#i simply love a taylor swift song about cheating what can i say. do we love it or do we hate it today! explain it to me diva!

[darcyolsson]

guilty as sin?'s one year release anniversary being in easter weekend is absolutely incredible, happy birthday to the song about jorking it that takes the time to explain how giving in to your desire to cheat on your partner is literally exactly like jesus' resurrection if you think about it. a smash hit in my household

[lovelaetter]

https://youtu.be/T9uQzj1-I5k?si=tQzcmpNYzVy3cDQs i cant get over how good she looks lately but THIS interview i’m actually foaming at the mouth

aside from loving the concept of her being so open about past relationships…the sick part of me is obsessed with the idea of rosie being in a toxic relationship because it just fits her so well. i can imagine her in a situationship but not being able to detach because 1) she’s needy and attatched, and 2) gets fucked right so its worth it.

i just want her to cry and yell in my face, throwing stuff around, literally going batshit crazy just for her to come back in a week to say sorry with *that* look on her face to get her pussy stuffed, craving your fingers or getting dicked down (g!p) cause she “can’t do it herself.”

on-and-off relationships with her, being possessive and controlling over her when she’s in different cities - whether its for her little ysl shows, or music promotions, asking who she's with, adding in a certain comment about the skin she shows, acting like she hates it but deep down knows she loves being your fixation cuz it feeds her ego lol

loving being mean to her because she knows how to take it (and *other* things) and sometimes getting an earful back, just for both of you to end up in bed tearing each other apart. like, you getting upset about her writing a song in her album, calling you out subtly on your guys' relationship, fighting in the studio in front of her team, 'embarrassing' her just for kick everyone out so you can fuck right then and there because seeing you angry gets her feeling a way oops maybe i just like arguing - 🥀

😵‍💫😵‍💫

okay but what if: you also being someone in the industry, not necessarily a singer, could an actress, a director, a writer, just both sides being put out there by you and being equally messy, you know, equal rights and people love being nosy and everyone is like this is the worst relationship ever but the next day there’s an article saying how you got back together and people simply can’t be on anyone’s side, you both are the worst !!

look, i don’t have a thing for cheating, i hate it actually, awful thing, but it’s fitting here, let’s be real. her going full taylor swift and admitting on cheating on you on her album? exactly. the drama, just sitting in her room waiting for your call or worse, for you to bang at her door mad as fuck but instead you just text her like “okay girl i fucked someone too so what lol” BUT THE THING IS you are mad, yes, you cheated, but you ARE mad and playing it cool and now so is she and it triggers this week long ass fight that culminates in, not joking, weekend long sex, the type your agent calls you because you have schedule to follow and you pick it up just to tell them to fuck off, change of plans, more important things showed up— blondie on your door looking so pissed but also wearing the most “visiting my not-so-ex-girlfriend-we-complicated to scream some facts at her but also let her know i need to feel her deep inside me” outfit she could find. and the thing you said about controlling her? omg, doing it here, the subject the discussion you are having quickly changing once you take a proper look at whatever she’s wearing with a “and what the fuck is that?” and her being sooo entitled saying “well, i have places to be” and it’s like “you do?” “yeah” “yeah?” “uh-hm” until you are already too close to her and she has nowhere to run once your hands get on her like she’s a doll. you actually loved her outfit, she looks so hot as always, and deep down you know she did it just for you… but you simply wouldn’t let her win this game.

her people probably would think she is dead or something during all weekend unless they are smart enough to contact someone that works with you because she would tell her manager oh i’m visiting someone and just leave and they wouldn’t be able to reach her as the whole time her phone is inside her bag turned off and she’s busy laying belly down with her pretty face being into the pillows and spread out, moaning and crying out for you to (not) give her holes a break, pussy leaking around four fingers and pushing up every time you tease her little asshole.

sex so good it has you apologizing to each other by the end, hands between the other’s thighs, her mouth on your tits, awkwardly muttering “sorry” against your skin.

[sagereeid]

Byler, El and the folklore love triangle.

Taylor Swift’s 7th studio album, “folklore” (along with the sister album “evermore”) has written between the lines a love triangle between one teenage boy, James and two teenage girls, Betty and Augustine.

Taylor herself has said, “Betty and James end up together but he {James} put her {Betty} through it.” 

However, the way byler and El tie into this is slightly different. 

The way the folklore love triangle works is like this, James and Betty were together and had some sort of falling out. Then, James went away for a summer and cheated on Betty with Augustine. But, after that summer, James basically ends up ghosting Augustine because he realizes that he really messed up with Betty and needs to make things right. So, he shows up to a party she was having and the kiss and makeup and start dating again and “end up together.”

Now that you know what the folklore love triangle is, I can tell you how Byler and El fits into all of this. 

How I think this works is Mike is James, Will is Betty and El is Augustine. And here is why.

James is obviously Mike because he is the one stuck between the two “girls”. The “girls” in this situation being Will and El. he can’t choose whether to be unhappy in his relationship or pursue the person he wants but hurt the girl he is with and put a target on his back. 

Will being Betty just makes the most sense. Will has been there from the very start. Even though Mike and Will obviously never canonically dated, they’ve been best friends since kindergarten. Also, Mike and Will have had SEVERAL falling outs and the one that always crawls back to Will is Mike, begging him forgiveness. 

 Now time to talk about El. Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE El. Please do not think that I am one of those bylers that hate El. I don’t. However, El is Augustine. She has simply not been there as long as Will has been. She is basically just a distraction for Mike in a romantic sense. Hear me out, Mike is using El as a shield to hide behind. So he can hide from his internalized homophobia. I am NOT saying that he thinks of El as an object. But it’s more on head, he’s thinking that he can’t possibly have feelings for Will because he has a girlfriend. And if he has a girlfriend, he can't be picked on. He can’t be a target. 

TIME FOR LYRIC ANALYSIS!!! 

Cardigan 

Cardigan is the song that tells Betty’s side of the story from her perspective. Which in this form is Will's side of the story from his perspective. 

“I knew you.” 

Like I’ve said many many times Will has been there from the very beginning. Like, he was the first friend Mike ever had. 

“A friend to all is a friend to none. Chase two girls, lose the one.” 

I’m sure one of the many reasons Mike doesn’t want to break up with El and confess his feelings to Will (atleast right now in the canon) is because he could and probably will lose both of them. Because if he breaks up with El, that’s already enough grounds for losing her not to mention the whole part about being in love with her brother. Mike could also loose Will because he could reject Mike for the sake of saving El’s feelings.

“And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed, you put me on an said I was your favorite.” 

Mike has always been the first one to notice when anything with Will is off, the first one to find him when he’s wandered off while in an episode. He has been “the only one who cares about Will” from the start. 

“I knew you. Leaving like a father, running like water.” 

We all know that Mike runs from all of his problems and won’t stop running until he falls off the face of the Earth. But Will doesn't know why he’s running from him. 

“But I knew you’d linger like a tattooed kiss. I knew you’d haunt all of my what if’s.” 

Will knows better than anyone that the feeling of Mike lingers. It stays and it won’t go anyway and it’s bittersweet. 

“I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired and you'd be standing in front of my front porch light.” 

Whether Will liked it or not, he knew that Mike would be coming back sooner rather than later. And he wanted that way. He didn’t want to push Mike away. It would be impossible to push away the person that he has called his best friend all his life and the boy that has been with his sister for years. 

August

This song reprents Augustine perpective of the whole situation which would equalivlate to El.

“‘Cause you were never mine.”

I don’t think that El is stupid, she has to know or have somewhat of a feeling.  But also, I feel like she knows that Mike would be better off with Will. And, honestly, I think she’ll be better with someone else who actually listens to what she needs. I do not think that El and Mike are good for eachother is a romantic way. They aren't loving eachother they way both of them need it.

“I remember thinking I had you.” 

I think that in retrospect, it’s funny to El all of the things she tolerated from Mike. And I think when Mike and El break up she will realize that they simply weren't right for each other in a romantic sense. Platonic with a capital P. 

“So much for summer love and saying us” 

I genuinely think that when El and Mike broke up in season 3, they should’ve stayed broken up. They would have still been friends and still talked to each other. But if they would have broken up it would have been the best for both of them. It would have saved both of their feelings. 

Betty

This song is James apology to Betty after dissapering and cheating on her. This would equal Mike.

“Betty, one time I was riding on my skateboard when I passed your house. It's like I couldn't breathe.” 

I know for damn sure that Mike Wheeler could not go near that house after Will moved out. I feel like it would make him sick to his stomach when he looked at it. 

“The worst thing that I ever did was what I did to you.”

I know that Mike regrets the shit he did in Season 3. The fights, the blatant ignoring of Will to focus on El and his relationship that’s falling apart in front his eyes.

“Slept next to her but, I dreamt of you all summer long.” 

I think that Mike really started to realize that he likes Will around the end of season 2 and season 3. Which is also around the same time he starts getting more defensive towards Will. That's when it all starts going downhill. Because he is starting to realize this feeling and with El breaking up with him, he is losing things to hide behind. 

“The only thing I wanna do is make it up to you.” 

We all know that if season 2 Mike saw seasons 3 or 4 Mike, he would beat his ass. But I still think that there is a little part of Mike that still really cares about Will like season 2 Mike did.

This is a rework of something i did a really long time ago so if it seems familiar and you've been around my blog a while that's why!

people who wanted to be tagged:

@hollarious2

@artsyna

@wallywise

@lebylershipper

@ash-the-wise

@tender-emotional-music

@willbyerswatch

@hearteyes-wheeler

@paloma-ascends-into-hellfire

also! if you want to be on the normal tag list (aka you get tagged everytime i post an essay / longer post abput byler you will get tagged), please comment and let me know!

also watch out for something related to byler and folklore soon (wink wink)

[coffeencream]

Initial TTPD listening thoughts

I think i hyped this one up too much in my head. Frankly, i’m feeling conflicted. This post is an attempt to explain why. Here’s an itemized list, starting with the negative.

1. The writing. Obviously, Taylor’s talented with a pen. She can create a song in her sleep. This album simply felt like it lacked the special something that makes her music exceptional. The repetitive choruses, self-indulgently haughty word choices, and excess of contemporary references and name drops take away from the message of the song entirely. When fans decided that TTPD was going to be “a breakup album”, I didn’t know that meant it would linger so heavily on the same few sentiments about Joe. We get it Taylor, he cheated. You wanted to marry him and end up feeling exploited. You said that already… Most tracks left me thinking that the writing was pretty, but not good. I think of the simplicity of “Red”, how something like color can make for a clean, impactful metaphor in two lines. This was the opposite- so many words, so little substance.

2. The “vibe” (notice im not saying production, because i don’t claim to know shit about how music gets made): Jack. babe. what are we doing? A lot of TTPD felt like the same song over… and over… over… just like how I made this point already. There was also no sonic balance, each track blended into the next and I wouldn’t have noticed songs changing if it weren’t for Taylor singing the song titles many times each.

3. THE TRACK FIVE: WHY WOULD YOU PUT THE WEAKEST SONG IN THIS COVETED POSITION??? WHY??? SO LONG LONDON WAS BORING, AND IM NOT AFRAID TO SAY IT!

4. “diaristic” or “unrefined”? - all of Taylor’s previous 10 eras have felt like they were nicely polished before release. This time, the filter was gone, and many of the tracks gave the impression of being frantically scratched on an envelope in the early hours. I can understand how this feeds into the Taylor Swift brand of connecting personally to fans, allowing us the impression of friendship with her. However, for me, it read as careless, and actually decreased the album’s relatability. Hyper specific descriptions of her own breakup experience were not enjoyable to listen to, nor did they serve to advance any overarching narratives in the album.

Now, none of what I said applied to every track. I have some positive things to say as well!

1. My favorite tracks: who’s afraid, but daddy I love him, the smallest man, and clara bow

2. I loved the album’s examination of fame and Taylor Swift as a spectacle. TTPD shined when it wasn’t just being “a breakup album”, because it’s clear that this time in Tay’s life was so much more than the end of a long term relationship. The start of the Eras tour saw Taylor on top of the world, subject to all the criticism that comes with it. I felt her pain, especially in the last section of Clara Bow. She’s part of a long history of famous women being treated as sources of entertainment instead of people.

3. Love love love the aesthetic of this era. Can’t wait to see how the lore is expanded in the Fortnight music video.

4. The Florence Welch feature was very well done. Their voices blended beautifully, and it was a nice median of their musical styles. As a former Floridian, the line “Florida’s a hell of a drug” made me collapse laughing.

So there we have it! A new era! Please don’t have my head for this post, but ofc feel free to disagree or share your own thoughts :)

* please note that these thoughts were written before the release of the Anthology *

[13uswntimagines]

Our Song (Alyssa Naeher x Reader)

Request: alyssa naehex reader thats set during quarantine w/ “Shy” by Alexander Stewart. I just kind of think it’s cute since she’s an introvert and that it would be fitting

Author’s Note: Speical Thanks To @literaryhedgehog​

Alyssa knew she should just say it, that admitting it out loud would finally put an end to this madness. She ran a soothing hand through your hair when you sniffled loudly into her chest. 

God, she should just tell you how she felt. But, she also didn’t want to overstep. That would make being roommates really awkward. Especially since neither of you were supposed to leave the apartment right now except for essential purchases. And she didn’t want to lose her best friend. That would really suck. 

But she wasn’t afraid to say what no one else would- you had a terrible taste when it came to partners. You chose people who didn’t value you, and you always ended up hurt. 

This time was no different, well, it was slightly different considering you couldn’t leave your shared apartment to cope like you normally would. Alyssa didn’t know if that was better or worse, considering that you had adapted your breakup routine to just be endless cuddles with her and your favorite stuffed animal.  

She had already spent the last hour making comforting noises. You had stopped shedding tears 15 minutes ago, so Alyssa decided it was time to go for some humor. “Hey, so now you and Taylor Swift have something in common!”

“Hmm” You hummed in acknowledgment, your eyes never leaving where Supergirl was playing on screen. 

“Well, she was broken up with over text. You were broken up with over text. I think this is the perfect opportunity to listen to her re-recording of Fearless, and really channel those emotions!”

“No, Joe broke up with her in a 27-second phone call,” You lifted your head up off of her very comfortable chest to raise your eyebrow at the woman. 

Alyssa was a great keeper, and amazing at crosswords, but she always needed your help when it came to Taylor trivia. 

“Then Joe showed more consideration as an 18-year-old child than your 32 year old wanna be soccer star. It doesn’t change the fact that I think listening to Mr Perfectly Fine would be cathartic.” 

“It’s kinda funny that she wrote Forever and Always, Mr. Perfectly fine, Better than Revenge and Holy Ground all about the same guy, they’re all so different from each other,” You mumbled, settling back down on her chest. At least she didn’t say that you had as many breakups as she did. That was a rude joke. (One Alyssa wouldn’t dare make. She was more cultured than the media asshats that chased your team around). 

“Woman’s efficient,” Alyssa shrugged. “No reason why you can't recycle the same emotion into a different song genre.” 

“At least she could make millions off her pain. All I seem to be able to do is kick the ball harder,” You grumbled. Your landlord complained about you practicing in the street because of how hard you sent the ball careening into his precious brick wall. It wasn’t your fault Alyssa was too slow to stop the PK. 

“Darling, considering you’re one of the strongest kickers on the east coast, I’d say that pain is going to a worthwhile cause. But you do kind of have the worst taste in relationships.” 

“Hey! Savannah wasn’t a bad choice, just bad timing,” You huffed indignantly. 

“So that would be one out of…. How many bad relationships?” 

“At least one for every Taylor Swift album,” 

“Okay, here’s a fun idea, choose an ex for each album,” Alyssa said brightly. Thinking about music would definitely cheer you up. “Wannabe soccer star is obviously your Joe, so represents the Fearless album. Which relationship is your… Drew?”

“You already know the answer to that question,” you said, already picking up your phone to add Teardrops on my Guitar to the music queue. You then quickly added Forever and Always and started scrolling through Speak Now for the next song inspiration. 

Alyssa nodded. It was a well-known fact that you had a massive crush on one Hope Solo growing up, and you had been absolutely enamored with her the second you set foot into camp. But Alyssa also knew that Hope was very faithful to a certain veteran. 

The veteran keeper had tried to let you down easy, and Kelley was still one of your best friends, but it had hurt in the moment.

“Kristie was my Haunted,” you said, smiling slightly. Dating her felt like a whirlwind, one that took your breath until you never thought it would end. She made butterflies flutter in your stomach, and you were so desperate to say the right thing, to be the perfect partner, that you always felt like you were walking a tightrope. Floating on air, but desperate to keep your balance. “At least she had the decency to wait until we were in the same city to end it.” 

“Aren’t the two of you friends now?” Alyssa looked down at you, watching as you scrolled through songs from your comfortable place on her chest. 

