Megan's Chart

Vampire: Black leather jackets and sunglasses, night owl, blood-red lipstick and black eye shadow, deep kisses, mysterious,  is a picky eater, intelligent and witty, buys old stuff for “the aesthetic”, wants to see the world, is a wine-person, can do a perfect snarl, eye-rolls at stupid people.

Werewolf: Long and colourfull nails, loves puppies, eat a lot of meat, playful, is athletic, protec and attac, can’t do math, is sweet and lovable, hoodies and running shoes,  loves to cuttle, always knows when the next full moon is.

Siren: Coloured hair, wears skirts and dresses, swims at night, shiny highlighter, doesn’t wear shoes, seduces people with her songs, eyes as deep as the ocean, shallow kisses, laughs at her own jokes, sings in the shower, likes the stars, collect crystals and seashells.

Zombie: Wears statement t-shirts, mixes food together, can’t do sports to save her life, knows all the memes, a fangirl TM, would lose her head if it weren’t attached to her body, pillow-forts and blankets, is very lazy.

Witch: Wears all black, magical symbols as tattoos, carries her potions in water-bottles, her house is full of plants, has a pet bird, loves the outdoors, grows her own greens, vegetarian, wears hats, scientific, cat-person.

Those dates you go on with your partner? They’re in public. Unmasked. Your server smiles at you. Everyone feels safe.

You can hug your friends.

You can see a movie. The people in the movie are gay people of color and they kiss and live happily ever after.

and we fell for it. we watched glee and we related to its characters and we fought its wars until it was too late. until it was nothing but a distorted picture of a parody of reality, a cracked mirror in which our souls were sucked and encased in glass. finn outed santana but it’s fine because he had good intentions. sam was supposed to be gay but we’re bringing blaine anderson in for that instead. the q in quinn is for queerbait. brittany was maybe raped but it was a one liner so who really knows. will schuester was a horrible fucking adult and should never have been allowed to care for children. finn, the white straight boy, did everything wrong but it was narratively presented as right. we turned on each other. klaine vs kum and finchel vs faberry. santana fought everyone so brittana stans fought everyone. character vs character, ship vs ship, blogger against blogger. we fucking hated each other. there was no glee fandom. there were character fandoms and ship fandoms and that is it and our mottos were all fuck glee.

we won every popularity contest, every online poll. we voted our fingers to the bone. we created art and wrote fanfic and made such excellent photo manips they were published in newspapers. we were prolific. we were consumers of the hell we created and we just kept producing more in a fucked up dystopian fandom chain of supply and demand. don’t get me started on the rpf. dianna wore a likes girls shirt on tour and made a statement an hour later revoking it. some people still say heya is real but it’s like a breath of the wind, a sound so bare i can’t quite make out the words. 

Those dates you go on with your partner? They’re in public. Unmasked. Your server smiles at you. Everyone feels safe.

You can hug your friends.

You can see a movie. The people in the movie are gay people of color and they kiss and live happily ever after.

Black: witchcraft, power, protection, deep magic, wisdom, discernment, removing negative energy

Red/ginger/orange: male power, the power of the sun, Yang energy, harvest moon, wealth, money, focus

Blue/grey/smoke: love, happiness, peace, good luck, emotional stability

White: lunar magic, healing, recharging, beauty, invoking admiration, relieving stress, considered a good omen in America

Colorpoint/Siamese: the royal color, fame, success, purity, longevity, solar magic, Yang energy

Calico/tri-colored: associated with the triple goddess, good luck, protection, happiness, prosperity

Two-tone: wisdom, understanding, common sense, friendliness

Tortoiseshell: Yin energy (this color pattern is inherited only by females), children, pure magic, clairvoyance, healing

Gold/golden brown: revered temple cat, wisdom, grace, solar magic, playfulness

Tabby/striped: good luck, light, humor, energy

One of Taylor’s best songs ever is also one of her gayest: “New Romantics” employs some of her most brilliant lyrical tricks to construct a narrative that’s clever, moving, and, for lack of a better phrase, hella hella gay. First, let’s talk about the structure of the lyrics: The verses all end in couplets (ABABCC rhyme structure as opposed to the pre-chorus and chorus, which are both ABAB) – in poetry, you use a couplet to draw attention to something, to emphasize a point. Let’s see what she has to say: We’re all bored We’re all so tired of everything We wait for Trains that just aren’t coming

When Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone named this the second best song of 2014, he called boredom “the least Tay of emotions.” But if this is a song about breaking the cycle of bearding – as Taylor did in 2014 – this verse sets up the dreary monotony of being in the closet, pretending to be someone you’re not. She brings the point home in the couplet:

We show off our different scarlet letters Trust me, mine is better

What’s Tay’s scarlet letter? Her love ‘em and leave ‘em inability to keep a man? No – that’s the character she parodies in “Blank Space.” This song is about her real scarlet letter, the one we don’t know about: her queerness and all the lies that come with it. Let’s skip ahead to the third verse to see why:

We’re all here The lights and boys are blinding We hang back It’s all in the timing

Something is already off here: The rhyme structure is broken. Instead of the perfect ABABCC of every other verse, verse 3 gives us ABCBDD. This could just be sloppy writing, but that’s not Taylor – this verse is meant to undermine our sense of stability in the song, to prick up our ears. This works in the context of the lyrics – Taylor being blinded by the boys and lights (presumably media attention/camera flashes?) – but it also serves to make us pay close attention to her next couplet:

It’s poker, he can’t see it in my face But I’m about to play my Ace

What’s her Ace? Her scarlet letter, of course – her bright red A, the Ace of Hearts. And she’s about to tell us exactly what it is:

We need love But all we want is danger We team up Then switch sides like a record changer

“We need love, but all we want is danger” can read like she wants danger instead of love, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. What if we read the line like this instead: “We need love, but everything we want is dangerous.” That fits thematically with Taylor’s other work in songs like “Treacherous” and “Style,” and it also makes sense in the context of the next line. What exactly does it mean to “switch sides like record changer”? What even is a record changer? There’s a vague allusion to turning over a record on a turntable here, but Taylor is making up words because she’s telling us something else: that she’s teaming up with someone to change the record about her dangerous love life. And “record” here is a triple meaning – it also alludes to the songs on this record, which can literally change sides as you flip the LP over, but can also change sides in terms of who she’s singing about depending on whether you know the truth about her scarlet letter, her Ace.

The rumors are terrible and cruel, But honey, most of them are true

Taylor punctuates this verse with a wink to those of us who’ve heard the rumors about her: She’s heard them too, and she wants to tell us they’re true. 

This brings us to the second pre-chorus and chorus, and to the essential question of the song: Who is “we”? Is this a platonic song about Taylor and her girlfriends (and, by extension, single people everywhere), or is this a romantic song about Taylor and her girlfriend (and, by extension, queer people everywhere)? 

Baby, we’re the new romantics Come on, come along with me Heartbreak is the national anthem We sing it proudly We are too busy dancing To get knocked off our feet Baby, we’re the new romantics The best people in life are free

We’re too busy going out with our friends to fall in love, we sing proudly about our heartbreaks, the best people in life are single. Yep, that works! But it ignores the broader context of the song – let’s take a look at the bridge, where everything slows down a LOT (again, Taylor is telling us to pay attention):

Please take my hand and Please take me dancing and Please leave me stranded It’s so romantic

The rhyme structure here (AAAA with lots of word repetition and proximate rhyme, a trick often used by noted lesbian Emily Dickinson) is like a big flashing sign: HEY, THIS IS WHAT THE SONG IS ABOUT. And it doesn’t sound platonic at all – it sounds like dancing with your girlfriend in public, only to have her leave you alone lest she confirm those terribly cruel rumors. (This bridge is also a prelude to “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” as surely as “Every day is like a battle, but every night with us is like a dream” is a prelude to “…Ready for it?”.)

The song is called “New Romantics.” She’s telling us, as clearly as she can, that this is a song about romance. Taylor has taken all the bricks people have thrown at her – at this point, still largely about how boy-crazy she is – and built a castle where she can be free with her girlfriend. Read this way, we can see a new meaning for the first verse of “Call It What You Want”:

My castle crumbled overnight I brought a knife to a gunfight They took the crown but it’s all right

This verse reads like it’s about the Kimye controversy, but I think it’s also about kissgate. Taylor built a glass castle of safety for herself and Karlie, and when it collapsed, her crown (i.e. the king of her heart) was taken from her. They had to go back into hiding (“nobody’s heard from me for months”), but they found a deeper, truer love all on their own.