#and if juls caught the reference and did the same thing she did last time

[booasaur]

Amar a Muerte - 1x68 || 1x86 - requested by anonymous

[estamos-destinadas]

Completely without context scene from the next instalment of the HP AU that I’m writing, under the cut. (Warning: some very specific Harry Potter references.)

.

Valentina stood in front of the mirror in her dorm room, giving her reflection a critical once-over. She was wearing Muggle clothes: dark jeans, a white shirt, and what her Muggle-born classmate Sierra called a “letterman-style” jacket. It was the first time she’d worn Muggle clothes, on Sierra’s suggestion. Sierra, who has Valentina’s closest friend among her roommates, had lent her the jacket and jeans. The girl was curvier than Valentina, so they’d had to charm the clothes to fit her, at least for the night.

They were going to a party in the dungeons to celebrate Ilvermorny’s first win of the season. The team could invite anyone they wanted who was in the third year and above, which meant that Juliana could not come. Valentina had instead extended invitations to her roommates, and Sierra and two other girls had happily accepted.

“Looking good, girl,” Sierra said as she stood beside Valentina to check her own reflection in the mirror.

Valentina smiled in thanks. “You too,” she told Sierra, who was also wearing a Muggle outfit. “Are you sure I have to wear this jacket?” she asked, adjusting the friendship bracelet Juliana had given her underneath the jacket’s cuff.

“Yes!” Sierra said as she put on her earrings. “That’s what all the sporty Muggle kids wear. Trust me, I’ve been told that I’m a good stylist.”

Valentina couldn’t help but think about Juliana, who liked not so much styling people’s clothes but sketching them. Juliana also wore plain shirts and worn jeans with such natural grace. Valentina, on the other hand, felt awkward in her clothes. She wondered if Juliana would like them.

She was interrupted from her musings when one of her roommates asked if Charles and Lucho were going to be there. Valentina answered in the affirmative, pointing out that they were also in the Quidditch team, but her roommates teased her anyway. They also teased her about Aldrin, one of their classmates, telling her that he would be heartbroken because she was going to a party with the other two boys.

Valentina could only respond with a smile and a good-natured roll of her eyes. Her classmates had been teasing her about the three boys for months, cheerfully informing her that the boys fancied her. She took their teasing with good humour, but she couldn’t relate to their excitement over them, or over boys in general. She wondered if there was something wrong with her, and so she’d covered with agreeable smiles whenever the topic came up. And it had come up frequently. Even Eva had subtly hinted that she preferred Charles over Lucho or anyone else. Nayeli had said about the same thing.

The thing was, none of the boys had ever outright told her that he liked her. Valentina thought that if they had, then maybe she’d have a better answer on who she liked, or liked better at least. But for now, Valentina thought nothing of their actions. She hadn’t even told Juliana that Charles and Lucho had been walking her to classes. It wasn’t important. Besides, she and Juliana had never talked about boys; Valentina wanted to keep it that way.

.

Valentina and her roommates finished getting ready after a few rounds of teasing, most of them directed at the other girls after Valentina did some deflecting. Valentina headed down to the common room with Sierra and the two other girls who’d accepted her invitation. Valentina was going to wait for Sergio to come down so they could go to the party together. Sierra chose to stick with her, but their two roommates decided to go ahead without them. After giving the two girls the password to be able to get in to the party, Valentina strode towards Juliana, who was sitting with her classmates in the couches by the window.

Not for the first time, Valentina wished Juliana could come with her. She’d told her best friend that she could sneak in to the party. Valentina herself had done so a few times before with Sergio, Nayeli, and Lucho, when they’d still been in their first and second years and a lot of fun events had been restricted to them. However, Juliana was a lot more hesitant than Valentina when it came to breaking the rules. Valentina would never force Juliana to do something she didn’t want, so Valentina had offered to stay with her instead. Juliana had looked at her like she’d grown two heads and had insisted that Valentina go to the party, pointing out that it was for her team’s first win of the season.

The look Juliana was giving her now was not dissimilar, though she seemed more surprised than anything else. Maybe. When Valentina stopped in front of her and Juliana continued her silent staring, Valentina started tugging self-consciously at her jacket. Maybe Sierra was not as good a “stylist” as she’d claimed.

“Do I look okay?” Valentina asked her best friend shyly. She spoke in English to be polite to Sierra, as well as to Juliana’s classmates. “Sierra suggested I wear a ‘sporty Muggle outfit’ and she lent these to me,” she said, gesturing at her jacket and jeans.

Juliana blinked, seemingly shaking herself out of her what-must-be surprise at Valentina’s outfit. “Uh--”

“Juliana,” Sierra jumped in, “please tell Valentina that she looks good. She won’t believe me when I tell her that this is what the Muggle sports jocks wear.”

“I didn’t say that I don’t believe you,” Valentina protested. “I’m just not sure if I’m pulling this off,” she added, looking towards Juliana.

“I-- you look good Val,” Juliana said, her voice softer than normal.

“Really?” Valentina almost whispered, looking into Juliana’s eyes and feeling relieved to find sincerity in them.

“Yeah,” said Juliana, smiling, her voice louder. “You’re definitely pulling that off. You-- it looks great!”

Valentina smiled widely then. She sat on the arm of the couch beside Juliana and gave her a sideways hug. “Thank you!”

“Oh, you believe her but not me?” Sierra said in a mock-offended tone as she took a seat on a nearby armchair.

Valentina responded with a sheepish shrug. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Sierra, she just needed Juliana’s opinion.

She turned back to her best friend. “I’m sorry you can’t go to the party, Juls,” Valentina lamented, squeezing Juliana’s shoulder.

Juliana tapped Valentina’s hand. “It’s alright, Val,” she said. “I’m just hanging out with these two tonight,” she added, motioning to her classmates Grace and Alanna.

Juliana didn’t seem too cut up about missing a party. Valentina knew it was because she wasn’t into those kinds of things. It was why Valentina hadn’t insisted that she sneak in, even though she knew from experience that there would be little chance of Juliana getting caught.

Valentina looked between Juliana and her classmates. “What are you guys up to?” she asked, arm still around Juliana’s shoulders.

Juliana and Grace made a face while Alanna cheerfully replied, “Homework.”

“Transfiguration theory homework,” Juliana said, giving Valentina a deadpan look. “With all the equations,” she added darkly.

Valentina chuckled at Juliana’s expression. “Do you need help?” she offered. She’d found that equations often came easy to her. Besides, “I’ve gone through that subject before.”

“Val, no,” Juliana said gently, “you’re going to a party.”