You nodded with a small smile. “Hmm, we are much better off that way anyway.” 

“I bet you I can guess who your We are Never Ever Getting Back Together person is,” Alyssa trilled, reaching down to take the phone. 

You playfully snatched it away from her. “Who’s to say I wasn’t going to choose I knew you were trouble?” You raised your eyebrow at the woman, who simply smirked in response. 

“I can tell you who that is too if you like,” Alyssa reached for her own phone and took over control of the speakers, adding both songs to the music queue. 

“Alright, I’ll bite. Who?” 

“You definitely knew Sam Kerr was trouble, and I think it took you 4 breakups with Leah to finally call it quits,” 

“I was going to say Leah for 1989, it took me forever to realize how fucked up our relationship was after we finally broke up,” 

“I’m sure the distance didn’t help.” With her in London and you in Chicago things just kind of fell apart. 

“Maybe,” you hummed, noncommittally. 

“Okay, so for Reputation. I’m thinking Don’t Blame Me,” 

“You did go a bit crazy for Jane…” Alyssa said with a roll of her eyes. You had almost moved to Houston for that girl, thank god you didn’t. You sunburned like nobody's business. 

“Oh come on. You just didn’t like the idea of me moving. And considering how long we had been dating at that point it did make sense!” You argued. 

“It was 3 months Y/n,” She deadpanned. 

“I was in a wlw relationship. That’s like practically three years, it’s not like I brought a u-haul to our first date.” 

Alyssa quirked an eyebrow up at you. “Didn’t you have one of those the first time we met?” 

“Yeah, because I wasn’t moving into my college apartment without any furniture!”

“Whatever you say, babe. Who's your Folklore?” She rolled her eyes goodnaturedly. 

“I think you skipped an album,” you said. This was weird because Lover was one of Alyssa’s favorite albums. “But, since you asked. I think Kelley is The 1.” 

“Ah, our favorite squirrel,” Alyssa’s lips ticked up. You and Kelley had dated in college (something that should have made her jealous), but Kelley was the one pushing her to admit her feelings now. 

“We were just too young and dumb,” you said, smiling. “We had a great time together, and it would have been fun if it worked out. But at some point we just realized, we were friends, but there wasn’t anything romantic there.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Alyssa said, like a liar. 

“I’m not. Her and Emily are like made for each other,” You snorted with the shake of your head. “And at least she wasn’t afraid of the world knowing we were together,” 

“Well, yeah,” Alyssa smiled. She had loved seeing the way being publicly out with Kelley had brought out the best of you. “ Okay moving on! Next, we need to narrow down your No body, No Crime.” 

“I take offense. Alex is still alive, so that doesn’t count,” You huffed. 

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding. I know you didn’t kill any of your significant others,” Alyssa said, laughing. “Though if you listened to the song you would know that’s my job… ”

“Alex was my Champagne Problems,” You mumbled sadly. That relationship had been the hardest for you, as had the breakup. She was terrified of the world even suspecting she wasn’t straight. 

You had everything, except the freedom to be yourself, and In the end, you couldn’t take the hiding anymore. 

“You did your best, love. But people come out at their own pace. And it was before Obergfell v. Hodges was decided. Being queer was still more likely to be presented as a scandal in the media then.”

“She cheated on me with Serv. She doesn’t get a pass,” You grumbled, crossing your arms. 

“I’m pretty sure you were on a break dear,” Alyssa said, though she was inclined to agree with you. Being on a ‘break’ but not officially breaking up didn’t seem like a reason to start dating other people. Still getting over some of the semantics might theoretically help you move on. “BUT maybe we should move on. Who is your Lover?”

Your eyes squinted thoughtfully, a light pink shading your cheeks. “The only person who hasn’t ever left me is you. You let me leave the Christmas lights up until May and dance around the kitchen when you cook.” 

Alyssa looked away, not able to meet your eyes. ”I mean, the lights can change color, so they can be thematic all year. And you’re the one who chooses the music to listen to while I cook. I can’t help it if they’re all great for dancing.”

“You can dance to anything. I’m pretty sure you turned a Hosier song into a salsa dance last week.” You giggled. 

“The only person I dance with is you, Y/n,” Alyssa said, finally meeting your eyes. She could feel her body start shaking slightly, as the adrenaline kicked in. She was going to do it. She was going to tell you. “I don’t want to dance if I’m not dancing with you.” 

“I’d dance with you in a storm in my best dress,” 

“I have tried so hard to be supportive about your last several relationships. But seeing you dancing to your favorite song with anyone else… I’ve loved you for three years now and I couldn’t bear it.” 

The air was suddenly charged between you, and you realized your faces were just inches apart. It was hard to breathe. You never dreamed your best friend would return your feelings (maybe that’s why you had so many bad relationships). 

“Kiss me,” you breathed, slowly moving around so your heads were at the same level. 

“That’s not a Taylor swift Lyric,” Alyssa said. In her brain, there was a loading sign currently whirring in little circles, as she attempted to process what you just said. Did you mean what she thought you said?

“Baby just say yes,” You said, feeling so happy that tears were coming to your eyes. You leaned forward getting inches from her face, so close you could feel her breath hitch. “Please kiss me.”

“Yes,” was all Alyssa had time to say before she closed the distance and kissed you. 

[roger-that-cap]

tolerate it

part 2/2 of cardigan!

so, this is the follow up to my first ever one shot (guess not anymore LMAO) up here! i sincerely hope that you guys like this, because it was like pulling teeth for this one. every now and again i’d find a golden one and smack it in there and hope that one decent line made up for all the others.

natasha romanoff x fem!reader

this was the hardest thing ive ever had to write (simply because there was so much emotion in it and it was hard to reel myself back in just to cast out again) and i had to write a paper on nathaniel hawthorne.

warnings: pretty angsty for me, bittersweet, um- why do i write angst, DRAMATICS hahaha

word count: 4.5k!

would like to remind you that i do not own taylor swift songs! this one borrows a little from tolerate it, the best song on evermore imho (tied with coney island).

You knew that opening the door was going to be a hard part, but what you didn’t prepare for was actually listening to her. You could have stared at her for eternity in silence, just harping on everything good and bad that ever happened between the two of you. You could imagine a thousand different scenarios where the two of you were happy and none of this had occurred, but that wasn’t the case. She didn’t come to you to stare and leave.

“Thank you,” Natasha said, her voice throaty as she took a cautious first step into your space. Your space. It sounded weird, and you knew that it felt weird to her. You two had shared everything for the longest, and now you had your own place to live in. “Thank you for letting me in.”

“You came to talk,” you said, wrapping your arms around yourself protectively, and she didn’t miss the obvious tell of your body language. “I won’t make you waste your time. Say your piece, and then...” you trailed off, both of you knowing full well where you were going with it. 

“Can I just start with the fact that I’m so sorry,” she blurted, and you have her an unamused look as you sat on your couch, and she sat on the edge of it. “And that I don’t know why that happened. I don’t expect for you to ever forgive me, and I don’t forgive myself. I won’t ever forgive myself for hurting you so badly, and having such a lapse in judgement. I’m sorry.”

“What was it that was different?” You asked, the question that had been haunting you for a while now finally escaping your lips. When she gave you a confused look, you stared back at her. “What was so different about whatever happened on the mission?”

You didn’t ask what you did wrong, because you didn’t do anything wrong. It took you weeks to know that, weeks to come to the conclusion, but you knew. It wasn’t anything that you lacked, it was something that Natasha did. Whether it was loyalty, restraint, a moral compass, or even something else, you didn’t think that it was you.

“There was nothing different.”

You were trying to hold it together, but you knew that you were seconds from falling apart right in front of the person who had destroyed you. “You don’t have to lie.”

She made a face. “There wasn’t. There was nothing about her that was better than you, I swear.”

But there was nothing different. There was nothing different in the way that you held her to the way that Abigail did, then. There must have been nothing different in the way that you kissed her in the morning. Nothing special about how you would dance with her on the third of the month simply because you liked the number three. There was nothing special about the way you held her hand and rubbed her back and sometimes sang her to sleep when she needed it. And there was certainly nothing different or special about the way that you let her put her head on your chest, just so that she could hear your heart beating.

Maybe what you did was different or special to you and not to her. And maybe it was time for you to finally realize it, whether it hurt or not.

Your emotions were threatening to come through, and you couldn’t have that happen. “I thought you came to talk. Talking requires truth.”

“I did,” she rushed, and then she sighed and wiped her palms on her thighs. You knew what that was. Of course you knew what she was. That was her being nervous. “I just wanted you to know that I love you, I love you so much, no matter what you choose. I never meant for any of it to happen, and I hate myself for making you feel that way.”

“You knew what happened with the others,” you said, and you knew that she knew that you were talking about the men who used to cheat on you without thinking twice. You saw her wince. “You knew how I felt about dishonesty. You knew how long it took me to be fully trusting of you, and you ruined it for two months of fun?”

“I know I did.”

“Do you know that, Natasha?” You asked, your voice starting to raise a bit. “I trusted you, and then I gave you everything I had. There wasn’t a piece of me that wasn’t for you, don’t you get that? I painted a portrait of us with the best colors I had and you opened the door on me doing the finishing touches and threw black paint over it.”

She was surprised that you were actually allowing yourself to be angry, and that made you even more upset. You were allowed to be pissed. “I’m sorry,” she breathed out, a thin layer of tears in her eyes.

“I did- I had everything lying out on the table for you emotionally. It was wrapped so pretty for you when I helped you through your own stuff, and it waited until you were ready. There wasn’t a thing you didn’t know, not a secret kept from you. And I still can’t believe that you returned me being in love with you, with that.”

“It didn’t mean anything to me. None of it meant anything to me at all, I swear.”

“It meant something to Abigail,” you said, and you saw her flinch. “It meant something to the girl that told you that she loved you. And if I’m not mistaken, you told her the same. So did it really not mean something, or are you an even larger liar than I thought?”

“It didn’t mean anything.” For a spy, she was quite easy to read. Or maybe you just spent so much time knowing her that it was impossible to not know her inside and out. You knew her every movement that she made when she lied, and you knew what she looked like when she was telling the truth. This, this wasn’t it.

And it destroyed you.

“Don’t you understand how that feels? It feels like being cut a thousand times by the fancy blade that you made yourself. It feels like being bitten by your own dog. It feels like being nearly drowned in the oceans that you’ve swam in for forever. We were so close! We were so close that I was sure that we were predestined or some of that cheesy shit, Natasha. I could have sworn that we were meant for each other, but now I know that we were, because the betrayal that you did cut me down into a million pieces. That was something that neither of the others were able to do. That’s something that only you could do, and I trusted you not to do it. I never thought you could do it. I thought that you loved me far too much to pull the shit that you did.

“Maybe I was foolish enough to make the knife right in front of you, but I trusted you to know it was there and not use it against me. And you still stabbed me with it.” Your voice cracked and you could feel warm tears falling into your hand, but you didn’t care. You had to keep going. “How could you see me give and give and give to you, for you, and then tolerate it and go see someone else?”

She was breathing heavily after your rant, like she had spoken the words instead. A singular tear came down her face, and you thanked whoever was sitting above and watching for the crack in her mask. You were begging to see her half as emotional as you, half as hurt by her own actions.

You knew that it was different when you saw her wipe her tear. She never wiped her tears around you. You were the only one who got to see them, but you supposed not even you were allowed to see it anymore.

“I can’t even begin-” her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I regret what happened.”

“How do you regret-” you pursed your lips and shook your head, closing your eyes for a second as your heart clenched. “How do you regret falling in love with someone?”

“I don’t love her-”

“Do you love me?” You asked.

“More than I love anything else in the entire world.”

“You loved her more if you risked me losing me, Natasha.” You said, and her brows shot up at your conclusion. “You know what would happen if you did that to me and I found out. You knew you would lose me, and you did it anyway. So you two must have had something special. Congrats.”

“No, you’re-”

The temper that you tried to keep in check was bubbling over again, and you realized that there was no checking yourself. “Do you know how long I waited for you and never cheated? Never had sex with anyone else, never went on a date with anyone else? For just as long as you were supposed to! And I managed! So what’s wrong with you?”

“Y/N, I think we should calm down a little. Let’s talk it out for a second.”

“I’ve been talking it out. All by myself, actually, because you’re too afraid to do a damn thing and admit that you fucked up for two months straight.” You closed your eyes again as you felt the hurt come back up. “How do I know it was just that time? How do I know that?”

There was a silence that spoke volumes. “You don’t.”

“And what if we got back together, after all of this?” It was hypothetical, but seeing the hope perk up in her sparked something that you hadn’t felt towards her in forever. Or, you had, it was just smothered by the heat of your fury. “How would I know that you aren’t off pulling the same thing you did earlier?”

“You’d have to trust me.”

“Well, I can’t do that. I literally can’t,” you cried out, putting your head in your hands and shaking you head. It was quiet except for the sounds of your cries, and it was ominous. There was never a quiet moment between you and Natasha, but you were dying out, fizzling away. You already had your Big Bang, now you were creating black holes that would forever remain on opposite sides of the universe. And you both knew it.

“You- you humiliated me,” you shook your head from left to right again, face still hidden. “You had an affair with a younger girl, you did it in front of the people I shared a living space with. You did it shamelessly in front of the people I cooked meals for every day, the people who’s fucking uniforms I ironed! They were my friends too, Natasha, and you humiliated me. You made them keep your dirty secret, did you apologize to them?”

“I haven’t spoken to them much.”

“I had to figure out from Pepper in front of the wedding dress store,” you continued, your throat tightening. “I was there getting the dress that I was going to walk down the aisle in. Everything was perfect, and then you did something that shattered what I thought couldn’t be broken.” You had thought that you and Natasha were rock solid, the hardest stone. You two were diamonds that sparkled and prevailed together, until you learned that you were truly just glass.

She leaned forward, giving you a look that you knew meant honesty. But it was far too late for that, and it wasn’t going to do Natasha much good now. “I wish every second of the day that I didn’t do it, Y/N. Every second of every day.”

Your lips turned into a scowl. “Wishing doesn’t do anything for us. We’re not little kids and we’re not princesses.”

That word, wishing, must have been the one to do her in, because she was sobbing right into her own sleeve, an arm covering her eyes from your sight. Your tears were subsiding, and you watched her with thinly pressed lips. Watching her cry was never pleasant.

“I’m so, so sorry. I can’t- I can’t imagine how you must feel, but I’m so sorry. I don’t know why- I can only apologize to you and beg that you’ll welcome me back to you, where I’m supposed to be.” Your eye twitched as you listened, and told yourself to keep your strength up. “I fucked up. I fucked up so bad, baby, but I know now. I know who I’m meant to be with, and it wasn't her. It’s you, it always has been.”

You knew that. You had always known that. It was a fact, something that had always rang as true as the beating of your own heart. You knew that it was written in the stars for you by some gracious god who decided to reveal what could have been your present and future to you, but you guess the other half of the tale never saw it herself. She knew now, sure. But she learned a little too late for your taste.

“Please, you have to know. You have to know that I didn’t- that I would never do it again.” 

How could you tell someone that their apology wasn’t enough? How could you reject someone when they were at their lowest point? How were you going to find the strength in yourself to turn down the woman that you still very much loved? The one that you thought that you lost to another was right in front of you, begging for a second chance, but was it right for you to give it to her?

But how could she see you at your most vulnerable every day and know that you loved and cared for her with your whole heart and still do what she did? How was she okay with ruining you after all that you had been through? How did she not feel bad for two months about betraying the one person who she knew would be forever in her corner?

Whatever her method was to do things that hurt the people she supposedly loved, she found a way. And so would you.

“Have you said what you needed to?” You asked, your tone slow and deliberate as you fought for your tears not to ruin your words. Just as slowly, she nodded. “Then, please leave.”

A noise left her throat. “Please, wait. Wait.”

“There’s nothing left to say, Nat. We said it all.” You stood up, and she followed. “Fix your relationships at the tower, alright?”

“Don’t,” she muttered, tears streaming down her face. “Please don’t tell me that you don’t want to try and then act like you care about me.”

You both walked to the door, because you knew that I the end she would do what you asked of her. “We were friends first.” You insisted. “We were friends first, Natasha, so I care. So, because we were friends first, I’ll tell you to get better. Work on yourself. Fall in love with someone else. Maybe not with two people at the same time.”

Her face was utterly pitiful. Her eyes were watering in a way you had never seen them do before, and her hands were shaking. You had seen the most of Natasha that anyone had in the entire world, yet you had never seen her so torn apart, so open. She laid it all out for you like you had been doing for her for years, and now you were finally the one to ruin the pretty picture. “Please.” 

