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accirax · 2 months

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Disventure Camp All Stars Power Ranking (Round "5")

Hey everybody! So, I've recently gotten into Disventure Camp, just in time to catch the third season near its beginning. As it's been occupying a good chunk of my brain activity for the past couple of weeks, I've really wanted to write something about it just to let some of the brain worms out. Coincidentally, I also started watching Gordon Holmes' Survivor Power Ranking series as season 46 has been airing (although I've watched Survivor since I was a kid), and really enjoyed the format and the questions it incited. So, I figured, why not mash them up?

The Power Ranking format is essentially a way of ranking how well each player is doing in the game. So, in essence, this is a long form way of predicting who I think will be eliminated from the competition in the next episode. If that sounds interesting, I invite you to read on!

Alright, now that we've made it past the Read More, I'll explain the game in a bit more detail, given that this is the first time I'm posting a "theory" like this. (It's "Round 5" because this is off the heels of the 5th episode, but there are no power rankings prior to this one.) The way Gordon's Power Rankings work, you rank each player not based on how likely they are to win overall, but how likely they are to survive the next episode. For the sake of example, let's say I've ranked Kristal as #1 (least likely to go home), Derek as #2, Trevor as #3, Emily as #4, and Oliver as #5 (most likely to go home). When the next episode comes out, you go back and lock in the score of the person who was eliminated. So, back to our example, if it's Derek who winds up going home, then I get 2 points. Bigger scores are better, so, as you can see, it would have been better if I'd ranked Derek lower. Derek's score is the only one that matters for the week, so the rest of my placements don't factor into my score at all.

This format makes more sense when you can compare your score against someone else's (as what happens in Gordon's videos). But, I still think it's a fun format to use, and it'll be interesting to me to see if I perform better or worse than average at the end of the season. Also, if anyone wants to make their own version of the power ranking and fight me, I'd love to see that! (You don't have to write as much as I will, if you don't want to.) I'm actively trying to mansplain manipulate malewife my way into convincing people to watch this show, so the more the merrier in analysis land.

Although I will be making some of the same analytical remarks that Gordon and co. do for the Survivor season, I want to point out that I will be actively acknowledging that Disventure Camp is a work of fiction. Both Survivor and DC create an "edit" by budgeting their screen time towards specific characters and plot lines, so both can be analyzed in that way. However, Survivor is a story constructed in retrospect, based on the reality of who happened to win the game. DC has been a fictional story since the very beginning, and therefore an episode of the cartoon may be more... "controlled" than an episode of Reality TV. For instance, Survivor players irl might not manage to keep all of their tribes at roughly the same number of people, but Odd Nation Cartoons may have built the season in a way that doesn't eradicate one team of All Stars at the very start.

I bring this up because, for this week in particular, I think that a character originating from Season 1 will likely be packing their bags. We've had four eliminations so far, one from the Season 1 cast (Miriam) and three from the Season 2 cast (James, Lake, and Hunter). Given that both casts started out with 9 competitors, this means that 33% of the Season 2 cast is already gone. I don't think it's impossible that a Season 2 character could be eliminated this week, but I'm definitely inclined to believe that it'll be a season 1 character that bites the dust.

Also, as the contestants on Gordon's show are able to use the "Next Time on Survivor" segment in their analyses, I think that using the trailer for next episode is entirely fair game! Spoilers for the Episode 6 trailer, if you're trying to ignore that. I don't know how much I'm going to reference it, but it'll probably be at least a little bit.

With that out of the way, let's start with the character who I think is the least likely to go home!

#1: Tess

Tess is in a really good position right now as the Cyan Team's swing vote. Aiden will want to take out Ellie as a member of the villains alliance and the one behind Lake's elimination. While it's unknown how much stock Ellie will continue to place in the girls' alliance, she still sees Tess as her friend, and therefore the best option to reach out to for a third vote to take out Aiden or Tom. Therefore, neither Aiden and Tom nor Ellie and Gabby should be looking to eliminate her.

I also feel like they're going to want to have Tess reunite with Ally at the merge, which is another reason why she might stick around. Then again, I might've thought the same of Hunter, and we saw how that went for him last episode. Still, as both Tess and Ally's characterizations revolved around Hunter in Season 2, I at least have interest in seeing how the two girls would progress without their collective crush around.

And, on top of all that, Tess is a Season 2 character. I find it very hard to believe that Tess will be eliminated next episode.

#2: Aiden

Alright, this choice is definitely leaning more on the meta side than the gameplay side. Gameplay wise, if Tess decided to side with Ellie and Gabby, it could be very easy for Aiden to be the target of their votes. But, I just don't think that Odd Nation Cartoons would want to eliminate Aiden at this point in the competition. The man is a fan favorite!

Of course, that was true of James as well... but, that only furthers my point. Given that James and Lake have already been eliminated from the competition, getting rid of Aiden would wipe that entire friend group of characters out. In my opinion, it would be odd for Aiden to have that confessional about playing for James, Lake, and himself, only to be eliminated three episodes after Lake. Aiden is also still a major plot point in the Jake/Tom romance that I think they'll want to keep around for a little longer.

Also, if the theory that James will return to the competition at some point (because he hasn't had a "reading the patrons names" segment yet) turns out to be true, I suspect that they'd want Aiden to still be in the competition for his return. Aiden should be safe.

#3: Jake

You know who else is a part of the Jake/Tom plotline? Jake. I don't think our favorite(?) whiny idiot has his head on the chopping block right now, despite being a S1 character.

Although, Jake's safety is actually mostly not a meta read. I just straight up think that his elimination would be the most baffling on the Magenta Team. Ally could go home if the Jake/Ashley/Fiore alliance decides to finish what they started when they eliminated Hunter. Fiore could go home if, now that the couple has been split up, Jake and Ashley unite with Ally to take out one of the villains. Even if Ally and Fiore somehow had the power to band together and use a totem or something to send one of Jake or Ashley home... I still think it would be Ashley. That's partially based on meta logic of considering Jake a more important character than Ashley, but there are in-universe reasons why they might choose to eliminate Ashley over Jake, too. For Fiore's sake, Ashley has more of a vendetta against her specifically. Ashley is also an athletic and friendly person who could situate herself very well if she made the merge, whereas Jake (who's already demoralized at Miriam's exit) would likely only incite more conflict and use his vote in petty ways. (Sorry to Jake fans lol, I'm kinda slandering your boy.)

Anyways, any other Magenta elimination makes more sense to me than Jake, so I think he's pretty safe.

#4: Tom

Rounding out the Jake/Tom/Aiden love triangle, we have Tom at #4. It's a lot of what I've already covered with Jake and Aiden. There's so much drama yet to be had with this trio that knocking down one of its legs (specifically, the central leg) at this point feels like a loss. Also, I really don't understand why the Cyan girls would choose to eliminate Tom instead of Aiden, which means I'm basically predicting that both of the Cyan boys are safe. That includes Tom, so, good for him!

#5: Ally

And once again, we're looping back to a prior entry. For Tess to reunite with Ally at the merge, Ally has to make it there, too. So, despite her boyfriend's fate, I think Ally will be sticking around for a little while longer.

It's a bit counterintuitive, but I sort of think that Ally will stay because it would be too obvious if she went home. Jake, Ashley, and Fiore eliminating Ally in a 3-1 vote is exactly what you would predict would happen looking at the tribe on the surface. So, for the sake of intrigue, I feel like something would happen to prevent it. In the preview, we see her having one-on-one conversations with Ashley and Jake, so maybe they would feel bad for her and decide to flip on Fiore. Maybe Ally could pull an epic gamer move and find an idol to play on herself. That could be in conjunction with Fiore and her connections to the villains alliance, or it could not.

Tess, Aiden, Jake, and Tom I was pretty confident about, so Ally is the first entry where I'm a little worried putting her this high. But, I have faith in her (especially as a S2 character) to not get the boot in this upcoming episode.

#6: Fiore

This might just be the Fiore stan in me, but I don't think she'll be going home next episode. I mean, she's literally been blessed by the gods! What am I supposed to do against that?

Fiore is in a pretty decent position, being allied with Jake and Ashley while also being on pretty decent terms with Ally. She's also just, like, way smarter than the majority of the competition, so if she found herself in a tight spot, I could see her manipulating someone to weasel her way out of it. Fiore is also a potential winner pick of mine (again, I'm a Fiore stan), and her elimination at this stage could prevent her from making the deep run that would result in her return to the Final 2.

Despite all of this-- and this is a slight aside-- I actually think that Jake and Ashley may have made a mistake in eliminating Hunter over Fiore last episode? They said it was better for their strategy, but I don't think that's necessarily true. It would be a good move for their strategy if they could count on Fiore being a solid alliance member at the merge, but it's pretty obvious she has no allegiance to the S1 duo. She literally already has an alliance-- the villains alliance-- that she would most likely bail to if she makes it to the merge. If Jake, Ashley, Hunter, and Ally all voted to eliminate Fiore, they could diminish the threat of the villains alliance and put their own feud on pause. If Hunter is correct, and getting rid of Fiore prevents them from losing any more challenges, than the feud never has to be unpaused, and all four of them make the merge. The only way that Jake and Ashley could run into trouble is if Magenta does have to go back to Tribal as a foursome. Then, it could be problematic for them if they were forced to turn on each other at Hunter and Ally's whim, because the couple (who were already fighting with each other!!!) could be unwilling to turn on one another, preferring to leave things to chance.

It feels like the narrative has already saved Fiore twice-- once via Alec and once via Jake and Ashley's "strategy"-- so I believe that the narrative has greater plans for Fiore yet. It could be reuniting with Alec. Who knows? (Please be reuniting with Alec. Please be reuniting with Alec--)

#7: Ashley

Um... so I just straight up don't think that Magenta is headed back to Tribal next episode. Surprise!

Like I said, these predictions are just about the next episode. And, given that Magenta just went to Tribal and is low on numbers, I don't think that they'll be headed back there. Therefore, none of them would be next episode's boot.

It's not a given, as the Purple Tribe got pretty demolished in S1, but for an All Stars season, I don't think Odd Nation would want the eliminations to be so unfairly stacked in one direction. I could be making an incorrect call here, because, logically, I really don't know why the Magenta Team would be any good at the musical challenge that's shown in the preview...? I just believe in them, I guess. You can retroactively apply this same reasoning for bonus points on Jake, Ally, and Fiore's entries as well.

Anyways, Ashley! Out of the Magenta Team, I do feel like she's the most expendable, perhaps because she was the earliest elimination from S1, and came back without most of her allies from S1 (Will, Lill, Nick). We also already got the resolution to the fire plotline that was left dangling in S1, which means there aren't many more questions I have about her character.

On the other hand, why bring Ashley back if you didn't have bigger plans for her this time around? They've eliminated a lot of people who made it close to the end at the beginning this time, so it would stand to reason that some of the people who were eliminated closer to the beginning might make it closer to the end. The potential of Ashley bonding with some of the S2 competitors at the merge is great for bringing some new iconic relationships to life.

Even if I think Ashley may be the most expendable, I don't really think that any of the Magenta players are narratively expendable, which is why I placed them all so high. I'll be eating my words if they're headed to Tribal next time, so these guys had better rock on at the immunity challenge!

