#the complete lack of self-criticism is at this point genuinely appalling to me because he doesn't seem to be just stupid.

[nostalgia-tblr]

anyway while i am wanking about doctor who again, i recently saw someone (forget who or where, sorry 😞) that fandom's moffat shite is awful not because there aren't some valid criticisms in there but because even if you accepted all of the (very often bad faith) complaints, the response to them is wildly disproportionate. and that's it, isn't it? one line will make him Literally The Worst Person Ever when it's not really any worse than - yes I'm about to go there - even just the other New Who showrunners have said or done. so i've always been kind of... confused? even aside from fandom almost immediately falling into a feeding frenzy of "how can we interpret everything in the worst possible way" it had felt a bit OTT from the start.

[slytherinsnekxvii]

let's talk about severus snape. he's one of the most controversial characters the internet has to offer, with several blogs, channels and pages dedicated specifically to hating him, despite him having one of the most—if not the most—intriguing character arcs the series has to offer. so, as a result of me coming across far too many of said blogs, channels or pages, here's an extremely detailed explanation of why i like him and think he's easily one of my favourite characters :)

1. he's not that bad of a teacher.

just so you know, i'm a teenage girl fresh out of high school. so, my experience with teachers? still keeps me up at night :)

my family is pretty strict about religion. you can guess what that means. anything that was magic-adjacent, especially something that, god forbid, had an entire school dedicated to witchcraft and wizardry was a hard no if i wanted to have any sort of freedom over the media i paid attention to, and any opportunity to go about my life without being monitored to make sure i wasn't suddenly possessed or something. thanks to this, i ended up secretly reading the philosopher's stone in my last year of primary school. i would've been 11 at the time, just about to turn 12, so a little bit older than harry and co. going on what i'd heard from those who had already read the series, i went in expecting to absolutely despise this man. i went in expecting to read a demon. i finished the book and came out thinking... that really wasn't that bad.

my mom found out, so i didn't get to read the rest of the series until i ended up on the executive committee for my school's book club and my friends were appalled that i'd only read the first book. at this point, i'm still expecting him to get worse and... he just doesn't. when i was in primary school, i had multiple teachers break wooden meter-long rulers across my classmates' backs. the first time it happened, i was in infant year 2 (about 6/7 years old). i had teachers who would insult us, based on anything from hygiene to behaviour to intelligence if you looked at them wrong. my sister (who was three years ahead of me) had a teacher who kept her in hours after school was over because the teacher had a written a note in her workbook upside down, and when my sister corrected her, the teacher made her rewrite it, turning the book each time the note was written so it would never be done the correct way.

in secondary school, i had teachers who would actively humiliate us in front of the class if we didn't do as well as they wanted. i had teachers who would throw markers and whiteboard erasers at us if we did something they didn't like during class. i had a teacher who looked for a friend of mine who was petrified of attention and then mercilessly picked on her until she went to the bathrooms to cry. these are the kinds of teachers that i was used to. so, when i read harry potter and read snape, who would have probably been one of the nicer teachers i met in my lifetime, i thought to myself, he's really not that bad. he's just... strict.

antis claim that he traumatised every kid that ever went through his class, that he straight up abused them and... no. he didn't. all of them are comfortable talking back, they talk during his class, no one trembles when he walks past, except for neville, who usually bore the brunt of snape's anger because he was consistently messing up in a potentially lethal class.

after school, i hated the thought of formal education, so now i'm working until i feel ready to do university. coincidentally, one of my jobs is teaching maths and english to kids writing the end of primary and secondary school exams. given the sheer amount of annoyance i feel sometimes, i actually respect him for not being more harsh with them, especially when they're all running off into danger or exploding cauldrons.

he really isn't that bad of a teacher, and we know this, since his classes' owl results are said to be consistently good.

plus, he was written in the 90's when all this was okay behaviour for teachers. hell, compared to some of the teachers in text, given that he goes out of his way to make sure the students are always protected, he's a lot better than most people give him credit for.

2. i relate to him.

come on, the man grew up to be a dramatic, queer-coded, petty bitch who wears all black all the time and likely has at least one mental disorder. i'm a petty, emo bisexual with (actually diagnosed, don't worry) depression and anxiety and I'm in a theatre group. what did you really expect from me?

on a serious note, both of the schools i went to were considered "prestigious". i got into my primary school because of a teacher's recommendation (she was a family friend). the second school i got into was because i scored ridiculously high on the placement test that would determine which school i went to. in primary school, i was the poor, really awkward, really smart kid who got left out of everything, and my best friend was the only kid who was worse off than me.

in secondary school, i was just as smart as everyone else... but i was still poorer, and still more awkward and still got left out of everything.

i got that isolated feeling, that feeling of not being good enough, that feeling where life always seems to have it out for you and that's even though i still got dealt a better hand than snape ever did. so, i get it. i'm never ever going to have it as bad as he did, but i acknowledge what he went through and i sympathise, because i have a chance, but it only ever got worse for him.

