the baby died eighteen years ago.

And she sees the girl’s body, and she’s her mom’s spitting image, and Pyrrha wants her, wants to take care of her, so much. Even now that she’s dead. Even now that she’s undead. Even when she’s acting weird, when she’s all grief and anger and takes her frustration out on everyone.

Pyrrha still calls her kiddo. She still tries to look out for her.

Gideon is Pyrrha’s kid in the same way that Nona is, but Gideon doesn’t know what to do with that, because she doesn’t know what it’s like to be a child that is wanted.

Thinking really intensely about what would have been if Nona had been Gideon, if she’d gotten to realize that she has friends and a parent who love her without any need for sacrifice, or any need to prove herself. Who love her just because she is.

And idk. I’m hoping she still gets to realize that. I’m hoping Pyrrha gets to call her stupid nicknames, too.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

By god do I just need to scream into the ether about the Heart and co. confrontation scene.

First, the tension, incredible. Gemini and Fourth are phenomenal actors. Heart and Li Ming know they are walking in to a very emotionally fraught situation and their hesitation is palpable.

It's scene breakdown time babyyyy! Let's start from the beginning

For a boy who admitted last episode that he has no idea what he is doing, he sure keeps doing things right. He's letting Heart know he's going to talk. Now, granted I don't know what he is saying here precisely if he is just simply saying "I'm going to talk for us/first", "I'll interpret," or if he's saying "I'm going to talk?", I don't think his face moves in any way that would imply a question, but his face is partially obscured. Either way he is at the very least keeping Heart in the know, and at the most asking for Heart's explicit consent to lead this conversation. You can't see it from pictures, but I appreciate the fact that before they cut back to the wide shot, Heart nods, so we as an audience, and Li Ming as the speaker here knows that Heart is okay with the power dynamics at play, with Li Ming talking for both of them.

It's a blink and you'll miss it moment, thankfully I'm obsessed with this scene and therefore have been looping it endlessly, but I feel compelled to point out the way eye contact in this moment goes a long way in conveying how Heart's Mom and Li Ming view Heart. When Heart's mother points to her son she doesn't even look at him. The most she does is cast a downward glance at his bandage, and that's before she even points. And you can argue all you want that she doesn't look at him because she's specifically talking to and addressing Li Ming. But I call bullshit on that because Li Ming is specifically talking to and addressing Heart's mother, and he's looking straight in to Heart's eyes when he refers to and gestures towards Heart. I'm sure that both of these characters believe they love and care about Heart, but of these two characters which one actually recognizes Heart's personhood?

But uh oh! Li Ming stood up for himself and for Heart, and talked back to not just an adult, but a powerful adult. And now she's mentioning past debts, and now there will be more to pay as a result. And Li Ming can only work so much with school and life and everything. He clearly doesn't know what he's getting himself in to, or what he has gotten himself in to. Li Ming and Heart's Mom are both getting angry, tensions are rising, something needs to happen to de-escalate the situation or this might go wrong. Uncle Jim absolutely must intervene (I hope you can hear the sarcasm in my voice). Interesting note: Guess who else doesn't look at their child when making a decision for them. Jim does look at Li Ming directly after this though, but it's to ask him why he did it. It's to place the blame for the accident on Li Ming. "You Li Ming, why did you do it?" "Heart asked me to." "Stop saying that."

Jim is scared, Li Ming is pissed. "He was bored at home" "I said stop!" Jim is used to the way powerful and wealthy people can control and punish the poor. Jim and Li Ming have had conversations before that indicate this very mindset. Jim has mentioned power to Li Ming before and Li Ming's response has always been "what, so we just let them?" "He's a police officer so he can just do anything he wants to us?" to a young adult like Li Ming, this is an absurdity, to an older man like Jim, this is a reality. "he can just do anything he wants to us?" the answer is yes. Which is why Jim is so desperate to get Li Ming to stop talking here. But it just serves as a reminder to Li Ming that Jim thinks he's a child, and that he needs all his battles fought for him. If Li Ming doesn't keep pushing, nothing is going to change (social and political commentary anyone?)

"There you go again," Heart's mother says, and this is Li Ming's initial reaction. This moment of annoyance and anger that this woman who doesn't even know him is once again accusing him of something he didn't do. This woman who is pointing once again to her son without even a glance in his direction "You know that he's mute, so you can say whatever you want?" First of all, even people who are mute have ways to communicate, so it's not like even if he was mute Heart would be helpless. Hell, even if Heart was mute he still has fucking sign language.

The face of a woman who was, in fact, not aware that deaf people dislike being called mute.

GUESS WHO FINALLY LOOKS AT HER SON AFTER THAT!!!! Please please if the writers are kind and merciful, this will be the point in the show where Heart's mother does so deep deep introspection and realizes how much she has fucked up. "He's just deaf," Li Ming says, loudly, and he steps forward, to try to engage Heart's mom in further conversation, in more dialogue. And what does Jim do? Pulls him back, takes him off his even footing "I said stop,"

The face of a man who is very scared for the trouble his nephew might be getting himself in to, and the face of his nephew who is very disappointed that his uncle keeps not only backing down, but forcing him to back down as well. Who keeps asking him, in these small ways to lie instead of tell the truth. To remain quiet, to take the blame, to stick to the status quo.

And then the part I hate (emotionally) begins. Heart asks Li Ming to tell him what they're saying. And I hate it because Heart's parents refusing to learn sign language does not only hurt Heart but it hurts everyone around him, themselves included. But specifically here, it hurts Li Ming, because he has to be the one to look Heart in the face and repeat the words his mother said, knowing that to do so will hurt Heart. Knowing that he has to be the one to hurt Heart.

And this moment is also a great reminder for the audience as well that no one else knowing sign language creates really uncomfortable power dynamics between the person who is able to interpret and the Deaf person. Because Li Ming is hesitant to repeat it. Heart has to repeatedly grab his arm, repeatedly ask Li Ming to tell him what was said. Li Ming has absolute power over Heart right now, to refuse to say it, or to flat out lie. He doesn't, but it also should not be Li Ming's decision whether or not Heart knows, accurately, what was said. Even after we see it in his face that Li Ming agrees to translate, he still hesitates for a few seconds to move, to reach for the notepad, to have to write it down.

And once he writes it down, Li Ming's eyes do not leave Heart. He is honed in on Heart, on Heart's face, on his shoulders, hell even on the back of his head until Heart asks him to translate. And god as much as I hate this moment in the scene for the pain that it causes Li Ming, I hate it even more for the pain that it causes Heart.

He is fucking livid. Rightfully so, because HE'S NOT FUCKING MUTE, HE'S HAD LANGUAGE THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN TIME. He just wants to live his life like everyone else AND HE HAS TO TELL HIS PARENT'S THAT USING SOMEONE ELSE'S VOICE. Because they have refused to use his own. GOD. I'll be surprised if anyone makes it this far down in the post but I just...AHHHH I have no coherent thoughts about this moment, I just....Heart's parents do fucking better. Damn. And the worst part of this scene is yet to come because his Mom tries for like 0.2 seconds, but it looks like she's going to start signing something and Heart just looks SO surprised.

