theswift-effect

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(I just remembered I posted this on Reddit like seven months ago and just completely forgot about it since. what do you think?)

listening to TTPD from start to finish multiple times I kind of built this story based on the main album's songs.

the very first song, fortnight, starts out with "I was supposed to be sent away / but they forgot to come and get me", an obvious reference to Hits Different and "have they come to take me away". Now, what if she was wrong? what if they did come and get her and she was taken to the psych ward, but she's still too deep in denial that she can't even accept it? the other lyrics, the music video and even the eras tour performance hint at this.

the album is kicked off by an introduction to the setting, followed by thirteen other accounts of a broken relationship, heartbreak and, at times, hope, so we have fourteen total visions of the whole affair and of the events prior and consequential. a fortnight of sleepless nights, if you will 👀. fourteen bursts of incredible songwriting, fourteen moments of introspection and of looking back. in short, girlie pop got sent to the mental hospital for a fortnight and had the most powerful, inspiring manic episode ever.

it all ends with the smallest man who ever lived, a rage-filled, potent spike of anger that leaves her empty of regret and that essentially signals the end of her therapeutic recovery. After this, she's discharged, and she's free to go. the fifteenth song, the alchemy, tells the story of how she's recovering from the whole experience ("what if i told you i came back? / the hospital was a drag") and how her new-found love is helping her rediscover the joy of a healthy relationship.

Clara Bow is an account of what is going to be left of her to whoever comes after: another name said by people to compare new young artists to, a legacy that has set the foundations for the newcoming generation of singers and songwriters. it's a testament to the work she made and that no one could ever undo.

So, she's out. she's free, and she has her lover right beside her. what of the anthology?

the fifteen songs inside it are what she wrote in the hospital. they are all the things that she had to get out of her system while processing the major traumas her last relationship gave her, but that were never meant to see the light of day. they are about much older events and people, about things that didn't happen recently but that left her scarred, that needed to be said but only made it when she was going through such a tough time. they were a forgotten manuscript at the bottom of a cardboard box, gathering dust until one faithful night, when, at two in the morning, nostalgia and regret hit. "what keeps you up at night?", if not the past that came haunting you so many years after?

(i also do not, in any way, imply that this is the actual storyline of the album!! it's just a fun coincidence I found interesting and wanted to work a bit more on. I'm also not saying that she was actually sent to a mental health institution cause that's just wild 😭)

That’s a really interesting way of reading the story! Almost like a series of interconnected vignettes or short stories.

I think Fortnight is a brilliant prologue to the album, because it covers pretty much all the themes in the suburban gothic nightmare. It’s very “Two households, both alike in dignity / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.” I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about it all over again.

And I also love the music video so much, and wish we could have had more visual content like it, because the hospital/experiment metaphor is one of my favourites that she’s done I think.

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Wasn’t expecting to update this post joever in 2024 but here we go! Lol

Taylor and Joe!!!

Reputation Magazine Polaroids Masterpost !!

1. The famous pink wig

(Sessioners confirm that this is NOT the one they saw but it's cute nonetheless)

2. New Years Party dressed as Snowmen

I think the caption reads - New Years 2017

3. Taylor and Joe kissing (i love her hoodie)

4. Taylor with Joe and Patrick

They're so cute🥺

4. Sexy photos

I think the caption reads 'Gorgeous beginnings' which @bisluthq and @youareinlovees think is an inside joke and I agree!!

5. The Joe selfie (i think the one next to is it a kitchen photo where the caption reads love --, maybe it's a Cornelia Street Polaroid 🥺)

6. I think the black one is a Tay Joe selfie with Taylor and Joe wearing cute party hats🥳

The pink one looks like a dinner date photo

And the mustard one i am pretty sure it's Taylor, Joe posing in front of a fountain

7. Photos with friends (i think it's Taylor, Joe and Abigail)

8. The pink one is another kissing photo

The green one looks like she has temporary green dye in her hair?! Looks very billie esque

The orange one looks like another cute kissing picture (joe's hair is to die for) courtesy @youareinlovees

The violet one looks like the same woods that we saw in the reputation magazine

The yellow one looks like Taylor posing near a lake (maybe the lakes?)

