"You won't remember all my champagne problems" is so dreadful cuz even though she's the one breaking his heart she knows and believes that shes not actually that important to him or understood by him enough to be remembered in the correct way, the way she most desires to be remembered. Cuz he doesn't understand her. Not all of her. So he won't remember her. None of her.

betty is the sun and augustine is the moon because james only ever saw augustine in the reflection of betty's light.

The Exorcists’ Masks of Virtue

The vast majority of Exorcists in Hazbin Hotel have a notable design element that other angels don’t: their masks are missing an eye. Specifically, the right eye.

I believe this is a reference to the Bible, Matthew 5:29. Jesus says, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

He’s being hyperbolic. Mr Free Healthcare was not pro-mutilation. What he means is that you have to be willing to make sacrifices to prevent sin. The context of the eye metaphor is him condemning adultery and warning that even something as easy, casual and small as a look full of lustful intent can lead to further, worse sin if you don’t notice your sin, hold yourself accountable for it and do the work to not let it influence your decisions. This will probably be hard. It could be very, very painful. Changing your perspective can feel as horrible as plucking out your eye, so many people can’t bring themselves to do it. But although it won’t feel that way in the moment, it’s healthier for our general wellbeing in the long run to abandon traits and behaviours that damage ourselves and/or others.

(You may notice that Jesus’s teaching that you can have sinned, redeem yourself by giving up sin and thus escape damnation is the founding principle of the Hazbin Hotel. You may also notice that it contradicts everything the Exorcists believe.)

The Exorcists seem to follow this idea of painfully excising badness for the sake of the greater good devoutly to the point of placing it above teachings like ‘Thou shalt not kill’, with their job being to remove sin, in the form of sinners, to protect Heaven. Hence the missing right eyes. They’re a declaration of moral righteousness and inability to stumble.

But the truth is that the Exorcists all have their right eyes. Their flawlessness is a facade. Underneath, they are untouched, think themselves morally untouchable and, as shown by their horror and outrage when even one of them is killed, would much rather be physically untouchable too. This perfectly represents their complete unwillingness to acknowledge their own faults, let alone improve. They are never the ones who sacrifice. They force the sinners to sacrifice and don’t compensate it with any salvation. They metaphorically rip out the sinners’ eyes, but still condemn their entire bodies as inherently, permanently sinful. So they’ll just have to do another Extermination to get the other eyes! And another one to cut off their right hands! And so on until there’s nothing left.

The only exception to the rule is Vaggie, both in appearance and character. Her mask has the left eye crossed out instead. Even before her expulsion, she’s set apart to the audience as an Exorcist who has the capacity to, shall we say, see a different side of things. Her mask having its ‘sinful’ right eye reflects her understanding that the Exorcist worldview is wrong.

When she almost kills a demon child, her hateful vision clears. She discards the part of herself that’s an unquestioning, merciless agent of death, terror and grief… and as punishment for what Lute perceives as treacherous weakness, gets her eye plucked out.

Of course Lute leaves her with only the ‘sinful’ eye. It brands Vaggie forever as the inversion, a perversion, of what the Exorcists are meant to be.

You know, all this talk of eye removal in the Bible reminds of another line - ‘an eye for an eye’. Adam directly quotes it in “Hell is Forever”. He uses it to frame the Exterminations as Old Testament-style punitive justice; the sinners did harm and so they receive it. But putting aside the debate about how ethical the concept of revenge is, the entire point of taking an eye for an eye is that it’s proportional. The punishment fits the crime. If someone cuts your eye out, you shouldn’t murder their whole family in front of them and then slowly disembowel them to death. That would be the sin of wrath. You should just make them pay without excessive pain or collateral damage. This is the fairest form of revenge.

The Exorcists don’t do that! The Exterminations aren’t proportional to the wrongs of all they hurt, nor was Vaggie’s brutal punishment equivalent to her extremely mild insubordination. Lute literally takes Vaggie’s eye, and more, after Vaggie does nothing to her! That’s the opposite of the phrase! Adam and his soldiers are wrathful and cruel, deriving satisfaction from others’ suffering. But they just can’t stop going on and on about how disgustingly evil the sinners are, in total hypocrisy… despite some of the sinners being far better people than the genocidal Exorcists are… it’s like they’re obsessed with specks of dust in the sinners’ eyes when they have massive logs stuck in their own. Oh hey, that’s in the Bible too!

