#and behind on my year long Taylor Swift lyric calender

[likesrandomstuff]

Omg i loved your list!!! It must've been a handful bc it was very thorough, diversified (in genres, year published/updated type of writing and even authors). And you said you were deep into the avalance tag in ao3, so you must've had a lot of work with these. You even included SMAUS!!! I totally forget about them, but they are super fun to read and the ones you selected are really good indeed! Kudos to you!!! Your whole list is AWESOME! And very entertaining tbh bc i was here waiting to see what fic you'd recommend lmaoo did not disappoint, let me tell you! T A S T E hahaha

But wait... You read You Are My Miracle in one go???? How far was it when you read it?? And YEAH once in a while we are hit with a 10k+ chapter and i LOVE IT! Hahahaha idek when i started, but maaan the slow burn kills me!!!! Good fic good fic.

And the HSAU MY BELOVED!!! that's the one you mentioned chapter 27 right? lol A Classic™️ can't express how in love i still am with this fic. It's long, and the slow burn seems even longer bc YOU JUST WANT THEM TO KISS 😭 (and its so worth it when the do!!!). And I loved even more the other fic with Jordan (it's Impossible to not like her!!) but mostly bc when I joined the fandom the HSAU was wrapping up and when i first read it it was already finished. And to follow a fic since the fists chapters, waiting for a new update... I just love it! And the whole story is INCREDIBLE!!! One of my top faves for sure.

The SQ au is also one of my faves, even though ive never shipped sq. And you are right, Lucy knows what she's doing lmao one of the firsts i read for avalance and its amazing amazing amazing!!

There's another one that's one of my favs and I belive it's the very first avalance fic I read (bc i was familiar with the author's works from another fandom): I See My Future in Your Eyes by lizardwriter. Another really great HSAU!! (Also Stuck With You is totally worth the read!!)

Anyways, loved your list and the way you organized it. So fun to be on this journey with you even though i just sat back waiting for your posts and sometimes forgetting to read them 🙈 hahaha

❤️ The Word doc I organised it in is 9 pages and almost 4,500 words. Would not have survived if I didn't edit in there. Just for general reading I filter AO3 into different length fics, and then sort by kudos, so I've probably read the description of most of the fics in the tag over the years. The list was from my own 109 pages of history, not the tag, so I was choosing things I've read. It wasn't a conscious thought to have such a range, really it was looking at my history, and what did I enjoy.

I love the concept of SMAU, and they really get lost to history. Unless you find them by accident, which I did for the first plinys one, there's a high chance you don't know they were a thing. I was following a bunch in early 2019 (that was longer ago than I thought), but plinys was the only one who I saw complete their's, and I know how to find them again, as I also do not have twitter.

The process was worth it if you enjoyed it. Also making my life easier; re-read Better than Ice Cream last night, and was so easy to find.

You're My Miracle was a couple of weeks worth of reading, I think. I keep some of my AO3 update emails (for my Favourites as it makes me happy), and the first one I have for that fic is Chapter 28. I was up-to-date by then. That was published August 1st 2019, which is now also a long time ago.

you make me smile (please stay for a while) was one hit. As I wrote, I read the first chapter when it was published, and the prequel one-shot, back in 2018. Got so irrationally mad about Laurel, and stopped. Not long after I went back to only really reading Supercorp fics. I read the whole thing Feb/March last year. And yes, that is the Chapter 27 I mentioned. For me, I love them both so, so much but this is the way that we love (like it's forever) pips HSAU for me. The scene that had me crying at work was when Amaya and Sara were talking about how the legends fell apart after Sara left; that was my school friends after I moved away for uni. I was the only one to move away straight after school, and I was only 2 hours away. I thought all my friends were catching up without me, but they weren't. There's some guilt in that, feeling like you're the reason why people weren't seeing each other, which I hadn't identified, even after they called me 'the glue' of our group at my 21st, until I read that scene.