#8: Riya

And now, for Magenta's counterpart, a team composed of people that I feel like all have an argument for leaving sooner rather than later... the Yellow Team.

I don't remember if it was on YouTube or Tumblr, but I recall seeing someone theorize that Riya might be the next boot because of how much she's annoying her team. She's pushed Connor away, stirred up drama with Yul, and is shown hogging the team's shower in the episode preview. It would make sense if Riya's selfish and villainous actions led to her downfall, so, at first, I liked this logic, and planned to put Riya near the bottom.

However, when I actually started counting votes... I just didn't see it. Even if Connor and Riya's relationship is strained, I don't know if he would be willing to eliminate someone he cares about. Yul believes that Connor voted for him last time, so he'll probably be out to take revenge on Connor. Grett, at this point, would most likely vote with him. Alec too, as long as he lets his strategy of keeping the villains team in power beat out the friendship he's begun to form with Connor. Where are the Riya votes? I'm not really sure.

I think that the theorizer is on the right track with predicting that Riya's bad attitude will eventually lead to her elimination. However, I don't think she'll be off the Yellow Team just yet, so she lands at #8 for me.

#9: Connor

Counting votes made it seem like Connor would be the next boot from the Yellow Team... so why do I have him as the second least likely to go?

Well, much like Ally, I feel that Connor's elimination is so obvious that it wouldn't pan out that way if a Yellow Tribal actually happened. There are definite cracks in the seams that could lead to votes not going in an obvious direction-- with Miriam's blow to the alliance, Alec might see Connor as a better confidant than any of the villains, and/or Grett might see what a terrible boyfriend Yul is and decide to flip on the villains. We also don't know exactly how Riya feels. She certainly acts as if she doesn't care if Connor stays or goes, but the truth is that she hasn't actually been "forced" to vote for him yet by her alliance. If push came to shove, who knows what she'd choose?

Combined with the fact that he (and Riya) are S2 characters, I think Connor would manage to survive a vote if Yellow is headed to Tribal. I'm not that confident about it, though, so he lands at #9.

#10: Yul

And here's Yul, our lowest placed S2 competitor in this ranking. If a S2 character is headed home this week, I think it would probably be him. He was a terrible person in S2, and has continued to be a terrible person in All Stars, so it's easy to see why the players (and the audience) might want him out of the game. Grett, my beloved, please lead the charge in kicking this asshole off the tribe.

However... there's also evidence to suggest that Yul won't be going home so easily. Beyond just being a S2 character, the end of this episode (and part of the preview) established that Yul has some sort of connection with Emily, our mysterious new staff member. I don't know exactly what this relationship is-- my original guess was that Emily could be Yul's manager, but their interactions in Episode 1 (as well as Grett's interactions with Emily in Episode 1) make me feel like that wouldn't be the case. Regardless, there's something going on between him and Emily, which adds some intrigue to Yul's character.

I have also considered that this relationship with Emily might be a one-episode thing, an interaction that actually spells doom for Yul instead of longevity. However, as this is one of the first major things we've seen Emily do, I feel like her connection to Yul may be a major aspect of her character and even why she exists. If that's the case, Yul may be quite important to the season, and be set up to make a very deep run.

However, my uncertainty on why Emily has summoned Yul and belief that the Yellow Team has good reason to eliminate him prevents him from taking one of the top spots. ...There's still a good amount of space below him, though.

#11: Gabby

A good part of why Gabby is ranked this low is because she's a S1 character, I'm not gonna lie. But I do genuinely believe she could be in trouble next episode, and here's why.

As opposed to S1, in which she was a staunch defender of the environment, insecure and petty, and a little bit insane, Gabby's character in All Stars seems to have been simplified to "Ellie's peppy girlfriend." She did refuse to eat the chicken last episode, but I feel like S1 Gabby would have, like, threatened to take their heads off if they beheaded the chicken. The portion of the preview for next episode where Gabby has the crazy eyes makes me hopeful that that aspect of her character will be making a comeback, but we'll have to see what happens.

For now, her role has been pretty limited, which makes me think that she could be an early boot from the season. She doesn't seem to have any new plot threads introduced, new developments in her character as a result of what happened in S1, or important relationships, other than with Ellie. If she were eliminated next episode, that could be because Gabby is in little enough of the show that there wasn't enough time to give her a proper character arc.

The reasons behind why the Tribe (presumably minus Ellie) would unite to eliminate Gabby are a little fuzzy, but not completely implausible. If Gabby were to be eliminated, I think it would be as a blow to Ellie, getting rid of her closest ally. That could tie in to why so much of her characterization this season has been linked to Ellie-- if being in a relationship with Ellie is the reason why Gabby is eliminated, then that's all we need to know about her in All Stars.

#12: Alec

Oh Alec... I hope you make it out of this episode alive.

This may come as a surprise to some people, as I've seen speculations that Alec may be set up to be the season's main villain. However, I'm worried that his strong entrance may be a front intended to get him some screen time before he exits the competition shockingly early.

You see, while Alec is currently the mastermind of the Yellow Team, it's a rather precarious position to be in. The villains alliance seems to have remained stable enough to near-unanimously take out Miriam last time they went to Tribal (even though Riya didn't wind up voting for Miriam, she was conceptually fine with it). However, I doubt that Miriam's silver "Alec is untrustworthy" bullet will go unused. If Alec attempts to push his luck by trying to force people into votes they don't want to make, or if his friendship with Connor causes others on the team to suspect that he's playing both sides, the alliance could revolt against its leader.

I still think that Alec will probably survive until the merge, just so that we can see his relationship with Fiore evolve further. Who knows, maybe he really is the season's main villain, and will finally make it to the final 3 he feels he was robbed of in S1. However, I think that Alec's vote could be a reasonable blindside on the audience, which makes me worry that it's the right narrative move to take.

#13: Grett

Oh Grett... I'm even more worried about you than Alec. Clearly. Because you're directly beneath him.

Look, I really want to believe that Grett will be able to stand up for herself this season and absolutely demolish Yul, getting to play the rest of her game after his departure in whichever way she sees fit. However, sometimes the villains have to win in order to create stakes, and I could see a temporary Yul-over-Grett victory doing just that.

An unfortunate step in her journey to becoming a better person, Grett has totally tethered herself to Yul, a relationship in which she seems far more invested than he. As opposed to her bossy demeanor in S1, she's taken too many steps back, and seems to automatically yield to whatever Yul has to say. Her characterization this season is very linked to his presence, which makes me wonder what she would do if he left the show. She could go align with the villains alliance herself, but... is she really that much of a villain anymore without Yul?

And, that's part of the problem. I can very easily see a plot line where, next episode, Yul continues to put Grett down, and does so increasingly after Yellow loses the challenge. Grett finally musters some of her old courage and lashes back at Yul a little, saying that it's not her fault that they lost. Then, Yul reports to Alec and Riya that Grett tried to backstab him, and doesn't want to work with the villains anymore. Alec and Riya, who both didn't really want to vote for Connor anyways, agree to take out Grett to 1) split up a potentially problematic duo and 2) make their alliance look like it's weakened. Grett goes home with a broken heart, but has at least learned that she shouldn't stand by Yul any longer. Maybe she could get some revenge from beyond the grave later on in the season somehow, like cancelling him during the finale or something like that.

Really, the biggest flaw I can see is that... I don't know if Yellow is going to be losing the immunity challenge. Part of their performance was in the preview for next episode, and it looked pretty good! I feel like Odd Nation Cartoons wanted to show us something super cool to get us hyped for the next episode, so getting us really excited over the team that turns out to be the losers would be a little confusing. Who knows, maybe there could be some level of sabotage for the Yellow Team that causes their otherwise excellent performance to fail.

I don't know if I would have come to the conclusion of Grett being a possible boot if I didn't think a S1 character was going home... but now that I have, I'm afraid that I've seen the writing on the wall.

#14: Ellie

And yet, Grett is not in last place, because Ellie is.

Call it a gut feeling, but I kinda get the vibes that Ellie might be the season's next boot. It doesn't make sense, right? Ellie has strong relationships with so many characters, from Tess to Alec to Jake. She, too, could be in contention for the title of season villain. Why would they get rid of her so early?

Well, much like Alec, I fear she may have been too villainous too fast. Her negative connections to so many different characters leads to it making a lot of sense to vote Ellie for a lot of reasons. Does Tom want to get revenge for his and Jake's breakup last season? Vote Ellie. Does Aiden want to avenge Lake and keep himself and Tom in the game? Vote Ellie. Does Tess want to decrease the numbers of the villains alliance? Vote Ellie. That's three votes for Ellie, and Ellie is eliminated. I don't even think she would be saved by a totem, given that Ellie has already been saved by a totem once before, and it would be kind of repetitive for Gabby and Ellie to do that again.

Now, you could argue that eliminating Ellie here would cause the same problems for Gabby as it would eliminating Yul for Grett. I struggled to see what Grett would do in the game if Yul was eliminated. Wouldn't Gabby be the same, after I detailed why I thought her character had been simplified to be tied to Ellie?

Not exactly. A post-Yul Grett confuses me a little because I think that getting rid of Yul would uplift Grett. It would remove the struggles that her character is facing, and leave her characterization less complex for it. On the other hand, a post-Ellie Gabby makes sense because getting rid of Ellie would create more problems for Gabby. Once again, she would have been stabbed in the back by her tribemates (including Tom and Tess, who she considers friends), but not even have Ellie or a totem to lean back on this time. She might want to burn her tribemates to the ground, but if she acts up too much, she could be next in line. And despite her desire for revenge, she would have to wonder... who was really the bad guy in the elimination, her tribemates or her girlfriend?

I think it's possible that Gabby's character may have been simplified for now because the inciting incident of Gabby's All Stars characterization is Ellie's elimination. Prior to that episode, we establish how much Gabby cares about Ellie, so that when Ellie exits, we feel how much it hurts Gabby. We've seen how Ellie acts after Gabby was eliminated before, so I think it would be far more interesting to see the opposite in All Stars. Also, Ellie has made it to the final before-- twice, if you count the original "Adventure Camp" season-- so it would make sense if, this time, she was kicked out closer to the beginning.

Much like with Grett, the main issue I have here is that I don't know if the Cyan Team would lose this competition, either. They have a lot of artistic people on their team, which makes it seem like they would thrive. However, if Cyan isn't losing, and Yellow isn't losing, that would mean that Magenta is losing, and I've already said why I don't think Magenta is going to lose. So, maybe Cyan is overconfident in their performance, or maybe another team (Magenta?) tries to sabotage them so that the team can take out Ellie (or Aiden, if it's Jake's idea). Maybe the performance has to be a rock song, and the Cyan team is all really bad singers. (Okay I just learned that apparently Aiden's VA is a very talented singer. Maybe Aiden won't sing or something.) I don't have enough details yet.

And, that's the end! I've never done a power ranking before-- not even for Survivor, which I've been watching for years, as opposed to Disventure Camp's "less than one month"-- so I have no idea how well I'll do. Are my instincts good, or are my expectations and the writers' decisions worlds apart? I guess I'll have to see when the next episode airs, and create my round 6 predictions accordingly. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this new project of mine!