Analysis with Penacony spoilers ahead, read at your own behest

I love Acheron so so much and one of the main reasons is how human she tries to be. She‘s trying so hard to stay human, to be human.

She’s killed people the blood debt is a burden she carries. She only sees the world in black, white, and red, but she gets lost easily and guides strangers home and she thanks you for trusting her even though you don’t have to and she protects a little boy from the mafia and she mourns your friend with you even though she didn’t know her because she knows you’re hurting and she helps you calm down after you watched your friend die horribly and she stays with you and looks after you and tells you to stay level headed and she apologies for being held back from protecting those you love because she isn’t human anymore and then she does one of the most human thing of all and blesses the soul and mourns her with you, guides her home like she did with you. Acheron is gentle like a psychopomp, like Death. She cries blood but it’s still crying.

Onto the allusion, the name Acheron comes from the river Acheron, one of the five rivers of the Underworld in Greek mythology. The Acheron is the River of Woe/Pain/Lost Souls. The River Cocytus (River of Wailing/Lamentation) and River Phlegethon (River of Magma) both flow into the River Acheron and the River Styx (River of Oaths/Border to the Underworld/Makes one invulnerable if they bathe in it) stems from the Acheron. The final river is the River Lethe which causes forgetfulness when bathed in or drunk from and usually used by the souls of the dead to be reborn. These allusions fit Acheron well, as she cries blood which is fitting for one named after the River of Woe. Her difficulty to hold onto memories is also reminiscent of the Lethe, especially now that we know she’s an Emanator. She was technically “reborn” as when she became one.

Building off this, she fulfills the role of a psychopomp. In folklore and mythology psychopomp are entities that guide souls of the dead, such a Thanatos in Greek mythology who is the personification of peaceful death (Who Seele has allusions to but that’s another analysis). Aventurine associates Acheron with the Finality a few times and we see her act like a psychopomp when she does things like “take us home” when we first meet her and she mentions guiding again when she sends Firefly off. She gets lost in the waking world but never seems to in the Dreamscape.

Building even more off this allusion, in Greek mythology the twin brother of Thanatos is Hypnos, the personification of sleep. Sleep and death are often tied together even outside of Greek mythology, like the Epic of Gilgamesh where Gilgamesh is literally told he can’t think about conquering death when he can’t even conquer sleep.

This all leads me to a theory about why Acheron said she had no choice in whether to draw her blade. She wanted to but she had no choice in the matter. We’ve seen her draw her blade twice so far in the story and it was to wake the Trailblazer and to fight Sam. If Acheron is an agent of the Finality maybe her blade can’t be drawn because it can only be used against those dying or dead or not living? We know Firefly was dying and we know she has a weird connection with Sam. The weird “Death” monster also seemed to target Firefly. I think Acheron couldn’t draw her sword against the “Death” because she is also an agent of Death and cannot attack one of her own, but she can use it against Firefly because Firefly is dying and it would be seen as a final severing of the soul from life or as “harvesting” the soul. Of course I could be completely and utterly wrong I’m literally just making an analysis based on allusions and motifs but still I think it’s interesting. Plus Aventurine calls Acheron and Sam enemies and Sam uses fire, an element typically seen as representing life.

Pulling a little bit away, Acheron sees the world in black, white, and red. The red is fleeting according to her and it reappears when a choice is made. If Acheron is a psychopomp this makes sense, she would mostly see the world as the living and the dead and the red could be a tie to the idea of the red string of fate, as we know destiny is a major theme of HSR’s story. When we make choices that change the direction of fate, we interact with the red strings of fate. This could be another reason she’s at odds with the Stellaron Hunters, they adhere strongly to the idea of destiny but to death destiny would have a different meaning. Her sword has an eye and is adorned with red which is where the majority of the color in her design is centered, going back to my theory around her sword it could represent how it cuts strings of fate and the eye matches the one on the “Death” nightmare.

