#stop trying to make taylor swift gay people music. it never has been. it never will be. why do people keep saying it is | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thebrottenthusiast · 10 months

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Party Brotters in the house with brott headcanons.

Warnings: ANGST, brick has self worth issues, scott has PTSD, mentions of suicide (don't worry it's not for brick or Scott)

Individual hcs:

Brick:

I fluctuate on his sexuality because on some days I ship jo and brick (*gasp*) he's either gay or bi but I lean towards him being days more

Brick's dad committed suicide when he was young (about 9) so he feels a lot of pressure to be the man of the house and being perfect. He also wonders if he could've noticed his dad's suicidal behavior earlier, because in brick's mind, if he had just been a little more attentive, maybe he'd still be here... His mom always reassures him about it, but brick can't help but stress over the what ifs.

I imagine brick places his self worth on the amount of people he can help, so when his service isn't needed or backfires and does something bad, he can feel a little useless at times. His cadet code always told him to be of use and service! But If he isn't of service or his service ruins everything, than what use does he have, really? :'(

Brick has a younger sister named Lily who is about 7. Brick tries his best to be in her life, even if he is a little overbearing because he wants to be the positive father figure that was taken from him so bad for Lily.

Brick never had any real friends as a child, and was always regarded as the scapegoat to other children. Brick did notice behavior, but went along because he wanted friends. After all, if his service made others happy, that's what mattered the most, right?

Brick got his dog tags at his dad's funeral. He couldn't see his dad's face lifeless even though he knew his mom needed him. Brick has hid himself behind the funeral home and began to cry. Which is when he noticed another kid, who was out here to get away from all the crying noises and told brick to "stop crying like a goddamn baby". This just made brick cry even more. The boy handed brick a pair of dog tags he snagged from his pappy. He said that bricks dad had given it to his pappy in the army, and pappy wanted to return the favor and put it in his coffin. After that, the boy left and he never saw him again. Brick still remembers the day vividly and he hopes to find that same boy and thank him for his service.

Brick has those really loud dad sneezes that you can hear across the world. It has freaked out Jo at least more than once.

Brick also snores like a dad.

Amazing driver. Like near perfect aside from the fact he has shit music taste (that's what Jo said) and played Taylor swift on full volume when Jo (Jo absolutely despises Taylor Swift) was in the car. He never recovered.

Friendly rivals with Jo. She still calls him mean nicknames from time to time, but he gets her back by playing "shake it off" in the car or by getting her morning coffee at Starbucks with an ungodly amount of sugar added

Brick plans on making military styled clothing mainstream and donates to veteran organizations with the money he makes.

Brick likes frogs.

He also knows first aid.

He and Anne maria are best friends and go shopping from time to time. Anne maria will fight someone if they insult brick. She also tells the cash register when they got his order wrong. ("HEY! He asked for NO PICKLES!")

Scott:

Scott is bisexual. Send tweet.

Alberta is his younger sister who is about 13 years old. Despite their constant squabbling, Scott cares very much for Alberta and tries his best for her not to end up like him.

Scott's parents are not exactly the best, but they do try their hardest to be good parents.

It might not look like it, but Scott actually likes to read. Normally you'd find him reading some of his pappy's guidebooks or his mom's cookbook, but you also might see him reading one of Al's cheesy romance novels under a playboy Magazine from time to time.

You wouldn't expect it from a guy who glues loonies to the floor, but Scott surprisingly artistic and has a keen eye for detail.

He never had friends and never wanted them. Never wanted them until after ROTI, which had isolated Scott from anyone who had ever wanted to give him a chance.

Scott's fear of sharks eventually formed into a fear of water overall. Because of it, he has a hard time trying to go near water and has to be practically dragged by his pappy to take a shower. He's scared that Fang will pop out of nowhere and finish the job for good. It's gotten better though, at least he can actually wash his hands without flying into a manic breakdown.

He also has a hard time getting sleep because of his PTSD and constantly gets nightmares of him and Fang

Scott's hand often trembled as a kid and only worsened after ROTI, which is when he took up whittling. He'll often whittle something simple like a bird or maybe even Al. (or maybe that cute cadet guy who seems weirdly familiar)

When he was a kid, Scott and his family went to a funeral for one of his pappy's army buddies. Scott couldn't stand all the crying, it made them easy targets, but it was really annoying. So when he went outside to escape the crying noises, you can imagine he wasn't too happy to find some kid crying his eyes out. And he only made things worse by telling the kid to "stop crying like a goddamn baby". So in a desperate attempt to stop the kid from crying, Scott gave him a pair of dog tags he snagged from his pappy. The kids dad had given it to Pappy when he was in the army, so pappy came to return the favor and put them in the coffin. Scott was originally going to sell them, but he thought the kid needed it more than he did. Scott got a real mouthful from his parents after they found out he was going to sell it, but to him it was worth it in the end. After all, what use would the damn thing have buried with some dead guy? Scott still thinks about the boy from time to time. Scott hopes that he's okay somewhere.

The reason why Scott is fine with eating nasty food like dirt is because I imagine his family was very impoverished and had little to eat, so he had resorted to eating dirt as an alternative so that there was more for everyone to eat.

Aside from whittling, I think Scott likes to do origami with his dad's leftover newspaper.

Scott and Zoey made up after all-stars and he apologized for manipulating her in ROTI, while she had apologized for taking Mal to the finale after learning that his family is impoverished.

Him and Mike on the other hand? Tension is still there between those two. Mike tolerates Scott for Zoey's sake, but he's not afraid to smack some sense into Scott anymore.

Scott still keeps in contact with Courtney. They're on good terms.

Relationship Headcanons:

Dumbass x "oh no that's my dumbass" (it goes both ways for the both of them)

T4T swag

Scott fell first, brick fell harder.

The idea of Scott falling first is so hilarious to me bc Scott's first response is to go to Courtney and he's just like "oh my God Im in love with the guy I just tried to frame for stealing holy shit holy fuck, what do i do?" And Courtney's like"of course I have to help you, Scott! Besides, as a CIT I underwent extensive training for this!" So she suggests to give Brick a gift and in classic Scott fashion gives brick the piss shoelace ring he gave to Courtney.

Brick however, is genuinely touched by this and decides to return the favor by giving him a bunch of forget-me-nots ("They match your eyes." He says). Outwardly, Scott is aloof and just replies "whatever" and then five minutes later he's rolling around Courtney's apartment and squealing like the loser he is and Courtney's like " Holy shit i've created a monster."

So some time passes and brick notices he starts to feel weird. Mainly around Scott. His cheeks light up, his stomach feels fluttery, and he gets all shy. So brick being brick immediately assumed he's dying up until Anne Maria suggests that he's in love.

So now brick's even MORE confused because who on earth would he be in love with?? Jo?? It's not until he looks at Scott's piss ring that he realizes he's in love with him and Anne Maria's like "WHAT"

They both confess their feelings at the same time.

Scott has a bunch of little cousins and they all flock to Brick when he comes around. Scott isn't sure how he does it.

Brick does scott's nails.

Scott is a horrible dancer. Lucky brick is always there to lead him.

Brick's the big spoon most of the time because he likes the feeling of 'protecting' Scott.

Scott's the one who hogs the blanket though.

Where Brick likes to kiss Scott: his hand, his scars, his forehead.

Where Scott likes to kiss Brick: his neck, his cheek, his lips.

Scott gets insecure of his scars so sometimes Brick will just hug him from behind and kiss his scars. Scott loves this (he always denies this of course.)

When Scott gets a nightmare, he will lay himself down on brick's chest to feel his heartbeat and brick will run his hand through Scott's hair and maybe hum him a little tune.

When Brick gets a nightmare, Scott tries to do the best he can but he's not really a people person so he just tells brick everything's okay.

How people reacted to their relationship:

Zoey's shocked at the reveal of their relationship but eventually comes around. She's mostly just worried about if Scott's going to manipulate brick into doing something bad.

Mike is not pleased. Why would a good guy like brick go for someone like Scott? He tries to stay open minded for the sake of Brick and Zoey, but it still feels weird to him. When asked why by Zoey, he replies "trying to frame someone for stealing is NOT a love language" he comes around in the end though, but not after lots of reassurance from Zoey.

Jo does not care, she doesn't need to hear more lovey dovey stuff about Scott from brick. She still supports their relationship, just doesn't want to hear about it.

Anne maria thinks Brick can do better. Seriously, brick could get any guy he wants, why settle for the dirtboy? Regardless, she's still supportive.

Lightning don't judge

Dawn knew about them the whole time and was just sitting in the corner watching it all unfold. She had a bit of doubt in Scott but as time passes she knew he would find his way.

Courtney is ultimately happy for them. When Courtney noticed the similarities between her and Duncan and Scott and brick, she couldn't help but feel nervous that it would just be another repeat of their relationship, but when things start to unfold, shes happy that Scott found someone that made him happier than she did.

@totaldramararepairweek2023

#td brick #td scott #brott #total drama #total drama brick #total drama scott #total drama rarepair week

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jewishbarbies · 7 months

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Hey so I'm the anon from earlier with the long essay about the closeting thing and sorry I came across very angry but it wasnt directed at you as much as everyone in general who say queer celebs have a jollie good time in hollywood being queer and don't need beards because all's well in utopia and that frustrates me and I directed it at you which I shouldn't have

But I still stand by the general opinions I said and honestly, if you ask me about taylor, I am queer and when I hear her lyrics, I feel quite strongly that certain songs couldn't have been written unless she has experienced some deep longing for a woman. But what a lot of ppl seem to think is that just because she might be queer means she is a good person and that simply is not true. I mean look at Ellen DeGeneres. She is very gay and she is also an asshole. Taylor Swift, in my view, is very much an Ellen kinda queer

And her being queer doesn't erase her racism, her anti-Semitism, her white feminism none of it. I just think we can criticise her without saying she "queerbaits" because sexuality is not something that exists in a box like a costume that people can just try on. Sexuality is not a political thing, it's human nature. If you ask me, none of us are probably totally straight and I understand that there's a lot of heteronormative societal structures that prevent people from understanding this but when it comes down to biology, it's really as simple as that. That's why i do loathe the accusations being leveled these days at real people for queerbaiting because that's not the definition of queerbaiting nor has it ever been.

And I think if she chooses to be closeted, she is going to behave like a closeted, publicly straight artist like many others do. I also don't think she chooses to hide because she is afraid of discrimination but I think it's cos she is so attached to her fame and the attention she gets from dating men, she wouldn't sacrifice it by revealing certain truths about herself. She is too narcissistic for that imo

There's no shortage of problematic things taylor has done without needing to bring up the sexuality aspect that's all

Sorry this got long, I've had this on my mind for a while now

that very well could be true about her, but as long as she identifies as straight I’m going to also identify her as straight and I feel like it’s leaning into problematic territory not to. she could’ve felt something for a woman at some time in her life but still identifies as straight. I don’t think we’ll ever know and frankly it’s none of our business. all you should know is what she tells you, and she’s straight up told us that she’s straight in interviews. so no matter what she writes about, I’m not saying OR speculating that she could be anything else. I think that’s the biggest issue with saying not to speculate is that most people still speculate anyway to some degree, and it just needs to stop. you’re more than welcome to hear her music however you hear it and have the opinions you have. but as far as taylor specifically is concerned, she identifies as straight.

the way I view the queerbaiting situation with taylor specifically, is there’s taylor the person and Taylor™️ the brand. Taylor™️ the brand makes money. she can be whatever she wants in her personal life. the problem is when Taylor™️ the brand is putting out a song about herself with one or two throwaway lines that are either just ambiguous or are intentionally placed to make the song seem ambiguous and claims it’s a queer anthem, during pride month, and then never again is just straight up rainbow capitalism at best. but the songs she releases and only claims later they’re from the pov of a man when questioned if it’s about her expressing queer feelings because The Brand, that’s queerbaity to me. she seems fine letting fans praise her and hail her as a queer icon when it benefits her until it stands to affect her perception to her conservative fanbase, and then she tells the truth that’s it’s from the pov of a man. does this make sense? like things like that feel deliberate. there’s a couple she hasn’t spoken on to my knowledge, but for those specific two instances, it feels like rainbow capitalism and queerbaiting as Taylor™️ the brand that makes money off of people like gaylors who obsessed over her sexuality and “hints” she may be queer.

I can’t speak to other situations with other celebs, this is just my perspective on taylor specifically, and it’s totally okay if you disagree.

