[clown Shoes Squeaking]

There’s this ableist idea that the default is for people to have zero disabilities and mental illnesses. That’s why there’s a concept of there being “too many diagnoses” - because people totally assume there’s like, a Perfectly Normal Human to begin with and that that idealized body has zero brain issues or disabilities.

And that’s so wrong. That’s just as wrong as assuming non-intersex, cishet middle-class white guys are the Perfectly Normal Human of which everyone else is an imperfect copy.

We’re not made from a mould. We have endless variations and they aren’t divergence from some Perfectly Normal Copy, they’re literally the way life functions. There is no perfect copy. There are only variations, some of which have the privilege of being normalized.

But privileged people see themselves as the default, and “too many differences” can seem “made up” to them, because they’re not used to relating to people who are different. Unfortunately we mentally ill/disabled people absorb this idea too and it’s really hard to unlearn it when we’re stuck in a society that’s constantly reinforcing it.

We have to be gentle with ourselves and with each other and work on normalizing variations like mental illnesses, disabilities, etc., so the focus can be on meeting the needs of people who have them instead of just surviving ableism.

is this the end of all the endings? my broken bones are mending

she's my celebrity free pass call that a taylor shaped hole in my ethics

♫ But now that we’re done and it’s over I bet you couldn’t believe When you realized I’m harder to forget than I was to leave And I bet you think about me ♫

I cannot believe cowboy like me exists. I cannot believe she wrote a whole song about telling people what they want to hear for money. I cannot believe she refers to her pursuit of fame and fortune as the work of a bandit. A hustle. I can’t believe she refers to the love she gave to men she had dated in the past as swindling them. I can’t believe she wrote a whole song about a partnership that nobody will ever be able to prove was real or not and if they ever do she’ll be long gone with the money and all we will have left is the story in the songs. I cannot believe she referred to that partnership as a con. I cannot believe

I am dusting off my little blog here because TTPD has my mind absolutely reeling. I am really wondering if anyone else listened to this and had this feeling that the album confirmed everything that they were thinking was going on with her. I know we talk so much about reading her songs beneath the surface of muses or certain details used to craft a story, but to me, TTPD reads so strongly of her reckoning with her life in the industry. like, it's so much more than the relationships. it's the comp het, it's the religious trauma, it's the being exploited as a child star, it's deep wound of abandonment and neglect when she as a person got split off from her brand and both could not thrive, it's giving everything to this brand and career and fandom and that still never being enough. it's her codependency with the very people that exploit her. it's the fact that she is bigger than she ever imagined and none of it feels how she wanted. it's the simultaneous love and resentment she has towards her family, and relationships, and career, and yes, even her fans.

the rawness of this album, the unrefined feel, the summation poem talking about this as mania, the continuation of the cage imagery and themes of escaping to her mind/fantasy, the coping with criticism, numbing it all with alcohol, the willingness to burn it all down and disgrace her name because none of this is what she wants or at least not how she wants.

I have seen so many criticisms of the album and honestly, I understand where they are coming from, but I also think the things they criticize make the exact point of what this body of work is - something that exists for it's own sake to turn things back on the people that made her into what she is now. art created not to be acclaimed but because it demands to be expressed. it is an exorcism, an expulsion. it is something that erupted from her. and it's so meta because this fandom and the industry are voyeurs in an echo chamber so desperate to see what they want that they miss that this is about them. that is what makes it brilliant to me - it is self-indulgent and metaphorical, and complex, and so direct, but yet still masked just enough that people miss it. her entire life has become performance art. it is a play within a play. and I fear the audience has not caught on.

it feels like she is reclaiming it all. I feel like this could either be a hint at a new beginning or a signal that she has broken and this is the end. this felt like the tell-all memoir written in code that everyone else will finally understand when she really leaves this spotlight. it's the lucky one come to life. she is daydreaming about fucking it all and leaving this life behind so she can finally have some goddamn peace.

I love this album for it as art. it is so expressive. it is so heartbreaking. it's messy and nuanced, and I think it is going way the fuck over most people's heads, especially when you really dig into poetry being the theme and the specific works she references. it's only been a week and I am just starting to really dig in but talk about a fucking iceberg.

TAYLOR SWIFT attends the 2021 BRIT Awards

she is risen 🙏