He's so focused on it, he's paying so much attention to it. Is this it? Is this the moment he finds out that his mother has actually been trying? That she has learned and is ready to start using sign language with him? To talk to him, to understand him?

No.

She can't do it. She doesn't know how to. And it's just..it's so easy to see how much hope he had for just a second, how much that one millisecond of effort obliterated all the logic in his head that told him they didn't know it, they didn't care. And how quickly that disappointed anger snaps right back in to place. So Heart starts talking, in sign language, like he has been able to do for years, and he speaks his mind, and his mother still can't understand him. And we see the same dynamic here as with the "mute" comment. Heart's Mom wants Li Ming to translate, Heart wants Li Ming to translate, Li Ming knows how hurt Heart is, and yeah, probably some of his hesitation in voicing what Heart said is because he knows what Heart said will hurt her. But more so because I think it hurts Li Ming to know how much pain Heart is in.

God, poor Heart, literally having to beg to be heard.

"He said you are ashamed of him being deaf,"

His mother shakes her head and says "Heart, I'm sorry. I don't know what to say, dear," and therein lies the problem. She doesn't know what to say, she never has. She has never bothered to learn how to communicate with him since he went deaf. She has kept him locked away. And it doesn't matter if she thinks she did that to keep him safe, Heart feels like he's being hidden away. And she doesn't say "No. No I'm not ashamed. I have never been ashamed." she doesn't know what to say. Because she can't say that. She can't deny that, and it just confirmed everything that Heart has known. So he leaves, because that's too much to handle.

Bullshit 'he'll be fine, honey'. Your fucking son just told you that you never bothered to learn sign language in THREE FUCKING YEARS, and stormed away after admitting that he feels like you are ashamed of him, and you think no need to go after him, he'll be fine??? Fuck you. ACAB.

Does this...

look like...

he's fine, to you?

No. I didn't think so.

I don't really feel like I need to say much about this last shot. It stands on its own so strongly. Mirrors reflecting back, Heart and Li Ming only ever being able to see each other, to be seen by each other. Warm light at Heart's back, Li Ming in front of him, sandwiched between warmth in all of that blue, isolating coldness. All that evidence of how much time and the energy Heart has spent learning sign language. I don't know what the post-its say, I don't know that I want to know.

I don't know if they are notes Heart has written to himself when he was learning, and this is just what remains of his effort. Honestly I hope it's that, because if it is what I think it is, general, every day responses that he might have to give in reply to his parents that he can just pull off his wall and return, that is so much fucking worse. Because then its just the evidence of all the effort Heart has put in to communicate with his parents on their level when they have not put in the same effort to communicate on his. Even if it's something cute, even if it's all the notes that he and Li Ming have passed back and forth to each other over the last few months, serving as a reminder that someone cares, you still are left with the heartbreaking shot of two young men, desperate to be understood by their families, only having each other to hold on to, surrounded by reminders that they are the only two people that can understand each other. No matter how hard they try.

[lee-the-yeen]

I’m yelling into the void a bit more about Don’t Starve, don’t mind me. Specifically about Wilson, his medical know-how, his weird relationship with death, and the origin of his Forbidden Knowledge.

Let’s start with the easy one, Wilson being medically trained.

To start, Wilson’s quote for the Peg Leg.

Then in the Forge, Wilson’s special ability is to revive his teammates twice as fast with more health.

Wilson’s Victorian Skin is an old-timey doctor, even mentioning the four humors (even if that practice was far outdated by the Victorian Era).

I remember once seeing a quote about Wilson getting kicked out of a school for setting something on fire, but take that with a grain of salt because I am struggling to find it.

Now onto Wilson’s weirdness with death of his fellow man.

It’s clear the Constant has left him quite jaded with death as a concept, which is very fair.

But you cannot tell me that a man with a normal view of death would find a skeleton under the floorboards of his new house and just…put the boards back. Or hell, that skeleton is very likely to be the one we see strung up in Wilson’s lab in the very first short!

There’s also Wilson’s quote for Skeletons from Don’t Starve classic:

As well as his disregard for the sanctity of graves.

So yeah. He isn’t normal about human death, just like how he isn’t exactly normal about science.

Wilson is confirmed to be the creator of several items that everyone is able to craft and use.

Obviously the Meat Effigy, but it doesn’t stop there.

Maxwell isn’t particularly enthused about the Think Tank:

The Fire Pump is bemoaned to be his:

The Booster Shot is another item he’s very likely to have made, seeing as he’s the only one truly enthusiastic about it. Further connects him to his medical know-how, as well.

From the Survival Tips, Wilson is also very likely to be the one to have made the first Telltale Heart.

Revive: “We nearly lost one of our numbers today. In a mad daze I created…something…that managed to pull our friend back to the land of the living, but…whatever it was, I fear I cannot rightfully say it was within the realm of science…” -W

Gardeneer: “I’ve finally perfected my design for an ingenious (if I do say so myself) device that stores important garden-based knowledge. Certain naysayers might point out that it looks like nothing more than an overturned flowerpot worn on the head…some people simply don’t have an eye for science.” -W

The tips are (almost) all signed with a W, but it’s clear who wrote these ones, especially since Wilson wore the Gardeneer hat during the Reap What You Sow trailer.

That hat leads me to my next point. It is something that Wilson made, he invented it.

Then tell me why you are able to upgrade it at the Ancient Pseudoscience Station, when literally everything else you can do at it is craft fully ancient artifacts?

And doesn’t the storage of knowledge sound eerily familiar? Such as…

Whatever depths Maxwell snagged Wilson’s Forbidden Knowledge from, it definitively has origins with the Ancients.

Which…

…is quite concerning.

[herohimbowhore]

So many of the maxiel midnight rain edits put Max as midnight rain and Daniel as sunshine. But it’s the opposite. Daniel is midnight rain and Max is sunshine.

He wanted it comfortable

Max never wanted Daniel to leave Red Bull and has said so many times since then that he didn’t want things to change

I was making my own name

Chasing that fame

Daniel left Red Bull when it was looking like the team was moving towards Max’s direction and he was becoming the second driver.

So he went to Renault where he would be the first driver, chasing that fame.

He stayed the same

Daniel about Max on the Talking Bulls podcast:

“I admire Max for his approach to racing, but also, after the success that he's had particularly over the last few years, he is kind of unchanged. Personality, mindset, whatever, it is like he hasn't really been affected by the success.”

All of me changed like midnight

Daniel isn’t the same as he was in 2018. He’s matured, but also Christian has talked about how Daniel returned to Red Bull changed. Though this was mostly about his unrecognizable driving style when Daniel first returned to Red Bull.

