#we're literally out here like

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[somegrumpynerd]

I like the idea that Cross realised Killer was touchstarved (he didn't have the words for it but he noticed how much Killer would settle down from it) and started giving him very small basic affection. Pat on the back, hand on the shoulder, maybe a quick friendly hug, all things he probably learned through royal guard training and thinks of as normal friend/coworker stuff.

But as they both got more comfortable in the routine of it, Killer started instigating touches and he was not shy about it (like not just leaning into Cross's side during movie night, he looks like he's trying to get into Cross's jacket with him)

And that this more intense affection made Cross realise he might also be just a little bit touchstarved

Bonus:

[sergle]

yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED. also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason

side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.

and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.

[daisyswift3]

A Summary of the 🎃 Messages--The Overarching Story

So I just realized sth abt the 🎃 messages while listening to ttpd—they’re in chronological order!! I am going to try to give a summary of these messages and explain why I believe this. This album has made 99% of her songs, mvs, metaphors, and symbols make perfect sense. There were always some things like getaway car, cruel summer, and the palm trees in rep era that I could never quite figure out but now it's all crystal clear. It's like ttpd is the last piece of the puzzle needed to make everything fall right into place and to see the whole messy complicated story. One thing I want you to take note of as you read this summary is how incredibly consistent Taylor is w her use of metaphors and symbols. This makes solving the puzzle that is her music more like solving a cypher that you can know you solved correctly bc all the symbols will fit together perfectly just like a secret code. Once you understand what one symbol represents you now know what it means every time you see it. Every word or phrase she uses is intentional and there's not a single easter egg that's out of place. You'll notice in ttpd there are several words and phrases that are repeated bc she wants us to know that certain songs are related. 🎃 anon said there would be many connections and foretellings in the messages that we could find if we held them to the light in the coming unfoldings, and boy they were not wrong. So w/out further ado let's get into it (just a warning though this will be pretty lengthy so grab your favorite drink, some snacks, and get comfy).

1st message: The first one starts right before rep era when her rep started going down and she started feuding w her record label. These are the obstacles she didn’t see coming that made her slam on the (getaway bike) brakes (which were cut so she had to use her foot to slow down) and not come out. The "heel damaged" could be a reference to Achilles' heel since this was a weak spot she didn't see or it could be a reference to Jesus' heel being bruised in the 1st ever biblical prophecy (see this post for more on that). This was her first big pivot and change of plans. Many ppl have theorized that TS6 was originally going to be a different album--perhaps lover/daylight--but kimye and BMR got in the way of that. This would explain why she wears an outfit w palm trees on it while cutting the wings off her TS6 jet. She spray paints "reputation" on it which seems to indicate it was a haphazard last minute change of plans (x). Plus the endgame mv has palm trees and shows Miami, Florida (which I think is related to Florida!!! but I'll have to get to that another time) connecting it to "Island breeze and lights down low, no one has to know...In the middle of the night in my dreams I know I'm gonna be with you so I take my time." Miami is the paradise where her endgame happens. This all seems to indicate she was ready for "daylight" or "paradise" during rep era but had to pivot.

The Prophecy: “Hand on the throttle, thought I caught lightning in a bottle, Oh but it’s gone again"

2nd message: This is abt the lover rollout that started in spring of 2019 -> "The time draws near, springtime sunshine causing small drips and fractures." The ice castle likely represents the lover house (her music empire, past eras, and closet) since she burns it down w a match just like she does in the eras tour visuals and midnights -> "You strike a match and blow the smoke toward the structure that shelters and protects you. Suddenly, you hear a crack, a crunch, a whoosh. There is a sudden give beneath you, and you tumble through the broken, melting hole in your palace." The ivy reference (spring breaks loose, the time is near) just solidifies my theory that ivy is a song abt an eventual kaylor reunion that will happen before she burns all the files and deserts all her past lives (eras).

Lover era was her second big pivot. I believe she knew there was a very good chance Scott B would sell her masters all the way back in rep era hence why she says "I'm always waiting for you just to cut to the bone, devils roll the dice" (see this post for more on that). "However, in this suddenness you find yourself still somehow underprepared, kicking yourself for the time you squandered by wallowing in the seeming endlessness of your predicament" -> Her being unprepared to come out along w the mastersheist is what caused her to miss her 2nd opportunity to come out. She was so caught off guard that it made her indecisive. And so she played it safe and stayed in the closet -> "Our coming of age has come and gone, suddenly this summer it's clear I never had the courage of my convictions as long as danger is near." Remember how I said Taylor is very consistent w her use of metaphors? Well I made a post a while back explaining how folkmore represents the seasons bc summer = daylight and winter = closeting and folkmore was Taylor trying to come to terms w her 2nd failed coming out hence the grey and beige ("I'm just a paperweight in shades of greige"); so that means the ice castle = winter = closeting and springtime sunshine = almost daylight = almost being out of the closet (and spring was also the time when the lover rollout started so it has a more literal 2nd meaning to it as well).

