#thank you taylor swift for this song

[sheriffcupcake]

If you haven't done it yet could you do a gifset to the bridge of Dress?

Flashback when you met me, your buzz cut and my hair bleached

Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me

Flashback to my mistakes, my rebounds, my earthquakes

Even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me

And I woke up just in time, now I wake up by your side

My one and only, my lifeline

I woke up just in time, now I wake up by your side

Dress by Taylor Swift

Welcome to another episode of pure unadulterated CaitVi guilty pleasure x Taylor Swift featuring a lovely request!!

Dress is so CaitVi coded and the bridge is simply *chef's kiss*

Anymore songs in mind I am ready for it!! (lowkey in my rep era)

[capsicle107]

and i wake with your memory over me that's a real fucking legacy to leave (x)

part ii of the steggy x red x maroon x daylight arc

[flwrkid14]

omg what about rockstar Danny who has this huge concert and the Wayne family gets tickets so they all go but Danny and Tim have been dating for a few months and Danny was able to break all of Tim’s walls. So we have a petty and pissed off danny who thinks Tim should abandon the bat family and join Team Phantom. In his last song for the night he plays “Cupid’s Chokehold” by Gym class heroes and reveals their relationship when it gets to “Take a look at my girlfriend” at 1:07 and batfamily is just shocked. Anyways no pressure, just thought it’d be a fun ask. Take your time and prioritize yourself!

hi anon! tysm for the ask <3 and wow this is such a brilliant idea! though it was a little tricky to convey in writing.. but I hope you like it!

The Wayne family gets tickets to the concert of the year—Danny Fenton, rockstar enigma, the ghostlight darling of the music world, is performing live in Gotham.

He’s known for a few things. One: his stage presence is unearthly. Two: he’s never once done an interview. Three: every song he writes sounds like it was bled out of someone’s soul.

(And Four: no one really knows who his music is about. The love songs, the heartbreak, the fury—it’s all so personal and yet so vague. A mystery Gotham’s tabloids would kill to solve.)

So when Bruce hands out the tickets, it’s treated like a normal outing. A night off. A nice show.

Tim doesn’t say much. Just, “Yeah. Sounds good.”

And for most of the show, it is good.

Danny is electrifying. His voice hits like a tidal wave and his lyrics—god, the lyrics. Furious things wrapped in velvet; love songs that ache like broken ribs. Songs about being pushed aside. Being invisible. Giving and giving until there’s nothing left.

Cass tilts her head, listening harder. Dick glances at Tim, who’s sitting very, very still. Bruce doesn’t notice anything yet—too distracted by the crowd. Jason is squinting at Danny like he’s seen a ghost.

And then it starts.

The final song.

A new one. Unreleased.

“I wasn’t gonna play this one,” Danny says, voice sharp with something bitter under the surface. “But I think I changed my mind.”

He nods at the band. They start playing.

The melody is upbeat—light, familiar. It’s Cupid’s Chokehold. People cheer. Some move to the melody.

And then—

Take a look at my girlfriend… She’s the only one I got…

Danny’s eyes flicker, sharp and glowing. His smile twists.

Not much of a girlfriend— I never seem to get a lot…

He stops singing for just a beat. Lets the music carry. Lets the tension build.

Then, clear as a bell:

Take a look at my boyfriend—

Spotlight.

It slams onto the VIP balcony. Onto Tim. Who freezes like a deer in the headlights.

He’s the only one I got.

The entire arena goes silent for half a second.

And then it erupts.

People are screaming. Phones come out. Tim is suddenly the most photographed man in Gotham. Jason shouts. Dick physically chokes on air. Steph screams “I KNEW IT!” while Cass just beams.

And Bruce? Bruce is staring at the stage like the math isn't mathing.

Danny doesn’t stop. He leans in.

He sings the rest of the song with so much love it’s almost cruel—every lyric like a thread being pulled.

He rewrites a few lines on the fly, just subtle enough:

She gets out when she wants ‘cause she’s strong like that He doesn’t need a cape, doesn’t need a mask— He’s already saved me just by being who he is.

And it’s not just a love song.

It’s a declaration. A confession. And, if you’re listening closely, an accusation.

Because every heartbreak song that came before it—the ones filled with rage and soft, splintering grief—suddenly make sense.

They weren’t just about some vague lost lover.

They were about Tim. And the family that never really saw him.

All that fury? That loneliness? That ache that threaded Danny’s albums?

It was theirs. Their behavior, their neglect, their silence. Turned into art. Turned into fire.

And Danny—Danny Fenton, whose voice can shake the world—just handed it back to them, live onstage, with a kiss blown to the boy sitting under the spotlight.

Tim covers his face with one hand. He’s laughing and crying and blushing hard.

Danny’s last note rings out, final and sharp. And the lights go out.

Backstage, later:

Tim shoves into Danny’s dressing room like a man possessed. “What was that?”

Danny’s taking off his mic pack, cool as ever. “Soft launch,” he says. “Or maybe the opposite.”

“You just outed us to the whole city.”

Danny shrugs. “They deserved to know.”

Tim sighs. Collapses into him. “You’re impossible.”