#Asks #anonymoose #anti taylor swift #swifties dni #thank you for the apology though

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iwanthermidnightz · 1 year

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(You don’t have to post this if you feel it might spark conflict or anything)

Idk. I don’t think JVN’s comment was anything for anyone feel slighted by (not to discredit anyone’s feelings or anything and not to attack the anon who brought this up).

It seemed like he was just saying she was being an ally in that she made a song/video that was supportive, inclusive and embracing of the gay community, knowing the kind of people who are in her fan base or who feel entitled to dictate this double standard of what she can or can’t speak about/support with her platform. Also knowing that she’s someone who can relate to her rights (as a woman) being under attack as well.

I mean, look how some people act over how her LGBTQIA fans personally connect her music to their own experience and tour visuals. Betty had to be changed to being from the perspective of a teenage boy, when James is a gender neutral name (as is the name Taylor) and can be a girl. They think she's only supposed to cater to one group of people only. It’s always “ended Gaylors” or they call them “weird” or they're “forcing their sexuality”. Or how they acted when Rolling Stone ran that Gaylor article. They constantly look for the smallest thing to try and use to belittle or justify their behavior, when the whole time, Taylor is the one putting this out there.

Which is (in my opinion) the learned behavior/mindset that had her thinking she couldn’t speak about a community she wasn’t a part of. Because she, Taylor Swift the person can speak about it, but Taylor Swift the brand could not. She has even said she was always told to never speak about politics and we saw her arguing with her Dad about needing to do so.

Like you said, IWHM—as we all know, you can be a part of a community and still be an ally/advocate for it. Plus, do they ever stop to think why she hy wouldn’t she support something that affects her directly?

Plus, just because JVN knows her doesn’t mean he knows her. It doesn’t she’s opened up that side of herself to him yet. It’s not like he’s on an Abigail level of friendship with her. If that makes sense.

Sorry this was so long and for taking up space on your page, IWHM, but it’s just frustrating at times.

Don’t apologize, I think this is very valid and should be brought up because this is how a lot of people feel, and you said it very well. I’m sorry, I feel bad that I don’t get into the details as much anymore because it does seem to spark conflict here where people cannot have a normal conversation without throwing insults around and I don’t want to deal with that. But I appreciate when we can have these discussions, and you can come to me to share your feelings!

I agree that it seemed like jvn was just saying that she was being an ally and she made a song/video that was supportive, inclusive and embracing of the gay community and that’s important.

One part of me wants to ignore these people that claim they’re fans who treat her lqbtqia fans so horrible. Another part of me has been made to feel guilty for wanting to call it out, for fear of “being too much”. The other part of me says screw that, they don’t get to tell queer people how to feel or tell us that we make things up to push a gay narrative. That’s called gaslighting. Taylor is the one that has been signaling for years putting things out that are blatantly queer. Queer people pick up on it. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s how we find each other. So people who act like *we* are the problem are unbearable.

Taylor sees this. It’s probably part of the reason she doesn’t want to explicitly say things even though she is basically out to people who want to see it. It makes me sad that she feels she has to do things a certain way to protect herself from certain people.

I keep thinking about the lines in dear reader where she says

Dear reader, you don't have to answer / Just cause they asked you / I prefer hiding in plain sight / You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking / If you knew where I was walking / You should find another guiding light

And in sweet nothing how she says

And the voices that implore, "You should be doing more" To you, I can admit that I'm just too soft for all of it

To us, she can admit that. And I know she is held to a certain standard because of who she is and her platform, but at the end of the day she’s also just a person. She’s walking a line that she’s comfortable with and as she said last night, it’s okay to give yourself permission to make decisions that work for you. And you only.

So to your point about the double standard of what she can or can’t speak about/support with her platform, I agree. I’m kind of in between on this. Do I wish she would speak out more forcefully? Yes. Do I think she must? No. I believe she has a long list of considerations to take into account, but I also feel like she’s spoken out on important issues before, she can do it again. I’m not going to hold it against her if she doesn’t.

Sorry if I’m rambling. Thank you for your perspective 🤍

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sparkliingdust · 9 months

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I Love Taylor Swift....

But I feel like we can be fans of her without believing she is the epitome of perfection and pushing that mentality on other people. She is talented. She is hardworking. She is influential. But the stans have to learn to lay off. The behavior this summer is straight-up annoying, and honestly, we need to learn to acknowledge the mistakes she's made too.

Going to the Eras Tour Movie is not about us having or reliving the concert experience. We can't go in inconveniencing movie theatre employees and other theatres around us with noise complaints. It's great she made a movie. Let's dress up and given out friendship bracelets. But let's not cause a scene because we want to poorly scream shout songs. This reminds me of when newer or other artists release music around when she has a release, and they end up getting buried on social media or streaming. Like other people can prosper on the charts too. Like we don't have to keep proving to her how much we love her. She should know by now.

Taylor's dancers, back-up singers, and fans going to see Beyonce did not betray Taylor and deserve to be fired or aren't real fans. Stop trying to cancel everyone who varies outside of Taylor's circle. We can support more than one artist.

As a fandom we are more than aware that Taylor's had to repeatedly show her songwriting abilities so she isn't discredited. Why can't we show Olivia Rodrigo the same courtesy and understanding? Her whole career shouldn't be taken down because her team admitted that two songs were 'inspired' by Taylor (whether Deja Vu actually sounds like Cruel Summer is open to your ears interpretation). The appropriate credit was given as well as 50% royalties (which is just insane). That doesn't mean root through every album Olivia makes and try to tie to other songs. It's disappointing that Jack had to get out and explain what was going on, and Taylor hasn't said a peep yet.

Taylor has a weak history working with women in music. She's worked very little with female producers as consistently as Aaron and Jack, and female artists have been used as back-up vocals more compared to male artists who are featured on the actual track. And she has publicly supported younger rising artists very prominently during a promo tour of sorts and then goes completely silent - Olivia Rodrigo, IceSpice during the whole ratty situation, Hayley Kiyoko for reputation/allyship promo tour, etc. She is a force of nature in the music industry, but I do think she could publicly clean up her image supporting female artists and not when it's to her own benefit.

Miss Americana did not age well at all. Instead of letting reputation exist without an explanation, she was a part of an entire documentary of how she was cancelled (and wrongfully so), but then turned it into her becoming an activist that went nowhere. Sitting on your couch with your publicist in a huge mansion toasting the resistance with champagne over a social media post, and then never following up on it, is completely peak white feminism. Some celebs are not cut out for adding activism into the career. Okay. But she should've done the work before stepping into the arena using the LGBTQ+ community in a music video to prove that she's always been an ally because Todrick didn't know how she'd react to having a gay kid is not it.

GrammyGate. Joe was listed as William Bowery for two songs on Folklore. After it won Album of the Year, he was changed to a producer to six songs and that qualified him to win a Grammy. She did reveal that he was William in the long pond sessions but the proper paperwork wasn't submitted/finalized until eight months after the album came out - where he could've been properly credited as a collaborator. And now with the Eras Tour and Joe/Taylor has broken up, she switches back and forth to say she wrote Betty on her own, and everything came out of her imagination. Why all of the shenanigans for a bright shiny award??

I know all of this makes it sound like I hate Taylor, but I don't. I'm practically known as the resident Swiftie everywhere I hang out/work because I'm always bringing her up in one way or another. But she's not perfect, and I'm super freaking tired of being in a fandom that refuses to not acknowledge anything slightly questionable that's she done. We're canceling her or dragging her down - it just means we're able to see she's not infallible and love her despite of her mistakes.

#taylor swift #And please for the love of god stop calling her mother it's creepy as fuck #especially if you are the same age as her

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jeontaehui · 3 years

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nananananana (210331 VLIVE)

taehee bites back a grin as fans enter the live. “hello everyoneeee,” she greets softly, her cheekbones lifting into a soft smile. “i’m in the practice room once again.”

“i was just learning a dance actually, it’s my break right now so this’ll probably be short,” she mentions. “and then i turned on vlive without asking permission— well, i did ask permission after i... turned it on,” she giggles. “she’s gonna say yes anyways. no one can say no to me,” the comments section blows up after she sent a sly wink to the viewers. she knew her effect on them one way or another.

mark lee i love you HELLO THE TITLE?? IS THIS A SPOILER???

lee donghyuck’s long hair i only entered the live but i feel like crying T—T why must she be so cute

taeyongbub taehee in the practice room is so attractive??? wth???

taehee tucks a few strands behind her ear asking, “did you guys have dinner already? have you guys eaten?”

mataechan what did taehee eat today?

hyuckschurros PIZZA !!!!

“aw, pizza? i’m craving now,” she shortly puts on a pout before a smile shows itself once again. “i haven’t eaten but i think i’ll have........ um,” taehee seems to think for a moment as she looks up the ceiling, trying to remember what jungwoo said she’d have at the dorms.

“i can’t remember,” she shrugs, proceeding to continue reading the comments.

jungwoo tehet are you going to dance again?

aussiechan TAEHEEEE !!! come home to australia :(

svtzen DREAM SPOILERS PLEASEE

“the dance that me and my teacher did today was to party favors by tinashe! i have to practice some more to get it right but i’m,” she stands up and dusts off her track pants, placing the phone on the floor in front of the mirror, “going to show you guys the part where i’m most confident in.”

she disappears as she goes to the side to play the music, and the strong beats of tinashe’s party favors fills the practice room. she adjusts her pants around her waist and runs a hand through her black hair, ruffling her bangs for a moment before getting into position.

she dances. no matter how hard-hitting the choreography is, taehee knew well how to control her own body, and gracefully yet powerfully sync her movements to the beats.

taehee marry me she’s so hot what the heck do i do

markcity i’m single for this reason only

fullsunnn THIS IS WHY WE NEED A TAEHEE SOLO ASAP !!!

from the corner of her eye, taehee sees her dance instructor imitate the part where she got the dance wrong during their practice, causing her to lose focus and burst into laughter.

ncityinthehouse everyone, the duality of miss jeon taehee

“unnie is laughing at me right now!” taehee giggles. her eyes glance to the side then back to the screen. “yes so, until there did i memorize the dance. i’ll try to post on instagram the full version of it. oh!” she claps her hands excitedly, a habit nctzens took note of before she says an idea.

“since it’s a wednesday today and! the end of the month, you guys can comment whatever you guys want me to do or any question you want to ask and i’ll answer them.”

“i’m going to scroll with my eyes closed and whatever my finger lands on will be picked,” she cutely asks if the viewers got it before briefly explaining what she just said in english.

“i’ll give you guys maybe 30 seconds? is 30 seconds enough? okay, ready and start!”

taehee bobbed her head as she counted the numbers in her head. “30! okay, i’ll close my eyes now.”

juhfahm skincare routine?

merrymark give us a phone tour :D

twiceyeon please watch switch to me by dahyun and chaeyoung !!!! <3

“from twiceyeon,” taehee reads, putting her emcee mode on. “please watch switch to me by dahyun and chaeyoung! ohh i think i’ve seen this on my recommended but i haven’t had the time to watch it— sorry, chaeyoung-ah,” she winces.

you can hear keys being tapped on taehee’s phone screen as she typed the title on youtube’s search bar. the music video appears a few seconds later and she immediately clicks on it.

“oooo dahyun-ssi is very pretty,” taehee says. her expression quickly changes when she sees the twice member use her foot as she played the piano, her hand going up to cover the giggles that escaped out of her. “this is so cool,” she beamed.

“oh sexy!” taehee exclaims after chaeyoung appeared. “i really like chaengie’s short hair.”

she compliments the set when the scene changes, a summer pool vibe replacing the vintage set-up at the intro. “the dance is cute too,” she mumbles.

she smiles at chaeyoung and dahyun’s playfulness in the music video before moving on to compliment her best friend again. “chaeyoung is seriously so pretty... whaaat!”

taehee continues to watch the rest of the video as she moves to the beat, occasionally letting out a chuckle or two at the adorableness of the duo.

“hold on,” she grabs her earphones and plugs them into her phone. “(it’s) to avoid copyright,” she smirks.

taehee finishes the music video with a grin on her face, “the music video was very cute! did they perform this on stage? i think the stage set and the fits would’ve been pretty.”

“speaking of music videos, baekhyun hyung’s new album just dropped yesterday! have you guys watched the music video?” taehee shuffles closer to the camera to read the comments. almost everyone was saying that they did, in fact, watch the music video and really enjoyed it.