It came like a postcard

Picture perfect, shiny family

Holiday, peppermint candy

But for him it's every day

This could be interpreted a few ways for maxiel. But I think it’s most aligned with the monza 2021 win.

Since leaving Red Bull, Daniel only has that one win and it’s the one high point of his time with McLaren. One look at the picture perfect moment where everything is great, whereas it’s an everyday matter for Max. He’s like got like 40+ wins since 2018.

So I peered through a window

A deep portal, time travel

All the love we unravel

And the life I gave away

Daniel returning to Red Bull and seeing what he left behind after 2018. And throughout the years watching as Red Bull and Max did so well together while his career was spiraling until he was welcomed back into the family.

[apollos-boyfriend]

forever thinking about the ouroboros of cpurpled. he is simultaneously his own creator and his own destruction. he would not have done what he did, gotten as far as he had, without his anger and need for revenge. but that very ire is what leads to his death. by becoming the self that we see, he also signed his own death certificate. and when he dies, when his creation catches up to him, it’s presumed he only starts anew. his anger is a continuous burning flame, both fueling him and burning him up from the inside out

[prince-kallisto]

NRC Trial Admission

WHAT WHAT WHAT?!?!?! ANXJZJSBXHDJDJ did anyone else know about the “Trial Admission” on the Twisted Wonderland website?? 😭😭😭 it’s essentially a random sorting into a dorm (no quiz no nothing, just purely randomized), with voicelines from Crowley and the 7 dorm leaders. (Here is also a video recording if for some reason you cannot access the TWST website yourself!)

First of all- CROWLEY VOICELINES I DIDNT KNOW ABOUT 😭 This Trial Admission was released 2 years ago on the Twst EN website, which likely implies that this Trial Admission has also been available on the JP side for 4 years since the beginning of the game’s release- or perhaps even before that as an interactive feature to stir up hype. The 7 dorm leaders introduce themselves, and their live 2D models and poses are on full display.

But the clip above that I selected SHOCKED ME HELPP 😭😭😭 Okay, let me break down the parts I wanted to talk about one by one.

Crowley says to “hold it [the invitation] up to the light.” Crowley…this is a pit of darkness. Yet he says to hold it UP to the LIGHT. ITS A PIT OF DARKNESS??? Crowley, how do you see the world, exactly if this is what light is to you?? Also, I brightened up the background as much as I could, but does anyone know what this actually is? My first though was that is resembles crumbling rocks, which I associate with the Phantom!Grim in the Prologue. But it also looks like broken glass shards, and we are looking into what’s left of the mirror inside? The green fire looks A LOT like both the Dark Mirror fire and Draconian fire. The fire looks like it’s leaking out from the remnants inside the mirror…is this foreshadowing?? Was whoever inside the mirror let out?

The invitation itself is also in pure black and white, to the point it’s even glowing. I wonder if this was a reference to the countdown art with Crowley, where he is the only character in the countdown series to be shown in glowing monochrome black and white.

BUT THEN!! When the invitation is “held up to the light,” there is ripples like there’s water inside- which honestly resembles blot. The ripples also look a bit like the start to Yuu’s dreams. And then the center of the invitation, which is NRCs logo AND a symbol heavily associated with Crowley in regards to the raven and keys, glows a bright blue. This shade of blue seems a bit random, doesn’t it? But to me, it heavily resembles the blue from Ignihyde and Styx….especially within the Lechesis System.

AHXIZJDHCJDB BUT I WAS SHOOK AT THIS?? THE INVITATION GLITCHES, ENTIRELY IN GREEN…in the recent Book 7 update, Malleus had a sudden “glitch” where the screen had a slight overlay in green, and Ortho describes it like a frozen CPU stuck in processing. This heavily resembles Yuu’s dreams/flashbacks, especially when these flashbacks happen when they’re awake. WHY THE GLITCH?? CROWLEY???

Crowley can also use his own magic to assign you to a dorm,,,I want to talk more about that later but the invitation is my focus right now. Also, many apologies I couldn’t include it in the above video (tumblr dislikes it when I try to upload longer video lmao) but the invitation then shows an image of a keyhole that connects to the gates of Night Raven College. It’s very Alice in Wonderland, with a keyhole literally leading to the entire Wonderland (also very Kingdom Hearts with the keyhole being the “heart” of the world), but…in the invitation, the keyhole is right where the hand in mirror would be in that art. Whoever’s hand is in that mirror is being suggested to be like a keyhole to this world…or even the “heart” of the world in KH terms.

It’s really uncertain of how far in story development Twisted Wonderland actually was when the game released. There’s some rumors that Book 2 for example, was originally a Book 6 and switched around last minute. But the bright blue color, the green *glitching*? In the first three books of the game, which was what TWST first dropped with, there was no glitching effect. The glitching in Yuu’s dreams are a much later thing I think, such as in Book 7, or at the very least, *not* an effect shown in the first three books. Crowley’s role in the story and the hand in the mirror do seem to have their roles cemented from the beginning though, considering how purposefully mysterious they are. So what is the purpose of the green glitch exactly? 👀

The Lechesis System and Malleus’s powers…a keyhole to a world. They are all both heavily associated with the creation of their own worlds. I feel very unsettled by this Trial Admission- I had no idea it existed until now but there’s a lot in it now looking back after four years of this game existing! (*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)

[cursed-man-prayers]

Before folklore came out, I would tell people that liking Taylor Swift was the straightest thing about me. Then folklore, evermore, and Red TV came out. As I saw the queer themes in those albums, I began seeing them in reputation, 1989, Speak Now, Fearless, and debut. The themes have always been there, fluctuating in subtlety but steadily increasing since 1989. So why did I think of Taylor Swift as so quintessentially straight? You guessed it: Compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity.

Taylor was supposed to be universally relatable. When she explained her songs, she refrained from using gender-specific language. Us. We. That person. Someone. And people that as “Me. I. A man. That guy I told everyone I was dating.” We were told she dated men, and a woman dating a man = heterosexual. No other options.

Even now, Genius will remove lyric annotations that imply her lyrics might not be about a man. Even with Hits Different, Question…? and Maroon. Taylor says reputation is about Joe and swifties believe her bc “Taylor wouldn’t lie to us!!!” even though there’s so many inconsistencies with the narrative that Rep is about Joe.

To say outright or even imply that Taylor might write songs about women because she likes women is met with scores of comments about how we “shouldn’t speculate on her sexuality!!! she said she’s straight!!! stop being disrespectful!!!!” But Taylor, as she has never said the words “I’m gay” has never said the words “I’m straight.” What she has done is align herself with. LGBTQ artists (YNTCD music video, Phoebe feat., posting support for queer musicians on social media, and, of course, the Pride parade that is her list of openers for the Eras Tour).

