#not adding a link to my other posts b/c it won't show up in the tags

[the-suns-also-rise]

Symbolism: Welcome, Brother

I love Gabriel’s sarcastic ambiguity. I think both of Gabriel’s comments go together here, as we can see in the way the camera pans around both Gabriel and Bellamy when they contemplate their new clothing - adopting new clothing is itself a symbolic act.

Even though he was coerced into joining the Cipher Team, Gabriel is a scientist at heart. He thinks Bardoan theology is a load of folderal, but he puts on those white pjs and joins the team to get to the bottom of what he’s spent the last 150 years searching for - the secrets of the Anomaly. When he sees Bellamy newly dressed in the disciple robes of a true believer, he understands that Bellamy will be working towards the same goal he is, only through the lens of religion. 

This hearkens back to the theme described in my Cat’s Cradle/Gem9 post: Science and religion are opposing but concurrent ways to find the truth. When Gabriel tells Bellamy that he looks good in white, he is subtley telling him that they are on the path together. 

Of course, Clarke isn’t having any of their nonsense:

[idrellegames]

Hello, I went through your previous asks about relationship approval systems, but I want to know how to lock/unlock romance routes like in visual novels? I want to lock out romance routes if a character approval point is low and only show the romance routes with characters who have high approval points. Would I still use <<if $chara_approval >=65>> and use Sugarcube's link markup? How does it work with a passage that displays character images for players to click on?

It all depends on how you want your system to work. By "like in visual novels" are you referring to a system where there's a general common route, after which the player selects a specific RO's route and they're locked off from any romance material for the other ROs? If it's a choice like that, you don't necessarily need a directional scale for RO approval, you can choose whatever value works for your game as the "unlock" point and go from there.

There's a ton of different ways to do it. For example, if you want to make it a permanent lock, you could throw in a variable for the RO:

Assume that there are four ROs (A, B, C and D) and the player as accrued enough points with two of them. The player needs more than 50 points with an RO to unlock them.

:: RO Selection

<<if $a_app >=50>>[[1. Choose Character A.][$romance_option to "Character A"]]<<else>>1. Unavailable.<</if>>

<<if $b_app >=50>>[[2. Choose Character B.][$romance_option to "Character B"]]<<else>>2. Unavailable.<</if>>

<<if $c_app >=50>>[[3. Choose Character C.][$romance_option to "Character C"]]<<else>>3. Unavailable.<</if>>

<<if $d_app >=50>>[[4. Choose Character D.][$romance_option to "Character D"]]<<else>>Unavailable.<</if>>

If the player has enough points with Character A and Character B, but not the others, that would display like this:

If you're displaying it with images, you can use similar link markup, but with some additions to make a clickable image (see the image link markup in the documentation here).

I'm sorry this is only an image of the code and not something you can copy/paste, Tumblr will only let me answer this ask in the Beta post editor and it won't let me copy/paste code into the post editor anymore. 🙃

Like with the link setters, I've used <<if>> statements to control what options are available. The components of the image markup is a little different from a text link:

[img - indicates the image markup

[Choose Character - this gives alt text if the image doesn't show up

|C:/game/images...] - this is the image source. In this example I've used a file path stored locally on my PC. If you don't know how to get images to display in Twine, I highly recommend checking out my post here and also HiEv's tutorial here.

[Next Passage] - the name of the passage the game will go to next

[$romance_option to "Character Whatever"]] - the setter

I've also added an "Unavailable Portrait" that displays when the player doesn't have enough points to unlock a character. This is added using a basic <img> source.

If you're using images, you will need to figure out a design for your page (how much space the images take up, where they are displayed, etc). You will need some knowledge of CSS to do this in your stylesheet.

[dancingintheafterglow13]

I Know Places full analysis

Okay everyone, here it is... my long awaited analysis on I Know Places (illicit affairs coming soon but I promised one at least today so I’m keeping that promise; everyone has been waiting long enough).

I’ll mostly focus on the song itself, and the visuals that go with it, but I’ll probably also touch on who it may be about (Dianna Agron) as well.

This is a VERY long analysis so it’s all under the cut.