“i never said this directly to him but i really am a fan of his, seriously,” she dictates. taehee breaks into a grin as she giggles again, the viewers watching how her eyes twinkled while she talked. “‘bambi’ is really great— it’s immaculate. you guys should stream the whole album and recommend it to your family and friends. baekhyunie hyung never fails to deliver (good songs).”

bbhubblegum taehee promoting baekhyun and other artists better than sm pt. 74628392

going on her phone, she mumbles, “and i really like the choreography of his songs.” there was an adorable pout to her lips as she spoke, much to the amusement of the viewers.

then she looks up from the device in her hands and her eyes hold a certain glint in them before she playfully squints. “just be quiet about this though. i am never gonna hear the end of this from him,” she shakes her head with an amused chuckle, recalling all the times baekhyun teased her and the ‘admiration’ she has for him.

“you’re my only bambi bambi,” taehee sang effortlessly. “it’s a perfect night for you,” her tone was a little softer this time.

“okay so that was our first request? dare? of the live, let’s get to the next one right away!”

taeheeroar do you listen to the neighborhood?

wooyoungification do you want to collab with anyone? if so, who?

“the next one is.... wooyoungification! ooo wooyoung-ah hello,” taehee says, prolonging the last syllable of her sentence. “they asked, “do you want to collab with anyone? if so, who?”

“well,” she clears her throat, furrowing her eyebrows as if she were in thought. “there are a lot of great artists out there. taylor swift is already my answer by default but,” she giggles again, “if i have to think of people outside sm, i think it’d be nice to have a collab with stray kids’ 3racha. they’re their producing unit if i’m not mistaken. it’d be fun to work with them.”

“i also had this dream of having a collaboration stage with the other dancers outside nct, like blackpink’s lisa or seulgi unnie. would you guys want that?”

midzyseason this isnt good for my gay ass

reveluvbar can taehee just take over sm

taehee hums, “i think i never mentioned it before but i wanna try doing drama ost’s too. i don’t watch as much dramas as i do before, but when i was still learning korean, they helped me so much.”

“i watched ‘guardian: the lonely and great god’ a lot and i really liked ‘stay with me’. hopefully, i can collab with punch too.”

taehee unconsciously moves her lips to the side, forming another pout and thinks again. “from sm, i think kai hyung? not counting superm, okay?” she beams.

“kai hyung and,” then a snort escapes taehee before she could even stop it, “baekhyun hyung.”

she puts a hand to her chest once she recovers from her mini-giggling fit before holding it up and swearing it was the truth. “these two were the ones that came to the top of my head, seriously.”

beansprout lolll remember when kai used to “complain” about taehee ever only talking about sehun cause he was the one she was closest to in exo when they first met ?

sodangerous it’s so touching how taehee looked up to exo while she was still a trainee and now they’re like family

taehee nods and bites her bottom lip, asking herself, “why do i feel like a youtuber?”

she smiles to someone off screen and quickly glances back to the camera, “next question!”

asteroidsung what did you get for renjun’s birthday?

“what did i get for renjun’s birthday? i just gave mine literally yesterday. i know it’s summer but i gave him a hoodie that i thought would look cute on him,” she smiles. “it was pink.”

“i was with haechanie when i bought it.”

chenlezoned hyuck said he’s gonna marry daegal next month

“hyuck’s gonna marry who now?!” taehee exclaims, “DAEGAL’S A MINOR!!!”

dreamtopia BYEEEEEEE

themissingpuzzlepiece everyone at haechan marrying daegal:❓❓meanwhile taehee: 🌋🌋⁉️

boohoohyuck sending my prayers to lee haechan

just then, taehee’s phone suddenly rings and her eyes widen at the caller id displayed on the screen. “wow, this dude’s timing is really! spot-on.”

she puts the speaker on, “donghyuck-ah, what’s this i’m hearing that you’re marrying daegal?? are you leaving me and chubs already?! oh and you’re on speaker.”

fullseun don’t you just cry on the inside when markhee calls hyuck by his real name or fullsun

you hear haechan’s boisterous laughter first before he could answer taehee’s question. “i talked about that on vlive,” he said, “where are you?”

“i’m doing vlive.”

“but it’s almost midnight.”

when taehee makes no move to answer, haechan goes, “are you in the practice room again?”

“so?” taehee answers sassily, causing the boy on the other end of the line to groan.

“noona, we talked about this already,” haechan whines. “then we can talk about it again later!” taehee shrugs exasperatedly. “noona....” the former warns, as if he was scolding a child. “i’m just on a break,” she gives in, “i’ll go home soon.”

“promise?” taehee rolls her eyes, though it was clear that she was grateful for haechan’s concern by the soft smile she held on her face. “i promise.”

taehyuckles i know i wished for a taehyuck live but this will suffice Gosh they are so cute !!!!!!

“you haven’t said hello to czennie,” taehee reminds him. “czennie, hello!!” he greets sweetly.

“anyways, i just called you because you agreed to playing a few rounds with me but i’ll just wait for you until you get home,” taehee winces at his statement. she might have forgotten. “oh right, i’m sorry. just a few more minutes?” haechan hums affirmatively from the other end.

“get home safely, noonaaa,” after they exchanged their goodbyes, taehee hangs up the call.

“yes, okay! everyone that was lee haechan on the phone with me and i think i can do,” she turns her back to look at the wall clock in the practice room, “three more comments.”

yangqied taehee’s an idol in the day, pro-gamer by night

“okay, so our next question is: are you friends with aespa? yes! i am friends with aespa,” she beamed.

“i actually saw them the day before their debut stage. my time slot in the practice room was after theirs and so we met there,” taehee recalls. “they’re very pretty! and they look cool when they danced to ‘black mamba’. i wished them luck on their debut stage,” she chuckles.

taehee closes her eyes and proceeds to swipe at the screen, “next question is... oh! i dare you to post on instagram. okay, let me find some photos and show you guys so we can all vote.”

“i’ll send them on bubble but i’ll show it here too in case you guys don’t have a subscription. that’s okay.”

markerlee tb to when taehee sent her pcs to bubble... she really said fuck capitalism !!!!

“okay, option 1: this one,” she brings her phone up to the screen, showing a picture of her with the bird filter on mac.

jisungbye I LIKE THIS ONEEE

kunniekunkun this one’s cute!!!

moloism markhee pls post ur photos with the mac filters im begging you

“orrrr this one,” she faces her phone towards the camera once more. she was sitting on the pavement with the view of the orange-pink sunset behind her, a mask concealing half of her face.

the127thsense everything just screams girlfriend material to me

deryqueen taehee, i am free this friday. i repeat, i am free this friday.

solhyuck i think you should post these as a set on instagram!

“what should i post on instagram? everyone choose between 1 or 2!” taehee tells them in korean, before switching to english. “you guys pick between the first one and the second one, and i’ll post it on instagram.”

oncezenni 2

flamboyanthyuck the second one!

ohmajesus i like the first one

iamjeno second pleaseee

“mm okay, most of you are voting for the second one so i’ll be posting that first thing tomorrow! and then i’ll just send the other one on bubble,” taehee puts her pinky finger up as she speaks, making a promise to the viewers.

“how many was that? two already?” a pout subtly makes its way on taehee’s lips and a few of her hair strands fell in front of her face, causing her to push them back as she huffed. nctzens found it adorable!

takeoffbesttrack can i kiss you.

“can you kiss me?” taehee presses her lips on the tips of her fingers before lightly tapping them on the screen. “i,” one of the corners of her mouth raises to a smirk, “kissed you.”

mahaecries GODDDD

tenvely you will be the death of me

deryqueen AGAIN TAEHEE I AM FREE THIS FRIDAY NIGHT !!!!!!!!!!

taehee giggles after seeing the comment section blow up and her dimples peek out from her cheeks.

“i’m gonna have to end this soon, guys. this is the last one, okay?”

haecity can you go live with markhyuck?

snoopyscoop do you have any more funny stories with jungwoo?

taromilktea did you see sungchan when he debuted as an emcee?

“did i go see sungchan when he debuted as emcee? nooo,” she frowns, “but i did call him on facetime.”

“he said he was nervous but i told him he’d do great! and he did, right?” taehee’s frown was quickly turned into a proud grin. “i watched a replay of it on youtube the day after. he was very cute.”

“i told him to just think of it like he was talking to us so he’s more comfortable, and he told me it helped a lot so i’m relieved,” she nods. “i sent him churros too!”

taehee shuffles closer to the camera and brings her knees close to her chest while she talks, “please support him! i know sungchanie’s glad to have received this opportunity that’s why he’s been practicing diligently.”

taehee reads a few more comments and smiles at the funny ones. the humor of nctzens never fail to make her smile. the memes they send during menpas are so hilarious that she can’t help but reply to most of them.

taeheespresident i guess she’s gonna end the live now? :(

jungwootehet it’s nearing 1 am and i still have school tomorrow...... whoops!

“i’ll have to go now guys, it was nice doing all this with you,” taehee softly mumbles.

“i like this idea of having you guys comment what you would want me to do ‘cause i’m able to connect with you guys more, i’ll try to do a live again soon.”

“the weather’s nice here in korea— well at least for me,” she chuckles, “it rained recently but it might be hot? in other places so please remember to stay hydrated and drink lots of water.”

“also wear your masks and keep social distancing! we’re not only trying to protect ourselves but we have to stop the spreading of it all so,” taehee gives another small smile at the camera as she reminds the people to be careful, “stay safe.”

after a few beats of silence, taehee speaks again. “okay so, until here is taehee’s nananananana live!” she sings while doing the infamous choreo of ‘go’.

empathy127 I KNEW IT WAS FROM GO !!!!

“good night! or good morning to those who are starting their day right now,” she adds, “goodnight! we’ll see you guys soon.”

taehee does her infamous ily hand gesture and winks at the camera before waving bye and ending the livestream.

#taehee.sns #nct #nct 127 #nct dream #nct u #wayv #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct blurbs #nct reactions #nct x reader #nct au #nct female member #nct female addition #kpop female addition #kpop female oc

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 3 years

Text

Psycho Analysis is a series that looks at villains across various media in the hopes of coming to something of a consensus on the overall quality of the character. Are they performed well? Do they enrich the narrative? Are their motives fleshed out? Are they voiced by Tim Curry and thus a sex icon?

There are a lot of important questions that I look into, but ultimately, Psycho Analysis boils down to asking one simple little question: How bad can a character be?

Thankfully, there’s one villain who decided to answer that question for me... in song form.

Psycho Analysis: The Once-ler

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Yeah, I’m finally talking about everyone’s favorite greedy bastard who, back in some of the darkest days of Tumblr history, ended up being the premier sexyman on the website. People were thirsting over this twiggy weirdo, acting as if he were God’s gift to women and shipping him with alternate versions of himself. Much like the movie he’s from, he is now incredibly hard to take seriously.

But hey, speaking of alternate versions of himself, I’m going to be covering him from the original book and the animated short film as well. Might as well just knock it all out of the park at once, right? Now let’s see how ba-a-a-ad this guy can be.

Motivation/Goals: The Once-ler is all about biggering. He’s making thneeds (things that everyone needs) and he is gonna stop at nothing to craft these things. Not even the power of the Lorax, Danny DeVito or otherwise, is going to stay his hand from getting that sweet, soft Truffula fluff to make his wares. This is ultimately a little unrealistic, at least for the Illumination version; if Danny DeVito asked me not to do something, I’d listen, no questions asked.

Performance: In the animated special, Bob Holt does double duty, as he is portraying both Once-ler and the title character. It works really well for what they’re going for, and the double casting is interesting because it highlights the ultimate role of the Lorax as the Once-ler’s conscience given form.

In the film, Ed Helms portrays the Once-ler, and he’s fine. He’s certainly better casting than Audrey, but that’s not particularly saying much considering that’s a non-singing Taylor Swift (when Cats is able to utilize Taylor Swift better than your musical, you know there’s trouble). I don’t know, Ed Helms is fun and all, but I’m just not sure his take on the Once-ler is all too compelling overall.

Final Fate: In the original book and the special, the Once-ler wins… but even he realizes it’s a terrible, pointless victory, and all he has achieved is ruin, his family leaving him, his business ultimately collapsing, and the environment permanently damaged. He’s left as a miserable, jaded hermit, broken by the bleak consequences his greedy actions have sown upon the world and only able to tell his story and pass on the last Truffula seed in the hopes that maybe, maybe someday the trees can regrow and the Lorax will return. The Illumination version follows this but then tacks on a happy ending where the Lorax and Once-ler reunite because as we know ambiguity and bittersweet endings cannot exist in children’s films.