3. i genuinely enjoy his character.

this dude went through absolute hell for basically his entire life. the best years he had were probably when he was neck-deep in the group of people who hated witches and wizards like him, but somehow managed to treat him better than the good guys.

all of that, and he still manages to be one of the most entertaining motherfuckers in the whole series, with one of the most interesting character arcs ever. it's the witty lines, the sheer dynamic of his character, the change from the twitchy, hypervigilant kid from the slums to the adult that managed to spy on the Dark Lord himself and save the wizarding world in the process, while still being a hot mess of a person. it's the managing to get shit done while everybody hated him and everything was going to hell. it's the everything, and i haven't even talked about how badass he is.

come on, potions prodigy turned master, exemplary duellist (cough, cough, winning 4-on-1 vs McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn, and leaving a scratch on nobody, while managing to not take a single hit himself, cough, cough), spellcrafter, spy and one of the only wizards to ever figure out unaided flight. dark arts master, proficient at healing (dumbledore would've been dead a lot sooner, if it weren't for him, most likely). he's one of the most powerful wizards of his time. i've said that any universe where he's actually a bad guy—or just legitimately loyal to the death eaters—is a universe where voldemort wins and this is why. if he was motivated by literally anything other than lily, the wizarding world was more than likely fucked.

the point is, i just think he's neat.

4. spite.

every time i appreciate snape, a snater feels like someone is walking over their grave. every time i appreciate snape, a snater turns blue out of sheer rage. every time i appreciate snape, a snater loses their mind looking for their non-existent reading comprehension.

the spite in my veins is tempered only by the broth of instant ramen and ungodly amounts of sugar, and i'm going to use them all in my mission to cause antis pain when they refuse to acknowledge their lack of critical thinking and analysis skills.

so, yeah. why do i actually like snape?

tl;dr: he's not that bad. for a teacher written in the 90's and compared to teachers i've had within the decade, the guy's just strict. sure, he's a dick (who i personally think is hilarious), but he always makes sure the students are safe and he didn't leave any lasting effect on any of the students. he's really not that bad of a teacher. and hell, he's not even that bad of a person. i fully admit that he was an asshole and i entirely believe he was prone to self-destructive behaviour, but he still tried to atone for his mistakes and he did, is the thing, even though the odds were stacked more or less completely against him. i like him because he entertains me, and because i relate to him, as a teen who went through some shit and probably would have joined up with some bad people if it weren't for my friends and family, and as a teacher who really can't stand my students sometimes. i also like him because it irritates people who don't like him :)

also, istg if any of you respond to this with "bUt hE was ObseSsED with LiLY and just WAnTEd to FUCK hEr," i'm crawling into your bedroom window with the most unrealistic, mangled interpretations of your favourite characters and making sure they haunt you in your dreams. meet me in the fuckin' pit, babe. reread the series, actually think about it and come with receipts that aren't Voldemort, because i don't think you want to have the same opinion as the character who canonically doesn't understand love, now, do you, sweetheart? when you do that, then, and only then, will i consider entertaining your bullshit :)

that's about it from me, thanks for reading!

[beyondstupidityblog]

On March 13th 2021, two friends and I did what never could have imagined possible, I watched Freddy Got Fingered for the ninth time, and it will by no means be the last. I’m explaining this to you, dear reader, so you and I have an important understanding between us. You will be reading the ramblings of one whose brain has curdled like milk left out in the hot afternoon sun. Now that introductions are out of the way, let us begin.

Freddy Got Fingered is a 2001 Comedy starring and directed by Tom Green as the Non-Titular Gordon Brody; an aspiring animator who goes to California to realize his dream, only to be constantly crushed under the weight of his father’s expectations. Sounds tame at first, but what lies beneath the veneer of mediocrity is truly impressive. Completely bombed,  audiences hated it, and critics loathed it. Roger Ebert got angry, saying “it isn’t even below the bottom of the barrel” and “Green should be flipping burgers somewhere.”. “Tasteless”, “appalling”, “offensive”, “gross”, and “poo poo,” are just some of the things people have had to say about this film. Animal genitalia can be seen on screen for much longer than anyone could have expected, Tom Green swinging a baby akin to a morning-star with its umbilical cord, said umbilical cord being stolen and taped onto his stomach, gratuitous caning of a nymphomaniac paraplegic, and the dissection of a deer carcass. It is an abrasive experience that leaves a terrible taste in the mouths of those who mention it. Nonetheless, I love this movie. 

You ever see a contemporary art exhibit that has a piece that just looks like garbage somebody left out but in actuality is a tongue-and-cheek allusion to the pitiful state of modern art? That garbage is Freddy Got Fingered, and that exhibit is Hollywood. At face value it just seems like a poorly done film by a comedian trying to use his name to get a few butts in the seats before his irrelevancy arrives, but when scrutinized as a commentary of comedy films do the pieces start to fall into place. Tropes like the Protagonist being an unremarkable honkey, gross-out designed to get some cheap quick chuckles, side-characters who occupy the space solely for comedic relief, a shoe-horned romantic side-plot, and an equally as shoehorned in happy ending are all present in a mocking fashion. So many of these Hollywood schlockfests that this movie is paying homage to abuse tropes in some vain attempt to trick the audience into thinking they’re having a good time, when in reality it just reminds viewers of films that they’ve already watched before and could be enjoying instead. All of the awkward and uncomfortable scenes of gross-out and romance are purposeful, because nothing is quite as awkward and uncomfortable than a film disengaging the audience with its own mediocrity. “This is what it’s like to endure this trash!” Drunkenly screams Freddy Got Fingered atop the tallest piece of furniture in the room, while also exposing its genitals to keep you from getting too comfortable around it. Unlike the films it is parodying, its obsession with making a fool out of audiences rips them away from the comfort of the cinema, making them genuinely ask if it is worth wasting their time watching a film called Freddy Got Fingered. Even the title is an intentional slight, as it seems to be completely untethered to the actual plotline and is instead a reference to a seemingly inconsequential scene. But then again, that is the point of it all. Tom Green is an artist, and on his canvas is a portrait of Hollywood with all of the ugly little imperfections that cause a movie like this to be created. But this is just the meta-narrative of Freddy Got Fingered, something that you could find all over the internet. Why do I resonate with it so much, and what about it makes it so exceptional that led to this unhealthy fascination?