(I want to mention before I start, that Genius has a citation that says that it could be about a “rumored same-sex relationship”. It mentions Karlie but this is a Dianna song so I don’t think the timing of this song’s release makes sense as a Karlie song but I thought I’d mention that because I’d never seen that before)

The song starts and ends with a click. I have seen quite a few interpretations of that click: cassette, record, and recorder. I’ve always thought that it was a record, and the last sound was the arm being lifted. I suppose it doesn’t really matter exactly what it is, because all three kind of relate to a similar idea: the ‘80s theme of the album and of Taylor and her lover being watched and constantly scrutinized (I’ll come back to this one later) by the media. That by itself isn’t specifically gay but this intro and closing kind of haunt me. It’s as if there are always people watching them and they can’t be together. This feels like all those historical queer movies I’ve seen where the women have to hide their relationship and people are watching (oh! and that scene in Carol where they were being recorded in their hotel room).

The instrumental of I Know Places is rather simplistic (I have the official karaoke version which helps to isolate the surrounding sounds). It starts and ends with that reverberated piano and then the piano drops at least an octave once the percussion comes in. This beat makes it feel like the central figures in the song are being chased, or at least moving fast and this is helped by the lower octave in the piano, as it adds a sense of unease to the song. The unease is carried forward by that haunting note at 0:25 that just sends a shiver down my spine. It happens again at 0:32 but lingers a bit longer, clashing just so with the piano that it gives the section more of an edge. Lyrically, at these sections, Taylor says “something happens when everybody finds out” and “love’s a fragile little flame it could burn out”. These haunting notes add to the fear that appears in these lyrics, of the relationship falling apart because people found out.

In the first Pre-Chorus, the percussion picks up, and adds in some claps and new beats that weren’t present before. Here, the song is really building up for the chorus and in this way it feels a bit chaotic here because this new drum pattern adds on to the piano and the “i, i, i, i” ’s that have returned from the beginning (and if I listen closely I think I can hear the haunting note return at 0:45 with “they are the hunters” which again, shows the fear).

The percussion stays the same from the Pre-Chorus to the Chorus but some of the other sounds change a little. The chords played by the piano are... happier almost than in the verse or the pre-chorus which really brings out the lyrics about knowing somewhere that the media can’t find them. The chorus also has more major chords than the verses. According to a website I found with the chords, the verses and pre-choruses have e minor, C major, a minor, b minor while the chorus has G major, D major, a minor, C major. This is easier to hear in a recording from the reputation stadium tour; with chords that were major in the chorus, before the melody stops just before the next verse. That pause adds another haunted vibe to the song because it asks if these places are really that safe (since, we know that Taylor’s relationship with Dianna ended in part because of the media [see the master post I’ve linked below]). It also is interesting to note that the chord changes pick up on “’Cause I know places we can hide” with G major, D major, a minor C major on the “I” and then again just to a minor on the “hide” (with the C major not coming until the first “places” in the next line). That again, matches the haunted vibe.

The second verse is very similar musically to the first but there’s an added bass line here, a plucked one. This grounds this verse more than the first one because there’s now a driving force that pulls the song forward and gives more dimension to the song. It also kind of adds an urgency to it and feels as if the people in the song are running, just as it says in the lyrics. This kind of mirroring is really cool because it deeply connects the lyrics to the music and makes the whole idea of the song much more powerful.

The second chorus is the same as the first but the bridge strips it back so it’s just the percussion and the bass line. The percussion has changed to just a bass drum hit, which again, pushes the song forward and again adds to the urgency, especially in the lyrics of the bridge “they are the hunters we are the foxes, and we run/just grab my hand and don’t ever drop it, my love”.

The urgency of the music through out the song pairs nicely with both the lyrics and looking at this song through a queer eye. Taylor, and her lover, are running from the media and it’s even more important that they aren’t caught because they aren’t straight. Taylor really wants this relationship to last, even if they have to constantly hide because she really loves this girl and wants to be with her.

It’s interesting to also take a look at the original lyrics that appear in the Voice Memo that Taylor released in the Deluxe edition of the album. The chorus is exactly the same but the first verse is a bit different (most of these are the same as what Genius says but I heard a few different words with headphones):

“... they’re waiting at the back door/they’re around and the vultures come around/and you know that...they want, they want us/say what they want about, say what they want about us/and you come and I sing and you listen?/I would not think about it but I’m not them/let them know a thing or two about it, a thing or two about it...”

Obviously these lyrics don’t make a lot of sense because they were just Taylor trying to send an idea out, but they're interesting to look at anyway. I think, especially the part where Taylor’s saying that the they (which is most likely the media) knows something but not the whole story. That's true especially about gaylor and all the women Taylor may or may not have dated.

