yeah ok I like thinking about 07's mental state. his memory is rotting from the inside out and he's always like One Bad Day away from doing shit he really shouldn't, but in his moments of calm and clarity he's like. scarily intelligent. it's so rarely interspersed between him searching for information on something he can't physically understand and being a tier 9 freakzoid. most of the time he can't remember what he ate 2 hours ago, or where he lived all his childhood, or the name of his siblings, but sometimes he'll look at you and talk about the ambient heat radiation of the grid and how it affects the electrical wiring in modern computers. and then he'll call himself stupid because hes !!!! some kind of idiot who doesn't trust his own memory thanks to the mental illnesses!!! he's intelligent and he knows all these things he just had the equivalent of getting the whole library of the universe zapped into his mind and then removed from his brain !! gah!!
Alright putting my more fully formed first day thoughts below. It's a mixed bag for me. Fyi I will tag anything that's not fully positive with my usual #negativity tw and #discourse tw for those who prefer to focus on solely happy things 🧡 Besides this I'm planning to share almost entirely positive things this weekend since I want to enjoy the parts I love with everyone!
Disclaimer that these are just my opinions. I try to use language that consistently makes that clear, but please imagine every single line starts with "in my opinion"
What I Loved:
The first two tracks (Ophelia -> Elizabeth Taylor) are so fun and easily two of my favorites. I thought they were a great combo to open the album
My interpretation of father figure as a blank space style satire of how people view her relationship with young female artists. Also love the sound of the song (because I love the sound of the original song probably haha)
Some fun moments I absolutely love like "you're only as hot as your last hit baby" / "you made a deal with the devil turns out my dick's bigger" / "how many times has your boyfriend said why are we always talkin bout her?"
I feel like there's a realness / messiness to it, which I enjoy
The photoshoot is so beautiful and interesting I want to see a million photos from it. Also soooo curious about the artistic direction of the upcoming MV
CANCELLED! - the sound is fun and when I view it solely through the context of women being cancelled for mostly harmless or just low-key human things men do with no problem, I enjoy it. I *think* from the lyrics that's what she was going for. Like the Kim/ye thing -> she's cancelled but then proven right later paralleling things like the Blake lively situation. But in the current political climate and the specific people she's publicly hanging out with, it's hard for me not to see this as having a pro-"people can have different political views and still be friends" thing. Like I don't think that's the intent but it's hard to shake that feeling. So I chalk this up to out of touch / I wish I knew less about her so I could enjoy the music without the context.
A lot of songs have ties back to Taylor's past music and I love finding threads that connect or could be connected
I mostly enjoy every song in some way and can see a lot of these growing on me. Nothing is outright horrible (not that I expect that from taylor anyways but expectations met in that it's solid all the way through for me).
What I Have Mixed Feelings On / Am Still Processing:
Production - there are some songs I really love the sound of and some details that are so lovely. Unfortunately quite a few songs gave me a specific feeling I've had a lot with other artists lately where there's such a clear reference or popular style being used but there's not enough for me to feel like it's fresh and new. Like my brain is just cycling thinking "where have I heard this before". I think it's fine to reference even heavily sometimes but I want it to be done in a unique way that distinguishes it more + I have higher expectations from songs that have more noticeable references. (Also it feels like every artist is pulling from the same inspirations lately and I really want some different production styles.)
High school reference again - sometimes I think her high school references work but honestly I'd love an album without them. Not a big deal or anything but I think this a lot.
What I Don't Like:
Some of the songs remind me of her snl parody songs lol. I do enjoy her parody songs but not sure how I like the vibe in these specific moments (thinking the "wow" in wi$h li$t, etc)
The Romance of it all - I find it odd how little standalone romance there is. Like so many of her recent romantic songs are either about the sex being good or comparing her current romance to past romances / being saved by her partner. It doesn't feel romantic to me tbh. And like that's fine and her personal life isn't my business and maybe she's just going for such a specific style in this album. But for me it's like she had these songs I felt captured such a beautiful, authentic view of love (lover, you are in love, etc.) and I miss that perspective and kind of thought we'd get more of that.
The Charli diss track - admittedly I love this as a song and I'm a hater. From a pop culture / opinion point of view I find it odd. Like the first two lines hint at more behind the scenes but publicly Charli 100% has the goodwill (and the song being referenced doesn't come off as a dig at Taylor at all + charli publicly shut down her fans that were being gross towards Taylor). Not saying Charli is a good person or right or Taylor shouldn't write about her especially if Charli was instigating. But from a pr perspective I think Taylor could've done more to make it land better. Does it matter what the public opinion is? I guess not. But as a fan I would've liked that.