    Every instance that I’ve rewatched Freddy Got Fingered has always brought about a new side to it, and in the process leaves me craving for more. Gord is an interesting take on the average leading man. He is on the surface bland and inoffensive, made so in order to allow the majority of the audience to immediately identify with him, said group being 20-something skater guys with unrealistic expectations of themselves. Made especially ironic when after the introduction of Gord as an adept skateboarding rebel escaping from authority, he starts to show that in reality he is an unlikeable, bratty, entitled, and all around unpleasant person. Barely a scene passes before we see him masturbate a horse while exclaiming he is a farmer to his father who is not present, seemingly a crude gag but is in reality an insight into his low self worth caused by his imposter syndrome stemming from distant paternal relationship. I would like to remind you, dear reader, that I am still writing of Freddy Got Fingered, in case you were beginning to think I have lost my mind (The answer is yes by the way). All throughout the film Gordon Brody puts on masks for different situations, never allowing himself to be who he is. When infiltrating the Animation studio where he wishes to pitch his cartoons, he pretends to be a mailman to get past reception and then impersonates a police officer when the former stops being effective. Donning the visage of a British Bobby, he dashes into the restaurant where the man he is searching for, Mr. Wallace, is eating. Showing him his cartoons, Wallace is impressed with the potential they have, but says that they are incoherent and lack real substance. Upon rejection, Gord puts a pistol in his mouth before Wallace stops him and advises what he should do to improve. Gord was genuinely ready to blow his brains out the back of his skull if he wasn’t able to get his show greenlit, and it hit me in that moment that he isn’t just some random jackass, but a victim of detrimentally low self-esteem.

The origins of his complex are made apparent when he goes back home to Oregon and are reintroduced to his Family. We see that his father Jim, played by Rip Torn, is disappointed in his return and begins to sneer at him for his failure. This father and son dynamic always has tension in every scene from this point onwards. Gord, who just wants to be accepted for who he is and not judged by what the world expects him to be, is always at the receiving end of Jim’s wrath, who values his idea of a successful life over the happiness of his sons. From here it becomes little wonder why Gord is the way he is, all his life he was told that who he was is not good enough, he has to be what his father wants if he is to be considered worthy of not only love, but being treated with a modicum of dignity. Whenever Gord acts eccentric or divulges his interests to his father, they are met with either resentment supplemented by verbal assault, or physical violence. After a late-night skateboard outing to escape from his father’s wrath goes awry, he visits his convalescing friend in the hospital, whereupon he meets one of the more interesting characters in relation to Gord, the love interest Betty.   

A horny wheelchair bound temptress may not seem like it upon first glance, but Betty is actually the most interesting character out of the entire cast. She feels genuine, introduced as a bored receptionist flipping a coffee creamer idly. Gord immediately strikes up a conversation, whereupon he and the audience find out she has an interest in physics, and apparently an interest in him as well. Betty is strangely well written for what most considered at the time to be a crass sexual joke, so much so that she would actually be a better protagonist than him. She is everything Gord is not, she’s smart, funny, ambitious, and  kind to a fault. Even her side plot to create a rocket powered wheelchair makes for a much more unique plot than the one given. Even Gord reciprocates this sentiment in their meeting, lying that he is a stockbroker in an attempt to impress her. In fact, sectioning her off as just the dull protagonist's love interest is a jab at how women in these movies are only there to serve in the development for the male protagonist, just nothing more than their muse. Nonetheless, without this relationship the movie would lose a lot of its soul. Romantic chemistry in comedy films is always hit or miss, but Gord and Betty do seem to have it surprisingly. They’re both silly and impulsive, creatively driven to a fault, but just different enough to eek out the best and worst in them. Gord  thinks that what he wants to do with his life is wasteful, but Betty doesn’t. Now I don’t mean that she directly affirms that he is worthwhile like most poorly written love interests would, stroking their lover’s(and by extension the director’s) ego, rather she confronts him with her optimism. He asks if she would feel stupid and like a loser if her experiment failed. Taken aback at first, she questions why she would, relaying that her failures are just as important as her successes. Gord’s self-worth is directly tied to his ability to succeed, whereas Betty doesn’t need this affirmation. Their dialogue further cements how detrimental his father’s overbearingness was to his outlook, and how he is slowly beginning to realize how destructive that mindset is. 

At their dinner date, Jim sees Gord and Betty across the restaurant, then reveals that Gord was lying to both him and her about his office job while poking fun at her disability, leading to a father-son scuffle that throws the entire floor into utter chaos. Cops show up, Gord and Jim are detained, and Betty bails Gord out. Most mediocre comedies at this point would have the love interest be upset that her significant other lied to her, leading to him having to make things right to repair their relationship before the happy ending. Breaking the mold, Betty does not get angry with Gord even a smidgen, choosing to be understanding of his situation now that she caught a glimpse into his home-life. She just plain likes Gord, willing to put up with him more than she really should, but still chooses to look past his lies and self-destructive nature for who he truly is, someone who just wants to be accepted by the world around him. Someone just like her.