The Albatross: "So I crossed my thoughtless heart spread my wings like a parachute, I'm the albatross, I swept in at the rescue." [I think there's a good chance this song is abt Scoots so it makes sense the parachute metaphor, which relates to her masters and failed coming out, would be used in this song]

The Bolter: "By all accounts, she almost drowned when she was 6 in frigid water...It feels like the time she fell through the ice then came out alive." ['Long story short I survived']

3rd message: This is abt the mastersheist (diamond heist) during the summer of 2019. It parallels the I Can See You mv exactly (see this post). In hindsight it now makes perfect sense why 1989 tv didn't have any mvs--bc the Fortnight mv is a direct continuation of the ICSY mv! Before the Fortnight mv, the ICSY mv was the most recent one. She didn't want anything between those 2 mvs so that it was obvious they were directly related. Her losing her masters and her 2nd opportunity at daylight is what drove her to insanity and caused her to end up in the asylum -> "I find the artifacts, cried over a hat...I trace the evidence" // "And so I enter into evidence my tarnished coat of arms, etc" | "Is it okay? Is it you? Or have they come to take me away?"

"Mere feet away from the light of freedom...Your getaway bike begins to leave without you, sparks flying as the tires try and fail to slow down for you. You have frozen in this moment of indecision" // "It was the great escape, the prison break, the light of freedom on my face...he was runnin' after us, I was screamin', 'Go, go, go!'" -> There are 2 getaway car mentions in this message which emphasizes its importance. This is likely for a few reasons: 1) To explain what the song getaway car was actually abt--her feud w BMR, not the beards 2) To show that message 1 and 3 are related; the getaway bike is mentioned in both since both are abt her masters 3) To show that the lover era pivot was actually just history repeating itself; this is what Cassandra and the Prophecy are abt.

Cassandra (notice the piano melody from mad woman): “So they set my life in flames, I regret to say do you believe me now? ['If I'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes too']…They knew, they knew, they knew the whole time that I was onto somethin', [She knew there was a good chance her masters would be sold as shown in cruel summer] The family, the pure greed, the Christian chorus line" ['Now he sits on his thrown in his palace of bones praying to his greed']

Fortnight: "I was supposed to be sent away But they forgot to come and get me I was a functioning alcoholic 'Til nobody noticed my new aesthetic [Her fans didn't notice the shift from rainbows and pastels to black mourning clothes during the lover era] All of this to say I hope you're okay But you're the reason [The you in the song is Taylor; she's the reason she decided to stay in the closet] And no one here's to blame But what about your quiet treason?" [Taylor's indecisiveness is what led her to not come out the 2nd time]

loml (This is from Karlie's pov): "Mr. Steal Your Girl, then make her cry...You shit-talked me under the table talking rings [Paper Rings] and talking cradles, [Lover mv] I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all, [They were so close to daylight]...It was legendary, It was momentary ['I touch you (daylight/sunshine) for only a fortnight']...Our field of dreams engulfed in fire" ['So they set my life in flames']

Florida!!!: "Little did you know your home's really only a town you're just a guest in, ['I touch you (daylight/sunshine) for only a fortnight'; 'And so a touch that was my birthright became foreign'] So you work your life away just to pay for a timeshare down in Destin" [Taylor did all this masterminding and planning just to end up still stuck in the closet and bearding and only being able to see her lover in stolen private moments]

Fresh Out the Slammer: "Another [cruel] summer, taking cover, rolling thunder, he don't understand me"

The Bolter: "But it always ends up with a town car speeding" [getaway car]

Peter: "Forgive me Peter, my lost fearless leader, in closets like cedar preserved from when we were just kids, Is it something I did?" [Peter is herself; 'I'd be a fearless leader' and the fearless album; 'closets' is obvious]

How Did It End?: "We were blind to unforeseen circumstances, We learned the right steps to different dances, and fell victim to interlopers' glances, Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?...It's happening again" [This is the 2nd time she's lost the opportunity to come out]

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart: "I'm so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague" [They're in love w each other but can't be together in public; 'Break my soul in 2 looking for you but you're right here']

Down Bad: "For a moment [a fortnight] I knew cosmic love, now I'm down bad crying at the gym...'Fuck it if I can't have him I might just die it would make no difference'" ['You (Taylor) told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I (Karlie) ever leave']

5th message: Out of all the messages this is the one I'm the most uncertain abt. But I think it is possibly about JA leaving before his contract was up. "You are in a kitchen. Not your kitchen, of course. Your kitchen is soft and cozy and sacred. THIS kitchen is hard and cold and purely functional" -> This is not the sacred kitchen from Cornelia Street that she shares w her lover, this is a PR stunting kitchen that's a false imitation of the real domestic bliss she has. A few yrs ago kaylors were talking abt how Karlie has a kitchen that she only uses for PR/social media purposes so pumpkin anon could've been trying to remind us of that. These 3 messages from flag 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 anon make me think the breakup happened sooner than planned.

The July 29 message wasn’t meant to be posted until Oct 8 since it was hinting at the Toe breakup happening 5 months later in mid March, 2023.

The Nov 23 message mentions a “shift of footing” which we all agreed meant Toe 🦶 was over. The Dec 5 message w “the need to flex is sometimes necessary” directly following the Toe breakup message is what really makes me think it wasn’t planned. They had to pivot/flex but “other milestones are resolute” meaning the endgame is still the same—K and T will still reunite and both will be out of the closet at a certain time. Plus there’s the “…” at the end of the Nov 23 message which also indicates the Dec 5 one is a direct continuation of that message.

To add more credibility to this theory, RFI and SIG also have ellipses. RFI always seemed like it was supposed to be a direct continuation of SIG bc SIG sets up the “chess game” w her and her lover doing magic and pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, and RFI is when this chess game officially begins, "baby let the games begin."