Use of Father Figure sampling - mixed feelings and still working through my thoughts, but I find it odd that she chose an iconic queer song to re-purpose in this way. But it does bring more appreciation to the original song.
Overall writing - I need more time reading the lyrics. Some things I enjoyed, some things I didn't. I think I like it more than ttpd writing-wise but not as much as her other albums.
Emphasis on sex - I'm bored of this in music generally. Nothing against Taylor doing it specifically but it's not something that speaks to me.
Uncomfortable with the use the word bitch referring to other women. Im soft and I'm just not fan of that especially in the current cultural climate and the specific contexts for it too.
Expectations set by marketing vs actual content - to me this doesn't match at all what I think the album was marketed as. I don't think it's a huge deal like that's how marketing goes. But I did love both the feel of the imagery (glamorized showgirl life with dark edge) and the way Taylor described it in new heights (backstage look at a showgirls life but glamorized, sitting in the bathtub after a show and not being able to sleep because your heads still racing). To me, this is a standard Taylor content album (romance, tension with other celebrities, and struggles with fame + mostly mid tempo pop) and the sound doesn't create a distinct feel for me (like midnights did). I guess I thought it'd delve into some new topics or have new perspectives on things or even just more of a nod to eras tour. Barring that I was hoping for midnights feel with a specific sound that connects to the vision (midnights has a sound that takes me to the sleepy, moving through syrup thoughts that are maybe a dream like there's a bubble over the emotion). I hear people say it's about her life and what she was thinking about during that time, but to me that still doesn't match my personal expectations (that's on me but still a bit of a bummer).
I really love the tightrope strained relationship between Kuras and Vere. The rivalry/friendship between Ais and Leander. Vere’s hatred for Leander that we still don’t understand. And then there’s Mhin, who’s just picking a fight with everyone (aside from Kuras ofc)
truth scrapper trailer theories/speculation/thoughts:
so i was not planning to be as interested in this game as i am now.
of course i was going to check out the game when it came out, considering how normal i've been about isat for the past (checks steam) eleven months, but none of the descriptions really grabbed me pre-trailer. mostly because i'm not a romance person.
i'm still not particularly interested in the romance, although betz in particular is very pretty. but all the other stuff? the memory mechanics? the visual style? the lore? i'm so invested now.
and i have thoughts. am i going way too far into the speculation trenches for a game that only has a single trailer out? probably. am i having fun theorizing and analyzing every detail i can find? absolutely.
part 1: sosette's condition
so i've already seen some people speculate on sosette being a system, given her tendency to describe herself using "we" and "us" and the detached way she tends to treat the former versions of herself.
while the evidence is definitely there (and the post linked earlier makes some really good points), i actually don't read it that way.
there's definitely some parallels there even if sosotte's got her own thing going on, and there's not any evidence that she's not necessarily a system, but to me this feels more like a consequence of her memory condition where she considers herself separate from her past and previous selves because they don't share memories (besides what's written in her scrap book). as in, every day a new sosotte, but there's exactly one sosotte existing at any given time, if that makes sense.
it's a fascinating question: are you still the same person if you don't remember your past? sosotte doesn't seem to think so. each day is a new beginning — quite literally — for her in a world she's never seen before. each sosotte is different, for the single day that she gets to live.
on a meta level, there's also the comparison to all the different sosottes we can create by choosing what she gets to remember. the sosotte that chooses to focus on amour and learn more about her may end up understanding the world differently than the one who falls for betz. one may focus on the mystery of the dwell and finding clues. one may try to remember as much as she can about the people she's met.
but there's also the question of how her condition fits into the larger world.
part 1.5: the truth scrappers guild
so i don't think sosotte's condition is unique. or, at least, not as unique as i initially assumed it was.