Right after that enaction of social terrorism performed by the Brody father and son duo, they decide it would be best to go to family therapy and assail the audience with what I fondly refer to it as, “The Scene.” “The Scene” is Freddy Got Fingered’s statement to the world, it is what instills a man with the impetus to rewatch a glorified stoner daydream for the ninth time and leave him wanting more! Gord accuses his father, in a final act of defiance, of molesting his younger brother Freddy. During the ensuing confusion Gord picks up a bust of Sigmund Freud and throws it into the glass window pane, allowing him to escape into the evening sun. The authorities take Freddy away and send him to The Home for Molested Children, and the family slowly unravels from then on. Besides the heavy handed metaphor of Freud’s theories being used as a way for Gord to escape his predicament while simultaneously discrediting them, “The Scene” also recontextualizes Freddy, innocuous of a character as he is, as Gord’s foil. He is in the movie very little but when he is it is to serve one of two purposes: To be compared to Gord, or to be treated as an object. During breakfast much earlier in the film after a fight between Gord and Jim, Freddy tries to explain to his brother that he should grow up. Gord, surprisingly, talks down to him and halts the conversation.

Gord: “He's driving me insane.”

Freddy: “No. No, you're driving him insane. You're older than me and you still live at home. I have a job, you know. I pay my own way.”

Gord: “You work in a bank. Should I be dazzled?”

Freddy: “Well, at least I don't live at home!”

Gord: “No, you live in a tiny shithole and you come here to eat for free.”

With these lines it is plain to see that despite Freddy’s idea of success directly lining up with his father’s, he is even more pitiful than Gord. What little we know of him is to show that his acquiescence to his father’s expectations has left him bereft of not only genuine personal success, but of dignity itself. When child protective services come to take him away, he is half naked, mouth agape, watching open heart surgery on television, a palpable indication of emptiness. He isn’t treated as an adult either, as his protests to the police fall on deaf ears as both them and the psychologist infantilize him. Why would Tom Green name this movie after a character like Freddy, whose lack of presence and characterization make him little more than an afterthought when looking back on the story? Or did I just answer my own question? Freddy is not a character because he is not allowed to be one, he is just too passive and accepting of his circumstances for him to stand out. All he can be is a doll that Jim uses to dress up as the perfect son, and this passiveness leads to Gord, the “failure,” to both pity and resent what he let himself become. That’s why Gord accuses their father of molesting him, after all he does narratively violate Freddy’s autonomy by consistently making decisions for him. Evidently enough, as soon as Gord dons a suit for a quick bit Jim is elated because he believes that his son finally gave in to his demands for him to get a job, because he is acting more like his obedient brother. In this sense Freddy is the most tragic member of the Brody clan, a literal manchild whose growth was stunted by overbearing guardians. When I think of him, a bonsai tree comes to mind. Sure, it looks healthy, but when you realize that it could have grown into a much bigger plant if it were not for its small pot, that realization of wasted potential comes with a tinge of melancholy.

I want to end this essay with a moral that I took away from Freddy Got Fingered, as strange enough as that sounds, and what it has to say about art as a whole. Put simply, this is a story about revenge. Despite and because of his Father’s harsh ways, Gord managed to take from the trauma he sustained throughout his life and sublimated it into his animation. Creation not only lets him heal, but also acts as retaliation against Jim once he becomes successful. So long as you have the drive to prove everyone’s doubts and admonishments wrong by persevering out of wicked spite, you will have the last laugh. Freddy Got Fingered is a story about revenge through artistic expression, and I think that is quite beautiful.

[shadyb00ts]

How 2020 Turned Me Into A Swiftie Again

If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d have not one but two Taylor Swift albums in my year-end favorites list, I would’ve thought you were out of your mind. Then again, stranger things have happened in this hellscape of a year.

I’m really not sure where the first time I heard the phrase “Life is too short to pretend to hate Taylor Swift” was. I have no idea who originated it, but it stuck with me when I started to unpack that about a year ago, during her Lover era. By then, my perception and feelings about Taylor had been very... inconsistent, to say the least. I started out as a full-on stan, then it dwindled from there overtime until I basically became a hater, which then turned into indifference but silent respect. Now, I’m pretty much on the road to becoming a stan again. Revisiting her catalog, analyzing her lyrics, watching interviews, the works. 

I wanted to examine what it was that made my opinions about her go through so many steep rises and falls within this entire decade. Part of it was her shift in musical style that I didn’t quite mesh with, but another part was owning up to the internal biases I had when I was younger and how gullible I was in going along with whatever the media or the popular conscious was saying about her and the kind of person she is. 

I’m somebody who’s incapable of separating art from the artist. I simply don’t listen to artists when I don’t like them as people or don’t agree with their actions. Examples include but are not limited to Kim Petras, Melanie Martinez, Azealia Banks, Grimes, just to name a few. I have my own personal reasons for just not wanting to engage with any of their music, and if you still want to, that’s none of my business.

At some point in my life, I think Taylor got on that list. Looking back on it now, I find that completely ridiculous, because she never really did anything or acted in a way that warranted that reaction out of me. So I wanted to delve into how that even came about in the first place.

With that said, I want to take a trip down memory lane and go back through her eras, and go through the timeline of my strange relationship with Taylor Swift’s body of work as well as her public persona. Fair warning, it’s gonna be really cheesy and emotional at parts, but it is fully my truth. Thank you in advance if you manage to read the whole thing.

Part 1: The Country Era

It’s 2010 and I’m in eighth grade. I’m in an extremely Muslim country, the only son of an extremely Muslim family that enrolled me in an extremely Muslim school. I’m getting bullied by the boys in my class for being too feminine and being ignored by the girls for being a boy. The last close friend I had from elementary school had just moved away the year prior, and I’d never felt more alone in my life.

I was a closeted gay kid still trying to figure himself out and hating who he was. I escaped to cringey online chat sites like IMVU and catfished as a girl, because at the time I thought the only way to get boys to like me and want to be with me was to pretend to be someone else, someone I actually liked.