We also know she apparently hijacked the Ever-Flame Mansion party to come here, maybe because she sensed there would be a lot of death here and came to collect the souls?

Finally, I would like to reiterate I do not play HI3 this is just something I’ve noticed, so correct me if I’m wrong:

She seems to be a Raiden Mei Expy and I know nothing of that character but I did notice when she says “Do you remember me?” there’s the answer of no and yes, and she akins us to a dear friend she had. We, the protagonist, fulfill the same role in this game Kiana (I think that’s the HI3 protag) does in HI3 and I’m vaguely aware Raiden Mei and Kiana have some sort of relationship in HI3. This asking if we remember her could be two things to me: Either she’s asking if we remember her as we have faced death before or she’s asking if we the player remember her from HI3, which she may have an awareness of if she is a personification of death and that may link her to knowledge of the Imaginary Tree as trees seem to be associated with death in HSR when you remember Yaoshi is associated with trees as well and the fruit of their tree on the Xianzhou gives immortality, where if Luocha is an Emanator he would have that tree motif too and we know he has tree motifs because he’s an Expy of Otto who did interact with what I think was the Imaginary Tree and that carried over when Luocha was given the element of Imaginary (Of course I had to talk about Luocha who do you think I am)

Anyways there’s so so much more but this post is already really really long and probably incomprehensible so if I think of any more I’ll make like a part II post anyways thanks for reading this far if you did and feel free to add discussion, mwah!

some thoughts i had over discord over the past few days

when you're a long-time odyssey enjoyer and walpurgisnacht 2 drops one month after incidentally getting into weber's opera bc of der freischütz lobcorp

when you’ve been listening to an album for four (4) years and you just understand it differently all of a sudden

I see the vision with mirrorball girlie Dick. But have we considered: mirrorball girlie Jason.

afterglow 🤝 hoax 🤝 the great war 🤝 death by a thousand cuts 🤝 long story short (parallels / analyses)

always remember // flashbacks waking me up // flashes of the battle come back to me in a blur // I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me

my knuckles were bruised like violets, sucker punching walls // fighting with a true love is boxing with no gloves // don't want no other shade of blue but you // I blew things out of proportion, now you're blue, put you in jail for something you didn’t do // and maybe it's the past that's talking, screaming from the crypt telling me to punish you for things you never did, so I justified it

I lived like an island, punished you with silence // cursed you as I sleep-talked, spineless in my tomb of silence // misery like the war of words I shouted in my sleep // my sleepless night, my winless fight

somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed // my best laid plan, your sleight of hand // paper cut stings from our paper-thin plans // your finger on my hairpin triggers // my twisted knife // you knew the password so I let you in the door // my only one, my smoking gun, my eclipsed sun, this has broken me down

tore your banners down, took the battle underground // I look through the windows of this love, even though we boarded them up // I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone // chandelier's still flickering here 'cause I can't pretend it's okay when it's not

and what once was ours is no one's now I see you everywhere, the only thing we share is this small town // you know I left a part of me back in New York // my kingdom come undone // our country, guess it was a lawless land

stood on the cliffside screaming, "give me a reason" // long story short, it was a bad time, pushed from the precipice, climbed right back up the cliff

I don’t wanna lose, I don't wanna lose this with you // that was the night I nearly lost you, I really thought I'd lost you // this has frozen my ground // soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honor and truth, broken and blue, so I called off the troops // thought I had reason to attack, but no // when I dropped my sword, I threw it in the bushes and knocked on your door

the worst was over, my hand was the one you reached for all throughout the great war // your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in // no more keepin' score, now I just keep you warm // we're burned for better // I am ash from your fire // always remember the burning embers

no more tug of war, now I just know there's more // this ultraviolet morning light below tells me this love is worth the fight // and we will never go back to that bloodshed, crimson clover // I vowed I would always be yours ‘cause we survived the Great War // and we live in peace, but if someone comes at us, this time, I'm ready

song/ship analyses part 2: aziracrow and "the 1" by taylor swift

you can interpret the song as crowley's pov after s2

"I'm doing good, I'm on some new shit

Been saying "yes" instead of "no"" can be interpreted as crowley healing from the bs az pulled in that finale

