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asm5129 · 2 years

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Flash thoughts episode 9x02

Let’s get the headline out of the way—I freaking love Khione. She’s great. She’s interesting, she’s intriguing, and she’s performed really well by the ever exceptional Danielle Panabaker.

Her sincerity and joy is such an interesting contrast to the rest of the team this season—especially Barry, Iris, and Joe who are all dealing with 9 years of superhero life baggage and trauma. She’s also got really interesting and deep insights into people, almost piercing ones. Plus there’s her connection to nature she speaks of. I wonder if that’s some kind of power, or simply a result of her sincerity and fresh eyes on the world, uncolored by a long history of bias and regrets and the like.

It was off-putting to hear Barry and the other heroes talk so casually about sacrificing Khione’s life to bring back Caitlin and/Frost, barely thinking of her as anything more than a reason Caitlin isn’t there anymore, but I think it works within the context of how grief affects us. Even heroes struggle to think of every life as having equal value, because they have personal relationships too, and these heroes just had more investment in Caitlin and Frost—it’s just someone you just met is not going to mean the same thing as someone you’ve known and thought of as family for years. Obviously I’m glad Barry realized he was treating her so awfully.

I definitely miss Caitlin and Frost, but I agree with the team—Caitlin made her choice. For that matter, so did Frost. Both knew the risks of their choices. Khione is the result. And neither Caitlin nor Frost would want Khione to give up her life for them when it’s only just started.

I also think it’s really interesting that what she said to Hartley actually applies to Mark in a really deep way. Mark never really committed to becoming a better man, he just worked to be a better person to make Frost happy. Like Khione said—doing it for someone else isn’t real change. With Frost gone he’s lost the foundation for those changes, hence him “going rogue”, as Barry phrased it. Speaking of—

The new rogue is another strong one. A new version of The Fiddler, and while I liked what we saw of the new Captain Boomerang we got a lot more of Fiddler and I am very pleased with her. I think it’s a fun performance, a cool power set, and a solid presence. She also sold the fear in the scene with Red Death really, really well. Regardless of why these Rogues decided to ally with Red Death at first, it’s clear they’re in over their heads.

It was fun to have Hartley back, and I’m very happy they didn’t pull a bury your gays with his boyfriend but instead did this really neat thing of him and the others being trapped in a vibrational frequency out of sync with reality. It allows them to be saved through Barry’s ability to vibrate at a frequency that can see them, without undermining Fiddler’s claim about it being “a fate worse than death”—for being frozen just out of sync with life forever, I think that’s an apt description, and that doesn’t get undermined just because they could be saved imo. Anyway it’s just a really neat thing to do with sound powers.

Joe meanwhile is in a rough spot as Cecile gets closer and closer to being capable of field work, cuz he’s been dealing with the harsh reality of field work longer than anyone—both as a cop and as the patriarch of the Flash family since the very start. I think with all that experience with violence and pain it makes a lot of sense that he feels like he has to draw the line somewhere, and this feels to him like where it has to be drawn. I’m intrigued to see where this goes.

It’s cool to see WestAllen making sure to keep themselves provided with joy during these difficult times as well—we could all learn from that honestly.

And finally, I think Red Death framing her plan as “serving justice” rather than “getting revenge” is really interesting, especially knowing this is a version of Batwoman. We’ll probably find out soon if my theory is right about this being the Ryan Wilder from the Armageddon future. If it is, from her perspective Barry is the reverse-flash, and he did to The Flash exactly what Thawne actually did in the beginning of season 8. Would be a really interesting way to play with that warped future Thawne created, keeping him as part of the last season while Barry faces consequences for rewriting a timeline in which Ryan was happy, and was even literally about to adopt a child with Sophie. She would have lost not just that but all her other friendships and connections too. In this timeline for instance, Ryan and Iris aren’t friends, they don’t even know each other. All the years of friendship? Gone. Anyways we’ll see.

Overall another really solid episode for the final season.

On that note, it seems like the Arrowverse guest stars will be more of a chance to say goodbye this season rather than wrapping up any of their stories, which makes sense. Better to keep it focused, but I’m glad we will still have a chance to say goodbye.

I’m sad we won’t get to see Eric Wallace’s grand plan he talked about recently come to fruition. Season 10 sounds like it would’ve been amazing, maybe even a proper Justice League story, but instead the planned 200th episode is now the series finale. I have to believe that if the star wars prequels can find themselves real fans, and there can be a desire for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 with Andrew Garfield, the Arrowverse will find its way to the sun again as well.

#be kind #arrowverse #arrowverse positivity #the flash #the flash season 9 #flash thoughts #flash spoilers #season 9 #final season #red death #khione #caitlin snow #killer frost #barry allen

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taylor-on-your-dash · 1 year

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Hey, I have a piece of information about the writing date of So It Goes…. so that you can fix your spreadsheet with the writing date. So It Goes… was actually written on March 2nd, 2015 because Oscar Gorres, the producer of the track has said that Taylor had to FaceTime the morning after he became a father to show him the song, and Oscar’s first-born child was born on March 2nd, 2015. Plus, Taylor was seen leaving the studio that afternoon. I hope this helps you correct your spreadsheet with So It Goes… being written on March 2nd, 2015 instead of September 2017. But it could be that the 2015 version is a rough draft? I don’t know, but either way at least SOME version of So It Goes… was written on thst date, but it probably wasn’t the final version, since this version would’ve likely been about Calvin Harris, possibly referencing him, so she may’ve changed some parts of the song. Still, even if this version is about Calvin, it’s probably a Sparks Fly type of situation where she wrote a rough draft/demo version a few years before the final version was released. I have more thoughts on this, but they’re kinda just clown theories, but tell me if you’re interested in them.

P.S.: Do you think that Karma the album is real?

I actually don't think that SIG was written in 2015 because:

Oscar Görres said that when Taylor did SIG: "Max and Shellback did half of the album with her in L.A", so that means the 2016 songs, like Gorgeous, King of My Heart, Delicate etc.

Taylor said that she wrote every track for the album.

The lyrics are very Joe Alwyn, imho: "met you in a bar", "all eyes on us", "I'm so chill, but you make me jealous". The bar line especially.

The tracklist on the reputation magazines are all over the place, and that makes me think that the tracklist was revised.

Also the baby was *born* on March 2nd, and Taylor was in the studio in the afternoon. There's no way that both parents were already at home.

But please, you're welcome to share your theories here. Someone a few days ago wrote me that they were attacked cause they had shared their thoughts on the MIAB/CBBH situation and I don't want to be a self-righteous person so thank you for sharing your theory.

As for Karma, I don't believe it's real. Taylor said that she didn't know what musical direction she wanted to take next and that she wanted a break. When reputation dropped, she said that there were people in her life who didn't inspire her to write songs (I think this was a dig at Calvin, so it might be a straight up lie lol)

#writing of reputation timeline #asks #taylor swift #so it goes

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9w1ft · 2 years

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Submission:

Please keep anonymous.

Hello fellow tinhat.

Something I saw on Reddit yesterday has sent me into a spiral of wonderfulness about Gold Rush.

A reminder of what Taylor said about Gold Rush, that it: “takes place inside a single daydream where you get lost in thought for a minute and then snap out of it.”

I had a theory from very early on that Gold Rush was about kaylor meeting at the Met Gala in 2011. I didn’t have any solid ‘evidence’ of this, but some stuff stuck out. As a refresher, we know that they met and had an interaction at the 2011 Met Gala because a year and a half later Karlie said that this was when the baking date joke first started. They joked about it, Taylor then mentioned it during her Vogue interview Sept 13, 2011, and then Karlie saw it when Vogue was released in January 2012 and tweeted ‘your kitchen or mine?’ Karlie wore a gold dress that year to the Met Gala and then 8 years later, she famously wore another gold dress and captioned her insta post “Gold Rush”.

What really made me think Gold Rush was about the 2011 Met Gala was just the whole way it vibes with the toe storyline, because I think the Toe fanfiction was invented to mimic Kaylor’s actual truth, partly to allow Taylor to write about her experiences and attribute them to joe in a believable way. It’s easier to lie when it’s partly true. So if Taylor first developed a crush on Karlie at the Met Gala 2011, it just smoothly fits into this toe thing, in a way. This is especially true when you add in the fact that Dianna was also there, and then Taylor and Dianna may have started something within days of when Taylor shouted out Karlie in the Vogue interview in Sept 2011, and both Karlie and Dianna tweeted about the Vogue cover in a flirtatious way. You end up with this messy bit of a love triangle type thing going on, not too far off from the mess that was Calvin/Tom/Joe (Karlie) in 2016. Not that I think we can say that anything really was going on between kaylor at this time, but you can definitely see flirting and crushing going on, which fits the toe narrative about them being friends and texting while Taylor secretly had a crush while dating Tom. Not exactly the same of course, but if this was all happening back then it gives her this ability to write about real situations and feelings while being able to attribute it to the boyfriends. And the whole message of Gold Rush is that it’s just a dream and it could never be. And so it was for another 2 years (in the toe fantasy it was just 3 months of her daydreaming about it and thinking it could never be.)

So this was just a silly, fun idea I had until yesterday when I saw this excerpt form her Vogue interview on Reddit. Keep in mind the spring 2012 show took place in Sept 2011:

👀 What are the odds? She was even wearing an folkevermore-style cottagecore dress!

I also realized that in August 2011, in the same sort of timeframe all this was going on, Taylor wore a Philadelphia Eagles shirt during Speak Now tour 👀

And on top of all that, at this time karlie was getting what I consider to be her first real chance at fame outside of the fashion world, because she got a cover story for Life Magazine, released Sept 10, 2011 (all this going on at the same time is kinda crazy!) And this video was part of that photoshoot:

Very ‘gleaming twinkling’ if you ask me. Plus Daisies!?!

So I hope you will join me in this wildness. It seems right up your alley.

———

👁👄👁

#aNON!!!!#🤯 the synapses popping off in my brain rn #gold rush #kaylor #prequel kaylor

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imhereonthekitchenfloor · 2 years

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what is the karma theory?? I know about woodvale but I've never heard of that one

I lowkey believe the Karma theory in the most basic sense.

The very basis of the theory lies in the fact that Taylor released an album in the fall every other year. This means she would release an album in October 2016. The album would most likely be about the previous two years of her life as every other album cycle went. Taylor instead said she would take a break after 1989 era and she released reputation in November 2017. She said NYD was the last written song on the album and it was all written fall/early winter 2016. The theory (and the part I subscribe to) is that there was probably songs written between 2014 and 2016 that Taylor could have easily formed into an album. She "scrapped" it all when she met Joe and centered reputation around him instead.

This was kind of controversial on whether or not Taylor wrote songs and didnt release them. Most people pointed to no. I disagree but no big deal. Then, March 2020 Taylor releases The Man music video. As seen below all the album titles plus the word "Karma" are seen.

The "missing" sign references her masters being bought out from under her. People thought that Karma was an unreleased album and the 1989 era was the time it was written over. They also reference Taylor's vouge interview during 1989 era where she said "karma is real" as proof it was a completed album. There's probably more details to this theory, but I think that covers the main points

#anon #hope this makes sense and wasnt super long😂

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nicolewoo · 4 years

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Please Daddy Part 5

Pairing: Joe Anaoi X Reader (Roman Reigns X Reader)

Warning: Smut including fingering of a girl.

We were on our way to the club when I got a phone call from Ann. “This can’t be good.” I say as I press call button. “Is everything ok?”

Ann’s voice came through the car speakers. “Yes, but I need you to help liaison tonight.” Club meetings were very involved. First the doms and subs met separately to discuss any issues with the other group. The liaisons of the doms and subs met together before the entire club joined for a group meeting. “What’s going on? Why do you need me?” I asked.

Her timid voice answered. “I’d do it myself, but we are voting on a new member that I think is going to interest all the single subs. I’m hoping you can remind the subs of proper behavior with famous members.”

“Really?” My mind flashed back to when I met Henry. There were so many things to remember about protocol. How we had to handle being out in public. “Who are they voting in?”