Some other kaylors said they thought “the need to flex” meant that she wanted to give anti hero more time on the charts so she was flexing or showing off. But I think it makes more sense for it to be related to London Boy himself and not having him as a beard since that’s the whole purpose of having the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 flag. I could be wrong though.

So Long, London: “Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away…Holding tight to your quiet resentment…Every breath feels like rarest air when you’re not sure if he wants to be there” [This may mean that JA kept trying to break free from the contract and Taylor kept trying to convince him to stay but it didn’t work]. "My spine split from carrying us up the hill, Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill" ['They are bowing out, leaving you with double the workload, now half burnt and smoking. Their duties weren’t finished, and yet there is nothing you can do to make them stay. Shaken by this loss, chaos descends upon the team. Most roll up their sleeves to work harder']. "And my friends said it isn't right to be scared, every day of a love affair" [There were several blind items talking abt how JA was hooking up w men in a very unsubtle way; this could be what the 'cheating husband' mentions in ttpd are abt]. “Two graves, one gun” [Makes me think of a smoking gun which could be what the 'smell of smoke' in the message was alluding to. Maybe JA threatened to reveal her secrets if she didn't let him go and he had the smoking gun evidence to do so which was the recipe card. 'This time is different. Because you know this person actually has the means to share the secret menu, and that they have enough proof to make the waiting guests believe them.' -> I mean if anyone could convince the general public it would be the man who was supposed to be her boyfriend for 6 yrs]. “And you say I abandoned the ship but I was going down w it, my white knuckle dying grip” ['But you have never been one to lay your armor down. When you fail, you fail gloriously. When you go, you go kicking and screaming']. "I didn't opt in to be your odd man out" [She didn't want to be his beard just like he didn't want to be hers; and odd man out is a game that's played w 3 ppl where the odd man is the loser who's eliminated bc he didn't have a match]. "I founded the club she's heard great things about" [The Tortured Man Club -> The Tortured Poets Department that she's chairman of]

7th message: This message is all abt the domestic bliss she has away from the public eye. She has worked so hard to make sure her secrets are safe by building a tall impenetrable fence. However, she chooses to intentionally blow a dandelion full of secrets--perhaps ttpd is the dandelion w all the songs being the florets or secrets. There is one floret in particular that she’s worried abt—my guess is it’s Robin since it’s so damning if you know what to look for. Plus the song Robin parallels this message perfectly and evokes the same imagery. And to add even more credibility to this theory, the lyric vid for Robin has dandelion florets in the background. See these posts: (x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x). "You are walking through your yard. It's one of your favorite places, all sprawling garden rows" -> Betty's garden; "your wife waters flowers," etc. "There are daisies - so many daisies - in every shade of your rainbow"--I don't think I even need to explain this. "Your lover and your fresh baked buns are safe. (The buns, of course, are in the oven turning golden as you speak. It's an old family recipe, jotted lovingly on a recipe card.)" -> The recipe card is perhaps a picture or some other sort of smoking gun evidence of Taylor's family and it connects the 5th and 7th messages together. And the meaning of "buns in the oven" is pretty obvious. "Golden" refers to Karlie.

Robin: "Higher and higher, wilder and lighter" [This may be a double entendre--not only is she encouraging this child to bounce higher on his trampoline or swing higher, she is also encouraging the dandelion floret (the song Robin) to fly higher and go out into the world after she blows on it]

The Albatross: "Wild winds are death to the candle...One bad seed kills the garden" [This may be connected to the dandelion metaphor and I believe there are many layers to these lyrics; wild winds can carry the dandelion seeds into other ppl's yards; if Taylor's secret gets out this can destroy the domestic bliss she has i.e. kill her metaphorical garden or candle; 'love's a fragile little flame it can burn out']

I Hate It Here: "I hate it here so I will go to secret gardens in my mind people need a key to get to, the only one is mine" [There is only one way to get into this garden since a tall impenetrable fence surrounds it; there are other layers in these lyrics as well like the escapism aspect of it]

But Daddy I Love Him: "I'm having his baby, no I'm not but you should see your faces" [Bc it's Karlie that had the babies]

8th message: This entire message parallels the Bolter. I believe this is abt Taylor finally choosing her lover over her reputation and choosing to intentionally destroy it in order to meet her lover down at the bottom like 🌋 anon mentioned. This may be the purpose of the whole Ratty debacle—to tarnish her image (by jumping into shark infested waters) so that when kaylor are together in public again her fans won’t be able to hate on KK w/out being hypocrites bc Taylor has already done all the things she knows they’ll accuse KK of, like being connected to someone who’s quite problematic. I believe this takes place from May 2023-now since this is when MH and her started “dating.” The use of all lowercase in the 🌋 messages may be a reference to the reputation album title to indicate that this is going to be a repeat of rep era but this time the damage to her rep will be intentional. I find it very interesting that the Feb 20th 🌋 message is the only one that has a word capitalized and the word that's capitalized is "Gold." This is in contrast to "fools gold" which is not capitalized or colored.