As soft as a gentle breeze came your next word. “No.” You yanked your apartment door open, and then you were both shivering. She looked up at you, her face full of an expression of the most shattered you had seen her yet, and the part of you that still ached prayed that it would be the last time you would ever see her at all.

Your body moved on its own. It asked for one more point of contact, just one more before you deprived yourself from the person you loved the most. Your lips pressed against the crown of her head as you told yourself it was for your own good. Your eyes shut as you put your hands on her shoulders, and tears were turning spots of her red hair dark. She was shaking underneath you, crying even harder than you were. You pulled away from her and opened the door wider.

“Wish you all the best, Nat.”

She walked away, off of your porch and into the night. You shut the door.

§§

You figured that you would miss her, but it wasn’t as bad as it was in the early part of leaving. By the time you moved on, it was far past the date of the wedding and even further past your anniversary. Sometimes it still hurt to think about how your life could have been had she chosen to stay faithful, but you learned that the scenarios hurt more than they helped and stopped.

You had a steady job, could keep up with the rent on your apartment, had enough for groceries and even had spare to get your nails done if you wanted to. You were doing it all, and you were doing it well after being attached at the hip to someone else for years and years.

There was a time where you would have thought that living without Natasha would be excruciating. The first night after you stormed out and cried yourself to sleep, you were sure that it would be painful, every night without her next to you would be like a stab in the gut. But after a while, it really wasn’t.

At first, it was. You missed her terribly, and, a part of you still did. You missed the good things that happened, but you realized that the good didn’t erase the bad, and that the bad didn’t erase the good. So, after a long time of thinking about her, your stance on Natasha Romanoff wasn’t hateful, or upset, or vengeful. You barely had one.

You thought about her and saw a book that you had finished reading a long time ago. Impactful at the time you read it, of course, and it could leave a longing imprint, but it was over. You could never relive that exact moment ever again that you read her, not a good one or a bad one. The hardest, most intense part of it was over, so far behind you that you could breathe again. 

And damn, did it feel good to breathe. 

§§§

Seeing her was awkward, and it was something that came straight out of your outdated imagination. You were by yourself buying apples at the market that you always went to because you adored fresh fruit, checking for bruises on them that were never there. You were carrying four in a bag with a content look on your face, just walking around and looking at other fruits and vegetables when you felt someone’s eyes on you. You looked up.

Sam Wilson was looking right at you, his jaw a little slack as he recognized you. You hadn’t seen him since you stormed out of the compound god knows how long ago. Within seconds, your life at the tower and memories with him flashed in your head. You two would cook together side by side often, and that's where you would do most of your bonding and talking with him. Your heart clenched for a moment, and then you raised the hand that wasn’t occupied and gave him a wave and a half smile, one that you hoped told him that you weren’t angry.

You looked back to the vegetables and then at the sign on the table. Damn, that’s kind of expensive. You shrugged your shoulders and put the greens on the weighing machine anyway, and pulled the money out of your purse for it. You smiled at the vendor and left with your new bag, wiggling your eyes at the strawberry table and starting your approach. 

“Hi,” an achingly familiar voice called out while you were steps away from the table of deliciously red strawberries. You could smell them from where you were at. You turned around still, even after easily identifying who the voice belonged to. “How are you?”

She was as beautiful as ever, the top of her head under a blue ball cap and her eyebrows perfectly done. Her eyes were hidden by shades, but you didn’t need to see them to know what she was thinking. Her arms were loose at her sides, but her fingers were moving strangely, and you noticed them immediately as her nervous tick. You took in a deep breath. 

“I’m good, how about you?” You asked Natasha back, and she gave you a pained smile.

“I’m alright.”

“Oh, sweet,” you said, and then gave her a parting smile before turning towards the strawberries.

“Wait,” she called out.

You stopped and turned your head, even though you wanted more than anything to forget that you ran into her. “Yes?”

There was a moment of silence between you two, and then she took a step forward. “Are you still upset?” She asked, voice lower in volume than usual. 

You almost scoffed at her. “I’m an adult, I can’t really be sad for long or I’ll forget to pay a bill or something.”

“Can we talk?” She started, and you held up a hand.

“Let’s not open up old wounds,” you said, already knowing exactly where she was going with all of her hesitance and fiddling with her thumbs.

“I need to apologize for what happened.”

You shrugged. “I forgive you. Actually, I forgave you weeks and weeks ago. It’s okay. We can move on from it.” We need to move on from it. 

You saw your old lover’s face light up in just the slightest, but just as fast as you saw it, it was gone. Her lack of wanting to express to you didn’t hurt anymore. “We?”

“We can move on,” you repeated, “just not together.” Her face dropped at what you said, and you shrugged your shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I fucked up.”

Yes, you did. “It’s in the past now.”

There was a pause, and you could hear your heartbeat in your ears. You wondered when your heart started to beat on its own again and not for the woman standing so close yet so far away. You wondered when you started to do anything for just yourself, and you wondered when you had stopped doing that in the first place. Her voice brought you out of your thoughts. “Is it?”

You almost had to ask her to remind you what the conversation was about. “Oh. It is,” you said gently, but your voice was still stern. “All good things must come to an end, and what we had was good. It was great, and that must have meant that we were destined to end fast.”

She shook her head slightly. “If you- if you forgive me, it doesn’t have to be over.”

“It does.” You looked at your phone and sighed. “I have to leave.”

“Okay,” She said softly after a moment, and finally took a step back. It was a small one, like her body was trying to override her brain. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you, Nat.” You saw her wince, and if you hadn’t made peace with everything, you would have, too.

She took another step back and cleared her throat, just as Sam started making his way over. She nodded at you, and you gave her a small smile, almost encouraging. Just walk away, this is the last time you’ll have to do it. “Later,” She said, her voice a little hoarse as she turned on her heel and walked right past Sam.

“Later” meant never. And you didn’t know if you were supposed to feel nothing or everything about it.

§§§

The last time you saw Natasha Romanoff was a year later, when you were holding hands with a pretty woman from an art show that you went to. She stole your heart with her work, and she turned out just as beautiful on the inside as she was with a brush, and on the outside. Her name was Julie, and she was great. She was honest. 

You really liked Julie. She wasn’t Natasha, though, and it was both refreshing and saddening, because you knew that what you felt with Natasha was a one time thing. You two had one chance to keep the bond that was seemingly inseparable and stronger than steel together, and everyone was rooting for you. And then, it just fell apart.

You knew that Natasha was your first actual love, and the only person who was ever going to be able to love you emotionally like you needed to be. The two of you were, in your mind, made for each other. If soulmates existed, Natasha would have been yours, and you would have been hers. You knew that even five years after not being with her, and while the hole in your heart wasn’t hollow, you had a feeling that a little something was always going to be cold, like a cavity that was never filled. Someone saying her name or asking about her was like chewing ice on it.

But people moved on. Just like you did. And you had moved on from the beautiful yet icy mountains of Natasha and into a soft and whimsical meadow, and that meadow was Julie. 

You were holding hands with Julie, arms swinging as you were leaving the donut shop and talking about silly things that made the both of you grin when you caught a familiar flash of red. Out of instinct, you looked over your shoulder, and what you saw made you freeze.

Natasha Romanoff was with a girl with brown skin and black hair that was glinting in the sunlight, and she wasn’t focused on the way that you and Natasha locked eyes in that moment, the moment that seemed to last years. You didn’t think you were still moving, and it certainly didn’t feel like you were taking a step, but you were. You saw her blue-green eyes blink at you, and like you were still stuck on the same wavelength after all that time, you both raised a hand and gave a timid wave, small smiles gracing the both of your faces.

You saw the girl tug lightly on Natasha’s arm, and your grin stretched. Natasha looked over at the girl, and an immediate smile, one similar but not quite the same as she used to give to you, was on her face. You turned your head forward, a light smile still on your own face as you watched it all happen in a split second.

You both kept walking.

*****

ahahaha wow, that hurt really bad actually - never doing angst again i’m a fluffy type of gal

so i’ve never done a taglist before! so i hope i’m doing it right otherwise this’ll make me look incredibly dumb-

@messuhp @username23345 @fishlikestuff @thelastavenger-3000 @grievingfortheliving @madamevirgo @dontmindmejustreading @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @sourpatchspinster @fayhar @sarcasticallywitty15 @normanijauregui

[suna-reversed]

HQ boys as Taylor Swift songs-folklore

characters- Oikawa (exile), Atsumu (my tears ricochet), Meian (illicit affairs)

tags/warnings- ANGST, breakup, heartbreak, cheating, mentions of alcohol, manipulative behaviour, fluff in Meian’s if you squint

suggestions for pt2 would be appreciated (currently thinking of cardigan with Bokuto and hoax with Tsukishima)

Oikawa

“I can see you standin', honey

With his arms around your body

Laughin' but the joke's not funny at all”

He had told himself over and over again to not look; in the flight, in the ride to the hotel, even as he passed the entrance gates of the exquisite banquet hall where the reunion was being held. All he had to do was keep his eyes away. 

But you were here, and he had never been good at withstanding the cosmic pull you always held. Even if you were in the arms of another, laughing like you always used to, with him. 

I think I've seen this film before

And I didn't like the ending

“What changed, Tooru?” Your eyes were red and puffy, you had exhausted all your tears while he simply stood in the corner and watched. 

“This isn’t going to work out y/n. We’re both miles away, with different lives, in different time zones, around different people; we can’t have a relationship built on nothi-” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose,  “...I’m saving both of us from the pain that would come with splitting a few years down the line.” 

“Do you still love me?”

Oikawa was familiar with the grief that came with loss; the grief of giving something every single bit of your soul, only to come out empty-handed and wounded. 

“Go back home, y/n.”

You're not my homeland anymore

So what am I defendin' now?

You were my town

Now I'm in exile seein' you out

Perhaps he had damned himself to ruination. Given up without a fight. But that didn’t matter now. 

You look ethereal, with stars in your eyes and glee in your smile. It doesn’t matter if he’s not the one behind it. You would have been a shell of who you are right now if you had stayed with him anyways. 

He turns around, heading for exit.

Just one last time. He promises himself. His lips curve upwards into a bittersweet smile as he turns around to get his last look. Instead, he finds himself staring into the expanse of an entire galaxy. A cosmic explosion coming his way as the floor shifts from beneath him. 

No, you definitely don’t sound the same.

How long has it been since he heard that voice?

“Not even gonna say goodbye before you leave Oikawa?”

What happened to your precious “Tooru”?

Atsumu

Even on my worst day, did I deserve, babe

All the hell you gave me?

The clock reads 01:27 am. You’ve been sitting on the couch for the past 3 hours, the untouched dinner on the table gone cold long ago. You hear the sound of a door slamming shut, hushed footsteps making their way towards the center of the apartment, coming to a halt at the sight of you.

“Why are you still awake?” 

“You promised we’d have dinner together tonight.”

“Listen, it got late at practice, you could’ve just eaten without me.”

“You could’ve at least dropped a text.” You murmur, trying to keep your voice from breaking. This wasn’t the first time he had stood you up.

“It’s not that big of a deal y/n. You realise how important the upcoming match is to me, don’t you?” He sighs, shaking his head in disappointment, “Let’s just go to bed okay, I’m tired.” 

“Okay.” You mutter, loosening your grip on the 2 year anniversary gift hidden below the couch cushion. A platinum ring with yours and Atsumu’s initials carved on the inside.  

You wear the same jewels that I gave you

As you bury me

Atsumu’s vision is blurry, shirt drenched in sweat, his head pounding as he’s pushed against the wall. He doesn’t know whether it’s from the screaming match he just had with you, or from the two bottles he chugged at a shady bar right after he walked out. 

All that matters right now is the feeling of the hands of the girl that’s kissing his jaw. The same spot where you had pressed a chaste kiss not too long ago as you told him that you were going to leave- 

No, he’s not going to think about it. All that matters is the touch of skin against skin, filling in the void you caused as he kneads the supple flesh of her thigh with his hand. The same hand that bore a platinum ring, the letters engraved inside of it now fatuous and futile. 

You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed

You turned into your worst fears

No, no, no. 

Why are you here?

Why are you back?

“I had hoped we could talk-” You take a deep breath, feet stuck in place as you lay your eyes upon the marks littering his jaw, his neck, going much farther down-

A sob comes out from deep inside your chest. 

No, no, no. 

He’s looking at you, your crestfallen face, tears falling off of it like british showers. 

He’s acting before he can think, falling to his knees, grabbing onto your waist as you try to walk out. 

“No! Angel, please just let me explain. I thought you were never coming back- I would've never-”

“Never what Atsumu?!” Your voice is louder than you expected it to be. 

“Never what? A single fight is all it takes for you to discard everything we ever had? For you to step over everything I put into a relationship that has barely even existed for so long!” 

He’s never heard you shout before. But it's okay, it’s okay if you shout at him, if you break a few things, hell you can wreck his whole apartment if it means that you’re staying for even just a moment longer. 

But you’re not. You’re pushing him away, movements stern, as you try to make your way to the door. All he can do is cling onto you, crying your name over and over again as he racks his brain for a way to make you stay. 

Why was it always you who knew what to say when it came to fixing things?

Meian 

Make sure nobody sees you leave

Hood over your head

Keep your eyes down

Tell your friends you're out for a run

You'll be flushed when you return

You knew there were aspects of his life he had no control over. After all, he was watched by thousands of eyes everyday; the star player, the golden boy; the captain of MSBY. So how does it matter if you had to go a mile extra to hide what you had?

You loved who he was as a person and how he made you feel. Good-morning and goodnight texts, warm cuddles after matches, dancing in the kitchen to songs you don’t know the name of, late night drives to get takeout or go stargazing, laughing till you were on the floor crying. You loved him so much.

And that's the thing about illicit affairs

And clandestine meetings

And stolen stares

They show their truth one single time

But they lie, and they lie, and they lie

A billion little times

“Volleyball player Meian Shugo spotted with a blonde beauty at the MSBY vs Adlers afterparty. Could she be his rumoured girlfriend that we’ve been kept in the dark about all along? Read more for exclusive deta-”

You can’t shed a single tear staring at the cover of the magazine. Not because your heart hasn't just been ripped out of your chest, but because you’re in public, standing in line at the grocery store picking up snacks for you and...Meian. 

Why did you not see this coming? What hurt more was that you knew the girl. Meian had introduced you to her as a friend, and her as his social media manager. So this was clearly a misunderstanding right? It had to be. Despite telling yourself that over and over again, you still couldn’t get the picture of his arm wrapped around her waist and the smile etched onto his face out of your mind as you drove home, tears blurring your vision.

Don't call me kid

Don't call me baby

Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me

“Baby please listen to me-”

You’re sitting on the edge of the couch. You don’t know how long ago you stopped screaming, how long ago the anger dissipated and the rage turned into silent sobs, leaving behind a gaping hollow feeling in your chest. 

You feel him shift closer to you but you don’t at him, still sniffing, your head buried in your arms. 

“She was at the party because she’s our manager, you know Jessi-”

“Don’t say her name.” you hiss out. 

“I wish I never met you, I wish I never got into this stupid arrangement. I wish-” You’re rambling now, sobs escaping between every few words as you try to comprehend the situation, “I hate this. I hate you.” 

Heavy silence hangs in the room. 

And you know damn well

For you I would ruin myself

A million little times

You find arms being wrapped around you and your head being pulled into a warm chest. You try to fight at first, but you’re tired; your throat hurts, your eyes burn and everything feels so cold, so you let yourself guiltily fall into his comfort, pathetically sobbing into his neck.

He patiently waits for your sobs to quiet down, one hand rubbing gentle circles onto your back while the other cradles the back of your head.

“She was at the party with the whole team and the publicist used it as a way to create gossip. That’s all there is to it. I had not given my consent for them to go ahead with this, but they refused to make our relationship public. Apparently, they didn’t think that the age gap between us would reflect well on my reputation.” 

Meian’s heart breaks at the sound that leaves you as he says that, your hand gripping onto the fabric of his shirt as you start sniffing once more. 

“I don’t care about what they say princess, you know that.” He kisses the top of your head, pulling you even closer to himself as if he could absorb the pain from you. 

“I’m so sorry, give me another chance please. I didn’t tell you because I knew it’d hurt you. I promise I’ll make it up to you, please?” 

You look up at him. His eyes are filled with tender love and pure adoration, it makes your heart melt. You nod, burying your face into the crook of his neck. Of course you would, he's your precious Meian, you’d always forgive him. Why did you ever think he’d do anything to hurt you?

Meian smiles into your hair, ignoring the sound of the notification popping up on the phone kept on the table, 

Jessica: hey, we're still on for tonight right ? ;)

[starjane312]

Did I Ruin everything?