Valentina shrugged. “I can catch up--”

“Oh no you’re not, Valentina,” Sierra interrupted. “I didn’t lend you that outfit so you can do homework. We’re going as soon as Sergio comes down. What is taking him so long anyway?”

“He always takes long to get ready,” said Valentina.

“Ugh!” Grace exclaimed before anyone else could reply. “It’s not fair that first and second years never get to go to anything fun. We’re not allowed in parties outside of the common room, and we don’t get weekends away from school.” 

“Patience, young padawan,” Sierra said, mockingly serene. “We,” she gestured at herself and Valentina, “did our time, and so should you.”

Grace gave Sierra a half-confused, half-outraged look. Valentina was just confused, and, it seemed, so was Alanna.

“Pada-what?” said Grace.

Juliana started chuckling.

Valentina looked down at her best friend, smiling at her infectious laughter, which gave her a hint of what Sierra was talking about. “I think it’s some Muggle thing,” she explained to Juliana’s classmates.

“Muggle thing.” Sierra sounded insulted. “Muggle thing. I--I can’t with you purebloods,” she said, leaning heavily against the back of her chair, which gave a soft ‘thump’ at the contact.

Alanna spoke up after a moment. “Well, there’s the year-end play,” she said primly. “That’s open to first and second years,” she told Grace.

“Play?” Juliana asked, her brows furrowing adorably. “What play?”

“What do you mean ‘what play’?” said Alanna. “The plays that the Drama Club presents every end of the year.”

Juliana looked bemused. Alanna opened her mouth, probably to elaborate, but Sierra beat her to it.

“Waitwaitwaitwait--wait,” Sierra said, sitting forward in her chair again. “Are you telling me that you don’t know about the one thing-- the one fun-related thing that witches and wizards do better than Muggles?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s the one thing,” Valentina muttered. She’d learned about some non-magical sports from her Muggle Studies class. None of them involved flying.

“Valentina!” Sierra turned on her. “You have failed Juliana as a friend,” she said dramatically. “Why didn’t you tell her about last year’s play?”

Valentina bit her lip. The Drama Club had presented The Tale of the Three Brothers the previous school year. Valentina had already seen it twice before. The first time had been in London, when her mother had still been alive. Her mom, who had loved stories in all forms, would often take Valentina and her siblings to grand plays and musicals in the most renowned theatre districts the world over. The second time Valentina had seen the play had been back in Mexico, when Sergio had innocently invited her to a Spanish-language showing with his family, over a year after her mom had passed away. She remembered preferring the Wand the first time she’d seen the play, and then wanting, no, obsessing over the Stone on the second time.

Valentina had been avoiding any story that reminded her of her mom, which was why she preferred the Muggle novels Sierra recommended to her, but the one with the Resurrection Stone felt like a dark shadow wrapping around her heart. She’d done such a good job of ignoring last year’s play that she hadn’t even thought to tell Juliana about it.

She felt Juliana’s hand brush hers, pulling her out of her dark thoughts.

“What’s up with the plays here?” Juliana asked Sierra. The forced casualness of her tone told Valentina that she had gone quiet too long, and that Juliana was filling the silence. “I mean, why do you think it’s better than Muggle ones?”

Sierra’s eyes darted to Valentina in concern before she answered Juliana. “Magic! The production’s way better because they can just charm and transfigure stuff. Like… you’ve been to Muggle school plays right?”

Juliana shook her head. “No.”

“What? Why not?”

Juliana’s expression went blank, and she started worrying her fingernails with her mouth.

“Is it because of the Latina thing?” Sierra continued talking. “They said Latinx parents are strict. But I think black parents are just as strict, and my mom let me go to school plays.”

Valentina suspected that whatever prevented Juliana from going to school plays was more than just her parents being strict. She squeezed her best friend’s shoulder. “What play are they presenting this year again?” she asked the others, attempting to shift the subject a little for Juliana’s benefit.

“Oh, it’s The Fountain of Fair Fortune,” Alanna said, sounding excited. “I think the Drama Club’s current director is obsessed with Beedle the Bard. It’s, well… it’s a little juvenile, but both Three Brothers and Fountain look good on stage.”

Valentina smiled. “What do you think, Juls?” she asked, looking down at Juliana, who dropped her hand at the question. “Do you want to see the play? These two are right,” she said, motioning to Alanna and Sierra. “Well, I don’t know about Muggle plays, but the plays I’ve seen look amazing. And I think you’d love this one, they usually have the characters wearing unique clothes that fit their personalities.”

Valentina had seen The Fountain of Fair Fortune with her mom too, but she thought she wouldn’t mind going to see it now if she got to witness Juliana’s eyes light up in wonder at the spectacle.

Juliana looked up at her. “Sure,” she said with a smile and slight shrug of her shoulders.

“Yeah?” Valentina said softly, returning Juliana’s smile. “Great! They’re probably not selling tickets yet, but--”

“We’ve actually started selling early-bird tickets,” Alanna jumped in, pulling a ream of the said items out of her pocket. “Would you like to buy them now? They’re a lot cheaper than if you buy them later.”

Everyone gaped at her quietly until Grace spoke up. “It’s scary how you’re always prepared all the time.”

[akaseru]

I’m gonna start with my supernatural au. If you follow me then you’ll have seen me mention it as the Demon!Juls AU. This is gonna be a long piece when finished. I have tentatively titled it At the edge of the hellfire, but I’m sure that’ll change when I finally post it on AO3 -so keep an eye out for it. I’m still working on the first chapter which is the hardest due to some heavy shit in it. Below the read line is a whole ass scene I already have written that takes place further in the fic; however, it is technically incomplete and will likely undergo some changes when I actually reach that point.

 Juliana stared deeply into Valentina’s eyes in the grandest gesture of trust she could provide; looking into ocean-eyes that could perfectly reflect the owner’s emotions; staring into cerulean orbs that made Juliana feel like she was seen; eyes that literally had the power to make the raven-haired woman do whatever the vampire wanted – something the hunter would willingly do even without compulsion.

Juliana brought her right hand up to cradle Valentina’s cheek, absentmindedly stroking it with her thumb until she caught sight of the stark contrast between the black glove on her hand and Valentina’s skin. Just like that the spark of whatever Juliana could feel was happening between them completely evaporated, leaving her awash in a steadily rising tension borne from apprehension and guilt. Just before Valentina could close the distance between their lips Juliana turned her head to the side while maintaining (the connection at their foreheads/the contact point at their foreheads). The younger woman closed her eyes not wanting to see how the vampire was looking at her, didn’t want to think about what she would see in Val’s blue eyes – especially after she told her the truth.