9. Randoms

Olivia (her cat) makes a cameo, and the right hand one is clearly her hugging someone

I have hit the 10 image limit unfortunately, but i will make a part 2 if i get enough material

It's safe to conclude that Taylor truly is doing better than she ever was

Thanks for suggesting this @youareinlovees, your wish is my command

All suggestions, comments are welcome!!

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The “you know I left a part of my back in New York” to “I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath” pipeline—

Something about how New York symbolized freedom and rebirth and adulthood and the then-summit of her career until it crumbled and London became the at-first necessary retreat from the world when it got to be too much to bear.

And the part of herself she left in New York symbolically could have been the part of her that still craved the attention, the performing, the superstardom, that she felt like she had to abandon to live her life. Among all the other questions about “hoax” about a painful betrayal, the questioning in the bridge is like, I left this part of me behind to make this work and you knew what it cost me, but you still did what you did. So I gave up this part of my life to make a life with you, and in the end you still betrayed me and metaphorically (or actually) abandoned me along with it.

Again not saying this is right or that that’s what hoax is about but just noting an interesting thematic parallel etc.

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okay wait i want to dispute some things from the imgonnagetyouback anon:

“I’m an Aston Martin that you steered straight into a ditch, then ran and hid" - talking about him running after the mess last summer, agreed

“Say you got somebody, I’ll say I got someone too” - I actually think this is a reference to Joe, because I think they started to reconnect when she was working on Midnights, didn't they?

“we broke all the pieces but still want to play the game. Told my friends I hate you but I love you just the same” - confessing she stills loves him even after everything, agreed, but I don't think this is indicative of how she feels NOW, this just shows how she was feeling at the time that they were "playing games" with each other.

“bygones will be bygone eras faded into grey” - talking about trying again once the tour ends - hard disagree with this. "bygones" are past things, a "bygone era" is a period of time in the past. I take the "faded into gray" to mean that she's letting it STAY in the past. Also, it's a play on words, because to "let bygones be bygones" means to forgive or move on from something.

and ends with “I’m gonna get you back" - which is also a play on words because it could mean she wants him back romantically, or it could mean "I'll get you back for what you did."

she has moved on from MH since TTPD was completed.

that’s an interesting analysis, and I could definitely see it. I’m still inclined to think it’s about joe, though, simply because the tone feels different to me than the songs about getting back together with joe. it’s playful and sexy, but it’s also vengeful. she had no reason to want to smash up matty’s bike, you know? to me, it’s a song about the time they basically broke up (hits different + ‘there was a litany of reasons why we could’ve played for keeps *this time* in mbobhft), and she got him back. she’s talking to someone who acted like he didn’t want her, but she says she knows better. we see that she feels unwanted by joe a lot on ttpd.

to me, the first six songs on the anthology basically tell a chronological story where the relationship on the main album doesn’t happen.

- she breaks up with joe and is absolutely devastated because she feels like he doesn’t miss her (the black dog)

- she gets back together with him because he did, in fact, miss her (imgonnagetyouback)

- discusses the implications of being with someone as famous as her—which we know was a point of contention in their relationship—and promises to protect her lover (the albatross)

- she confesses to wondering about an old flame but lets it stay buried because reconnecting is only ‘cooler in theory’ anyway (chloe et al)

- her relationship with joe ends and she’s bereaved (how did it end)

- she finds someone who makes her feel young and happy instead of idk insane (so high school)

on track 7, she confesses that she’s been daydreaming about an alternate reality this entire time because she feels like she might die otherwise (I hate it here). from that point on, she starts to discuss her present reality (I look in people’s windows, the prophecy) and goes backwards in time to figure out how she got to where she is.