Best Scene: Obviously it’s the scene where he shakes his ass to seduce Jack Frost, in one of the greatest gay romances ever put to film.

Joking aside, it is undoubtedly his villain song. It has become such a meme, but real talk? “How Bad Can I Be” slaps. This is a really good song, probably too good for the movie but you know what, I’ll take it.

youtube

Best Quote: HOW BA-A-A-AD CAN I BE? Yes, I’m using a line from his villain song. Sue me.

Final Thoughts & Score: What can one really say about the movie version of the Once-ler that hasn’t already been run into the ground? Well, how about… He’s not too bad, honestly? Like, yes, he has next to nothing to do with his book counterpart and they really go way too far into trying to make a capitalist pig sympathetic… but the animated special from the 70s did that too. I think the Once-ler honestly works better when there is a dash of complexity to him and he isn’t just a simple-minded Captain Planet villain.

Of course, the issue here is that the 70s version took a simpler approach, kind of less is more. The 70s Once-ler brings up some valid points to the Lorax about his work, and the Lorax can’t help but agree that there’s no easy answer while also stressing that the environmental devastation is still really, really bad. It works, it feels complex, and it arguably helps the ultimate point that we need to protect the environment better than even the book did (and I love the book, don’t get me wrong, but its take on the Once-ler is a bit too simple for its own good; it almost runs into the Femme Fatale problem by being a bit too much of a strawman). The movie version has a bit too much going on, especially with his family. His family are much more blatantly evil, greedy, and manipulative, but they’re relegated to the background for much of the film and don’t effect things all that much. The whole narrative would have been infinitely stronger if they were the greater scope villains behind Once-ler and were who needed to be defeated and maybe taught a lesson, but instead they are ignored in favor of someone I’ll address very shortly.

All of this leaves movie Once-ler feeling extremely disjointed, but not irredeemably so. As I said before, his villain song is unironically awesome, and as lame as it is compared to the more haunting, contemplative ending of the book and the special, I’m not so much of a curmudgeon that I didn’t at least smile when he finally reconciled with the Lorax. Ultimately though, him being memed to death really didn’t help his case, but it means I’m not giving the movie version anything less than a 3/10. He might in fact be the best “so bad it’s good” villain ever, or at least up there. He’s just so undeniably enjoyable even if the narrative isn’t making him as complex as it thinks it is. The animated special version gets a 9/10, the book version is a 7/10, and the Once-ler’s family gets a 5/10 for being an interesting concept they sadly do little with, which will now be elaborated on as I follow up on the foreshadowing from the last paragraph...

Psycho Analysis: Aloysius O’Hare

Remember how I said the Once-ler’s family gets ignored in favor of someone else? Here he is, Aloysius O’Hare, one of the absolute lamest villains ever put to screen.

Motivation/Goals: He’s greedy. That’s it. I’m not kidding. He’s just a cartoonish caricature of a rich person, which still makes him a realistic portayal but also makes him boring as sin compared to the wacky dude with a big musical number about how bad he can be.

Performance: Rob Riggle does a decent job, but there’s really not much for him to work with here. This character is a cardboard cutout who exists to be as cartoonishly greedy and evil as possible with no nuance so the kids know who to root against and so that Once-ler doesn’t look bad in comparison.

Final Fate: Look, he’s a blatantly evil corporate villain in a kid’s movie about the environment. Of course he gets defeated and everyone turns on him. What’s especially funny though is that, on the brink of learning his lesson, he rejects any form of redemption and just goes whole hog on being a villain.

Best Scene: I will absolutely give him this: in the face of his ultimate defeat, after having the virtues of trees sung to him and the entire town turning on him, he for a moment contemplates turning over a new leaf… and then absolutely rejects the thought and instead decides being evil is just too much fun, at which point he tries to get everyone back on his side by seeing a funny little song about death while wavedashing. If more shitty villains did this, I don’t think there would be shitty villains.

Best Quote: LET IT DIE, LET IT DIE, LET IT SHRIVEL UP AND DIE! Yes I’m quoting a song again.

Final Thoughts & Score: Look, I’m not gonna mine words here: O’Hare sucks. Big time. He is a prime example of why The Lorax failed as an adaptation. In a story that is dealing with a moral grayness with no easy answers, O’Hare is just a big, blatant target, a dark shade of black in terms of black-and-white morality. He’s like a reject Captain Planet villain with Edna Mode’s haircut.

The movie would have been infinitely better if, instead of him, the Once-ler’s family were in control of the town, and they needed to learn the lesson about saving the trees instead of simply vanishing from the story. They were shown to be overbearing, manipulative, and greedy, and they had a much more personal connection with Once-ler being, you know, his actual family. The fact they abandon him and never really get any sort of comeuppance despite being perhaps the most evil people in the move, egging on Once-ler and taking full advantage of him, makes O’Hare all the more egregious, because there could have been some strong thematic elements that would have tied the film together and made it come off as much less preachy and more nuanced.

But we don’t live in a world where that happened, we live in a world where we got O’Hare. Aside from some genuine hilarity from him at the end, O’Hare really adds very little to the film. I gotta give him a 2/10, but I will say he’s a lot closer to a 3 than he is to a 1; there’s no denying his absolute rejection of learning a moral is absolutely hilarious. I love when villains do that. It’s just a shame those funny moments are wrapped up in something monumentally unimpressive.

#Psycho Analysis #The Once-ler #The Lorax #Ed Helms #Aloysius O'Hare #Rob Riggle

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nymsonlinecottage · 4 years

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Can you tell me who your ship Reggie with? I’m very curious *sheepishly presses my fingers togather* and your Headcanon’s for said ship. Pretty please? Thank you in advance!

sooo, I actually sorta stopped shipping Reggie with anyone romantically (at least for now)? BUT I do have a bunch of platonic ships for him and I'd be happy to write down some headcanons for those!

after playing at the Orpheum, Carlos officially met Alex, Reggie, and Luke (he couldn't see or hear them but they found other ways to communicate)

Reggie immediately took to Carlos, seeing him as a younger brother/apprentice

he helps Carlos with homework as best he can when Julie or Ray aren't home, even though he isn't very good at it himself

Carlos once made a B and the first person he rushed to tell after school was Reggie

Reggie really likes having the little dude around because it's nice to be able to treat someone else like a little brother for a change since Alex has always seen Reggie like a brother

granted, Alex is less of the protective kind of brother and more of the "Dear God, Why Do I Go Out With You In Public?" kind of brother

when they were alive, Reggie would get hurt a lot and Alex was always the person who would get out the first aid kit and be like, "why would you do that, I told you that you would get hurt, you dumb-dumb, for fucks sake-"

Reggie's parents fought a lot and some nights they would yell really loudly, so Reggie would sneak out and to go Alex's house for the night

it would be somewhere around two a.m. but Reggie knew it was fine because Alex always left his bedroom window unlocked for Reggie to climb through

Alex would always ask, "do you wanna talk about it?" and Reggie would always say, "not right now," so Alex would just make room for Reggie on his bed and they'd both fall asleep again

(can you hear me crying?)

Luke is Reggie's pal. his friend. his bro. his buddy. his partner in crime

they met when they both got detention in 9th grade for separate but equally stupid reasons and have been friends ever since

their relationship is just every unproblematic Me and the Boys meme there is

before they died, they would have competitions to see who would try the weirdest food combination or who could chug their rootbeer faster

Alex and Bobby did not have fun trying to reign those two in, and Alex and Julie do not have fun trying to reign those two in, I can tell you that right now

they're gay for each other in a platonic way (although they're both queer)

Luke will ask Reggie who his best friend is and Reggie will grin and say, "Ray"

because, look, Ray and Reggie have this unbreakable bond and, no, it doesn't matter if Ray doesn't know Reggie exists

sometimes Ray will play music while he cooks dinner so Reggie will join in on his mini cooking dance party

he's sort of like the dad Reggie never had because his biological father was always too busy working or fighting with Reggie's mom to spend time with his kids

Reggie has thought a lot about revealing himself to Ray so they can actually get to know each other, but he knows that could cause so many problems for him, the band, and especially Julie

and he has already made a silent promise that he will protect Julie at all costs

at first, Julie and Reggie didn't have much of a friendship going on, but then they got to know each other better and Julie felt more comfortable being her normal, goofy self around him

they jam to country music a lot, especially old Taylor Swift and Lil Nas X

honestly, the only word that can really describe their relationship is "bandmates"

they have an unbreakable bond that's so close to feeling familial, but it's just distant enough to where it's not quite there (however, that doesn't lessen their friendship any bit)

Julie will often times let Reggie come with her to a store or something because he wants to see more of how the world has changed and she's more then happy to show him

and she'll talk to him about her mom when Flynn or Luke or busy because he's surprisingly good at advice, whether he realizes it or not

Reggie is also a tremendously good listener, so Julie will reminisce a lot with him about her mom when she just needs to ramble about the good times

Julie taught Reggie about coping mechanisms for trauma (because he's definitely traumatized) since Reggie never really knew how to handle himself and, no offence to Luke and Alex, but they aren't the easiest people to ask for help sometimes

I'm not sure how to end this, but yeah. sorry this isn't really what you asked for!

#Julie and the Phantoms #Reggie jatp #Luke Patterson #Julie Molina #Alex jatp #Carlos Molina #Ray Molina #Bobby Wilson #Trevor Wilson #headcanons #platonic ships #I guess a few of these can be taken as romantic tho?#idk you can interpret these as you wish 😌#also I spent so long on this if y'all wanted to reblog that would be great!#also some feedback would be great! (I'd love to know what y'all think of my work!)#Nym answers #asheryapal

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oneweekoneband · 4 years

Text

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages. (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time.

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot.

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift, she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

#taylor swift #folklore

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kaylorrehabcenter · 3 years

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Gold Rush and Happiness are Sisters

Gather round everyone and witness the clown try to prove that Taylor Swift wrote songs about a married (now pregnant) woman in the year of our lord 2020.

Also this is a seven page doc in my google docs so like. Get a cup of tea and some popcorn.

Ok full disclosure this is…..mostly me clowning. Like seriously. Don’t take my words as the word of God, this is just my interpretation and how I listen to the songs. And as a (former? Idk man) Kaylor I’m going to want to make these songs about my ship. Acknowledge your biases kids.

Also like. I change my mind a lot, but for a while this theory that Gold Rush and Happiness are connected has been stuck in my head and I wanted to write it down and post it in case anyone else got something out of this.

If you read my last post on Gold Rush (here!) you’ll know I don’t think of it as a happy song. To elaborate further- I think it’s Taylor catching herself looking back on Karlie/that time in her life (Because I think Karlie is emblematic of the 1989 era for Taylor and is thus tied to the pain that came out of that, along with her ties to the masters heist) and reminding herself it wasn’t good and ended for a reason.

“Gleaming, twinkling/eyes like sinking ships on waters/so inviting, I almost jump in”

“But I don’t like a gold rush”

The sinking ship line makes me laugh. I like to think it’s Taylor saying she’s literally sunk our (dead) ship, but that’s mostly regressing to 2015 tumblr humur.

To the actual analysis, she almost jumps into these waters, maybe it’s literal (don’t text your ex kids, write a bop like closure instead) or maybe it’s more metaphorical. She almost allows herself to think the good times were the only times. Maybe there’s a desire to move back to nyc, capture the magic that she may have felt during the era.

“I don’t like that flying feels like falling till the bone crush”

But that’s the thing. It feels like flying at the time, but it isn’t a feeling that can last. These relationships built on temporary promises (we’re assuming here Taylor was a side thing for Karlie, not that serious and built not to last, even if there were genuine romantic feelings on both sides, which I think there were to some level) won’t last, and will hurt when they do end. At least, this one did.

“Everyone wonders what it would be like to love you”

Everybody wants who she’s singing about and is imagining what it would be like to be with them, they think it would be a fairytale. Hell, Taylor probably thought their relationship would be a fairytale against her better judgement. Karlie is a celebrity and a model no less, yes she has other things going for her (Koding and investments), her brand and her success in the fashion world depends to some degree people desiring and fantasizing about her.