#disventure camp #disventure camp spoilers #dcas #dcas power ranking #okay. hopefully this will keep the brain worms at bay. hopefully #you don't understand i've been thinking about this post for DAYS i had to expell it from my mind #but it was fun. and i hope to do it again after e6 >:)#btw i promise i am still working on time loop stuff i just got distracted by this new (to me) series and this is a lot easier to write #this is not a change of fandoms moment. i just like to be in multiple fandoms at once #step 1 is to force people to watch dc step 2 is to force people to watch survivor itself. i believe #ally disventure camp #ashley disventure camp #fiore disventure camp #jake disventure camp #aiden disventure camp #ellie disventure camp #gabby disventure camp #tess disventure camp #tom disventure camp #alec disventure camp #connor disventure camp #grett disventure camp #riya disventure camp #yul disventure camp

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douglysium · 2 months

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Episode 5 TMP Quick Thoughts

Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 4. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (TMP Quick Thoughts 4).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don't really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you're getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

Episode 5 “Personal Screening”

If you ask me, the statement in this episode is almost definitely Eye aligned and it’s one of the most Eye flavored statements I’ve seen in a while. But let’s try to slow down and walk through some bits of the episode. Like always it may be an act of hubris to view TMP through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (and potentially The Extinction if I feel it comes to it) but even if I’m wrong I still find this to be fun and the parallels interesting.

Like always, we are hearing the story of TMP from the perspective of something / someone listening in via device and the transcripts clarify that this time we are listening through a landline.

Sam enters Lena’s office to express his worry about Colin’s paranoia and says “Well, today I found him crawling along the corridor, yanking out wires and muttering to himself.” and points out that Colin has “added all those locks to his office door and he refuses to even go near a camera now…” I feel like this mirrors TMA in how we see a coworker becoming worried about another coworker's increasing paranoia. And, similar to Jon, Colin’s paranoia in part seems to be coming from the feeling that he is being watched or monitored by something. I maintain that if the Entities are present then the O.I.A.R. is at least partially connected to the Eye and we see Colin is even becoming afraid of being seen by cameras and the like.

I think it’s also interesting that Lena says this “Right. Well firstly, thank you for raising this with me Sam. It’s important we don’t keep secrets here.” which feels a lot like some ominous foreshadowing we don’t yet understand. The Eye is all about having no privacy and exposing secrets and Colin seems to indeed be keeping some sort of secret. Not only that, but considering what Gwen saw last episode Lena is also keeping at least one secret.

There actually seem to be a lot of parallels or allusions to TMA structurally or thematically. Many of the statements sure but also the roles certain characters play. Sam is too curious for his own good like Jon and may be here to look into a previous encounter with the supernatural, some have pointed out that Alice and Tim both seem to cope with jokes, and Lena is a shady boss like Elias / Jonah. Just to be clear I’m not saying these are 1-to-1 or are meant to be alternate versions of each other or something. Rather that either The Eye tends to attract certain people, that this is meant to be a reference (Sort of like how how Part 7 and onwards in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure have many direct references and parallels to other characters even though they aren’t always the exact same person / personality or one-to-one), or we are going to end up with some extrapolation, divergence, and / or commentaries on these similarities (either directly or indirectly).

However, long story short, Lena dismisses these claims and basically tells Sam not to worry, schedule a meeting next time, and mind his own business before we cut to one of the computers Sam and / or Alice work at to catch the rest of the story. Alice mentions “Ah. Yeah, Lena isn’t exactly known for her diplomacy.” which points to the idea that Lena probably isn’t the nicest person, or at the very least doesn’t sugarcoat things. Sam finds that Alice left some papers on his desk and she explains “I had a nosey while you were in Lena’s office. Looks like it’s for your Response Department one to one.” One thing I mention a lot about The Eye is that it tends to attract people who are very curious and / or want to know things, such as “Nosy Rosie,” Jonah, Jon, etc.. This scene shows us that Alice might be more curious or nosy than she lets on in some aspects. Of course, in typical Alice fashion when Sam expresses worry about the paper and the Response Department she tells him to basically just ignore it and throw it away but Sam decides to fill start filling it out anyway.

I wonder if this is similar to the magically binding contract from TMA and if Sam just accidentally tied himself to something. Alice does also say “Just chuck it. I told you, I’m pretty sure the Response Department doesn't even exist anymore. It's just the system spitting out dead paperwork. Happens all the time.” so we can’t even be sure that this is coming from the Response Department. In fact the paperwork coming from the Response Department could be The Eye or some other Entity and / or supernatural occurrence. We also continue to have Sam’s curiosity hammered into us when he says “And I’m going to fill it in any way. See what happens.” Sam notes that the paperwork asks strange questions when he says “Uh huh… They want my last seven addresses. I don’t know if I’ve even had-” This could point to the idea of the paper wanting a suspicious amount of information since it not only wants to know where you currently live but the last seven places someone has lived.

(Probably rather luckily) Sam gets interrupted by a statement as Alice manages to convince him to stop as CHESTER gives us our statement for the episode.

This statement is about Tom and the blog he is running. On it he reviews horror movies and even says “Hey all you sick freaks out there, Tom here, your gruesome guide to the most twisted horror films of the world wide web!” He also says “I can’t believe this blog’s still up. Was looking for somewhere slightly less confrontational than social media to post my film thoughts, and I remembered starting this back in, what, 2009?” As I’ve mentioned before The Eye is the fear of being perceived and known which also involves the fear of being judged for things. To put it even more broadly, The Eye seems to be about the fear of knowledge in general. Not just the fear that someone / something might know too much about you (or a specific secret) or is just gathering information by watching you but also the fear that you yourself might know too much or have seen something you wish you hadn’t. In MAG 200 we are told in what order the Powers emerged and what led to their birth and for The Eye we are told it came from the fear of one’s eyes “showing them too much.” In essence, that they saw something they didn’t want to. A more direct example of this is Jonah being able to force information into the minds of other people like Martin and Melanie. Jonah mentions that this information has to be true and it points to the idea of forcing someone to know something against their will.

We also get “That first post... Fourteen years old and convinced I was the edgiest writer on the web. Might keep it up for posterity, god knows the kid went through enough” which implies a rough childhood. Considering what happens with the movie I would also like to point out that tying into The Eye’s whole “seeing too much” thing is the idea of being forced to remember or relive certain things you don’t want to. The most obvious form this took in TMA was the statements (as they were people recounting what happened to them) but Jon could also force people to give statements (forcing them to recall things against their will) and when Jon takes live statements both Jonah and Daisy point out that when this is done the victim will be forced to relive said statement every night via a dream in which Jon is watching. Sometimes, if there’s a monster involved, the victim sees things from the perspective of the monster (forcing them to watch their own suffering in a way).

Tom explains “I remember I was pretty lonely in those days. Ever since I was a child, making friends has always been kind of a struggle. My interests have always been seen as a little strange... While other kids my age at the time were looking up to football players and other celebrities, I was looking up to Pinhead and Freddy Krueger... It wasn’t in a psychopath kind of way or anything, I’ve just always been fascinated by horror. I can thank my dad for that, he showed me Puppet Master when I was six. ‘oh don’t worry, buddy! It’s just like Toy Story”... He had kind of a dark sense of humour like that.” before continuing to describe how he was really into horror and continues to have a fixation on it. This also implies that it’s possible the young Tom wasn’t always aware of what he was about to see and was tricked or lied to about what it was. Which could tie into the idea of seeing something you didn’t want to if we assume that this poor kid was expecting Toy Story only to get a scary movie. Funnily enough, someone judging and critiquing films on something like a blog could draw a connection to The Eye via the idea of judgment and the like.

Strangely, the next 3 reviews have been deleted. I wonder if they reminded Tom of something or if he just wanted to forget about it? But that would be kind of weird since he still leaves up the announcement that make mention of the terrifying film he watches later, “Voyeur.” It might also be a much weirder reasoning like someone or something wanting people to find this movie and / or post and making sure the post is preserved for a statement. It’s pretty clear Tom has at least some of the trademark Eye curiosity when it comes to horror movies since he seems to put in a lot of effort into finding this specific horror movie in order to watch it despite searches mostly just revealing what is presumably porn. However, in his search he comes across one thing- “The only thing I could find was another old blog with what must have been the shortest film review I have ever read. You can check the link, but I’ll save you some time: all it says is “Voyeur needs to be seen to be believed. The Scariest movie I have ever seen”.”

Of course, if you’ve gotten this far you can probably guess what I’m probably going to say. This is so obviously The Eye or some similar overlapping Entity trying to bait curious people into seeing something they will probably regret. In TMA Gertrude did mention that The Eye is also the drive to know and understand even if what you find might hurt you and we can see this in action. The drive to know and understand even if this movie could mentally scar you. Unfortunately, Tom doesn’t realize he’s in a horror podcast and this just makes him want to see it even more.

In the next blog post Tom mentions “Oh my God. I can’t believe one of you found it! Thank you SO MUCH Cinephobia12220 for the link!” Based on a quick google search I don’t think “cinephobia” is a real word (and if it is it’s super obscure). However, I can take a wild guess at what the username “cinephobia” means by looking at the root words involved. Cinephile basically means “movie lover” and phobia has to do with fear, so we can assume that the term cinephobia would probably mean something like “fear of movies”, “movie fear”, “phobia of movies”, etc.

After doing a bit more digging I found the term “cinephobia” which according to a wikipedia page means “The fear or hatred of films and the cinema.” Whether or not you want to see this as credible is up to you and I’m proud of the logic I used originally so I’m keeping the previous paragraph since it was at least in the ballpark. Either way, this username is foreshadowing since their name literally means “fear / hatred of movies” (ie the fear of a media you would watch).

Tom manages to find a link and a contest that only asks for his name and he somehow wins said contest despite noting that the site hasn’t been updated in years. At this point it’s clear that all the blog posts not relating or leading up to the “Voyeur” have been deleted. What does voyeur even mean? According to google voyeur is defined as “a person who gains sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity”... okaayyyyyy wait there’s a second definition “a person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others.” Okay, I’m going to assume the second definition is what’s applicable here since this ties very heavily into The Eye and the idea of a sort of sadism or someone watching you suffer. Of course, this can also tie into statements as people like Jon gain power and strength from literally hearing about and or watching people suffer. So the movie’s title is yet more foreshadowing. The title might also have a double meaning since depending on why someone likes horror and to what extent you could describe them as a “voyeur” in the sense that they like seeing people suffer in movies. Tom is so desperate for horror he might be somewhat close to a voyeur in this sense but maybe I’m reading too much into that.

When Tom wins the contest he explains “I WON THE CONTEST! I can’t believe it! The invitation was waiting when I got home today, in a small black envelope. I don’t even remember giving them my address. The website must have logged my IP and looked it up or something... I’m really not sure how any of that works.” This is another red flag because The Eye is known to randomly give or find information it otherwise shouldn’t know. We see people like Jon had the ability to know things that they shouldn’t and Jonah was borderline omniscient and could know almost anything he actively put his mind towards.

The cinema “Voyeur” is being filmed at is a theater that Tom actually went to when he was a kid. “And I’ve actually been to this cinema before... I used to go all the time with my dad... they would play classic horror films midday every Saturday.” Considering that Tom probably had a rough childhood this could be The Eye setting up a situation where Tom is forced to remember his past (I mean besides watching the movie of course) and I wonder if this is the theater where his dad tricked him into watching a horror movie. We know that the movie seems to actually be about Tom himself and it’s being played in a place he remembers as a child. Also, Tom mentioning how he wants to give his thoughts on this movie could be likened to a statement and someone giving their accounts about various horrific encounters.