If Taylor didn’t people thinking she’s queer, she would’ve thrown in “as a straight woman…” in her speech before performing Delicate at multiple Pride events, when being interviewed about her advocacy during the Lover era, or at literally any point in her adult life.

Writing about women from the male perspective is queer. Her dressing in drag for the Man music video and showing herself in bed with a woman is inherently queer. The way she writes songs about her love interests’ girlfriends is queer. People bend over backwards to justify the gay shit she does, the same thing people have done for centuries with Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, and so many sapphic artists throughout history. Taylor Swift is THE songwriter of our generation. She IS the music industry. But swifties, and hetlors all the more, would rather believe she is stupid and ignorant rather than intentionally using phrases like “hairpin drop,” “lavender haze,” “all the bricks they threw at me,” “you’re the West Village.” When she describes her muses as having scarlet lips, having hair that falls into place like dominos and braids in a pattern, gorgeous, it’s just because she thinks men are really pretty I guess (insert MetGala 2016 Joe photo). When she describes men as toys, playthings, “dudes who give nothing,” she’s being satirical. When she says “weird rumors,” that can’t possibly refer to rumors about marriage, pregnancy, or her having had multiple children during the pandemic. It’s *weird* to say that Taylor is queer. It’s weird and bad and gross. Why? Because people saying this believe being queer is weird, bad, and gross.

But it’s not weird. Being queer is beautiful, a gift. And that gift comes with a world that hates who we are. Of course Taylor is too soft for all it. And I admire her softness, that she continues to write vulnerable music. Midnights (esp 3am Edition and Hits Different) holds her loudest lyrics. She’s never beating the rumors and she doesn’t want to. Even if she never says the words “I’m gay/bi/pan/a lesbian,” the eardrum-shattering volume of her lyrics is more than enough for me.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Screaming from the crypt (or how the past haunts the present on Midnights)

I know it's been discussed so much since Midnights came out but just.

I love how there is such a clear narrative throughout the album (and perhaps especially on the 3am/Vault tracks). About questioning and regret and choices and coming to terms with all of it. It is one long story about how we're all a mosaic of the choices we make, each one taking something from us and leaving something else in its place.

(And now a disclaimer: I'm looking at this mostly through a narrator/subject lens, and trying not to dive too deeply into real-life events or speculation except for in a general sense. For this purpose I like to look at the body of work as art, like literature, because I find it makes it easier to see the common threads in the different songs and cohesion in the narrative.)

In looking at the 3am+ tracks in particular, it's fascinating how some turns of phrases or themes repeat themselves in different songs, in different contexts. (I'm only focusing on the non-standard tracks because there are too many songs and I'd be here all day but I bet I could do a part two lol.) I know many people have pointed out the parallels throughout her discography already and I’m not saying anything groundbreaking by writing this, but I love how these parallels run through in the same album, because it makes it seem like it's one long story, or at least, one long rumination on many different stories that are coalescing into a single narrative.

Battle (let’s go)

For instance, the one that jumped out at me when I started writing this post the other week was, "Tore your banners down, took the battle underground," in The Great War and "If clarity's in death, then why won't this die? Years of tearing down our banners, you and I," in Would've, Could've Should've. It's a story about staying stuck in the same cycle of reliving trauma and coping mechanisms and bad habits over and over again and fantasizing about how taking the “antagonist” out and gaining the upper hand for good would bring closure (WCS), but the truth is that nothing ever will. All that cycle does, though, is repeat itself in other situations, and in this case pushes someone away the narrator cares for (TGW). The difference is that the imagined battle in WCS is a two-way street in her mind (that is ultimately unwinnable because it was never a fair fight), but in TGW it's one-sided -- she's the one fighting dirty, taking shots, the way she'd been doing in her imagination (or nightmares) all these years. But the person in front of her isn't fighting back the way the person in her mind in WCS would, because their intentions are honourable instead of exploitative.

And that's paralleled in another pair of lyrics from the two songs, "And maybe it's the past talking, screaming from the crypt, telling me to punish you for things you never did," (in TGW) and "The tomb won't close, I fight with you in my sleep," (in WCS). In both cases, the funeral imagery makes it seem like this past event should be dead and buried in WCS, but it keeps rising from the dead, haunting her no matter what she does and in TGW, another (or perhaps the same?) tomb that won't close keeps unleashing new ways to hurt her and in turn the new person in her life. In other words, the trauma from the past continues to bleed into the present.

(Again from a literary point of view, I'm not saying the events of the two songs are linked IRL, but they're fascinating textual parallels on the album as a string of chapters, which is why Dear Reader is so compelling, but that's a whole other essay.)

To keep the battle motif going, there’s yet another parallel, this time between TGW’s "[You were a] soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honor and truth," and You’re Losing Me’s "All I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, fighting in only your army.” In the former, the subject is laying down his armour in the war she’s projecting onto him, waving the white flag, and she realizes that she’s about to destroy something if she doesn’t put her sword down too. By the time we get to YLM, the roles are almost reversed; at the very least they’re supposed to be on the same team, but in this case she’s doing all the heavy lifting, fighting for their relationship in contrast to his apathy killing it. It’s also pretty interesting (if not outright intentional) that one of the 3am+ editions of the albums starts with The Great War, where they find themselves in conflict (even if it’s in her head) that ends in a truce, and ends with You’re Losing Me signalling the end of the relationship, evidence that the resolution in the first song wasn’t an ending but merely a ceasefire before the last battle.

Putting the rest under a cut because this is waaaaay too long now ⤵️

(There’s also another metaphor there in The Great War with its battle imagery: World War I, aka The Great War, was supposed to be the war to end all wars, because loss on its scale was never seen before and when it ended, most thought never again would the world embroil itself in such battle, the horrors and implications were so devastating. Two decades later, the world found itself in WWII, with an even larger scope and more horrific consequences, the intervening time between the two a period of festering conflicts and resentment leading to some of the worst acts the world would see. Bringing real life into it for a second, there’s something a little poetic, though sad, about The Great War the song being about a fight that could have ended the relationship that they ultimately resolved and was meant to be evidence of the strength of their love, but so too did it end up being a period of détente, the greater battle coming for them years later. But that is not the point of this post.)

If one thing had been different

Another major theme in these editions is pondering the "what ifs?" of life, but I think it takes on even more significance in the broader context of the album in the lyrics of "I'm never gonna meet what could've been, would've been, should've been you," in Bigger than the Whole Sky and the repetition of would've/could've in Would've, Could've, Should've (I would've looked away at the first glance, I would've stayed on my knees, I would've gone along with the righteous, I could've gone on as I was, would've could've should've if I'd only played it safe, etc.) In both songs, the narrator is mourning an alternate course their life could have taken* and questioning what they could have done differently, in the aftermath of trauma and loss, and the regret that comes with that loss, and with the loss of agency in the situation because ultimately it was never in their hands. In an album full of questions, wondering about the path not taken, or the forks in the road that have led to a different version of your life, it's digging deeper into the contrast of choice vs. fate, action vs. reaction, dwelling on the past vs. moving on. When you're supposed to let go of the past, what do you do when it is holding your future hostage?