Ann paused before answering. “Chris Evans.”

“You THINK every sub will be interested?” I said sarcastically.

Ann laughed at the joke, but the grunt that came from Joe wasn’t a laugh. He was displeased. Jealous maybe. I reached my hand over to rest it on his leg reassuringly. I’d have to be careful to let him know he’s the only man I want tonight.

“Since you’re not interested in him, you should be the one who goes over the behavior standards.” Joe perked up after hearing Ann as I breathed a sigh of relief. Ann had easily picked up on Joe’s jealousy and was able to defuse the situation by saying I wasn’t interested. Thank you Ann!!!

“Oh. Sure. I’ll do it.” I volunteered.

___________________________________________________________________

Ann and I stood in front of the subs. Most were female, but we did have a smattering of male subs too. There was a buzz in the air as word of Chris Evans permeated the meeting room. “Calm down everyone.” Ann yelled above the din.

“Is it true?” Kelly yelled above the noise and captured everyone’s attention, the crowd prodding us along to try and get the truth.

I motioned for Ann to sit. I knew she didn’t like public speaking, and I knew that was why she wanted me here. “Everyone sit please.” I said as I took my spot at the podium. The room quieted quickly. “Yes. Chris Evans is here and has asked to join our club. Yes. He looks better in person than he does on the big screen.” I hadn’t even finished my sentences before the whole room broke out into chaos again. Words like “mine” and “dibs” were volleyed about the room. There was also a commotion about if he was straight, gay or bi or something else. “Subs, the faster we get through this, the faster you all can meet him, but first…..” The subs began to compose themselves again. “First we need to go over some standards for our behaviors.”

Now that I had everyone’s attention, it was time. “It’s been a long while since we’ve had a star of Chris’ magnitude join.” I heard someone mention Henry. “Here’s what you’ll need to remember. First and foremost, he is human. He has wants and desires like the rest of us, but don’t confuse him with the characters he plays in movies. Chris has a reputation for being an upstanding, kind and generous man. This is his PUBLIC persona. In truth, we know nothing about his preferences yet. I’m sure at least one of you will get to find out soon. For all we know, he could be the cruelest dom in the building, so tread lightly. Get to know him before jumping into signing a contract with him.

Second, give him room! I’m certain a lot of you want an opportunity to play with him, but desperation doesn’t look good on anyone. Let Chris approach you. Those of us who are in relationships will assist with introductions where possible.”

The room erupted again. “Attention!” I yelled over the noise, and the room quieted again. “Next, if you and Chris do end up together, there are complications you need to be aware of. He may or may not want your relationship to be public. If so, you’ll be criticized by his fans, and it will be relentless.” I looked to Ann who cringed at the thought of some of the press she got.

“Everyone needs to remember our #1 rule. Discretion! Just as this club is a safe haven for each of us, it needs to be Mr. Evan’s safe haven too.” There were verbal agreements all through the room. As the meeting went on, I was able to get the subs subdued a bit, but there was a palpable energy about the club for sure.

We arrived at the dom meeting room just as their meeting was breaking up. Henry quickly found Ann and glued himself to her side, but Joe was deep in conversation across the room.

“Have the subs seen Chris yet?” Henry asked.

I chortled, “I think it’s safe to say he’s going to have his choice of the available subs.”

Ann laughed, “We had trouble keeping them calm enough to have the meeting.”

“That’s good to hear.” I turned to find Mr. Evans walking up to us. To me actually. His eyes raked over me like I was prey and he was stalking. “So, when you say I can have my pick of ANY sub...” he sidled up next to me.

Something about his body language must have alerted Joe because he quickly ended his conversation and was storming to me. “You’re very sweet, but I meant the single subs.” Seeing Joe approaching me angry, Henry turned to see why, and I watched as Henry read Chris’ body language too.

Realizing his mistake, Chris started apologizing immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see a cuff...”

Hen interjected. “My bad. I forgot to tell him.” He said it as much to the approaching Joe as to me. “No cuffs here, mate.” He patted Chris’ shoulder. “We don’t use cuffs here. We use necklaces instead.” My hand shot to my necklace a beautiful ruby surrounded by diamonds.

Joe arrived now, pushing between Chris and I and wrapping his arms around me. I could tell by the look on his face that he was irate. “Daddy,” I whispered to try to sooth him.

“I’m so sorry,” Chris held his hands up. “My apologies.”

Joe grumbled and looked down at me. “Are you ok, baby girl?

“I’m perfectly fine.” I said as I leaned into Joe. “Just a misunderstanding.” I was still trying to sooth Joe’s anger.

“I’m so sorry.” Chris dropped his head in a perfectly rehearsed beg for forgiveness. “I didn’t know.”

“Really, it was my fault.” Henry interrupted Chris.

I needed to defuse the situation quickly, but I wasn’t sure how. My brain raced as I tried to figure what might sooth Joe. Blow job face? Yeah… that should do it. I kept my head down and peered my eyes up at Joe with the same look I always gave him when I blew him. In theory, that should distract him. He paused a moment looking at me. He couldn’t help but smile at my obvious ploy to calm him. “No worries.” He extended a hand to Chris. “Just a misunderstanding.” He grabbed my chin and kissed me, like he was marking his territory.

“I want to thank you.” I told Ann as we relaxed with our friends.

She looked puzzled. “What did I do?”

“Earlier… in the car…” I prodded.

She reached her hand out to pat my hand and smiled big. “I figured Joe was the jealous type.” She winked at me. “Plus, I didn’t say anything that isn’t true. You really don’t like Mr. Evans.”

“I didn’t say that.” I grinned and the women around me laughed.

Ann turned to see our men sitting across the room playing cards. Following her gaze, I turned to see them too. My eyes locked with Joe’s, and a sinful grin lit up his face. “There’s only 1 man for you right now, and even Chris Evans can’t mess that up.” Everyone laughed. Everyone except me. Joe’s gaze burned through me and my body reacted.

“Do you need to go?” Stephanie asked me, turning my attention back to our friends.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what Joe wanted, but just as I began to wonder, he nodded at me as if to say Go on. Have fun, and he focused his attention back on his friends. “No. I’ve got time.” I said with my eyes still locked on Joe.

We stayed for a couple of hours catching up. It wasn’t uncommon after meetings for the doms to keep to themselves and the subs keep to ourselves, but before too long, Henry and Chris made their way over to our group. It didn’t escape my notice that Joe immediately headed my way, almost catching up to Henry and Chris.

As the gentlemen neared, Ben, one of the subs, let out a low grumble of approval followed by “I hope he’s bi.”

As the group of doms approached us, I mused at how ALL of the subs quieted down as if we were all under their spell. Joe’s arm quickly wrapped around my waist as he approached me….. claimed me… marked his territory, and in truth, I was thrilled at his possessiveness. More than a few of the subs looked jealously at me with the giant Samoan. He placed a gentle kiss to my forehead and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Are you having fun?” The sultry tone of his voice immediately turned me on. I took a deep breath in before answering yes. “Do you want to stay here or go home?”

Dammit! He knew what his soft whisper in my ear was doing to me. He’d already begun the scene and we weren’t even alone, but as he towered over me possessively and protectively, I relaxed into his presence and realized it was time to go home even though it was early.

“Henry, Chris.” Joe shook their hands. “It’s time for us to go home.” He kissed my temple as if he was rubbing it in that we were together. Rubbing it in to who though? The dozen or so subs that sat around us? To Henry or Chris? It honestly didn’t matter. If daddy said it’s time then it’s time.

We made our excuses and went to Joe’s car in the parking garage attached to the club. I neared the passenger side door waiting for him to open it as usual. Instead, he reached out putting his hands on the car trapping me between them. “Mine!” he growled as he buried his face in my neck, trailing soft kisses over the hot skin. “Mine.”

“Yours!” I sighed as he continued his seduction on me. He moved an arm long enough to brush my hair off my shoulder to get better access to my neck. My hands clawed at his back as he drove me mad with his teasing.

“Mine!” He looked down at me, locking my stare with his. “Remember that.” His tone was half desperation.

“Yours.” I said sweetly now. “Only yours.” The words seemed to calm him a bit, and he opened the car door allowing me to climb inside before closing the door behind me and coming around the car to the driver’s side.

Once we were on the road, Joe placed his huge, warm hand on my knee, his thumb lazily drawing circles for a minute before he slid his hand up to the hem of my dress. “Pull it up,” he commanded and I quickly did. “Underwear off,” was his next command.

Sliding the silky material down, I held the scant cloth up for him to see. He quickly grabbed it from my hands and tucked it into his pocket. “Mine!” He joked.

I intended to laugh, but his hand shot straight to my pussy, gently running a finger over my slit. When the skin parted and his finger found my moisture, he smiled wide. “Ready for me already?” I felt a little embarrassed at how quickly my body responded to him, so I kept quiet. “Good girl.” He said as he slid his finger up to my clit.

Instantly, he started circling it gently. Damn! He knew exactly how to touch me. In seconds I was already moaning in pleasure. Just when I thought I’d explode from his attention on my clit, he slid a finger inside.

This couldn’t have been safe. He split his attention between driving and getting me off, and as he leaned forward to get a better position to slide 2 fingers deep inside me, I fretted for a second but the pleasure his fingers gave me quelled my fears. Trust him… the first rule.

Closing my eyes and leaning my head against the seat, I surrendered to him. The bite of the cold winter night nipped at the edges of my consciousness, but the only thing I could focus on was his fingers. They slid in, filling me, out and slid over my clit. In filling me, out sliding over my clit…. It was a beautiful torture.

He built me up until I begged him to stop. “Daddy, please.”

“Please what?” He tried to sound innocent.

I growled in frustration. “Daddy, Stop the car. Pull over… do something. I need to cum.” I whined needily next to him as my hips bucked up to meet his hand.

“Soon baby girl. We’re just a couple of blocks away.” He chuckled. “You can make it.” He teased as he turned onto his street.

I rolled my head back and forth as my hips greedily bucked up toward his hand again. “No. Now, daddy. Please now!”

He quickly removed his fingers, resting them on my leg. Without even taking his eyes off the road he growled out, “Don’t you DARE tell daddy what to do and when to do it.” He acted mad, but when I peeked over at him, he had a devilish smirk on his face.

“I’m sorry daddy.” I hadn’t realized how bratty I was being, but seeing his smirk, I realized he was thoroughly amused. Ok. I can play brat tonight. “I just need to cum.” I sulked in my seat.

He laughed low. “You NEED what I say you need.” His amused tone of voice calmed my overheated body a bit. He pulled into his garage now, coming around to open my door as I pulled my skirt down to cover myself.

Opening the car door, he offered me his hand, and when I stood, I was wedged between the car and him. His presence was overpowering. “Come. Let me show you what you need.” He said.

@mindofasagitarius @lclb13 @serenityfiretrash @lustyromantic @reigns-5sos @bigpsychicbagelauthor @omg-im-such-a-masochist

#roman reigns #joe anaoi

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bad-bitch-beauchamp · 4 years

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Songs About Me: Theories & Scones (CH8)

Claire, Geillis, and Joe theorize Claire's relationship with Jamie, and what’s missing. Just a quick chapter today, but it’s leading up the biggest one yet!