Tom of course is apparently live blogging the event and I think that usually The Eye wouldn’t have it any other way. The more people can witness the horrors another person is facing in real time the “better.” The outside of the theater seems like it’s in a sorry state but the inside is beautiful and clean. Tom asks about this while buying food from an employee and we get “I asked about the mess outside, trying not to be rude about it, but he just said “It’s what on the inside that matters”.” This could be foreshadowing to the idea that the movie is about Tom himself. So the “inside” that matters would be Tom’s own memory and / or experiences. Also, this employee is noted to be old and probably doing all the jobs around this theater. He is at least the one running the concession stand, and usher along with the other stuff. But Tom says that the man is in high spirits which makes me wonder if we’ll see him as a recurring character in TMP’s statements and / or in person (sort of like Simon Fairchild and the like).

Then the movie starts and based on Tom’s reaction he clearly recognizes what's being shown “ I can hear what sounds like... beeping. It sounds so familiar but I can’t quite place it. Medical equipment maybe? There’s something [UNINTELLIGIBLE] the screen... Looks like it might be a flashback or something, handheld… looks like it was filmed on an old camcorder... Wait. Is that...? I know that room…. How... How did they get [UNINTELLIGIBLE] This was after the accident. Mum wanted to to film it for my brothers... Dad... I... [UNINTELLIGIBLE] Wait. Who is that? In the corner of the screen, there’s... WHO THE HELL IS THAT?” and the final thing we hear from the blog is

BLOG POST: FILM REVIEW: VOYEUR

Voyeur needs to be seen to be believed. The scariest movie I have ever seen.

It seems like what happened is the movie was a video Tom’s mom had taken of a tragic even but there was something that shouldn’t have been there. This wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened with The Eye. In TMA MAG 193 (A Stern Look) we get an account from the original Elias that details how a friend named Allan Schrieber died from presumably reading some sort of book. Upon reading it Allan started to mentally break down and sob while saying things like “It has no eyes”, “so it has to feel its way towards me. But it knows. It knows!” before eventually dying with his eyes mysteriously missing. A lot of people immediately assume this means The Dark was at play but there are statements where someone / something aligned with The Beholding seems to be missing eyes or taking The Eyes of others. Sometimes the idea is that it’s scary that something can somehow still know where you are or see you and sometimes this is the whole “seeing too much thing.” It’s also mentioned “But he remembers so clearly what he was thinking as he looked at the what was left of Allan Schrieber: where are his eyes? What did they do with his eyes?”

If you want a clearer example of seeing something you shouldn't, there's the hand mirror that appears in MAG 060 (Observer Effect). Upon looking into this mirror Rosa Meyers notices a dark figure in the night that only has its eyes visible and she feels like she is being watched / stalked even after dropping the mirror and breaking the glass. So The Eye definitely plays around with the idea of seeing something, noticing a figure that shouldn’t be there, and then things follow you before something happens. It wouldn’t completely surprise me if Tom was even replaced or had his mind and / or body taken over somehow (something that has a precedent with people like Jonah) which could explain why his review is eerily similar to the original one. Maybe the old man is body hopping like Jonah? That might explain the old man’s excitement and maybe the old man is in fact “Cinephobia12220.” Hmmm, such an assertion about body hopping with so little information is a bit of a stretch though since the man could just be happy to have a victim and it would be an oddly specific ability for some random new character (merely one iff background or otherwise) to have.

Obviously, Tom also expresses surprise at this theater having the footage and wonders how they could’ve gotten it which ties into The Eye and someone getting information they shouldn’t. Being forced to relive something like this is also comparable to a statement.

Some Entities that overlap with some of the stuff happening in this statement are ones like The Spiral. I could see an argument for some of its themes with the idea of noticing something you missed before or thought wasn’t there as a sign of your senses being wrong. Maybe also The Stranger since Tom doesn’t seem to know what he’s seeing.

We then cut to CCTV audio and Alice talking on the phone before this conversation happens

GWEN

“Do you remember the IT manager before Colin?”

ALICE

“Who? Amelia? What about her?”

GWEN

“No, before Amelia, before I joined. German guy. Lots of tattoos.”

ALICE

“I mean, I think Amelia mentioned him once or twice maybe? Mostly I remember her complaining about his work, but he’d have been here well before my time. What’s this about?”

GWEN

“Nothing. None of your business.”

ALICE

“What? Seriously?”

GWEN

“(walking off). Yes.”

Once again, Gwen being cagey and weird but this time we have a better idea of why. There’s a chance that this German IT manager may in fact be Klaus. I wonder if being the O.I.A.R. IT manager comes with some sort of drawback or “curse?” Maybe even some weird agreement between whoever has the position and Lena? Who knows

Conclusion

Idk having a blast. Feel free to leave corrections and / or thoughts and I may respond to them and explain if I agree or disagree, or consider why it is or isn’t likely, etc.

#tma #the magnus archives #tmp #the magnus protocol #theory

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tokyogruel · 1 year

Note

Hi, I wanted to ask a quick Milgram question! I saw your theory about Shidou lying about his family, and thought it was really cool :D I'm just having a hard time thinking the project would have characters lie in those interrogation-style questions -- from a writing standpoint, the videos should be looser because they're meant to be debated/studied, but you'd lose your audience credibility if everything was up for debate. It's a really interesting idea, so I was just wondering your thoughts on how/when the characters can lie 👀

hi there, thank you so much for this ask! ive been sitting on this theory for a few weeks, and these interrogation questions have only given me more fuel to my theory fire, so to speak lol.

if im being honest, i think the interrogation questions (as well as the voice dramas) are the only place prisoners CAN outright lie, as it has been stated that prisoners cant straight up lie in their music videos- since theyre extracted straight from their subconcious.

This, however, does not mean the characters are unable to obscure the truth… if they’re sneaky (or focusing on he wrong aspect of their crime, like mahiru)

and of course, what good is a character breakdown from me, if i neglect to talk about both sides of the coin?

so i present to you, yes you dear anon, my analysis of mahiru shiina and shidou kirisaki:

LOVE, LYING, AND INTENT TO KILL: 005 and 006

part one...

a quick disclaimer before we begin: i believe shidou has good intent behind his lies, but he is intentionally obscuring his crime, or misleading us on what his crime was in order to win an innocent verdict also, i apologize if this is way too long, rambly, and if i go on too many tangents. this theory has been eating me alive for weeks

this theory is also heavily supported by this post by @milgrammatical explaining how they believe the MILGRAM extraction process works

if you have the chance, please click the link and reblog the original post! however for this breakdown ill provide a screenshot:

now, to begin this post, i would like to start off by providing more evidence that this is, indeed, how the extraction process works.

to do so, i will use mahiru's first and second MV and VD, as well as shidous second MV and VD

PART ONE: interrogation to extraction

mv. 1 this is how to be in love with you

just before mahiru's first extraction, she makes it a clear point that love is dear to her, in fact it's Everything to her. her video is then titled "This is How to be in Love with You."

mahiru also gets sidetracked at one point during her voice drama, misinterpreting the articles Es has read to relate to articles that she has read: relationship and fashion advice from magazines

because she becomes focused on this idea, and reminisces on the articles she has read in an attempt to be a good girlfriend, Mahirus thoughts shift towards being part of those magazines, inserting herself into the pages that she has learned from in the past. we can assume these advice columns, as well as the accompanying pictures, are being pulled from her long-term memory

please also note how clear these are: her outfits in the first photo appear during the later "days" of her video, theyre consistent. the photos have realistic backgrounds, they are clear, distinct, REAL places that she has been. nothing in her video is obscured, except for her boyfriend. and even then, its because she does not see him as an important aspect of her trial at this point in time. there's one thing that is important to her this time around: love, showing Es who she is as a person, and the events leading up to- and into her relationship

ill be moving on to her second mv, but i cant resist including this fun little tidbit, even if it's just pure coincidence, it tickled me:

mv. 2, daisuke

this one is slightly less straightforward than the previous connection, though i believe it still holds up

to start, the second trial interrogation is where mahiru first starts to acknowledge that she was not the only person in the relationship. she mentions her partner, how they both felt about each other- and she makes it very clear what their relationship was: boyfriend and girlfriend

this is then followed by her mv, where we finally see the man behind the tan jacket in TIHTBILWY, her boyfriend. he is fully fleshed out, his eyes are visible, his style matches that which weve only seen glimpses of in her first MV. he looks unique (in a very.. bland way, but nonetheless recognizable)

his appearance pre-daisuke was also hinted at with this interrogation:

while it may seem unrelated at first glance, you can see there is somewhat of a resemblance between mappi's boyfriend and mikoto- short, brown hair, soft eyes, layered jacket, "the kind of guy they seem to make in a factory" as jackalope would put it. its thin, but its something. at the very least, i cant see any other reason why mahiru would throw mikoto under the bus like this, without knowing him at all.

i dont mean to go on a tangent already, but i would like to note that, despite the comparisons made between mikoto and mappi's boyfriend, they truly do not resemble one another much, and are distinctly different from one another. (this will be important later)

back to the voice drama,

in Love is [Un]dead, Es points out that Mahiru was likely blinded by love, and that the first MV to come from her may have been tainted by it, as they say here:

mahiru also makes a point that she may have been too lovestruck to acknowledge her wrongdoing- even subconsciously.

this winds updirecting the daisuke music video itself, and we IMMEDIATELY see a difference. the opening shot is not of mahiru, like her first MV- instead, front and center, is a very clear shot of her boyfriend hanging by his neck. she is no longer clouded by her ideals of love, and is spitting out the truth, showing us all the ugly sides of her relationship

and yet, we can still see mahiru's original perception of the relationship. there is likely truth behind it as well, a bad relationship can still have it's highs

but there is a key part of this MV that ive also seen people touch on briefly:

the distortion.

mahiru's views of her relationship are warped, it's been that way since trial one. but this is... different. she's suffered head trauma, the "carousel" of her relationship literally becomes warped- though in a way we've never seen before. the song becomes scrambled (though still catchy), and the imagery begins to twist, the video has static cuts, and the bright and shining carousel slowly melts into reality.

in my interpretation, this is because of the damage she has taken from kotoko- a physical impairment, rather than purely mental

but at the end of it all, mahiru has granted us what she has denied (even to herself) in the past: the truth. her relationship was dirty, broken, poisonous

.. to be continued

#milgram #shidou kirisaki #mahiru shiina #milgram theory #creature speaks

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somedaylazysomeday · 3 months

Text

Matter of Perspective - Part Three

A return to the office doesn't exactly mean a return to normalcy.

Horacio Carrillo x fem!reader

Rating: Mature. Minors, please do not interact.

Word Count: 3,400

Warnings: Office pettiness, threats (both joking and real), awkwardness, relationship conversations, minor misunderstandings.

Previous | Next | Masterlist

---

The DEA office was the same on Friday as it always was.

When you returned from the Magdalena River bust - as it came to be known - you found that the trash can by your desk still held the forgotten remnants of your last office lunch, someone had used your mug and left it in the sink, and that Steve freaking Murphy had strategically reordered the photographs on your desk.