Requested (Yes/No)

Jschlatt

Warnings: Angst

It has been almost 3 years since I have last seen the Lunch club, we lived together in California and since we moved in together when we were 18, I have been and still am Madly in love with my Best friend. I never told him, the one time I wanted to tell him he told me that he had a Girlfriend, so I didn’t tell him.

Well today we are going to meet up well Charlie, Ted, Schlatt and I in LA. My Flight from Germany was exhausting but when I see the Boys standing there Waiting for me, I get Hyper again. When Charlie sees me, he starts running towards me, I start running too and hug him.

C: I missed you !

J: I missed you more !

C: I know who you missed the most.

He whispered in my ear, Charlie is the only one who knows about my Crush I go beet Red and I slap his Arm.

J: You ass !

The next one I hug is Ted.

T: Why hello there Miss Star.

J: Hello there Mr. Teddy bear.

We both laugh and then It’s mine and Schlatt’s turn to hug, well we hug and for me it’s the best felling I had in a very long time, I really did miss him the most and my Crush is far mor than just a Crush I am in love with him.

S: So how have you been ?

We walk to Ted’s Car.

J: Good, the Flight was exhausting though.

As Ted drives, we sing loud to songs and at Ted’s he gives me a Tour and Shows me where I sleep. I have my own Room while Charlie and Schlatt share one, Which Schlatt jokingly Complains about. But now it is time to sleep but I can’t, so I get up and Walk to Teds Room.

J: Teddy ?

T: Hm ?

J: Can I stream in your Recording room ?

T: Sure, just close the door.

J: Thank you.

He nods and proceeds to Sleep. I go to my Room put on a hoodie, brush my hair, and grab my Guitar before going to Ted’s Recording room. I start his Computer, log in with my Twitch and Discord and Start Streaming.

J: Hello my Lovely Stars, I’m currently in a different location than normally, if you haven’t watched or Listened to the Chuckle Sandwich podcast episode and Don’t know it. I am at Ted’s! Oh, and please listen to the best Podcast, Since I am not at home, I can’t play my Games, but I can answer questions and I have my guitar with me.

After one hour of streaming, I get a dono.

Dono: Hey Jane, can you Play one of your older songs ?

J: Um, Sure.

I grab my Guitar.

J: Hm, Ok I have one that I wrote like 3 Years ago and no one got to Hear it jet, so it’s very special

( You belong with me from Taylor swift)

You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset She's going off about something that you said 'Cause she doesn't get your humor like I do I'm in the room, it's a typical Tuesday night I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like And she'll never know your story like I do But she wears short skirts I wear T-shirts She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find That what you're looking for has been here the whole time If you could see that I'm the one Who understands you Been here all along So, why can't you see? You belong with me You belong with me

Walk in the streets with you in your worn-out jeans I can't help thinking this is how it ought to be Laughing on a park bench thinking to myself Hey, isn't this easy? And you've got a smile That can light up this whole town I haven't seen it in a while Since she brought you down You say you're fine, I know you better than that Hey, what you doing with a girl like that? She wears high heels I wear sneakers She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find That what you're looking for has been here the whole time If you could see that I'm the one Who understands you Been here all along So, why can't you see? You belong with me Standing by and waiting at your backdoor All this time how could you not know, baby? You belong with me You belong with me Oh, I remember you driving to my house In the middle of the night I'm the one who makes you laugh When you know you're 'bout to cry And I know your favorite songs And you tell me 'bout your dreams Think I know where you belong Think I know it's with me Can't you see that I'm the one Who understands you? Been here all along So, why can't you see? You belong with me Standing by and waiting at your backdoor All this time how could you not know, baby? You belong with me You belong with me You belong with me Have you ever thought just maybe You belong with me? You belong with me

While I was singing, I shed a few tears, after I finished, I put my guitar to the side and Chat was going wild.

Dono: Who was that song about ?

J: The song was about someone that I was deeply in love with, but I never told them, so it means a lot to me and well they had a girlfriend, and she didn’t like me, and I didn’t like her, but that was in the Past and I am over them.

I look at the Time.

J: Ok, I have been streaming for over an hour now, I think it’s time to sleep now for you and for me love you Guys Bye Bye !

I stop the stream Raiding to Tommy and start Crying, I don’t hear the door open, but I feel the Arms around me, Schlatt.

S: You good ?

I shake my head but lean against his Chest.

J: No.

S: What’s wrong some Dumb haters I have to kill ?

J: No

S: What you Talked about, the Man from the song, Do I know him ?

J: Yeah.

S: Well who is he ?

J: Why ?

S: So I can Punch him.

I chuckle.

J: Pretty funny seeing you punch yourself but go ahead.

He looks at me Dumbfound.

S: Huh ?

J:It's you, I have loved you for a very long time and I tryed not to but I could'nt, my Heart simply cound not bear the Thought of not Loving you.

He slowly lets me go and takes a step back before storming out and I just sit there and Take a deep breath before shutting down the Computer and going back to bed. I start Thinking about Schlatt, stuff we did and the Moment I realized that I was In love with him.

Flashback

I run to Schlatt’s room and Jump on his bed next to him.

J: It’s dinnertime Asshead.

I look to the side and he’s already looking at me.

J: What ?

S: You jumped on my Arm you Bitch !

J: Sorry !

I get up and Pull him with me.

J: But It’s Pizza time !

S: Race you to it !

He starts running, I sprint after him.

J: Hey unfair !

He laughs but I push him aside into Charlies room and proceed running to the Kitchen.

S: Hey that’s Cheating !

J: So is an Early Start but jet here we are !

In the Kitchen I am almost touching the Counter.

J: Yay I won !

Suddenly just before I touch the counter I get picked up from behind.

S: Not if can prevent it !

He spins us around and touches the counter with his back.

J: You Asshole !

C: Technically you both won you were touching eachother !

S: Dang it !

J: Hahaha I still winnnnnn, Aaaaah….

He throws me on the couch.

J: Why ?

S: You were getting heavy !

He hands me my Pizza and sits down next to me.

C: Hey scoot over

J: Where to you bumbass ?!

Schlatt pulls me onto his Lap and keeps eating, I slightly blush and see Charlie wiggling his eyebrows, so I Kick him. I look at Schlatt and the I realized it I am in Love with him !

Flashback end

It’s never going to be like that again, because I ruined it.

[old-childhood-drama]

Taylor Swift and Joe Jonas Masterpost (Toe/Jaylor)

Before dating (May 2008)

We start with the Taylor lookalike

In May 2008 the Jonas Brothers are filming their music video for Burnin’ Up [x]. Joe’s love interest in it is played by a blonde girl who looks quite a bit (and she’s also styled) like Taylor Swift, for reference, this is the music video that has Selena Gomez as Nick Jonas’ love interest.

As far as we know they hadn’t even met so we don’t know exactly what this was supposed to mean, maybe Joe had a crush on Taylor or maybe it’s a coincidence.

We do know that Nick and Selena were dating when this was filmed and that by the time the MV was released (July 4th, 2008) Joe and Taylor were officially dating.

Toe is alive! (July 2008 – September 2008)

On Tour

Fans claim to have seen Taylor around the tour in early July, which matches with Taylor’s lyrics in "Last Kiss".

Last Kiss. Taylor Swift.

I do recall now the smell of the rain

Fresh on the pavement, I ran off the plane

That July 9th, the beat of your heart

It jumps through your shirt

On July 14th, Taylor and The Jonas Brothers perform “Should’ve Said No”[x] from her debut album, and this performance now forever exists in their 3D movie (a classic), a cute fact is that some fans have said that Taylor tripped when she first came out, so they had to repeat it for the movie.

On July 20th Joe flies to Wyoming to watch Taylor opening up for Rascal Flatts, and they flew back and she was spotted at the Omaha show.

She’s seen in a couple shows more and she joins the stage again for their Madison Square Garden shows in August [x]. They sing “Even now just looking at you feels wrong”.

They’re together but they’re not together.

For more context, we must remember that Taylor was a very new artist from a small label and The Jonas were pretty much at their peak and Disney’s biggest act, and they were managed like crazy and could never even think about being seen with someone in a romantic way. Any rumors were denied so fast, and Disney did the absolute most to keep it secret. So according to everyone they were just good friends, at the time both Taylor and Selena were annoyed by all the secrecy.

Now back to the timeline:

Taylor is backstage of the tour A LOT for the next couple of weeks right next to the other not-girlfriends Selena and Danielle.

She films a cameo for the “Love Is on Its Way” [x] video for the concert in New York. She was said to be only interested in hanging out with Joe and they were seen hugging *gasp* I know it doesn’t seem like much now but back then this was the hottest gossip and again the Jonas were not supposed to breathe near any human of the opposite gender.

Taylor and the Jonas were staying at the same hotel a bunch of rumors ensued, but I will not talk about the whole Olympics and Toe locking themselves in a room at midnight thing. If it’s real, we really needed to touch some grass and stop staying outside of people's rooms all night.

On August 17th Joe goes to Ryan Seacrest's show and denied that Taylor is his girlfriend in the best way a corporation like Disney can train you to deny something that’s true. Saying Taylor is “a great girl and I think anybody would be lucky to date her. I think anybody would love to go on a date with her.”

And Taylor tells People Magazine “He’s an amazing guy and anybody would be lucky to be dating him” Cinematic parallels.

Taylor is spotted in the back (in a mirror) of one of the Jonas youtube videos [x]. Basically, we all knew they were together.

The Central Park date (August 28th)

Now if you were a fan of either the Jonas Brothers, Selena, or Taylor you know this next part and it the iconic triple date of Central Park.

Again, this is kind of famous at this point and Selena has been quoted saying how awful it was because the boys were not allowed to be seen with them so they all went to Central Park (Selena’s first time in Central Park) and Taylor and Selena walked about 20 feet of distance from the guys so nobody would think they were together but we all already knew because it wasn’t like they were that good at hiding it and there are pictures of them together that night (the clownery of it all).

These backstage tour adventures are the reason Taylor and Selena are friends today and in Selena’s own words the best thing to come out of those relationships.

VMAs (September 2008)

With how many pictures of them together that night [x] [x] [x] exist you would think they had gone together as a couple but no just two besties! The 2008 VMAs are so the show where Russell Brand mocks the Jonas Brothers and their purity rings and Taylor publicly defends them.

Toe seems happy for the rest of September but as we know now the end is near.

The Break-Up (October 2008)

Social Media was different back then and Taylor did what every teen girl with a broken heart did in 2008 and she went to myspace with an edited post to make a statement about the Toe current situation.

Post-Breakup

The 27 seconds Joe Jonas will regret for the rest of his life.

Taylor went on Ellen and I don’t even think I need to say much this interview is THAT iconic she sat on that couch and told the world exactly how Joe had broken her heart in the following two quotes:

“There’s one that’s about that guy, but…that guy’s not in my life anymore unfortunately. That guy…that’s an ouch.”

“I’m not even gonna be able to remember the boy who broke up with me over the phone in 25 seconds when I was 18…it was like 27 seconds, that’s got to be a record.” [x]

She also went on Ryan Seacrest’s and when asked about the perfect guy she saw an opportunity and took it, saying “I used to always say sense of humor, but I think that it’s important to have the same kind of sense of humor. I have a really dry, sarcastic sense of humor and if somebody doesn’t think that my sense of humor is funny, then that’s not something that is good. Um, so sometimes you know, that can be a wrong match. If they’re not allowed to go in public with me, that’s sort of an issue too.” [x]

Bonus the amazing youtube video Taylor posted with Joe’s Camp Rock doll and how he comes with his own phone to break up with other dolls [x]. Taylor eventually went full out and cited Camilla Belle (then girlfriend of Joe) as the reason for the breakup. And you know someone at Disney’s PR office wanted to die when this was going down.

So finally, Joe was forced to acknowledge the whole situation with a Myspace post:

"I never cheated on a girlfriend. It might make someone feel better to assume or imply I have been unfaithful, but it is simply not true. Maybe there were reasons for a breakup. Maybe the heart moved on. Perhaps feelings changed. I am truly saddened that anything would potentially cause you to think less of me. For those who have expressed concern over the "27 second” phone call. I called to discuss feelings with the other person. Those feelings were obviously not well received. I did not end the conversation. Someone else did. Phone calls can only last as long as the person on the other end of the line is willing to talk. “

Forever & Always

Now this song is known as THE Toe song and it was born out of the end of the relationship when she felt Joe was getting distant, but she couldn’t do anything to help it, it was made really late into the production of Fearless so she had to rush to finish it in time (so no other breakup songs are about Joe in the original album).

Forever & Always Was I out of line? Did I say something way too honest, made you run and hide Like a scared little boy I looked into your eyes Thought I knew you for a minute, now I’m not so sure

In the 2009 Grammy's Taylor and Miley (insert The Ex-Girlfriends Club Theory here) performed Fifteen (obviously not about Joe) and the Jonas were in the audience. I believe this is probably around the time Taylor writes Mr. Perfectly Fine and You All Over Me, which we know get to have thanks to Fearless (Taylor’s Version) 13 years later.

You All Over Me

The best and worst day of June

Was the one that I met you

With your hands in your pockets

And your 'don't you wish you had me' grin

But I did, so I smiled, and I melted like a child

Now every breath of air I breathe reminds me of then

Mr. Perfectly Fine

'Cause I hear he's got his arm 'round a brand-new girl

I've been pickin' up my heart, he's been pickin' up her

And I never got past what you put me through

But it's wonderful to see that it never phased you

In November of 2009, she also goes to SNL and mocks Joe in her monologue. "You might think I'd bring up Joe That guy who broke up with me on the phone But I'm not gonna mention him *rolls eyes* In my monologue [Spoken:]Hey Joe, I'm doing real well, tonight I'm hosting SNL [Sings:]But I'm not gonna brag about that In my monologue [x]"

To make things even more dramatic and very awkward The Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, and Taylor Swift spent NYE together watching the ball drop on TV and this was probably not how they wanted to start their years. [x] [x] [x] and a video [x]

Now let’s discussed some of the songs that came out at the time. The Jonas response to Forever & Always was Much Better. Nick described it as a song that was very personal to Joe and Joe went on to say that it was based on his very interesting year. They also at some point wanted to pretend the song was about their love for their fans but come on. Joe also changed the lyrics from ‘superstar’ to ‘country star’ and later changed it to ‘movie stars’ when he broke up with Camilla who is the ‘Much Better’ girl from the song.

Much Better - Jonas Brothers

I get a rep for breakin’ hearts

Now I’m done with superstars

And all the tears on her guitar

I’m not bitter

But now I see

Everything I’d ever need

Is the girl in front of me

She’s much better

Taylor’s iconic response in Better Than Revenge seems to be more of an attack on Camilla. She’s spoken about her regret for this song since then and hasn’t played it in years and Camilla seems to be ok we never forgiving her for it [x] [x]. Regardless this song remains a staple of the genre ‘Feminism OFF, Bops ON’.

“I was 18 when I wrote [“Better Than Revenge.”] That’s the age you are when you think someone can actually take your boyfriend. Then you grow up and realize no one can take someone from you if they don’t want to leave”. - Taylor 2014.

Better Than Revenge - Taylor Swift

Let's hear the applause (Come on, come on)

Come on, show me how much better you are

(So much better, yeah?)

See you deserve some applause

'Cause you're so much better

She also released "Last Kiss" about the nicer part of their relationship, and some believe other songs such as If This Was a Movie, Haunted (Speak Now) and Jump Then Fall (Fearless) are about Joe. From the Jonas, the other song believed to be about Taylor is Paranoid (Lines, Vines and Trying Times).

Jump Then Fall

Well, I like the way your hair falls in your face

You got the keys to me

I love each freckle on your face, oh

I've never been so wrapped up, honey

Probably a song was written about and in the early days of their romance and the long hair freckles [x] thing definitely fits 2008 Joe.

If This Was a Movie

Baby, what about the ending?

Oh, I thought you'd be here by now

Thought you'd be here by now

According to some this song is a sister song to "Last Kiss" in the same album and that is confirmed to be about Joe.

Haunted

Come on, come on, don't leave me like this

I thought I had you figured out

Something's gone terribly wrong

Won't finish what you started

This song would be a sister to Forever & Always since Taylor described both to be about a relationship that was fading in the end and that she was confused as to how they got there in the first place.

"‘Haunted’ is about the moment that you realize the person you’re in love with is drifting and fading fast. And you don’t know what to do, but in that period of time, in that phase of love, where it’s fading out, time moves so slowly. Everything hinges on what that last text message said, and you’re realizing that he’s kind of falling out of love. That’s a really heartbreaking and tragic thing to go through because the whole time you’re trying to tell yourself it’s not happening. I went through this, and I ended up waking up in the middle of the night writing this song about it.” Taylor

Friendlier days are coming (2010- )

I guess time can heal a lot of wounds and Toe is seen hugging and on friendly terms at the Clive Davis party on January 31st of 2010 [x].