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Claire’s bedroom, a cold morning in early December, Louisburg Square, Beacon Hill, Boston

Two months had passed since Claire and Jamie met at the 21st Amendment. In two months, their relationship went into hyperspeed. With every revelation of how they had just missed each other not just in Boston, but all over the world for decades now, they fell harder for each other. What started as one packed weekend with karaoke, a drunken dinner, a late night walk in the park, and visits to each other’s respective businesses, they found themselves starving for more connection. In the time they could get away from the demanding schedules of being small business owners, they were with each other. The pressure of dating someone new and needing to impress one another quickly gave way to the comfort of takeout meals, board games, and Jamie’s cooking at one of their townhouses. Jamie told her of his home in Scotland and his adventures bagging munros all through college, Claire recounted stories of traveling all over the world with her uncle, and they filled in the blanks of their lives together. Time together was easy, natural. The way a good relationship is supposed to feel. Every Saturday night since the one they’d met, they’d wander the few blocks over to the 21st Amendment to meet Geillis, Joe, Rupert, and Angus for karaoke. Only once did they miss their standing date, and only just: Claire was ready to open the door to the bar when Jamie pulled her back in a whirl and kissed her senseless for the next thirty minutes around the corner. There was only one thing missing from their relationship now…

On a rare morning she wasn’t at the shop or with Jamie, Claire was engaging in a time-honored tradition with her two best friends. Joe and Geillis were Claire’s go-to advisers on everything in her life. They were the only two people in the world to tell her she should leave Frank and move to Boston. They were the two people to tell her she should start her greenhouse and plant shop. They were the two people who convinced her to continue writing music. They were her everything this morning, they were trying their best to convince her of what everyone but her seemed to see in her budding relationship with one James Fraser. Joe had worked a long shift at the hospital and was calling into the girl’s discussion from his car. Claire had been tossing and turning on her bed while Geillis laid with her back on the floor and legs up against the bed, snacking on scones she brought from the bakery down the block. English breakfast and catching up had been the group’s little routine since they were all in school in Oxford. No matter what the week held, they’d set aside an hour (that inevitably morphed into all morning and most of the afternoon) to sit around, relax, and eat. When Claire and Geillis moved to the states, they continued the tradition. When Joe moved to Boston to work at the hospital, their group was reunited and English breakfast Sundays felt right again. Even when one of them couldn’t make the physical date, they always had at least a few minutes to shove down some kind of British snack and catch up. The conversations ranged from old classmates to how the Americans ruin tea (Joe objected to this, but always agreed in the end), and today’s topic landed squarely on Claire’s relationship with Jamie.

“So things really are going well then?” Joe asked from the phone screen in Claire’s hand.

“For as quickly as things started, yes. Things are going more than well, I think,” Claire responded.

“It’s obvious the lad is crazy about ye -- his eyeballs may as weel be superglued to ye every time we go out. It’d be disgusting if it weren’t sweet how he hangs on yer every word,” Geillis offered.

“I think you mean his eyes are glued to Claire’s ass , friend,” Joe cut in, making the girls giggle.

“I cannae imagine how good that man is in bed,” Geillis sighed. Claire shifted to her stomach, facing the end of the bed when Geillis sat and propper her elbows up to cradle her chin. “Speaking of, it’s been over two months since ye two got together, and we’ve still yet to hear the juicy details!”

The wheels in Claire’s head spun quickly to try to play off her increasing anxiety to answer. “Details about what?”

Geillis scoffed loudly and Joe laughed through the phone. “Oh come on, you know exactly what!” Joe teased.

“Ye cannae possibly tell me that a man like Jamie Fraser is not an absolute god. Jes’ look at him! And the way he looks at ye, like he wants to devour ye … after that night of dancing at the 21st a few weeks back, I can imagine what that big, strong body can do and I’m dying for the details!” Claire threw a pillow down at Geillis, laughing at her friend.

“Use your own imagination! I see you go home with Angus more nights than not!”

“And Angus is more than fine, but that’s no’ what we’re discussing here! Plus, Angus doesna have the same… everything Jamie has about him!”

“Come on Claire, spill! We’re dying over here and it’s been two whole months now!” Joe practically begged.

“Unless,” Geillis scooted up to Claire on the bed, sitting cross legged across from her and her garden green eyes boring into Claire, “they haven’t had sex yet. Mebbe there’s nothing to tell?” Geillis continued to search her friend’s reddening face.

“Alright, fine! Are you happy?” Claire threw her hands up in resignation. “It’s been weeks of dates and late nights and practically all our free time spent together, but still nothing!” It was no secret to her friends that Claire had enjoyed her fair share of men since they’d known her. Traveling the world with her uncle had provided her with a slew of fascinating new people: her first kiss was at age twelve in Cairo on an expeditionary dig, her first time having sex was in Thailand with a boy who’s father worked with her uncle, and the names of lovers and crushes littered her diaries in the years between. In college, the friends had embarked on a backpacking trip across Europe where all three had their share of fun, but none so much as Claire. For her, embracing her sexuality made her feel empowered, desirable, powerful. Once she met Frank, everything changed -- through constant beratement, displeasure at her body, and emotional abuse, she no longer felt that same sense of power she’d long found within herself. Geillis and Joe had tried to set her up again in Boston, but Claire resigned herself to her work. The hurt from Frank had made it too difficult to be in bed with anyone else. I’ll be ready again when the right person comes along, she’d told them.

“Ye mean to tell me ye haven’t shagged the brains out of that man?” Geillis asked, shocked. “If it were me, I would’ve had him under me ages ago!”

“It’s not that I haven’t tried,” Claire sighed. “Jamie’s the first person I’ve wanted to be with since Frank. I’ve tried to move things along when we’re together, but he always puts a stop to it and I honestly don’t know why.”

“Puts a stop to it, how?” Joe questioned. “Because god knows it isn’t that he doesn’t want you. Anyone with eyes can see how head over heels he is with you.”

“The only way I can describe it is that he almost… panics?” Claire shrugged. “I mean, I guess we haven’t had the “are we exclusive” conversation yet, and there’s this girl that always pops up on his phone.”

“Want me to beat her up for ye?” Geillis casually asked, stuffing her face with another scone.

“Christ, Geillis, I don’t even know that she’s a threat! It’s just a small thing I’ve noticed. It’s not like he’s hiding his phone or anything, so I’m sure it’s not a big deal, but…”

“But you are a little worried about it,” finished Joe.

“Fine. A little. Maybe that’s why he always shuts me down.”

“Here’s what ye do: ye just need to ask him about it. Point blank. There’s something he’s not telling ye, and it’s either that he’s got some girl on the hook, or he’s a virgin or something. There’s literally nae other reason to have ye by now,” Geillis offered.

“We’re supposed to meet up for dinner at his place tonight… I think you’re right. It’s time to figure out what’s going on.”

#in which tessaactually tries fan fic #songs about me fic #outlander fan fic #jamie x claire #jamie fraser #claire beauchamp

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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10x22: Here’s Negan - Details

All right. Here are a LOT of details.

***As always, spoilers abound below for 10x22. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

We start with Maggie and Hershel walking around Alexandria early in the morning. She calls him “a little rat” affectionately, which I’m side eying. Because of Carol’s rat last episode and because we already established parallels between Hershel and Beth from ep 17 in that he went missing and Maggie and Daryl searched for him.

Then they sing “you are my sunshine” together, which is the same song Carl sang Negan. Because the sun is a Beth symbol, we’ve always seen her in that song. I also wonder if it foreshadows Maggie losing Hershel in some way. I don’t mean him dying, but rather being kidnapped. A lot of us have thought about one or some of the kids being taken at some point, and their parents having to search for them.

Carol looks out a broken window (Broken Glass Theory) and sees the exchange. So, she leaves Alexandria and takes Negan with her.

Actually, the next thing we see is a dead rabbit she pulls from a snare. The rabbit is SUPER interesting. I answered an Ask HERE about the moon rabbit, and I really love this explanation of the symbol. It makes perfect sense for Beth because the moon rabbit sacrificed itself, which is exactly what Father Gabriel said cryptically in 5x16. “How you sacrificed one of your own….”

Plus the Moon rabbit is resurrected and combines the moon symbol and the rabbit symbol.

So what does it mean in this context?

Well, I still don’t want to go into too much detail, though I will soon. (I promise.) But if rabbit = Beth, I think this is yet another example of symbolism that points to Negan and Beth having a big arc together later. (And Carol will probably be thrown into the mix.)

That evening, Negan drinks by the fire. What he’s drinking is clearly moonshine. It’s from one of those big glass moonshine bottles. I don’t know where he got it. I looked a second time at the stuff they left for him, and it might be in there, but if so, it isn’t visible. It would certainly be interesting if Daryl left him moonshine, but I don’t see any super-obvious hint at that. If it’s already there in the cabin, well, that’s Leah’s cabin, so….

This is where he sees his old self from the trailer. Some of the dialogue jumps out at me as things Daryl might say about himself. Evil Negan says to his good self, “You are nothing without her.” That sort of thing.

The next day he goes back to the tree with the stained-glass windows where Rick cut his throat. One of the plate glass windows has a hole in it and the other one is lying on the ground.

My go-to explanation of course is that the one with the hole represents the bullet hole in Beth’s head. (We actually said this of the stained-glass window in Father Gabriel’s church that Sasha shoots a hole in in 5x16 as well.) And I always see someone falling down as a serious injury. So, when Beth belly-flopped in the elevator shaft with Noah, that was a foreshadow of her getting shot. So I’m kind of seeing the window lying flat on the ground in the same way.

Of course, Negan digs up Lucille, and then it goes into the flashbacks.

It starts of course with him being a prisoner of the biker gang. We do think this gang is a parallel of the Claimers from S4. Remember that I said, overall, Negan = Daryl, right? So, this guy (Craven) even kind of looks like Joe Claimer. They dress in a similar fashion, are rough-and-tumble kind of dudes. But also, Negan runs into them after he loses Lucille. He doesn’t realize she’s died at that point, but she has. Just like Daryl ran into the Claimers after being separated from Beth in Alone.

And we immediately see a blue cooler with IV bags inside. They’re Lucille’s chemo treatments. So blue cooler/Frosty Cola symbolism. Plus this can parallel to 6x06 when Daryl accidentally took off with Tina’s medicine when he met Dwight. Basically, these are both pointing to the same thing: a future arc involving Daryl and Beth. There are also 22s on the IV bags. So, 22 theory.

I will say that the format of this episode is a lot like 10x18 because so much of it is flashback. They even use the same font to show the time jumps. The main difference is that with Daryl, they started 5 years ago and then jumped forward, toward the present. Here, they actually move backward first and then forward again.

So it’s like a swinging pendulum. They go back 12 years to where he’s a prisoner of the bikers. Then it goes back 6 weeks to when he’s with Lucille in their home , and then it jumps back again to before the apocalypse when she first found out she had cancer, which was right about the time the turn happened. And then it moves forward to the two of them together in the house, and then back to him with the bikers.

Okay, so, “12 Years Ago” he’s telling his story to the bikers.

Then it actually says “Two or Three Days Ago” and it’s odd to me that they don’t specify which one it is. Negan says he found the mobile medical clinic 2 or 3 days ago, but there’s got to be a reason they don’t just go with one or the other. Anyway, this is when he found an RV with supplies. He tries to hold the doctor up and Laura (Savior) comes up behind him with a bat and hits him.

We also get a bit of a hallucination theme. When Negan looks at the RV and the dummy guards on the roof, his sight sort of warps in and out like he can’t tell for sure. When he wakes up, he’s also hooked to an IV. (Parallel to Beth at Grady.) The doctor says he was dehydrated, malnourished, and exhausted. So maybe, in addition to all the mental break stuff we’ve already said about Daryl in 10x18, we should add these to the list.

“Six Weeks Earlier” and it shows him and Lucille. The first thing we see is that she tells him he’ll have to kill the walker but he doesn’t want to. He just turns off the generator, hoping it will go.

So, she makes him read Pride and Prejudice to her. The Pride and Prejudice thing is really interesting. He only reads a line or two, but anyone familiar with the story will be able to pick out the scene. Basically, in the story, a man asks Lizzie to marry him and she rejects him. He doesn’t love her or anything. He’s just looking for a “suitable” wife, and she can’t stand him. After she rejects him, her best friend marries him instead. And this friend doesn’t care that it’s not a love match. She just wants to be settled in life.

So the scene Negan reads part of is where the friend, Charlotte, is coming to tell Lizzie that she’s marrying him instead. This is the part Negan reads:

"I see what you are feeling," replied Charlotte. "You must be surprised, very much surprised--so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it over…”

Here’s the thing. No way they’re putting dialogue from such a well-known book like this into the show without reason. And I know they said on TTD that it’s supposed to be an Easter Egg for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Fair enough, but it’s not enough of an explanation for me. In the past, there have been things Nicotero has labelled as homages to various horror films, and I’m sure that’s true, but they’re also clearly Beth symbolism.