You were halfway through chewing him out about it and fending off his excuses (“The stack fell over! I was just trying to put them back how I thought they were.”) when Javier Peña and Horacio Carrillo stepped into the office.

The gathered employees, American and Colombian alike, burst into applause. Peña nodded, offering a hint of a smile when Murphy let out a piercing whistle. Carrillo was stone-faced as ever, but his eyes traveled briefly to you. You smiled at him, feeling foolish for clapping when he raised a single brow. But it was all in good fun and provided some much-needed levity in the office, so you kept going.

The shipment of cocaine that had been seized along the Magdalena River was a large one, and that provided the most popular topic of conversation through the day. It was a never-ending source of amusement for you. Stories about the bust ranged from someone tailing Escobar himself and finding the ships to some undercover work by one of the DEA agents. One theory even gave credit to an anonymous tip from someone who had seen the narcos unloading product into the caves. You snorted aloud at that one. If anyone from the office had seen the remoteness of the caves, they would have come up with a better story.

But you couldn’t spare too much time for listening to office gossip. The pile of photographs on your desk was already too large to ignore and it was growing by the hour. You tore through them, discarding or expanding upon notes that previous agents had left on each one. Sometimes the pictures were heavily marked, clearly having been through several stages of analysis before they reached you, but you still checked them diligently. You never knew when you were going to see something others had missed.

“Got a minute?”

You looked up to find Peña standing by your desk. The pile of photographs beckoned and you really didn’t want another week of shunning from jealous office workers, but Peña hadn’t asked when it wasn’t important…

“Now?” you asked, fingers stroking delicately over the photograph you were almost finished analyzing.

Peña shrugged. “Up to you, but sooner would be better.”

With a sigh at the realization that you would end up working late to cover for the time you spent speaking with Peña, you stood and followed him.

Peña led you, unsurprisingly, to the records room.

“If there’s another map in here…” you started, the threat clear in your voice despite the clear lack of concern on Peña’s face.

“No, but I did bring you a present,” he told you. When you gave him a suspicious look, he gestured you through the door to the room.

True to Peña’s word, there was no map on the table in the center of the room. But that table was also empty, and you frowned until you heard someone ask, “What is this?”

You turned, already smiling when your eyes locked with Horacio Carrillo’s. Since you weren’t sure what to say, you settled for a nod in his direction.

Carrillo returned the nod stiffly, though his brown eyes were warm. “What are you doing, Peña? You said you needed me to consult on something.”

“I do,” Peña agreed. “I needed you to tell me what the two of you are doing so I don’t give anything away.”

You arched a brow, glancing at Carrillo as you did. You had been under the impression that Peña knew everything that had happened between you and the handsome colonel.

“What makes you think something is going on between us?” you asked, trying to head off his suspicion with a challenge.

Peña gave you the most disbelieving look you had ever seen. “Yeah. If I don’t believe that line, there’s a good chance no one else will, either. You need to come up with an official story and stick with it.”

Carrillo growled something in Spanish, but it was too low and too rapid for you to catch what it was. In any case, Peña rolled his eyes and shook his head at you both.

“I’ll give you some time to figure it out,” he offered, stepping out of the records room. You made as if to follow him, but the door closed with a sharp snap.

Feeling a little sheepish, you turned to Carrillo, who still hadn’t moved. “I, uh… I guess he meant he’ll give us a few minutes, not a few days.”

“Seems that way,” Carrillo agreed with a shrug.

You nodded slowly, feeling uncertain. It had seemed like you and Carrillo left things in a good place after you had hooked up on Monday evening. He had slept in your tent, snuck out in the gray pre-dawn morning, and you had been casually near each other ever since. He had been more laid-back and talkative when you were dealing with the Magdalena River caves. He had even smiled at you once!

But, when you looked at things in the logical light of day, you had to admit that you hadn’t made any further plans. Sleeping together could have been a one-time thing, a way to relieve some tension or make the most out of a comparative lack of supervision in the field. Just because you couldn’t remember the last time you had cuddled after a one-night stand didn’t mean that it never happened for anyone.

And that left you with no idea of how to proceed with Carrillo.

For lack of anything else to do, you occupied yourself with the table in the center of the room. As you had previously noted, there was no map on it, but you wiped some theoretical dust from its surface before you hopped up to sit on it.

When you looked back at Carrillo, the coronel was watching you. For the first time since you had seen him that day, he was smiling. Well, almost. He looked less severe than he had the other times you had seen him.

“Good morning,” you greeted with a smile.

“It’s almost noon,” he noted, taking a step toward the table.

You shrugged. “Yeah, but this is the first time we’ve spoken all day. I figured I would start from the beginning.”

“Ah,” Carrillo said, understanding dawning in his eyes. “Buenas días, then.”

You aimed another smile in his direction before you focused on your own feet. The toe of each shoe came briefly into view, then disappeared as you swung your legs back and forth.

“Why-” Carrillo’s sudden question cut off before you could hope to guess the rest and you looked at him. He folded his arms behind his back, straightening his posture and letting his expression settle into its usual stern lines. In a moment, he had returned to the tightly buttoned officer you had known him to be. “Are you upset with me?”

“Upset?” you repeated, bewildered. “Why would I be upset with you?”

“Because this…” The explanation trailed off into nothing as Carrillo gestured back and forth between you. “Why is this so uncomfortable?”

You laughed at that. It was loud in the small room, and you were thankful for the file-bearing shelves that lined every wall. At least they dampened the sound and prevented any echoes. Come to think of it, that was probably why people misbehaved in the records room…

A movement from Carrillo pulled your attention back to the moment and your breath caught when you saw him truly smiling. You returned it gladly. “I’m not sure, but it is a weird situation. Maybe we should have planned a little better.”

“If you were not prepared yesterday, the best day to prepare is today,” Carrillo said. He grimaced a moment later. “That sounds better in Spanish. It seems that we should have a conversation.”

You nodded, slipping down from the table in favor of sitting in an actual chair. You gestured for Carrillo to do the same. “Do you want to start?”

“I can if you prefer,” he agreed. After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Carrillo started, “I feel I should apologize.”

Your heart dropped. You were prepared to hear that Carrillo didn’t want to start a relationship with you, but you hadn’t even thought to worry about him regretting your night together. It was something you really didn’t want to hear. “No need. Please.”

He frowned. “I think there is a need. I treated you terribly.”

“No, you were wonderful!” you refuted. “You were much kinder than I expected.”

‘Kind’ wasn’t a compliment you thought most men would enjoy about their skills in the bedroom, but you were too flustered to be anything other than honest.

Carrillo was outright scowling by that point. “Kind? I’ve done nothing but insult and belittle you since we met. I even influenced my men to be suspicious of you. You have a very strange idea of kindness.”

When that sank in, you abruptly felt so much lighter that you could have been floating. You laughed aloud, the situation even funnier when Carrillo started looking as if you had broken into a jig. “I thought you were talking about the Magdalena River bust!”

“I was, at least partially. I treated you poorly and you deserved better. You deserve better now. But I don’t think I can offer it.”

“Horacio…” you protested, voice soft and fearful. You were exhausted from trying to keep up with the conversation, and the longer it continued, the more suspicious you were that he just needed to be rid of his guilt.

“The men of the Search Bloc distrust you,” Carrillo said, looking unreasonably bothered by his own statement. “I cannot convince them that you are trustworthy without explaining why, and that would tell them too much. I do not want to risk you.”

“I’m confused,” you admitted, reaching out and snagging his hand. Carrillo halted instantly, watching you with wary eyes. “Are you saying you don’t want to be together? Or you do and you just want to keep it secret? Or you do and you want to tell your men so they don’t think I’m a spy anymore? Or-”

“Yes, yes, I spoke too much,” Carrillo said irritably. He scrubbed a hand over his head, squeezing his fingers around yours. "But you deserve better than me. You deserve better than all of this."

"All of this?" You frowned. "Carrillo, you remember that I signed up for 'all of this', right? I don't care how you treated me in the past. I don't care if your men are suspicious of me now. I don't care that Steve fucking Murphy keeps reorganizing the pictures on my desk every time I turn around. I asked to be assigned here, because I think I can do some good in this fight. There are times when it isn't fair, it isn't fun, it isn't pleasant. But you-"

You broke off, suddenly aware that you were rambling. "Even if you never want to see me again, you were a bright spot in a very shadowed place, Coronel. I appreciate that."

"This sounds like goodbye," Carrillo noted. He seemed almost calm about it, but a muscle twitching in his cheek hinted at his true feelings.

“Is…” you trailed off, frowning. When you spoke again, your voice was softer, like you were asking him something in private despite the lack of other people in the room. “Is that not what you were working toward? I thought you were trying to let me down easy.”

If the situation weren’t so tense, you would laugh at the rapid procession of looks on Carrillo’s face. His eyebrows shot up, lips parting with his slackened jaw. An instant later, his brows crashed down in confusion and those lips closed once more before forming into a scowl.

You tried to cut his displeasure short. “I’m sorry if I misunderstood-”

“It seems to me that we are speaking in circles,” Carrillo said, taking a deliberate step toward you. You watched, wide-eyed, as he took another and another, steadily approaching until he was standing close enough that you could have touched him with an outstretched hand. “Let me be clear, cariña: I want to be with you. I want it very badly.”

A warm delight tickled the space behind your ribcage and your reply started forming even as you realized Carrillo wasn’t done.

The only reason I would not be with you is if you felt that I have treated you too poorly in the past.” The colonel grimaced. “And you would not be wrong about that. But if you can forgive me, I will work as long as it takes to earn that forgiveness…”

You let him finish what he was saying, if only because you wanted to avoid any possible confusion after everything that had already happened. When you were sure of it, you touched his arms, sliding your hands downward until they were holding his. You were both smiling by that point, and when you pulled him closer, your kiss was sweet and lingering.

“You haven’t done anything to need forgiveness,” you assured him. “I understand how it looked that I watched you all the time. I didn’t mean to be suspicious, but I wasn’t brave enough to start a conversation with you.”

“So does that mean-?” Carrillo started.

You were too eager to let him finish asking the question, especially since you had forgotten to return the sentiment of wanting to be together. “Yes, I definitely want to be with you, coronel. Horacio.”

Carrillo’s full lips tipped up at the edges, clearly pleased that you had used his first name. The last time you had done that was when you hid on the boat before your departure at Puerto Triunfo. You and the handsome coronel had stolen a moment for kisses and tenderness before you split up for the trip back to the Search Bloc’s headquarters.

“That’s a cause for celebration, cariña,” he told you, hands settling in the curve of your waist as he stepped between your legs. You tipped your head back eagerly for him, greedily accepting the deeper kiss he pressed to your lips. “Let me make dinner for you tonight.”

“That- mmm - sounds…” It was difficult to think with the little brushes of lips and tongue over your jaw and neck, but you tried to anyway. “Impossible.”

Carrillo pulled back, looking mildly put out. You patted his chest. “I’m sorry, Horacio. That trip last week put me way behind on work. I’m going to have to stay late tonight just to catch up.”

“I understand,” he told you, though he was clearly reluctant. “I admire your dedication to your work. I always have.”