The world was so shocked when we realized that Joe went to see her perform in a couple of her shows in September 2011 [x] [x], and in here Holy Ground is born about her new evaluation of their former relationship rather than the bitterness of the breakup. The lyrics' secret message is “when you came to the show in SD” and the potential parallel to "Last Kiss".

Holy Ground - Taylor Swift

We blocked the noise with the sound of ‘I need you’

And for the first time I had something to lose

And I guess we fell apart in the usual way

And the story’s got dust on every page

But sometimes I wonder how you think about it now

And I see your face in every crowd…

… Tonight, I'm gonna dance

For all that we've been through

But I don't wanna dance

If I'm not dancing with you

Last Kiss - Taylor Swift

I do remember the swing of your step

The life of the party, you’re showing off again

And I roll my eyes and then

You pull me in

I’m not much for dancing

But for you I did

They're seen talking in the MTV's EMA's 2012 [x].

From here they seem to be friendly and in May of 2015 after the Billboards. They even go on a double date later that year with Gigi Hadid, Calvin Harris, and Karlie Kloss (this picture feels so cursed). Nick and Joe get invited to Taylor’s 4th of July party and they seem somewhat distant after his split from Gigi.

Present (2020- )

In 2020, we got the amazing surprise of folklore with the song ‘Invisible String’ that makes a reference to Taylor’s past songs about exes being harsh and how she sent Joe and his wife Sophie Turner a present for their baby girl’s birth. In 2021, she has now released the re-recordings of Fearless and we are all reliving the drama and enjoying the chaos of Taylor’s and Sophie’s friendship not letting Joe know peace for those 27 seconds over a decade ago.

Invisible String

Cold was the steel of my axe to grind

For the boys who broke my heart

Now I send their babies presents

[12yeahiminluvwu]

Wildest Dreams

pairing - Drew Starkey x Reader

summary-  requested by @starrystarkey93 ! “hellooo, i saw that u wrote a couple of things based on songs of taylor swift, so i was wondering if you would be up to writing something based on Wildest Dream with drew, like reader is a cast mate of him and he cheats on his girlfriend with reader (in the filming period) and they decide to keep it a secret but they both know there are feelings there. idk if this was comprehensible but u can always dm me and if u don’t want to write this it’s okay!!!”

word count- 1.1k+

warning(s)-  cheating, mentions of sex, heartbreak. not edited lol. 

I hope you like it lea!! 

-------------------

Nothing lasts forever

But this is gonna take me down

You watched as Drew held his girlfriend, who had come to set to surprise him, and wished it was you in his arms. The love you felt for Drew Starkey was unlike any other love you had felt before. When he touched you, it was like sparks igniting against your skin. He built a fire inside you that burned hotter than any other. When he looked her in the eye, you saw something that wasn’t there when he looked at you. It was like he could see a future in her, that he didn’t see with you. 

Knowing this made it seem like the light at the end of the tunnel burned and fizzled out, no longer illuminating the path you were on, like there was no point anymore if Drew didn’t want you the way he wanted her. But you knew going into this that the secret affair never gets picked in the end. 

I said “no one has to know what we do” 

His hands are in my hair

His clothes are in my room

Nothing but the lamp outside you apartment lit up the hallway as you and Drew stumbled back to your empty living room. His hands roamed over every inch of your body, igniting the familiar feeling of fireworks beneath your skin, leaving nothing but goosebumps in their wake. 

His lips felt like heaven against yours, moving in perfect sync. The kiss you shared was hungry. He wanted you. Bad. It had been too long since he’d been able to touch you, and he felt like if he didn’t rip your clothes off right now he’d simply die.

Your fingers found their way to the nape of his neck, tugging on the short strands of dirty blond locks that you had grown to love so much. Rushing into your room, you didn’t realize all of the shirts he’d accidentally left strung across your bedroom floor. To anyone on the outside, it might seem like they were meant to be there. Like he was just waiting for laundry day to pick them up. Like he lived there. But he didn’t...

Drew knew somewhere in his mind that this was wrong. That he had a girlfriend he should be faithful to. But you made him feel some type of way that she never did. He’d spent the last few months thinking he had the best of both worlds, even though in the process he’d managed to grab a hold of your heart and shatter it to pieces. 

He’s so tall

Handsome as hell

He’s so bad but he does it so well

And when we’ve had our very last kiss 

My last request is… 

“And that’s a wrap! Thank you, everyone, for making this such an amazing project. I can’t wait to see you all again!” The director said as you and Drew finished your last scene together. You hoped that the kiss you just shared wouldn’t be the last but part of you had a sinking feeling it would be. 

“Can you meet me in my trailer?” You asked him, after you both finished saying your goodbyes to the cast and crew. He nodded and you left him to finish up, hoping he wouldn’t take too long. 

A few minutes later, Drew walked in with a small smirk on his face. 

“Couldn’t wait until we got  to your apartment huh?” He chuckled but you pushed his hand away when it went to meet your waist. 

“Say you’ll see me again… that this isn’t the end of us.” You whispered, desperately trying to hold back to tears threatening to flood your eyes. Instinctively, his hands went to grab yours. You let him, but looked down when he tried to meet your eyes. 

“Y/n… you know we can’t keep doing this. I have to go back to her, I can’t just leave her…” He said, hoping that it would make things easier on him. Deep down, his heart was breaking at the thought of never getting to hold you again. But he had to let you go. He had someone to go home to, and it was time for him to shape up and be the man that his girlfriend thought he was, instead of the man he’d become. The man that was in love with two different girls at the same time. 

You’ll see me in hindsight

Tangled up with you all night

Burning it down

Someday, when you leave me

I hope these memories

Follow you around

Flashbacks of the nights you spent tangled up in the sheets played through Drew’s head like a hazy dream. Seeing you all dressed up for the premiere was making him wish you’d been the one he showed up with. He hadn’t seen you for months before this past week. You spent every waking moment together, doing press for the movie you were both starring in. 

The moment your eyes met, that first day, all the feeling you had worked so hard to suppress came rushing back in full force. You fell madly in love with him all over again but there was nothing you could do about it. Absolutely nothing. You just had to sit there and act like he was your best friend.

Little did you know, the same thing happened with him. He’d fallen out of love with her and further in love with you, but he couldn’t tell you that. There was something stopping him. Whether or not it was fear of rejection after all this time, or some weird attachment he had to her, he didn’t really know. 

So as you stood there, posed together for the pictures, you both put on a fake smile, hoping for the night to be over so you’d never have to see him again. 

As the movie played in the theater, you were reminded of all the moments you’d shared with Drew, but as you looked over at him, you saw that he was looking at her. 

Drew looked at you longingly before he looked back over at her, deciding finally that he couldn’t put himself through this pain anymore. 

You quickly stood up, excusing yourself from the room, and made your way out to the car you’d come in. 

He whispered in her ear that it was over and looked back over to see you gone. He rushed out, watching as your car pulled away. It was that moment that he knew it was too late. 

He’d lost you. 

Say you’ll remember me 

Even if it’s just in your Wildest Dreams. 

-------------------------------------

@afterglows7b-tch13

[ryansaiditposts]

The Lore of Folklore:

The Real Story Behind the Characters of Taylor Swift’s Folklore

 

 

We are all familiar with Taylor Swift’s record breaking, surprise quarantine love child, Folklore. Even more so in the Swiftie fanbase, we are familiar with the proverbial “love triangle” established in “Cardigan”, “August”, and “Betty”. What if I told you that I believe the entire album is centered around just these characters at different stages in life with Taylor’s story woven in? Also, what if I said that Taylor/Rebecca were an allegory? Not to mention the complexity of “Hoax” being a combination of all the characters in one? Of course, you would probably ask me for clarification, and that is the intention of the next few paragraphs. These characters reveal certain patterns of behavior, call and responses, and self-referential phrases that map out a much bigger story to tell. The trio of songs mentioned above were just the starting point.

 

To give you an overview of where we will be going, I want to give you the songs as they relate to each character. These will then be fleshed out to connect them in the way I hear and see Folklore play out. The songs and respective characters are as follows:

 

Betty- Cardigan, Mirrorball, and Exile (featuring James)

James- Betty, This Is Me Trying, and Exile (featuring Betty)

Augustine- August, The 1, and Illicit Affairs

Taylor- Seven, Invisible String, Mad Woman, Epiphany

Taylor/Rebecca- The Last Great American Dynasty, My Tears Ricochet, Peace

All Characters- Hoax

 

The genius of this album is that the struggles and identifiers of these characters can sometimes be interchangeable. That is what creates the magic, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. There is more than one perspective to these stories, but this is all what I heard from Inez.

 

The 1 (Augustine)-

I have been sitting with this song for a while. I began to wonder why, for lyrics that for all intents and purposes were sad, did I not get sad listening to this song. Sure, it’s about loss and what could have been, but it’s mere conjecture. Almost like a love that never really existed outside of the storyteller’s imagination. A film that was never made, if you will. Then it hit me, “you weren’t mine to lose”. Augustine simply imagined what it would have been like if the man she did not end up with could have been the one. Betty and James DID have a relationship and the theme of this “film” is repeated in the stories told throughout this album. She would have not gotten the chance to have the movie kind of romance if he had not chosen to be with her. Rose flowing with his chosen family.

 If one thing had been different, could everything be different today? Had he not already been in love with another woman, could we have been the greatest love story ever told? Something also struck me as odd. She called out him meeting some woman on the internet and taking her home. Knowing he has a tendency to stray, there could be a superficial level of jealousy. Imagining that he’s cheating on Betty, but disappointed that it isn’t with her. Not because she’s necessarily a bad person, but I think that as we will see later on in this breakdown, Augustine struggles with conventional relationship types and ties herself to sinking ships for the tragedy of it all.

 

Cardigan (Betty)-

So, not to rehash lore we are already incredibly familiar with, but this song is clearly Betty knowing that James is going to run back to her after straying the path. Cool, amazing, fierce. However, there is language here that suggests this is not the same instance as him showing up to the party. I believe that James has a very toxic pattern resulting from his wondering eye and Betty just has a bad case of loving him. At least, for a while. Betty likes the fact that she is able to show James who he really is when all is said and done, and being someone who has struggled with confidence, she doesn’t want to let this love go too soon. Even if she should. More on that in a bit.

 

Betty says, “Chase two girls, lose The 1”. We all assumed that she was referring to herself, but knowing that she was almost waiting for his return, it’s very possible that she intended to forgive him even before he asked. She had scars from years of not being enough and she may have even been bullied as indicated by this and him seeing in her what others could not when he was present in the relationship. That feeling of “what if” made sure she would not completely walk away. When you are young they assume you know nothing. Well, knowing something does not mean you know everything and I think she stayed long enough to find that out the hard way. Peter does lose Wendy because he cannot grow up.

 

The Last Great American Dynasty (Taylor/Rebecca)-

 

Taylor owns the previous home of Rebecca Harkness in Rhode Island. This beachside mansion has all the salt air and cliffsides to scream off of that anyone would want. Rebecca has a big reputation as a maneater who just isn’t ladylike and mild mannered enough. Sound familiar? Taylor Swift has been demonized, ridiculed, and made infamous based solely off of complete speculation. Rebecca faced the same fate as a middle-class divorcee who was cast as a gold digger after the Standard Oil estate. Truth is, both of these women were just in search of love that could last. Under circumstances far beyond their control these things ended so loudly that there was no right to privacy while they grieved or attempted to make sense of it all. Worse? They were blamed in a blameless situation.

 

Taylor makes her identity known to mirror Rebecca’s at the end of the story. So, what’s the connection to the album as a whole? Bill grew up in the area that the rest of them would eventually be in later on. Cliffside and salt air, the characters revisit these scenes and similar ones several times throughout the story. They lived at a different time here, years later. In fact, in terms of the house itself, it sat quietly for 50 years until Taylor would acquire it. She then marks her entrance to the rest of these stories as she then will later touch on points of her life leading up to Holiday House.

 

Exile (Betty and James)-

 

Communication is key. However, Betty and James eventually resented the back-and-forth nature of their relationship. He believed that she would always forgive him as she had always set that precedent each time before in their relationship. Although they always knew they walked a very thin line, they always felt like the other person would become better to them if they loved hard enough. Each had their demons, though. Between James cheating nature and drinking problem, he could become withdrawn and combative. Betty loved James so much that she gave him second, third and hundredth chances and even excused his more aggressive behaviors in a Streetcar Named Desire type loyalty. Until the branch broke that they were balancing on.

 

For someone like James, being left as a result of bad behavior can often be skewed as a betrayal in and of itself. Her leaving could have only been a result of her not telling him how to be a better partner. On the flip side, Betty was not clear in her signals of being fed up with his actions, but allowing him back time and again. The blame game ensues and each call out each other’s faults too little, too late. They have, in fact, seen this “film” before. They kept the hope that the cinematic love they were both obsessed with would eventually play out if they wanted it enough, but did not put in the work or self-reflect enough to make it so.

 

My Tears Ricochet (Taylor/Rebecca)-

 

Of course, it’s about a certain sellout record executive of her previous label who did not even have the decency to let her own her masters. I will not be bringing his name into it because he does not deserve to even be thought about. However, I think Taylor does an expert job of exploring the anger stage of grief and death that Rebecca and Bill would have had to face in his untimely death as well. The allegory dips in and out of this song to further establish the mirror effect of these two women and their fears/perception. Taylor calls out her own inability to leave with grace. Rebecca was left to burn at the stake after Bill died with no one to defend her either. While it is not his choice to have died, grieving does bring about emotions of abandonment when still panning out. Much like Taylor felt when the label she trusted acted like they had never met and that she had not given them her all to gift them any kind of notoriety.

 

Gathering stones is beachside activity, but when, so is collecting jewelry. This in a metaphorical sense could allude to also gathering dirt and receipts when it all falls down. This line has quite an impact in the context of a business transaction and the marriage of a rich couple. Toward the end, each woman speaks as though they have gone to the cliffside and screamed into the open air. Rebecca challenges the masses to go for her heart in same way the public felt she had gone for Bill’s, but knows that she would be missed all the same. Each woman is directly calling out their naysayers and bullies telling them they know they’re drunk on pain and negating the good they had done before tragedy. These fake people have both built them up and torn them down in times it benefitted them the most.

 

Mirrorball (Betty)-

 

As I previously mentioned, Betty struggles with self-confidence (relatable content). This song takes a deeper dive into Betty’s desire to be noticed by James in the way she needs him to and to show him that she knows him better than anyone else does. When he does not pay attention, she breaks into a million pieces. Although her friends consistently tell her that the end is imminent, she has committed herself to changing the narrative. She’s walking the tightrope, another call out to the thin line they feel they have always walked in regards to one another.

The insecurity is palpable in the self-deprecating “I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try”.  Remembering from their teenage years, Augustine, a natural beauty, is able to draw men in with a sense of sensuality and a carefree demeanor. She doesn’t have to get too invested in relationships because she only chooses men that are in high risk, low reward circumstances. On the outside, it seems like she has all the confidence in the world and that is intimidating to someone like Betty who does not exude the same assuredness and has been burned by trusting unnecessarily before. In spite of this, Betty is still a believer in true love even if James has given her no indication there is reason to believe.

 

Seven (Taylor)-

 

Little Tay on her Pennsylvania farm just discovering her own voice and the meaning of friendship. Making her own tales of time gone by and recounting the origin story of a girl who makes “too much” noise any time she wants. Also, quite possibly the REAL queer-canon of the album. Taylor was close to someone who she has not seen for a while, a girl. She remembers the feeling more than anything and a certain protectiveness that she felt for this person who was having to hide in the closet. Labels did not matter and love was love in this scenario. She wants them to know their story and the care she felt for them is not forgotten and still a source of inspiration for her life in present day. Think “hope ur ok” by Olivia Rodrigo.

 

This song explores Taylor’s fierce feminism and activism into adulthood. The unwavering support she gives to the underdogs and why Rebecca’s story resonates with her so much. She was the wild child the world tried to tame with constant expectation. The subject of Seven that she befriended reminded her that there are beautiful things out there and grounded her in a way to keep looking for meaningful connections and to respect the stories of each person she meets to gain perspective.

 

August (Augustine)-

 

Somewhere on the beaches just outside this small Rhode Island town, Augustine was manifesting a relationship that she knew had a slim to none chance with James. Despite her hopes and efforts, August came and went. James dreamed of Betty with Augustine in his arms, but wanted is cake and to eat it too as a seventeen-year-old boy. The thrill of it all enticed him to give his summer to Augustine instead. Particularly because she was willing to pursue him in the way she did. However, much like the surface level pining found in The 1, she just wished she could write her name on his back in a performative ownership move as if to say finders keepers.