When I think back on this era, I mostly remember the girls in my class obsessing over these three albums and singing her songs with each other all the time. I desperately wanted to join them and fangirl with them over her music, though of course they never gave me the time of day. I remember I would memorize so many of her songs and write them all down on a special notebook I kept. When I wasn’t paying attention in classes, that’s what I would do; scribble out a collection of all the songs of hers that I knew by heart.

To me, these three albums represented a certain kind of vivid fantasy. Taylor’s songwriting has obviously grown exponentially over the past decade, but even back then she was always so damn good at storytelling and detail, painting you a very clear picture of a scene and placing you right there. For a miserable, self-hating fourteen-year-old gay boy that was always seeking escapism from a homophobic environment, this was the perfect outlet for me to live out a different kind of life, to play pretend.

I honestly can’t explain what it is about her style of songwriting but she always made me feel like I was genuinely experiencing everything she was talking about. Things like kissing in the rain, riding around in the truck of the boy of my dreams in a tiny one horse town, shedding teardrops on a guitar that I definitely didn’t own, experiencing crushing heartbreak. This was stuff that my sheltered ass couldn’t comprehend.

Taylor perfectly captured that ideal, that small town girl with big dreams and storybook romances. I was in love with her discography at the time, having memorized pretty much the entirety of Fearless because that was my favorite of three. Middle school was hell for me, but her music was definitely something that helped me pull through, because she sent my imagination into overdrive.

This was a time in my life where I didn’t really care yet about an artist’s public image or the media’s portrayal of them, It was purely about the music for me. Of course, when looking at these albums now, there were a few questionable choices she made lyrically, I have to admit. Particularly with songs like “Better Than Revenge” and “Innocent”, both having aged terribly with the former being bafflingly misogynistic and the latter being about Kanye. As of my writing this, Taylor is currently in the process of re-recording her old catalog, and I assume that she would skip these two songs in particular, as well as several others that haven’t exactly aged well.

This era really got me through some tough times and she provided much-needed relief for me within each of these three albums. I’ll always have an attachment to them because of the bittersweet memories they represent.

Part 2: Red

Red I decided to put in its own category, because this was kind of a weird era for Taylor. Even back when I was an ignorant teenager that barely had any critical thinking skills, I felt the dissonance of this album and its Max Martin produced singles. This album represented Taylor dipping her toe into pop music, which she made abundantly clear when she decided to release We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together as the lead single.

I actually remember this moment quite clearly. She premiered the single at some kind of fan event that I believe was streamed live on YouTube, and either I watched it live or I watched the full recording of it later on. At the time I remember feeling it was kind of bizarre to hear Taylor adopt this style of music, because it was so drastically different from her previous work and it took me a while to adjust. Obviously I enjoyed pop music at the time as much as I do now, but I just hadn’t been expecting it to come from Taylor. 

Fortunately it was just the three singles that were full pop, and the rest of the album still had her signature DNA and also includes some of her best work. All Too Well, for example, is I think one of the best songs she’s ever made, if not the best. I think if I were introducing Taylor to someone that’s totally unfamiliar with her, that would be my first choice, because it’s a masterwork in songwriting and emotionality.

I do think the thing that irked me the most about this album and era, even to this day, was the lack of cohesion. Of course I figured that she would eventually venture into pop music, but the way in which she did it just felt a bit too jarring to me. Perhaps if the album had a more even distribution of pop songs and country songs, it would’ve been slightly more palatable for me. It’s not even that the three pop songs were bad; they were quite good for their time. Though to be completely honest they’re the songs I barely ever return to any time I listen to Red now. They’re the kind of catchy pop songs where it’s difficult not to get sick of them at a certain point in your life. I’ve grown to really dislike the lead single, and even 22.

Her image was also starting to get much more scrutinized by the media around this time. I think this era probably marked the sharp rise of the “Taylor Swift has too many boyfriends!” argument people loved to throw around. I wish I could say I was smart enough to not buy into that shit at the time, but I wasn’t. While it didn’t bother me, it was something that I wondered about, why she dated and broke up with so many guys at such a young age. It was something that I judged her for. Obviously I didn’t yet understand that it was normal for people her age to date around. Plus it gave her some great material.

By this time, Taylor was making the gradual transition of country sweetheart to pop star, and while Red was kind of a rocky start to that, naturally she managed to pull it off. But not quite flawlessly.

Part 3: The Pop Era

Okay, I have a lot to say about these girls.

I think this era started off strong with 1989. It was a more fully realized version of Taylor’s little pop experiment, and it actually had the cohesion that I needed to be able to fully adapt to this new style she’d cultivated. She wrote yet another one of her best songs with Blank Space, which I like to think was a precursor to Reputation (and dare I say that one song did Reputation’s concept better than that album as a whole?).

However... Shake It Off. I’m sorry, I just hate that song.

WANEGBT, the first single off of Red, isn’t exactly the best song either but it made sense as to why she chose that as the first single. It was to signify her dabbling into pop. Reputation’s first single I also am not the biggest fan of, but again, made perfect sense as an introduction, but I’ll get to that later. Shake It Off, though? For the life of me, I have no idea why this song was the first single. Or to be frank, why it was even on the album at all. 

I’m sorry y’all, I just hate it. Everything about it. The verses, the chorus, the appalling rap bridge. She should’ve kept that song in the drafts and released Blank Space as a first single, and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on. Sorry Shake It Off stans, but I’m sure all three of you will get over it. ❤

That said, 1989 had some excellent songs, and I was finally starting to get used to Taylor doing pop. However, my excitement and enthusiasm for her music started to falter due to my weak mind at the time once again getting swayed by the media. 