Ohh, I'll give that a try! Thanks. I've seen it before, but haven't given it a chance. Stuck With You is grey-ed out, so I guess I've read it at some stage. There's always going to be gems that you didn't see when they were new, and don't know to dig for. That's what I'm hoping I've done for people with my lists.

Organising things is a favourite past-time of mine. The amount of time I've spent on my bookshelves, both books and Pops!, is probably more than I should, but I'm very proud of them. If only there was an easy way to get hard copies of fics to display...

You've been my partner in feels for this, and for that I'm very thankful. :)

[taylorverse]

My Taylor Swift Story

@taylorswift 

hello taylor! can i just make a big point to say how incredible you are. so i don’t really make these sorts of posts because it just seems unrealistic to be not just noticed by you but by any other swifties. You, Miss Taylor Alison Swift are the actual reason why some people are still living their day to day lives. I have literally grown up listening to your music and there’s always been an element of happiness that it brings me, whether its the vibe of the song or the melody or the lyrics or the sweet and pure way your voice echoes the words. I have had every single album of yours on repeat for all the times i’m hovering over the bath shaving my legs, procrastinating doing revision and literally jamming to old tswift songs in my bedroom. I have spent hours laying in my bed looking up at the ceiling playing all too well whilst i cry my eyes about relating the lyrics to how hard life can be and how difficult it is to keep going. But your music has always been a huge element of my well-being as it just provides a sense of stability; the songs you’ve sung is the poetry of my emotions and the lingering thoughts that I just can’t seem to say. My younger self didn’t even realise what a toll you had on me growing up, I always bought every single calender and all the albums. I remember my dad buying me the signed version of RED and it was just the happiest day of my life. I so clearly remember just holding it in my hands and feelings so happy in that moment. The years where i was beginning to get a bit older and things started to shift, your music was the constant that was always there and never left. I had dance parties where I would be alone in my bedroom singing with the huge poster of you hung above my bed (which once actually fell on my face in the middle of the night and was absolutely terrorfying). My favourite memory was sitting downstairs late at night, when I was like 9 and watching the livestream for RED when you sat in nashville and played acoustic songs on your guitar. I was so happy in that moment, to be able to just feel so connected to a woman who didn’t even know I existed was unlike anything I had ever felt before. Then came my birthday where my dad surprised me with Red tickets I LITERALLY CRIED. The night came and it was my first concert, it was one of the London nights and we sat right at the back. My most vivid memory of that night was the two people behind us who were obnoxiously going on about how they were gonna meet you after and that the show didn’t matter as much. Me and my dad would look at eachother with a jealous smirk and enjoyed the show. To be honest, I can’t actually remember that much but of what I do, I could have sworn you waved at me (even though there were probably about 4894 people in my direction) and the small kid i was held onto that as we trecked our way back on the train at midnight. As this was my first concert and I was so young, it felt so cool to be awake so late and I was in awe of the night I had experienced. 

Being at school, I was always known as the swiftie. I bought the drawstring Red tour bag from the concert because my dad said i couldn’t buy a top as he said “there’s no point in buying it if you’re going to grow out of it”. Anyway i used it as my PE bag and still do to this day. Everyone would tease me and I used to just SHAKE IT OFF and ignore the haterzzzz. My life was completely altered by that night, I wouldn’t stop thinking about it and I remember doing a show and tell in class where I played the videos I took of the concert on the big screen to my whole class as I passed around the rubber wristband I had too bought from that night. Everyone was so amazed by my experience, I was just so happy that I had seen my role model and that my life felt fulfilled at that point. 