“I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch”

The funny thing about that, Taylor’s the only one who knows the pain of that relationship, of being a side thing and never committed to. It’s draining. It's difficult. She isn’t allowing herself to jump into those waters.

“I see me padding across your wooden floor/with my Eagles t shirt hanging on the door”

I point out this line mostly because it feels like a Delicate call back (Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs). Am I reaching though? Probably. Also as someone with parents about the same age as Taylor’s (give or take ten years), I like the Eagles reference. Stream Hotel California for clear skin <3

“At dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit”

Taylor was the first person to call Karlie out on her “I’ve tried!!” bullshit, how cute. <3

Besides this line being very iconic, it also shows to me that Taylor’s been frustrated with Kar even when she was busy giving her heart eyes. She’s a frustrating person to be around even when you are “turning her life into folklore”.

“What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?/With your hair falling into place like dominoes”

Damn that’s a gay couples lines you got there Tay. Wonder if you’re wondering what it must’ve been like for Kar to grow up in the model industry, and all of the pressure and exhilaration that entails. From a male’s perspective ofc.

I also take the dominoes line to be Taylor saying what must’ve it been like to have this easy idyllic childhood. Maybe Taylor is the first time Karlie’s been with a girl outside of a hookup and didn’t have to go through the pain of realizing she was into women until later in life. (Not that that’s not painful, it’s just different, and allows you to have a perfectly straight childhood/teenagerhood)

“And the coastal town we wandered 'round had nеver seen a love as pure as it/And thеn it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it could never be”

Maybe this relationship never existed in the way she thought at all. You know Carrie Fischer’s character in When Harry Met Sally and how until she meets the right guy, she spends the whole movie insisting that whatever married guy she’s seeing really loves her!! And he’s gonna leave his wife for her!! That’s what these two songs make me think about, waking up and realizing they were never going to leave their wife, you were projecting this whole story onto someone else, but that doesn’t mean there was no value in what happened.

“And the coastal town we never found will never see a love as pure as it/'Cause it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it will never be”

The coastal town seems an obvious Rhode Island reference, to get more specific it reminds me of when Josh and Karlie visited Taylor at her Rhode Island home in 2014 and Josh looks peeved as hell. 1, 2 Also if I remember correctly, enty has a blind where he says there was a huge fight between Josh and Taylor which ended in Taylor not wanting to be around him again. Just interesting to note. (And if anyone has the receipt, please send it my way!)

Taylor may have been projecting this fairytale narrative at the time of being able to make it work, of being friends with Josh even but it didn’t work and the fairytale is left to be folklore, never made real.

The outro is the same as the intro to the song, implying to me that while she’s telling herself it was bad, you weren’t happy, she’s still catching herself missing it and what she had with Karlie. She left a part of her back in New York see, and she can’t stop her mind from retracing old footsteps.

Now, onto how I think Happiness and how I think it connects. I’m about to audition for the national team in the reaching Olympics. Wish me luck. :)

A bit of a preamble though, I don’t take this song ~super~ literally. Depending on what day of the week it is I think it’s probably her divorcee rpg simulator or her closing the book on her ex situationship gf on her own terms ~in a straight way~. So not to discredit this whole ass post but. Take with a grain of salt.

“Honey, when I'm above the trees/I see this for what it is”

See that bold bit? That’s the main connective tissue between these songs. She’s finally woken up and now that she’s this far removed from the relationship she sees what it was. To add to the pain of it all, this is especially potent if you wonder if Karlie gaslit Tay into thinking this wasn’t a big deal, they were just fucking around when Karlie has literal Softest Love Song You Are In Love dedicated to her.

“But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given/Is just shit we're dividin' up”

This seems to me to be a masters heist reference. Karlie since Lover, is musically tied to this event in Taylor’s life, it’s what I think is keeping Tay from making a clean break from her so to speak.

“Showed you all of my hiding spots/I was dancing when the music stopped”

This seems to be a Rep era/dwoht reference. Yes, Taylor constantly references dancing, but the hiding spots (loved you in secret! you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis!) combined with the dancing when the music stopped (I'd kiss you as the lights went out! Swaying as the room burned down!) brings out the full kaylor clown in me.

“There'll be happiness after you/But there was happiness because of you/Both of these things can be true”

This is probably some of the most gut wrenching lyrics Taylor’s ever written. Damn, imagine having that written about you. Anyway, the point here is the thesis of this whole damn post. Gold Rush is Taylor catching herself daydreaming about the happy parts, and reminding herself about the bad to make her snap out of it. Happiness is her coming to terms that both parts of that relationship were true. Things aren’t that simple.

“Haunted by the look in my eyes/That would've loved you for a lifetime/Leave it all behind”

This feels very Cruel Summer doesn’t it? “I love you ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” These lines make this relationship read as two things to me. One, it was very one sided, and Taylor/the narrator, was obviously left behind at the end of it when she was heavily invested into making this work. And 2, it was doomed from the beginning. Again. Big cruel summer energy here.

Or it’s a divorcee rpg simulator 3000. Now with extra glamour and opportunities to dramatically drink wine in dressing gowns.

I don’t have a lot to say about the second verse of the song that. Karlie has a nice smile, Gatsby reference, dig at whoever the next person to take Taylor’s place as a side fling (or a dig at Josh, or a baby reference since that’s what the Gatsby line refers to). The only other thing worthy of note for this post is the line following the Gatsby reference.

“No, I didn't mean that/Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury”

is the next line, where she regrets what she just said and admits to saying overly harsh things and overlooking the truth of the matter when she’s angry, which to me feels like a big Afterglow/Me! reference.

“There'll be happiness after me/But there was happiness because of me/Both of these things, I believe”

I think a lot of what Taylor’s doing emotionally in the chorus is legitimizing this relationship for herself. Yeah, Josh and Karlie will have a happy life in Florida with Ivanka and them, but Taylor also made Karlie happy too and she doesn’t want Karlie to forget it.

It reminds me of the way she talks about August, that she genuinely loves James/Karlie, and thinks they have something. But she’s just the pit stop on the commitment highway, and the depth of her feelings for the other person will never be acknowledged. It’s exhausting you know?

“In our history, across our great divide”

“Guilty, guilty reaching out across the sea/That you put between you and me”

Nothing to see here, just a nifty parallel. Karlie doesn’t want wrinkles in her new life see.

“There is a glorious sunrise/Dappled with the flickers of light/From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind/And there is happiness”

This bit (which has some of my favorite imagery in this whole dang album!!!) reminds me of the end of the Wildest Dreams mv where she runs out to the car with the lover following her after the big charade of pretending not to care as much as she does, while knowing you aren’t the one that got picked.

Interestingly, if you look at the shot of the four characters together near the end, the outfits parallel the ones worn by Kar, Tay, and Josh at the 2014 Met Gala. This was of course the one where Tay and Kar got ready together and Karlie proceeded to spend the night with Josh and where Tay just looks. Miserable. (see here!)

The line also parallels Wildest Dreams lyrically.

“Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress/Staring at the sunset, babe”

Which you know. Worth noting.

The last line (And there is happiness) seems to point to there being happiness in leaving the bad situation just as much as there was happiness in the situation. It’s Time to Go anyone?

“I can't make it go away by making you a villain/I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven”

A series of thoughts. One, I love the first line where Taylor acknowledges anger isn’t going to make it better. There’s only so much being angry in this situation will do, and it’s not like Taylor’s record is clean here either. (I mean I assume. We know she went psycho on the phone anyway)

Two. Seven years in heaven is both a play on a famous game/turn of phrase (Seven minutes in heaven) but one of the more bold references to Karlie in her whole damn discography. Do I think they’ve been together for seven years straight? Not really. But do I think Taylor saw an opportunity and jumped on it? Yep.

“And I pulled your body into mine/Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties”

No thoughts head empty this line is a sucker punch and I love it. If anyone needs me I’ll be watching her perform ikywt on the vsfs and crying to yail.

“All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness”

Oh look! Another Gatsby reference. Or Taylor calling Karlie out on profiting off of her association with Tay after they clearly did not end on good terms. (Folklore themed maternity shoot anyone?) I mean, whatever floats your boat.

A bit on the green light metaphor from Gatsby, because it’s worth noting even if I don’t have much more to say on it here.

“Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal.”

Yes I copied that from Spark Notes. No I am not sorry. I have an exam tomorrow and I’m writing about a dead ship on a dead social media website. Sometimes we do what we must do.

I love the ending of this song, I really really do, it feels like taking in a breath of air and finally feeling free of the weight you’re carrying. It feels like a final goodbye, like Tay’s getting closure on her own terms and I truly love that for her. Bb’s stepping out into the daylight. <3

There is happiness

In our history, across our great divide

There is a glorious sunrise

Dappled with the flickers of light

From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind

Oh, leave it all behind

Leave it all behind

And there is happiness

So, what was this whole seven page post for then?

Gold Rush and Happiness being connected has been a theory rattling around in my brain for forever and I’ve wanted to write it down for just as long. The tldr of it all is pretty simple, Gold Rush is about her reminiscing about the good parts of Kaylor, and pulling herself out of it, reminding herself it was bad and bad for her. Happiness is her legitimizing the relationship, and moving on while acknowledging there was bad and good in their story. It just took me seven goddamn pages to articulate that.

If you’ve reached the end of this. Damn. Thanks. Go get a snack or something, you deserve it after reading this.

#<3 #hope this entertains y'all like i said been wanting to write it down for a while #hope i explained my points well!!!#kaylor lyrics #kaylor analysis #gold rush analysis #happiness analysis #oh and let me know if the links work!

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oopssasha · 4 years

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A Fan Theory: Larry Stylinson

Dear Sasha

Because you wouldn’t Elsa and let it go. I’m gonna go all out with this once and for all. Quarantine is honestly killing my mind. So might as well do it now.

In this very long multiple-part essay, I will explain why I believe that Harry and Louis have been together for a decade now.

This is part 1: What got me digging into the pit of Larry Stylinson evidence.

I only got into 1D because Louis’s ‘Walls’ album is AMAZING. So I went back and listened to every single song that Louis was credited as one of the songwriters. Guess what, I noticed things. I’m a nerd who’s into music and lyrics interpretation. And I didn’t live under a rock, so I’ve heard about Larry Stylinson before. I just never looked into it because I was too busy being a Swiftie.

When I started listening to 1D, I hit a jackpot with Perfect. (The only 1D released song that Louis and Harry wrote together without other boys) Because I was such a Swiftie, I recognized Style immediately. Same tempo, same key, same chords, same everything. It’s basically a COLLABORATION. I died. DEAD. Instead of Harry and Taylor holding hands in Central Park for paparazzo, Taylor, Harry, and Louis could have been writing more music together!

Here. Listen to this. Then I dare you to say you don’t want more. Fans of both Taylor and 1D were ROBBED.

I knew that Haylor’s Winter Romance was a PR thing because Taylor did not try to hide the fact that it was a PR thing at all. I actually think she resented that she had to do it to promote an album, instead of letting her music speaks for itself. She’s a GREAT MUSICIAN. I’m sorry. I got a bit too worked up about this. All the drama she went through, especially from 1989-reputation, was really difficult to witness. She called 1989 the depiction of what the media wanted her to be. Then she basically dumped the mainstream media with Reputation. “There will be no explanation. Only reputation.” And her AMA performance was the greatest ever “Bye, Felicia!” to her old recording label. And I just love my dramatic Queen, okay.

Back to Larry Stylinson, I can’t unheard what I did in Perfect. So I started digging into the other side of Haylor. And, oh boy. I thought Taylor was unhappy about it. But Harry and Louis looked downright miserable during this time. So devastated that it hurt my heart. God, no wonder Taylor wrote Out of the Wood. It’s basically a gay anthem. Just listen. “...the rest of the world was black and white, but we were in screaming colors.” The most blatant rainbow reference ever and some people still think this song is about a heterosexual relationship, honestly. I used to think it might’ve been about Kaylor (Karlie Kloss and Taylor Swift) but nuh uh.

Taylor said OOTW was written for the relationship she was in where the biggest feeling in that whole relationship was anxiety. (Will we, won’t we make it?) She emphasized a lot on how ‘just because it was filled with anxiety all the time doesn’t mean that it wasn’t special.’ God, imagine being in her shoes, in a PR relationship, holding hands with a heartbroken boy who isn’t allowed to hold his boyfriend’s hand in public. It broke my heart to pieces. Probably broke Taylor’s, too. (You remember how I wrote another detailed essay on this before, yeah?)