This time, I began to see Taylor as someone that seemed to be very calculated and conniving in the way she curated her image. Something that didn’t sit well with me was the “girl squad” stuff, and how all of the women she surrounded herself with were essentially these supermodels with unattainable beauty standards, and also believing the rumors about how certain famous women were given private requests to join Taylor’s “squad”. And then of course, the Kim and Kanye thing happened. #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trended worldwide, and that was probably my earliest exposure to an instance of a celebrity getting canceled, so I was just happy to join the bandwagon. My opinion of her shifted like that, and it’s crazy to think about it now, how I barely had the capacity to form my own opinions and was easily influenced by everything I heard.

Despite me kind of joining the Taylor hate train, I did like Reputation as a concept. I liked how she disappeared from the public eye and came back being like, “You want me to be the villain? The snake? Fine.” Look What You Made Me Do, as I mentioned before, was the perfect choice for the first single despite the song itself being sonically....not the best. The music video and the line about how the old Taylor couldn’t come to the phone was an iconic moment in pop culture, I have to admit that.

I didn’t listen to the album as a whole until later, though. I was having my own hang-ups about Taylor that I think are silly now, but at the time when I didn’t like an artist I would mostly avoid their work. When I did listen to the album, though, I thought it was... okay. There’s one standout track to me and that is Getaway Car, and it’s the only song from Reputation I can say I fully adore to pieces. The other songs on there I either just like, or I find to be meh at best. (Also I know Ready For It is objectively a bad song but I really enjoy the chorus, don’t @ me, @ god)

A few years later, Lover happened and.... Once again, horrible first single. ME! is a genuinely atrocious song, and I have no idea how esteemed, prolific songwriter Taylor Swift managed to reach a point where she had a song with the phrase “spelling is fun!” in it. I feel the exact same way about this song as I do about Shake It Off. It had no business being in the album whatsoever.

As far as Lover the album goes, this came out around the time where I was kind of feeling indifferent toward Taylor (which is hilarious if you know what the first track on it is). I was much more politically aware and had learned not to put too much faith in white women, and I was focusing on other artists so much that Lover barely even came onto my radar. I listened to it once, thought it was meh, and moved on. I revisited it earlier this year and realized I was a bit too harsh on it the first time around. Sure it was her weakest album overall, but it wasn’t bad by any means. It was perfectly alright, and there were songwriting moments within it that were still quite strong. The title track and also Miss Americana comes to mind as standouts.

She started to become more vocal politically around this time. A lot of people thought it was too little too late, which was a fair point. However to me it made sense that she stayed tight-lipped about politics when she was younger, considering she was operating within the realm of country music. Plus, upon watching her documentary, it was pretty clear she had old white men behind the scenes telling her what she should or shouldn’t say, to make sure she maintained that all-American country girl sweetheart image. Still, I do agree with the people who thought that she should’ve used her platform sooner.

Oh and for the record, I think You Need to Calm Down is a terrible song. The video was cute, and the message behind it is fine, but I just hate it sonically.

At this point my interest in Taylor was probably at an all time low. The era started off strong with 1989, but it progressively got weaker. She just wasn’t really giving me much in terms of lyricism, and her pop productions were starting to blend together to the point where a lot of them were sounding very same-y. Lover to me marked the point of stagnation in her music; it was solid enough, but it just wasn’t going anywhere. We’ve seen Pop Taylor, she was cute for a while, but what else? Where does she go from here?

Well... She went into the woods.

Part 4: The Cottagecore Sisters

When I heard about Taylor dropping a surprise album, I suppose I was intrigued. She is one of the few artists that are successful enough to be able to make a move like that and cause a lot of buzz and excitement. I didn’t think much about it though, because my 2020 at that time was still inundated with SAWAYAMA and Ungodly Hour on repeat. On a whim, though, I decided to listen to it one day, not expecting much out of it.

Earlier when I was talking about her country era, I mentioned that Taylor’s storytelling and her penchant for detailed descriptions were my favorite parts of her writing. Her innate ability to transport me into other worlds, to provide escapism when my life became too much to deal with. I feel like these aspects were missing in the several years that Taylor focused on pop music. There were flashes of it in some of her later work, sure, but very few. She was becoming a huge mega superstar and her songs started to lose that sense of relatability that had been easy for me to latch on too. These things definitely contributed to my loss of interest for her work in general.

And then Folklore managed to bring me back to that place of fantasy I described before, but heightened. Elevated. Evolved. This is why I think that Folklore is Taylor Swift’s magnum opus.

Storytelling is without a doubt her strongest skill as an artist. To be able to construct not just a narrative but an entire world through songs is not something anyone can pull off. Throughout her pop era, there was always that something missing because I knew that she was capable of more. I couldn’t explain it well back then, but despite her penmanship still being commendable during those years, it still felt oddly lackluster. I knew she could do better, but I didn’t have the proof yet.

This is it. Both Folklore and Evermore showcase exactly what I knew she was capable of. This is Taylor Swift at her most creative, at her full power.

I think in a recent interview I watched (though I can’t remember which one), even she herself acknowledged how it would’ve been a disservice to continue strictly writing autobiographical songs, and so she decided to write from the perspectives of multiple different characters while also occasionally inserting herself and her life experiences into these narratives. She essentially created her own folklore and managed to make me invested in characters that don’t even exist.

I have to talk about the love triangle trilogy: cardigan, august and betty. It’s a testament to her songwriting ability that these fictional characters feel like real people. The story of Betty, James and Augusta/Augustine is just so well done to the point where I forget that it’s Taylor Swift singing. When I listen to these songs, I am fully imagining the characters she conjured up. 