Danny kisses his temple. “You’re mine.”

And Tim—who clings to Danny like he was stitched into him—doesn’t disagree. He just holds on tighter.

Because the bats might be his family, sure.

But Danny? Danny’s home.

[francesderwent]

so for the purposes of this discussion I’m going to assume that we all agree that it’s not a desirable state of affairs to be sexually intimate with a whole bunch of people just for fun. I know not everybody agrees with that *gestures vaguely to the sexual revolution and the hookup culture*, but if I have to prove that first then that’s going to take forever and I don’t think it’s what we’re talking about anyway.

we’re going to assume that our interlocutor believes sex and love do have something to do with each other, and wants to know why we shouldn’t treat sex the way that most television shows these days treat sex: like kissing on the lips. you’re in love with your boyfriend so you kiss him on the lips. and then you might break up, and fall in love again and kiss a new boyfriend on the lips. in certain circumstances you might kiss someone on the lips who isn’t your boyfriend, like if they save your life or you go through a bonding experience together or something. and eventually you get married to someone and you only kiss that guy on the lips from then on, but you have kissed a few other guys before and it’s not a big deal or a scandal at all. why, is the question, can’t we treat sex exactly the same?

so, point one is: because the whole physical world is infused with symbolic meaning, the human body speaks a language of its own. we don’t assign meanings to the “words”, they’re inherent and universal. you can’t twist bodily actions to mean whatever you want them to mean, they’re going to go on saying what they really mean whether you want them to or not. a slap does not mean love; its violence is not and cannot be loving. a kiss does not mean hatred; Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss adds an extra layer of hurt to his deception.

point two: in order to exist happily and healthily in the world, we need to speak the truth with our bodies, and not try to twist the language of the body into saying something it isn’t. when we lie with the body, the whole real world we live in resists us. we’re trying to impose our own meaning by our own will onto something that already has its own meaning, given it by God, and quite frankly, God’s meaning is stronger and it’s gonna win. think of this as living in a state of denial—even if you can stay in your denial for a little while, eventually, reality will have its say, it will make itself felt. more on this later.

point three: sex, as a word in the language of the body, is saying something other than just “I feel love for you”—i.e. it is saying something different than a kiss. how do we know this? first of all, sex causes bonding on a chemical level in a way that kissing absolutely does not! secondly, sex creates children—and therefore exists on a very different level than kissing! both of these differences point to this: kissing as a “word” speaks about love as desire, when it says “I feel love for you” it’s mostly saying “I want you”. sex as a word speaks something more, it says something in itself about a commitment which is forever. what sex is saying is “I give all of myself to you and I receive all of you in return, we belong to each other forever”.

point four: the only circumstances in which sex can be spoken truly is marriage. sex speaks in the body the same total commitment that is made in the marriage vows, reiterating and confirming the mutual gift that has already been given.

this is sort of where it gets tricky (and where I think TOB speakers often fail their listeners), because when you’re dating somebody, if you’re not being disingenuous and stringing them along until you find something better, you do hope that you’ll be together forever. and so the more you fall in love with someone, the more you naturally (and appropriately, I’d say!) want to have sex with them, because you want to be able to express your longing for that forever. you don’t intend to lie with your body! you want to say what sex says and make it true in the saying of it!

I think the usual Christian response is to say ���ah yes, but that forever isn’t yet promised or guaranteed, so you don’t know if it’s ever going to come”. and as much as the person currently head-over-heels in love doesn’t want to hear it, unfortunately it is very real. for every Jack who meets his first serious girlfriend in college, has sex with her because he really wants them to be together forever, and then marries her six years later having had sex with no one but her, there’s just as many (if not more) Jill’s who meets her first serious boyfriend in high school, has sex with him because she really wants them to be together forever, then is blindsided by a breakup and goes on to repeat the pattern with several more boyfriends before she finally finds the “one”. it’s a tragically common story, so common that the trauma of it is becoming harder to recognize. but it causes severe emotional and psychological harm, to give all of yourself to a person hoping for the gift to be received, only to have your whole self be rejected, or trivialized, or used and discarded. it takes tremendous courage for Jill to pick herself up and believe in love again, and often she’s disappointed over and over again. even when the “one” does appear and the gift is finally received completely in marriage, the scars don’t fade completely. I think a lot of people who get their happy ending end up experiencing that phenomenon of psychological backdraft, all their old sexual traumas bubbling up again now that they finally have a healthy sexual experience to know how it should have been. they then have to spend the honeymoon years of their marriage healing from everything that came before. so the usual Christian guidance is “you don’t want to go into marriage with all that baggage, so better to wait just to make sure”.

and while I do think avoiding trauma is generally a good idea, I think this is a little bit of a cop-out. for one thing, it kind of seems to be saying “don’t have sex with your significant other, because you don’t really know if they’re telling the truth about wanting to marry you”—that is, it’s encouraging you to not trust your partner. sure (she said sarcastically), that sounds healthy!! there has to be a better, more loving reason not to have sex with a significant other before marriage. and it’s this: if the Church’s teaching about sex and marriage are really true, then it is just as wrong for Jack to have sex with his girlfriend before marriage as it is for Jill to have sex with her boyfriend—Jack’s eventual marriage to his girlfriend doesn’t retroactively validate every instance of premarital sex! and if Jack having sex with his girlfriend before they got married is wrong, then what we’re saying is it must be hurting them. even though their love story ended happily! even though they did end up giving and receiving the gift of self completely! getting things “out of order” is hurting them and making them unhappy. this is the burden of proof, and it’s much harder than proving Jill’s sexual history is hurting her. and yet if we believe Church teaching, it must be true!