The self-loathing is palpable in Taylor's music (x) and it is displayed heavily in this message as well. I think it's possible the "enemy" is actually just Taylor herself or her public persona to be more exact. She is her own worst enemy; the Anti Hero mv illustrates this. She's the one that spreads the dandelions in message 7 which is what the enemy does in this message; she's the bear, and in the Bolter she (real Taylor) tames the bear (Taylor the brand). I believe TSMWEL could possibly be abt herself as well. I mean TSMWEL literally has "TS" in the track title. The clean version of the Bolter has the line "Then she'll call him a bore" which parallels TSMWEL, "You said normal girls were boring." It's as if real Taylor is doing an UNO reverse on Taylor the brand by treating her public persona the same way she treated real Taylor for years. This is very reminiscent of the Archer, "I've been the archer I've been the prey." I think TSMWEL, while it is abt herself, is simultaneously abt Scott B. And the reason for this relates back to what I said abt the 2nd and 3rd 🎃 messages--she blames both Scott AND herself for her failed coming out. The mastersheist threw her for a loop, yes, but she could've still come out anyway were it not for her indecisiveness. And I haven't have time to fully analyze MBOBHFT yet but I think it's similar where it can either be read from Karlie's perspective to Taylor after the 2019 failed coming out or from Taylor's perspective to Scott B/the industry.

The Bolter: "But as she was leaving, it felt like breathing, ['When I was drowning that's when I could finally breathe'] All her fuckin' lives flashed before her eyes...He [the 'enemy'] was a cad, wanted her bad just like any good trophy hunter and she liked the way it tastes taming a bear, making him care watching him jump then pulling him under" [This connects to the 10th message: 'You limp over uneven ground, smiling at the pain of the shark bite with each excruciating step - replaying the satisfying splash as you finally chose her over the world. As you grabbed the enemy and dove into the infested waters']

loml: "The coward claimed he was a lion" ['You’re a selfish asshole. So much of your fear is your own. You wince at your cowardice like it is a gaping wound. You so often find yourself unable to meet your own eyes. You scramble into shadows like a black cat. Scared, even, of being scared...You are a coward, but you are not a fool']

I Hate It Here: "I was a debutant in another life but now I seem to be scared to go outside" [In another life she already came out but in this one she's too scared to even leave her house let alone come out]

The Tortured Poets Department (This is from Karlie's pov): "You're in self-sabotage mode throwing spikes down on the road"

9th message: This message is abt her finishing her 11th album, the last chapter of her 11 part story, and then sending it out into the world like a message in a bottle (the Manuscript). So I'm assuming this would take place on April 19, 2024, the release date of ttpd. "You are sitting on a beach, cold and windswept. The sea is dark and angry before you." -> This may be the same beach and sea from the folkmore era. "The sun sets in muted colors." -> Describing the sunset colors as muted is quite interesting since sunsets typically have very vivid colors; this makes me think it's related to the eras tour visuals during the transition from august to illicit affairs (which I explained the meaning of in this post), and the folkmore color palette was mainly muted colors. "You finish scrawling on the parchment. Your pen dries up as you reach the end of a story in 11 parts." // "Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen," "my veins of pitch black ink." She is sick of having to dilute her truth through metaphors and allegories which is why she is a tortured poet -> "Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die." Plus there's the "parchment" which she mentioned many times during her eras tour speeches which relates it to the folkmore era (x)(x)(x). "And now it is just a matter of time. The dripping of candle wax. The ticking of a clock." -> (x).

I recommend reading this post which explains how the Manuscript, ATW short film, message in a bottle, the story of us, and 4th, 9th, and 10th 🎃 messages are related. Many ppl pointed out that the Manuscript lyric vid looks like a movie script, and she's been referencing films and books a lot recently which makes me think there's a good chance she's going to release a film and book abt her coming out story. The 9th message and the lyrics in the Manuscript make it clear that Taylor's discography as a whole IS the manuscript i.e. it's the author's (Taylor's) draft of her story that is getting ready to be published. In academia, a manuscript is a draft of your research that you send in to be peer reviewed and if it's accepted it then becomes a published academic article.

The Manuscript: "And the years passed like scenes of a show, the professor said to write what you know, [She's equating her life to a story w the different eras being different scenes or chapters] The only thing that's left is the manuscript, one last souvenir from my trip to your shores, [message in a bottle; 'It may wash up on a sunny beach in Florida, or a rocky shore in the northwest'] Now and then I reread the manuscript but the story isn't mine anymore" ['Once you blow a dandelion, you never get it back. It isn’t yours anymore']

The Bolter: "But she's got the best stories"

10th message: This is a direct continuation of the 8th message and takes place right before she comes out of the closet (the wooden door in the woods). So this would take place after her rep has already been destroyed which I don’t think we’ve gotten to yet. My guess is that things will start ramping up in the next few months. She may start being papped w all her previous beards looking happy w them or sth similar which is all she’d need to do to show that the relationships were all fake and she’s been lying this whole time. This may be the “chaos” that 🫚 anon was referring to (see this post). This lines up with the blood moon glitch vinyl, representing chaos and disruption, being the 2nd quarter of the yr according to the midnights clock (4-6 or April-June, 2024). Plus many ppl think BDILH is abt MH--and Taylor meant for this to happen bc this album is full of red herrings--and in that song she says "He (MH) was chaos" so this might be a hint that the bearding shenanigans are gonna ramp up. Of course things are already plenty chaotic now w everyone thinking ttpd is abt 3 different men, one of which is pretty problematic, so perhaps this is all ginger was referring to. Taylor calling herself "the Bolter" has 2 meanings: 1) She is a coward who often runs away from danger 2) The 2nd more positive interpretation is that she knows "when it's time to go." I think it's very telling that ITTG is the last track on the deluxe edition of evermore and comes right after RWYLM, a song abt being stuck in the closet after the 2019 failed coming out. She's saying that she's not going to stay there forever(more).