So, you could say that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies applies to Negan and Lucille. It’s a true love story, but zombies are thrown in. That works. But why this particular passage? It’s about NOT marrying for love, or the passing of a man’s offer of marriage from one woman to another. None of that applies to Negan and Lucille. It would have made more sense to have him read a different passage between Lizzie and Darcy, you know?

So, what does this mean? We’re not entirely sure, yet. For me, I tend to think it foreshadows a future arc (I’m sure you’re shocked) and I’ll get more into that in the next few days.

@wdway suggested perhaps we could apply it to the Leah situation. Daryl is in love with one woman, but hallucinating a relationship with another. I think that works, too. For now, let’s just keep it in mind, shall we? ;D

Dialogue parallels include Lucille saying, “we’ll have to kill it,” which parallels Beth saying the same thing about the walker at the moonshine shack.

And of course then we get that all important scene with the green wig, “serious” mention, IV stand and bag, and walker in the eye.

We see Negan going out to look for more gas for the generator, siphoning it out of cars.

We also see them having fun together. Obviously them playing darts is a callback to Still. The part where they play darts is actually just like half a second in the show, which just goes to show that they did the promo shot because they wanted us to see the symbols in the scene. I want to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that the British flag is printed on the darts. This is part of the template I’ll talk about in a day or two as well. For now, I just want you to notice it. It’s important.

When they do the candlelight dinner (*coughs alone*) they eat DOG food. Sirius reference. She suddenly says “happy anniversary” and pulls out a present for him. He says, “You know what day it is?” and she says, “no, I just wanted you to have this.” So I think the idea is that it’s not really their anniversary. She just said that as an excuse to give him a present. It reminded me a little of the “New Years Eve” theme we saw around the Claimers. Not exactly the same, but a similar vibe. It’s not REALLY New Year’s Eve. They’re just saying it as an excuse to do something else (in that case, kill Rick). Here, it’s not really their anniversary, but Lucille is saying that as an excuse to give him the jacket.

When Negan says she doesn’t owe him anything Lucille says, “I stuck with you because I could always see the man you are right now, even when you weren’t.” So again, kind of a Beth theme of seeing the best in him even when he doesn’t see it in himself. That’s a huge theme throughout this episode.

There’s more refrigerator/cooler symbolism when the fridge defrosts, ruining the last of Lucille’s treatments.

Then it jumps back to before the apocalypse. There were some symbols here as well. The main ones I noticed were specifically around Lucille. After her diagnosis, she gets in the car and hears the broadcast about the virus victims eating human flesh. Kind of a callback to hearing the Terminus broadcast in 4a.

Then she gets mad and says, just play some g**d*** music. (Music reference.) When the car pulls out, you have to check out this license plate!

XVD-1144. The 1-1 you should recognize from @frangipanilove’s 1-1 posts. The 44 references the comic book issue where Andrea was shot in the head, and survived. And of course there’s the X. So then @wdway had the ingenious idea to ask what roman numerals X and D stood for. X=5 and D=500. So we basically have “X, 550, 1-1, 44.” Yeah, series number 55 was Slabtown. Beth was on the 5th floor. And all the rooms around them in the hallway at Grady were in the 550s. If that’s not proof that Lucille is a Beth proxy, I don’t know what is.

Plus, notice the type of car: mustang. We’ve talked about this before, but horse symbolism, and the type of car is always important.

Another thing @wdway with her eagle eyes picked up. Lucille is scrolling back and forth between Negan and Janine’s numbers, right? Notice the date:

November 12. Recognize that:

Yeah, not kidding. It’s a reference to the headstone in Alone. 👀

Back in the future again, Lucille asks Negan to stay with her. You don’t realize this the first time watching it, but clearly she’s ready to die, and just wants him to be with her, but he’s bound and determined to save her, an goes anyway.

A couple of things to point out. Negan looking for meds parallels to Daryl looking for meds at the veterinary college in 4a. Also, on TTD they pointed out that Negan is constantly putting Lucille in a position to be alone. Before the apocalypse, he left her alone to fool around with another woman, who was her best friend. He made her go to the doctor alone. (Lucille alone at the hospital could = Beth at Grady.) We see him constantly leaving her here to get supplies. And he leaves for like 6 six weeks to track the mobile clinic.

I think that’s mostly an anti-parallel to Daryl. Daryl never left Beth intentionally. But I also think it could be a future theme, not in the sense that Daryl will leave her, but I’ve always thought he would feel super guilty because they left her behind and now she’s been “alone” for 8 years. And again, not physically alone as we know she’ll be part of other groups and such, but without him and her family.

Back with the medical people again, Laura gives Negan her bat, the one she first beaned him with, since he doesn’t have any other weapons.

All they said about Laura on TTD was that they wanted to use her—someone the audience would recognize—but also someone who had a relatively minor role. So they talked about how they could have brought Austin Amelio on and had Dwight give it to him, but because Dwight is a bigger character, and because his onscreen relationship with Negan was much bigger, it would have made it a Negan/Dwight moment and they wanted to keep this episode focused solely on Negan and Lucille. So they used Laura.

And sure, that’s fine. But they could have used any Savior they wanted. And why did they even WANT a familiar face? Why the return of the Savior with the blond hair, you know? I’m just saying. ;D

Of course Negan tells the biker gang where the medical RV is and then goes back to Lucille, but she’s already dead. This really was a very tragic episode.

We obviously have a suicide theme here, and the fact that Negan never actually shoots or stabs Lucille in the head, both of which parallel Beth.

On TTD, YNB even pointed out that she’s wearing the same clothes as she was the day he left, which means she committed suicide the day he left. Most of the 6 weeks he’s been out looking for medical supplies, she was already dead. Super tragic, no?

We also see keys, matches, the blue cooler again, and Negan wrapping the barbed wire around his bat.

So, a couple of preliminary thoughts here. The 6 weeks was bugging me because they said it 2 or 3 times, really emphasizing it. I’m kind of wanting to equate it to 6 seasons. Because if Beth doesn’t show until S11 (and clearly now she can’t, unless she shows in Fear or something, but I’m not holding my breath for that) then it will be 6 seasons since Beth left the show.

And again, it’s more anti-parallel than parallel. For 6 weeks, Negan thought Lucille was alive, but she was dead the entire time. For 6 seasons, Daryl thought Beth was dead, when really she’s been alive the whole time.

And, of course, Negan burns the house down, much like Beth and Daryl did in Still.

But here’s the other thing @wdway noticed. Check out the similarities here:

Similar colors and structures, and both seem to be on fire at some point. And I don’t think the cabin in 5x09 was pointing toward Negan and Lucille. Rather, I think the symbolism in both instances point toward something we haven’t seen, yet. But the parallels and repeated symbolism are there.

When Negan leaves, he gets on his bike with Lucille (the bat) and drives away from the burning house. And interestingly, we see him smack his mailbox with it and knock it off it’s post.

Couple of things here:

The name “Smith” is written on the mailbox, so apparently that was their last name. And they mentioned it on TTD. Smith is such an everyman sort of name. It might be one of the most common surnames on the planet, so there’s definitely some interesting symbolism there having to do with Negan.

But I’m side-eyeing the actual mailbox, as part of the Communication Theme. And, on a very basic level, I’m thinking that the mailbox was intact when Lucille was still alive. He destroyed it after he lost her. So maybe it represents something along those lines, or even represents the person they lost. So mailbox = Beth.

The scene that keeps flashing in my head is from 6x03 when Daryl is riding around on his bike, searching for Rick, and he’s passing all these mailboxes in the background.

Then in 10x21, we see him walking toward the military walker on the train tracks (*coughs CRM, *coughs Rick*) and he passes the blond, Beth walker, but doesn’t actually look at her or see her. Do you kind of see the similar theme there?

Negan brutally killing the biker gang can parallel Rick doing the same to Joe Claimer in 4x16.

Negan tells Craven a story about how he lost his job. He got in a bar fight. It was their favorite because it had a JUKE BOX. And they loved the juke box because it played their favorite song (You are So Beautiful to Me.) He even talks about “seeing red” and how he now realizes he can do anything he wants (read: kill anyone he wants) so we kind of see his evolution into S6 Negan here.

And honestly, they leave a lot of loose threads here. We never learn what happens to Franklin (he’s still alive at this point) and obviously Laura stays with Negan long term, but they really could do more flashbacks about how he started gathering people and found the Sanctuary.

So then we come back to the present where he’s just dug Lucille up under the stained glass window tree. In the first scene at the beginning, we see a walker making its way toward him. Yes, it’s a blond, female walker, and I’m pretty sure she’s wearing Daryl’s shirt from when he was at the Sanctuary. Here at the end, Negan has been lost in his own thoughts so long, the walker comes up behind him and he turns around and kills it with Lucille.

When he does, the bat splits down the middle. Yet another symbol of Lucille’s death.

He goes back to the cabin and sits in front of the fire and talks to Lucille (both the bat and his actual wife). He says, “I’m sorry I left you…I made myself not feel anything…I miss you.” See how we could apply that to Daryl?

He also says, “I’m going to do your fighting for you,” which I take to mean he’ll honor her memory better, now, rather than go back to the old, evil Negan he was. Which was really just years of him avoiding his feelings about her death. (Kind of like Daryl has with Beth, hence the Leah situation.)

Then he covers the bat in a white cloth (clearly meant to be a shroud) and puts the bat in the fireplace, burning it. On TTD, they do say this is meant to be the funeral she never got. 👀

Oh, and at the end of the “in memoriam” on TTD, it actually says, “Negan is burning down his past.”

So, at the very end, he actually goes back to Alexandria. Maggie, Carol, and Daryl are near the entrance and he asks where the “A” team is going. Carol warns Negan that if he lives at Alexandria, Maggie will kill him at some point. I actually really liked this ending. It was a good way to kick us into S11.

That’s the end of the episode. So, I’ll say this again and it will be a good segue into my next post about what I think Beth’s arc will be in S11, and how she’ll appear. I’ll post it either tomorrow or Thursday.

Without getting too much into the weeds, I think Negan and Beth will have some major, future interaction. And I really think the symbolism here backs it up, for various reasons. The symbolism itself wouldn’t prove anything, as we’ve seen this stuff repeated with lots of different characters and especially true love couples, which Negan and Lucille clearly were, despite his cheating.

But on TTD, Hilarie Burton talked about how strong Lucille was. She said she liked the character because so often when cancer victims or victims of other prolonged diseases are portrayed on film, they’re seen as angelic, ethereal beings. And while that’s fine if that’s truly who they are, you don’t lose your personality just because you become sick. So she liked it that Lucille was a little rough around the edges. She says that even before the apocalypse, Negan was just fussy enough that he would need a strong woman to rein him in, and he would also be attracted to exactly this kind of strong woman.

Strong woman = Beth.

So, I’ll just leave it there.

Anyone find any symbols I missed?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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swiftly-sweetheart · 4 years

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Lol, srry for taking too long to post my review

One; The Woodmon's were like; "What the--something's strange is happening with the weird one again!" when Lopmon went all God like. And yes, I said again

Two; I know that Lopmon is a male, even if digimon's don't have gender, but I'm calling her a her because I'm use to her dub voice in Tamer's, even if I hadn't actually watched Tamer's, and she sound like a girl so

Three; I think the SkullKnightmon being Gatomon theory might actually be true. When Lopmon start using her Holy powers, Patamon's ears start twitching, and SkullKnightmon looked away like they can sense it. Not only that, but Hikari is just so calm. There is also more to my theory, but I don't want to spoil the synopsis for episode 33/34

Four; So WarGreymon de-digivolves into Agumon

Five; what about Koromon?!

Six; so, the Bakemon, champion level digimon that are getting one shoted by three rookies, isn't meant to be treated as a joke, but Joe is?

