tortured grace

I’m sorry but I feel like every time a major theory is buzzing around, Taylor cancels any release plans she might have had for that date. Especially for rep, I believe she wants to drop it at a super random unexpected moment because that’s exactly the fun as well as the exact point of reputation - no one was expecting it back in 2017 and no one will be expecting it now. “There will be no further explanation” e.g. no hints or theories. We can clown all we want for dates adding up and stars aligning and Easter eggs Easter egging but we might as well stop because the chances she’ll actually drop it on a date we’re clowning for are just super super slim IMO.

I think the reason it’s taking relatively long for reputation tv to be announced (while she’s clearly hyping us up for it by saving a new outfit and IDSB for the announcement) is because it’s the first album she wrote about Joe, and while she might have recorded the songs while they were still good, I feel it’s likely she didn’t and it’s taking a toll on her to sing these songs as if she still means the words, and the rollout will also obviously bring up memories since the vault tracks might very well be about him too. It’ll also be the first re-record she releases since getting serious with Travis (I think during the 1989 TV release they weren’t as serious as they are now) so she might want to take her time preparing him as well as herself. And honestly, good for her - the album will be absolutely LIT so it’s gonna be 100% worth the wait but I don’t want it if she’s not ready for it.

I feel like over the past few years, Taylor’s relationship with her fans has changed a lot. The last time she did meet and greets for fans was during the rep tour, the last time she hosted secret sessions was for Lover. After COVID, when folklore and evermore happened and launched her into a whole new level of fame, followed by the tremendous Midnights success, her position on the public scale changed so drastically with people following her and tracking her for clout, people demanding new stuff from her and treating her like a marionette, like a product, and feeling like they have the right to bring her down for everything they don’t agree with. Her relationship with the fans has always been super important for her, but I feel like lately she has been diving deeper into her artistry rather than her relatability. She’s still very grateful and fond of small forms of interactions, for example the 22 hat, but she’s not putting us as center stage as she used to. I think people saying this is the reason she scrapped Long Live from the set list again are right. That song is precious for all the fans that have stood by her since the beginning, but it’s also from an era in which Taylor was a lot more naive as well as a lot more controlled in terms of image, and we’ve seen over the years that people who don’t agree with her true self will gladly bash her. I think she has evolved as an artist in such a sense that she’s now protecting herself more. If she wanted to, she could still do meet and greets and secret sessions with higher levels of security, but she chooses not to because she has chosen a distance that makes her feel safe and also enables her to focus on her art, on what she has to say about how she really feels when she lets go of fear of receptions, and she is on such a huge pedestal now that she actually can afford to do that too. It’s sad in a way, but she’s not the girl with a 13 on her hand and big dreams that we could all let into our hearts because she did 13 hour meet and greets and brought fans backstage anymore. She’s a megastar who has paid a very very high price to get where she is, and the only way for her to keep doing that is not to grow thicker skin but to protect herself from hurt. And I’m proud of her for that and confident she’ll always find new little ways to stay connected to us, while still keeping her personal and artistic integrity.

I keep thinking about “all is fair in love and poetry” and how it reflects on her theme of brutal honesty on this album. as a poet myself, I can confirm that our poems is where we just spit out everything, uncensored, unfiltered, without concerning ourselves with whether it’s reasonable or not, and I feel like that’s exactly what she’s done here. the full truth. no restrictions, no rules, no censorship, no bylines or explanations, no nuance, just pure, raw, brutal honesty. and I think that’s what makes this into such a piece of craftsmanship.

I have a theory about the trpd set on tour: she came up with multiple concepts for multiple songs, rehearsed them all and then waited until after the release of the album to see which songs would generate buzz from people. like, fortnight is the obvious choice since it’s the single, but you’re not telling me it’s coincidence that the exact songs that are doing really well on TikTok are getting added to the set list… like, she totally saw people’s reactions to the so high school bridge (why else would she sing EXACTLY the bridge part? ) and their covers of the smallest man who ever lived beige, and the twerks to down bad and the praise for who’s afraid of little old me. like, for down bad I’d say it was a tie with guilty as sin for popularity, and I can do it with a broken heart was practically a given too because it’s so upbeat and OBVIOUSLY she wanted to do but daddy I love him because that song just SCREAMS how proud she is, but yeah, I definitely think she wanted to see what the album would do and had stuff planned to implement other songs should they have performed better.

trpd is for the fans that love daylight, exile, ivy, cowboy like me, the archer, labyrinth, the Great War, Carolina, sad beautiful tragic, this love, suburban legends, my tears ricochet and come in with the rain

the parallel between fresh out the slammer as a whole and ‘you deserve prison but you won’t get time’ is so insane, like he was her liberation from imprisonment until he himself committed a crime against her :(

what makes the smallest man who ever lived’a bridge so insanely good is the way her vocals sound both insanely angry and so utterly heartbroken because of the betrayal from that one person she bestowed her hope upon and that furious sadness is so so powerful

I love it so so much how Taylor chooses to tell the stories of women that have long been forgotten by history, if they ever made it. Who had ever heard of Rebelah Harkness before tlgad? Who remembered Clara Bow before the song? I’m sure they’re both not entirely forgotten but I have never ever heard anyone in the general public talk about them the way people like Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe were talked about, and there’s also her grandmother Marjorie. I sincerely hope she will continue to use her storytelling for this.

right now my ‘on repeat’ playlist contains songs from speak now tv and 1989 tv as well as midnights and ttpd and the whiplash the shuffle can cause is real

what makes ttpd such an incredible masterpiece is that it’s the madhouse where you go after the dollhouse, the fever dream, the tantrums and breakdowns because you don’t care anymore, the giving way to wrath and rage, the breaking free after having submitted to what people want from you for way too long and having been a willful prisoner, the reclaiming after sacrificing, the lashing out after having been leashed, the accepting of feelings you used to not want to have, the dealing with what was never okay to begin with, the actual escape after the wistful escapism, the coming to terms with having come undone, the saying goodbye, the letting go of trying, the speaking out after keeping quiet, the embracing desire after having kept up decorum, the putting the resentment to rest, the freely processing in all the ugly ways and then finally being discharged because you’re ready to start over

it’s me, hi, I’m a tortured poet

I feel like people are so quick to call a relationship toxic or abusive when it comes to Taylor - like? Just because it didn’t work out doesn’t mean it was bad? I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, Joe was probably exactly what she needed at a certain time in her life and he probably also taught her a lot, but when push came to shore, she changed and evolved and their differences came out which is okay. Like obviously her relationships with John and Jake were pretty shitty and yeah there’s always a reason for breaking up but that can be as simple as things not working anymore. Also: WE DONT KNOW.

just realizing now that is it over now has the ‘uh uh’ that sounds like clean as well as the melody that sounds lkke you are in love and I don’t know what to do with that