I’m now in secondary school, I have never ever stopped playing your music. I even got an app to see how many times I had replayed songs and it turns out i have listened to Speak Now all the way through 800 times (not including the years of listening to it on my iPod). Then when one day I was sitting watching greys anatomy (wink), I got an instagram notification that you had posted a picture. My heart sank as I began to wonder WHAT THE HELL YOU POSTED since you had disapperred from earth. Seeing the what i know now as the snake, I literally jumped out of excitement & an overwhelming burst of confusion built up as I tried to figure out what the hell was happening. More pictures posted and my lil swiftie inside of me came rushing out as I just skipped around the living room. I still remember staying up late to watch LWYMMD music video. It was insane. I lay in my bed with my headphones plugged into my phone and quietly shrieked at the BEAUTY of it. At this point I wasn’t as indulged in the online fandom as I am now, so I started to follow accounts like @marthaswiftie on instagram to be more involved and find out all these crazy theories. The reputation album came out the year right before my life kinda went downhill. I remember the tickets came out for the tour and I didn’t even ask my parents to go because we were going through such a tough time that my own selfish wants were not the priority. 

So beginning 2018, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. We soon found out that it was terminal, which just broke our family individually in different ways. Our family is extreamely close and for something like this to happen, it was such a huge surprise that we just didn’t know how to react. My closest memory was sitting Physics class, just staring into space and all of these horrible thoughts were flooding my mind and all of the worst case scenarios just ruined me. Yet my naive self was so unaware of my emotion that I just carried on with my life, instead trying to be overly happy about life. At this point, my dad was is hospital most of the weeks spending time having his radiotherapy and chemotherapy done. I tried so hard to not think about it, that I ended up having so many breakdowns of which I spent crying my eyes out in my room just trying to hold onto hope that seemed so far away. Selfishly, I so wanted to see you on tour just to give me a pick-me-up but i felt so bad about wanting something for myself since I shouldn’t even be thinking of anything but him. Yet instead, I was so broken that I just ignored what was going on around me. This is what I’ve been learning to cope with and i think at points i felt so defeated. The tour month came up, i watched endless clips of people going and felt so hopeless in seeing you. I was in such a rut of trying to feel happier, yet trying to cover up the way I dealt with things by watching every Youtube video under the sun and literally all the shows on netflix to exist. Even writing this now feels so narrow-minded but it was just the way I was going through it. The literal day before the tour, my sister surprised me with tickets and i canNOT TELL YOU the rush of happiness I felt. I sobbed so much, I did not sleep as I lay thinking about what I was going to wear and the fact that i was going to see you in the flesh. 