Seven; LOPMON EYES

Eight; Angewomon, Ophanimon, and Seraphimon cameos? Hell yeah! I only expected Ophanimon and Seraphimon, you have no idea how happy I am that they showed Angewomon too

Nine; And that Ophanimon is confirmed to be Gatomon's mega! Yay!

Ten; I am hoping one or two flashback episodes focusing on the war and what happened plus the 6 warriors's and the 2 holy digimon's interacting during the war

Eleven; and then they fight and I had never seen a Giai Force that small before and the Komondomon are so cute! They're like the Trailmon's but cuter, and they don't need train tracks.

Twelve; I am disappointed how Lopmon didn't go with them but found it cute how she wanted to protect the Woodmon since they took care of her before she re-awakened her memories

Thirteen; But I do like to think that it was always just the Budmon and Woodmon and then one day she just randomly shows up. They're all like "why is she here again?" but they take care of her anyways

Fourteen; "The Holy Digimon is the name that points of the two souls who are a pair." Wait, so like...soulmates?

Fifteen; The look on Taichi's face when he figured out that Hikari is the second Holy Digimon's partner makes me think that they had a much worse and traumatizing backstory than they did in the OG

Sixteen; the next episode, it looks like Takeru and Patamon had met up with Taichi and Sora, and it's called "Soaring Hope" Pegasusmon or HolyAngemon? Probably Pegasusmon since that's what his title was in the sub of 02 but hopefully HolyAngemon

Seventeen; also, Takeru looks so cute and tiny trying to protect Sora

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #228: TRIAL and ERROR!

February, 1983

AT LAST! The trial of Yellowjacket!

Its been over a month in-universe and about a year out of universe but here we are. The Trial of Hank Pym.

Although the time getting here was mostly farting around with other stuff while Hank sat in prison. Can you believe Scott Lang is the only person we see visit him?

The Avengers found time to experiment on an immortal child who thought jumping into the sun was a good idea but not to visit Hank?

I’m not saying that Jan should have had to put herself through that and Tony is clearly feeling too guilty over the whole thing. But Cap didn’t visit? Hawkeye didn’t? Mr. Lets Bust Hank Out?

Possibly they did off-screen. The Hank arc has been kind of suffering from Shooter’s inability to balance writing and EICing. I feel that if redone, there would be more to the arc.

Anyway, the trial!

We skipped the first two days. Its the third day of the trial now.

The graphic guy went above and beyond for that Sad Composited Hank graphic.

I like the AN AVENGER’S DARKEST HOUR thing.

I also like the setup for recapping the necessary details.

Ex-Avenger attempts to heist the government would be big news so all the information is conveyed as this news report.

INCLUDING COURTROOM SKETCHES

God, that’s good.

That’s good comicing. Amazing.

Look at Thor in a courtroom sketch. Superb.

Look at that cheesy graphic for the coverage. Does anybody in Marvel even use a domino mask?? Everything about this is amazing.

People may say that Frank Miller revolutionized using media talking heads for social commentary in his comics. Maybe. Maybe so. But how many courtroom sketches did he include? Huh?

So apparently the reason why we’re on day three of the trial is that days one and two were entirely debates over whether Hank was even fit to stand trial.

I’d’ve thought they would get that out of the way ahead of time.

And Hank wants his day in court. So who was arguing he wasn’t fit to stand trial? The prosecution?

Apparently, the prosecution tried to argue that Hank’s history as a hero made his crimes more heinous, as a legal argument.

Which, uh? Um? Uh?

The defense objected that this was prejudicial but they were overruled.

The news recap ends when She-Hulk turns off the television angrily for reminding her of her legal career.

She-Hulk: “Leeches! I haven’t met Henry Pym, but he can’t be the creep they’re making him out to be! And that prosecutor -- ! I know it’s his job, but do they all have to be sanctimonious?! I hated that when I was a practicing attorney, and I don’t hate it any less since I’ve become She-Hulk!”

Reminds me that her nemesis in her original Savage She-Hulk book was an Assistant DA called Buck Bukowski who was a real sexist douche.

He mellowed out over the course of the book, mostly by learning that a death he blamed She-Hulk for was sorta his fault, but I wonder if she left LA so she wouldn’t be tempted to throw him out to sea.

She-Hulk is also still super bored (in New York??) and wanders downstairs to see if anyone is up to anything interesting.

Downstairs in the gym, she finds that the Caps are training.

The Captains America and Marvel.

Cap(tain America) is doing some combat training with Captain Monica Marvel.

This will not be at all confusing to have them on the same team.

Anyway, this training sequence is amazing so lets just have it all:

Cool stuff, Caps.

The training has to be cut short because Cap(tain America) has a prior commitment but still good stuff.

She-Hulk applauds Captain Marvel’s showing but Marvel waves it off as thanks to Cap(tain America)’s training. Which Cap(tain America) waves off as thanks to her being a quick study.

Its like a self-perpetuating modesty loop in here.

Cap excuses himself to go to his prior engagement.

Captain Marvel: “It’s easy to see why he’s called a living legend! He’s very good! And his grasp of strategy is second to none!”

She-Hulk: “Yeah, he does pretty well for a guy with no powers, but I could take him!”

What a this era of She-Hulk thing to say, She-Hulk.

Captain Marvel tells She-Hulk hey maybe not! Cap has stood up to some pretty tough customers, including Jen’s cousin the Hulk.

Which She-Hulk didn’t know!

Y’know, after Bruce (or recently implied to be Joe Fixit Actually??) started Jen’s origin story, the Hulk has not much further relevance in the Savage She-Hulk book. Jen doesn’t even give any indication that she’s keeping up with his exploits.

Not surprising, since the book was trying to be its own thing. And Jen’s life just starts to implode not very far into her solo so she doesn’t have time to also worry about Bruce.

Captain Marvel mentions that all of Cap(tain America)’s run-ins with the Hulk are recorded in the Avengers computer archives and She-Hulk concedes she should give that a look.

Hey, she finally has something to do in New York!

Captain Marvel also tells She-Hulk that she’s going to head home.

She-Hulk: “You have a place in the city?”

Captain Marvel: “Not this city... New Orleans.”

She-Hulk: “NEW ORLEANS?!?”

Captain Marvel: “Sure! It’s a snap to commute -- when you can travel at the speed of light! Take care!”

And then she nyooms off!

NYOOM!

It’s a good point! I hadn’t considered it but yeah, Monica can just commute. No need to uproot her life to become an Avenger.

I guess that’s why the decision was so easy for her to make.

She-Hulk is still at the window, wishing she could lightspeed to Malibu, when Thor and Janet arrive from court.

Janet thanks Thor for coming to court with her. Which he says no big to because “Time given to one’s friends is well spent. Would that I had given more time to poor Henry before this.”

You’re a cool guy, Thor.

The mention of Hank has Jan break down a little.

Jan: “Oh, Thor! Why has this happened to us... to all of us? We’re Avengers!”

Thor: “But still we are human -- aye, even a ‘god’ such as I! None of us are immune to wounds of the spirit. We err... we misunderstand. Janet? Is there anything more I can do?”

Jan: “No! No... I’m all right! We mustn’t dwell on the past. The future’s all that matters!”

Thor: “But...”

Jan: “I don’t want to talk about it anymore!”

Geez.

We’ve seen how affected the Avengers have been by what Hank has done and what they think he has done. We’ve seen Jan is more messed up by it than the smile she puts on lets on.

But the plaintive questioning of how this could be happening to the Avengers still hits hard.

Thor respects Jan’s wish to end the discussion to the frustration of She-Hulk who has been watching this conversation from the upstairs window.

She’s frustrated that Jan won’t just let it out, that Thor just let the subject drop.

She-Hulk: “It’s that blasted Avengers’ tradition of ‘respecting the privacy of members’ personal affairs.’ The founding members carry it too far! Can’t they see how it hurts them? And Jan -- ? Why does she hold in all that grief and heartache? Why doesn’t she cry and scream and shout and get it out of her system?!”

Jen and Jan are two very different people!

But She-Hulk, and Hulks generally, are about letting your feelings out. And Jan van Wasp has long been about playing the flighty sprite.

I’d crack joke about She-Hulk being this invested in the drama of the Avengers already but Jan is her friend. They presumably went car shopping together.

And She-Hulk has very few friends and almost zero female friends. Her one female friend died in a convoluted car accident and then She-Hulk mostly had a male supporting cast. Thank goodness she’s here on the Avengers with its two whole other women.

Meanwhile, at Stark International, Cap(tain America) has come to pay a visit.

He hasn’t been able to reach Tony in days. And Tony’s secretary told him that Tony has locked himself away in his private lab and that he doesn’t want to see anyone.

But if he didn’t want to see anyone, he should have thought twice about making it so that the security system will let in any Cap that flashes an Avengers ID.

Cap is particularly worried because of that nasty argument they had about Tony dating Jan. Tony has been pretty down since they broke up and Cap doesn’t want to see him fall apart like Hank did.

And.

Tony is. Doing. Maybe not okay.

He’s sweating a lot and unshaven and monomaniacally focused on a project.

Cap finds him holding up an enormous piece of machinery and doing SCIENCE.

This is the final evolution of Tony’s guilty conscience regarding Hank Pym.

Iron Man: “Remember how Moondragon used her mental powers to mess with our heads? Well, it’s my theory that she’s responsible for Hank’s recent troubles! I aim to prove that with this cerebral scanner! This baby should tell us whether or not Hank did the crazy things he did because of some outside mental influence! I hope I’m right!”

I mean, he raises a fair point! I don’t think its the case because what would it have benefited Moondragon to make Hank do what he did? And if its an inadvertent thing, she mind controlled a lot of people when the roster change-up was happening back in #211 so why did only Hank get affected? Plus, it doesn’t really match up with what both Hank and Jan have been saying about his behavior deteriorating before then.

But, Tony is going to Tony. And he, like many fans and writers and editors, just want a simple nonsense explanation that can make a distressing thing go away.

Cap points out that the ginormous machine can’t exactly be dragged down to the courthouse but this is just the prototype. Tony is going to have a miniaturized version ready by Monday.

Cap: “I see. Tony, how long have you been up?”

Iron Man: “I don’t know... 30... 40 hours, maybe. What difference does it make?”

Cap: “It makes plenty! You’ve had some rough sledding lately... You can’t keep on driving yourself this way!”

Iron Man: “But I have to do something for Hank. I feel that I let him down... In so many ways.”

Cap: “You can’t help him if you kill yourself in the process!”

Tony is going to Tony. I think that in some ways he might have a more overdeveloped guilt complex than Peter Parker or Matt Murdock.

For Reasons, I’ve taken a look at how things are going in the Iron Man book around this time and oof. Poor Tony.

Over in Leonia, New Jersey, Vision and Scarlet Witch are watching the trial coverage on the news and-

Okay.

1.) How do you make watching the network news so moody and dramatic, Vision? Do you ever actually relax?

2.) Do you two just wear your costumes around the house? Surely you must have other clothes? Vision? Do you have other clothes?

Some other stuff is that Wanda has been holding up Jan and Hank as the ideal marriage so this whole thing has been weirding her out. Although Vision has had a less rosy opinion of it, having been there for it with all of the marrying the split personality nonsense involved.

Although I don’t know why issue #68 is referenced. I don’t think that had anything to do with anything. Issue #60 is where the wedding happened.

Bet whoever put that caption wishes they had access to the internet.

I kind of wish we got more stuff like earlier, got to see Avengers not currently on the team and other heroes that worked with Hank Pym reacting to his disgrace exit from the team and then arrest. Wish we could have had Vision and Wanda try to visit him in jail.

Meanwhile, Long Island Sound.

A LOCATION OF EVIL

A suited man arrives and knocks on 13308 McKinley.

He is Dr. Chen Lu and he is expected.

Moonstone/Dr. Karla Sofen meets Dr. Chen Lu at the door and shows him in to the secret science basement where Egghead is running an experiment with the latest scientific equipment that can be begged, borrowed, or stolen.