"I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn't though" sounds like something crowley would actually do

"I guess you never know, never know

And if you wanted me, you really should've showed" where they pined for 6000 years so the finale couldve been avoided if they had confessed earlier

"In my defense, I have none

For never leaving well enough alone" pretty in character for crowley to keep bringing things up i would think

"I guess you never know, never know

And it's another day waking up alone" this def applies because he would count the days after az left

"I have this dream you're doing cool shit

Having adventures on your own" can apply bc az is off in heaven doing god knows what

"I, I, I persist and resist the temptation to ask you

If one thing had been different

Would everything be different today?" again this lyric would be crowley wondering if he had gotten there faster if he had confessed earlier would az not have left him

"We were something, don't you think so?Rosé flowing with your chosen family" the two of them on their own side. they would drink tg, rose flowing. when muriel and jimbriel end up joining them it becomes like a little chosen family

I am doing a song analysis for English class to do with poetry and I can not decide which Taylor swift song to do!

The main songs that I am deciding between are all from the album folklore: This is me trying, Cardigan, The lakes, and Illicit affairs.

We have to find the poetry in the song, so which song would fit best with this?

Please help me decide!!!!

My tears ricochet/ hoax / happiness parallels

My lovely moot @lyricstoojesus has asked me about My tears ricochet so I've dug out my pandemic notes on folklore and evermore and had some thoughts. I agree that it's a good contender for a lyrical analysis as it's entirely set in the wake/funeral imagery, but I'm afraid I have nothing to tell you that would offer a different interpretation than it being about SB, because that's what I also think. However, I have a few lyrical analysis points as to why that is, as you said you're not convinced. I will have to draw parallels to hoax and happiness to show what I mean.

First is the line 'if I'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes, too' from the first verse. This fire and ashes metaphor appears again in hoax where she says 'I am ash from your fire'. This person that burned her appears in multiple songs and in MTR and happiness it's very clear that this is someone she was once very close to, almost like a family member, and therefore burning her down is hurting them just as much ('you'll be made of ashes too'/ 'You had to kill me but it killed you just the same'). Even the title itself, the very concept of tears that ricochet is, that the sadness is backfiring at the person that's causing it. I think in the long pond session Taylor said something like 'The person that can hurt you the most is the one that was once your most trusted person, because they know what buttons to press'. Similarly, I interpret the line 'You wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me' to mean 'You used confidential information that I gave you when I trusted you, against me'. That sounds very much like a parental figure to me and that points me to SB.

I have to admit that I probably come to that conclusion first through hoax, because that has so relatively few words in every line that they are really packed with meaning and once I'd worked my way through that the fire and ashes line then translates into MTR. So, in hoax all these four line verses are very minimal, but I think they are perfectly crafted to say exactly what/who each one is about.

The first one is 'My only one...' so that's about a romantic partner (her one and only). The song starts and ends with that, but in between I'm fairly certain she talks about something else. And I think she confirmed that in the conversation with Aaron saying that you can talk about multiple situations in one song, one being a business relationship, and one being a romantic relationship. Not surprisingly, this is a reoccurring theme in folklore and evermore, considering this is Taylor in lockdown in March of 2020 writing this, 9 months after the masters heist, working through all the feelings associated with what happened in the summer of 2019. And without too much guess work, I think we can assume some of that was business-related and some of it was the effect that it had on her relationship. (Not to forget that following the masters heist, Taylor started dressing in all black in the middle of her pastel and rainbows Lover era, to express her grief. So, not surprising that she chose a wake/funeral image for the song about that very situation). But back to hoax, the lines that I think point to SB are:

My best laid plan -the planned coming out Your sleight of hand - masters being sold to the worst possible person without consulting her My barren land - I was left with nothing, masters gone and plans foiled I am ash from your fire - I trusted you once and you used that to hurt me

In summary: You knew about my carefully laid out plans and you took the ground from under my feet when you sold my life's work to my biggest bully and left me in the closet. You knew how much that would hurt me because I trusted you and you did it anyway. Bringing it back to MTR, in that light the line 'Cause when I'd fight, you used to tell me I was brave' really sounds like she's recalling times when he'd tell her she was brave for putting up with closeting for the sake of the success. And I really get older/parental figure vibes from this line, because isn't that what people of seniority often say to younger people when they are confronted with hardship that they don't want to tackle? 'Can't really do anything for you, but you are so brave...!'