This superficial relationship was hallmarked in sex and lust by being spent tipsy and wrapped and in bedsheets. It wasn’t shameful or tawdry to two kids, but would show it’s truth one single time before becoming a feeling both would continue to chase. The shaky and electrifying experience of sharing firsts and secrets though “Never Have I Ever” and the charged nature of “Are you sure?” feeling like a pact. Until guilt set in for James, there was only excitement and both were forever changed. One by the hope of it all, and the other by the excitement.

 

This Is Me Trying (James)-

 

Years after the first thrill and eventual heartbreak, James has never found direction. He fell behind the classmates that moved on with their lives and ended up here. Still in their same hometown, he is a shell of a man grappling with depression and alcoholism. He’s in Betty’s doorway once again in her front porch light begging for forgiveness. He even matched Betty’s previous speech pattern in “Mirrorball” by saying “I just wanted you to know…” as if to respond to her finally because he sees her after it’s all been said and done. He pulled the rusted, vintage car that once made him so cool off the road to the same cliffside that they once made out in front of. This represents the edge that they all seem to stand at one point or another to contemplate their mistakes. He calls out his own substance abuse and aggression (which we talked about in Exile as well).

 

He wants to continue his same party lifestyle, but feels like an open wound because his bad behavior has finally caught up to him. All he thinks about are his own shortcomings, especially now that he is left alone with them. Betty once again gets compared to a film in a reel on the one screen they have in this small town. Now, only a memory instead of a reality. The defensiveness from being what he perceived as betrayal has subsided and he is left to face the cages he mentally put himself into and the fear that he was not as good of a man as he tried to project to others around him. Betty being the product of his transgressions since she is left broken and resentful toward him now.

 

Illicit Affairs (Augustine)-

 

Augustine finally pulls back the layers on why she continues to try to recapture the feeling that James gave her at a mere sixteen years old. Someone displaying all the confidence in the world may have had less than Betty in actuality. It was all a misconception. Instead, Augustine feels that her looks and sex are what she has to offer and by giving herself away, she hopes to capture lightning in a bottle one of these times. She recreates the same structure of what she had with James only to meet the same disappointment.

 

The beautiful setting of the beach house gives way to the parking lot behind the mall in a way. In some twisted way, James brokenness recognized Augustine’s and she had never been seen in real way before that and then not again after. James thought Betty’s level headedness would fix him and did not want to have to face himself via Augustine since they understood each other in the worst way. Like I said, that first taste left her living for the hope of it all and it was simply a dwindling mercurial high. A drug, though, that could work a hundred times over.

 

Invisible String (Taylor)-

 

Taylor’s stories are often on this album the only ones with direct references to actual places. This one references Centennial Park and Los Angeles. This is the story of Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn (William Bowery to some). This in and of itself is a modern day, currently in the making folktale. The idea of an invisible force bringing the two together to tell a great love story just like Taylor had always imagined. Here she self-references her own part in contributing to the media circus surrounding breakups and dating and owning her growth in those situations.

 

Allowing herself to live in the moment, she talks about the colors and touches of humanity this relationship has brought her. A deeper appreciation of the present and making memories that will one day make beautiful stories to tell for both themselves and for others that once tried to taint her narratives on hearsay. This is her story in her words and an expression of gratitude. Hell was the journey, but it brought her heaven.

 

Mad Woman (Taylor)-

 

This one is about the other one and his soon to be ex-wife. The one the masters were sold to. Shares a name with a two wheeled ankle destroyer and will also not be mentioned by me.  This is a slight reference to her Rebecca allegory in the sense that character assassination played a big part in that story, but not enough to say it’s a direct correlation. Although, it is interesting to note that they are hunting all of the witches even if you aren’t one.

 

Taylor gets raw about the cheating nature of the man in question whether it is in business or in relationships and how he should be called out for it. There’s a hardship in feminism, though. She watches as a woman who knows she is in the wrong defend the thief instead of the robbed. It explores the right to be mad when lied to or stolen from, particularly when you’re willing to go on record with false statements if they serve a certain narrative. Undeniably, this moment will go down in infamy for generations to come. In a word, folklore.

 

Epiphany (Taylor)-

 

Paying homage to her grandfather, Taylor sets a scene as a war rages on. Keeping your helmet to keep your life is a good direct correlation to mask mandates that swept the country as COVID-19 developed. The horrors of watching someone die for things that may have arguably been avoided sets the anguish apart in this song to any other she has done. This is the world in a life and death lens and nothing else. Trying to make sense of what she and the rest of us are seeing when it did not have to be this way.

 

The most hard hitting look at medical staff and the precarious position they stood in for both instances is found in the bridge. They watch to make sure someone is breathing. They stand in the face of danger and are contained to one place while a threat is posed but serve unselfishly and risk falling like the people around them in the hopes of reaching a breaking point or a point of clarity in the chaos. On a metaphorical level, this song establishes a very important piece of perspective for us to hold onto long after this virus is contained lest we forget.

 

Betty (James)-

 

The first injustice and a look into the dramatics of young love. We now at least get to know why James loves Betty so much and humanize him a little more for the things he’s been dealing with internally since a young age. He comes off a lot more charming here even if unsure. Possibly a reason why he leans on liquid courage later on, James is actually a bit shy in group interactions. This also causes him to avoid confrontation if it can be helped or talking about his feelings. He also has a tendency to fear loneliness as a result so he’s easily convinced to go along for the ride even if it isn’t the right decision.

 

However, here, he nervously plans for weeks to gather up the courage to ask for a second chance. From what we can gather, he was likely forgiven in this instance which made him more comfortable than before to do so again and again. The cycle started here with this grand gesture, but post-cheating, the damage was likely already done since he had gotten a taste of the thrill. Betty would serve as a constant, but she would not stand alone.

 

Peace (Taylor/Rebecca)-

 

Taylor knows she will likely always be speculated on, but she loves intensely even if no one else believes. Here, you can see her sympathy and understanding of someone like Rebecca who no one ever even considered that she may actually love her late husband. All she can ever hope for is that the person she dedicates herself to can recognize how invested she really is and can handle the storm that comes with that. She talks with her own pack of friends being wild and rowdy much like Rebecca, but hopes he never sees that as a sign of disrespect. It’s just who she is.

 

Everyone DID think the love was for show, but they knew nothing of what happened behind closed doors. Does a woman pace rocks staring out at the midnight sea who isn’t missing someone? I don’t think so. Painting dreamscapes on the wall referring to the home they share together. The very same place that tied Rebecca and Taylor’s stories together in the first place. I think Taylor learned to embrace the madness before the rest of Rebecca’s story became hers and stopped apologizing for being so loud but remembered to continue to let love in.

 

Hoax (Everyone)-

 

Every time I listen to this song, I hear a different character speaking to me. Then I realized each one was just taking turns. This one is a bit different so I’m going to break it down by character:

 

Betty- He had drawn stars around her scars, but the way he made her feel was just as bad as the pain they caused. She believed him each time he said never again. She let him back in time and again to be hurt in the same way, but nobody else would have done for her if he could just be the things he promised to be. She was bound to him even though he never came through.

 

James- He knows exactly what he’s done and that he cannot fix it now. He knows that she possesses a love for him that will never die, but that is unrealistic after a certain point. He resigns himself to having to miss her forever. The hero has effectively died, so the movie has lost a purpose in plot. He tried, but did not succeed.

 

Augustine- She had a plan for them. No matter the means in which to get it, she wanted him to love her the way he did Betty. She used slight of hand and a little convincing to lead him to her. It left her aching for more when she knew that would never come back. August slipped away and there was no winning. Winter came and the ground was frozen.

 

Rebecca- She stood out there screaming for a reason why she had to be left alone in the life that was supposed to be theirs. I don’t think she ever quite got past that feeling of abandonment and just needed anything to believe in. This beautiful mansion had become a kingdom come undone. Bill’s heart had given out like a broken drum.

 

Taylor- When you sign a record deal at such a young age and a man who has always taken care of you in that time suddenly becomes your biggest enemy, it can certainly feel like a total heartbreak. The hoax was making her believe that even if all was said and done he would at least have her back. He most certainly did not. She screams at the sun (now eclipsed) on the cliffside while he listens to her stolen lullabies. The part of herself that remains in New York being her life’s work.

 

Please let me know if you have anything to add! Any new perspectives I may have missed? I would love to further this conversation and find new ways to explore the Folklorian Wilderness!

 

-Ryan Freeman

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Ive never really understood the hype surrounding Taylor Swift - I mean, I like some of her songs, but im not big on modern pop music so generally she just doesn’t really click for me. But I find it interesting that theres quite a few of Beatles/Swift blogs - like, they should have very little in common given that they’re from completely different eras and all, but somehow people seem to find a lot of semblance between the two. << and thats not me shitting on any of these blogs btw! Hope I don’t come off as rude or condescending there <3

Anyway, I was just wondering what got you into Taylor Swift? (I think ive read your post on how you got into the Beatles)

Hi, anon! Don't worry, I don't think you're rude or condescending! I agree they don't have too much in common and I don't really like their music for the same reasons.* I do have a playlist of Paul songs that have similar vibes to Taylor songs but it's mostly lyric-based. (Also the Beatles For Sale songs actually have quite the Taylor-tinge because Paul and John were not immune to Country Music)

I saw @stewy say once that a possible reason there are a good handful of us Swiftie-Beatle People on here is the appeal of a vast discography, which I agree with. If you have an artist/group with 200ish songs, it's just really fun to really dive into their work and explore all the facets. I also think: we're talking about the most popular band of all time and one of the highest-selling artists of the 21st century. They have a lot of fans so there's bound to be overlap, regardless of musical differences.

Moving on to your question: Getting into Taylor was an extremely personal experience for me and so my explanation is probably going to be kind of long so I'll put it under a read more.

It was spring-summer 2014, I was 15. I had heard the more popular songs of hers starting with Love Story and enjoyed pretty much all of them (I always found her hopelessly romantic point of view fascinating) but before I got a Spotify account in 2013 it was difficult in general for me to really get into an artists' entire discography so most of her songs had flown under my radar.

At the time, I was in this very weird sort of codependent online friendship with this girl who was basically my first real best friend and my first more or less crush. She was very depressed and I was very much in an I Could Fix Her™ mood, except that I obviously couldn't fix her and it made me feel like I wasn't enough and she had begun pulling more and more away from me and not replying to my messages and it was simply driving me insane. I consider it the saddest period in my life.

at some point during this period, I started trying to connect with other people (all online, I didn't know how to talk seriously to anyone IRL) and explaining the issues I'd been having, and one of the people who brought me joy and whom I actually felt not drained talking to was a huge swiftie. And IDK the fact that she loved Taylor and the fact that talking to her made my life better (and also the fact that I liked all the Taylor songs I knew at that point) just made me decide to give her a listen. And I think that whole "large discography discovery" phenomenon really helped me at the time (funny, because her discography has doubled since then). It gave me something new to focus on; there were just so many songs to discover, all telling such rich stories. I also have always loved bridges, they are almost always my favourite part of a song. And Taylor, god-bless her, loves them too and always puts her ALL in them. Like pretty much every bridge of hers brings the song to the next level, and even a lot of her songs I don't adore tend to have great bridges (Stay Stay Stay and Paper Rings come to mind). I think one of her most underrated qualities is how good she is at song structure and really building up an entire musical journey with a song. She also almost always adds cool ad-libs in her second and third choruses to keep the songs interesting and dynamic (or at least since she's gone pop). Anyways, back to the story: Then Taylor announced 1989 as her next album and released Shake It Off, and it was just like this great happy thing for me to look forward to, when I had very little keeping me going. The era was promoting a lot of happiness which in hindsight was slightly fabricated and it was just a really great thing for me to latch onto.

At the same time I was coming to realize that I was gonna have to pull away completely from my friend and all those break-up songs just… Hit, y'know? Like, some people seem to think Taylor's a one-trick pony because she likes to write break-up songs but to me, break-ups are just like this moment where you as a human can potentially feel every single emotion, and Taylor's songs have covered every facet of the concept. Here are some songs I remember from that period, that all meant a lot to me at the time because they explained my own pain to me so well:

Haunted, for the absolute terror you feel in the first moments you realize someone is probably gonna leave you. Come on, come on / Don't leave me like this / I thought I had you figured out / Something's gone terribly wrong / You're all I wanted.

I Almost Do, for the inner turmoil you feel when you know you have to stay away from someone for your own good but you really, really have to resist just running back to that person. We've made quite a mess, Babe / It's probably better off this way / And I confess, Babe / In my dreams you're touching my face / And asking me if I wanna try again / With you / And I almost do.

Last Kiss, for that absolute sadness that comes simply with remembering everything that was good and not comprehending how it could've possibly ended. I still remember / The look on your face / Lit through the darkness / At 1:58 / Words that you whispered / For just us to know / You told me you loved me / So why did you go / Away?

Forever and Always, for that feeling of desperately wanting to hold on to what you still have but at the same time realizing it probably isn't going to last and having no idea how to fix it, plus feeling like the other person doesn't even care. So here's to everything / Coming down to nothing / Here's to silence / That cuts me to the core / Where is this going? / Thought I knew for a minute / But I don't anymore.

Dear John, my all-time favourite song, for that moment you find clarity and realize that you deserved better and that you were headed in an extremely dark direction because of this other person. [DISCLAIMER: my friend did NOT abuse me nor did we have some inappropriate age difference. But the way she would ignore me and her general moodiness really affected my own mental health and self-worth problems] You paint me a blue sky / And go back and turn it to rain / And I lived in your chess games / But you changed the rules every day / Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone / Tonight / Well I stopped picking up / And this song is to let you know why.

(She's covered more aspects of break-ups in other songs [cheating, divorce, feeling awkward around your ex amongst others], these are just the ones I remember being really important to me when I was first getting into her)

She really helped me feel a lot less alone during one of my loneliest periods and I really can't thank her enough for that. Soon after this, I started crushing on a girl in my class and Taylor's love songs started to take on a new meaning for me as well.

What's crazy to me is, when she went on hiatus for a few years, a part of me thought maybe I'd grown out of her and no longer had much in common with her, but when reputation came out I was pulled right back into my love for her as a person and musician and then when Lover came out I found that she was still explaining feelings to me better than I ever could (specifically with the songs The Archer and Cornelia Street). And now with folklore and evermore she's simply absolutely perfected her story-telling and I find myself deeply moved even by the songs I don't directly relate to. I feel like she has this amazing ability to find the absolute truth in the specific. I've never had a summer romance with someone who already had a girlfriend and mostly wanted to go back to her, and yet the bridge of august feels so real to me, y'know?

Back when we were still changin' for the better Wanting was enough For me, it was enough To live for the hope of it all Cancel plans just in case you'd call And say, "Meet me behind the mall" So much for summer love and saying "us" 'Cause you weren't mine to lose

It's hard to explain but looking at this, like it's so much more than the story it's telling. It's talking about how when you're young you really need so little to feel satisfied; how sometimes the idea of someone maybe spending time with you is better than actually doing things with other people; and how if someone using you without much thought can make you feel like you're not even entitled to grieve what you lost. Sorry. I'll stop. Don't want to go insane.

So, all of this is very personal and unique to me, but I think really the main thing that draws me to her is how vulnerable and honest she is about emotions, how eloquently she can explain the pain of being alive to me. Some people think she isn't the strongest singer, but I think, much like John actually, one of her greatest assets is how good she is at projecting emotion. The song happiness is a song I think has some lyrically weak moments but her vocal performance on it is so raw and devastating that every single line works even when, looking at it on paper, it feels like it shouldn't.

Hope this rambling made sense to you, lmao?? I love talking about Taylor though so thanks for the ask! Also very open to giving song recs if you do want to check her out more but I won't unless solicited to lmao *Sort of off-topic but I do think there's a relation between my fascination with the Beatles' history and my love for a great break-up song. I like pain I guess :)

[curiousconch]

Recovery

Chapter 9 of Ricochet (An Open Heart AU)

Catch up here: Series Masterlist

Chapter Synopsis: As Heather is set to recover, will her relationship with Rafael follow the same path? 

Pairing: Rafael Aveiro x MC (Dr. Heather Song) | Bryce Lahela x MC (Dr. Heather Song) ft. PLATONIC Dr. Ethan Ramsey

Words: 1.4k+ | Genre: Crime, Suspense/Thriller, Romance

Rating/Warnings: Mature (16+) / themes of physical and emotional trauma 

Author's Notes: This very very very angsty chapter was inspired by a favorite song of mine from Taylor Swift's 1989 album, Clean. Halfway through, I wrestled with the emotions of this chapter, and another song titled Say Something, a haunting duet by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera helped me complete the rest of the narrative.

Thank you so much for taking time to read this series. Please let me know if you want me to include/remove you in the tags list. Also, disclaimer: Majority of the characters are owned by Pixelberry, except the main character Heather Song.