I’m figuring... mostly stolen? Right? Like Egghead’s plan was to steal all the resources he needed? Because, ugh Effort?

Moonstone interrupts Egghead to let him know Dr. Chen Lu has arrived and Egghead is thrilled! He rushes from his seat to shake his hand.

And the sentiment is returned by Dr. Chen Lu who is eager to join Egghead’s project.

Y’know, Egghead is a jerk and is stealing all of his resources but his project will hugely improve medical science and he’s getting criminal scientists off the street and into some actual science jobs they can be excited about.

Dr. Chen asks how Egghead isn’t dead because he was pretty sure he was told Egghead was dead. And Egghead sure has a tale to tell!

In Defender #43, Egghead set up Cobalt Man to reach critical mass and explode to distract the Defenders so he could steal a magical star. When Cobalt Man found out, he was pretty pissed and decided to blow up Egghead.

Egghead: “We had a bit of a falling out, you might say... and he ended the situation most dramatically. Witnesses actually assumed we’d both perished. In actuality, I had been teleported by an experimental mechanism to relative safety in the New Jersey swamps... and unlike death, one can usually return from the state of New Jersey!”

Damn, Egghead! Criminal genius that you are, you’ve found the only New Jersey joke I’ve ever laughed at! Fiend!

I think its the glasses adjusting what does it.

Anyway, Egghead’s and Dr. Chen’s cool conversation gets interrupted by Tiger Shark and Shocker bursting through the ceiling fighting.

Beetle flies in after them and apologizes for the mess but says ‘really Shocker had it coming, man, fuck Shocker.’

Beetle and Moonstone jump in to separate the two.

Hey, you might be wondering how the Masters of Evil are out of jail when last time we saw them was getting arrested after attacking the Avengers like dumbasses?

Check that panel where Iron Man is lifting a really heavy thing. There’s a news broadcast about a bunch of prison escapes. Good job on the same issue setup, Stern!

Shocker complains that Tiger Shark called him a two-bit hood but Tiger Shark says in his defense that Shocker IS a two-bit hood (Not inaccurate...) who nearly screwed up the isotope heist. But Egghead says that Shocker is an important part of the operation.

Then Tiger Shark notices Dr. Chen Lu and says a slur.

C’mon, guy. Don’t be like that.

Dr. Chen Lu: “Speaking without thinking seems to be second nature to you, Tiger Shark. In the interest of our future partnership, I shall excuse the insult to my race... this time! But I warn you, do not use that word in my presence again, or you shall answer to -- THE RADIOACTIVE MAN!”

Tiger Shark hurriedly says that obviously he didn’t mean to offend. Because Dr. Chen Lu Radioactive Man fwooshed into his green skin (dammit comics whats with you and Asian people and green skin?) radioactive form and costume.

But with Radioactive Man on the team, the Masters of Evil are finally complete and ready for the next step of EGGHEAD’S BOLD PLAN.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye returns to his apartment from his day job, kind of looking a steady paycheck in the mouth. Sure the big wad of bucks is nice but its sooo boring. Thank goodness he has Avengersing to keep things exciting.

He then sings a short bit about “Best of both worlds -- !” because Hawkeye.

Hawkeye sees the news broadcast about the Hank Pym trial and even though he hasn’t been called to testify (because he wasn’t part of the team when Hank was caught with his hands in the government’s cookie jar) he figures what the heck, he’ll go to the trial anyway to show moral support.

And he does! In full costume!

In fairness, so are Thor and Captain America.

I guess Captain America and Hawkeye don’t have publicly revealed identities. But they couldn’t have thrown a suit on Thor?

Please put Thor in a suit. For reasons.

She-Hulk and Wasp are wearing nice court clothes.

Although She-Hulk seems uncomfortable in her nice court clothes.

(By the by, She-Hulk showing up at all makes Hawkeye warm up to her a little, since he figures that in her own way she cares about being an Avenger as much as he does.)

By the way, notice who wasn’t in that picture? Hawkeye leans over to whisper to Cap where is Iron Man? Annnnd Cap thinks maybe he just got wrapped up in his cerebral scanner project.

At this point in the trial (day 4), Hank has finally been called up to the stand to testify on his own behalf.

So, of course, given Hank Pym’s luck, the courtroom explodes.

What a dynamite conclusion to this arc!

The Masters of Evil (Moonstone, Radioactive Man, Tiger Shark, Shocker, and Beetle) jump into the court through the exploded ceiling, grab Hank Pym, have Shocker blow up the load bearing wall, and then run out while the Avengers are distracted holding up the entire ceiling!

An action scene fast enough that I can believe, yes, the Avengers didn’t have time to react to it before it happened.

But Thor is strong enough to hold up the ceiling, so Wasp orders Cap to get the crowd to safety and has She-Hulk and Hawkeye follow her to go after the Masters.

Cap: “Jan’s really coming into her own as group leader! Even Hawkeye’s snapping to at her orders!”

Good. I’m glad that people keep telling me that Wasp is doing a good job as Avengers leader.

Seriously. Given the way that the Avengers book handles teamwork and the idea that the Avengers even have a leader sometimes, I’m glad that the book is explicitly conveying that Wasp is doing good.

Hawkeye net-arrows Tiger Shark, She-Hulk tackles Radioactive Man, Wasp confronts Beetle, and nobody confronts Shocker because its just Shocker.

Beetle scoffs at Wasp trying to stop him but has to eat his words pretty soon. Her Wasp stings being souped up in this recent stretch of comics hasn’t stopped being a thing.

Beetle: “Ow! Maybe I was the one who spoke too soon! Even with my armor, I can feel a little of the Wasp’s bio-stings! If I can’t shake her, she might blow my micro-circuits!”

Very glad that Wasp continues to be an effective fighter in her own right and not just the distraction ‘fly around and pester people.’

She-Hulk just throws Radioactive Man out of the panel, mocking him for being green as her without any of her sweet moves.

Tiger Shark wants another go at She-Hulk after the way she stomped him in #222 but.

Oops guess I shouldn’t have mocked Shocker. Since he was ignored, he can sneak up behind She-Hulk and use HIGH INTENSITY VIBRO-SHOCKS to rattle her bones to dust.

Except, no. I should have mocked Shocker, a little.

Because even though the HIGH INTENSITY VIBRO-SHOCK rattles She-Hulk so that she chatters out “T-t-think a-a-again, y-y-you w-w-walking q-q-quilt!”, she grabs Shocker’s hands and holds him up in the air for Hawkeye to short out Shocker’s gauntlets with a couple of magno-volt arrows.

Shocker crumples, confused because one of the other Masters was supposed to be covering Hawkeye.

Radioactive Man tackles She-Hulk so She-Hulk just belts him away.

So Radioactive Man concedes, well, okay, She-Hulk is stronger than him. But brute force and being green aren’t the extent of his powers. He’s also radioactive, radioactive.

He hits She-Hulk with a controlled burst of gamma rays, which shifts her back into Jennifer Walters.

Hey, Jen! First time you’ve appeared in this book in this form.

She’s less than pleased. In fact, she starts screaming “No! Not this!!” and begging someone to help her.

Thankfully, the Masters put her out of mind as not a problem anymore.

And the dominoes fall.

Tiger Shark smacks Wasp out of the air, freeing Beetle to blast Hawkeye. And nobody can stop Moonstone from nerve pinching Hank Pym and pulling him into a truck.

Thor and Cap run out of the courthouse, presumably having gotten everyone to safety.

Thor: “Ho, villains! You’ve not won the day yet! Not as long as a single Avenger stands!”

Thor do what Thor do and what Thor do is throw Mjolnir.

Exceppppt its at Radioactive Man and Radioactive Man can still deflect Mjolnir with energy fields. Radiation can do that. Mjolnir doesn’t exist in real life so we can’t prove that radiation can’t do that.

Radioactive Man deflects Mjolnir right at Captain America. He gets his shield up in time but it still knocks him on his ass.

The Masters all book it into the truck while the Avengers get to their feet.

Wasp orders Hawkeye to shoot out the tires to the truck. But before he can and before it can be fruitless, a getaway truck explodes out of the truck and flies off more quickly than the Avengers can chase.

And by “the Masters all book it into the truck” I mean, “except Shocker” because they ditched him.

With the Masters escaped, Wasp turns on the shocked Shocker and rips off his mask and demands he tell them where the Masters are going.

But the shocked Shocker is too shocked to answer. He seems out of it, really.

So Wasp changes the question. Who is behind this? Why did they want to kidnap Hank Pym?

Shocker: “Why? It... it was his idea! Dr. Pym’s idea... He arranged for us to free him!”

DUN DUN DUUUUU- no wait we know thats not it

whats your game shocker

Sometime later, Hank Pym wakes up in Egghead’s lab. And, of course, immediately leaps up to kick the shit out of Egghead as soon as he sees him.

Alas, Tiger Shark holds him back.

Egghead: “Don’t restrain him too tightly, Tiger Shark! He’s of no use to us injured!”

Hank Pym: “I’ll ‘use’ you, Egghead! You’re responsible for ruining my life! You manipulated me into stealing that government adamantium... and set me up, when your scheme failed! You’re mad if you think you can make me help you now!”

Egghead: “Pish-tosh!”

Good rejoinder, Egghead.

God, this also cracks me up.

Egghead says that he’s in the middle of a great experiment and that he needs the world’s greatest biochemist, Hank Pym.

Hank is still on the ‘why the hell do you think I’ll help you, I hate you so much.’

So Egghead has the tv turned on.

Anchorman, Non Burgundy: “... Authorities were stunned by the news that Dr. Pym had planned his own abduction! The Avengers refused to comment on the Shocker’s confession, but polygraph experts confirmed --”

Egghead explains that Shocker was a patsy. His gauntlets were secretly rewired with special circuits that brainwashed him into believing what Egghead wanted him to. So thoroughly that it fooled a lie detector.

Egghead: “As far as the world is concerned, Henry, you are now most assuredly a criminal. No one will believe otherwise. Not the police... not even your former friends. You have no one to turn to in this world... except us! Join the Masters of Evil, Henry! We will give you a new life!”

Hank Pym: “All right... I’ll do it!”

DUN DUN DUN!!

Wow, so I guess Egghead wasn’t just being petty. He was also systematically destroying what little was left of Hank’s life to force him to work on SCIENCE project with him.

Proving his innocence and ‘getting his dignity back’ was all Hank had left to him.

Geez, sucks to be Hank Pym!

Psst, follow @essential-avengers? Like and reblog?

#Avengers #Egghead #Masters of Evil #Hank Pym #the Wasp #She Hulk #Hawkeye #Thor #Captain America #Captain Marvel #monica rambeau #Iron Man #not doing so well #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #SUPERHERO LEGAL DRAMhaha just kidding it gets interrupted #lot of interesting trajectories the avengers are going on in this issue #so far so good on the Stern run

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gloomverse-theories · 4 years

Note

Something I’ve always been curious about regarding Gloomverse is: what was the deal with the dream versions of Wallis and Harold? The whole color change thing they had going on and why did Wallis have slight differences in his design from the Wallis in the non dream world? (For example, dream Wallis was wearing a tie while real Wallis was not.) Any thoughts or feelings on the matter? Personally I don’t trust dream Harold and especially not dream Wallis.

Mod Joe’s response:

Okay, strap yourselves in for a long one, because I have A Lot to say. I won’t talk about the clothing, this is mostly about Coloring and Rights... rights that were and are being broken.

TL;DR of my thoughts/feelings: The dream selves are supportive of Rylie and signal protection for their newfound family. They know a lot more than they should and seem to have even more in store. Even the links to Murder Hobo do not upset me because their general goals align, for the moment. Virga and Yellow are the greater threat...

Let’s talk about the Colors first. Colors change color when they get Magic. Why do I bring this up? Because we have this panel:

This moment is important because Harold addresses the Dark Overlord directly here. And from the sound of it, his hair and eyes changed to the black and red we know when he got his hat.