My next stop was music written by Harry and/or Louis, obviously. That’s the playlist you wrote plot bunny about. You could write an entire plot of a romance novel, exclusively from their songs. And damn it, even the songs Harry/Louis wrote for someone else to sing are still obviously their own story. I’m talking about Blackbear’s CHANGES (It’s sad but true, can’t be in love with you = the forced closeting), Ariana Grande’s Just a Little Bit of Your Heart (I know I’m not your only, but at least I’m one. = the bearding), Alex & Sierra’s (You ran your finger down my back and you spelled out your name. = all the times they were hiding their affectionate gestures behind their backs. And other boys’ back. Honestly, they were being sneaky. But it’s something you can’t unsee. And once I saw it, I started seeing everywhere. I’ll give you examples, you’ll see.)

After the music, I arrived at the figurative tattoo parlor. I went there next because Harry and Louis have far too many suspiciously complementary tattoos. (Hi-Oops, Ship-Compass, Anchor-Rope, Heart-Arrow, Rose-Dagger, A Small Cage-Flying Little Birds, Butterfly-‘It Is What It Is’, I can’t change-a blank quotation) Taylor was there when Harry got his ship tattoo, at the same place where Louis got his compass tattoo within the next 24 hours. According to the tattoo artist, Harry said, “We’re always on the road. But my heart is at home and I want a ship.” Meanwhile, instead of pointing toward North like a regular compass, Louis’s compass points to HOME. I absolutely think Taylor wrote I Know Places for them. Again, listen. “Loose lips sink ship all the damn time, not this time.” And do you know what this song reminds me of? 1D’s Something Great. Why? Louis’s lines in Something Great, the last four, completely deviate from the rest of the song. The last four in I Know Places did the same thing.

“You’re all I want”

“They takes their shots but we’re bulletproof”

“So much it’s hurting.”

“And you know for me it’s always you.”

“You’re all I want”

“In the dead of night, your eyes so green”

“So much it’s hurting.”

“And I know for you it’s always me.”

They sounded like a shift in perspective to me. The difference was that in Something Great it was just a melodic line, a plea from one person to another. But in I Know Places, the chorus stayed, as a witness.

Taylor was a Larrie. There. I said it.

When 1D was asked about the stories behind their tattoos, Louis always dodged the question by saying something along the line of, “People always think it has to mean something when it could’ve meant nothing at all. It’s just a tattoo.” But recently on a radio show, he talked about the time a fan asked him to write something on her arm so she could get it tattooed, he asked her what she wanted him to write and she said, “I don’t know!” And Louis’s shook. “To be fair, love. It’s a lot of pressure for me. You’re gonna have this on your body for the rest of your life and you’re just saying to me, ‘Write anything.’ It’s difficult.”

So, the same Louis Tomlinson got several prominent tattoos (a stag, a compass, a dagger) which will be on his body for the rest of his life with absolutely no meanings at all. Quite a few (little birds, quotation marks under his rope) that he couldn’t remember why he got it. The compass was the strangest thing. He seemed to have spent a lot of time looking at it, for something with no meaning behind it at all. And, “It points to home. Isn’t that sweet?”

Boobear, you’re not fooling anybody.

Honestly, the tattoos are enough to convince me that Harry and Louis, at the very least, were together for quite a long while. At least from the start of 1D to 1D going on Hiatus. Just look.

First Day of 1D: Louis jumped into Harry’s arms. Harry attempted to twirl them unsuccessfully.

Last Day of 1D before Hiatus: Harry held Louis’s arm behind Niall’s back (This was very much a recurring theme throughout their time in 1D.)

Here’s an exhibition of ‘See it Once, See it Always’

Sir Ian McKellen & One Direction on the Graham Norton Show: Louis was sitting very awkwardly here. At first glance, it seemed like he wanted to be as far away from Harry as possible. But look at his leg. Just look. Louis kept his right leg there, touching Harry’s left leg throughout the whole interview. There were some comments in this video that went on about how Louis was being so mean to Harry. And I’m like, please look before you pass judgement. But I’ve got the benefit of hindsight is 20/20 and hearing Louis sings about Princess Park, so. They were definitely very much in love here.

Night Changes performance on this show was just Harry’s serenading Louis. Watch the video and just look at the way Louis smiled back. He’s so happy. It’s adorable. Zayn and Niall were absolutely trying not to fangirl here. In fact, let me make a meme out of this.

Come on, when you know, you know.

Before heading to Part 2, you should watch this first. Chely Wright is a lesbian country musician. She was in a closet for a long time. It was a difficult experience for her and a heartbreaking bedtime story for me.

Will edit the link to part 2 in when I post it.

Good night now Sasha

Del

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path-of-my-childhood · 5 years

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D.C. Beyoncé Impersonator Riley Knoxx Talks Being in Taylor Swift's Latest Music Video

Washington City Paper // by Elizabeth Tuten // June 21st 2019

WCP: So how did you first get connected to Taylor Swift and the music video for “You Need to Calm Down?” Riley Knoxx: She basically went online looking for a Beyoncé impersonator, found my website, stalked my Instagram. She hand picked me. When Taylor was talking to me on set, she was like, “Thank you for telling your story,” and I was like, “You know my story?” and she was like, “Of course, I picked you.” She’d seen my videos, she’d read my NPR article, she knew it all. I told her that when they told me she’d picked me, I thought they meant her people had picked me, but no, it was really her.

WCP: How did you feel when you heard you’d been cast? RK: I was actually at Queeta’s Palace doing DreamGirls Twisted, doing Deena Jones. I was bouncing off the walls I was so happy. I couldn't tell anyone. Someone asked why I was so hyper and I was like “I can’t tell you but I gotta be in L.A. on Wednesday.” That was on a Sunday. Honestly I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be doing. We didn’t know if it was going to be negative, there’d just been that press about Taylor ripping off the marching band from Beyoncé. Luckily, it was positive. It was really positive.

WCP: What was the vibe like on set? RK: Taylor comes in, I turned around and she said “Hi” and I said “Hey” and she literally jumped in my arms. She sits on the couch and tells us, “I’m compared to all these pop stars, but of all the pop stars out there I’m most like Ed Sheeran, but nobody ever compares me to him, they want to compare me against these other women. So I want you girls here to represent that we’re all strong, fierce women." She was the most gracious, most kind person I’ve met in my life, not just celebrity. I totally had a different opinion of her before I met her. People say a lot of things. I mean she made a whole album about her reputation. In the media she’s painted as a mean girl, there are so many different controversies, Harry [Styles] and Kim Kardashian. But now, honestly if anyone tries to say anything bad about Taylor Swift to me, know I’ll be like “Eh! You don’t understand. This girl is amazing.”

WCP: You have so many Beyoncé costumes, most of which you design and sew yourself. How was the outfit you wore in the video selected? Was it one of your creations? RK: Yes, I make everything that I wear onstage. She had seen the NPR article with this turquoise outfit I hardly ever wear that’s a look of Beyoncé, they liked that, very sheer, very see through, so I brought that, the white one, and a gold and black one I wore in my last concert. So I had to take pictures in all of them and send them the night before in the hotel. I tried them all on, and they wanted the specific one, the turquoise one. But then I got to set, obviously the most elaborate one and the most memorable replica was the white costume from On The Run II [Tour in summer 2018]. So the director looks at it all while we’re in wardrobe, and someone’s like “Where’s the one that we requested?” and the director said no, that he wanted the most memorable one, that the white one was the best. So that’s how they selected it.

WCP: One criticism of the video is that it rips off Beyoncé’s video for “Party.” What do you think of the similarities, and do they seem intentional to you? RK: I never even heard that! Crazy. No! I don’t think so. I think it’s just a coincidence. Honestly the two videos are very different. I can see why people would say that, but I really don’t think that’s what Taylor is trying to do, I don’t think she’s trying to copy everything Beyoncé does.

WCP: What do you think of the criticism that the video puts a straight white woman at the center of the queer narrative? RK: She’s championed gay people many times, in other videos and things. It’s like, when you have a platform like that, who better to use it for than communities that have been underserved. It’s like, you have this platform, you have this voice, what do you want to say? Use that to do some good. You know, she said nothing, and they complained that she wasn’t being political enough. Now she’s saying something, and it’s “appropriating culture?” How? How is she appropriating culture? She’s trying to help. She’s saying, “These are all my friends, go follow them, go to their shows, stan them.” And she also has a petition for the Equality Act. It’s basically her lending her voice. There’s been tons of straight white women who’ve lent their voice - Madonna, Cher - you know other straight women who are gay icons. Why not Taylor?

WCP: What do you hope that people take away from “You Need to Calm Down?’ RK: Exactly that, that they need to calm down. Like she says, “Shade never made anybody less gay.” Protesting and doing all this crazy stuff won’t stop people from being gay, from being trans. Nobody ever saw a sign and said, “You know what, maybe I will stop being gay,” because someone came and picketed. You know, we live on this planet together, we all have to share, and you don’t have to like what we do, or who we are, but respect us as a community. This video will be iconic forever. Taylor even said to me, “This is the biggest video I’ll ever do.” And it’s probably the most important. It’s incorporating all queer culture. You don’t have to be gay to have the voice to help people; you’re an ally. She wants to be an ally, let her be an ally.

WCP: Where can we see you perform around D.C. this summer? RK: You can see me perform every Saturday and Sunday morning at Queeta’s Palace at Benning Road, you can get tickets at eventbrite.com. And I’ll be touring soon and doing concerts and I’ll announce all that soon on my Instagram page, @RileyKnoxx. Two x’s.

#riley knoxx #article #about taylor #taylor swift #you need to calm down #drag queens

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mandaloriangf · 4 years

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hey if you watch taylor swift's documentary miss americana, she talks a lot about how she was always praised when she was younger for being the "ideal celebrity" because she never brought up politics or anything. she was also influenced by her childhood heroes, the dixie chicks, being blacklisted completely when they criticized bush, and she was terrified of the same thing happening to her. she was under a lot of pressure from the media to be "a good girl" and stay quiet (1/?)

her first time speaking up politically was during the 2018 midterms, where she openly supported one candidate over another and encouraged people to register to vote, which increased voter registration by a huge amount. she made the post because the other candidate was openly homophobic, racist and misogynist, and she couldn't handle not speaking up. there's a scene in the documentary where her dad, and a bunch of her producers, record label, etc. are strongly telling her not to make the post (2)

but she says she has to go through with it and argues about it with them. they're worried she could lose a lot of fans and that it could be a major safety issue for her (since she already has huge issues with people breaking into her houses or stalking her). she answers that the candidate she is opposing wants to repeal protections for women against stalking and abuse and stuff like that, and that she has to take a stand. (3/?)

with 'you need to calm down' she was criticized a lot for being 'performative' but the reason she did it is she thought she had already been pretty open about being accepting of the lgbtq+ community, but her really good friend todrick hall was TERRIFIED to come out to her because he didn't know what her reaction would be, and she realized she needed to make a bigger statement if one of her close friends was completely unaware of her position on the matter. (4/?)

todrick helped her direct the music video, and she asked a lot of members of the lgbtq+ community if what she was doing was ok, and asked for their opinions on the song and music video to make sure she was being an ally and not overstepping. she also got as many lgbtq+ people in the music video as possible, purposefully collabed with brendan urie and spotlighted lesser known lgbtq+ artists. she also hand selected the drag queens in the music video and they were all shocked she knew who they were

anyways I know you don't like taylor and I'm not trying change that or excuse her actions - she definitely could have done more, sooner. I'm just trying to explain why she didn't speak up sooner and why she realized she had to. on social media, she's also been taking care to spotlight lesser known female poc and lgbtq+ artists that she loves and has really just been making an effort to be an ally in every way possible. she's definitely not perfect, but she's trying! (last one I swear lol)

She’s never claimed to be an activist & imo that’s an odd expectation to put on her. she’s a musician first and occasionally talks about politics on the side just like most celebrities? Not saying she’s above criticism but she faces uncommonly intense scrutiny compared to other people at her level of fame. People make absurd claims abt her with NO evidence and it becomes gospel among people who hated her to begin with. I’m not trying to be rude but the biases against her deserve critical thought

for the record im coming at this as a former swiftie, so this is not me irrationally hating on her

i haven’t seen the documentary since i dont have netflix and also haven’t been a fan in a long time, but i have seen the scene you talked about since it was going around on twitter months ago. the general consensus was that it was highly staged (most likely, given the nature of the documentary) and also dripping with privilege.

my issue with her isn’t that she was unproblematic but silent, but that she was notoriously problematic AND silent. i’d argue that the first time she really became political was in 2014 when she began to embrace feminism coincidentally as the 1989 era began, but the problem was that she still didnt seem to grasp what it actually was, given that she paraded around a group of women she stopped hanging out with like a year later and used them to tear down katy perry in the bad blood video.

like, i understand her being young and afraid to stand up for something when her career was first beginning. but after years and years and years, especially by the time she was willing to stand up to misogynistic men in 2014 and beyond, she still didn’t really do much else, you know? and a lot of it always seemed to center around her.

but anyway, with you need to calm down, todd in the shadows made an excellent video about it here. maybe im biased because im critical of her work regardless, but as a bi woman, i found the song and video insulting and condescending. shade never made anybody less gay is easily one of her worst if not the worst line she’s ever written. she conflates her internet haters with violent homophobes and then ends the video with her ending the feud with katy yet it was released during pride and meant to be some sort of anthem when born this way came out in 2011 and, while undeniably flawed, did a much better job of getting the point across. taylor’s contemporaries have been saying the same stuff, but like, 10+ years earlier.

i guess for me, im just really tired of people praising her for doing this that others have done for much, much longer. im fine with her making a post like she did for the midterms, it felt genuine! but other stuff like you need to calm down comes off as patronizing and that scene from the documentary feels like it tries to position her as this almost like katniss figure which is just....tone deaf considering people like the ferguson protesters have been murdered for years. but thats all just me.