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It’s weird to me when people try to put really hard boundaries on what cheating is in any relationship when the real question isn’t “do most people agree this is cheating?” but “does this hurt my current partner or make them uncomfortable?”

Like, the fact of the matter is, you’re going to date people who have different boundaries and the goal should be to communicate with them rather than try and logic your way into doing what you want.

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Headcanon : travis knows “beacoup” because he and taylor did duolingo together for the paris shows !

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I fail to see how Taylor marketed the album as joever when all she said was it was in the works for 2 years (and imo the earlier songs are probably the ones with Aaron that are more abstract or her as a storyteller of other people's stories with some self insert, and there were probably songs similar to ylm that didn't make the album cause it wasn't a messy breakup for her to experience, it was a long and slow demise that she pulled the plug on and ran into something passionate and ultimately toxic).

People still say the name is making fun of Joe's group chat but did anyone listen to the song TTPD with their ears on and still believe that (I'm looking at the sunday times style interviewer with Joe right now lol). She's making fun of her and Matty being wanker tortured poets imo lol. Like the typewriter is from TTPD where they sell their sadness and madness. If she said 'you left your playbook at my house straight from the Kansas training grounds ' it wouldn't be any more or less deep, you left your shit from work here. But it seems to be written as a love song in present tense, so she loved his little tortured poets but even if she thought it was silly. But then she DID fall victim to sadness and madness that he was a catalyst for and wrote fucking poetry about it and turned into a caricature of herself and how writers have been stereotyped but instead of hiding from it she just went 'fine I guess I'm the chairman of TTPD now! Lock me up, lock your doors and warn your children about me! Put me in an asylum! Study my brain because no one understands why I'm feeling this way so fucking study me! Give me an MRI and see what's going on in there because I don't fucking know either maybe there's an alien artifact buried in my brain because what else can explain this manic phase other than aliens or actual illness...??? Isn't that what they all say...*smirks*

That's how I see it anyway lol

I like this take and it’s also kinda how I see it! I think TTPD went through many iterations btw before we got to the anthology.

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She was wearing a double T ring

omg 🥹

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I’m just here unable to fathom anything! 10 month anniversary - 10 months sober. The surprise songs ending everything that came before and she’s clean. Travis literally coming out on the damn stage to carry her over to do ICDIWABH because he’s mended it. Like this is everything! 😭😭😭 I need us to debrief and we haven’t even gotten the engagement announcement yet!

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The necklace is at 3.35 (let’s assume london time) so should we clown about something at 10.35 pm est this Thursday?

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Five fave TTPD songs so far?

Oooh such a good question (in no particular order)

1. Prophecy

2. Down bad

3. Florida!!!

4. The black dog

5. The bolter

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Ok but I’m still gagged by the choice of the white dress covered in her spilled ink for the TTPD set.

The way it’s almost certainly meant to reference a wedding gown just like the music video and how that ties into the narrative of TTPD in general.

The way so many of these songs are about how she’s been wronged and how she’s angry.

The striking image of her floating around on stage unleashing her anger in Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me, or her collapsed on the platform in Down Bad begging to be beamed back up to the space ship. Very much giving dying on the altar waiting for the proof (in both meanings). She’s the jilted lover and the runaway bride. She’s the old widow who goes to the stone everyday and she’s the girl heading towards a shotgun wedding if she keeps this up. She's the unhappily married woman whose life is turned upside down by a man beyond her reach, with the chasm between them widening the longer the set goes on. And then!!! she's taken away (held back?) by the nurses at the asylum -- the crazy wife being committed for hysteria!!! (Actually I don't know what order that comes in in the set -- I'm going to have to find better videos.)

She said that the TTPD set is Female Rage: The Musical, and a lot of that is "I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free." She sacrificed her youth to her demons and to people who never had her best interest at heart. She sacrificed her youth to bad actors who wanted to ruin her. She sacrificed her youth to men who traded promises of commitment for their own safety.