But wait. If he says her hair and eyes didn’t change, so it’s her real hat, then if eyes and hair do change, it’s The Wrong Hat.

But that shouldn’t be possible. As per the Right of Passage, you can only gain Magic through your own Hat, by taking out your wand from it. This is the first Right being broken here. Harold got Magic through a Hat that is not his own, a fact supported by us never seeing him with a Wand.

The giant lollipop does not count, as he only uses it to bash people with it. We never see him Manipulating anything, which you need a Wand for; he’s only ever seen Creating candy out of his “fake” Hat. But that’s another theory.

Important thing here is that he is breaking one of the fundamental Rights of Magic and changed color because of it.

We have another panel that we shouldn’t forget when discussing the dream selves: Wallis going berserk.

Not included in this picture is the levitating Seaweed hanging on to him, complaining that she cannot breathe in the next panel... which is violating another Right, that is the Right of Protection from magic. It states that Magic cannot be used directly on the body of a living being. Which he already violated once before (and after) by making limbs invisible.

This seems to indicate that this coloring (at least for them) is tied to Right Breaking. Something we should keep in mind...

Onto the dream itself now.

Sorry Harold, You didn’t have a good panel while standing upright.

Here, the colors are reversed. Wallis has the black hair and red eyes while Harold has his natural colors. Why? What rules could Wallis be breaking here? Well, he is in another person’s dream, which is having influence on their mind and by that breaking of the Right of Protection again. It could be that... but then Harold wouldn’t be breaking a law by being in the dream. Hm.

Wallis’ color scheme could also be tied to how he is MIA and color shifted at that point of the story, but then again, Harold also is. Another thing to note here is that Wallis is in full control of himself, not going mad with rage as he did against Cakegirl. Furthermore, not only are his clothes noticeably different from his magic show outfit, his limbs are still visible. This is most likely not directly the Wallis who disappeared during the magic show...

— Mod Green : When Purple found Wallis in the crater, his hair was still reverting to its normal color so I’d guess he was indeed frozen in time or in stasis or something... —

Harold is a bit of an oddity as well. He has his natural colors, invisible limbs and candy canes, as well as the hat we’ve always seen him use.

We later see Rylie with both legs in her dreams, so having his limbs back shouldn’t be an issue; but she also only got multicolored hair when she remembered that’s how it currently looks like. It seems that the dream appearances are tied to one’s self perception.

So, could this just be how Harold sees himself. After all, he has had missing limbs for much longer than the other two, since childhood. Or maybe it’s a little off because it’s a sign of something greater. Why is he even there in the first place...?

Because, as for their intentions...

Dream Wallis is clearly being supportive of Rylie here but does extend a word of warning too. They even came specifically to wake her up early.

Which seems to indicate that these versions know more than their waking ones... but in the world they know, Rylie didn’t wake up after only two weeks? Hm! Perhaps Virga found her in Gloomverse then, or there is another timing issue we don’t know of that necessitates the change. Something seems to have happened that could be solved by her waking up “earlier”. (How much earlier? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? We don’t know, but Wallis dismisses two weeks as a short time, which is pretty alarming on its own.)

In any case, all points towards Wallis and Harold having the ability to go back in time in some way... but we’ve seen something similar lately, with Rylie and Prisma talking. Perhaps they contacted Rylie the same way. We’ll know more soonish.

— Mod Green : @trixylalamoon suggested that Harold’s “true” magic would have been time magic, fitting a time/space motif between him and his brother. And that does explain a lot of things! They could come from an alternate timeline, or from the future, and decided to intervene and wake Rylie “earlier”, maybe to prevent something from happening? Or provoke something. Like Wallis’ crash. He reappeared and crashed two weeks after the magic show, approximately at the same time as Rylie woke up in the hospital. Are those two events linked someway or purely coincidental?

What it doesn’t explain is “how did they get here?”. —

This timey weirdness doesn’t change the fact though that the brothers view Rylie as family and are going to help her get through whatever may come as best as they can. I do not doubt the sincerity of that, and neither should you...

“BUT HE LOOKS LIKE PRISMA’S MURDERER! TRUST NO ONE!” I hear you exclaim in chorus with Rylie. And you would be right to be suspicious, considering that Yellow is set on Necessary Murder and Amadeus seems equally determined.

For one, however, we don’t actually know whether Wallis and Harold from the dream are working together with Amadeus; we can only confirm that they seem to know of him. (“Other red-eyed magician? What did they look like?” then a meaningful look once Rylie describes a long black haired, red eyed magician.)

— Mod Green : We know that “Mancers could inflict their powers directly on the human mind”, so to be inside Rylie’s dream, they would need the help of a Mancer. You could make a case that Harold and Wallis are mancers, but their magic wouldn’t really allow them to visit a dream, unless Wallis can open a wormhole in people’s head. Who are our other options? Of the five Mancers mentioned, we have only met two : Amadeus and Prisma. However, I don’t think Ama would help his sons to wake Rylie up. In fact, he would probably have preferred that she never wake up again.

When Rylie wakes up and try to explain her dream, Hobo’s face is.... dread.

What about Prisma? She seems to care a lot about Rylie, and would want her to wake up. She’s already trapped in some sort of Dreamscape so she must have experiences. Well I’m not so sure... Without Dream!Wallis and Dream!Harold intervention, Rylie might have met Prisma faster. What if they were trying to prevent that...? She’s the reason why Hobo fears her and Yellow wants her dead.

We can scratch Amaryllis and Malus from the list of suspects. One went missing thousands of years ago and the other is more of a “physical violence” than “spiritual help”. Which brings us to Hyacinth. Out of all the mancers, she’s the most likely to have mind related magic (we will talk about that another time), and she’s possibly still alive in Ecoverse. What is her interest in helping Rylie? No clue, but we can’t dismiss any lead.

And finally... Harold. I said before that maybe his “real magic” was time magic, but it’s only one possibility. He seems pretty at ease in Rylie’s dream, flying around on a giant lollipop just because he can, while Wallis looks powerless. He even has his original color scheme, so contrarily to his brother, he’s not breaking rules by being here.

He is also the first one to notice that Rylie is waking up, and says that they have to go. Which means they can come and go whenever they want, and are not dependent on another person to pull them back out. Finally, Amadeus asked the lemon kid to watch on Harold, and specifically on his sleep. He is “sleeping well” and so “his risk is back down to almost zero”.

The Dark Overlord gave Harold a false hat, but is he also keeping his real one away to prevent him from using his magic? —

Secondly, about Ama’s motives themselves:

The reason I am using this image is to draw your attention back to the moment where Wallis went into a rage. Yes, Ama here seems very much in control of himself,but he seems to be leaking Magic everywhere. Just like his son when in great emotional turmoil. Hm. Just like...

Here. But seemingly much less controlled, indicating that he might have been less cold than he let on back then...

This picture is one of my favorite Amadeus moments. He just threw a few bombshells at us: Rylie is someone important, he’s the Dark Overlord, he murdered Prisma, he won’t let something happen again, and on top of that, he’s Petunia’s husband and the father of Harold and Wallis! Plus he has the same general color scheme as his sons! (Note that he’s ALSO rule breaking: no hat nor wand is visible during his magic usage.)

So how could we trust them when they have moments where they look like a murderer who’s been tricking the entire cast for months!?

Well, to sum up, two reasons:

1) Amadeus acts out of conviction. Both when murdering Prisma (despite his possible unrest in the moment) and when giving Rylie her Hat back. We can’t know for sure about the first, but he did the second to protect those important to him and his sons. He even apologizes to Rylie. I wholeheartedly do not think that he will harm Rylie as long as he can avoid it. Whatever it is he wants to prevent, he’ll try to explore the ways that avoid killing the newest member to his family.

2) Wallis and Harold are still their own people. They will oppose their own father who was not there for them for most of their lives if it is to protect their little sister. Even their dream selves would do it, as I have discussed above. It would not match their shown intentions, even if they seem to know more.

In other words: We should currently be worrying more over Yellow and Virga than Hobo and the dream selves of his sons...

#Anonymous #gloomverse #mod joe #mod green #theories #assistant #harlold gloom #wallis gloom #mooching hobo #gloomversetheories

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dantays-inferno · 4 years

Text

Taylor Swift: Art Historian

All my art historian acquaintances might hate me for this title because their job is *incredibly* serious, but I don’t like most of them anyways.

Anyways, it is my belief that Taylor has incorporated many references to art and literature within reputation and Lover, particularly in the music videos for each album cycle. To the extent that I wonder if all this time she has secretly been getting her B.A. in English Lit...or she is making her way through all the Great Courses.

That is all to say...the music video Easter eggs aren’t merely cats and 13′s. Sometimes they are, I don’t know...diptychs of the Apocalypse.

Here is perhaps the most iconic (and brilliant, imo) image of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video. Sear it into your memory before we proceed (if Taylor and Joseph Kahn haven’t already done it for you by producing a work of art so brilliant that you can’t stop watching on repeat.)

Okay, when I first saw the video, I thought, “That’s a play on some painting I can’t remember.” I tried to look for it when beginning my research for this blog, but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. Was I making it up? No, my co-author swore it was inspired by a painting. My mom did too. Finally we came up with this, Jan van Eyck’s The Last Judgment, painted in 1441 and 1442. It hangs at...the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AND it was profiled in the New York Times on Feb. 2, 2016, when the painting was part of a special exhibition at the Met. Of course, Taylor was gearing up to help host the Met Gala in the spring too.

The painting is a diptych, meaning it has two panels, so focus on the right panel.

I’ll zoom in for ya on a relevant section

Feel a bit familiar? Here’s a later painting inspired by this one that has even more of the same feel as the music video:

(This is Peter Paul Rubens’ The Last Judgment.)

Anyways, there are a couple other paintings I found by Rubens on the same topic with similar compositions...writhing bodies attempting to climb upwards but falling down instead.

(Also, I’m sorry you had to see those fairly disturbing images up close.)

At the top of the painting sits Christ overseeing the aforementioned judgment.

Here we see the cross that shows up in LWYMMD, plus the image of someone standing above mountain, almost blissfully unaware of the drama and turmoil going on beneath.

What gets more interesting is this figure in the middle of the painting, below Christ but above the hellscape.

So it’s an angel cutting down anyone who has been condemned to hell, preventing them from reaching the light of day and the love of Christ.

I freaked out when I noticed this angel because...

Exhibit #1: End Game music video

Exhibit #2: reputation magazine

The colors in this look the most similar to the angel in the painting, and the hair is even done the same. I have a theory that the different photos in the reputation magazine are different characters or people discussed in the song corresponding to that page in the other edition of the magazine.

She also is in the same pose as the figure on the top of Taylor Mountain.

Exhibit #3: Karlie Kloss walking in Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2008 show

Kloss named this as one of her favorite runway shows in an interview with British Vogue in 2019. She also shared that she lit her robe on fire by accident backstage, and put this particular dress on the wrong way round and had to switch it last minute. Feels like the kind of story you would tell at every party you went to.

So basically we have a rainbow angel who ruins people’s lives.

Alrighty. Let’s delve into why I think Taylor used this imagery. As a disclaimer, this is just my analysis, and you can take it or leave it. I’ve put hours of thought and research into this because I’m unemployed and in quarantine, so I’m not just pulling this out of my ass, but I’m also not Taylor, so nothing I say is gospel truth.

Analysis

My theory is that the figure at the top of Taylor Mountain is standing in for the roles that Christ and the archangel are playing in the painting. The figure--we’ll call her Rep--is essentially condemning all the Old Taylors to no longer see the light of day (or come to the phone.) The archangel in the van Eyck painting prevents people from ascending out of hell while Christ is presumably the one who condemned the people to hell and now stands above all, nonplussed.

But in an interesting twist, Rep stretches her arms out to crucify herself as she shouts, “bad dreams!” At this, the Old Taylors begin falling off the mountain, and we get the iconic “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” line. Not coincidentally, the other panel of the van Eyck painting depicts Jesus’ crucifixion.