The skepticism must have shown as clearly in your expression as it did in your mind, because he gave a wry sort of chuckle. “Yes, even when I thought you were a spy. I also thought you were good at your job and put a great deal of time into it. Of course, I also thought your conclusions were only correct because you were working with Escobar…”

You gasped - playfully, but with a smidge of actual offense in it. “That’s rude, coronel. I’m very good at what I do, no inside information necessary.”

“I know that now.” Carrillo’s eyes were warm as his thumb brushed over the curve of your cheek. “You are brilliant. Which is why I find it so frustrating that this office is determined to give credit for the Magdalena River bust to Peña and I. It was your theory that made us look for caverns, then your eyes that helped us find the drugs.”

It was a common piece of wisdom that a sense of humility never helped anyone get ahead in any government agency, especially the DEA. You knew this, but you couldn’t help the bashful duck of your head at Carrillo’s praise. “You guys would have figured it out eventually.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But not without more time and a great deal more money sank into it than anyone would be happy with us spending. You deserve the recognition.”

“I don’t want it,” you insisted. “Honestly, I think people congratulating me would feel like I was taking credit for something I didn’t really do. I mean, I did do it, but only with a team of people more qualified than I am to keep us safe in the field-”

“That is the job, cariña,” he pointed out. “None of us do anything alone. But I will respect your choice. Unless you decide to tell people of your contributions, I will keep quiet.”

“Sounds like you have made some choices,” Peña said, stepping back into the records room. “But I just caught the tail end. Do you need some more time? ‘Keeping quiet’ could go either way.”

You shook your head at him while Carrillo gave a dark glare. You had seen Peña angry and impatient and flirty and wheedling. As far as you were concerned, those comprised the entirety of the Javier Peña emotional spectrum. But this… this was teasing. This was friendly.

The shit-eating grin on his face only cemented that theory in your mind. Peña was still smiling as he said, “That didn’t sound like a ‘no’...”

You said ‘no’ reflexively, but Carrillo opted to answer with a blistering flood of Spanish. You didn’t understand any of it, but you were good enough with context clues to know that none of it had been complimentary.

Peña replied with a suggestion lascivious enough to make your face hot, which irritated you and you brushed past him. “I need to get back to work if I’m going to go home tonight.”

“Aww, planning to go to your own home? By yourself?” Peña asked, tone full of faux disbelief. “I thought better of you, coronel.”

“Peña,” you reprimanded, whirling in place to catch the exaggerated wink he tossed toward you and Carrillo.

“I could kill him, cariña,” Carrillo said, not low enough that Peña couldn't hear. “We would have to run, but the problem would be gone.”

“Pretend you wouldn’t miss me,” Peña told him confidently.

“He’s very obvious, Horacio,” you murmured. “I don’t want everyone to know about us. Not unless we decide it.”

Carrillo’s eyes were very dark as he asked, “What if they already know?”

The question sent a nervous tingle through you. It would be nice to be open about your regard for the handsome coronel, but your relationship was so new and it would almost certainly complicate both of your jobs. The trade was simply not worth it.

So you leaned to the side, peering around him to Peña. “Does anyone suspect anything?”

“How should I know?” Peña asked, leaning comfortably against the wall.

“You’re the prince of the office gossip chain,” you said, patting Carrillo’s arm so he would remember who the king was. “I think you know exactly what everyone out there thinks.”

Peña eyed you for a moment, mouth pursing below his mustache, then gave a reluctant nod. “People have noticed that you’re both missing, but no one thinks you’re spending time together.”

“We have been subtle,” Carrillo told you, idly straightening the collar of your blazer.

“No, not at all,” Peña argued. “People just know how much you dislike her, so they don’t read into anything.”

Carrillo winced, then winced again when you gave a loud laugh. “Again, I thought you were a spy.”

You nodded mutely, fingers pressed to your lips as if reminding yourself to keep quiet. Peña added, “Your men think the same thing.”

“You’ve been so helpful today, Peña,” Carrillo said, his casual tone falling short of covering the venom that dripped from the words. “Remind me to repay the favor next time you meet with a pretty informant.”

“Okay, I’m going back to work now,” you said again. “I mean it this time.”

The feeling of Carrillo’s thumb brushing over your knuckles was enough to weaken your resolve, but the stack of photographs on your desk was calling too loudly to ignore. With a final regretful glance back at the colonel, you returned to your desk.

---

Author's Note - as usual with Fanfic February fics, there will be a second part to this. And also as usual, the second part will be spicy.

Thanks for reading!

#fanfic february #fanfic february 2024 #narcos #horacio carrillo #colonel horacio carrillo #horacio carrillo x reader #horacio carrillo x you #fem!reader #reader #reader insert #reader insert fanfiction #reader insert fanfic #reader insert fic #not suitable for minors #minors dni

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lutiaslayton · 5 months

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So uh. Hi, I finally made a decision I probably should have made a long while ago thanks to talking a bit on Discord: for the sake of my sanity I will not be keeping up the weekly schedule after all 😔 Layton's Book Club updates WILL be posted exclusively on Saturdays at the decided time, instead of at any random time in the week, and I will likely make a few heads up when we're on a lucky week during which you'll get an update, but I will not force myself to make it happen every single week. Simply because at least right now, it is physically impossible for me to do so. (Chapter 1 Part 1 of Illusory Forest is going to be the end of me, and not just because I am still questioning if the author was under the influence of some Folsense gas while writing it.)

That being said, I believe this should actually be treated as good news, and not just good news for my personal health. Because, sure, the updates will not come out as often as I had originally planned to. But in the long run, I actually believe that since I no longer plan to force myself to only work on one thing (which has progressively been eating at my sanity on top of that because darn it this chapter is stupid and it just doesn't seem to END, + it'd be nice if I could finally get some content out that is my creation rather than somebody else's), it means that I will actually allow myself to post more diverse Layton stuff in the meantime.

Stuff like the Evan Barde post I made a few days ago, or other helpful-for-the-fandom stuff that isn't translation work, or… even maybe stuff like finally allowing myself to write SLS and draw random stuff again? Or even read other people’s fanfics and comics and AUs and stuff? (ok technically that last one would probably not lead to tumblr content but shush it means I would take time to look at YOUR content for a change)

The list of stuff I'd like to post in the future includes but is not limited to:

A tutorial on how I get my translation stuff done despite the fact that I do not actually speak Japanese. Best case scenario, this might even lead to some brave people among you to start helping me with this monumental task that is translating multiple novels and games from scratch while you're not even fluent in the language you're translating, and this would be a MASSIVE weight off my back. (spoiler alert: while I do use DeepL to check stuff and/or get inspiration, my work is NOT limited to simply copy/pasting sentences into it and then copy/pasting whatever it gives me back)

The Playthrough series! You had all forgotten about it, hadn't you? Yeah, me too.

Lore analysis stuff in general. I have a massive, absolutely insane project ongoing which is basically "Want to find some info about X? Just open that one (1) web page, enter a few tags such as a specific character's name or location, clich the Search button, and get a list of every single known fact which is related to all of your tags which is summarised down to the bare minimum fact, along with the exact source and quote directly taken from the source material."

Puzzle theory stuff. I've talked about it a lot, it'd be cool if I could finally get the stuff sorted and actually provide all the evidence supporting, refining or challenging it in one place. Above-mentioned lore analysis stuff should help with that.

More fancy shitpost such as the ones found in the #lutiasdraws tag. Let me join in on the fun pls it's good for my mental health to get some serotonin out of non-boring stuff. Heck, perhaps I might even do fanart/shitpost about some fanfics/AUs/others I find and enjoy.

That being said, I apologise to everyone who was hyped at the idea of Illusory Forest updating weekly, but I hope you'll still enjoy the stuff I'll be posting here. If not, blacklisting tags is a thing! I tag everything diligently so for example if you're tired of seeing me ramble about stuff (I do that a lot lately, sorry for that 😭), you can just block the #lutiastalks tag. Yes I finally decided to make #lutiasreplies exclusive to actually replying to asks or reblogs, and use #lutiastalks for random news stuff. yay to self-care and cleaning up my house, head, and tumblr blog.

#lutiastalks

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cheesy-poofs · 1 year

Note

I know you posted the question four days ago so feel free to ignore this, but thoughts on Candy? (Cartman/Wendy)

No problem! I like asks in general so I don't mind. And sorry for the wait I just wanted to make sure this post was at least semi-comprehensible before I posted. I'm not super confident in what I wrote but I'm posting anyway. This isn't an analysis just rambling.

I've said this before, but I like Candy because I considered it before I considered Kyman (at least, before I genuinely shipped Kyman). While, sure its not "as good" as Kyman, I fucking love their episodes together and I love seeing art of it. Honestly its been a comfort ship for me at times, especially since I love Wendy and Cartman both individually as characters. In fact, Wendy is one of my favorite characters in general. I do ship her more with Stan, as "basic" as it is to ship Stendy, but I'm fine with shipping multiple things at once.

I find it so funny that Wendy killed someone before Cartman ever did; it was just to exaggerate how jealous she was in "Tom's Rhinoplasty" but it does make me like the idea of an AU of them where they're both very sociopathic and horribly codependent. I'd love to see mutually jealous / would kill for each other Candy. But obviously these two versions of their characters didn't exist at the same time, and Wendy has changed a lot as a character since then. I find them entertaining later on regardless.

I do like their plot in "Chef Goes Nanners" in fact its the only reason I revisit that episode. The scenes where they're working together are adorable, and Wendy's "wet dream" kills me 😭

I kinda feel bad for Cartman at the end, when Wendy admits her feelings vanished after they kiss and he just pretends he's not crushed about it and sadly walks away. But it does help the theory that Cartman very easily develops crushes on people/attaches to people. I'm not great at wording this particular aspect of his character, so I'll move on.

I think this is another one-sided ship though. Wendy...well, is kind of a slut (and I would assume that Cartman calling her one in his book in "Dances with Smurfs" has to do with how heartbroken he was after she kissed him then moved on lol). Later on she genuinely hates Cartman and wants nothing to do with him. Not that I think Cartman loves her or anything, but he likely still finds her attractive. So a lot of my ideas with them as their current characters involves Wendy randomly getting horny for him, leading to her sleeping around with him; maybe it happens when Stan and Wendy are having their 40th break-up of the week or are taking a break from each other (I've gotta give credit where its due, a lot of this is probably influenced by your art). As I mentioned she doesn't like Cartman, so her casually hooking up with Cartman would most likely be a situation where she's thinking more with her clit than her brain...or maybe it would be a hate fuck lmao. Maybe that's OOC though. That all aside, I think they're really cute and funny together. I love characters that are opposites so good to know Trey and I have the same taste in ships.

Sometimes I feel obligated to have ships where I plan on the characters committing to each other romantically, like dating or marriage. But its also fun to imagine them hooking up for the hell of it and that's where I am with Candy. I think people have been shipping it for a long time too (like since Season 1?), but I don't know the full history of this fandom.

TL;DR I like Candy a lot, probably irrationally so.

#btw I never look at the fandom wiki for these so if it feels like I am; I'm not lol a lot of this is from my own memory #asks

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biblicalhorror · 2 years

Text

Zaylor Midnights, Part I

Okay time to actually start typing things out for my beloved Zaylor/Toë Nation

First things first, please complete your essential reading on the subject.

Second, some disclaimers:

-This is just for fun. Some of it is playfully reaching for sure. You don't have to buy into it, but please keep an open mind and come along for the ride! We'd love to have you!