Okay, now onto lyrics.

I’ve seen some analysis of the “I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I-I/I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I-I/I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I-I (I, I, I, I)” at the beginning as Taylor stuttering trying to answer interview questions about her love life but I also see it as paired with the click at the beginning and end, with the record or whatever recording device skipping (which lends itself back to the ‘80s theme).

“You stand with your hand on my waistline/it's a scene and we're out here in plain sight/I can hear them whisper as we pass by/it's a bad sign, bad sign”

If Taylor and her lover were seen in public together people would start talking and she’s afraid it would jeopardize their relationship.

“Something happens when everybody finds out/see the vultures circling, dark clouds”

I’ll touch on this later but making this song about Dianna, when a fake article was released that stated that they were dating, the two of them stopped hanging out in public. And, something else I’ll bring up, after going out to dinner, Dianna and Taylor were swarmed by paparazzi which is horrible to watch.

“Love's a fragile little flame, it could burn out It could burn out”

Taylor’s scared that the whole world finding out will destroy her relationship with this woman (and with Dianna, it kind of did).

'Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes and guns/they are the hunters, we are the foxes and we run”

Boxes and cages really reminds me of the glass closeting Taylor started around the 1989 era. The “guns” definitely is the cameras that photographed every moment. Taylor and her lover have to continuously hide from the media in order to escape the scrutiny (this matches with Dianna too, because there pictures with them hugging and touching their other friends but never each other).

“Baby, I know places we won't be found/and they'll be chasing their tails trying to track us down/'cause I, I know places we can hide/I know places, I know places”

Taylor’s saying she knows somewhere where she and her lover can be together that the paparazzi can’t find them (this reminds me of I Know A Place by MUNA which is a queer band).

“Lights flash and we'll run for the fences/let them say what they want, we won't hear it/loose lips sink ships all the damn time/not this time”

Again one time when Taylor and Dianna were photographed by the paparazzi they were simply exiting a restaurant and going to the car (the flash is so bright in that gif). They ignored every comment thrown at them that time and just kept going. I feel like the last two lines reference the fake article that came out about them, and the rumor that Dianna and Taylor were in a love triangle with Tim Tebow. But, because all were denied and Taylor and Dianna stopped seeing each other as much, it saved them from having to face more scrutiny.

“Just grab my hand and don't ever drop it, my love”

They both want to hang on for hope that they can be together one day.

“They take their shots, but we're bulletproof (I know places)/and you know for me, it's always you (I know places)/in the dead of night, your eyes so green (I know places)/and I know for you, it's always me (I know places)”

“Take their shots” reminds me of the cameras chasing them again and they’re bulletproof because they won’t give the media and truth to the stories that they’re spinning.

Dianna thinks of herself as having green eyes (here’s her bitmoji) and green eyes are referenced in Wonderland (which is a Dianna song, no doubt about it).

Wanting to return to a lover in the future (and always going back to someone) is a big theme in all of the Dianna songs in 1989, so it makes sense that it would be present here too.

Some important visuals surrounding I Know Places:

The closet doors from tour:

And the fake article released about Taylor and Dianna that effectively ended their public friendship:

I won’t go into detail about Dianna and Taylor’s relationship (you can read all about that on the Swiftgron Masterpost) but I wanted to go back to the idea about Taylor and her lover being constantly watched and scrutinized and how it is very reminiscent of Taylor and Dianna. There are only a couple of photos of them together that don’t come from the media but there’s one set of phots that really fits this idea. On May 15th, 2015, Taylor and Dianna went to dinner together, potentially with a couple of friends (based on photos). Here’s some screenshots from a gif of that night (the gif won’t upload but here’s a link to it [*flash warning*]).

First of all, this is horrifying. The amount of photographers there trying to take a picture of them for the tabloids (”they are the hunters we are the foxes”) and how bright it is. And, if you look carefully Taylor seems to be holding onto Dianna (”just grab my hand and don’t ever drop it”). If you watch this gif, you’ll see how this guy in the fourth screenshot just jumps on top of other photographers to get a photo of them. If the paparazzi were so brutal when she simply went out to dinner with friends (and a potential girlfriend) it’s no wonder that I Know Places exists.

Okay that’s my full analysis of I Know Places! Feel free to reblog with anything I may have missed and if you made it this far, thank you for reading :)