Valentina, ever in tune and seemingly sensing her tumultuous thoughts, whispered a simple “Juls” weighted with a concern and confusion Juliana could feel like every embrace they have shared in the short time they have known one another. The care in Valentina’s voice was too much to handle and Juliana released a shaky breath before pulling away and severing any physical contact between them. Valentina was not to be deterred however, and Juliana could sense the older woman taking a hesitant step forward as a hand gently held hers.

“Juls, mírame.” The words ghosted across the shorter woman’s face accompanied by the sensation of Valentina rubbing her knuckles.

The hunter only closed her eyes tighter and felt tears gather at the corners. Juliana couldn’t bear it. There was no point in denying it. This ethereal creature looked at her with the kind of love she had never really seen or received from anyone save her mother, and even then, it felt like something more. The mere thought of squandering the light in her eyes, being looked at with the same contempt and revulsion others have directed at the hybrid upon learning of her heritage – like she was less than human and a scourge upon the earth? Juliana could take it from other people, but if she received it from the selfless vampire as well…it would break her.

“Val, I-” and dammit all if she couldn’t stop her voice from cracking. It sounded slightly hysterical to her own ears.

“Juliana, mi amor, mírame,” Valentina entreated, worry creeping into her voice as she wiped a tear from the corner of the younger woman’s eye, brushing raven locks back before cupping her neck. “Por favor.” The vampire’s voice was nothing more than a broken whisper. Like she too could sense that everything was about to fall apart.

That’s what did Juliana in, the endearment that rolled so effortlessly off her tongue, that broken whisper. Her heart tore in two at the sound. For all her otherworldly strength, Juliana doesn’t think she could deny this compassionate creature anything. More than anything, she deserved to know the truth about the woman she chose to spend her time with…even if it destroyed the hybrid and the more-than-friendship growing between them. Juliana took a deep breath and turned her head in the vampire’s direction before opening her eyes.

“Val,” Brown eyes met misty orbs the color of a stormy sea, the most honest and human individual she had ever had the honor meet, and committed every detail about her to memory. Juliana could feel her eyes starting to water and she looked up briefly to get them under control before she looked back at Valentina, willing her voice to stay even as she bared what was left of her soul, poised to shatter whatever illusion they had been living in and witness the end of the best thing that has ever happened in her life thus far.

“Valentina,” she licked her lips in a desperate attempt to bring some moisture to her suddenly dry mouth. The hybrid briefly looked down at their joined hand and reveled in the knowledge of someone fitting so effortlessly with her. Valentina gave her hand a brief squeeze of encouragement. “I’m not human.”

The vampire gave Juliana a lazy and relieved half smile. “Yeah?” She leaned forward and lightly brushed her nose against the younger woman’s, the intimate action relaxing the hunter despite the veritable hurricane of emotions churning inside her. Juliana was suddenly struck with the thought that she may have confirmed the vampire’s suspicions. “You thought that I would have a problem with-”

Juliana gave a mirthless laugh and shook her head, the action making the older woman tilt her head in confusion and bite her lip in thought. “No, Valentina, escuchame. I’m not human,” she reiterated.

Valentina looked deeply into her eyes almost as if she was searching for something. She then directed her gaze to Juliana’s gloved right hand and held it between both of her own. It shouldn’t have surprised the hybrid that the vampire had quickly sussed out what caused the sudden change, they are so attuned to each other, but it did, which made things that much harder. Valentina raised the gloved hand to eye-level and looked at her beseechingly. Juliana gave a barely discernable nod of acknowledgement and the older woman gave her a lingering kiss on her forehead.

Valentina held the hunter’s wrist in one hand and gently pulled off the leather glove with other, slowly revealing keratinous plate-like scales that covered the back of Juliana’s hand like armor in a black so dark it shined with a blueish hue. As Valentina revealed the first set of knuckles she became aware of a slight pulsing glow that wrapped around the back of the hand and knuckles, the same shade of blue-purple as lightning. Juliana could see the exact moment the other woman realized it was coming from the “skin” that wasn’t covered as the vampire stared in awe. Valentina continued removing the glove discovering that after the second knuckle the skin was free of scales. The taller woman finished taking off the glove and touched the thinner and smoother skin of the fingers that ended in claw-like points, fascinated by the faint but steady glow of her palm.

There must have been something in Juliana’s gaze or the way that she seemed to brace herself that the vampire realized there was more and correctly surmised that the last remaining barrier was the jacket. As Valentina made to slide the jacket off Juliana’s shoulders the hunter broke eye contact and stared at the floor in shame while she quickly shucked the jacket off herself. Juliana shut her eyes tight and held back tears as she revealed that almost the entirety of her right arm was just as monstrous as her hand. She didn’t even bother to suppress the way she flinched when Valentina gasped at the sight.

And the truth shall set you free, she bitterly thought all the while revealing her true nature in a statement devoid of the warmth that once lingered between them. “I’m a demon.” She didn’t care about the nuances or the fact that she was only a quarter demon; it was all anyone focused on, so she said the only thing others heard – the only thing that mattered. In the deafening silence that followed Juliana refused to look at Valentina and was mentally preparing herself to sever ties with this amazing woman.

[P] Creatures were still viewed as human in the community, but not demons – especially not a half-breed like herself. Even amongst fellow demons she was met with scorn. Demons or devils or whatever people referred to them as were something to be equally feared and despised, and three years of being on the receiving end of such attitudes on top of the childhood she endured and things she’d done made her believe in that rhetoric.

There was a light touch on her palm as a hand slowly trailed down her arm, tracing the path of the glow running intermittently down the center. When the hand finished its path to the back of Juliana’s hand it was cupped tenderly between two points of warmth and was slowly being raised. At the first brush of Valentina’s cheek against her palm tears were cascading down Juliana’s cheeks, and when Valentina pressed a kiss inside her hand there was nothing the shorter woman could do to stop the sobs that violently wracked her body. Valentina kept Juliana’s hand pressed against her cheek and used the other to cup the shorter girl’s neck and bring the hunter closer to her, kissing away the trails left by tears.

“Oh, mi amor,” the vampire whispered reverently before pressing a soft but lingering kiss to Juliana’s lips. The action incited a fresh wave of tears and choked sobs as she pulled the hunter closer to her in a tight embrace, tucking the younger woman’s head against her neck.

[lynchgirl90]

#TwinPeaks : David Lynch Has A Plan, And He’s Plotting It To Perfection By Meghan O'Keefe Jul 3, 2017 

We’re just about at the halfway point of Twin Peaks: The Return. Eight hours have passed and we have ten more still to go. And while I’m loathe to appraise David Lynch‘s and Mark Frost’s series as a whole until I’ve seen it in full, I do think that we’re far enough into the series to examine how the plotting and pacing is going. It’s going…pretty great?

