#wefil

[new-york-no-shoes]

Ok I absolutely LOVE that she felt comfortable singing this the literal day it came out ! Idt that even a year or two ago Taylor would’ve played a song to a crowd of 70k if she feared most didn’t know the words yet. 1989 Taylor sure as hell wouldn’t have. And I’m obsessed with this growth for her

[shining-like-fireworks13]

WHEN EMMA FALLS IN LOVE | TANGLED

[theangrypomeranian]

[roublardise]

When Emma Falls in Love - a comphet reading

i use "she" not to directly analyse Taylor's thoughts, but as a common narrator, unidentified and fictional, for all her songs.

Ever since I listened to 'WEFIL', it's been spinning in my head like a Proust' madeleine, a door sending me back to my own teenage years of ~ compulsory heterosexuality ~ So here's some more or less organized thoughts that I need to put down somewhere.

It all comes down to the "I wish I was her"

.

It seems pretty obvious for many sapphics (and I've seen it discussed a few times) that it resonates easily with the experience of not knowing if you want to be her, or be with her.

As always, Taylor Swift's songs are a portrait of patriarchy, and here, imo, it describes this particular mix of internalized misogyny and internalized lesbophobia. With the way women are put one against another, it can be complicated to make sense of one's feelings towards other women.

"I wish I was her" can be a way to make sense of strong feelings that dont't quite fit with best friendship. but what else could it be? if not a competition spirit you're ashamed to feel towards one of your best friend.

It's a step towards realizing you're longing not to be her, but to be him.

.

That being said, there's another layer there that I haven't seen discussed but which is even more screaming "teenage sapphic" to me.

Yeh, "I wish I was her" can be a way to disguise, or to understand, feelings you don't know how to make sense of otherwise. But "I wish I was her" can also be taken in its literal sense.

Specifically around this part:

when Emma falls in love, I'm learning

.

She wants to be her in the way she falls in love, per example:

In the way Emma commits

'Cause when Emma falls in love, she's in it for keeps She won't walk away unless she knows she absolutely has to leave

when can parallel this line in the same album, with 'Back to December' where she regrets walking away:

And then the cold came, the dark days when fear crept into my mind You gave me all your love and all I gave you was "Goodbye"

But even a bit later, in 'Getaway car', there's this idea of wanting to leave the relationship even if there's no real reason behind it, even if the guy is perfectly fine.

I wanted to leave him I needed a reason

In the way Emma feels

She won't lose herself in love the way that I did

With this line, she's clearly referencing past love of hers that she compares with Emma's. It reminds me of 'The Way I loved You', where again, she compares a love that's more mesured, that looks perfect, to one in which she actually feels things, almost in a destroying-way but surely in a way she feels alive:

You're so in love that you act insane And that's the way I loved you Breaking down and coming undone It's a roller coaster kind of rush

With these two ideas, she's distancing herself from a certain idea of love that she sees as a "right" way, a love that "fits right in the palm of [their] hands" and she wishes she could experience.

.

So.. the queer reading comes by itself at this point.

To me, the mere idea of thinking you can learn how to love, is a clear manifestation of comphet. (Straight) love is something you are supposed to do, and there is a right way to do it that the narrator fails to perform. And when it doesn't come naturally for you, when you realize what you feel isn't how you should (see again, The Way I Loved You), you're lead to question why that is and wonder what you should do instead. By over-anaylizing other girls' relationships with boys, per example.

.

The narrator is incapable of committing to a relationship with a man, and is always describing straight relationships as stories and scenarios. As boxes to check, again in 'The Way I Loved you':

He says everything I need to hear and it's like I couldn't ask for anything better (...) 'Cause I'm not feeling anything at all

He fits perfectly the concept of a relationship, but there're no feelings involved.

Relationships don't seem to be the problem per se, as she does describe intense love! She "loses herself in love", in something so strong and hard to control - which, yet, isn't how it should be.

What comes from WEFIL are these ideas of what's right and wrong when it comes to love, which of course comes back to what's seen as "normal". The fear of not feeling like you think you should can be read as a shift in between what you're taught, what you see in the stories feeding your fantasies, and what you're actually experiencing.