Why is the crucifixion part significant beyond just being a perfect transition in the music video? First off, it obviously points to the younger Taylor being sacrificed unjustly. A theme of reputation and Lover seems to be remorse for losing Taylor’s sense of self and a desire to shift her focus from the trappings of fame to the people who truly care about her. Many people interpreted this song as Taylor announcing that she was a new “bad girl” Taylor, shunning sparkle guitars, unrequited love, and general girl-next-door vibes (which would be a shame because these are some of the best things in life.) But I think this video and album are more retrospective than active. That is to say that Taylor is realizing that she lost her old self in the years prior to reputation, and now she regrets that they can’t come to the phone.

Beyond that, I think the crucifixion moment in the video points to the idea of being a martyr--and not in a good way. This ties into my theory that all of the characters in the video that aren’t a specific Old Taylor (from Taylor’s music videos, tours) are actually meant to be Karlie Kloss. I have one other post about this on my blog now, and I intend to write more.

So let’s say it’s Karlie standing on the top of Taylor Mountain (and saying the old Taylor can’t come to the phone.) She essentially crucifies herself, making herself a martyr--someone who was killed unjustly. In my ongoing analysis of the album, I think this ties in to the song “So it Goes...” in which Taylor sings, “Come here dressed in black now / Scratches down your back now.” While this is generally interpreted to be a sexual scene, I think it depicts Karlie coming back to Taylor after the two have had a falling out, and acting like she is the victim in the relationship (black being a color of mourning) and that Taylor inflicted pain on her (scratches down her back.)

What’s more is that scratches down her back ties in with the crucifixion/martyrdom idea...Jesus was whipped/flogged before being crucified, which obviously leaves notable scars that would not look dissimilar to scratches. So basically Karlie is acting like a martyr and a victim in the relationship, when, according to Taylor in the LWYMMD video’s narrative, Karlie was the one who helped “kill” Taylor’s true self.

Plus, the video also implies that Karlie exploited her relationship with Taylor for fame and financial gain and became controlling and even tried to sabotage Taylor’s relationship with Tom by calling the paps on them. Sounds like a pretty toxic relationship, and people who are emotionally abusive often use the tactic of flipping the script on the person confronting them.

I know these are harsh accusations, but they’re in the video just beneath the surface concept of “look at all these controversies.” The more I delve into the album, the more I see that Taylor is trying to process her toxic relationship with Karlie even more than her breakup with Tom. (Sorry, no Joe.) I’ll be writing more posts to explain all this, but keep an open mind. I think Taylor hid a lot in reputation and Lover that we haven’t necessarily unearthed yet.

#taylor swift #reputation #look what you made me do #jan van eyck #peter paul rubens #swifties #taylor and karlie #kaylor

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alexrbrooks29 · 4 years

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cardigan/august/betty: a Joe, Taylor and Tom love triangle?

Buckle up, ya’ll @jingersoll88 and I have a theory that is going to leave you shook! We think this self-described “teenage love triangle” is about Taylor’s 2016 summer with Tom, while she was secretly seeing/pursuing Joe. Taylor described the album as a way of “escaping into fantasy, history, and memory” - we know these stories are based on her insanely talented storytelling, use of imagery, and exploring different perspectives. Taylor said she “created character arcs & recurring themes that map out who is singing about who” and tries to make the love triangle seem like a boy pursuing two girls one summer, but we think it’s actually about her pursuing the two men. The point of view is blurred at times, and though the stories are told through other characters, the parallels to Taylor’s life are undeniable.

To break it down:

“Cardigan” - Taylor’s perspective

“August”- Tom’s perspective

“Betty”- Joe’s perspective

“cardigan”

In cardigan, Taylor sings about summer 2016 where she was dating Tom, but possibly seeing/pursuing Joe and draws inspiration from her other songs. It goes all the way back to the 2016 Met Gala, where Taylor met both Joe and Tom… and had a night of dancing with Tom to Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" and T.I.'s "Bring 'Em Out.". Taylor describes her first time meeting Joe in the song “Dress” as “Flashback to when you met me, your buzzed cut and my hair bleached.” - basically confirming they did meet at the Met Gala.

Coming back to “cardigan,” Taylor describes her very public summer romance with Tom unfold as they go on dates all over the world, where she wore “High heels on cobblestones” in Rome, but was also still thinking about Joe. “Broken cobblestone” is later mentioned in the song betty. She describes her Met Gala outfit as “Sequined smile, black lipstick”. “But I knew you / Dancin' in your Levi's” draws a reference to her line in “Delicate” with the lyrics referring to Joe, “Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you”. “And when I felt like I was an old cardigan / Under someone's bed / You put me on and said I was your favorite” After a whirlwind summer and when Taylor was feeling at her lowest, she came back to Joe and, like a warm cardigan, he was her ultimate home .The cardigan is mentioned later in “betty” with the line, “Standing in your cardigan”. Also, Joe was in the movie “The Favourite”. “Chase two girls, lose the one” Taylor was dating Tom, but was still chasing after or couldn’t stop thinking about Joe. “Lose the one” could be seen two ways - she briefly lost Joe when she chose Tom / but in the song “the 1” she “[digs] up the grave another time” and reflects on how it could have been a fun relationship if her and Tom did end up together? The second chorus “But I knew you / Playing hide-and-seek and / Giving me your weekends, I / I knew you / Your heartbeat on the High Line /Once in twenty lifetimes” reminds us of the line in “Paper Rings” where she sang about how her and Joe played “cat and mouse for month or two or three” (May → August?) and the line “Once in twenty lifetimes” connects with the lines from Lover, “Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?” and Daylight, “I’ve been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night” And the ending, “'Cause I knew you / Steppin' on the last train / Marked me like a bloodstain, I” sounds similar to a “wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore” talking about Joe. Then she flips the switch and talks about Tom in the lines, “I knew you / Tried to change the ending / Peter losing Wendy” about how Tom tried to keep her, but she was never his. Verse 3 is where she could be playing with multiple perspectives “I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs / The smell of smoke would hang around this long / 'Cause I knew everything when I was young / I knew I'd curse you for the longest time / Chasin' shadows in the grocery line / I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired / And you'd be standin' in my front porch light” basically saying she would always wonder what could have been if she didn’t give a relationship with Joe the chance it deserves, or looking at it from Joe’s perspective saying he knew she would come back to him once the shininess of her relationship with Tom wore off. We’ll get to the part about the porch in betty.

“august”

August is the second song in the trio, and is from Tom’s point of view. The song describes a summer romance that was bound to fizzle out. In the folklore album prologue, Taylor says the song is inspired by “the sun drenched month of August, sipped away like a bottle of wine.” - it is of note that late August/early September is when Tom and Taylor broke up. The first verse, “Salt air, and the rust on your door / I never needed anything more / Whispers of ‘Are you sure?’ / ‘Never have I ever before’” describes the salty air of Taylor’s Rhode Island house, where her and Tom were first photographed together, and where she hosted the 4th of July party. “Are you sure/Never have I ever before” could imply they are wondering if they should be seen together, given her recent breakup with Calvin. Also in “august” she sings “your back beneath the sun, wishin’ I could write my name on it” If this was indeed written from Tom Hiddleston’s perspective, it would make sense. He wore the “ I love TS” shirt at the 4th of July party, but wished Taylor would wear his name too. Tom reflects on the month of August, when Taylor was slipping away; he tried to reconcile things when he visited her in mid-August, after they hadn’t been seen together in weeks, but it is too late. Perhaps, during the weeks they didn’t see each other she was pursuing Joe? “August slipped away into a moment in time / 'Cause it was never mine / And I can see us twisted in bedsheets / August sipped away like a bottle of wine” (Also, can we stop pretending this is about teenagers, what teenagers drink wine?!) He also says “you weren’t mine to lose” meaning he knew he never really had her to begin with. “But do you remember? / Remember when I pulled up and said "Get in the car" / And then canceled my plans just in case you'd call? / Back when I was livin' for the hope of it all, for the hope of it all” Hmmm this definitely sounds like a callback to “Getaway Car” where Taylor sang “You were drivin' / The getaway car / We were flyin' / But we'd never get far” Was Tom the actual vehicle, THE getaway car for her to leave Calvin in? In “Getaway Car” she also mentions how she “switched to the other side”, potentially meaning she ultimately chose the other man, Joe. Taylor also alluded to a love triangle in that song with the lyrics, “But with three of us, honey, it's a side show / And a circus ain't a love story / And now we're both sorry”

“betty”

Ah, finally to betty - written from Joe’s perspective. It’s no coincidence that “William Bowery” is the unknown co-writer of this song. Joe’s grandfather’s name is William. Taylor and Joe separately attended a private Kings of Leon concert at the Bowery Hotel in October 2016. William Bowery = Joe Alwyn. Joe may have helped Taylor see things from his perspective and tapped into that while co-writing the song together. The perspective isn’t entirely perfect in this song, but it could be the narrator describing both sides of the story. The song starts by describing how “Betty” is hurt by something that the narrator did. “You heard the rumors from Inez / You can't believe a word she says / Most times, but this time it was true / The worst thing that I ever did / Was what I did to you” - This is where it gets interesting - if Joe is the narrator, that would imply he did something to hurt Taylor. Taylor has written a few times about how she may have been hurt by Joe at some point, or maybe implying how they hurt each other throughout their illicit affair. If this is written from Joe’s perspective, it implies he isn’t completely innocent in this love triangle. Of note, Taylor also mentions being hurt in “hoax” where she says “but what you did was just as dark” “But if I just showed up at your party / Would you have me? / Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself? / Or lead me to the garden? / In the garden would you trust me / If I told you it was just a summer thing? / I'm only seventeen, I don't know anything / But I know I miss you” PAUSE. Cruel Summer also says, “I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you / And I, snuck in through the garden gate / Every night that summer just to seal my fate” Implying they were sneaking around that summer… in a garden. Maybe implying that her relationship with Tom was just a summer thing. Also of note, Taylor referred to herself as seventeen in the song “I Think He Knows”. The lyrics use the imagery of a high school dance to describe what we can only infer as Joe seeing Taylor from across the room dancing with Tom in the lines, “Your favorite song was playing / From the far side of the gym / I was nowhere to be found / I hate the crowds, you know that / Plus, I saw you dance with him” - further confirming Joe saw Taylor dancing with Tom at the Met Gala. The point of view gets blurry, but later in the the bridge it goes, “I was walking home on broken cobblestones / Just thinking of you / When she pulled up like / A figment of my worst intentions / She said "James, get in, let's drive" / Those days turned into nights / Slept next to her, but / I dreamt of you all summer long” This could be shifting to Taylor’s POV when she was leaving the Met Gala on “broken cobblestone” (imagery for a broken path.. Not knowing where she stands or what to do) when Tom slid in and said “let’s drive” (read: Getaway Car) and she didn’t intend for the night to go that way, but it did… and she ended up spending the summer with Tom, but thought of Joe all summer long.

In conclusion, we believe Taylor used this high school love triangle as a way to describe her love triangle with Tom and Joe in the summer of 2016. She mixed up characters and meshed some ideas, but ultimately the overarching theme is this:

Taylor is the perspective in “cardigan.” Knowing she would ultimately come back to Joe after she went off and had her fun.

Tom’s perspective in “august” is sad in a way. It’s in this song that he realizes Taylor was never his to lose, she always belonged to Joe.

Finally, Joe in “betty” admits the worst thing she ever did was what she did to Joe. Potentially they started off as friends as she sings “I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this,” in “Paper Rings” then Taylor was a little lost. She explored possibilities with Tom. She may have secretly still met with Joe on weekends and at night, leading him on. Ultimately, she makes her way back to Joe. She apologizes, and she realizes he’s been there all along and he’s the one for her.

She showed up at his party. And ya’ll, it looks like he forgave her.

Broken wings officially patched.

#@taylorswift #@taylornation #betty #august #cardigan #folklore #swifties #eastereggs #joealwyn #taylurking #lovetriangle #fantheory #tom hiddleston

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