Again, it’s tricky to appraise how well a plot is executed until you reach the very end and Twin Peaks has always presented us with a sidewinding ouroboros of a narrative that hops, skips, and jumps across both genres and decades. The first two seasons have been often criticized for their knack for stumbling about. Did we really need a subplot about Nadine thinking she was back in high school? Or did Ben Horne have to think he was a Civil War general?

Some of the same questions are being asked again about Twin Peaks: The Return. I see people crack jokes about the plotting and the pacing so far: Do we really need this much time given to Dougie Jones? Did Lynch just drop the Matthew Lilliard storyline? Why did we devote an entire episode to the aftershocks of the first atomic bomb? Where’s Audrey Horne? Even I tweeted a joke in the immediate aftermath of last week’s expectation-bucking episode.

Last week’s episode seemed more determined to confuse us than ever before. After Cooper’s evil doppelganger is unceremonious shot by Ray, a flurry of “Woodsmen” scurry about his corpse and extract the spirit of BOB from his chest. Then we cut to a banging performance of “The” Nine Inch Nails at the Roadhouse. It’s jarring because of the tempos the show itself has established for us. These Roadhouse performances usually come at the very end, or in the final act, of the episodes. Then we go back in time to birth of man-made evil itself: the atomic bomb. The next forty-odd minutes are a sheer explosion of avant-garde references. Lynch draws upon his own forays into experimental shorts to inspire the visual motifs. It is confusing, it is unsettling, and at times, it can grind on one’s patience.

The irony, though, is last week’s episode proved to me that Lynch and Frost know exactly how to carefully construct episodic storytelling.

As unsettling as the pacing was, it was so because they broke away from the episodic rhythm they themselves have spent seven hours establishing for the viewer. As surprising as the Trinity sequences were, they had been foreshadowed in just about every previous episode (if not all the way back to the original series if you want to dig deep). The first new real footage we saw in the series is of Special Agent Dale Cooper sitting with the Giant in the beautiful black & white art deco theater he inhabits with Senorita Dido. Gordon had positioned a larger-than-life office painting of the bomb exploding behind his office desk. It’s placement, at first, seemed to be a stylist quirk, but it was in fact a prelude to the real thing. Similarly, the “tar-faced” ghouls who haunted the jail and morgue in South Dakota seemed to be strange representation of evil. They wound up being “Woodsmen,” a deeper part of a darker conspiracy than their early appearances let on. When asked about the inspiration behind these characters a few weeks back, Lynch was coy about their meaning:

“That’s an example of what I’m talking about. An image came; it was all about translating. And by the way, about that guy, you just keep watching.

As out there as Episode 8 seemed, it started connecting the dots in the series like never before. Returning to the black & white theater we see in Episode One (and witnessing the birth of BOB and the resurrection of Laura Palmer’s spirit??), beckons us to revisit Twin Peaks: The Return‘s first scenes. Back then, the Giant tantalizingly gives Special Agent Dale Cooper a series of clues: “Remember 430. Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone.” While “430” and “Two birds with one stone” are still open to interpretation, we have caught wind of two residents of Twin Peaks with the names “Richard” and “Linda.” One is Richard Horne, the devilish young man who plows down a small child. Linda is a paraplegic veteran whom we haven’t met yet, but we hear Carl inquire about in the scenes preceding Richard’s crime. The implication here is twofold: Richard and Linda are important, and Lynch and Frost have been carefully setting up the plot from the get go. Everything matters. Even the lines and images we think might not be will come back into frame over the course of Twin Peaks: The Return‘s 18-hour-long narrative.

I’ve seen people joke about an extended sweeping scene in Part 7. For almost two and a half minutes, the camera stays still as we watch a young man sweep the floor. I’ve seen people suggest this is an emblem of Lynch’s self-indulgence. It makes sense. After all, it doesn’t seem like there’s any point to watching one guy sweep up the debris strewn across a bar floor.

We don’t see the man finish the sweeping, but we do see him steadily gather the small bit flung around the floor into one massive heap. It’s filler, but it’s also a potential metaphor for Lynch’s process. It’s going to take a while, but he’s aiming to bring all the pieces he’s thrown across the tapestry of Twin Peaks together finally.

Twin Peaks has often felt like a place that David Lynch only invented to be his private creative playground. The mysteries of the show were not there to be answered, but contemplated. It’s been thought that while “puzzle box” shows like Lost feverishly wanted to answer questions, Twin Peaks just wanted to ask them. The irony of this comparison is that Lost was often literally lost in its pursuit of a clean, cogent plot, and Twin Peaks is finally tying up all the loose threads that have been fraying at the edges for two long decades. Sure, the original Twin Peaks may have been uneven at times. Like Lost, It was created in the crucible of network television. It’s a grueling process that Shonda Rimes has likened to laying down train track just in time so that you don’t crash. However, that’s not the environment this final chapter is being forged in. David Lynch and Mark Frost have been given time and trust, which is why I have some sort of odd faith that we’re chugging towards some semblance of a final resolution.

Link (TP)

[pinktheoristcollector]

New top story from Time: Let’s Break Down Taylor Swift’s Tender New Album Folklore

If there’s one thing we know about Taylor Swift, it’s that she works hard. In her documentary released earlier this year, Miss Americana, the intense pace of Swift’s life — and the similarly intense pressures of the scrutiny she finds herself under — was laid bare for all to analyze.

But then the coronavirus pandemic swept in and, presumably, cleared her pop star slate. Swift was left with her privacy, as lockdowns shuttered us all into our homes. On social media, she was neither cryptically silent nor strategically active: she seemed, for the first time in a long time, like she was just living her life and drinking wine on her couch like many of us, big plans on hold.

But even in her downtime, curtains drawn on her celebrity, Swift was creating. The July 23 release of Folklore, her 16-track eighth album, came as a surprise even to devout followers: only 11 months after Lover, it was the first time she’d put out a project on less than a two-year schedule. Swift didn’t bother with the extensive teasing release of past albums; she announced her work on Thursday, rolled it out on Friday and then will sit back over the weekend and enjoy the warm response.