(*I know there are different interpretations/speculation about BTTWS which I am not getting into on main. I'm just saying that whatever the song is about, it's grieving something that never came to be. The literal origin of the song is less important to the album than the sense of loss it portrays. Whatever the inspiration is, it's crafted to tell part of the story of Midnights of ruminating over how, to borrow from her previous work, if one thing had been different, would everything be different?)

(Also I was today years old when I realized that the words are inverted in the two songs. Apparently I've been hearing BTTWS wrong this whole time.)

There's also an interesting tangent in the role of faith in both songs: in WCS, the events of the story cause her to lose her faith (e.g. "All I used to do was pray," "you're a crisis of my faith,") and question all the things she felt had been unquestionable until that point in her life (e.g. "I could have gone along with the righteous"), whereas in BTTWS, she questions whether that very lack of faith is to blame for the loss in that song ("did some force take you because I didn't pray? [...] It's not meant to be, so I'll say words I don't believe"). It's like pinpointing the moment her life changed and upended her beliefs (WCS), but as a result then leaving her unmoored in times of crisis because ultimately there's no explanation or comfort to be taken from what she used to hold true before that (BTTWS). The words she once relied upon to guide her have long since lost their meaning, but in times of trouble it leaves her wondering if that faith she once held then lost could have prevented this pain.

(Shoutout to WCS for being Catholic guilt personified lol.)

To keep on with the vaguely faith-y notions, an obvious parallel is the line in Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve about, “I damn sure never would've danced with the devil at nineteen,” and, "When you aim at the devil, make sure you don't miss," in Dear Reader. All of WCS is about her fighting with an antagonist who haunts her, with whom she wholly regrets ever becoming involved. DR could be seen as a reflection on that fall from grace, warning the audience that if you choose to go after the person (or thing) haunting you, make sure you do so clearheaded enough to be decisive. Again, these “devils” may not be related in real life: the IRL devil in DR could be speaking about her naysayers, or Kim*ye, or Scott & Scooter B, etc., meaning not to cross your enemies until you know you can win. But taking real life out of it and looking at it textually, I am intrigued by the link between WCS and DR, so that’s what I’m going with here. And perhaps that’s even the point in a wider sense; there will be multiple “devils” in your life, or threats to your well-being. If you’re going to commit to taking them down — whether it’s an actual person, or the demons inside you that refuse to let you go — make sure you have the right ammo so that they can no longer hurt you. (Of course, one lesson from these experiences is that sometimes you can’t win, and you have to live with the fallout.)

(Sidebar: I know that “dancing with the devil” is a turn of phrase that means being led into temptation and engaging in risky behaviour, as opposed to describing the actual person. Given the religious metaphors in the song, that could very well be/is the intention, particularly when it’s preceded by, “I would have stayed on my knees” as in she would have continued to follow her faith — in whatever sense that means — had she never met this person, which could also be a more eloquent way of saying she would have continued to be live her life in a way that was righteous (even naive) and seen the world in black and white. Either way, it’s a force she wholly rejects. Like I said, multiple devils, same fight.)

Regret comes up too: in WCS, she says, "I regret you all the time," obviously directed at the person who manipulated her and led to her perceived downfall, citing him as the one impulse she wished she'd never followed, because it won't leave her no matter how hard she’s tried. In High Infidelity, she tells the person to, "put on your records and regret me," and on the surface, it’s like she’s turning the tables, painting herself as the one now causing the regret in someone else, the one inflicting the pain this time. Yet the verse preceding it and the lines following it in the chorus depict a partner who is also emotionally manipulative and vindictive like in WCS (“you said I was freeloading, I didn’t know you were keeping count,” “put on your headphones and burn my city,”). It’s not so much that she’s intentionally harming the person (the way the person in WCS does to her), but rather that the venom in the subject’s feelings towards her seeps through; she’s imagining the way he’s going to feel about her when she leaves, hating her just for by being who she is. (There could be another tangent about how in both songs she’s there to be a “token” in a game for both of the men, who play her for their own purposes.) The regret is dripping with disdain. It’s as though she’s picturing how the person is going to hate her for doing what she’s thinking of doing the way she hates the person who first hurt her.

Sadness, unsurprisingly, shows up in a few lyrics. In BTTWS, “Everything I touch becomes sick with sadness,” sets the scene of a person so overcome with grief that it permeates everything around them; they cannot see their way out of it and feel like the fog will never lift. In Hits Different, it’s, “My sadness is contagious,” the result of a breakup where the person’s grief again touches everything and everyone around them, pushing them further in their despair and loneliness. The reason behind the grief in either case may vary, but regardless of the source, the feeling is overpowering and isolating. They may be different chapters in the story, but the devastation is hauntingly familiar. (As is a recurring theme in Midnights as a whole: there are situations and feelings that present themselves at different points in her journey and colour in the lines in different ways along the road. Like revisiting an old vice and realizing the hit isn’t quite the same as it was in the past.)

Death by a thousand cuts

She also writes about wounds on this album, which isn't surprising I suppose given that the whole conceit is that these are things that have kept her up at night over the years. WCS is perhaps the driving narrative on this never ending hurt when she sings, “The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign, I regret you all the time,” suggesting that no matter what she does, the pain of this experience has permeated everything she’s done afterwards. (Not unlike the overwhelming grief in BTTWS, for instance.) Elsewhere, in High Infidelity she sings, "Lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token," and in Hits Different, "Make it make some sense why the wound is still bleeding.” Again I'm not suggesting they're about the same events; the line in HI is about a situation where a partner crosses a boundary, hits below the belt, picks at an insecurity (or creates a new one) and treats the relationship like it's transactional, opening the floodgates in turn. In HD, the wound seems to be more self-inflicted, where she's pushed the person away. (Over a situation real or imagined she feels she needs distance from.) But again, something has picked at her like a raw nerve, and just like in the past, she's hurting, even in a different time and place and person. Almost like the wounds of the past break open over and over again to create new scars. If one were to extrapolate further, it wouldn’t be the biggest leap to wonder if the wound open in WCS, then torn apart in HI makes the one in HD hurt even more.

(I once wrote a post about how I think as time goes on, WCS is going to turn into one of those songs that will be found to drive so much of her work, because it’s just… kind of the unsaid thesis statement of so much of her songwriting.)

