#this post made in honour of my friend who is dealing with her shitty ex rn and when i checked his instagram he had

[airbrushfather]

bee tee dubs if anyone's feeling shitty atm just remember you're super sexy and super cool and you dress so nice and if there's someone out there making you feel shitty then they're wearing shitty outfits and their hair looks dumb and their vibes are atrocious. you have cooler shoes and everything.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Personally I want her to continue discussing her own creations and how creating and redidicating her love songs to her new guy feels and the problem with muses and how her exe guy was put on such a high pedistel but it was all an illusion and he kinda didn't deliver et cetera. Frankly for TTPD i was expecting at least one "our love was gold but now you're hearts tin" metaphor.

anon tbh I wasn't going to answer this because like I've said before, I really don't want to get into the muses of it all in that way here because I don't think there's anything to add to the conversation (definitely not for me anyway). Which isn't to say you or other people can't feel that way and talk about it, to be clear! Just not what I want to talk about on my blog for the most part.

BUT, while on the first listen or two of TTPD I was surprised that there wasn't more, let's say, overt reference to a certain muse, like I said in this post last night, he is all over the album in the subtext. And frankly, I think there is actually quite a bit of reference in the album to some of the themes you mention, even if it's metaphor at times.

The idealizing of the muse but it coming crashing down? I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift. I founded the club she's heard great things about. You say I abandoned the ship but I was going down with it. Handcuffed to the spell I was under for just one hour of sunshine. My friends tried, but I wouldn't hear it, watched me daily disappearing for just one glimpse of his smile. He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsmen.

Didn't deliver on promises made and the implosion of their plans? Say it once again with feeling how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving, the deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling. Years of labor, locks and ceilings, in the shade of how he was feeling. I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath. So how much sad did you think I had in me? How much tragedy? You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof. (Honourable mention: How long could we be a sad song 'til we were too far gone to bring back to life? And I wouldn't marry me either, a pathological people pleaser who only wanted you to see her. Do something, babe, say something.)

There's so much there about love gone cold. I stopped CPR, after all it's no use, the spirit was gone, we would never come to. Splintered back in winter, silent dinners, bitter, he was with her in dreams. Gray and blue and fights and tunnels. And so a touch that was my birthright became foreign.

I don't doubt she's going to be processing that relationship and its end for awhile, mot because she's hung up on it but because it was just a huge growth experience she'll be unpacking as she gains more distance from it. (Just the same way she's unpacked the Jake relationship from "chaotic first true love" to "problematic first adult relationship" to something... darker.) And it may show up in other music, sure. But my impression from the album, and especially from the epilogue and from the various posts about it, is that she isn't keen on hashing things out to such a direct degree in the future. I could be totally wrong, but I got the feeling that with TTPD she was closing the book on that. (I have some guesses as to why, but they're not needed here and again veer into the parasocial I think. The very abridged cliff notes version of it is: they went through a lot together and were both dealing with their own shit separately and as a couple over the years, and while that doesn't excuse any way she was treated, I think it's more nuanced in her mind than "he was a shitty boyfriend and I'm mad".)

It's kind of like some of her other relationships and experiences: I don't doubt those feelings and the way those feelings have evolved will show up in future music. I just don't expect it to show up in a "now that I'm in a healthy relationship where I feel supported and cherished FUCK YOU [insert name here]". I'm exaggerating but you get the point.

(not criticizing you anon or anyone else, just saying-- this isn't something I particularly want to contribute to)