The Bolter: "But none of it is changing that the chariot is waiting, ['The story of 2 princesses. No place for a prince'; the Cinderella metaphor (x)] Hearts are hers for the breaking, There's escape in escaping...Ended with the slam of a [closet] door but she's got the best stories, You can be sure that as she was leaving it felt like freedom" [The 6/21/2020 ♠️ riddle spells out 'They Are Free']

11th message: This message takes place after midnight at 3am on Nov 1 after she’s gone through the wooden door. In this post I explain how 3am connects to the witching hr or devil's hr. The fact that this takes place right after Halloween is quite significant since it is a day dedicated to remembering the dead, and death and ghosts are a big theme in ttpd. This symbolizes how after Taylor kills her old self (by dragging her into shark infested waters), she will resurrect as a new version of herself and leave the past behind her. And in doing these things, she will finally be able to go back to her figurative home, her cabin, that she was exiled from. -> "I think I've seen this film before so I'm leaving out the side door," "And I was catching my breath, floors of a cabin creaking under my step...I had a feeling so peculiar this pain wouldn't be for evermore." "The flame🕯️ finally🕯️flickers🌬️OUT" -> The match that started the "goddamn blaze in the dark" is no longer needed now that the lover house (her closet) has burned down, so the flame flickers out. This metaphor shows up in Peter as well, "But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light," where the light dying represents the woman losing hope that a coming out will happen. Notice in this message from present anon that "Goodbye" has a capital letter G which I believe links it to "Gold" in the volcano message that was mentioned earlier. This may indicate that Karlie is the woman/neighbor holding the light and waiting for Taylor's return home. The Dec 26th 🌋 message is likely from Karlie's pov in this case.

Fresh Out the Slammer: "Now pretty baby I'm runnin back home to you, Fresh out the slammer I know who my first call will be to...But it's gonna be alright I did my time...Get the matches, toss the ashes off the ledge, [the burning of the lover house] As I said in my letters [the anon messages this corner of the internet has been receiving? Could also just represent her songs] now that I know better I will never lose my baby again...Swirled you into all of my poems ['My mind turns your life into folklore (literally and figuratively)']...To the house where you still wait up and that porch light [jack-o-lantern] gleams" [see this post abt the porch]

The Alchemy (This is from Karlie's pov): "What if I told you I'm back?...I haven't come around in so long, but I'm coming back so strong, ['But I come back stronger than a 90's trend'] Cause the sign on your heart said it's still reserved for me"

imgonnagetyouback: "Push the reset button we're becoming something new...Even if it's handcuffed I'm leaving here with you, Bygones will be bygone eras fading into gray, We broke all the pieces but still want to play the game...I'm gonna get you back"

[ghostly-cabbage]

We need to talk about the worst thing about making AUs....

The fact that then when you inevitably think about crossovers you don't want the crossover with the canon you want it with your specific AU. Your brain worms, your circus, but THEN WHAT?

Oh, yeah, to understand this crossover you need to go read this entirely different fic/series? Girl help 😭 you can't do that

[elderyautjavegeta]

Imagine this okay.

Every time Doflamingo starts to act up in the Warlord meetings, Crocodile leans over and says something under his breath to him, and Doffy quiets down with the biggest grin on his face that unnerves everyone (well, unnerves them more than his normal grin). No one has ANY idea what Crocodile is saying to him FOR MONTHS but they're thankful SOMETHING is making that psycho chill the fuck out.

It continues to be a mystery until Mihawk ends up sitting next to Crocodile at a meeting one day. Croc's bass voice isn't really capable of whispering, so Mihawk hears this:

"I told you to knock it off or you won't get your way later."

Mihawk has no idea what the hell Crocodile is talking about, and doesn't care, so he forgets he even heard it by the end of that meeting.

However, during the next meeting, Doflamingo does little more than giggle to himself in the corner and doesn't make a single comment or cause a scene, while Crocodile sits stoically next to him smoking his cigar. EVERYONE is on edge after his unusually well-behaved manner, but once again, Mihawk is the only one who learns the reason.

They're all making their way out of the meeting and Doffy and Croc trail a few steps behind Mihawk, which allows Mihawk to have the absolute pleasure (read: horrifying displeasure) of hearing Doflamingo giggle this to Crocodile in what he probably thinks is a hushed voice (it wasn't):

"I behaved, which means I get to eat you out later, right?"

Mihawk walks faster. Why, God... why is always him that has to hear these things?

[blackhholes]

teen wolf meme: [1/5] motifs -> fire

You find the girl wearing that necklace, she's your arsonist. Murderer. Excuse me? Arson happens to property. This girl's a murderer.

[canisalbus]

hey! do you consider yourself a furry? if so, do you enjoy being in the community? if not, what label do you use, and why? (been wanting to ask this for a while:))

Sure, I don't mind being called a furry. My art certainly qualifies as furry art and my characters are furry characters. But I've never been that connected or active in the furry fandom in general. There's a lot of core experiences that I'm missing: I don't have a fursona, I don't own a fursuit and I've never been to a furry con. My online circles are very furry-centric but I don't think any of my irl friends consider themselves furries, despite our shared tastes and interests.