Rafael watched from a distance as the doctors scrambled to revive her back to life. 

Seeing her actually slip away terrified him. But what was more horrific is how he could only watch on helplessly, with no ability to come to her rescue. It shook him to the core.

For so long he believed that he can be her own personal savior, her superman. But during the most crucial of times, the sinking knowledge that he simply can't fulfill the one promise he made gnawed at him life a nightmare coming to life. 

The fact that he himself had inflicted a deep wound on her heart just a few days ago crushed him all the more. 

He had no right to be here, he realized. He had already gave up that privilege on the day he chose his ego over her. It was when he decided to fulfill his fantasy of being someone else's hero, rather than coming to terms with the truth that she will never need him the way he wanted to. 

Even when the flashback of them at Donahues, where he asked her to consider taking him back, nipped at his already guilt-ridden heart. The sheer audacity of him to demand that from her, only a selfish person without care would ask someone to do that. 

The illusion that he hold onto for so long crumbled into dust. With it, was his determination to cling to what once was. 

"She's going to be okay, Raf," his silent torment was interrupted by Elijah, who approached him in the corner of the room. 

He looked up to him, then to the direction where she was laid down, and heard the merciful evenly-paced beep of the heart rate monitor. 

Relief washed over him. She lived. 

He quietly mouthed a thank you to Dr. Greene. When he was left alone yet again, he ruminated at the stormy thoughts that filled his head. 

She has suffered enough heartache for a lifetime. And for him to continue to pursue her is to only prolong her trauma and heartache over his actions. For them, there was no recovery. 

Today was not a chance to begin again. It was a chance to make it right and finally give up. 

It was then that he decided, it was time to let her go.

***

Heather woke up as she was wheeled into the hospital room. The white fluorescent light made her eyes flicker, her vision trying to adjust to the sudden brightness after a long stay in the dark. 

A baritone voice boomed into the quiet, jolting her consciousness awake. 

"Well, you put up a mighty fight today, Rookie." 

Heather couldn't help a snicker, her vision darting around to sought out the speaker. 

"I had to, or you'll probably chase me to the afterlife with your scalding commentary, Dr. Ramsey."

She heard him chuckle in response. 

"Still snarky, I see," the attending quipped, as he approached the side of her bed and pressed a button on a remote. Slowly, her upper body raised up, as the headboard elevated. She tried to curve her lips into a smile only to feel a tingling pain, making her wince a little. 

"Easy there, Dr. Song. You just went to hell and back today." Ethan said, a clipboard tucked between his fingers. 

"Funny that you say that," she said. "I still feel like hell though."

Her mentor can only manage a faint smile, an endearing affection coming across his piercing blue eyes. She knew that look. It was the same kind of gaze she saw him give Dolores during her intern year. A subtle look of genuine concern which she attributed to their growing relationship as mentor and protege. 

It was just a matter of seconds before that look vanished, replaced by a more formal version. 

"It's going to be a couple of days of recovery for you," he explained. "You suffered from severe hyperkalemia, which, with the help of your friend from the DA, we have managed to de-escalate as soon as possible."

Heather couldn't help but blink at what was just mentioned. "I'm sorry, my friend from the DA?"

"Yes, ADA Lahela was able to identify the correct chemical compound within the first half hour after you arrived here," he paused as he checked the flow of her IV. "It aided us to do the proper intervention in the nick of time."

He was right. Anymore than 30 minutes into the system, potassium chloride would have bound to the blood cells and would have caused permanent, if not fatal damage in her system. 

She'll have to thank Bryce the first chance she gets. Her memories went back to their last conversation, and she shivered at the unavoidable confrontation that will take place. 

Her hands trailed up to her temple, where she felt a bandage. She recalled her fall, thinking it was how she got wounded. 

"Ah, yes. We're going to do an MRI for that, just to make sure we're not missing anything else. But apart from that, you'll do alright." He concluded. 

"Thanks Dr. Ramsey," her appreciation was sincere.

He nodded. He was about to express something else, when a knock on the door hindered him. 

Both of them swiveled at the visitor. Heather swallowed hard as the dark brown eyes looked back at her, the familiar figure standing by the doorway. 

"May I come in?" Rafael said with a hint of hesitation as he put a foot forward.

Ethan Ramsey twisted his gaze back to Heather, checking if he would allow the young man in. Although he saw her body tense, she lightly nodded.

"Sure, Agent Aveiro. We're just about finished here." the attending gently patted Heather's hand. "I'll see you in the morning, Rookie."

When Dr. Ramsey departed, Raf made his way towards her, as if in a daze. Heather bit her lower lip and touched the tips of her brunette fringes. The thin tube of the IV tangled in her arm giving her an excuse to avert her eyes away from his for a few seconds.

"Are you doing alright?" Raf asked, taking a seat on the standard-issued metal chair beside her bed.

"Yeah, I'm okay, I've been through worse." she mumbled, almost whispering.

A sharp pang of contrition reverberated within him, unsure of which ordeal she just called as a better alternative than what she just went through. Although his adultery was probably a main contender.

His head bowed low as if navigating through the warring indecision between his heart and mind. While distracted, a soft pitter-patter of rain slid against the glass window. It was as if nature was conspiring against him, yet another heaven-given sign that their end was inevitable.

How can ending a relationship be made easier? There was no path that would prove to be less difficult, except for an admission of the truth. The least hurtful road to traverse is the turn towards an honest confession that what they had has intersected with their own definition of their limits. 

Rafael cleared his throat, the noise making Heather face him.

"Heather," he began. "I know I promised to be the person who you can turn to, anytime you needed." His lips quivered, fumbling with the right words to say. 

"But I broke that," he simply said, reaching for her hands and lacing it with his. His head dropped so low in between his shoulders that his cheek touched the fabric of her hospital blanket.

Her eyes shone as she slowly took in his words, soaking in the finality of the tone he uttered them with. When she survived her kidnapping tonight, she initially thought she won a battle. But only hours after, they were losing the war.

Rafael's tears soaked through the white sheet, like the rain that drowned the street outside the sullen, sterile hospital room. His muffled groans of defeat echoed through the silence that crawled in between. Although his heart burst in a million shards, deep down he knew it was ultimately for the best.

They couldn't remember how long they stayed still. Eventually, he lifted his head where his gaze fell upon the softness of her features. His thumb gently grazed her cheek, asking for permission.  She nodded, an unspoken agreement similar to what she used to give him before.

In a heartbeat, their lips met, savouring the taste of each other, fully aware that this will be the very last time. The kiss was sweet, but tainted bitter by their unspoken farewell. When they pulled apart, there was no question that it was the end of the road for them. 

There was nothing left to say.

But before they separated, a set of amber eyes witnessed the ending of their love affair, misinterpreting it as a last ditch effort to salvage the remnants of their irreparable relationship. 

The prosecutor fled from the hospital room without so much as a word, unnerved by the scene that put another blow on his own pursuit of love. 

Tags: @eleanorbloom @ramsey-lahela @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

***

Author's Notes 2: Although Rafael is still my OTP, what he did in the beginning of this series rendered him and Heather permanently broken. Cheating, no matter the justifications, will always be cheating. And dealing with the consequences of it, especially by the offended party, will be a hard mountain to summit. Raf chose to let Heather go, and for me, that proves that he loves Heather enough, so that he could spare her from further emotional trauma. She has more than enough to deal with now.

[bananaofswifts]

Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

By

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

[karliesbuzzcut]

When art really speaks to you, pt. 2: probably just a coincidence but idk

Disclaimer: all these theories are rabbit holes on their own, so trying to explain them in a couple of paragraphs is, automatically, doing them a disservice. Especially since I’m only going to be primarily addressing the part of the theory that focuses on the artist communicating with their public through their work.

Since I’ve already dedicated paragraphs to the introduction in part 1, let’s just jump into it.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s fuckton of theories.

Let’s start with the daddy of all conspiracies. After all, not many can gloat about their reachings becoming a movie starring Tom Hanks.

The thing with Da Vinci’s conspiracies is that there are so many of them, and they range from “maybe this is also a painting made by Da Vinci but he wasn’t credited because of reasons” to ALIENS. Which, I think, shows how different our interpretations of art can be, and how much it depends on an already established worldview.

But the most interesting part isn’t the conclusions, but how people look for clues. For example, just like people say Taylor Swift is obsessed with numbers or oranges (depending who you ask, I guess), Da Vinci was supposedly a big fan of reflections. So, if you want to decode his paintings you must mirror them... and then move then a little bit... there you go, you’ve just found yourself an alien...! Or a daemon...! Or someone wearing a funny hat! And that’s totally what he wanted us to find, right? Why else would he had shown any sort of interest in reflections if he didn’t want us to reflect everything!!

Shakespeare is an illusion... kinda, but yeah.

Personally, I think Kaylors would love to dig into this one. Sure, it doesn’t have many lesbians playing political spies. But it does involve a lot of literature analysis. Just like Kaylors don’t think a heterosexual woman could’ve written Taylor’s songs; some people (referred as anti-Stratfordians, thank you very much) don’t think someone from a lower class could’ve written Shakespeare’s plays. 

Here’s the tea... the very cold tea: because Shakespeare was the son of a glover, anti-Stratfordians say he couldn’t have had the knowledge to write his plays. They, instead, come up with a list of “more suitable” writers that could’ve worked together. But they decided to keep their identities a secret because being a play writer, at that time, wasn’t respectable. Here, we will start noticing a trend with Conspiracy Theories: society, as a whole, can’t handle the truth, only a selected few. That’s where Francis Bacon comes in.

Francis Bacon was a very smart dude. He, also, worked for the state - giving him the credentials to be worthy of writing Shakespeare calibre plays. And also, also, he developed a method to conceal messages in the presentation of a text. To be able to do this, you would need to use two typefaces. Guess what has more than one typeface? Shakespeare’s plays.

I have to say - while I don’t believe either theory we have seen, they are somewhat understandable. We barely know anything about Shakespeare and Da Vinci beyond their work, so it’s normal that people are trying to figure out who they were; what did they believed in; where did they get all of their knowledge. We like theorising about the answers to these questions, knowing we’ll never get a confirmed truth. Not so the case with our next conspiracy...

Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper - someone had to be, right?

Now, allow me to fangirl all over this one. It combines my interests for conspiracy theories, true crime and pop-culture.

I’m assuming everyone here knows about Jack the Ripper: a serial killer who murdered at least 5 people (mainly prostitutes) in London, between the years 1888 and 1891. Well, someone looked at this and thought “you know what this murder-mystery is missing? Famous people”. Well, this theory says that the author of Alice in Wonderland did it He was the only celebrity living nearby at the time of the killings, so... 🤷‍♀️

This becomes a case of “I have already made up my mind about this issue, so I’m going to go ahead and search for proof that confirms it”. Authors and, now, internet sleuths went through his books, selected this random-ass excerpt from the nursery version of Alice and decided it was an anagram. And a crappy one at that. Supposedly, if you arrange the letters you get a detailed and gruesome confession. You, however, have to take away some letter and add others. Listen, I’m not an English major, but I’ve heard that’s cheating.

This theory also has that characteristic we mentioned: the “I don’t want to admit it out loud, so I’m going to come up with convoluted ways for my audience to figure it out” - which almost borders on psychotic behaviour. But at least it, somewhat, works with the serial killer narrative, you know? Not very much with Taylor, a woman who simply wants to chill with her girlfriend.

The moon landing was fake and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

I’m not going to dig into the moon landing conspiracy, this post is going to be long enough already. Just know that, when the USA government was planning to fake the whole thing, they had just watched ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and they were all like “that’s so cool! That’s how we want our fake moon landing to look!” So they contacted its director, Kubrick.

According to the theory, Kubrick felt really guilty afterwards but he couldn’t say anything about it because he signed an NDA? it would be dangerous, I guess. So he did the same thing Taylor would do decades later: he “spelled it out” for us on his work, under the excuse of “I didn’t explicitly said it, did I? My most intelligent and attractive fans just happened to figure it out for themselves”. 

The movie ‘The Shinning’ has been analysed to shreds. Think ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ music video, but 2 hours and 26 minutes instead. There are many theories about its underlying theme, but we’re only focusing on the moon landing one. The biggest piece of evidence, according to believers, comes from that famous scene in the hallway. Basically, the kid, Danny, is on the floor playing and wearing an Apollo 11 sweater. He stands up = the rocket launches. He walks to Room N.237. Which is almost an anagram for MOON - but actually, a perfect anagram for MORON - I didn’t come up with that joke, I’m just sharing it. Anyway. In the book, the room number is 217 but Kubrick changed it to 237 because there are 237,000 miles between the Earth and the Moon... except that’s not exactly true, but this is their Kissgate, you see? 

“Paul is Dead” aka “the granddaddy of Kaylor is Real”

Now, this is THE conspiracy theory. Kaylors would love to have the amount of evidence this theory has. Give them 50 years, they’ll get there. 

Our story starts in 1966, Paul McCartney dies in a car accident. The British Government panics, “this will drive our teenagers into a massive suicide!” So they cover it up. They find this guy who looks like Paul and hire him to replace the original. 

You might’ve only heard about those stores where pop-stars get their beards. But there’s also a branch that focuses on celebrity look-a-likes.

The rest of The Beatles went along with it (because that’s how these artists seem to operate, they’re always the victims of their circumstances) but they did not like it. So - you guessed it - they used their music, artwork, photo-shoots, etc. to communicate the truth. Faux-Paul might’ve felt a bit awkward about it, but he’s a nice chap and let the other guys work through their grief. 

Kaylors might have agreed on blue being the colour of breaks up and yellow is for Karlie-Sunshine; but the Paul-truthers concluded white is the colour of heaven, jeans are for gravediggers and black for morticians... oh! And not wearing shoes means you’re dead. Taylor being near a door symbolises her leaving the closet; Paul being near an open trunk symbolises him being in a coffin. Is the letter K, for Karlie, surrounding Taylor? Well, there’s a 28IF in the plaques of a car, for Paul being 28 IF he hadn’t died. People hear a phantasmagorical “she” in ‘Call It What You Want’; just like people heard “I buried Paul” in ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

If you have never looked up this theory, I seriously recommend it. There are so many parallels with Kaylor. Here’s a 30 minute video, if you’re interested. It summarises the theory neatly while discussing the effects that these, seemingly innocent, conspiracies have on the way we absorb information.

Paul might be dead but 2pac is very much alive.

If I haven’t made it clear by now, I think it’s very deceptive to use a musician’s lyrics to back up your alternate version of events. As confessional as these verses can be, they’re still a form of art. Which, in terms of music lyrics, they need to follow certain parameters, as well as a desired sound. And, as many other forms of art, they might focus a bit more on transmitting a feeling, rather than an accurate portrayal of reality.

Why am I stopping to say all of this now? Well, because this specific theory relies a lot on Tupac’s lyrics.

A bit of context: In 1996, Tupac Shakur was shot 4 times while at a stoplight. He died from his injuries days later. While there are theories, to this day, no one knows who killed him. Unless you believe one of those theories, which claims no one did.

The believers of this theory cite Tupac’s lyrics to argue that he was explicitly telling his fans that he was going to fake his own death. Here are two examples:

I’ve been shot and murdered, can’t tell you how it happened word for word but best believe that n*****’ gonna get what they deserve. - Richie Rich’s N***** Done Change

I heard rumours that I died murdered in cold blood, traumatised pictures of me in my final states — you know mama cried. But that was fiction, some coward got the story twisted - Aint’ Hard 2 Find

Just like anti-Kaylors don’t necessarily oppose the idea of Taylor being gay; I bet the “antis” of this theory aren’t happy Tupac died and weren’t against his existence on the first place. It’s more of an argument about confusing your feelings with facts, just because they can be more comforting or exciting.

“Avril Lavigne is dead”... or “every artist you think is alive is, actually, dead and, the ones you think are dead, aren’t” I guess.

After everything we have seen, this one isn’t that interesting. The real Avril died in 2003, right after her first album. Her record label bought a new one. Proof? She says ‘dead’ in ‘My Happy Ending’, blah, blah. A poor man’s “Paul is Dead”.

I added it, mainly for the lulz, after the last entry, I needed them. But also because it all started with a blog. What’s hilarious is that the guy who created it admitted he only did it to show how gullible people are but, at that point, he had already convinced people about. The conspirators didn’t need him anymore. So they discarded him but not the Theory... which just reminds me a little too much of how TCG, HBH, Jennyboom &co. have been excommunicated from the Church of Kaylor.

Beyonce and Jay Z are members of the sexy sexy Illuminati.

I did not save the best for last. But maybe I’m just biased because the Illuminati theory bores me to death. However, if you allow me a bit of social criticism... remember how the Shakespeare Conspiracy started because a bunch of classicist people didn’t believe a lower class citizen could write such good plays? I think this one has a bit of that. I’d bet my life that this one started when a bunch of white dudes got super uncomfortable by black people being so talented and earning their successful.