Another repeated theme is that of the empty home and loneliness. In High Infidelity, she sings, "At the house lonely, good money I'd pay if you just know me, seemed like the right thing at the time," painting a picture of someone who may have everything they'd want to the outside world, but in reality feels metaphorically trapped in their home (or at least alone amidst abundance), a symbol of a relationship gone sour and a failure to build connection. She just wants someone to understand her, want her for her, but as she's written earlier in the song, she's just a pawn in the game, a trophy from the hunt. Home, in this case, is lonely, isolated, an emblem of her fears. In Dear Reader, she continues this thread, then singing, "You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where I was walking, to a house not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there, where I pace in my pen and my friends found friends who care, no one sees you lose when you're playing solitaire." It's the same idea, admitting to listeners that the gilded cage she lived in kept her distanced from her loved ones and real connection, keeping her struggles close to the vest but feeling desperately lonely amidst her crowning success. She's pushed people away and it may have felt like the right thing at the time, but in the end maybe felt like she was trapped. And when you push people away, eventually they take you at your word and stop pushing back; you’re a victim of your own success at isolating yourself. What starts out of self-preservation then further perpetuates the underlying problems.

(There's another interesting link about "home" also feeling unsafe with HI's "Your picket fence is sharp as knives," which further leads into the theme of marriage/domesticity feeling dangerous, which is a whole other thing I won't get into here because it's another discussion and may derail this already gargantuan word salad.)

In a slightly similar vein, we have the metaphor of bad weather for a rocky road or unstable relationship, in High Infidelity again with, "Storm coming, good husband, bad omen, dragged my feet right down the aisle" and You’re Losing Me’s "every morning I glared at you with storms in my eyes.” They aren’t speaking of the same situation or even same kind of breakdown, but it is pretty interesting how the idea of clouds/storms/floods/etc. play such a role in Taylor’s music to signal depression, apprehension, fear, uncertainty, etc. In HI, I think the “storm” coming is the looming threat of commitment to a partner who makes the narrator uneasy (if not fearful). In this case, the idea of making a life with this person is not one that incites joy or comfort, but instead makes the narrator feel that dark times are ahead if she continues down this path. Perhaps in some way, the “storms” in YLM have made good on the threat in HI in a different way; it’s a different home, a different relationship, but the clouds have settled in regardless, and some of her fears have come to fruition in ways she did not expect. The person she once trusted no longer sees her or her struggles (or worse, doesn’t care), and the resentment and pain build with each passing day.

Coming back to heartbreak, one of the obvious "full circle" moments is the beginning of a relationship in Paris, where she says that, "I'm so in love that I might stop breathing," clearly enthralled in a new love that allows her to shut the world out and grow in private, capturing the all-encompassing nature of the relationship. This infatuation has consumed her in the most wonderful way (in contrast to the sorrow of some of the previous songs), and it feels like a life-altering (or even life-sustaining?) force that is so strong she may forget what it’s like to breathe. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) By the end of the album, though, in You're Losing Me, that heart-stopping love has become a threat: "my heart won't start anymore for you." In the former, her racing heart is full of excitement, but by the latter, her heart has given out completely under the weight of the pain she bears. (YLM is full of death/illness imagery which I already wrote about awhile ago so I won't hear, but needless to say that song deserves its own essay for so many reasons.) She's gone from the unbridled joy of the beginnings of a relationship to the unrelenting sorrow of its end, two sides of the same coin.

Love as death appears elsewhere in the music too, for instance, in High Infidelity’s, “You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough" and You’re Losing Me’s “How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying? […] My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick.” Though not completely analogous situations, they both tell the tale of one partner’s apathy (or at least denial) destroying the other. In the former, the partner’s actions (or inaction) are more insidious, if not sinister; in the latter, the lack of momentum (or admission of a problem) is passive. In both cases, the end result is the narrator’s demise; it’s a drawn out affair that chips away at her morale and her health and her sense of self. (Breaking my own rule about bringing in alleged actual events into the discussion, but the idea that the relationship in High Infidelity, which was obviously fraught with unease and even fear, ended in a similarly excruciatingly slow and hurtful death by a thousand cuts as the relationship in You’re Losing Me almost did at that time must have been so painful. It almost feels like YLM is wondering why what used to be a source of light in her life was mirroring a situation that caused her such pain in the past.)

From the same little breaks in your soul

I said early on that part of what is so compelling about Midnights is that it feels like an album about ruminating — on choices, on events, on people — and the two final “bonus” tracks of the album depict that as well. In Hits Different, she sings that, “they say if it’s right, you know,” an ode to the confusion of a breakup and struggling with the aftermath of calling it quits. It’s a line that has always intrigued me, because the typical use of the phrase is in the sense of, “you’ll know when you meet the one,” but here it seems to have a double meaning, a reassurance perhaps from the friends (who later on tell her that "love is a lie") that she’ll know if she’s made the right decision in calling it off, but could also be her wondering if the relationship is right, she’ll know, and want to reconcile. In the final bonus track, You’re Losing Me, she sings, “now I just sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time,” this time leaving no doubt about the dilemma she faces, though it’s no less fraught. She’s wondering, perhaps for the last time, if now is finally the moment to end the relationship for good. They say that if it’s right she’ll know, and now she’s wondering if that feeling inside her (that once told her her partner was the one, which is why it hit differently), is telling her that it’s time to go for good. Wait Alexa play “It’s Time To Go.” These are not only the things that keep her up at night, but the things that play over in her mind like a film reel in her waking hours.

Midnights as a whole is a deeply personal album, as is most of Taylor's work, but the 3am+ edition tracks seem to dig even deeper to a lot of the issues raised on the standard album. Almost like the standard tracks are the things she wonders about on sleepless nights, but the bonus tracks are the things that haunt her in the aftermath. The regret, anger, sadness, grief, relief, even joy— they’re the price she pays for the memories she keeps reliving. Midnights might be the most cohesive narrative of all her albums, and really does feel like we’re watching someone work through her journal over time, stopping short of outright naming those giant fears and intrusive thoughts (except for when she does) but making them plain as day when you connect the songs together, and perhaps never more clearly than in the expanded album. It’s incredible how the songs stand on their own to relay a specific moment in time, but that they are also self-referential to each other (whether thematically or overtly) to weave a larger web over the entire work. We’re so lucky as fans to have these stories and to keep peeling back these layers as time passes. (And my literature-analysis-loving ass loves her even more for it.)

This is obviously by no means an exhaustive list, and I know there are more parallels and probably even stronger links (particularly when you add the standard version into the mix), but these were the ones that particularly struck me and I’m just glad I’ve had a chance to sit with this and think it through. ❤️

[heyitspersephone]

Thinking about stranger things again now that the strikes are over and how, narratively, it would be way, WAY cooler to have Mike get Vecna’d instead of Will in s5

It’s just something about the way Mike’s trauma is never addressed or handled in any way?? Like, he hugs his mom twice and then when he was depressed in season 2 and 4 nobody did anything (his parents scolded him for his behavior in s2 ig but that’s not support). His best friend went missing leaving from his house, he watched his body get pulled from the quarry, watched El (in his eyes) kill herself stopping the demogorgon, watched Will be possessed, saw Bob die, was in Star Court when everything went down, saw Billy die, had his best friend move away, was SHOT AT (and really too few people talk about the shooting in Cali bc omg??), buried a body, and watched the apocalypse start. And that’s just off the top of my head.