Another lyrical aspect that I want to mention about MTR are the really strong parallels to happiness. Thematically, both are songs about a broken/past relationship, but MTR is the immediate aftermath, the grief of the moment, and happiness is the moving on, finding happiness and beauty in things that have ended. But the lyrics are really strong mirror images of each other, both highlighting that, despite the pain and betrayal, there was a lot to love and lose in this relationship, and some memories will always be cherished:

we line up, weepin' in a sunlit room -> In our history, across our great divide, there is a glorious sunrise

Showed you all of my hiding spots -> I can go anywhere I want, Anywhere I want, just not home

you're the hero flying around, saving face -> I can't make it go away by making you a villain

And you can aim for my heart, go for blood -> Past the blood and bruise

You know I didn't want to have to haunt you -> Haunted by the look in my eyes

My tears ricochet -> now my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head

Crossing out the good years -> seven years in heaven

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. These two are really similar and very much express the struggle of 'how do you move on from losing someone you were once so close to/looked up to'. Goes without saying at this point, that all three of these songs could easily also be read as breakup songs. But given the timing I would attribute them to SB, definitely a loss she'd have to work through in 2020.

That's all my notes on MTR, might come back to other folkmore songs, now that I've found my old notes. Let me know if it gave you any new insights ;)

the folklore love triangle: an analysis

my note — i literally just pressed turn in yippee!! i have to present this tomorrow but anyways I wanted yall to read it <3 it sounds super formal but thats cos its. an assignment. its my final. ANYWAYS enjoy my delulu rambling about this :]

— 1.5k words

In 2020, Taylor Swift released her eighth studio album, folklore. The standard version of the  album has sixteen songs, with the deluxe version adding on a bonus track. Of the sixteen songs, three of them are linked: betty, august, and cardigan. These three songs and the story they tell are called the folklore love triangle. Aside from these three songs, which were confirmed by Taylor to be connected, there are three other songs that are widely speculated to be part of the story: mirrorball, the 1, and illicit affairs.

There are three main characters involved in the storyline: Betty, James, and Augustine. Betty and James are in a relationship, but one night, at a school dance, James is nowhere to be found when Betty’s favorite song starts playing. He comes back and sees her dancing with another friend of hers, and he gets angry. Then, as a form of revenge, he decides to cheat on Betty with Augustine over the summer. After the summer, he regrets the affair and apologizes to Betty at a party.

The first song in the storyline is august, which is from Augustine’s point of view. The song describes her summer with James. Throughout the song, she repeats the words “‘cause you were never mine” in the chorus, which shows that she knows that James isn't hers and that he still has feelings for Betty. In the bridge, she calls her relationship with James a “summer love”, while in betty, James calls it a “summer thing”. In the outro of the song, Augustine says “remember when I pulled up and said ‘get in the car’ ” which goes with the lyric in betty where James says “she said ‘James get in, lets drive’.” Augustine repeats the same chorus over and over again, which shows how all she had with James was the short summer fling.

The next song in the story is betty, which is from James’ point of view. This is his apology to Betty. After the summer with Augustine, he realizes that he is still in love with Betty. He decides to go to her party and apologize there, where [he assumes] she’ll take him back. He repeats the words “I’m only 17, I don't know anything” which goes with the lyrics in cardigan where Betty says “when you are young they assume you know nothing” and “but I knew everything when i was young.'' A lot of betty sounds like James is trying to make excuses and justify his affair, like when he says “I hate the crowds, you know that/plus I saw you dance with him.” He says that he was nowhere to be found and then gets mad when Betty dances to her favorite song with another friend. He most likely cheated for revenge on Betty for dancing with her friend. He calls Augustine a “summer thing” which contrasts to how she calls him a “summer love.” When he shows up to Betty’s party and apologizes, he hopes that it will “patch her broken wings” which goes with the line in cardigan where Betty says “you drew stars around my scars/but now im bleeding,” showing how James hurt her and wanted to make her feel better.