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now: https://t.co/xdcEDfithq

📷: Beth Garrabrant pic.twitter.com/vSDo9Se0fp

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 24, 2020

A new sound

In releasing Folklore, Swift was clear and direct about her intent and her work. She shared the names of all the major collaborators she worked with: pop producer and longtime musical partner Jack Antonoff, who she called “musical family;” her “musical heroes,” the moody rock band The National’s Aaron Dessnerr and indie god Justin Vernon of Bon Iver; a mysteriously-named collaborator called William Bowery. That, and the greyscale, woodsy images she teased the release with, announced her new direction: alternative pop-folk. In her delicate, confessional singing and melodies there are hints of fellow artists like Lana Del Rey, for whom she has openly expressed admiration before, on “Cardigan” and Phoebe Bridgers on “Seven.” There’s the twinkling Postal-Service-referencing intro on “The Last Great American Dynasty,” the blissed-out orchestral walls of sound on “Epiphany,” the serving of elegiac Sufjan Stevens keys on “Invisible String.”

Despite her start as a Nashville darling in the country scene, Swift has always been a musical chameleon. She evolved into rock-pop by 1989, stretched herself into hip-hop on the spiky Reputation, went full-throated pop on Lover. Folklore is what a lot of fans have been waiting for all along: a lengthy, emotionally-wrought indie album. Its heart is folk storytelling. Its production is every kind of thing fans have heard and loved on breakup albums in the last decade. Its vision is a grey-blue soundscape: an autumnal album dropped on us in the heat of summer, the first full project of this kind from Swift, inhabiting a truly melancholy space she’s mainly hinted at in past ballads.

But those ballads have often been her most poignant work. Folklore meets her exactly where she’s strongest, right now. And the rest of us? Still adjusting to pandemic life, still engaged in important conversations about our country’s racist history, we might also want something at just this unhurried tempo.

“And some things you just can’t speak about”

It would be fruitless to break down every Swift lyric; the songwriting can be poetically obtuse, and she’s telling many stories, from many character points of view, with many aching regrets. Swift has historically been one of our most confessional pop stars in her music, often mining her personal archives for material. Folklore is a little more, well, folkloric: “The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible,” she shared in an advance statement about the lyrical content. Still, as she announced in advance, she buried plenty of Easter eggs in her words for her fans to unpack at will.

The opening song, “The 1,” is an ode to what could have been. The “who” of it all, of course, remains murky.

But we were something, don’t you think so?

Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool

And if my wishes came true

It would’ve been you.

As avid listeners well know, Swift loves riffs on the past. She also loves to weave in references to her old music, a trail of breadcrumbs for fans to follow from era to era. “To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed,” she sings on “Cardigan,” and it sounds a lot like an echo of her lyrics on Lover’s “Cornelia Street” (“We were in the backseat, drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar”). And when she sings “You drew stars around my scars” on the same song, close followers might flash back to the “guitar string scars” of “Lover.”

Every song has these kinds of lyrical winks, reinforcing the universe that Swift has crafted even as she expands it with her newfound layers of fantasy and character. “Mad Woman,” for instance, is the story of a “misfit widow getting gleeful revenge,” according to her note on social media. But lines like “And women like hunting witches too” harken back to her Reputation era (“They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one,” she sings on “I Did Something Bad”).

View this post on Instagram

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now. 📷: Beth Garrabrant

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 23, 2020 at 9:06pm PDT

Some songs are more mysterious than others. “Exile,” with Bon Iver, reeks with the pain of parting. “Hoax,” a quiet piano ballad, details a relationship flawed but lasting. (“No other sadness in the world would do” is a devastatingly universal reminder of that bittersweet sensation.) “The Last Great American Dynasty,” in contrast, is specific and historical: the story of socialite Rebekah Harkness, the prior inhabitant of Swift’s own expansive Rhode Island estate. On “Epiphany,” Swift dives into the experience of another historical character: her grandfather, Dean, when he landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in 1942. “And some things,” she sings after describing a harrowing moment of war, “you just can’t speak about.”

OK, but what about “Betty”?

One of the songs on Folklore that caught the most early attention online is “Betty,” a late-album track that sees Swift return most directly to her country roots. (Cue the plaintive harmonica.) In her notes, Swift explained: “There’s a collection of three songs I refer to as The Teenage Love Triangle. These three songs explore a love triangle from all three people’s perspectives at different times in their lives.” Consensus has led listeners to believe the three songs in question are “Betty,” “Cardigan” and “August.” Woven together, they tell a story of betrayal, heartache and sweet teen angst.

But “Betty” can also be read as vaguely autobiographical, which some fans are keen to do. The two other characters in the trio, James and Ines, happen to be the names of the two daughters of Swift’s friends Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, deepening the connection to her real-life friend circle and the Swiftian world we know. Either way, the web of perspectives and emotions outlined in the track trio presents Swift fans with plenty of material to parse through as they unravel the mystery of Swift’s feelings and her new album’s connotations.

The quarantine album

In quarantine, any album release finds new resonance. With so few events to attend, live music still mostly canceled and many artists postponing their work, fresh projects are bound to find rapt audiences whether or not they are coming from Taylor Swift.

But Swift, being Swift, was always destined to conjure up a powerful reaction. In the past year, Taylor Swift’s public dispute with music manager Scooter Braun over her music catalog made headlines and raised questions about the ownership artists have over the music they create. Prior to that, she often drew tabloid scrutiny. Her response has often been to write it all out: address past relationships, excavate heartbreak and frustration, insist on resilience. That Folklore is foggy, that it relies more on smart songwriting and less on speculation about her personal life and complicated visual cues, suggests it’s bound for a long shelf life.

Quarantine has us all dragging up old memories and wondering what’s still real. Folklore isn’t the pop star album that will drive worries away and replace them with sparkle. It’s an artist who’s extended her ambitions to looking back and getting a little lost in the memory haze, digging up an old favorite cardigan for comfort.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2WRAAJ2 via IFTTT

[hellofastestnewsfan]

If there’s one thing we know about Taylor Swift, it’s that she works hard. In her documentary released earlier this year, Miss Americana, the intense pace of Swift’s life — and the similarly intense pressures of the scrutiny she finds herself under — was laid bare for all to analyze.

But then the coronavirus pandemic swept in and, presumably, cleared her pop star slate. Swift was left with her privacy, as lockdowns shuttered us all into our homes. On social media, she was neither cryptically silent nor strategically active: she seemed, for the first time in a long time, like she was just living her life and drinking wine on her couch like many of us, big plans on hold.

But even in her downtime, curtains drawn on her celebrity, Swift was creating. The July 23 release of Folklore, her 16-track eighth album, came as a surprise even to devout followers: only 11 months after Lover, it was the first time she’d put out a project on less than a two-year schedule. Swift didn’t bother with the extensive teasing release of past albums; she announced her work on Thursday, rolled it out on Friday and then will sit back over the weekend and enjoy the warm response.