(photo from the game's steam page)
(from this interview with insertdisc5)
to me, this makes it sound like memory issues and forgetting might be a relatively common thing among members of sosotte's guild, and while she may have it particularly bad she's not the only one with problems. of course, we haven't (as far as i know) seen any other truth scrappers yet to confirm this. (besides the intern who runs the @/truthscrapper blog. if you happen to see this and have anything to add, i'd love to hear it!)
side note: there's an interesting dichotomy between the truth scrappers being both researchers (a role typically tasked with learning more about the world) and wanting to forget (aka abandoning knowledge). which actually ties back to the title! it could mean truth scrappers as in scrapping (casting away) the truth, or piecing together scraps (like sosette's scrap book!) of truth, or also to scrap (fight) the truth, or probably some other definition that'll become more clear once the game is out.
i also am currently running with the theory that sosotte's memory condition is — at least partially — self-inflicted.
we know that saturated items seem to have at least some special abilities (like sosotte's scrap book, which helps her remember things). and, especially if the truth scrappers guild is composed of multiple people with both the desire to forget things and holes in their memory, then that feels like too much of a coincidence to not be intentional. perhaps the severity of sosotte's condition is due to a mistake in whatever saturation ritual she followed. perhaps she's simply affected differently than the others.
there's also the scene with the forget-me-not flower that shows up multiple times in the trailer. (might be real. might be a flashback. might be a dream sequence. who knows at this point.)
i want to forget, the label says. i do wonder what sosotte is running from. what the others who were lost in the dwell were running from, if all the truth scrappers have pasts they'd rather leave behind.
(the dwell, the setting is called. to dwell on unpleasant memories, to be forced to remember what you tried to forget. i could see that breaking someone.)
part 2: saturated items and color theory
truth scrapper’s “magic system” seems to be based around the concept of Saturated Items, like sosotte’s scrap book. how these work, i don’t know yet, besides the fact that there’s apparently rituals involved in making them? saturating them? one of those terms.
but what i do know is that they’re also saturated. as in color. as in the world appears to be literally grayscale (hey, that sounds familiar) except for these items. and maybe some other stuff.
which means that when things are in color, they're probably important. especially when this isn't the first time insertdisc5 has made splashes of color in a grayscale world plot relevant.
unlike isat, there's a lot of color around, though, which means there's quite a bit to analyze.
a) saturated items seem to be fairly common in-universe. we can see (presumably) sosotte making several saturated items in the trailer, and nearly every character we meet seems to have at least some element of color to them, whether that's their clothes or their hat or their other accessories. in addition, there are larger colored items like a couple of the houses behind the betz brigade or the lampposts in the screenshot with betz. whether these are actually saturated items or just a way to mark important things, i'm not entirely sure, but i'm leaning towards the in-universe explanation. (they're also shaded differently but i think *that's* just because they're background objects and not hand-drawn)
b) most characters don't have any color themselves, and only their accessories are saturated. with three notable exceptions: amour has red hair, the betz brigade member on the left has a purple streak in their hair, and marcel has purple eyes. so can you saturate parts of yourself? is saturated dye a thing? is this something anyone can do or are these three special? i'm particularly interested in marcel, because
c) there's a lot of eye imagery here. two members of the betz brigade have eyes on their hats: so does caro, and even sosette has two eyes on her hat. there's also the symbol on both sosette's scrapbook and one of the sticky notes in the image with betz, which looks similar to an eye. (or it's a change symbol, with circles in circles in circles.)
even sosotte's saturated items have eyes on them.
eyes representing truth. knowledge. to see things that might otherwise be kept hidden. not everything colored has eyes, but a lot of it does, which makes me wonder if this is more of a symbolic thing or has tangible impact on a saturated item's properties.
so. back to marcel, who's the only one with colored eyes. can you see things that others can't? what do you know? what are you hiding? i'm very suspicious.
part 3: this one screenshot from the steam page
(didn't fit anywhere else but i needed to say something)
why is there second person dialogue in the first person game. it’s in parentheses so i doubt it’s spoken dialogue, and it could be sosotte talking to her future selves but also. the text is orange. when it’s usually black for external dialogue and green when it’s sosotte thinking. who are you. are you amour? the book itself? another loop situation? is this where we find out system sosette is real? i have so many questions.
final thoughts
if you read all the way through this, thanks! not sure how readable my ramblings were but hopefully you at least got something out of it!
i'm sure i'll have more to say as we get more information about the game (and definitely a lot more to say once truth scrapper is actually released). but if it's not clear already i'm very excited to see where this goes! (and if you have any thoughts/theories feel free to share, i'd love to bounce ideas off other people!)
Embarrassing Phases is just Virgil flexing how he is/was a dark side before he actually said it.
Tell me I’m wrong.
He can literally turn out the lights and blind all of them in a black cloud of fear
And in Moving On, when he uses tempest tongue, he can literally get Thomas to do anything ANYTHING in the moment. He has to watch his commands because Thomas will just follow without question. Goodbye phone.
"the third thing that kept me up at night: wondering what might have been" i stg if there's a song about what her life could've been like if she never became a celebrity i will honestly not survive it