so we return at last to my above point two—in order to exist happily and healthily in the world, we need to speak the truth with our bodies, and not try to twist the language of the body into saying something it isn’t. and here’s the kicker: we are not God. we cannot make a thing so just by saying it. so no matter how understandable it is to try to create a relationship that will last forever by speaking forever with our bodies, it simply does not work that way. when the word is spoken out of the context which makes it true (i.e. when you have sex outside of marriage), it does not and cannot bring that whole context into being—it doesn’t create a vow of fidelity, it doesn’t create a shared life, it doesn’t create a public commitment. someone can have sex with you and then break up with you, someone can have sex with you and then get in their car and go home leaving you there by yourself to sleep alone, someone can have sex with you and then pretend you don’t exist. the sex, on its own, doesn’t create a slippery slope that leads swiftly and inevitably to marriage. it just creates tension between the life you actually have, unmarried, and the unreal life you’re pretending you have in sleeping with one another. it makes all those parts of yourselves that you haven’t shared stand out more strongly, making you feel every little separation as a wound. and instead of creating a sense of peace and security, it leads to a kind of desperate grasping feeling—“we’re acting like us being together forever is a done deal, but it’s not a done deal, it’s not set in stone, so what can I do to make it work, how can I control this, how can I make him want me enough to stay?” even if in the end Jack proposes, the foundation of the relationship has been damaged. it can be healed, and rebuilt! but it is not good for a relationship to develop under that kind of strain. not good, and not necessary.

what’s the alternative? when you wait to have sex until marriage, your dating years with a partner can be years of expectantly looking forward in hope, while also living in the moment. you are not married yet—so your relationship is not set in stone, you’re still deciding what kind of relationship you want to have together, which means it can still get better and better as you build it. talk a LOT! talk about everything! talk about your pasts, talk about your dreams for the future! work out your issues in the present instead of covering them over with physical affection! because you’re not burdened by the anxious desperation to turn a lie into the truth, you will be able to see more clearly what the strengths and the weaknesses of the relationship really are, which allows you to address your weaknesses and work on them! and because you’re not pretending like you’re already totally committed, the prospect of actually making a total commitment will be more and more attractive. when you’re not trying to act like you’re married already, it’s so much easier to have open conversations about the future you want together, and easier to know when it’s time right now to take steps to get there. and that’s exciting! it’s fun to have stuff to look forward to, it’s fun to make plans together!

it’s not a better way because there’s less collateral damage, because you’re hedging your bets playing it safe just in case something goes wrong. it’s a better way because it’s all about letting love develop in its own time, according to its own internal laws. I’m not gonna say “guard your heart”, as if your significant other was an enemy at the gates. instead, “guard your relationship”, because it’s worth protecting, worth giving every chance to be as happy as it can be.

[carlytayjepsen]

there isn't enough space for an 'other' option, so if there's one you feel more strongly about pick your favourite and yell at me in the tags <3

i've done this poll before but it was before ttpd and speak now tv so :)

[cruelmidnight]

thanK you aIMee - Taylor Swift

[twinge-of-cosmicangst]

[aidenelsa]

and i won't confess that i waited but i let the lamp burn as the men masqueraded i hoped you'd return with your feet on the ground tell me all that you'd learned cause love's never lost when perspective is earned and you said you'd come and get me but you were 25 and the shelf life of those fantasies has expired lost to the lost boys chapter of your life forgive me peter, please know that i tried to hold onto the days when you were mine but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light

[evermoredeluxe]

Taylor performing thanK you aIMee/Mean as the surprise song on guitar

- The Eras Tour in London, England (N2) on June 22, 2024 (x)

[sheriffcupcake]

Just twin fire signs, four blue eyes

So you were never a saint and I loved in shades of wrong

We learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken hearts

But this love is brave and wild

And I never

Saw you coming

State of Grace by Taylor Swift

Welcome to another episode of pure unadulterated CaitVi guilty pleasure x Taylor Swift

Clear to say they never saw each other coming - Vi to see a posh Enforcer helping her and Cait expecting a hardened criminal but it's an angry red muscle goddess

[duahauuoplanh]

you ain't gotta pray for me and my wild boy and all this wild joy ~

[strwbrryswiftt]

we both did the best we could do

[andichoseyou]

The Eras Tour surprise songs parallels

June 22, 2024—London, England: thanK you aIMee / Mean (mashup) & Castles Crumbling

[lewkwoodnco]

TTPD x Lockwood & Co. (1/5) (2) spotify gif template by @danesdehaan!!

[theysaidspeaknoww]

And the stars are stunning...

[sisterdivinium]

Warrior Nun x Amon Amarth "Vengeance is My Name"