#ask amanda #long post #anonymous

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9w1ft · 4 years

Text

feels a little early to be writing a year-in review but i find myself in a quiet moment so i thought i’d tap a few things out

in 2019, in all facets of my life, i faced a challenge of some sort and i surprised myself as i held my ground more often than ran away, which felt new. what *also* felt new was this sense of ease i began having professionally, when it came to conceptualizing and making decisions. sorta feels like a lot of things are crystallizing.

in terms of life on here, i didn’t have TSL for the majority of the year (anybody out there remember TSL?!) so i busied myself with crafting fun memories on my own. there were spans of weeks where i’d just get on a tear and run into one new thing after the other and it was all really just fantastic. i gave myself permission to indulge in the most decadent of things and to follow the most mercurial of assumptions to places i thought closed off.

i’m pretty sure i’ve smiled and laughed more over this year than i ever have in my entire life. no joke.

here are some kaylorverse moments that brought me joy in 2019:

it’s nice to have a friend

2018 was my first year being a kaylor and i just sort of was moreover on the contributor or commenter side of things so 2019 was interesting in that when taylor really leaned into the gay imagery leading up to album release, i started getting newer people sending me stuff! and asking me my takes on things! and like, my words suddenly had weight for some reason? it felt weird but i truly enjoyed getting to talk with so many different people and hear their ideas and laugh and such. that was markedly different from last year. from within this, 79-swift reached out to me with the eye theory, the most beautiful and rare of observations by a singularly lovely individual that i have dedicated my life to protecting and promoting. and i feel like i’ve gotten to know many people i knew through 2018 more deeply and have come to accept the role i play, lean in to it, and formulate my own truth of the matter, and that sort of heightened perspective on it has been a blessing and i’m so thankful for this strange sense of camaraderie that has formed with many of you? thank you??? and my conviction, and my wishes, for the girls to find happiness have only strengthened this year... im committed to seeing this through whether people like it or not!! harumph!

block ‘em

i also started proactively curating my experience.. that’s right! i began blocking trolls with reckless abandon, and i turned anons off! 😂 and damn it’s so much more worthwhile of a time on here when you set aside people that only want to ruin your day.

i got over my fear of eyeballs!!

😂 no seriously, body horror and in particular eyes out of context was actually sort of a thing that previously creeped me out BUT LOOK AT ME NOW. i’m gonna do my best not to rehash the eye theory, please read the post and recall the number of times i filipped out 😂 each and every one is precious to me

also

geeking out with bert and ernie gifs with kaylorfossil and making empsmd-blog drop her debit card need a mention.

the ME! music playlist.

i fell in love with so many songs and like, running into eye motifs in so many of the songs, lyrically and visually, was the most hilarious thing. but really just a lot of the songs really tapped at my soul with an ice pick and i even went to go see The Japanese House live in Osaka which was transcendental and i’m just so thankful for having taylor introduce Good At Falling to me because it was a *necessary* album.

i made and collected stuff

i made and amassed many artifacts that one day i can look back on and remember what a wild ride it has been. some favorites are my procuring of the pixel art heart ring from the ME! mv (a nod to my tsl days..), as well as the evil eye ring.. i didn’t physically make this but the eye theory made the taydar podcast and there’s nothing i enjoy more in this world than making someone giggle and i just love that the episode exists. making that kaylor straw was 👌 working on a mock-up of the golden locket has been very satisfying. i started incorporating fun kaylor winks into my artwork as well which was fun, and i also commissioned a collage from the very talented and lovely valheria and i couldn’t have asked for anything better 🥰

wildin in the TS7 tag was the best.

i made this observation that there’s this type of cocoon that looks like a cobra, which transforms into a butterfly over a period of 13 days, and like, the post got so many notes and i just had a lot of swiftie eyeballs all of a sudden on my blog which led to some hilarity. but honestly i just love geeking out over theories and it’s fun to get to do that as fans of taylor at large. things felt warm and effervescent.

my newspaper subscription

i subscribe to the TTB Times and let me just say the submissions and anons this year were overwhelmingly a delight to read through every day. also like, we did get cued in to stuff before album release and i am just thankful that there are people out there both who want to give us that and people who work to help them give us that. thank you ttb for moderating your blog (my newspaper of choice) however it is that you do and to everyone that contributed to her blog.

the whole lead up to the ME! video release

so glorious... but particular the hour before. i was rushing to pick up my kid from school and suddenly i kept getting messages from people that taylor was covering her face and framing her eyes, and i was like oh please yeah sure BUT THEN when the snake in the video had a blank eye like i don’t think you guys understand i had to wait at a bus stop and exchange pleasantries with the other moms but it was a *five alarm fire* in my mind

cause shade never made anybody less gay

stealing away to listen to YNTCD for the first time and hearing Taylor Alison Swift use the word gay in a released song for the first time was a transcendental moment

karlie’s hand in the YNTCD mv.

‘nuff said

daisies. daisies everywhere.

taylor said daisy kaylor rights, and she said it everywhere. *everywhere*. cannot, will not, get over how blessed we are.

gay gay gay gay gay.... taylor’s

sorry not sorry that wiz khalifa collab with elohim on her track FYM was ethereal and i still hope it’s a part of the preshow playlist for Lover Fest

clue hunting in klossy videos and karlie ads

call me a corporate shill all you want like, there’s always a little something in there and i also enjoy the little flickers of goofy karlie that jump out from time to time. and i know this is not the case for everyone but post eyepocalypse, karlie leaning in, winking that eye of hers time and time again was just pique comedy for me and it always made me chuckle. the brands karlie has repped have been really laying it on thick too and it’s been a joy to see. when taylor does it with her music it’s art, and for me karlie’s media presence is a form of art too 😌

oh kaptain my kaptain

kimby liked a comment of mine on her insta which was a distinct honor and privilege 😌 and really she was dropping clues left and right through spring up until she got her snazzy new job and things calmed down 🥰 of which i am so proud talk about an on brand job! also partially clearing the air about my TSL theory and the lead up to clearing that air was quite fulfilling for me and i am forever grateful for the time we shared. and to this point, the seesters in general (and kurt omg) have been quite active all year and we don’t deserve it but they’ve stuck around and it’s been calming.

album cover art release on the livestream

LIKE I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE NEVER HAD A FOURTH WALL BROKEN SO DULY

i love you forever, thank you for everything

when taylor came to visit tokyo this year i was basically reenacting the swamp scene from OOTW trying to get a ticket to the secret event... i listened to ME! on LINE MUSIC for over 2000 plays, i bought multiple CD’s, it was such an ordeal and then to not have a ticket after all but still putting on my thinking cap and managing to figure out where the event was while i was at disney sea and literally running from disney sea to the venue in high heels with The Man playing on my phone was oscar-worthy and actually *being correct* and the moment i knew i was correct and how i knew i was correct was so amazing 😉 and i play by the rules so i didn’t try to get in without a ticket and i didn’t lurk. but just to have figured it out and validated it was such a thrill. seeing her on TV live was amazing as well ///

lost in japan, reprise

oh and, last year for rep tour there was this theory i had which didn’t pan out but it had to do with the clues i thought shawn mendes was dropping through autumn 2018 and anyway that’s a story for another day but as i was bopping around town, looking for lockets, staying in rooms i have no business being in, drinking lots of whisky...just to know that while i was doing *everything but* successfully meeting taylor, she literally phoned shawn and had him record lines for that eye theory remix like, i will never ever, like, guys. guys. 😂 it’s too perfect for words. the world is weird like that sometimes.

Lover

and omg Lover the album? i absolutely love lover and i loves that honeymoon period of theorizing and parallel unearthing that we did and i love how slightly creepy-cute it is and i love the whole wabi-sabi thing going on and i absolutely love every song on the album, every one, they all have so much meaning to me... and each one is teeming with little blips and bloops and sound samples and seconds of silence and i love all the brass instruments and so many lush moments... i guess my shortlist (in no particular order) would be the archer, lover, i think he knows, daylight, cruel summer, false god, cornelia street, ME! (yea i really like me 🥰). and to think about everything that went in to the album and the thrill of what it might have been and the vastness of what we don’t know, but like, the weight of that potential?? it’s like this vast pastel and black abyss of drowsy and deep feelings and i love every inch of it. it’s a vibe that reflects so much of what this year has been for me and i’m happy to have existed in this time to have had it with me.

jesus this has gotten too long, and i still have like 24 more things to write out but um, basically, as i’m sure you’ve been able to assume? i wanted to say that despite 2019 being somewhat of a slasher film affair for our fandom, i still had a goddamn great time this year and i hope everyone can find some good memories and relive them as well 🥰

#kaylor #much love to you all!!#all eyes on us

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jonismitchell · 4 years

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hey!! i haven’t talked to you in forever i hope you’re doing well. idk if you’ve answered this recently, sorry- top three on every album (totally put why if you want to, i love hearing people’s different opinions on this)

ahhh hey! i’m doing okay (as well as can be considered given the state of the world). i have not answered this question since folklore came out, so here’s a short opinion piece by yours truly. (under the cut because i never learned to shut up)

debut: - our song: listening to taylor swift sing from the “man’s perspective” for the first time is something that can be so personal. i’m pretty sure that this is also the first taylor song i ever heard (in 2012) so i have some degree of emotional attachment to it. - invisible: cause i just wanna show you! she don’t even know you! visceral flashbacks of playing this on loop while watching ever after high and harry potter videos in, like, fifth grade. truly describes my pining for every single person i’ve ever liked oops - should’ve said no: she’s so righteously angry and i love it. also the country accent is so strong here and i am absolutely obsessed with that.... legends only. anyway this is your reminder not to get back with your scumbag ex.

fearless: - love story: this is a classic! this is literally a classic. god the forbidden love, the happy ending, this implications of this being one of the biggest hits of her career.... it is The Ultimate Taylor Swift Song and we all just have to respect that. also a healthy dose of “the man’s perspective.” she SAW that film before and she changed the ending!! i cannot :) - come in with the rain: her vocals on this song are so dreamy and the song is really sweet. i think it manages to be lowkey and straddle how fucking dramatic being a teenager is with a lot of class that most of fearless doesn’t access. it’s a good song! - you belong with me: hey it’s the lonely hopeless romantic anthem! yes i know i’m citing the two biggest hits from fearless... they got popular because they’re super good okay! i would argue that the songwriting here is very classic taylor and it’s also super sweet :)

speak now: - last kiss: ugh this really is an amazing breakup ballad. it’s full of amazing one-liners like “you can plan for a change in the weather and time but i never planned on you changing your mind.” i can’t believe how brilliant the whole song is and it’s even more impressive when you remember she wrote it alone. cannot wait to hear the updated vocals but the shaky breaths in the original are perfection <3 - enchanted: okay this is actually my favourite speak now song but i thought i’d shut up about being a lonely romantic for more than five seconds! anyway i have projected this onto so many people... it’s so relatable and yet it’s super general and YET it makes no sense when you think about it... that’s my style of taylor swift song - the story of us: i love how blatantly unhinged taylor was while writing speak now it really speaks to me. i didn’t really like this one so much before but i went through a Thing and binge listened and now i am obsessed. love love love the lyrics and i think the production suits it well too

red: - holy ground: this is my ALL TIME FAVOURITE taylor swift song. i genuinely think these are the best lyrics she has written in her whole career.... “we blocked the noise with the sound of you and for the first time i had something to lose?” no one is doing it like her they simply aren’t. this song is absolutely perfect.... i don’t really have words to describe it i just need everyone to appreciate my taste for a minute - treacherous: gay little taylor swift. the whole idea of forbidden love crops up again here and i have to say i love it. i swear to god the vibes... the quiet confessional on the verses that explodes into this huge ranting bridge? that’s it that’s it that’s one of the best songs of all time man miss swift is an icon - state of grace: love is like a religion, perhaps. this contains such a wonderful extended metaphor and utilizes a bunch of different writing tactics so well. i sound like a broken record at this point but this is a good song! and yes i project it onto lucas (i’m fine to say that no one is reading this much)

