This Photo Is So Absolutely Gorgeous (cardiff On June 18, 2024)

My neck my back.

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

vanityfair via Instagram: TIFF (Taylor’s Version) 🪩 Grammy award winner and ‘All Too Well’ director #TaylorSwift stopped by V.F.‘s official portrait studio. (Photographed by @sebkimstudio)

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.

dont play defense

1989 (Taylor's Version) | October 27, 2023

Birkenstock 'Arizona Sandal in Habana' - $130.00

It’s my hope that the cornerstone ethos of TSS is to provide my Critically Kind commentary on Taylor’s fashion; both the overt and more subtle meanings and messages she sends through curating her stylish image as well as my personal takes on the ‘fits themselves.

And because I can’t be Critical or Kind about Birks, file this under: Caption Cannot be Found.

Worn with: Forever 21 sweater and Agolde shorts

I've been breakin' hearts a long time

TAYLOR SWIFT @ The 65th GRAMMY Awards on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.  

TAYLOR SWIFT ― Attends the MTV Europe Music Awards 2022 held at PSD Bank Dome on November 13, 2022 in Duesseldorf, Germany.

I just know that when Romeo and Juliet premiered two ye olde girlies in the pit at intermission were like didst thou see the sparks betwixt Tybalt and mercutio… aye and not from their swords alone!