The song after betty is cardigan, which is from Betty’s point of view. In the first verse, she says “when you are young they assume you know nothing,” which could be how James assumed that she wouldn’t find out know of his affair with augustine, but right after that line she says “but I knew you” which shows that despite how James tried to hide the affair, she still found out (“you heard the rumors from inez'' and also because she would’ve known him well enough to know when he was lying). Later on in the song she says “I knew everything when I was young,” which directly contradicts the line in betty where James says “I’m only 17, I don't know anything.'' The line “a friend to all is a friend to none/chase two girls, lose the one” shows how James tried to stay with Betty and sleep with Augustine but ended up losing both of them. The line “you drew stars around my scars/but now I'm bleeding” shows how James made Betty feel whole and happy but ended up hurting her more. In the bridge, she says “tried to change the ending” which could be referencing James's apology. There's also a line where she says “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired/and you’d be standing in my front porch light” where she’s basically saying that she knew that once he tired of Augustine, he’d try to come back to Betty, and the porch line goes back to two lines in betty: “Betty, I’m here on your doorstep” and “Will you kiss me on the porch”).

The next three songs (mirrorball, illicit affairs, the 1) are not confirmed to be a part of the storyline, however many fans speculate that they are. 

Mirrorball can be considered to be from James, Betty, and Augustine’s points of views. The line “I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight” can be used to show how [the affair with] Augustine showed Betty what James was really like. The line “I know they said the end is near/but I’m still on my tallest tiptoes…./shining just for you” could show how all three of them are clinging to the hope of romance: james - he knows that both of his relationships with the girls are doomed but he wants to try to save at least one of them; augustine  - summer is coming to a close and she wants to stay with james, but she knows that he regrets betraying betty and wants to go back to her; betty - she’s hoping that the rumors aren't true but deep down she knows that James cheated on her. The lines ‘I’m still on that tightrope/I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me“ could be from either Augustine or James’ point of view. If it's from Augustine’s POV, she’s trying to keep James with her and not go back to Betty; if it's from James’ POV, it’s him trying to get back with Betty and get her “laughing at [him].”

Illicit affairs is seen to be from both James and Augustine’s POVs. The first four lines of the song show how James is hiding the affair with Augustine from his friends, family, and  from Betty. The line “tell yourself you can always stop” is James trying to make himself feel better about breaking Betty’s heart by cheating on her with Augustine. The lines “So you leave no trace behind/Like you don't even exist” are from Augustine’s POV, where she’s making sure nobody knows of the affair. After that, the line “take the words for what they are” are her making the most of her time with James because deep down she knows that she and him will never actually be a real relationship like the one he had with betty. The lines “They show their truth one single time/But they lie, and they lie, and they lie” could be referring to Inez (and consequently, Betty) finding out the truth about the affair and the lying that James and Augustine did to cover it up. The lines “And you know damn well/For you, I would ruin myself/A million little times” could be James saying that his reputation would be hurt if people found out about the affair, but it could also be Augustine’s way of saying that she loves him because she’s willing to “ruin” herself for the sake of being with James.

The 1 talks about reminiscing over a past relationship. It’s widely seen to be from Augustine’s point of view at a later point in time, presumably when they are all older. The first line of the song (“I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit”) is Augustine after getting over the whole affair ordeal. The line “And if you wanted me, you really should've showed” shows how if James had actually wanted to have a real relationship with Augustine, he wouldn’t have done it just to get back at Betty and he wouldn’t have kept Augustine a secret. The lines “and if my wishes came true/it would’ve been you” show how despite Augustine hoping and wishing for James to be the one, it ultimately didn’t work out. When Augustine says the lines “We never painted by the numbers, baby/ But we were making it count” it could be about she and James making the most of the summer and breaking the metaphorical rules (aka cheating on Betty). Finally, the lines “If one thing had been different/Would everything be different today?” could be Augustine asking James if he had broken up with Betty before or if Betty hadn't found out, would they still be together?

In conclusion, the folklore love triangle is extremely complicated and in depth, but I hope that this has given you at least a basic understanding of the storyline and the characters.