The song that I find the most profound out of the three, and also happens to be my favorite song on the album, is august. To me, it is the most heartbreaking song out of all of them. I relate so much to that girl who’s hopelessly in love with someone that just doesn’t give a shit about them and is merely using her for a summer fling. And it’s not even like I’ve experienced something similar to this in real life, Taylor just somehow made it relatable with the sheer power of her pen game. It’s even more heartbreaking considering we don’t know what happened to this girl, if she ever managed to find happiness, because in the Long Pond Sessions Taylor mentioned that Betty and James eventually got back together. They got their happy ending, but what happened to Augustine?

I can’t believe she’s got me this deep in my feelings over non-existent teenagers, I swear to god.

Just when I thought Folklore was going to be the end of this new side of her for a while, she releases Evermore in December, its sister album. While I don’t think it’s quite as strong as Folklore, it still delivered immensely in terms of lyricism, productions and vocals. Evermore’s release pretty much solidified the realization that I was basically becoming a Swiftie again, a whole decade later.

I was embarrassed by that thought at first, but honestly now I’m at a point where I don’t think there’s anything to be embarrassed about. Taylor is too skilled of a songwriter for me to consider her a guilty pleasure. I just needed something to help me come to that conclusion, and these two albums did just that. She finally gave to me what I was waiting for.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really stan artists the same way I used to now, which I mentioned previously in my review of Chromatica. I don’t deify them or hold them to an impossible moral standard they could never live up to anymore. I see them as flawed human beings that have the capacity to make great art. So when I say I’m becoming a Swiftie, I’m still fully aware that Taylor Swift is a thirty-one year old rich white woman who is bound to have shortcomings and missteps as a person. In my mind, she hasn’t done anything drastic enough or stupid enough for me to become uncomfortable in listening to her work. I had my own ideas about how she could’ve been fake, conniving, manipulative or whatever else the media was trying to convey about her, but there really is no way of knowing who she truly is as a person.

Celebrities and influencers have the power to curate their image however they want. The relationships they have with us, the audience, are entirely parasocial, so of course we base our judgments of them based on very limited knowledge, or just the surface-level view of what they’re like. I don’t know if Taylor is as down to earth and genuine as she appears to be now, and I honestly don’t need to know. If she does things I disagree with or acts a certain way that deserves criticism, of course I’d still call her out, and depending on the severity of what it was she said or did, it might end up with me not wanting to engage with her work anymore.

But the reality is, as a person, I’ve realized that she is just fine. I was holding on to a certain idea of her in my head where I think at one point I dubbed her “the Anne Hathaway of music”, meaning someone that comes across too perfect to the point where it seems calculated and disingenuous. But honestly, I just don’t feel that way about her anymore. I don’t feel particularly attached to her as a person, either. 

But I do feel an attachment to her music. At the end of the day, that’s where I’m standing now when it comes to her. I don’t have any expectations or delusions about her as a human being, and I’m not going to remain devoted to her if she does something dumb, but I believe that she is an insanely gifted artist who has written so many songs that genuinely speak to me and make me feel intensely. She lost me for a while, but now I’m right back in it.

So yeah, like I said in the beginning of the post, life’s too short to pretend to hate Taylor Swift. I’d rather just pretend to live in a mystical small town as a sad gay witch. And I’m at peace with that.

[fmdsuran]

✧ *･ﾟ HAVE YOU EVER encountered someone that looked like a goddess or a doll on the outside, but after taking the time to get to know them, you slowly begin to realize that where confidence should exist lies layers of insecurity, self-doubt, and sadness ? that, or have you ever met a person that was so fortunate and lucky in various ways, but can’t help but spiral into bouts of depression due to loneliness, and lack of genuine human connection ? have you ever listened to the iconic hit LUCKY BY BRITNEY SPEARS ? if you answered yes to all, or some, of these q’s, then you’ve already had a glimpse into the life and times of my precious princess, the stunning SEO SURAN —- lipstick’s sub rapper, sub vocal, and child actress turned idol ! if you don’t feel like reading her bio, i 100% feel you, fam, so i’ll do you a favor and provide you some fun facts below the cut that you can read up on ! what’s even better is that i’ll give you some plot ideas, too, to make plotting with me EVEN EASIER. with all that said, feel free to hit the heart in the corner to lmk if you’d like to plot with me, and if you do, i’ll love you foreva and eva ! oh, i almost forgot lmao... you all can call me ryan btw ! i’m 18+ and a self-proclaimed bad bih lol it’s nice to meet’cha 💋

B A C K S T O R Y —-

suran was born to a former screenwriter (current film/tv reviewer) and his wife, a full-time stay at home mother, in seoul, south korea. from a very young age, she was beckoned to be a critical thinker —- her friends often loathed watching cartoons with her as she’d judge them based on their animation, writing, and so on. all of them would say that she doesn’t just sit back and enjoy them because she’s been raised to ask questions and analyze creative work. however, this made her a great student when it came to school, and she developed a love for learning at a young age.

around the age of eight years old, she decided that she wanted to be an actress. after spending long hours studying how it was done by the men and women on tv, she had a hunch that she’d be able to do it with ease. then, not long after, with her father’s connections, she was able to make her acting début in a drama called ‘ballad of seodong’ —- a historical piece where she played the younger version of the drama’s main character, princess seonhwa of silla. after that, she went on to star in another drama, then after, two feature films; one of those being a main role for her!