The day came, and there are truly no words to describe it. I left school early, rushed home and did my makeup and hair. We hopped on the train and made our way up to london. I remember getting into Wembley and as soon as we walked out of the station I saw a huge group of people wearing merch tops and that’s when it started to kick in. We had a few hours, so we walked up and down the streets, me noticing all the outfits from music videos and award shows that people were dressed up in. Then we sat in nando’s, literally starving and as we ate our food just kept repeating to eachother, “we’re gonna see TAYLOR SWIFT” and every time it gave me goosebumps. A little girl came in as we were finishing, she had little cat ears on and a tutu. She had a top that she had DIYed herself that said I LOVE TAYLOR on it. My heart melted as we made our way out of the restaurant and grinned our way up to the stadium. The closer we got, we saw so many people with VIP necklaces and we looked at eachother rolling our eyes because we were jealous haha. I was so shocked by the diversity of people there, literally every type of person was surrounding us obviously in awe of the event that was about to occur. My favourite bit was walking up the huge pathway to the door entries, we came super early so I could get merch and our route was filled with girls screaming at the sight of eachother. My sister was so confused so I filled her in on the details of how so many people meet online through fan acounts and these concerts are where some of them finally meet. The merch queue was huge, but i had saved enough for a hoodie so we made the decision to stand in it. There were a few girls behind us complaining about the outfits people were wearing, we were annoyed because they kept saying “why do they dress up so much she’s not gonna see them” and my blood just boiled as their remarks piled on top of eachother. As we reached the front of the queue, we heard Charlie playing from the stadium because this line ended being 2 HOURS LONG. I didn’t care though, I said to my sister that the whole fun of it is to wait the long hours and dedicate our time to this day as it was a once in a lifetime. I bought the black hoodie with the zipped hood, they didn’t have small so I got Medium which ended being HUGE, but I love it because I snuggle in i every night. Straight after, my sister took a cute pic of me in the hoodie to send to my mum right before we were about to go through security. It was my first time at wembley so I had no idea what I was doing, but I just followed my sister as we got our bags checked and prepared ourself for the view we were about to whitness. My heart began beating so fast, I was in complete shock and my sister gripped my hand as we found our entry doorway. My first thought was, WHAT THE HELL. I had never been in such an overwhelming place. IT WAS HUGE. the amount of people there just left me in a sedated state for a second before we trudged down the stairs to find out seats. We were in block E, on the floor. It was my first time not being super high up, so i felt so privileged as i strut across the metal walkway feeling so happy about where i was. The struggle to find our seats was REAL. We spent ages when they ended up just being right in front of us the whole time. As soon as we scooted through the others, we sat down and just took a second to realise that we were about to whitness TAYLOR SWIFT PERFORM. My adrenaline was going crazy, my sister took tons of pictures and videos to send to my parents and they were so jealous! Then Camila came on, she was incredible. Everyone stood up as my short height meant I was staring at the huge screen, miming to lyrics to consequences and never be the same. She left and the stadium began to flll up and it just got so much louder. Anticipation grew, every single person in that stadium was just so happy. The Ready for It tune started and that’s when it all kicked off. I lifted myself from my seat, screamed to my hearts content as my sister sang along whilst also watching me give a performance in front of her. Every song was just so amazingly performed. Then when the b stage was next, the whole floor just legged it to get closer. I was nervous to lose my sister or the bags so i remember turning behind me as my sister grabbed the bags and said ‘go’. Little old me bent through the crowd, I ducked beneath and tried to get as close as I could. I remember standing on a chair and as I did i realised that i was less than 5 metres away from TAYLOR SWIFT. I sang along to So it goes and turning back every now and then to see where my sister was and I kept saying ‘Emma, I AM SO CLOSE I AM GONNA CRY’. Every now and then I would pull my phone out for videos but I wanted to grasp this moment as I let all my worries wash away and I whitnessed the most insane moment of my life. As the move for the next stage came, I followed the movement of the crowd as the security officers began to strictly tell people to stop standing on chairs. There I was, spinning around every now and then to see the crowd. Dress was the current song and my eyes lit up at the beauty of Miss swift. The concert followed with so much energy, the seats we had were right at the back of the floor but it was amazing to feel the lit up souls of everyone around me. There was just so much energy, so much love. One thing I remember was grooving to a song when the confetti began to float over us. We were so far back that it didn’t quite reach us yet this one piece was slowly floating mid air quite far back. I followed it with my eyes and reached to grab it as another girl took my opertunity. I was slightly annoyed, but the scenery of lights and idea of my idol being in the same room brought me back to happiness. The night ended with me and my sister talking on the phone to my mum, praising the show and just feeling so blessed. The nightmare of getting home began, as we got on the wrong train and then as we finally settled we were so tired that we almost got lost. My sisters boyfriend picked us up and we got home in a blur of sleep.

That night was unforgettable. It was just all my needs in one place, i felt so satisfied and i watched the videos I filmed of it months and months after, remenising on it. Coming back to present, TS7 is on its way. I woke up at 5am to see the ME! music video as soon as it comes out and see all of the hype. This has been the best day in ages. I have bought the song on itunes and streamed it on every device & app. My fingers literally ache from typing this in one sitting, but it was amazing because I just went through that night all over again from writing about it. But my point is. Whoever is reading this, Taylor or even just my grandma; there is happiness out there. I live by Taylor Swift and her music, she will always and forever be my role model, I LOVE YOU @taylorswift