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now: https://t.co/xdcEDfithq

📷: Beth Garrabrant pic.twitter.com/vSDo9Se0fp

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 24, 2020

A new sound

In releasing Folklore, Swift was clear and direct about her intent and her work. She shared the names of all the major collaborators she worked with: pop producer and longtime musical partner Jack Antonoff, who she called “musical family;” her “musical heroes,” the moody rock band The National’s Aaron Dessnerr and indie god Justin Vernon of Bon Iver; a mysteriously-named collaborator called William Bowery. That, and the greyscale, woodsy images she teased the release with, announced her new direction: alternative pop-folk. In her delicate, confessional singing and melodies there are hints of fellow artists like Lana Del Rey, for whom she has openly expressed admiration before, on “Cardigan” and Phoebe Bridgers on “Seven.” There’s the twinkling Postal-Service-referencing intro on “The Last Great American Dynasty,” the blissed-out orchestral walls of sound on “Epiphany,” the serving of elegiac Sufjan Stevens keys on “Invisible String.”

Despite her start as a Nashville darling in the country scene, Swift has always been a musical chameleon. She evolved into rock-pop by 1989, stretched herself into hip-hop on the spiky Reputation, went full-throated pop on Lover. Folklore is what a lot of fans have been waiting for all along: a lengthy, emotionally-wrought indie album. Its heart is folk storytelling. Its production is every kind of thing fans have heard and loved on breakup albums in the last decade. Its vision is a grey-blue soundscape: an autumnal album dropped on us in the heat of summer, the first full project of this kind from Swift, inhabiting a truly melancholy space she’s mainly hinted at in past ballads.

But those ballads have often been her most poignant work. Folklore meets her exactly where she’s strongest, right now. And the rest of us? Still adjusting to pandemic life, still engaged in important conversations about our country’s racist history, we might also want something at just this unhurried tempo.

“And some things you just can’t speak about”

It would be fruitless to break down every Swift lyric; the songwriting can be poetically obtuse, and she’s telling many stories, from many character points of view, with many aching regrets. Swift has historically been one of our most confessional pop stars in her music, often mining her personal archives for material. Folklore is a little more, well, folkloric: “The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible,” she shared in an advance statement about the lyrical content. Still, as she announced in advance, she buried plenty of Easter eggs in her words for her fans to unpack at will.

The opening song, “The 1,” is an ode to what could have been. The “who” of it all, of course, remains murky.

But we were something, don’t you think so?

Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool

And if my wishes came true

It would’ve been you.

As avid listeners well know, Swift loves riffs on the past. She also loves to weave in references to her old music, a trail of breadcrumbs for fans to follow from era to era. “To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed,” she sings on “Cardigan,” and it sounds a lot like an echo of her lyrics on Lover’s “Cornelia Street” (“We were in the backseat, drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar”). And when she sings “You drew stars around my scars” on the same song, close followers might flash back to the “guitar string scars” of “Lover.”

Every song has these kinds of lyrical winks, reinforcing the universe that Swift has crafted even as she expands it with her newfound layers of fantasy and character. “Mad Woman,” for instance, is the story of a “misfit widow getting gleeful revenge,” according to her note on social media. But lines like “And women like hunting witches too” harken back to her Reputation era (“They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one,” she sings on “I Did Something Bad”).

View this post on Instagram

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now. 📷: Beth Garrabrant

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 23, 2020 at 9:06pm PDT

Some songs are more mysterious than others. “Exile,” with Bon Iver, reeks with the pain of parting. “Hoax,” a quiet piano ballad, details a relationship flawed but lasting. (“No other sadness in the world would do” is a devastatingly universal reminder of that bittersweet sensation.) “The Last Great American Dynasty,” in contrast, is specific and historical: the story of socialite Rebekah Harkness, the prior inhabitant of Swift’s own expansive Rhode Island estate. On “Epiphany,” Swift dives into the experience of another historical character: her grandfather, Dean, when he landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in 1942. “And some things,” she sings after describing a harrowing moment of war, “you just can’t speak about.”

OK, but what about “Betty”?

One of the songs on Folklore that caught the most early attention online is “Betty,” a late-album track that sees Swift return most directly to her country roots. (Cue the plaintive harmonica.) In her notes, Swift explained: “There’s a collection of three songs I refer to as The Teenage Love Triangle. These three songs explore a love triangle from all three people’s perspectives at different times in their lives.” Consensus has led listeners to believe the three songs in question are “Betty,” “Cardigan” and “August.” Woven together, they tell a story of betrayal, heartache and sweet teen angst.

But “Betty” can also be read as vaguely autobiographical, which some fans are keen to do. The two other characters in the trio, James and Ines, happen to be the names of the two daughters of Swift’s friends Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, deepening the connection to her real-life friend circle and the Swiftian world we know. Either way, the web of perspectives and emotions outlined in the track trio presents Swift fans with plenty of material to parse through as they unravel the mystery of Swift’s feelings and her new album’s connotations.

The quarantine album

In quarantine, any album release finds new resonance. With so few events to attend, live music still mostly canceled and many artists postponing their work, fresh projects are bound to find rapt audiences whether or not they are coming from Taylor Swift.

But Swift, being Swift, was always destined to conjure up a powerful reaction. In the past year, Taylor Swift’s public dispute with music manager Scooter Braun over her music catalog made headlines and raised questions about the ownership artists have over the music they create. Prior to that, she often drew tabloid scrutiny. Her response has often been to write it all out: address past relationships, excavate heartbreak and frustration, insist on resilience. That Folklore is foggy, that it relies more on smart songwriting and less on speculation about her personal life and complicated visual cues, suggests it’s bound for a long shelf life.

Quarantine has us all dragging up old memories and wondering what’s still real. Folklore isn’t the pop star album that will drive worries away and replace them with sparkle. It’s an artist who’s extended her ambitions to looking back and getting a little lost in the memory haze, digging up an old favorite cardigan for comfort.

from TIME https://ift.tt/2ZXLuiw

[newstechreviews]

If there’s one thing we know about Taylor Swift, it’s that she works hard. In her documentary released earlier this year, Miss Americana, the intense pace of Swift’s life — and the similarly intense pressures of the scrutiny she finds herself under — was laid bare for all to analyze.

But then the coronavirus pandemic swept in and, presumably, cleared her pop star slate. Swift was left with her privacy, as lockdowns shuttered us all into our homes. On social media, she was neither cryptically silent nor strategically active: she seemed, for the first time in a long time, like she was just living her life and drinking wine on her couch like many of us, big plans on hold.