[inkskinned]

what is considered "beautiful" by society is inevitably sexist, racist, ableist, classist, transphobic, and bigoted. it targets and attacks any perceived difference, and it particularly villainizes women of color while co-opting aesthetics; as if features and cultural norms can be worn as accessories.

and the scary thing! you can see all of these things, know them to be true logically, and also know that you are treated better if you are perceived as beautiful. if you have ever been treated as "ugly", you know exactly how much society reviles you if you don't manage to scamper along and perform to their rules.

and how are you supposed to balance that? do you want a nose job to fix your broken nose, or have you just recently been seeing videos about how many people look better after nose jobs. do you want to lose weight to feel good, or is it that when you lose weight people treat you better. do you want to wear this outfit, or is it just the thing that's least likely to get you harassed. do you want to get lip injections for your reasons or is your whole reason that you don't feel beautiful unless you get those lip injections?

and the definitions shift. the goals get more specific. in the way that you only become aware of your tongue when someone mentions it; parts of your body are introduced as problems. i had never heard the term "hip dip" until about a year ago - and it was in the context of how to get rid of this. i'm 30, i know this shit is invented, and yet! i still find that strange voice saying but do you think someone is going to notice?

how the fuck am i supposed to say "this is my genuine choice i am making for my body" when i also know that years of my life have been spent socializing me to accept this as my inevitable fate? how do i know i'm actually doing this out of love for my body - or am i doing it for how i want others to see me, which will be lovely enough to feel loved? how am i supposed to recover when my unhealthy habits are seen as self-discipline but if i relax i'm openly mocked for "letting time win"? how the fuck am i supposed to say "i'm doing it for me" when i'm also very aware that i'm doing it to stop myself from being teased or demeaned? is it my choice if the other option is being bullied?

we are living in a hostage negotiation - either consent to the demands or spend the rest of your life being treated like you're a despicable person.

[oceans-beloved]

Meme dump yayyy🥳✨️

(off to make more now muhahaha >:3)

[ping-ski]

not enough people talk about "dont turn the lights off" ngl. this song + the daycare theme song have been ON LOOP for me. on loop while i draw. on loop while i do chores and cook. on loop while i work. on loop if i need to concentrate on something- no ANYTHING. it's such a comfort to me. this song has a DEATH GRIP on me. WHIMSY UNMATCHED. you don't understand how much this song fuels me to keep creating DCA content for myself ohhh my god.

"lights on" doesn't even compare for me (WHICH OFC i like the song + with the recent release of "best friend" im still giddy)

which, i feel the need to add, this song is pivotal for my motivation to write EBY (wip dca fic im working on rn). like idk i feel invincible when this song plays ig lmao.

[ruvviks]

it's been a hot sec since i've talked about cyberpunk and i was initially working on a fic that would tell the story of this whole thing, but i've abandoned it many months ago and cannot say when i'll be picking it up again SO! i've decided to instead make this timeline. sorry in advance for how much information is in this thing the cyberpunk extended blorboverse essentially refers to the story parallel to the in-game events of cyberpunk 2077 that @mojaves and i came up with. we don't really have a better name for it but at this point the term has been used so many times that i feel like everyone here knows what it is by now, but at the same time we've never really explained the full scope of what the story is by now (it's a lot sorry). so in an attempt to get you guys a little bit more up to date with it all, here's a semi coherent timeline that describes the core events of the story and every branching story that came out of it! for additional background information, you can check out the following posts (timeline 1 / timeline 2 / timeline 3) to catch up with the continuation of the in-game storyline that's referenced in this timeline, but it's mostly irrelevant to everything here save for a couple of referenced events that cross over between the stories. it all ties together very intricately sorry about that. don't worry too much about it i've included my taglist down below to make sure people who are interested won't miss this post, but feel free to skip over this if it's not your thing! won't be doing a lot of this kind of stuff in the future but i'm trying to get back to the cyberpunk roots so this is kind of like, a good starting point and reference point for later posts!

The story starts in early 2077 and is centered around Sebastian Vidal, gang leader of the Cobras and previous test subject of Arasaka Special Programs (the linked page is a lot of information but gives the most coherent overview of what the branch actually is). The current director of the SERPENT projects, Andrew Colton, and Dr. Alana Cartier, both want him dead, to tie up their last loose end before the rest of Arasaka can find out and shut down Special Programs once and for all.

Over the past months they’ve been hiring various assassins in secret, to try and get Seb killed; however, these assassins keep failing, and their latest attempt lies in the hands of Cassidy Shaffer, an ex-corpo turned assassin with a strong moral code and plenty of experience to his name. With little to work with, as his mysterious client doesn’t give out much information, Cassidy starts with what he thinks is gonna be a quick and easy job– but he ends up hunting after Seb for essentially a year.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead– he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

everybody stay with me im shifting back into speculation & analyzing mode, this time about everybody's favorite pair of besties. ill put this under the cut for everyone's sakes

and please, take all of this with a Hefty grain of salt.

so ive been... thinking about a thing. a maybe-possibility. which if this has some merit, the part of me that loves characters having a good time and feeling good feels is screaming in fear. but the louder part of me that loves angst and hurting characters is rubbing its little fly hands together.