needless to say, she was a hardworking child; one that made her mom and dad super proud. however, when her contract with the acting agency ended, she was approached by bc entertainment. they discovered a few options for her —- representing her as an actress was mentioned, but the other option they provided seemed slightly better to her. they made a deal with her that they’d give her an easy début in an idol group so she could make a bigger name for herself, and at the time, she didn’t see anything wrong with that and decided to accept, and soon after, in 2010, she became a bc trainee.

while she envisioned this to be a great time of learning and accomplishment, it was anything but —- the trainee lifestyle kind of really destroyed her. body dysmorphia tw there was constant talk about diet and beauty, and whenever she looked around her, she found that everyone else was so graceful and glamorous. she felt like she didn’t meet their standards, and she became anxious about it. she started to look in the mirror and hate her appearance. being that she wasn’t quite talented at singing and dancing, she knew that beauty and personality were going to have to be her tickets to debut, so she spent almost all the money she made as a child actress on cosmetic surgery. within the two year time span that she trained, she got her eyelids, forehead, nose, jawline, and breasts done.

bc entertainment found this brave of her, and after she’d fully recovered, they decided to take a chance on her and put her in the lineup of lipstick. they wanted to use her for visual appeal more than outward talent, and she became a spectacle; an ornament almost. she loved and hated all this attention.

a few years pass and bc helps her land her first acting gig in years, and she couldn’t be more excited. however, when it’s announced, and when it later airs, netizens began to realize that they had seen her name before, and they pulled up old photos of her as a kid in the dramas and movies she starred in. when they put two and two together and saw that she looked like a drastically different person now, they were appalled; calling her a fraud as she’s made comments in the past about natural health and beauty.

due to this, her performance in ‘discovery of love’ wasn’t regarded as anything special and she fell into a deep depression; realizing that her past insecurities only came to ruin her life in present day.

after that, she spent years in a dark depression and became disinterested in being an idol, in being in lipstick. so much pressure was put on her —- be beautiful, be thin, be effervescent on camera, be appealing to the masses... and when she couldn’t fulfill all of those, she felt hopeless; she felt like a failure. everyone seemed to hate her, and she was so regretful of all she’d done leading up to this point.

however, after a few years of suffering, bc finally guided her into another acting opportunity once negative talk of her died down to a slow simmer, and it helped rouse her from this slump for quite awhile. the filming process kept her distracted, and she loved the character she portrayed, and when it was announced to the public, they had mixed reactions. all of them wondered why they’d cast her, but when the show aired, it became a cultural phenomenon in all of korea. ‘goblin’ now sits as one of the nation’s highest rated televised dramas, and after watching her thrilling performance as the leading female role, netizens grew soft for her; their opinions completely changingh

this drastic change has been so good to her that she doesn’t even believe she deserves it. she’s grateful for it though, and would rather be seen as some sort of angel to the nation instead of a fraud. what stresses her out now though is the pressure to keep this image going. she’s terrified of what’d happen if she fell from grace again, so she’s constantly on her best behavior —- not wanting anymore scandals to ruin her.

overall, her personality is really sweet. there’s a coldness to her because she’s afraid of what people think of her initially, but once she warms up to you, she’ll be a great friend. she’s fiercely loyal and really just wants to be loved.

C O N N E C T I O N S —-

another child actress/actor who was friends with suran since they were signed under the same agency when they were little. now that they’re both idols, they’re taking it to mean that fate really wants their friendship to last forever, so they’re doing all they can to make that happen. must’ve been an active actor/actress from 2004-2010.

a person that she trained in bc with (2010-2012) that she was able to share her secrets and insecurities with, and every time she went under the knife, they were there for her. really, they would try to convince her that she was beautiful as is, but she had the worst time believing them due to her dysmorphia. however, they’re still friends to this day, and they’ll forever be confidantes.

someone who has no idea why she’s even in lipstick since she doesn’t have that much talent when it comes to singing and dancing. she doesn’t get a lot of lines in their songs, but somehow, manages to be center a lot and it infuriates them that she’s given any spotlight at all.

an ex-boyfriend of her that really didn’t give a shit about her and only really wanted her as arm candy, and once he realized she had a lot of baggage, broke up w her.

an ex-girlfriend from the rough period of her time as an idol (2014-2016) who she broke up with because she was too insecure, and felt she was undeserving of her love. they’re still lowkey soft for each other, but lord knows if they’ll get back together rip.

a current romantic interest of her’s (male preferred) who, for the first time in forever, is patient enough with her to stick around and helps her feel better about herself. however, he doesn’t want to make things official just yet and it makes her sad because she’s falling deep in love with him.

a girl who had her first lesbian/bi experience with suran that’s a bit obsessed with her because of it, but she doesn’t know how to tell them that she doesn’t feel the same way.

lots and lots of fwb plots, please! men, women, whatever... she likes sex.

someone that’s made her their muse, and often paints pictures of her, writes poetry about her, or whatever, but they’re too scared to tell her or show her what they’ve done.

a man who listed her as his ideal type, but it led to her getting backlash from his fans, so now their relationship is awkward and she’s scared to be seen in public with him lol.

a woman who she said was her ideal type as a joke, but she’s actually not joking at all and she desperately wants to get to know her better —- as friends or as fwbs or wtv.

people that help her with dancing, singing, and rapping! she’s not the worst that there is in the industry, but she still feels as though she’s lacking since she skated through training based on her looks alone. please help her tysm.

a younger man that she’s having a fwb relationship with and she loves spoiling him since he hasn’t paid off his debt from training yet, lol. make her a sugar mama pls.

really... i’m up for anything! so please let me know if none of these appeal to you so we can plot something else! love you all and thanks for reading!