-I refuse to assign a specific sexuality to any of these people due to the fact that I don't know any of them personally. All I know is I just get ✨️more than friends✨️ vibes from these two. You don't have to agree with me, but please don't waste my time by being rude about it.

-My personal fan relationship to celebrities includes freely criticizing them for things they do that I don't agree with. It's fine if that's not your style, but please don't be surprised when I call someone a spineless capitalist or nepotism baby. If the shoe fits...

-Somewhat related to the above point: I'm also an Astrology Gay. That means that I may occasionally mention astrological compatibility and things of that nature. Again, if that's not your cup of tea, that's fine! You don't have to believe in it. But my personal philosophy is to weigh all of the evidence available, and I happen to know a lot about astrology, which means some of my "evidence" may come from there. So I will likely be talking about their signs a bit. If not in this post, then in future ones.

-The main goal of this post (and other Zaylor posting I may do in the future) is to diversify the perspectives in the Gaylor community. I have nothing against Karlie Kloss or Dianna Agron, but I am bored of nearly every Gaylor analysis being linked back to one of those two. I think it's time for a Zaylor Era.

That being said, let's get into it song by song, shall we?

1. Lavender Haze

Not that this is definitely true, but there has been some speculation among Gaylors for some time that Zoë is the muse for many of the love songs on Reputation and onwards. There's not much hard evidence of this, but it's worth noting that Zoë and Taylor were first seen in public together in October of 2016 (6 years + 1 week before Midnights would be released)

Taylor says this song specifically is about ignoring all the "weird" (pregnancy/engagement) rumors and just focusing on her partner of 6 years. This "partner" could be Joe. I'm not saying it's definitely not. But what if it's been Zoë this whole time?

"Staring at the ceiling with you" Zoë Kravitz, known stoner, and her boyfriend/girlfriend, baby stoner Taylor Swift:

Lavender Haze is a popular Indica strain of weed known to be very relaxing/calming but also boost creativity in regular marijuana users. Zoë is one of the officially listed writers (and backup singers) on this song. The thought of them writing a song together about being in love and also high on their favorite weed strain makes me giggle.

"I've been under scrutiny... You handle it beautifully... all this shit is new to me" >>> Zoë is a nepotism baby, very much used to fame and growing up in the music industry specifically, very much Above It All (we'll come back to this later)

Taylor was just quoted in this article talking about Zoë's strong "sense of self" and "honest inner compass" idk about you, but that certainly lends itself to theories that this above-it-all muse who doesn't seem to care at all what people think could be someone who was right under our noses this whole time.

Also note: this is for GQ's "Men of the Year" series. That + this fruity ass outfit should be noted...

"No deal... the 1950s shit they want from me/ I just wanna stay in that lavender haze"

Could easily be interpreted in a queer context, since the 1950s are famous for anti-gay propaganda such as the Lavender Scare, the prevalence of the Hays Code, etc.

Essentially, this could recontextualize this song as an act of rebellion against social norms of gender and sexuality through private, personal expressions of queer love. Given that the song doesn't explicitly say any of those things out loud, it's kind of a toothless act of rebellion, but I digress. Both of these women are exorbitantly rich, extremely famous, bad at taking criticism/admitting fault, and prone to escapism. Classic Sagittarius behavior tbh (/j)

Oh, I'm sure.

Another note from the end of that GQ article: Zoë says this about her new relationship with Channing Tatum (rumored to be PR as they are costars in an upcoming movie):

Interesting wording here.

This song is about being a Sag 4 Sag lesbian stoner couple. Moving on.

2. Maroon

This song is likely about Lily or Karlie, could have some ties to Dianna, but probably not about Zoë so all I will say is:

She for sure burns incense/owns a vinyl shelf. Look at her.

3. Anti-Hero

Not a romantic song per se, but lends to the Lover coming out theory:

"Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism" w the visual of covering up a lavender glitter bleeding heart with a political pin... cmon

Also, Catwoman (recently played by Zoë) is an extremely famous example of an antihero. Taylor uses a lot of Batman/Catwoman callouts in this album, in the song titles specifically.

4. Snow on the Beach

"I saw flecks of what could've been but it might just have been you passing by unbeknownst to me"

Again, Toë hung out in public for the first time at the Bowery in 2016 in a big group of friends. This song describes the feeling of having a crush on someone you thought couldn't possibly be reciprocated but it turns out huh!! They like you too!! Beyond how gay that situation is already, Verified Cool Girl Zoë Kravitz absolutely could have come across particularly aloof in their first few meetings. Her name (and reputation/public image) is all about being a Cool Girl. This song could be about Taylor being shocked that someone as cool as Zoë could actually like her back.

"My flight was awful, thanks for asking, I'm unglued thanks to you" parallels with the Gold Rush line "Falling feels like flying till the bone crush". It's happened. Taylor fell for her, and feels like a mess because of the feelings this has brought up.

A note from the gospel power point:

"I searched aurora borealis green, I've never seen someone lit from within, blurring out my periphery" as in. She searched for the green light. The go-ahead. In the eyes of her crush, she's desperately searching for validation that what she feels is reciprocated. She seems to find what shes looking for, and describes her love interest as glowing from within. My girl loves a Great Gatsby reference. (As an aside: this is one of my favorite lines on the whole album. It's so vivid. Gives me chills every time.)

The six-year muse is often referred to with star/shooting star motifs ("Starry eyes sparkin' up my darkest night," "Eyes full of stars," "Stars in your eyes shined brighter in Tupelo," "Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes," etc.) Zoë has at least 6 star tattoos in various placements on her body (not to mention at least 3 different snakes, one of which is coiled around a heart)

"Stars by the pocketful" could be a reference to the star tattoos on Zoë's hands being in Taylor's pockets as they cuddle for warmth in the snow. (I'm aware the snow in this song is likely metaphorical, but how cute is that mental image?)

5. You're On Your Own, Kid

Again, not a romantic song. Also not (particularly) gay, so we'll skip this one for now.

6. Midnight Rain

A song that could very well be about comphet and mourning for the easy life that you could have as a heterosexual. But lots of people have talked about this already and it is not particularly relevant to Toë/Zaylor, so I won't waste too much time on it.

7. Question...?

Gay. Probably not about Zoë though. This song seems very retrospective, like she lost the person she's describing. These two seem like they're still very close, so it's unlikely this song has anything to do with Zoë.

-----

That's all Tumblr mobile will let me fit into one post, so we're gonna have to take an intermission there!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Coming Soon)

#taylor swift x zoe kravitz #zaylor #toë #gaylor #bored at work and decided fuck it we post #happy sag season babies time for chaos

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grimaider · 4 months

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They Were Always Allowed: A Personal Theory of TV Girl’s Hit "Not Allowed"

Hello internet, it's grim.

I just wanted to quickly thank everyone that went a read my last long post! My last post is probably the most popular piece of literary and analytical content that I have ever written, so I am happy that my writing is being seen by those in the community. As I start to write more over this year, I want a place to share my content beyond Tumblr, so if you're interested, I have opened up an Instagram account focused on advertising my blog here.

For this post, I plan to talk about another major interest of mine: Music and lyrical analysis. It's not something that I am totally great at yet, so please bare with me. Thank you.

Who Really Cares: The Inescapable Album of 2023

One of my favorite hobbies over the past few years has been rating albums and songs that I come across. It was something that I had picked up on when I was in 8th grade, and it helped me handle my emotions and stresses during a time of abuse. Now, as a college student, I rate albums as a past time, and I have come to enjoy it. In fact, a few of my college essays have revolved around music artists and the impact their music had on the world and myself.

Here are a few of the albums that I have rated over the past 5-6 months on AOTY.

Now for most albums, the rating process is fairly boring. I go through an album, pick out what songs I enjoyed and hated, and give my rating. Nothing out of the ordinary. But every once in a while, an album comes around that, for whatever reason, people on the internet flip the hell out over (regardless of whether the album is "good" or "bad").

90% of the time, I tend to wipe these albums off my list of albums to rate, typically because these albums tend to be overrated in some way, shape, or form. But in 2023, I could simply not get away from TV Girl's 2016 album, Who Really Cares. Despite the album turning 8 years old as of this year, I have still seen this album appear numerous times on YouTube shorts, Instagram stories, Instagram Reels, Twitter memes, and Spotify playlists. In fact, the reason why I even know of TV Girl is due to the fact that an ex of mine dedicated their hit song "Not Allowed" to me after our breakup. So I gave the album a 78/100 and moved on with my life (and my AOTY rating can be found here).

Fun fact: The source image for Who Really Cares originates from George M. Hester's The Classic Nude (Reddit). Arguably one of my favorite album covers of all time.

Most of the songs on the album aren't bad, and the unique sampling is extremely entrancing, but the album sounds the same throughout, with most songs lacking individual uniqueness. There were many instances in which I would attempt to write a short take on individual songs just to realize that I would be pointing out the exact same lyrics between two songs. For instance, "Not Allowed" and "For You" both use the "never intend to do what you say at all" line, which I found funny. While this could've been TV Girl using the line as a thematic or symbolic purpose throughout their album, it just felt lazy, especially since this doesn't occur in other albums that they've produced. Albums such as Summer's Over and Lonely Women were much better in terms of order, structure, and thematic principles than Who Really Cares, and neither of them have the repetition issue either.

"Not Allowed" and Misogyny : The Anthem of "Male Manipulators"

After rating and criticizing Who Really Cares back in mid-December, I didn't think too much else about it. Most of the traction around TV Girl started to die down, I started hearing their Tiktok-styled songs less, and many people started to drop the album as social media algorithms led the masses to other albums. Personally, I just liked a couple of songs and downloaded the album cover, and moved on.

A few weeks go by since I listened to the album and I decide that I want to change my profile picture on Steam. Not thinking anything of it, I changed my profile picture from Fleetwood Mac's Then Play On to a close-up of the man on the cover for Who Really Cares. Nothing too crazy, but this does go somewhere.

I hop into a good ol' game of CS2 with a few of my friends. We rage and get our asses kicked as per usual, but we eventually get paired up with another team that is more on our playing level. At the beginning of the game, everything was going well. Both teams were at about 3 or 4 points, so there was a chance of us winning. However, during the middle of the game, one of the teammates on the other team makes a comment about my profile picture being TV Girl, and claims that I was a listener of "male manipulator music." What?

I was so confused by what their teammate was talking about. What the hell is a "male manipulator?" Is it a man that manipulates people? Who is he manipulating? What does he get out of manipulating the subject in question? Or is it a woman that manipulates naive men? What does she get out of it? These questions wrapped around my brain that I had to team kill like three of my teammates to get off of CS2 to go do some research about this term.

Now from what I researched, there does not seem to be an official definition for the term "Male manipulator music." So I did what every other being on the internet does: I looked it up on Urban Dictionary.

Worst discovery ever. I listen to The Smiths, Deftones, and TV Girl so this is like my own personal 9/11.

In short, "male manipulator music" is a subgenre of artists and bands that have a fanbase of men that tend to manipulate women. Their unique yet depressing taste in music is sometimes used to reel in emotionally damaged and/or naive women into harmful relationship dynamics, hurting both the artist and their fanbase. It would be fair to argue that these men are almost like parasites to fanbases rather than part of a fanbase.