So to see that all symbolized in the white gown, saying "I love you, it's ruining my life," is so powerful. By the time we get to "The Smallest Man," she's covered up in the band (or army dress?) uniform, those dreams finally dead and buried, marching to her own memorial service. They all finally kill her, and her dreams of her future.

IT'S A LOT. A LOT A LOT A LOT.

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@endlessnamelesseternity @jupiter-suggestion @filmnoirsbian @firstfullmoon

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Thinking a lot about how Taylor writes about fathers on TS TTPD (particularly in comparison to ways she has in the past). In But Daddy I Love Him, she starts out defiant but her dream is for her dad to come around and support her and her wild boy and fuck the rest of the world. And in The Bolter her father is the only one who adores her. Add that to the way she talked about dads during the seven speech last year while she making the record, and it feels like Scott may have been one her best friends last year. Just a fountain, so to speak, while everything else was draining her.

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my interpretation of the mv (apparently unpopular):

> the mv starts with her locked in a hospital (her then relationship). the dress she is wearing resembles a wedding dress (i died on the altar waiting for the proof);

> she takes the “miracle move on drug” and removes the makeup over her tattoos (marks of an old affair). the “miracle move on drug” she takes to get over her long-term partner is her getting emotionally involved with someone from the past. she enters a room with typewriters in a black victorian dress - could mean her mourning her relationship while she was still in it. she starts writing to her old affair (post with tattoos (the same marks she had when she took off her makeup in the hospital)) while he does the same. it’s a mutual pining;

(for me the following scenes of post without tattoos are supposed to be her long-term partner. these are flashbacks of her relationship)

> they are happy until they are not. suddenly they are looking at each other with resentment (while she sings “my husband is cheating”);

> cuts to an experiment laboratory. she is about to be electrocuted, lobotomized, whatever so she can get over that partner;

> the old affair sees that she is in pain - could mean that she had someone there for her emotionally while her partner emotionally neglected her - and stops that. implies that even if he had good intentions, bc of him she actually couldn’t properly get over that partner and just put on a temporary bandaid (her feelings for the old affair). he didn’t let her process that breakup properly;

> in the next take she’s in the rain (could mean the end of her long-term relationship or at least the final stages of it) and he’s calling her. she is ignoring him;

> cuts to shots of her again in that black dress that represents the mourning of her long-term relationship. she is a mess. there are papers floating all over the room - could be the songs she wrote about that long-term partner over the years and their story (so long, london’s spotify canvas is from this part of the video);

> he (the old affair) can finally reach her in person. she finally accepts him.

i suppose that’s where the narrative she tells on the album would begin.

I think you're very close with this interpretation and it shouldn't be an unpopular opinion

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Something about the theme of growing up precocious and then being stunted: “sometimes growing up precocious means not growing up at all”; “I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere”; precocious child references on I Hate it Here and The Bolter; compared with Dear Reader - “never take advice from someone who’s falling apart”; “you wouldn’t take my word for it if you knew who was talking”; “you should find another guiding light.” The world’s wise older sister, who has hand held a generation of through their heartbreaks and their comings of age forcing us to reckon with the truth that every wise older sister offering advice and lessons learned is still just a person who is still figuring her own life out.

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The analogy of Matty as a “forget him” pill in the Fortnight video and “I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary” is the heart of it I feel. If you had to have an extremely painful surgery and could choose to go medicated or not, what would you pick? She had to end things with Joe but she couldn’t bring herself to do it for years because she knew the pain of actually losing him would be too much to bear, and along comes this person peddling that he can take away all the pain. He sells her a story about how he is the great love of her life, that he’s never forgotten her all this time, that it was supposed to be them all along. He can give her everything she can’t bear to let go of. And who wouldn’t want to believe that, when the alternative is … the love that you thought was forever just ends and there’s nothing and no one? So she does it, she takes the pill, she has the surgery, only to find he was selling not just snake oil but poison that leaves her far worse off than she was in the beginning. She feels all the pain of the surgery and the side effects of the drug in one fell swoop.