short version: i think Barnaby is going to emotionally distance from Wally, if not outright grow to resent him. maybe temporarily, maybe not.

full version: *cracks knuckles* strap in folks. so.

first of all, an entire chunk of Barnaby's bio is dedicated to his character relation to Wally. everyone else only has one-off lines dedicated to their relationships to other neighbors - even Frank & Julie just have single sentences about each other (note that they're described as "partnered with" and "depicted with" respectively. more on that soon). even Wally's bio has his Barnaby mention tacked onto the end of his first paragraph instead of being its own dedicated section

and then there's their character designs - their bios explicitly point out that they share characteristics; color schemes, hearts on their soles, similar outfits.

they were made to be best friends. literally. this quote is what made me start turning this theory over in my mind (sourced from @ /theneighborhoodwatch's collected & absolutely fascinating livestream trivia)

it appears that Barnaby literally did not have a say in whether or not he and Wally are friends. their bios even say "illustrated pages note that they were best friends multiple times." they have to be best friends.

which brings us back to Frank & Julie. they briefly reference each other in their bios, but they aren't described as best friends. it's incredibly likely that they were meant to be a romantic couple - i briefly covered that theory in this post (dont read the first one i was going insane) but they managed to avoid that. Frank and Julie defied the script and chose to be best friends instead.

and then in the trivia document a few more character relationships are briefly touched on, like how Howdy considers Barnaby a close friend, and Sally considers either Barnaby or Poppy as her closest friend, etc.

everyone else seems to be choosing who they're close with. they're forming their own opinions and dynamics and relationships. & its interesting that Barnaby is stated for both of these - as if implying that he may return the friendship feelings, or at the very least he's developed enough of a relationship with them to earn their affection

Barnaby and Wally... i doubt they ever got that. they were best friends from the start, no development, no choice. it's written into them.

and then there's how their relationship has been portrayed so far. i believe i saw an ask where Clown stated that Barnaby is very polite to Wally, which struck me as odd. have you ever had a polite relationship to your best friend? have you ever seen best friends be polite? i'd be surprised!

best friends mess with each other! they tease and rib and roast! what is a best friend for if not mutual tomfuckery?! jesting around? playfully pushing boundaries? a Polite best friendship... that's a straight up oxymoron. no such thing. that sounds boring and exhausting.

not only that, but the fact that Barnaby is often used for Wally's painting segments, and is the go-to guy for teaching Wally something new, is kind of concerning. it gives me the vibe that a big part of Barnaby's literal reason for existing is to be Wally's friend & guide.

which would make the fact of him being described as polite to Wally make sense. of course he's not going to push their relationship or try to deepen it - he's forming his own dynamics with the other neighbors. with Wally... it's already established. that is how they are with each other. that is what they are to each other.

and it's not like Wally can be the one to introduce nuances. i don't mean that as a slight or anything - he's just the way he's been described and the things stated about him that make me think that he wouldn't really... know how to? it just wouldn't occur to him. he probably thinks his and Barnaby's relationship is what a best friendship is and is how it should be.

but they have to hang out. they have to refer to each other as best friends. and while i believe that Wally does wholeheartedly think that they're best friends, close as can be... i doubt Barnaby feels the same. like - yes, he probably does care about Wally. everybody likes Wally.

but it's gotta be frustrating for Barnaby, especially as time goes on and he becomes more himself as a person over just being a character playing a part. it probably stunts his relationship growth with others, since his ~best friend spot~ is already taken and who would want to encroach on that? especially since its taken by Wally mcfuckin Darling?

their friendship might become less of a role and more of a responsibility. Barnaby might grow to feel obligated to stick with Wally as his "best friend". someone invites Barnaby to hang out and/or help with something? sorry, he has to pose for Wally's painting. Barnaby is trying to do his own thing? sorry, Wally is knocking on the door and asking for help with something.

i wonder if Barnaby ever hopes that Wally will go to someone else, or feels relief when he does. and then does he feel irritation/guilt over that denied hope or that granted relief? then does he get angry at himself for those emotions?

how would this effect how he treats Wally and acts around him? this confusing muddle of emotions and this strange growing resentment for his painfully earnest friend who only ever means well, if he means at all.

it makes me curious whether or not this theory has merit. and how this could come to a head. what would Barnaby, in this situation, do if/when he discovers that they're puppets on a set, and he's literally written to be Wally's bestie while everyone else changed their scripts and chose their own relationships.

personally, i don't think he'd be happy, and i doubt he'd handle it well.

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[forgottenarthur]

Eithne/Arthur - “ why are you looking at me like that? ”

flashback

Arthur looked quickly away at the sound of her words. He rubbed the back of his neck. Bit out a self-conscious laugh.

The day was gorgeous, the sun streaming beyond a canopy of gently waving trees. All around them, the field was bursting with wild grasses and flowers that seemed to dot the landscape with bursts of vibrant color: her greens mingling with his reds and blues, till the whole world seemed decked out for only them. And amongst all this, ensconced on rugs and pillows stretched out against the roots the sheltering oaks, motes of light filtered between the boughs, bathing Eithne in golden light as she spoke of her beloved Malconaire, her whole face beaming like the sun.