But even in her downtime, curtains drawn on her celebrity, Swift was creating. The July 23 release of Folklore, her 16-track eighth album, came as a surprise even to devout followers: only 11 months after Lover, it was the first time she’d put out a project on less than a two-year schedule. Swift didn’t bother with the extensive teasing release of past albums; she announced her work on Thursday, rolled it out on Friday and then will sit back over the weekend and enjoy the warm response.

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now: https://t.co/xdcEDfithq

📷: Beth Garrabrant pic.twitter.com/vSDo9Se0fp

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 24, 2020

A new sound

In releasing Folklore, Swift was clear and direct about her intent and her work. She shared the names of all the major collaborators she worked with: pop producer and longtime musical partner Jack Antonoff, who she called “musical family;” her “musical heroes,” the moody rock band The National’s Aaron Dessnerr and indie god Justin Vernon of Bon Iver; a mysteriously-named collaborator called William Bowery. That, and the greyscale, woodsy images she teased the release with, announced her new direction: alternative pop-folk. In her delicate, confessional singing and melodies there are hints of fellow artists like Lana Del Rey, for whom she has openly expressed admiration before, on “Cardigan” and Phoebe Bridgers on “Seven.” There’s the twinkling Postal-Service-referencing intro on “The Last Great American Dynasty,” the blissed-out orchestral walls of sound on “Epiphany,” the serving of elegiac Sufjan Stevens keys on “Invisible String.”

Despite her start as a Nashville darling in the country scene, Swift has always been a musical chameleon. She evolved into rock-pop by 1989, stretched herself into hip-hop on the spiky Reputation, went full-throated pop on Lover. Folklore is what a lot of fans have been waiting for all along: a lengthy, emotionally-wrought indie album. Its heart is folk storytelling. Its production is every kind of thing fans have heard and loved on breakup albums in the last decade. Its vision is a grey-blue soundscape: an autumnal album dropped on us in the heat of summer, the first full project of this kind from Swift, inhabiting a truly melancholy space she’s mainly hinted at in past ballads.

But those ballads have often been her most poignant work. Folklore meets her exactly where she’s strongest, right now. And the rest of us? Still adjusting to pandemic life, still engaged in important conversations about our country’s racist history, we might also want something at just this unhurried tempo.

“And some things you just can’t speak about”

It would be fruitless to break down every Swift lyric; the songwriting can be poetically obtuse, and she’s telling many stories, from many character points of view, with many aching regrets. Swift has historically been one of our most confessional pop stars in her music, often mining her personal archives for material. Folklore is a little more, well, folkloric: “The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible,” she shared in an advance statement about the lyrical content. Still, as she announced in advance, she buried plenty of Easter eggs in her words for her fans to unpack at will.

The opening song, “The 1,” is an ode to what could have been. The “who” of it all, of course, remains murky.

But we were something, don’t you think so?

Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool

And if my wishes came true

It would’ve been you.

As avid listeners well know, Swift loves riffs on the past. She also loves to weave in references to her old music, a trail of breadcrumbs for fans to follow from era to era. “To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed,” she sings on “Cardigan,” and it sounds a lot like an echo of her lyrics on Lover’s “Cornelia Street” (“We were in the backseat, drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar”). And when she sings “You drew stars around my scars” on the same song, close followers might flash back to the “guitar string scars” of “Lover.”

Every song has these kinds of lyrical winks, reinforcing the universe that Swift has crafted even as she expands it with her newfound layers of fantasy and character. “Mad Woman,” for instance, is the story of a “misfit widow getting gleeful revenge,” according to her note on social media. But lines like “And women like hunting witches too” harken back to her Reputation era (“They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one,” she sings on “I Did Something Bad”).

View this post on Instagram

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now. 📷: Beth Garrabrant

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 23, 2020 at 9:06pm PDT

Some songs are more mysterious than others. “Exile,” with Bon Iver, reeks with the pain of parting. “Hoax,” a quiet piano ballad, details a relationship flawed but lasting. (“No other sadness in the world would do” is a devastatingly universal reminder of that bittersweet sensation.) “The Last Great American Dynasty,” in contrast, is specific and historical: the story of socialite Rebekah Harkness, the prior inhabitant of Swift’s own expansive Rhode Island estate. On “Epiphany,” Swift dives into the experience of another historical character: her grandfather, Dean, when he landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in 1942. “And some things,” she sings after describing a harrowing moment of war, “you just can’t speak about.”

OK, but what about “Betty”?

One of the songs on Folklore that caught the most early attention online is “Betty,” a late-album track that sees Swift return most directly to her country roots. (Cue the plaintive harmonica.) In her notes, Swift explained: “There’s a collection of three songs I refer to as The Teenage Love Triangle. These three songs explore a love triangle from all three people’s perspectives at different times in their lives.” Consensus has led listeners to believe the three songs in question are “Betty,” “Cardigan” and “August.” Woven together, they tell a story of betrayal, heartache and sweet teen angst.

But “Betty” can also be read as vaguely autobiographical, which some fans are keen to do. The two other characters in the trio, James and Ines, happen to be the names of the two daughters of Swift’s friends Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, deepening the connection to her real-life friend circle and the Swiftian world we know. Either way, the web of perspectives and emotions outlined in the track trio presents Swift fans with plenty of material to parse through as they unravel the mystery of Swift’s feelings and her new album’s connotations.

The quarantine album

In quarantine, any album release finds new resonance. With so few events to attend, live music still mostly canceled and many artists postponing their work, fresh projects are bound to find rapt audiences whether or not they are coming from Taylor Swift.

But Swift, being Swift, was always destined to conjure up a powerful reaction. In the past year, Taylor Swift’s public dispute with music manager Scooter Braun over her music catalog made headlines and raised questions about the ownership artists have over the music they create. Prior to that, she often drew tabloid scrutiny. Her response has often been to write it all out: address past relationships, excavate heartbreak and frustration, insist on resilience. That Folklore is foggy, that it relies more on smart songwriting and less on speculation about her personal life and complicated visual cues, suggests it’s bound for a long shelf life.

Quarantine has us all dragging up old memories and wondering what’s still real. Folklore isn’t the pop star album that will drive worries away and replace them with sparkle. It’s an artist who’s extended her ambitions to looking back and getting a little lost in the memory haze, digging up an old favorite cardigan for comfort.

[pinktheoristcollector]

If there’s one thing we know about Taylor Swift, it’s that she works hard. In her documentary released earlier this year, Miss Americana, the intense pace of Swift’s life — and the similarly intense pressures of the scrutiny she finds herself under — was laid bare for all to analyze.