1989: - wildest dreams: oh just say you’ll remember me! it’s the songs about doomed love that always get me, something forbidden, something you have to keep private for fear of it being destroyed. side note, everyone who thinks a song as good as this is about harry styles can fight me. taylor pulled this out of my personal diary in sixth grade and it hasn’t stopped being relatable since - wonderland: oh you guys know i love a literary reference and wonderland is so good. haven’t you heard what becomes of curious minds is also really gay so the song works well for me. oh and a special shoutout to everyone who removed a tattoo because of this song, i hope you’re doing real well - style: very happy that i never think of anyone in particular when i listen to this banger and instead just enjoy it like a normal person <3 i remember not understanding the hype until binge listening to 1989 one day in eighth grade and being like “oh i get it now” so there’s that (shoutout to this love for nearly being on this list)

reputation: - dancing with our hands tied: this is another one of my all time favourites! the pining, the gay vibes, the love that dies in secrecy... it basically goes through my list of how to be a good song and ticks my requirements off one by one. i love how anxious the production is and her emotion while singing it on rep tour. karlie kloss fucking fight me challenge. - new year’s day: this quiet subtlety of this love ballad gets to me... it was my favourite when i originally listened to reputation and hasn’t fallen out of the top three since. i think it highlights taylor’s songwriting abilities and her ability to make me cry, both very important aspects of music - delicate: this is another hopeless romantic pining song! how many are we up to now? i really think delicate is the essential crush song that describes basically every feeling i’ve ever had. and unfortunately, up to this point, it has all been delicate :/ at least i have the solace of sharing problems with a talented millionaire

lover: - cruel summer: this really is THE fucking song for me... it encapsulated my ninth grade year, it makes my heart hurt, it’s line after line of pain to me personally. i have no idea what miss swift is banging on about here (and i prefer it that way) but it really just means a lot to me! another song that sounds like my diary entry and is also completely inaccessible, i don’t know how she does it. - the archer: i love the moment where taylor swift decided that she was going to give those of us with anxiety a theme song every single album, and i think the archer is a definite highlight of her whole career. the subtle dreampop influences and the confessional vibes make it exactly what i wanted from lover, and also it hurts me emotionally in ways i can’t fully articulate. - lover: see, i do have a heart! listen, i’m only fifteen years old but i know i want this song to play at my wedding. it is so quietly romantic and perfectly sure of its own goals. it does not seek to accomplish any other goal than being a love song. i started thinking about the lyrics while writing this and now i have to go cry in a corner. (shoutout to cornelia street for nearly being on this list)

folklore: - mirrorball: right on holy ground’s heels for the dubious honour of being my favourite ever taylor swift song, mirrorball describes my Whole Life so unfortunately i’m considering suing miss swift herself. i just think that it speaks to me in ways that would require a whole essay to explain.... let’s just not - august: here’s your mandatory hopeless romantic pining song. did i mention i nearly cried to this on the day of release? i think that she Gets It. i don’t know taylor and i don’t entertain delusions of her knowing me but man she really just plucked the core of my whole love life and said “here’s a song about it, will you shut up now?” back when we were still changing for the better... i need a minute - betty: definitely influenced by the stellar performance at the acms! or maybe i just love listening to taylor openly singing about girls.... i just have a lot of feelings about the emotional resonance about the grand romantic gesture this song builds up to! the key change! the storytelling! kissing on the porch in front of all your stupid friends! this is what taylor swift is all about (shoutout to illicit affairs, my tears ricochet, and this is me trying for nearly being on this list)

#loudwithlaughter #asking with you #this is just 1500 words about how much i love random songs

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tswiftdaily · 5 years

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Taylor Swift on "Lover" and haters

You might say Taylor Swift's happy place is at the piano in her Nashville home. "There have been so many songs that were written at this piano," she said.

"And it's often the middle of the night?" asked correspondent Tracy Smith.

"It's usually in the middle of the night," she replied. "Or if I'm trying to get to sleep and I can't and then I get an idea. And I'm, like, 'Well, I'm not tired anyway!' And then kind of wander over here."

It's kind of a rare sight, not just because "Sunday Morning" was there ("I haven't serenaded someone in a while, hope you know that!"), but because, for the moment, Taylor Swift was actually sitting still.

I promise that you'll never find another like Me-e-e, Ooh ooh ooh ooh I'm the only one of me Baby, that's the fun of me – "Me!" by Taylor Swift, Joel Little and Brendon Urie

And there never really has been another like Taylor Swift. After only 13 years in the business, she's become a musical force of nature, with an armload of #1 hits, more Grammy Awards than The Rolling Stones, and (according to Forbes) the distinction of being the highest-paid celebrity on the planet.

By any measure, she's an amazing young woman. But there were times, she says, that being young, and a woman, worked against her.

"You're always gonna have people going, 'Did she write all her own songs?'" she said. "Talking about your personal life, talking about your dating life.

"There's a different vocabulary for men and women in the music industry, right?"

"Gimme an example," asked correspondent Tracy Smith.

"Okay. A man does something, it's 'strategic'; a woman does the same thing, it's 'calculated.' A man is allowed to 'react'; a woman can only 'over-react.'"

And it seems her usual reaction is to get to work. Swift writes or co-writes all of her songs. And what's more, her music videos are all her vision, from the pastel wonderland in "Me!"…to the giant dollhouse in her latest video, "Lover."

That's also the title of her critically-acclaimed new studio album, her seventh. She wrote "Lover" on her piano at home, and polished it up in the studio. And once she recorded the music, Swift (accompanied by and her cats) went to Hollywood to make the music video, and she invited Smith along to watch.

There's a love story here, and like a lot of Swift's work, it's an echo of her real life.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift discovered her love for music as a toddler. She set her sights on a career in country music, and eventually her parents and younger brother moved to Nashville to help her do it.

"My brother's a real bro for doing that," Swift said.

"Yeah, they all upended their lives," Smith said.

"For sure."

"It worked out well!"

"Yeah, I buy 'em lots of presents," she laughed.

The rest reads like a fantasy: Swift became a country music phenomenon, and, in the last few years, a pop icon. But the superstar is, by her own admission, as emotionally fragile as any other 20-something, "I'm still someone who is the first to apologize when I'm wrong," she said. "But I think I'm better at standing up for myself when I've been wronged. So, that's something that I think also comes with growing up."

Which brings us to Scooter Braun. Earlier this summer, Braun, a talent agent with whom Swift says she has a contentious relationship, acquired the rights to her previous recordings – her masters – when his company bought Scott Borchetta's Big Machine Label Group for a reported $300 million. Borchetta, who worked with Swift for years, says she and those close to her (including her dad, who was an investor), knew about the deal in advance, and that Swift had previously been offered the chance to buy her own masters.

She remembers it differently, and told Smith she didn't see it coming: "I found out when it was online, like, when it hit the news."

"Nobody in your inner circle knew?" Smith asked.,

"Nobody knew."

"And you didn't smell it?"

"No. I knew he would sell my music; I knew he would do that. I couldn't believe who he sold it to, because we've had endless conversations about Scooter Braun. And he has 300 million reasons to conveniently forget those conversations."

With the sale of the masters to her first six albums, there has been speculation that Swift might re-record her back catalog, in order to control the recordings of her songs.

Smith asked, "Might you do that?"

"Oh, yeah," Swift replied.

"That's a plan?"

"Yeah, absolutely!"

Scooter Braun may not agree with her side of the story, but he did reach out to Swift in a tweet last week, calling her new album "brilliant."

It's clear that Swift wants to control her music: When it's time to release one of her new songs, she does it personally, talking to her fans live on Instagram. This personal connection has earned her a loyal following. But her openness comes at price: She's followed just about everywhere she goes these days, by people who are crazy about her – or just plain crazy.

Smith asked, "Where is home for you now?"

"It's a very good question," she said. "I try not to ever really say where I am the most, because since all my addresses are on the internet, people tend to show up uninvited. Like, you know, dudes that think we have an imaginary marriage."

"And you mentioned that you keep wound dressing with you?"

"Yeah. I've had a lot of stalkers show up to the house, armed. So, we have to think that way."

And she's come under attack in other ways: You need only glance at the tabloids to see some very well-publicized feuds, and she often hits back at her haters through her music. For instance, in "You Need to Calm Down," she calls out anti-gay protesters and online trolls:

You are somebody that we don't know But you're comin' at my friends like a missile Why are you mad? When you could be GLAAD? Sunshine on the street at the parade But you would rather be in the dark ages …

Control your urges to scream about all the people you hate 'Cause shade never made anybody less gay – "You Need to Calm Down" by Taylor Swift and Joel Little

Smith asked, "I'm curious, because I feel like almost every album, you have a song where you address the haters, at least one song. Sometimes more than one song."

"I probably do have that habit. I imagine that I might have that habit, yeah."

"Why is that? Why sing to the haters?"

"Well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them," Swift replied. "You know, people go on and on about, like, you have to forgive and forget to move past something. No, you don't. You don't have to forgive and you don't have to forget to move on. You can move on without any of those things happening. You just become indifferent, and then you move on."

"Do you believe in forgiveness?"

"Yes, absolutely, like, for people that are important in your life who have added, you know, who have enriched your life and made it better, and also there has been some struggle and some bad stuff, too. But I think that, you know, if something's toxic and it's only ever really been that, what are you gonna do?"

"Just move on?"

"Just move on. It's fine."

Taylor Swift's music is always personal, sometimes intensely so. "There's one song on the album called 'Soon You'll Get Better' that it's, I can't even really hear. I can't even listen to it."

She won't talk specifically about her inspiration, but it comes at a time when her mother Andrea, who was battling cancer, suffered a relapse.

Swift said, "It's really interesting because I don't think I have written a song quite like that before. And it's just sort of, like, it's just a tough one."

"I can imagine. But I can also tell you, having listened to it, that it's universal."

"It's just not something that we deal with until we have to, until we see it, until we experience it, until someone close to us is going through something like that. And so, writing about it was really emotional. And I'm just gonna stop talking about it now."

She's more comfortable plunging into her work. On the Hollywood set, a large glass tank will become a symbolic fish bowl in the "Lover" music video.

"I very oftentimes remark that my life is like a fish bowl, and that, like, if I were to, like, fall in love, you know, somebody's choosing to be in that fish bowl with me. To jump into the fish bowl with me and live in that world just with me – it's not as depressing as it sounds, I promise! It's just symbolic!"

Talk about fish bowls: she's been dating British actor Joe Alwyn for three years. Seems he's up for a swim.

At the moment, Swift is, well, fully immersed in today. Beyond that, she says she doesn't know … and doesn't really want to.

Smith asked her, "Do you think about, you know, 'What am I gonna do in 20, 30 years?'"

"No, 'cause that puts me into what I call a panic spiral," Swift replied. "Like, I cannot do that. I've never been able to do that."

Why? "It just freaks me out. When I zoom out too far, I freak out. Do I know where I'm gonna be or even wanna be in 20 years? Absolutely not. Like, not taking a single day for granted."

"So, how far ahead do you look?"

"Six months. Just 'cause I have to plan shows and stuff. But I don't know what I'll do after this album. And I think that's great. I tell myself, like, it's actually really ungrateful to just assume that you have 20 years. Like, be stoked that you have today."

(x)

#cbs sunday morning #interview

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