(And yes I’m aware that the other characters (especially Will) are traumatized too but I will get to my point in a second just hold on)

The plot is geared towards this idea that Will and Henry have to have some big face off (and they should, in my opinion, but I don’t think it should be in a possession, or at least not the the Vecna kind of possession, yk?) but that makes it all the better, writing wise, to have mike be the one in danger. Will was helpless and hiding in s1, I think Will should get his big strong moments in s5 where he gets to be the hero of the story.

It would just be a lot more fun to work with Mike being Vecna’d than Will, because what are we going to bring up with Will’s visions? His dad? His sexuality? The events of s1 from his perspective? It would be cool to see, for sure, but we already know most of that. Mike, on the other hand, has a number of untapped things, like jumping off the quarry, why he’s so hesitant to tell El he loves her, how someone who was smart and kind enough to take El in in s1 and come up with the spy and sauna plans in s2 and s3 could turn into the oblivious asshole that he was in s3 and s4 (he needs therapy, ik, I still love his character but I want to explore the reasons he went from his s2 characterization to his s3 one)

It would be a very interesting parallel, I think, to explore Mike’s thought processes in this way, especially with all of Mike’s repression business (bc whether you ship byler or milkvan he is repressing his feelings HARD. Like, beyond his inability to say I love you there’s the fact that he doesn’t bring up the apparent many times he called pre-s4 during the Rink O Mania fight?? That literally would’ve absolved him of guilt in that argument since he WAS reaching out to Will the whole time? Hellooooo????).

Anyways, this all brings me to my main point: Vecna targets isolation as much as he targets trauma and guilt. The whole party was traumatized by the events in s1, s2, and s3, but Max was the one targeted. Plus, Henry went for Fred, Chrissy, and Patrick (I think his name was Patrick) instead of going for the perceivably easy targets that the mcs would make (ik narratively that would’ve made it more boring but shhh), so why Max and those three specifically? They were isolated. Lucas and Erica have each other, Dustin goes to Steve and Robin, Will and El have each other and Jonathan and Joyce, Nancy probably goes to Jonathan, and who does Mike go to?

No one. And don’t say Nancy because if those two have heart to hearts then I’m the next coming of Christ. Max separated herself from the Party in the aftermath of her grief and guilt over Billy, and it feels quite obvious that Mike was doing the same (like I said, he has repression issues). So Mike is traumatized, alone, and guilty (be it Will getting taken from Mike’s house, losing El in front of him multiple times, the many deaths he has witnessed, or the internalized homophobia angle), which makes him more of a target than Will, in my opinion (or at least an easier one, especially given his tendency to put himself on the line during fights (quarry, most of s2, s3 mindflayer fight), which would set him up on the suicidal ideation path)

Furthermore, as I’ve seen a few other people point out (and I can’t find the posts but one of them had eight screenshots of the various moments), Mike is always the one getting in the way, so it would be a strategic move for Henry to target him to get him out of the picture. Mike was the one that found El and got her involved in saving Will s1, he was the one who came up with the spy plan and called out the ambush in s2, he was the one to monologue Will out of his possession s2, he was the one with the sauna plan for Billy in s3, he was the one trying to help El get the strength to fight s4 (even if the monologue sucked ass it’s the intention that counts). As much as people like to hate on Mike, he is in the leader position most of the time when the party is grouped up (barring his mental health struggles slowing that down beginning of s3 and throughout s4, but he’s still capable of it). He’s the idea man, and he’s the one whose character’s foundations were built on the desire to keep his friends safe, so it would be a very fun plot line to watch him be the one targeted in s5. Like Will said, as lovestruck and cheesy as he was, Mike is the heart of the party when he’s on his A-game, so Henry should 100% be trying to keep him in the issues he’s been struggling with.

Obviously, Will and El are the Targets with a capital T for Henry since they’re the ones that got away or whatever, but I think Mike is a weakness of Will’s (and El’s tbh but also I think they need to have separate character arcs and I don’t exactly ship milkvan) that should be exploited.

TL;DR: Mike should get Vecna’d instead of Will in s5 because it would make sense in lore and be a very cool way to resolve his character arc

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

You're Losing Me Analysis

Ok, you got me, enough people messaged me with cute gifs and pretty pleases asking for this analysis to motivate me to finish it. So, here it is, my lyrical analysis of You're Losing Me.

I will stick to my interpretation of this song NOT being about a romantic relationship, the poll I did a while ago showed that most people interpret it to be about a romantic relationship breakdown. I will explain why I don't think that, but if you do, the main lyrical themes will still apply. (Colour coding of main themes at the end)

Before any lyrics, this songs starts with two sounds: A heartbeat and a massive sigh. Like, a really big one, you can even hear the inbreath. Something I've only ever experienced when someone is really, really exhausted and annoyed. I've sometimes made that noise when I'm standing in the pieces of something my children have broken, after I've told them a thousand times not to break it. The non-verbal expression of 'I f*cking told you this would happen'. So, before we even hear any words, I'm able to tell that this is about something that has happened before. We've been round and round this thing a million times. This breakdown has been a long time coming, a death by a thousand cuts if you will ;)

The heartbeat also sets the scene for the main lyrical theme before the first verse starts: A patient in an emergency situation, I envision a hospital room with a heart monitor. Over this heartbeat (and minimal production) we hear Taylor addressing her audience by saying

You say, "I don't understand," and I say, "I know you don't"

The You and the I are having a disagreement, but it's not so much an argument, as a miscommunication. They don't understand what she's saying but Taylor was already expecting that. Immediately, the first line confirms what the sigh was already indicating: This is not a new issue, we've been here many times before so Taylor is well aware that this communication isn't working. Then in the next line

We thought a cure would come through in time, now, I fear it won't

She introduces the medical theme in the lyrics with the word 'cure'. The metaphor is that the relationship that's being described here is the patient that's dying in hospital. This theme is incredibly present throughout the entire song, there is a constant 'brink of death' threat, with mentions of 'gashes', my face was grey' and 'too far gone to bring back to life'. And then, of course, the chorus is the culmination of this with the repetitions of 'Stop, you're losing me' and 'I can't find a pulse, my heart won't start anymore'. This gives me images of an emergency room situation where the patient is flatlining and the doctors are trying to revive them. Or maybe a battlefield, as the last line of the first verse introduces the secondary theme of war or combat with 'You might just have dealt the final blow'. Taylor has of course used the war imagery many times before when talking about conflict, such as in All Too Well ('I'm a soldier who's returning half her weight'), Call it What You Want ('I brought a knife to a gun fight'), The Great War, and the Archer ('I'm ready for combat').