She was transcendant -- at once more a creature of this earth than he could ever be, and yet so untouchably ethereal he held his breath, almost afraid she might melt away at the slightest of breezes. A chorus of birds sang all around her as if they sang with delight just to be near her, and the dappled light wound round her like will-o-the-whisp attendants sighing upon their liege lady. The radiance of the sun was her nimbus, not glowing upon her but, rather, shining because of her and, despite himself, Arthur smiled again, this time a meditative look taking hold of his features as he stole a glance once more at her.

He'd seen her at balls and at tourneys, but as stunning as she was all made up in Roisin's finest glamors, they could not match her natural beauty here in this wild place, so much a part of her that it seemed to breathe as she did, the very wind stirring with her words. Her tresses were all the finer simply framing her face than caught up in a golden net, and Arthur thought that perhaps all that finery appeared garish against the smooth porcelain of her skin, beaming as it did here in serene sunshine. Her eyes blazed an azure so fine he was sure the sky blushed to be compared to a tint so luminous, and her smile, so rosy, seemed to capture the full lustre of the floral hedges that danced in the attendant zephyrs all around them.

Arthur smiled then, arching a soft brow as he looked at her. His voice, when he spoke, was very soft. "I should have thought that obvious."

For a moment, Eithne looked at him and then, suddenly seeming to catch his meaning, or perhaps -- he hoped -- thinking something similar herself, she colored slightly and looked away. "You mustn't say such foolish things, Arthur. Anyone might think you meant them."

"It would showcase their wisdom."

Laughing, Eithne made herself busy, then, leaning forward to draw a repast from the wicker basket at her knee. Her gown was a simple roughspun, but somehow, out here amongst the gently tilting trees, he did not think anything could have appeared more becoming and, sighing, he gazed heavenward.

"Tell me -- before...before my father," began Arthur, gesturing vaguely, as if to indicate a time before the conquest. "How did you spend days like these?"

Eithne paused in her ministrations, and Arthur was conscious, then, of the weight of her gaze upon him. He smiled, slightly, still looking skyward. "Well...when we could, much like this."

"Oh?"

"But, most often, taking baskets to the village, of course."

Arthur frowned, turning to look at her, then. "Are...are they fond of...wicker?"

She laughed. His confusion did not dissipate. It was Eithne's turn to look quizzical. "Do...I don't suppose you take baskets to people? Or...or perhaps your sisters? Your mother and stepmother?"

Arthur shrugged. "I don't know that most people in the Empire have much...inclination towards--" he shrugged, gaze sliding to the basket at her knee. "Baskets. They're useful, certainly, but--"

"No, it's not--we don't take empty baskets."

Arthur shook his head, shrugging.

"They're filled with goods. Gifts. Bread and cheese and lettuce and jams and...anything that might help those...less well off."

"So...its some form of...charity?"

"Yes! Precisely."

Arthur frowned at the basket before them, doubt churning inside him. Then, a moment, and he pointed. "And? Is...this...charity?"

"What?"

"I just--It's a basket."

Laughing suddenly, Eithne set a plate with cheese and cold chicken before him. "In this case, it's hospitality. I daresay, you're better off than I am, or don't they feed imperial princes?" she teased, grinning.

Laughing, Arthur watched her laughter, her whole face seeming to somehow brighten even further as her limpid eyes danced. Somewhere deep in his belly, Arthur felt warmth suffuse him, something bright and briliant blooming in his chest as he joined her in laughter. "Why do you think we all come here so very often?"

"I did not imagine you came as beggars."

Arthur paused, watched the merriness in her face. It seemed to him the birds were singing more quietly now, as if they were alone in all the world, with no other earlthy creature to witness. This moment was theirs. "Any man, even a prince, is a beggar before someone like you." I didn't think someone like you could exist... he thought.

She frowned. "You make me sound a tyrant."

He shook his head, sat up a little straighter. "No, I..." he shrugged, sighing. "Eithne, what I mean is...There's no one else in the world like you. No one. Anywhere, and..." he shrugged, laughed. "I would know. I've been most places in the world, after all, and...You've no equal, Eithne. No rival. To know you is to wish to know you better. To be with you is to wish never to be parted." Arthur sighed, then, self-conscious, shrugged. "I'm not much with words, Eithne...I just mean there is no one like you. You're the sort of woman a man would beg, borrow, or steal just to please but, despite it all, I know that...My father may own half the world, but that won't make you mine. I could shower you with gems and you'd frown just," he laughed. "Just as you do now at the idea. Riches aren't what matter to you so...we're all beggars. You see? I've got nothing you want. And that's...that's something I've never encountered before."

"You're wrong!" blurted Eithne.

Arthur frowned. "I--"

"You do have something I want."

"What is it? It's yours, I--"

"Oh, hush," whispered Eithne and, leaning close, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. "There," she said, smiling, a blush blooming upon her cheeks as she leaned back again.

"Oh no you don't," chuckled Arthur, one hand slipping into the veil of her hair to cradle her neck as he leaned close. Her lips were soft as roses petals. Her breath was a warm zephyr. And her eyes, when he opened his own to see them, were brighter than the whole sky.

[mythical-mithaps]

You know what's insanely funny to me; Even as a GNOME Astarion is still gonna drink your blood if you let him-

Like Nibbles please! I'm like 4 ft nothing! You're not drinking a glass of Kool aid here you're drinking from a Caprisun Pouch!

Bro I thought he was racist to Gnomes but I guess if I had to choose between thirst and caprisun I'd do caprisun