But this led me down a much larger rabbit hole regarding TV Girl that I had no run into back in December. Why is TV Girl thrown into this category of "male manipulator music?" So I went digging, and boy did I find some stuff:

(btw all the images are linked to my sources if you are interested in reading further)

Let's just say there are accusations galore about TV Girl and being misogynistic. From the lyric writing to the sampling sources, numerous cases and analyses have been written on TV Girl being misogynistic. Now, most of these are regarding different songs from TV Girl, so most of these might not apply to "Not Allowed," but then I kept running into more posts claiming that the entire point of TV Girl was to simply be misogynistic. That their aesthetic, mindset, and point of view was meant to put down women in a negative light as if men are superior, non-flawed beings. And the more I dug, the larger the accusations became.

Pack it up boys, we aren't allowed to listen to TV Girl anymore...

I was completely shocked. A song that I had picked up from an ex that helped me get through a rough spot in my life was now the target of a much larger campaign of women online claiming such music was meant to put them down? I wouldn't even care too much about the whole phenomenon, but it gets brought ALL THE TIME. And TV Girl has been making music for over 10 years.

With this rabbit hole successfully uncovered, I decided to write down the overall points that many critics point out regarding TV Girl's music.

TV Girl is misogynistic because:

Lyrics describe women in a humiliating and/or degrading manner

Songs are associated with or attract the previously mentioned "male manipulators"

TV Girl sympathizes with the male psyche post-heartbreak

Now that I had a list of reasons why people argue that TV Girl's discography is misogynistic, I am going to try my best to not only debunk these, but give my own personal interpretation of "Not Allowed," which I believe has been heavily misinterpreted and improperly characterized as an anthem for possessive, manipulative men.

Whack-A-Theory and Debunking Misogyny Claims

But before we can talk about the reasons why TV Girl's "Not Allowed" is misogynistic, we must first figure out just what "Not Allowed" is about.

According to the general consensus (aka the Internet), "Not Allowed" is a song about:

The feelings of a man who is rejected by a woman who is in love with someone else.

A man who fears to speak his thoughts on a love interest due to a fear of being socially criticized for speaking about sex.

Slut-shaming a woman who has rejected the singer.

Now, these are all very different theories, and even though they might sound similar since they revolve around a relationship dynamic filled with blurred lines, the implications of these theories vastly differ.

If any of these were MOST LIKELY to be true, it would be theory one. Let me explain:

First of all, "Not Allowed" DOES talk about sex. I'm not entirely sure why the second theory is thrown around so often in the TV Girl community, but it simply does not make any sense regarding the song. Furthermore, any basic research into the intro sample of "Not Allowed" would lead you to the feminist rap group Yeastie Girlz, which were known for their raunchy yet pro-women stance on sexual openness. In fact, the "song" that the sample is from is called "You Suck," which is a recording of the Yeastie Girlz talking about female oral sex in their album titled, Ovary Action:

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For TV Girl to use such a raunchy sample in a song that is NOT supposed to talk about sex seems a bit ironic. While it could be argued that these underlying variables are meant to poke fun at the stigma of sexual talk, it wouldn't make sense for TV Girl to use those same elements as a way to insult the girl's partner either.

Take for example:

"But now he's playing with your head But did he ever make you cum?" Personally it doesn't make sense to me why TV Girl would take a jab at the sex stigma by using sexual acts to describe his bitter attitude. Furthermore, TV Girl pokes at the girl's sexual partner (or partners), singing:

"But how quickly they [the sonnets] turn sour So be careful who you screw."

Again, TV Girl's excessive use of raunchy samples and the jabs that the singer takes at sex itself doesn't add up to this theory. No one here is benefits from the negative usage of sex in the song, making this theory seem false.

While the second theory seems like complete bogus, the third theory could hold some weight. However, I think that there is more to this theory than what is presented online. While I will argue that the singer is shaming sexual actions within the song, I would say that the singer is taking more jabs at himself and the girl's current partner rather than the girl herself. Going back to the "messing with your head" lyric, TV Girl doesn't seem to take a jab at the girl having sexual intercourse with her current partner, but they seem to take a jab at the partner and how bad they might be doing at satisfying the girl's sexual needs. While one could argue that a jab at the girl's partner throws her in as collateral, the singer makes it very clear that his feelings towards himself are not great either, stating:

"I guess it's different 'cause you love him But I've got an interactive Sick and twisted imagination And that's gotta count for something" While the singer does not degrade himself to the same level that the girl's partner is subjected to, it is important to note that the girl is the one person in this entire song that is degraded THE LEAST. Not only does this disprove theory three, but it also disproves theories one and three of why "Not Allowed" is misogynistic. If "Not Allowed" was meant to take jabs at women, it would focus way more on the girl's actions rather than the singer and the girl's partner. Furthermore, the second theory on why TV Girl is misogynistic is just a lazy attempt to play the guilty by association fallacy. The only reason I would defend this argument was if "Not Allowed" was truly ripping on the girl the entire time throughout this song, which does not happen. Also, why would TV Girl use Yeastie Girlz as a sample if they wanted to push an anti-woman anthem? None of the reasons posted on TikTok make sense, and the fact that people pushed these theories regarding TV Girl's "Not Allowed" seems silly and lazy.

We Were Once Allowed, But TikTok Thinks We're Strangers

Now we are down to just one theory. I purposely held off the first theory because my theory and the first theory are pretty similar. While I do believe that the song revolves around the feelings of a man who is rejected by a woman who is in love with someone else, I believe we are hearing the perspective of a jealous ex rather than a stranger.

Let me explain:

When I first heard this song, it was after I had broken up with my ex. I'll spare you the details, but I've always seen this song as an ex that felt like he was pushed out of the way for another guy that was waiting for the girl to leave.

"Now you suck We wanna talk about sex but we're not allowed Well, you may not like it but you better learn how 'cause it's your turn now You're wasting your tongue with lame excuses and lies" This part is the singer talking about the girl, saying that she sucks. He goes onto say that they wanna talk about the sexual aspects of their relationship but they are no longer allowed to. I would argue that the singer is making the assumption that his ex is truly not over him and just hopped into a relationship for a rebound. The singer says it's the girl's turn now to hear what he has to say and that she should shut up and listen to what's in store. It could be implied that she has also gone around and spread a false narrative against the singer.

"So how should I begin this? I guess it started when you were with him. And how he never even took you out to dance But did he fuck with any rhythm?" Here we see that the singer is collecting his thoughts on when he was first made uncomfortable with the girl's new partner. He explains that the girl's partner never took her out to dance, implying that he might've during their relationship. The "fuck with any rhythm" could be taken as either him liking any music or rhythmic sexual intercourse. "But now he's playing with your head But did he ever make you cum? Did he ever make you cry?"

Moving on from the dance, the singer now leaves us with a dilemma. He claims that the girl's partner is playing with her head, which can be seen as the singer altering the truth to make the girl seem dumb, or he realizes that the girl is being taken advantage of for her partner's own sexual gratification. Personally, I'm choosing the latter. The singer then asks if her partner makes her cum or cry. Since this is in the past tense, it could be argued that this fling soon dies out or this is the current partner asking if the singer ever made the girl cum or cry, and the singer is just repeating the thoughts of the current partner.

"Do the wires in your mind get sewn together Rubbed and severed by the heat You don't know how long I could stare into your picture And wish that it was me" The singer now asks if there is a personal bond built between the girl and her partner. Based on the previous assumptions, we could argue "Yes" or "No." I would argue "yes" because the next line shows that the girl has taken pictures with the other person in question, making the singer wish that it was him. Again, this could also be seen as him feeling as if he is incapable of controlling ex or he's just jealous that she's with someone else after all that she's supposedly done.

"I guess it's different 'cause you love him But I've got an interactive Sick and twisted imagination And that's gotta count for something" Based on this, I feel like the ex might've complained about the singer's sexual habits. It might be implied here that the ex was disgusted by the singer's sexual interest towards her, but now it's different because it's someone else. The singer then gives himself the positive, claiming that his graphic imagination must be worth something.

Skipping the chorus becuase it's the same as the intro and I don't feel like repeating myself

"I dreamt I was standing in your doorstep Licking sweat off of your forehead With your finger in my mouth And the sound when leather jackets hit the ground" This could be the singer reminiscing on a past scenario in which he and the girl in question are being sensual. Nothing more to analyze. "You should hear when you're not around When it's just us horny poets Who can't wait to write it down And swear we were only being honest." I believe this excerpt is the singer rubbing the past into the face of the girl's partner. Almost like a "yeah we used to have sex too y'know" moment. It could also be the singer implying that him and his ex have made small talk since they've broken up, attempting to come to closure. Nonetheless, it's clear that this was aimed at the girl's partner rather than the girl.

"Do you like these little sonnets 'Cause I wrote them just for you But how quickly they turn sour So be careful who you screw And never call. And I'm starting to suspect You don't intend to do anything you say at all."

After taking his shot at the girl's partner, the singer seems to take aim at the girl. This time, he's offering a set of sonnets he's written about her, but they all have a bad ending. He claims that the sonnets are written this way because she had sex with him and then (possibly) ghosted him afterwards. He then finishes up the excerpt by assuming that his ex was a liar. This could be seen as the singer uncovering an abusive relationship between him and his ex.

"All by yourself, sittin' alone I hope we're still friends, yeah, I hope you don't mind." This is the part that led me to making this entire post. How could the singer and the girl "still be friends" if there was nothing else to begin with? You can't be friends with someone you never knew. This stupid verse led me to travel down a whole rabbit hole and a half just to give my own interpretation of the song, and I have no regrets. The singer is simply mocking the girl breaking up with the singer, claiming that they could still be friends and that she hope he doesn't mind, which is a common tactic that abusers might use after a relationship to hold some sort of control over their victim. This could be seen as an innocent ending to a falling out, or the ex looking for an avenue to hold onto the singer while he struggles with his own thoughts.

Conclusion

Regardless of whatever theory I or anyone on the internet come up with, I believe this song acts as a great litmus test as one's attitudes towards relationships. When I was scrolling through theories and the misogyny rabbit hole, I noticed that many people who wrote about "Not Allowed" focused on inputting their own experiences into the song, writing their theory as if the song was about their relationship. I would even argue that I did the same, and that's completely okay. I made this with the intent of simply debunking what has already been said about the song. While I think that anyone can have an opinion on what this song is supposed to represent, I didn't think any theory prior to mine was "the" meaning (as in what people should take the song as at face value). To put simply, I do not think that this song was about a male manipulator waiting to prey on his next victim, but the girl in question doesn't love him. If it was, then it wouldn't fit into Who Really Cares at all, for the album is about Brad's (the lead singer) troubled relationships with women. I think that's what people ran to because a majority of TV Girl's fanbase is women who have had shitty relationships, regardless of whether it was their fault or not. This has then led to TV Girl's reputation being about male manipulators because all the women in their fanbase simultaneously fear abusive men (and rightfully so). TV Girl simply reinforces that it could be either side's fault depending on how you look at both sides' cruel and immature behavior towards the fallout. I also found inspiration for this song analysis from NEOPUNK (it's a good listen check it out):

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If you've read through the entirety of this damn blog post without knowing about the song I've been rambling about, give it a listen. It's pretty good:

And with that, I'm tired. Good night. ~grimaider.

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