A lot of Taylor Swift's music is about real life not being like stories. See 'White Horse''s:

I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairytale

What makes it more specifically about internalized lesbophobia to me, in the case of WEFIL, in this depiction of another girl and boy getting together. She's disconnecting herself from, not only one love story, but from the whole idea of "girl meets boy"

She's singing her longing to be like Emma, not to be with her boyfriend that she barely describes, but to be straight. All while praising Emma's whole personnality... Yeh, I can see you.

[taylor-on-your-dash]

wait so emma fell in love right?

When Emma Falls In Love tells the story of patterns of behaviour. it lists the things that Emma does *when* she falls in love. so yeah, I'd say that she fell in love, multiple times.

let's analyse the lyrics:

when Emma falls in love / she paces the floor / closes the blinds and locks the door / she calls up her mom / jokes about the ways that this one could go wrong / She waits and takes her time / 'Cause Little Miss Sunshine always thinks it's gonna rain

Emma did fall in love but what is she doing? she feels the need to be alone in her house, reflecting on what's going on. she only trusts her mom with her feelings (I'd love to know what Emma's mom thinks tbh). she also overthinks a lot and thinks that it will not go well (=she thinks it's gonna rain)

When Emma falls in love, it's all on her face / Hangs in the air like stars in outer space / When Emma falls in love, she disappears / And we all just laugh after seein' it all these years

now things have progressed: Emma is not reclusive anymore and she's letting her feelings show up more. it's like the aura that you have when you're in love, you know? people around you can sense that you're happy. another thing that Emma does is dedicate all of her attention to her new lover, neglecting her friends. i wouldn't say that this is the healthiest behaviour ever, but her friends know her well and are not concerned cause she has done it before.

When Emma falls apart, it's when she's alone / She takes on the pain and bears it on her own / 'Cause when Emma falls in love, she's in it for keeps / She won't walk away unless she knows she absolutely has to leave

the boy she was in love with just wasn't the one and things fell apart. Emma just wants to heal on her own. notice how in the first verse she wanted to be alone but there was the element of novelty and excitement due to meeting someone new, but in this verse, Emma just wants to be alone to lick her wounds. we also learn that Emma is a passionate person who isn't looking for situationships or dating casually: she wants to find the love of her life and is determined to fight for the relationship until she just can't anymore.

She won't lose herself in love the way that I did / 'Cause she'll call you out, she'll put you in your place / When Emma falls in love, I'm learning

here Taylor compares herself to Emma. i'm not exactly sure what Taylor is referencing here (John?) but she's learning from Emma that she has to stand up for herself and assert herself.

[ts-song-tournament]

When Emma Falls in Love vs We Were Happy

[cruell-summers]

WHEN EMMA FALLS IN LOVE 😭😭😭😭😭

[elliedafish]

The closest I can get to feeling like an Emma is Taylor partially saying my last name in a lyric of her song. 😭

[iwatcheditbegin]

Some of the acronyms are just ugly

[lucreziaces]

the acronym for “when emma falls in love” is literally the funniest abbreviation for a taylor song we’ve ever had? it’s literally “wefil”

[new-york-no-shoes]

NOT THE VAULT ALREADY !!!!!!!!! WHEN EMMA FALLS IN LOVE !!! 💜💜💜

[cheerysontop]

hi everyone, sorry for being dead for the past month. my life is still a mess but my mental health is doing a lot better (turns out exercise is actually good for that) so I'm back to working on wefil and will (hopefully) have it updated by this weekend. on that note, would anyone be open to being my beta reader? the plot is finally starting to thicken and I feel like I should get some sort of quality control lol.

[theangrypomeranian]

*soft gasp*

I know how I wanna start the book ahhhhhhhh

[roublardise]

when emma falls in love - taylor swift // loving boys - roublardise

the thing is. yeh.

[youareinlove]

weird Roman Empire thought: the Emma in When Emma Falls in Love is no one and it is really Taylor writing about what she thinks it’s like to fall in true love (and based on how she seems to be lately, she nailed it).

it's both! she's talking about her friend emma as in emma stone, but also herself, because the song is saying "we're the same but you figured it out and found something that works and i didn't"