What this Conspiracy shows, too, is the amplifying effect the internet has had on the proliferation of such theories. Most of the conspiracies I’ve mentioned were huge... but how were you supposed to communicate your ideas and add to the old ones, before the internet? You could publish a book. Talk about it at parties. And, at some point, there were internet forums but, still, you can’t compare that to how widespread Social Media is nowadays. 

Today, we can watch someone ramble for 2 hours on YouTube about how Beyonce looks like a robot if you watch Single Ladies in reverse; read someone’s dissertation of ‘Apeshit’; or spend all night looking at those pictures where someone has drawn a red circle around anything that resembles a triangle. 

It might look like a lot of evidence but that’s only because there are a lot of people very attached to this theory. Wanting - for whatever reason - for it to be true (perhaps because it would confirm that their fears about the world were well founded). And all those dozens or hundredths of people were working together to form as many patterns as possible.

Unfortunately we are going to keep talking about the Illuminati in Part 3 but also about Taylor, so that should be nice. Because - to the surprise of absolutely no one - there’s a bunch of people who also think they understand Taylor better than the rest. That they have figured out her secret codes and her ultimate message. Only, not all of those theories involve lesbian supermodels, so they aren’t as popular on Tumblr.

[thelegendofclarke]

Hi! I love your blog and I’m fascinated about your personality, you seem such a wonderful person! Could you share with us, dear followers, about life lessons you learned in your life? I trust that you have some few good advice. P.S. Your tags are the best, they are gold!

Hey anon!

well first of all i want to apologize to you because it has been approximately TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS since you sent me this ask and i have truly been The Worst™ about answering my asks. and THANK YOU SO MUCH for your kind words, you are so sweet ❤ ❤ ❤

i really wanted to answer this with some variation on “my advice is to never ask me for advice” lol because i have no idea what i’m doing. like seriously, 95% of the time this is a fly by the seat of my pants, fake it til ya make it operation. BUT i made you wait SO LONG and i didn’t want to leave you hanging, so i made you a list of some Random Life Lessons i’ve accumulated during my sad, sorry existence on this earth.

HERE WE GO…

Never assume you are the smartest person in the room.

You are never too old to use Johnson & Johnson baby products, go to Chuck-E-Cheese, enjoy a nice ice cream cake, or eat Lunchables.

You are not bound or beholden to anyone else’s perception of you… Fuck them, they don’t know your life.

Dear dudes: if when you say “boys don’t like when girls…” Our response is ALWAYS going to be “girls don’t gaf.”

Don’t waste any of your time fucking with people who are committed to misunderstanding you.

You see a relationship needs to be mutually beneficial. If you’re both not getting something you want it’s a bad relationship.

The high road is like, the worst road ever and annoying af while you’re one it… but at the end of the day, taking it will probably make you feel better about yourself.

Pickle juice is an EXCELLENT chaser.

Let your instincts and the hair on the back of your neck dictate what you do, NOT politeness.

If someone is constantly accusing you of cheating on them it’s because they are cheating on you constantly.

JELL-O No-Bake Boxed Cheesecake is actually pretty damn good.

Never let anyone make you feel like you owe them anything more than yourself.

Blavy is terrible and does not look good on ANYONE. I don’t care that Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs said it’s ok now… It’s not.

Don’t care about what people say behind your back. Theres a reason why they’re behind you.

Find good friends that you trust that you can be an asshole with in private so you don’t act like an even bigger asshole in public.

Don’t ever let anyone make you feel shitty or belittle you for caring about things; and the same goes for getting excited about things.

Related to the above, don’t ever belittle or go out of your way to make people feel shitty about the things they can and get excited about. It’s truly one of the meanest things you can do.

Whenever you get to a new campus, whether it be uni or grad school or study abroad, ALWAYS walk to where all your classes will be BEFORE the term starts. Seriously, the walking estimated time on the maps thingies are full of shit.

Don’t ever say “i’m sorry you feel that way” to people. Honestly, you sound like a douche. And you’re not sorry.

If you ever get to a point in a relationship where you are seriously considering cheating on your significant other, just break up with them. It’s time.

Learn at least one self defense move… It doesn’t matter if it’s a kick or a punch or whatever. just make sure you know one and make sure you know it really well.

There is a difference between “being a risk taker” and “being a dumbass.” You’ll know it when you see it.

The same goes for things like “being realistic” vs. “being a fucking bummer”… Just kep an eye out ya know?

If you have had a disagreement with someone but you guys talk it out and decide you are going to move on from it, move on from it. If you are still angry, you need to let the other person know that.

Never, NEVER, let your first date with someone be to a wedding.

Same goes for funerals, bar/bat mitzvah’s, quinces, or any other large family gathering. at least go out for coffee first or something.

It doesn’t matter how far away from his mamma he moves, a mamma’s boy will always be a mamma’s boy.

“Brutal honesty” is called that because it usually involves brutalizing someone. so ask yourself, is your brutality really needed or appreciated?

Standing up for yourself shouldn’t involve walking all over someone else or making them feel shitty. Those 2 things should not be mutually exclusive.

Never let a teacher or authority figure make you feel stupid for not being good enough at certain school subjects.

Trust your instincts about the following: boys, friends, people trying to sell you shit, people trying to get you to sign shit.

If for any reason you are in a situation where police are involved, do NOT speak to them without a lawyer, parent, or some kind of other advocate present

It’s ok to wait to get your license until you feel ready to drive

Don’t worry about your weight. It fluctuates as you grow because your insides are growing too. It is natural.

if you notice something about someone’s appearance and they can’t fix it right away, don’t tell them. For example, if you are at a bar with friends, Good: “hey you have lipstick on your teeth.” Bad: “hey that shirt is really unflattering.”

Don’t every tell anyone someone “loves them in their own way.” it’s shitty. don’t say it… there is no wrong way to love someone, but there are things that are not love.

You don’t have to be anyone’s sidekick friend… You are no one’s sidekick.

“Be stubborn about your goals but flexible about your methods.”

Get rid of stuff you don’t use. Unused and unappreciated things make us feel bad.

Listen to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” slowed down to 33 rpm, at least once in your life.

If a dude ever tells you in all seriousness that he loves fight club and/or Tyler Durden, run. Run fast, and run far.

If you ever find yourself wondering if you sound or are being condescending, you are.

Know how to cook at least one thing well enough that you can do it from memory. even if its just pasta or chicken or something… there will come a time in your life where you are going to have to unexpectedly feed yourself. don’t be caught unprepared.

Try to avoid doing the following: making promises when you are really excited. responding when you are angry. making decisions when you are sad.

You have to be willing to cut off people who make you unhappy. it’s going to really suck and you are going to feel really guilty. and chances are they are going to get pissed and it will be very unpleasant. but you have to cut off toxic relationships. The only thing toxic that you should still be in contact with is that song Britney Spears made, because that song is lit af.

And going along with that, life is too short to pretend like you don’t love britney spears or taylor swift or whatever pop music makes you happy. seriously, if people are going to give you shit about that, they can kiss your ass.

When you make a to do list add a few things that you have already done or that you can get done in the next hour or so, because it feels really good to cross things off.

Going back to an old relationship is like rewatching a movie and expecting a different ending to happen… spoiler alert: ain’t nothing gonna change

Never mistake kindness for weakness or silence for stupidity.

“One of the biggest lies we’re told is that ‘everything happens for a reason.’ Allow yourself to remember that accidents happen, and not all of them have to shape your life. Try to let go of toxic people and situations that are harming you. Not all lessons are worth learning the hard way. Take care of yourself.”

If someone is complaining to you about something and you are going to give them advice, ask first. say “do you want advice or do you just need to vent?” because unwanted advice when someone is already annoyed is never going to help the situation.

Telling someone to “calm down” has never worked. ever. in all of history… I’ve checked. Repeatedly.

“You all have a little bit of ‘I want to save the world’ in you, that’s why you’re here, in college. I want you to know that it’s okay if you only save one person, and it’s okay if that person is you.”

When you can’t be honest with people, you can’t ever relax with them.

Don’t listen to the people who tell you ‘if you give up, you never wanted it in the first place.’ Sometimes, it’s okay to give up on things.

All relationships have to have mutual effort… If they wanna talk to you, they will. If they wanna be with you, they will. If they wanna make things work, they will. Don’t let things be one sided. It’s not healthy, and it’s not fair to you.

You deserve friends who treat you with love and respect. You deserve friends that listen to you. You deserve friends that try to understand your feelings and respect them. You deserve positive and healthy friendships. Don’t settle for less.

Don’t take yourself too seriously… Sometimes ridiculous, dumb shit is gonna happen to you and you should recognize it for what it is: a really good story you can tell at parties.

It’s really, really important to realize that missing someone or something and wanting it back are two very, very different things.

Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s a bad thing to feel things deeply. A full heart is a strong heart and being soft doesn’t make you weak. Being soft and loving makes you radiant. you deserve all of the love in the world and so many good things.

Everyone (including your family, your coworkers, and your best friend) will talk about you behind your back, and you’ll talk about them too. It doesn’t mean you don’t love each other.

There are some people who will nitpick and dwell over your tiniest faults just to make them feel superior. Leave them be to find satisfaction. Only the insecure think that another’s flaws and shortcomings can become their own merits.

You’re not fake simply because you act differently depending on the person you’re with. Different personalities bring out different aspects of your personality. You’re complex and multidimensional and you contain fucking multitudes man; it’s beautiful.

Whenever you go somewhere new, try to go to at least one restaurant recommended by a local. Seriously, 9 times out of 10 it will be the best meal you have on the whole trip.

Please, for the love of god, just walk your drunk friends to the door. Sooo much can happened between your car and the door.

Learn the difference between something that makes you feel bad, and something that’s wrong. A thing can feel bad and be right, and it can feel good and be wrong… In the end, being able to look at yourself in the mirror will end up being the most important thing.

If you need to stop for any reason in a public place, move off to the side first.

Unless it’s been agreed about before hand, don’t keep score about paying for things. If you offer to pay for something, don’t do it with the expectation that you must be reciprocated later.

Honestly, don’t keep score with anything tbh. Half the time people don’t know they are playing in the first place.

If you wear a kick ass outfit but don’t see anyone the day you wear it, it’s ok to wear it again the next day.

Be aware of the toxic and intoxicating effect of bad moods.

Unless you are the DD or don’t drink, avoid being the least sober person in the room. just, trust me.

Never settle for less than you deserve, if you’re unhappy move on you will find happiness eventually and when you do it will be such a wonderful feeling.

Some people are just naturally good at things, it happens. Don’t measure yourself against those people. That is just asking for a migraine and an inferiority complex.

Try not to use the excuse “because that’s how other people do it”… Sometimes you need to do better than the people that came before you.

It is perfectly reasonable to judge someone based on their politics. Peoples’ politics reflect their opinions on damn near everything.

If you are going to have a casual sexual relationship with someone (aka have a fuck buddy) be real clear about those Terms and Conditions a head of time.

If you can only be clever or funny at the expense of others or their feelings, you aren’t actually clever or funny. You’re just a bully.

People who say “learn to take a joke” or “learn to laugh at yourself” can never take a joke or laugh at themselves. I know this to be true to a fault. 

Don’t use words when you don’t know what they mean… I know this sounds stupid, but seriously. You would be shocked. Just don’t do it.

Sex should never be painful (unless there is explicit consent) or make you uncomfortable… There is a HUGE difference between trying something that is outside your sexual comfort zone and doing sexual things that make you feel bad or uncomfortable. And anyone pushing you do to the latter is not someone you need to be in a relationship with, sexually or otherwise.

For the love of god and all that is holy and unholy… BE AWARE OF YOUR FACIAL EXPRESSIONS.

Never give anyone else control over your mental health or mental state.

Try to stay away from people who hit/throw things when they are angry or get really angry when they are drunk.

Don’t approach relationships with people with the goal of like, changing or saving or educating them. That’s not your job.

If someone goes after your looks or your intelligence, it means they have nothing else to say.

If you are going to make people feel shitty for being a virgin OR for having sex, you are an asshole. Bottom line. No exceptions.

If you are gonna fuck around with Ouija boards and shit like that, be ready for what you are getting yourself into.

Pick one day a week where you clean or tidy your personal space. You will feel so much better about life.

Sometimes you are going to have to do things you don’t want to do or go places you don’t want to go because someone you love wants to. If your bff wants to go to a concert for a band you don’t like/have never heard of for their birthday or see a movie you don’t really want to see, just do it. Small things like that can make people so happy. You are doing it because you care, you aren’t forfeiting anything.

Don’t let people take advantage of your or walk all over you or take things out on you… a) they may not even realize they ARE doing it and will KEEP doing, or b) they will know they CAN and they will KEEP doing it.

Not every Hill has to be The Hill You Will Die On… Like, you can just camp out there for a little while. it’s fine.

Try to buy a few extra birthday/special occasion cards and like $5-$10 gifts cards to Starbucks or Target or something like that to have one hand. Because i am telling you rn, there will come a time where you will completely forget someone important’s birthday.

There are going to be people who hate you based solely on what someone else told them about you. Yes it’s shitty. But 9 times out of 10 no, neither of them are worth your effort.

There are also going to be people who hate you for no particular reason and get pissed off about everything you do. don’t try to appease them because it will just make you hate yourself… At some point EVERYONE is someone’s “Bitch Eating Crackers.” You should just keep eating your crackers.

Likewise, if you find yourself getting pissed off or annoyed at everything someone does, don’t interact with them. You are just going to prolong your own pain, suffering, and pissiness.

A lot of the time, headaches can be cured by one of the following: sleep, food, water, tylenol, or loosening your ponytail… Make sure to try al those before you start freaking out about having a brain tumor.

The whole “nothing good happens after 2 am” thing is a myth… If you are out and having fun, stay out. Have fun!

Spite can actually be a really good motivator. seriously, it can make you so productive… just don’t let it make you insufferable.

Ignore 1-star and 5-star reviews of books, hotels and products. The 3-star reviews will answer all your actual questions.

Learn keyboard shortcuts. If you don’t know what CTRL + Z does, your life is definitely harder than it has to be.

If it ever comes down to other people liking you and you liking yourself, always pick yourself. ALWAYS… Being able to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day it highly underrated.

Verbal, emotional, mental and financial abuse are STILL ABUSE… And you don’t have to put up with that shit.

If you are ever about to bitch someone out, take a breath and count to 100 before doing it. It will give you time to either calm down and walk away OR think of really good insults.

Even the nicest people have their limits. Don’t try to reach that point because the nicest people are also the scariest assholes when they’ve had enough… “Demons run when a good man goes to war.”

Things that you should try to never start a sentence with: “no offense,” “not to be rude,” “well actually.”

Splurge on cute underwear, good booze, and fancy food every once in a while. it’s totally worth it.

Every occasion can be a dress up, champagne, and fancy china occasion if you believe in yourself.

People who are nice to you but mean to waiters, retail workers, animals, or their mothers are not actually nice people.

It is just as important to be aware of and acknowledge what you don’t know as it is to be aware of and acknowledge what you do know.

If you unironically use the term “friendzone” you deserve to get punched in the face and/or kicked on the ass… Idgasf what the context or situation is, you absolutely deserve it!

Every good relationship should be mutually beneficial and must have mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual effort… If it doesn’t have one of these, it’s not a good relationship.

There’s gonna come a point in time in your life when you are going to start to feel icky if you go too long with out eating a fruit and/or vegetable… It’s gonna be around the same general time when you should start taking a daily multivitamin.

Your sexuality is what you say it is. Period. And it’s ok if you don’t know exactly what that is right now or if it changes at any time in the future. Fuck anyone who tells you otherwise, they can get bent.

You are not required to disclose any kind of personal information about yourself and no one is entitled to that information in order for you and your opinion to be respected… However, if you are going to argue a point or hold yourself out as a representative of a certain minority/class/demographic, there is probably going to come a point in time where you need to back up your arguments with the necessary information. Just be prepared to put your money where your mouth is.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’m pretty sure you’re still being a dick… Don’t take advantage of peoples’ faith or trust in you. It’s a dick move, just don’t do it.

The same goes for not cheating on your significant others or betraying your friends… Seriously it is SO EASY to not treat people like shit. It takes slim to no effort.

Be aware that when you make blanket statements about groups of people, there are really no such things as exclusionary or exception clauses… Like, you can’t tell someone in that group “but i’m not talking about YOU” because you are. You are talking about them. That’s just, quite literally, how making generalizations works.

STAY IN YOUR LANE! When you have to get over be polite and USE YOUR GODDAMN BLINKER... This applies to sooo many things in life besides just driving.