But then the coronavirus pandemic swept in and, presumably, cleared her pop star slate. Swift was left with her privacy, as lockdowns shuttered us all into our homes. On social media, she was neither cryptically silent nor strategically active: she seemed, for the first time in a long time, like she was just living her life and drinking wine on her couch like many of us, big plans on hold.

But even in her downtime, curtains drawn on her celebrity, Swift was creating. The July 23 release of Folklore, her 16-track eighth album, came as a surprise even to devout followers: only 11 months after Lover, it was the first time she’d put out a project on less than a two-year schedule. Swift didn’t bother with the extensive teasing release of past albums; she announced her work on Thursday, rolled it out on Friday and then will sit back over the weekend and enjoy the warm response.

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now: https://t.co/xdcEDfithq

📷: Beth Garrabrant pic.twitter.com/vSDo9Se0fp

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 24, 2020

A new sound

In releasing Folklore, Swift was clear and direct about her intent and her work. She shared the names of all the major collaborators she worked with: pop producer and longtime musical partner Jack Antonoff, who she called “musical family;” her “musical heroes,” the moody rock band The National’s Aaron Dessnerr and indie god Justin Vernon of Bon Iver; a mysteriously-named collaborator called William Bowery. That, and the greyscale, woodsy images she teased the release with, announced her new direction: alternative pop-folk. In her delicate, confessional singing and melodies there are hints of fellow artists like Lana Del Rey, for whom she has openly expressed admiration before, on “Cardigan” and Phoebe Bridgers on “Seven.” There’s the twinkling Postal-Service-referencing intro on “The Last Great American Dynasty,” the blissed-out orchestral walls of sound on “Epiphany,” the serving of elegiac Sufjan Stevens keys on “Invisible String.”

Despite her start as a Nashville darling in the country scene, Swift has always been a musical chameleon. She evolved into rock-pop by 1989, stretched herself into hip-hop on the spiky Reputation, went full-throated pop on Lover. Folklore is what a lot of fans have been waiting for all along: a lengthy, emotionally-wrought indie album. Its heart is folk storytelling. Its production is every kind of thing fans have heard and loved on breakup albums in the last decade. Its vision is a grey-blue soundscape: an autumnal album dropped on us in the heat of summer, the first full project of this kind from Swift, inhabiting a truly melancholy space she’s mainly hinted at in past ballads.

But those ballads have often been her most poignant work. Folklore meets her exactly where she’s strongest, right now. And the rest of us? Still adjusting to pandemic life, still engaged in important conversations about our country’s racist history, we might also want something at just this unhurried tempo.

“And some things you just can’t speak about”

It would be fruitless to break down every Swift lyric; the songwriting can be poetically obtuse, and she’s telling many stories, from many character points of view, with many aching regrets. Swift has historically been one of our most confessional pop stars in her music, often mining her personal archives for material. Folklore is a little more, well, folkloric: “The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible,” she shared in an advance statement about the lyrical content. Still, as she announced in advance, she buried plenty of Easter eggs in her words for her fans to unpack at will.

The opening song, “The 1,” is an ode to what could have been. The “who” of it all, of course, remains murky.

But we were something, don’t you think so?

Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool

And if my wishes came true

It would’ve been you.

As avid listeners well know, Swift loves riffs on the past. She also loves to weave in references to her old music, a trail of breadcrumbs for fans to follow from era to era. “To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed,” she sings on “Cardigan,” and it sounds a lot like an echo of her lyrics on Lover’s “Cornelia Street” (“We were in the backseat, drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar”). And when she sings “You drew stars around my scars” on the same song, close followers might flash back to the “guitar string scars” of “Lover.”

Every song has these kinds of lyrical winks, reinforcing the universe that Swift has crafted even as she expands it with her newfound layers of fantasy and character. “Mad Woman,” for instance, is the story of a “misfit widow getting gleeful revenge,” according to her note on social media. But lines like “And women like hunting witches too” harken back to her Reputation era (“They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one,” she sings on “I Did Something Bad”).

View this post on Instagram

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now. 📷: Beth Garrabrant

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 23, 2020 at 9:06pm PDT

Some songs are more mysterious than others. “Exile,” with Bon Iver, reeks with the pain of parting. “Hoax,” a quiet piano ballad, details a relationship flawed but lasting. (“No other sadness in the world would do” is a devastatingly universal reminder of that bittersweet sensation.) “The Last Great American Dynasty,” in contrast, is specific and historical: the story of socialite Rebekah Harkness, the prior inhabitant of Swift’s own expansive Rhode Island estate. On “Epiphany,” Swift dives into the experience of another historical character: her grandfather, Dean, when he landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in 1942. “And some things,” she sings after describing a harrowing moment of war, “you just can’t speak about.”

OK, but what about “Betty”?

One of the songs on Folklore that caught the most early attention online is “Betty,” a late-album track that sees Swift return most directly to her country roots. (Cue the plaintive harmonica.) In her notes, Swift explained: “There’s a collection of three songs I refer to as The Teenage Love Triangle. These three songs explore a love triangle from all three people’s perspectives at different times in their lives.” Consensus has led listeners to believe the three songs in question are “Betty,” “Cardigan” and “August.” Woven together, they tell a story of betrayal, heartache and sweet teen angst.

But “Betty” can also be read as vaguely autobiographical, which some fans are keen to do. The two other characters in the trio, James and Ines, happen to be the names of the two daughters of Swift’s friends Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, deepening the connection to her real-life friend circle and the Swiftian world we know. Either way, the web of perspectives and emotions outlined in the track trio presents Swift fans with plenty of material to parse through as they unravel the mystery of Swift’s feelings and her new album’s connotations.

The quarantine album

In quarantine, any album release finds new resonance. With so few events to attend, live music still mostly canceled and many artists postponing their work, fresh projects are bound to find rapt audiences whether or not they are coming from Taylor Swift.

But Swift, being Swift, was always destined to conjure up a powerful reaction. In the past year, Taylor Swift’s public dispute with music manager Scooter Braun over her music catalog made headlines and raised questions about the ownership artists have over the music they create. Prior to that, she often drew tabloid scrutiny. Her response has often been to write it all out: address past relationships, excavate heartbreak and frustration, insist on resilience. That Folklore is foggy, that it relies more on smart songwriting and less on speculation about her personal life and complicated visual cues, suggests it’s bound for a long shelf life.

Quarantine has us all dragging up old memories and wondering what’s still real. Folklore isn’t the pop star album that will drive worries away and replace them with sparkle. It’s an artist who’s extended her ambitions to looking back and getting a little lost in the memory haze, digging up an old favorite cardigan for comfort.