So, despite the initial resignation, Taylor is fighting with the person/people she is addressing here. They are the one that's injuring the patient to the point of near death. And in the chorus she is telling them that, asking them to stop, because the relationship is dying. But we don't yet learn what she is asking them to stop doing. She does, however, show the problem in the relationship when she says:

Remember lookin' at this room, we loved it 'cause of the light Now, I just sit in the dark and wonder if it's time Do I throw out everything we built or keep it?

It's a WE versus I situation: We used to love this room, but now I (and only I) am left sitting alone in the dark. And only I get to make the decision about what to do with all the stuff we built together, because you're not even here to sit in the dark with me. Also, notice the light versus dark comparison. You are only there for the light (easy) parts, and not the dark (hard). In that context, I am inclined to interpret the room in this line as her stages and the light being the spotlight. We loved standing in the light together/You loved seeing me in the light, but now you've left me in the dark. This is why I really think this song is about the relationship with her majority fanbase and not a romantic relationship. Since 1989 she's written about her romantic partner in a way that makes it clear that this person is with her through thick and thin, on reputation we had End Game and New Years Day, the ultimate song about being there after the party when the glitter fades and it's not glamorous anymore, and in CIWYW she literally says her lover's 'starry eyes sparking up my darkest night'. So, I don't think it's her partner who is leaving her in the dark here, it's the fans. And the 'everything we built' is of course the fame/sold out stadiums etc. And that theme continues in the next verse:

Every morning I glared at you with storms in my eyes How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dyin'?I sent you signals and bit my nails down to the quick My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick

Now the picture is becoming clearer as to what the 'you' here is doing that Taylor is asking them to stop, or better what they're NOT doing. She's glaring at them, sending signals and biting her nails, using all forms of non-verbal communication, but they're not being received. Or she's being willfully ignored. The 'I sent you signals' is a screaming parallel to 'I gave so many signs' from Exile and 'sending signals to be double-crossed' from Evermore. And I think in all three cases, it is referring to queer flagging. And just like in High Infidelity (a similar song thematically) she says 'There's many ways that you can kill the one you love/ the slowest way is never loving them enough', here she's saying 'How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dyin'?. Both boils down to the same thing: Your ignorance is killing me and it's a slow and painful death. She ends the verse on the medical theme which has now slightly shifted to Taylor being the dying patient ('My face was grey' - corpse) and the relationship being sick. Over the chorus we still hear the heartbeat though, so she's dying but she's not dead yet.

Let's talk about the bridge. This is juicy, as Taylor's bridges always are, but this one, of course, had the one line that sent all the swifties into an angry rampage against Joe Alwyn. But we'll get to that. The first line is in fact my favourite:

How long could we be a sad song 'Til we were too far gone to bring back to life?

She calls the relationship a 'sad song'. And that's obviously an interesting thing for a songwriter to say, and I've seen many good interpretations of this line, but mine is this: Taylor is the girl who made her name as the young country singer who writes sad breakup songs about her past relationships. And she owned that for a while, until she openly discussed how much it trivialises her writing and that songs are more than just the person she's writing about (not as simple as a paternity test etc.), but have people stopped making her songs about men? When the Joe breakup hit the news, wasn't the first thing the swifties said 'Oh, the next album is going to be soooo sad...."?? So...for some people she still is, and will always be, just the girl who writes about breakups. And she's saying to those people 'how long can this relationship last if that's all you'll ever see me for?' She also, once again uses the medical theme of 'bringing the relationship back to life' when it has in fact died multiple deaths already. But this time it might just be 'too far gone' to be revived.

I gave you all my best me's, my endless empathy And all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier Fighting in only your army, frontlines, don't you ignore me I'm the best thing at this party (You're losing me)

She also continues the war/combat theme with being the 'bravest soldier' who is bleeding whilst on the frontline 'fighting in only your army'. This is also important. Taylor is the soldier but she's not fighting for her own cause, she's fighting in the other person's army. She's making herself bleed, for the other person's sake. Much like a closeted gay person pretending to be straight for the mass appeal. It's making me bleed for your benefit, but you don't even notice, DON'T YOU IGNORE ME!! And then we get to the ultimate bait and switch line:

And I wouldn't marry me either A pathological people pleaser Who only wanted you to see her

Where you will all shout at me 'How can it not be about a romantic relationship, it has the line about marrying!!!'. Relax, I think this is intentional. What an easy way to make the whole song sound like it's about a breakup with just one line when the rest of the song suggest something else (to me at least). I don't see this as being about a literal marriage proposal, more like a 'I wouldn't choose me either'. Very much along the lines of Anti Hero, I'm the problem, why would you choose me, but I'd still love it if you did. And she even says in the next part 'I have nothing to believe, unless you're choosing me.'

And I'm fadin', thinkin'

(POV changes, addresses self:) "Do something, babe, say something" (Say something) "Lose something, babe, risk something" (You're losing me) "Choose something, babe, I got nothing" (I got nothing) "To believe, unless you're choosin' me"

So in the imperatives, the direction of address changes and she's now thinking to/addressing herself with these commands: 'DO something, SAY something, LOSE something, CHOOSE something, RISK something.' Almost like she's trying to jumpstart herself into action. This all screams BE BRAVE to me, especially the 'say something' because in the previous verse she was communicating in all these non-verbal ways (glaring, signals, nail biting) and that wasn't working. She's telling herself to be brave and SAY something, make it unmistakably clear, but that may well mean risking something and losing it. Also, choose something babe, you can't play both sides forever. In the last line she then addresses the audience again by saying 'I have nothing to believe unless you're choosing me.' She wants to be chosen by her audience as her authentic self, not as the 'sad song' girl. Once she's said all those hard hitting truths, what follows is a massive pause, a moment of total silence. Like the moment when you've finally said all you wanted to say and now you're waiting for the reaction. And when you almost think the song has ended, we get the heartbeat again and one more chorus.

SILENCE You're losin' me Stop (Stop, stop), you're losin' me Stop (Stop, stop), you're losin' me I can't find a pulse (HEARTBEAT STOPS) My heart won't start anymore

In this last chorus the Stops are now echoed twice to increase the urgency in this plea, it sounds almost like she's saying 'stop, stop stop! It's really about to be over!'. And it is, as the heartbeats stops on the word 'pulse' and the patient has finally died. She concludes on what we have just witnessed 'My heart won't start anymore' but there is no 'for you' this time, because the relationship is dead now. No more coming back this time.

Thematically, to fit into the concept of midnights, this could be a song set in early 2019 when she was planning her coming out, or it could be more recent, as an internal counter piece to Anti Hero. I hope this lived up to what you hoped for, people who asked so nicely :)

blue - medical theme/imagery

orange - direct address to audience

green - war/combat theme