The Company of Wolves dir. Neil Jordan

[id four screenshots from the company of wolves showing a group of peasants, including a young girl and her elderly grandmother, riding on the back of a horse drawn cart across an over grown cobblestone road.

grandmother: "your poor sister, all alone in the wood and nobody there to save her!"

grandmother: "poor little lamb!"

young girl: "why couldn't she save herself?"

grandmother: "you don't know these things, you're only a child!"

end id]

The Alcott Analysis

So now that The Alcott has officially been released I wanted to do an analysis of some of the lyrics and how I think they might relate to Taylor. Disclaimer: I know Aaron said Matt wrote the main parts of the song and Taylor only added the dialogue parts so many of these connections might be a coincidence, but I also think it’s possible Taylor could have had more input on the song than they’re letting on since there are so many themes and motifs that perfectly relate back to Taylor’s music. This is just meant to be a fun clown theory

Like many others pointed out, the whole first verse is very “Help I’m still at the restaurant, still sitting in a corner I haunt, cross legged in the dim light, they say ‘what a sad sight’” and seems like the opposite pov of RWYLM

“It’s the last thing you/I wanted, it’s the first thing I/you do, I tell you that I think I’m falling back in love w/ you” // “I love you ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard” // “Uh oh I’m falling in love, oh no I’m falling in love again”

“I had to do something to break into your golden thinking” // “Lost in the labyrinth of my mind…you would break your back to make me break a smile”— this is directly related to the following ⬇️

“And there you are sitting as usual w/ your golden notebook, writing something about someone who used to be me…I sit there silently waiting for you to look up” // “Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen, time moved on for everybody else, she won’t know it, she’s still 23 inside her fantasy, how it was supposed to be…and you’re sitting in front of me” -> Taylor is stuck in her own head reminiscing and writing about the past (the golden age) and this person sitting in front of her is trying to break her out of this nostalgic escapist mindset. I think this may be a direct reference to the film Midnight in Paris which is all about nostalgia and escapism--much like the song Paris on the Midnights 3am edition--and specifically to golden age thinking, a phrase used in that film. Here are some tidbits that I think are worth noting

@chickawah23​ made a really great post about the possible Midnight in Paris connections. Here’s a screenshot from that post that does a good job summarizing the important parallels

There definitely seems to be a connection between Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights, and the folklore chapters that were released in Aug 2020, specifically the sleepless nights and escapism chapters. I think it’s interesting that exile is the last track of the first chapter and first track of the second chapter--almost like the second chapter is a direct continuation of the first which again links Midnights to this escapism theme. And there’s been a lot of exile references lately (exile ends, doors, 8/3, etc)

Even though the back and forth dialogue between Taylor and Matt at first sounds argumentative, I think it could also be read in a positive way. This person is going to ruin and wreck Taylor’s plans and Taylor is going to gladly let them. She welcomes the curse on their house. “I’m begging for you to take my hand wreck my plans that’s my man” // “For you I would ruin myself a million little times” // “I wish to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed...He’s gonna burn this house to the ground...So yeah it’s a fire it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it” // “Dear reader, burn all the files, desert all your past lives” // Taylor is the one that chooses to burn the lover house down. She’s the one holding the lighter on the Midnights album cover and striking the match in the lavender haze mv (here’s a really great post about what that might signify). Furthermore, the willow performance and description make me think that the curse on Taylor’s house was actually her own doing--she’s not only letting this person wreck her plans but is helping them do so. So the burning, wrecking, ruining, cursing/spell casting are all metaphors for the same thing—destroying Taylor’s closet and possibly her career as a result of that

Honorable mention: The beat almost sounds like a heartbeat no? Wildest Dreams??

right where you left me // the lakes parallels

I have an hc that Korekiyo impulsively cuts her hair almost entirely off after she exorcizes her sister's spirit out of her body, but it looks really bad which kind of makes her already fragile mental state worse and Mukuro who's kinda going through the same thing by distancing herself from Junko to pursue her dream of being a hairdresser offers to fix Korekiyo's hair and it miraculously it ends up looking really good. They kinda bond over it and kinda become like true sisters and it helps them a lot.

They're literally like